Kitchen ​(angol)

Sherman Alexie - Rick Bass - Ha ​azt mondjuk: Phoenix, Arizona / A Disznószemű legendája
Sorozatunk ​olyan vállalkozás, amely két nyelven szól, angolul és magyarul - és kettős célt is szolgál: az egyre többet használt angol nyelv szépirodalmi szintű bemutatása mellett tőlünk távolabb eső, izgalmas, sokszínű kultúrákkal is szeretné megismertetni a magyar olvasót - angol nyelven írt kortárs szerzők novelláin keresztül, egyszerre szolgálva a tanulást és az olvasás örömét. Sherman Alexie a legígéretesebb fiatal indián írók egyike. 1966-ban született, Spokane, illetve Coeur d'Alene indián szülőktől egy rezervátumban. Egész gyerekkorát végigbetegeskedte, ennek köszönhette korai olvasási szenvedélyét. Tanulmányait a Washington State University-n fejezte be, 1991-ben és 1992-ben költészetéért ösztöndíjat kapott. Addigra mintegy 300 verset, esszét, prózai írást publikált. Számos antológiában szerepelt, díjakat nyert, zenével és filmmel is foglalkozik. Egy novelláskötet és két regény áll mögötte. Írásaiban a mai Amerika rezervátumon élő indiánjainak életébe pillanthatunk be. Rick Bass 1958-as, texasi születésű szerző, eredetileg olajkutató mérnök. Jelenleg Montanában él családjával egy farmon, szinte teljesen elzárva a világtól. Tizenkét könyv szerzője, részint prózai írások, részint esszégyűjtemények kerültek ki a keze alól. Számos prominens folyóiratban publikál, és jónéhány mérvadó antológiába válogatták be, köztük a Best American Short Stories-ba. Első, 1998-ba kiadott regényét (Where the Sea Used to Be) tizenkét éven át írta, egyébként vérbeli novellaíró, aki előszerettel ír a természetről.

Alice Munro - Open ​Secrets
In ​these eight tales, Munro evokes the devastating power of old love suddenly recollected. She tells of vanished schoolgirls and indentured frontier brides and an eccentric recluse who, in the course of one surpassingly odd dinner party, inadvertently lands herself a wealthy suitor from exotic Australia. And Munro shows us how one woman's romantic tale of capture and escape in the high Balkans may end up inspiring another woman who is fleeing a husband and lover in present-day Canada.

Banana Yoshimoto - Félelmeink
A ​könyv két elbeszélést tartalmaz szeretetről, álmokról és rejtélyes jelenésekről. Ez a két elbeszélés “testvéri” kapcsolatban áll egymással, akár ikrek is lehetnének. A Baljós véletlenek című írás a szürreális téma és a narrátor álmokkal átszőtt hangja miatt magát az olvasót is egy furcsa esti mesébe ringatja. A fiatal főszereplőnőnek az erdőben tett őszi séta közben eszébe jut szeretőjének halála. Épp aznap van az évfordulója. Furcsa dolgok történnek vele, akár véletlenek is lehetnek: egy hátborzongató síremlékről egy furcsa fekete kődarab kerül a zsebébe, aztán titokzatos körülmények között leég egy vendéglő, ahol eszik, a szállodai szobájában pedig megjelenik egy feldúlt nő hálóköpenyben Az elbeszélést folyamatosan álmok szakítják meg, amelyek valamiképp összefonódnak a valósággal. A Balszerencse szintén fiatal főszereplőnője kómában lévő nővérének halálát nézi végig, és miközben szép lassan elveszítik a reményt, az elbeszélő lassanként szerelmes lesz valakibe. A japán írónő számos nyelvre lefordított sikeres könyvét tarthatja kezében az olvasó.

