The bestselling novel of love and sacrifice under fascist rule, and "a treat for the mind. One of the best books I have read in a long time" (Isabel Allende).Raimund Gregorius, a professor of dead languages at a Swiss secondary school, lives a life governed by routine. Then, an enigmatic Portuguese woman stirs his interest in an obscure, and mind-expanding book of philosophy that opens the possibility of changing Raimund's existence. That same night, he takes the t...

From the author of Night Train to Lisbon: a father's story about his daughter unravels "[a] tale of grief, fraud, guilt and madness . . . Revelatory" ( The New York Times Book Review).Pascal Mercier's international bestseller Night Train to Lisbon mesmerized readers around the world, and was adapted into a film starring Jeremy Irons. Now, in Lea, Mercier returns with a mysterious tale of a father's love and a daughter's ambition ...

An academic finds himself contemplating the unthinkable in a "tour de force" psychological thriller by the philosopher and author of Night Train to Lisbon ( De Volkskrant, Netherlands).Pascal Mercier's critically acclaimed debut novel, Night Train to Lisbon, became an international bestseller and the basis for a film starring Jeremy Irons. Now, in Perlmann's Silence, Mercier delivers a deft psychological portrait of a man strivin...

Raimund Gregorius teaches classical languages at a Swiss lycée, and lives a life governed by routine. One day, a chance encounter with a Portuguese woman inspires him to question his life—and leads him to an extraordinary book that will open the possibility of changing it. Inspired by the words of Amadeu de Prado, a doctor whose intelligence and magnetism left a mark on everyone who met him and whose principles led him into a confrontation with Salazar’s dictatorship, Gregorius boards a tr...

An academic finds himself contemplating the unthinkable in a “tour de force” psychological thriller by the philosopher and author of Night Train to Lisbon (De Volkskrant, Netherlands).Pascal Mercier’s critically acclaimed debut novel, Night Train to Lisbon, became an international bestseller and the basis for a film starring Jeremy Irons. Now, in Perlmann’s Silence, Mercier delivers a deft psychological portrait of a man striving...

This collection of five stories traces the growth of Swedish Inspector Kurt Wallander into a first-rate detective, from rookie cop to young father to middle-aged divorcé, illuminating new facets of a now-canonical character.In “Wallander’s First Case,” the twenty-one-year-old patrolman’s first homicide case involves his next-door neighbor, seemingly dead by his own hand. Wallander is a young father confronting an unexpected threat on Christmas Eve in “The Man with the Mask.” In “Th...

The story of the Swedish detective's beginnings, told in five gripping short mysteries: "An indispensable chapter to the saga" ( Booklist Online).Here are the stories that trace, chronologically, Kurt Wallander's growth from a rookie cop into a young father and then a middle-aged divorcé, illuminating how he became a first-rate detective and highlighting new facets of the character who "remains one of the most impressive and credible creations of crime fic...

Riveting and richly imagined, with a magnificent sense of time and place, The Iris Fan is the triumphant conclusion to Laura Joh Rowland's brilliant series of thrillers set in feudal Japan.Japan, 1709. The shogun is old and ailing. Amid the ever-treacherous intrigue in the court, Sano Ichiro has been demoted from chamberlain to a lowly patrol guard. His relationship with his wife Reiko is in tatters, and a bizarre new alliance between his two enemies Yanag...

Beneath the holy mountain Croagh Patrick, in damp and lovely County Mayo, sits the small, sheltered village of Ballinacroagh. To the exotic Aminpour sisters, Ireland looks like a much-needed safe haven. It has been seven years since Marjan Aminpour fled Iran with her younger sisters, Bahar and Layla, and she hopes that in Ballinacroagh, a land of “crazed sheep and dizzying roads,” they might finally find a home.From the kitchen of an old pastry shop on Main Mall, the sisters set ab...

**NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERCNN host and best-selling author Fareed Zakaria argues for a renewed commitment to the world’s most valuable educational tradition.**The liberal arts are under attack. The governors of Florida, Texas, and North Carolina have all pledged that they will not spend taxpayer money subsidizing the liberal arts, and they seem to have an unlikely ally in President Obama. While at a General Electric plant in early 2014, Obama remarked, "I promise ...

**NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A New York Times Book Review Notable Book • An NPR "Great Reads" Book • Here is PEN/Faulkner winner James Salter's dazzling, sometimes devastating portrait of love and ambition.“Shimmering. . . . Intoxicating. . . . Few can match Salter’s depictions of life’s physical pleasures, the sheer sensual delight of being in this world.”—San Francisco Chronicle**All That Is explores a life unfolding in a world on the brink of change...