The renowned French author's modern masterpiece: "one of the great novels of the century . . . on the level of Joyce, Proust, Mann, Kafka, and Nabokov" ( Boston Globe).Structured around a single moment in time—8:00 p.m. on June 23, 1975—Georges Perec's "elaborate jigsaw puzzle of a novel" begins in an apartment block in Paris where, chapter by chapter, room by room, a rich cast of characters is revealed in a series of tales that are bizarre, unlikely, movin...

The posthumously published first novel from the acclaimed French author of Life: A User's Manual offers "glimpses of Perec's future greatness" ( The New Yorker).Puckish and playful, Georges Perec infused avant-garde and experimental fiction with a wit and wonder that belied the serious concerns and concepts that underpinned it. A prominent member of the OuLiPo, and an abiding influence on fiction writers today, Perec used formal constraints to dazz...

Perec's poignant essays on European cultural production, translated in English for the first time.In these writings, Georges Perec constructs a bold new critical discourse—one that remains faithful to leftist imperatives such as history, class consciousness, and revolution—while maintaining his independence from the dominant voices of the Left, whose vision had long dominated the Left’s understanding of literature and politics in postwar France.Perec's essa...

“One of the most singular literary personalities in the world, a writer who resembled absolutely no one else.”—Italo Calvino“A satire for the author’s day and oh yes our own on the subtly crushing effects of corporate life … [a] delectable and philosophical office farce.”—Steven Poole, GuardianThe Art of Asking Your Boss for a Raise—neurotic and pessimistic, yet endearing, comic, and never less than entertain...

A moving hybrid work about Ellis Island and immigration by the marvelous Georges PerecGeorges Perec, employing lyrical prose meditations, lists, and inventories, conjures up the sixteen million people who, between 1890 to 1954, arrived as foreigners and stayed on to become Americans. Perec (who by the age of nine was an orphan: his father was killed by a German bullet, and his mother perished in Auschwitz) is wide-awake to the elements of chance in immigration and ...

In Early Autumn: Escape Book 3, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Louis Bromfield delivers a powerful and emotionally charged portrait of love, loyalty, and rebellion in the shadow of America’s changing moral landscape. Set in the glittering yet constricted world of 1920s New England, this unforgettable literary drama follows a proud, old-money family as they face the crumbling traditions of wealth, class, and social expectation. When Olivia Pentland, a woman raised to honor duty over desire, ...

This examination of six usurper kings of England, and the people and circumstances surrounding them, is "a masterpiece of academic scholarship" ( Midwest Book Review).In the Middle Ages, England had to contend with a string of usurpers who disrupted the British monarchy—and ultimately changed the course of European history by deposing England's reigning kings and seizing power for themselves. Some of the most infamous usurper kings to come out of medieval ...

"Yan is one of those rare geniuses who finds in the peculiar absurdities of his own culture the absurdities that infect all cultures." — The Washington PostFrom the Kafka Prize winner and two-time Booker Prize finalist, this is a gripping and bitingly satirical story of ambition and betrayal, following two young communist revolutionaries whose forbidden love sets them apart from their traditionally minded village as the Cultural Revolution sweeps China.

Rediscover what politics actually is and what miracles it can achieve—once it's separated from partisanship, polarization, and pointless yelling.In this age of nearly unprecedented partisan rancor, you'd be forgiven for thinking we could all do with a smaller daily dose of politics. In his provocative and sharp book, however, Ned O'Gorman argues just the opposite: Politics for Everybody contends that what we really need to do is engage more deeply with poli...

National BestsellerNational Book Critics Circle Award NomineeFrom the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Playground and The Overstory, a magnificent double love story of two young couples separated by a distance of twenty-five years."The most lavishly ambitious American novel since Gravity's Rainbow . . . An outright marvel." — Washington PostStuart Ressler,...

A New York Times-bestselling author explains how the physical world shaped the history of our speciesWhen we talk about human history, we often focus on great leaders, population forces, and decisive wars. But how has the earth itself determined our destiny? Our planet wobbles, driving changes in climate that forced the transition from nomadism to farming. Mountainous terrain led to the development of democracy in Greece. Atmospheric circulation patterns l...

This beautiful collection of 13 classic Chekhov short stories is the perfect introduction to an icon of Russian literature.“The greatest short story writer who has ever lived.” —Raymond ChandlerWithout doubt one of the greatest observers of human nature in all its messy complexity, Chekhov’s short stories are exquisite masterpieces in miniature. His work ranged from the light-hearted comic tales of his early years to some of the most aching...