Haruki Murakami - Kafka ​on the Shore
Kafka ​on the Shore follows the fortunes of two remarkable characters. Kafka Tamura runs away from home at fifteen, under the shadow of his father's dark prophesy. The aging Nakata, tracker of lost cats, who never recovered from a bizarre childhood affliction, finds his pleasantly simplified life suddenly turned upside down. Their parallel odysseys are enriched throughout by vivid accomplices and mesmerising dramas. Cats converse with people; fish tumble from the sky; a ghostlike pimp deploys a Hegel-spouting girl of the night; a forest harbours soldiers apparently un-aged since WWII. There is a savage killing, but the identity of both victim and killer is a riddle. Murakami's new novel is at once a classic tale of quest, but it is also a bold exploration of mythic and contemporary taboos, of patricide, of mother-love, of sister-love. Above all it is an entertainment of a very high order.

Alice Munro - Who ​Do You Think You Are?
Rose ​and her stepmother, Flo, live in Hanratty - across the bridge from the "good" part of town. Rose, alternately fascinated and appalled by the rude energy of the people around her, grows up nursing her hope of outgrowing her humble beginnings and plotting an escape to university. Rose makes her escape and thinks herself free. But Hanratty's question - Who Do You Think You Are? - rings in her ears during her days in Vancouver, mocks her attempts to make her marriage successful, and haunts her new career. In these stories of Rose and Flo, Alice Munro explores the universal story of growing up - Rose's struggle to accept herself tells the story of our lives.

Alice Munro - Too ​Much Happiness
Short-story ​collections continue to be the bane of the publishing world - as Alice Munro herself puts it in a story here, they seem to 'diminish the book's authority, making the author seem like somebody who is just hanging on to the gates of literature, rather than safely settled inside'. Well, the septuangenarian Munro is undoubtedly safely inside; widely considered among the best in the business, earlier this year she won the International Man Booker prize. This latest collection is, as you might expect from the mocking tenor of the title, largely concerned with the elusive nature of happiness, a state of mind that, amid the chaotic everyday inhabited by Munro's characters, is impossible to fathom or control. It starts horrifically, with a woman in therapy following the murder of her three children by her demented husband. Just when you think there can be no possible relief, Munro throws in a deft, final redemptive sentence that's the equivalent of opening a window on a stifling, locked-up-room. Many stories reverberate with the aftershock of some grotesque or traumatic childhood event, from the son who falls down a ravine in Deep-Holes and the consequences this has for his mother, to the woman in Child's Play who is forced to acknowledge the guilt she has refused to bear for the death of a fellow pupil at summer camp. Munro's prose is surprisingly rangy, almost giving the impression of artlessness, yet there's nothing remotely careless about these effortless composition that run so dangerously close to real life and which, like touching an electric fence, jolt you violently alive. (Claire Allfree)

Alice Walker - Possessing ​the Secret of Joy
When ​Alice Walker finished writing THE COLOR PURPLE she realised that she needed to tell the story of Tashi, a minor character, who had "left Africa but had taken her wound with her to America". This is Tashi's story, told in her words and the voices of the people who loved her. This extraordinarily courageous and compelling novel explores the tragic consequences of Tashi's decision to go through the female initiation ceremony.

Nicole Williams - Mischief ​in Miami
Seduction. ​Infidelity. Blackmail. Scandal. It can all be bought for the right price and for Sienna Stevens, business is good. Because she’s in the business of Great Exploitations. She’s an Eve, a member of a secret society of women contracted by the wives of wealthy, powerful men for one reason and one reason only: to seduce their husbands. To ensure their pre-nuptial agreement will be null and void thanks to a little loophole known as the Infidelity Clause. To ensure that those wives don’t find themselves on the other side of a divorce without a penny to their name. When it comes to the Eves, Sienna’s one of the best because she follows the number one rule of the Eves to the letter: don’t let it get personal. When the job file of her wealthiest client yet falls into her lap, Sienna realizes that this case could be the one that’s impossible to detach herself from. The payout would lead to her independence, but will the cost be too high in the end?

