Castillos en el aire

Sample

Pierre Louÿs

This was "the only only complete English version extant" of a novel originally in French about a courtesan living in ancient Alexandria. The book is lavishly illustrated, but is sloppy in other ways. For instance, every time there is a full page illustration (and there are many) the page numbering skips, and the margins of the page are not evenly wide. This is the kind of book that you had to cut the pages with a knife before you could read it. You could call the story erotica, but it is no worse than The Decameron or Chaucer. It must have been pretty hot reading in 1906. The book has a page stating "This Edition on Large Paper is limited to 1000 copies of which this is No......" but nobody bothered to fill in the number, so I would guess that more than 1,000 of these were printed.

Sample

Jamie Barlowe

"Jamie Barlowe finds it bitterly ironic that in literary criticism of The Scarlet Letter, a major American novel about a woman, the voices of female critics have been virtually excluded.". "Barlowe examines the causes and consequences of the continuing disregard for women's scholarship. To that end, she chronicles The Scarlet Letter's critical reception, analyzes the history of Hester Prynne as a cultural icon in literature and film, rereads the canonized criticism of the novel, and offers a new reading of Hawthorne's work by rescuing marginalized interpretations from the alternative canon of women critics."--BOOK JACKET.

Sample

Maria Isabel Molina

A young Christian in Islamic Spain flees Cordoba and takes refuge in the monastery of Ripoll, where he is viewed with suspicion for studying the Arabic number system.

Sample

Günter Grass

*Die Blechtrommel* ist ein Roman von Günter Grass. Er erschien 1959 als Auftakt der Danziger Trilogie und gehört zu den meistgelesenen Romanen der deutschen Nachkriegsliteratur. Der Roman lässt sich als historischer Roman, Zeitroman, Schelmenroman und Entwicklungsroman charakterisieren. Set against the backcloth of National Socialism, [this novel] is told in the first person by the central figure, Oskar Matzerath, tracing Oskar's history, beginning with his grandparents, and finishing at his thirtieth birthday (1954). Oskar is a dwarf, whose passion is his tin drum, which exercises some of the power of the Pied Piper's pipe, and he possesses a voice which is capable of breaking glass of all kinds at considerable range. The magic of Oskar's voice is matched by his ability to arrest his growth, but here, as elsewhere, the book moves on two planes, for the adult burgher world believes that his failure to develop is due to a fall. The grotesque figure of Oskar is accompanied by a grotesque series of happenings throughout his life, especially the eccentric deaths of those around him ... Oskar is finally condemned for a murder he has not committed and placed in a mental hospital. Oskar's detachment from the normal world enables him to comment upon it, and the book presents a dry and ironic review of the history of Oskar's times from the standpoint of Danzig, which was his home [as well as the author's].-The Oxford Companion to German Literature.