Ismeretlen szerző - The ​Reign of Istar
Open ​the door to the magic and wonder of the Dragonlance world... Meet an irrepressible kender determined to become a Solamnic knight. A bounty-hunter of heretics. An unlikely ogre savior of the dwarven race. And a black-robed mage juggling the fate of the world in the Tower of High Sorcery. Poetry and short stories by well-known Dragonlance authors, topped by a Raistlin novella by original creators Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. All set in the faraway time of the Kingpriest.

Nicole Williams - Trouble ​in Tampa
When ​it comes to trouble, Eve’s used to showing plenty of it to her Targets, but when she’s assigned a new Errand, the roles become reversed. Rob Tucker is the kind of man who raises every red flag in a woman. He reminds Eve that some Clients aren’t just looking for freedom from their husbands—they’re trying to save their lives. She’s worked domestic violence Errands before, but this one’s . . . different. When a seemingly quick and simple job turns into the complete opposite, Eve finds herself juggling two of the most difficult Errands of her career. How far will she go to see both through to completion?

Gabriel García Márquez - Love ​in the Time of Cholera
On ​the Caribbean coast at the dawn of the twentieth century hopeless romantic Florentino Ariza falls passionately for beautiful Fermina Daza - but tragically his love is rejected. Instead Fermina marries distinguished Dr. Juvenal, while Florentino can only forget her in the arms of other women. Yet fifty-one years, nine month and four days later, Florentino has an another chance to profess his enduring love for Fermina when her husband anexpectedly dies in a bizarre axcident. Can a love over half a century old remain unrequited?

Toni Morrison - Song ​of Solomon
This ​is the story of Macon ''Milkman'' Dead, as he makes a voyage of rediscovery, travelling southwards geographically and inwards spiritually. Through the enlightenment of one man the novel recapitulates the history of slavery and liberation.

Roberto Bolaño - The ​Insufferable Gaucho
As ​Pankaj Mishra remarked in The Nation, one of the remarkable qualities of Bolano's short stories is that they can do the "work of a novel." The Insufferable Gaucho contains tales bent on returning to haunt you. Unpredictable and daring, highly controlled yet somehow haywire, a Bolano story might concern an elusive plagiarist or an elderly lawyer giving up city life for an improbable return to the family estate, now gone to wrack and ruin. Bolano's stories have been applauded as "bleakly luminous and perfectly calibrated" (Publishers Weekly) and "complex and provocative" (International Herald Tribune), and as Francine Prose said in The New York Times Book Review, "something extraordinarily beautiful and (at least to me) entirely new." Two fascinating essays are also included

Roberto Bolaño - The ​Return
A ​stunning collection of short stories - mostly dealing with the sex trade - by the late Chilean master and author of The Savage Detectives. The Return contains thirteen unforgettable stories that seem to tell what Bolano called “the secret story,” “the one we’ll never know.” Bent on returning to haunt you, Bolano’s tales might concern the unexpected fate of a beautiful ex-girlfriend, or soccer, witchcraft, or a dream of meeting the poet Enrique Lihn:they always surprise. Consider the title story: a young partygoer collapses in a Parisian disco and dies on the dance floor. Just as his soul is departing his body,it realizes strange happenings are afoot around his now dead body — and what follows next defies the imagination (except Bolano’s own).

Takeshi Kitano - Fiú
A ​világhírű japán filmrendező kötetében három elbeszélést olvashatunk Lázár Júlia tolmácsolásában. A Bajnok kimonóban, a Csillagbölcső és az Okamesan főhősei kamaszok. Mindennapjaik küzdelmesek, fájdalmasak, sokszor felemelőek. A balladai hangvételű írások szereplőit életük folyama más-más problémákkal való szembenézésre kényszeríti. Mindegyiküknek meg kell vívnia a maga harcát – s ki sikerrel áll fel, kit pedig megtörnek a megpróbáltatások. Takeshi Kitano elbeszélései olyan örök emberi problémákat járnak körül, melyekkel legelőször kamaszkorunk hajnalán szembesülünk. Ilyen például: önmagunk legyőzésének drámaisága; a szülő elvesztése, a felnőtté válás fájdalmas kényszere, a gyermeki magány, elhagyatottság és kiszolgáltatottság; a szülőtől való elszakadás vágya, a szerelemmel, nemiséggel való félelmes, mégis vonzó találkozás. Részlet a könyvből: "Aznap este anya a konyhában sürgölődött, ami már nagyon régóta nem fordult elő vele. Levest készített, és sült garnélarákot. Az étel nagyon ízletes lett, de engem a bátyám arcán látszó horzsolás és duzzanat aggasztott. Még föl sem tehettem a kérdést, már azzal állt elő, hogy elesett. Anya észre sem igen vette, mi történt vele. Mélyen a gondolataiba merült ezekben a napokban. A vacsora befejeztével anya megszólalt: –– Szeretném, ha most vasárnap bemutathatnék valakit mindkettőtöknek! Én kedvelem, és biztosra veszem, hogy ti is megkedvelitek. [...] ...el kellett tűnődnöm azon, hogyan felejthette el anya ilyen gyorsan apát? Hiszen apa tanította meg nekünk a csillagképeket, és ő tanított meg tüzet gyújtani gyufa meg öngyújtó nélkül. Anya talán sosem hallotta, hogyan beszél apa a csillagokról? Vagy a felnőttek mindent ilyen hamar elfelejtenek?"

Nicole Williams - Scandal ​in Seattle
Revenge ​isn’t what the Eves are about. Justice is. But when Sienna Stevens leaves Miami for her Errand in Seattle as Ally Andrews, revenge is the only thing on her mind. A woman scorned is one thing, but Ally is something else altogether. She will not rest until the man who upended her world is brought to his personal and financial knees. She won’t settle for just upending his world in return. She’s going for full-blown annihilation. Ally’s barely in Seattle a day before complications arise. She begins making slips. She’s one error away from being pulled from the biggest Errand of her career when she comes face to face with Henry Callahan. Former lover. Current Target. Things just went from complicated to catastrophic.

Cora Carmack - Keeping ​Her
Garrick ​Taylor and Bliss Edwards managed to find their happily-ever-after despite a rather . . . ahem . . . complicated start. By comparison, meeting the parents should be an absolute breeze, right? But from the moment the pair lands in London, new snags just keep cropping up: a disapproving mother-in-law-to-be, more than one (mostly) minor mishap, and the realization that perhaps they aren't quite as ready for their future as they thought. As it turns out, the only thing harder than finding love is keeping it.

Monica Murphy - Intoxicated
New ​York Times bestselling author Monica Murphy wraps up her sexy Billionaire Bachelors Club series with a wedding to remember. But this time, they’re not bachelors anymore, and the groom … is one of them. It’s Gage and Marina’s wedding day, but wedded bliss seems a long way off: Ivy’s just gone into labor. Marina’s missing her matron of honor. And Bryn’s giving Matt the silent treatment. It’s up to Archer, Gage, and Matt to make sure this day goes off without a hitch. But between brides and babies, there’s the not-so-little issue of the million-dollar bet to attend to. If only they can figure out who won … and who’s paying up. Is everyone a winner? Or will someone leave broke—and brokenhearted?

Roberto Bolaño - Last ​Evenings on Earth
"The ​melancholy folklore of exile," as Roberto Bolaño once put it, pervades these fourteen haunting stories. Bolaño's narrators are usually writers grappling with private (and generally unlucky) quests, who typically speak in the first person, as if giving a deposition, like witnesses to a crime. These protagonists tend to take detours and to narrate unresolved efforts. They are characters living in the margins, often coming to pieces, and sometimes, as in a nightmare, in constant flight from something horrid. In the short story Silva the Eye, Bolaño writes in the opening sentence: "It's strange how things happen, Mauricio Silva, known as The Eye, always tried to escape violence, even at the risk of being considered a coward, but the violence, the real violence, can't be escaped, at least not by us, born in Latin America in the 1950s, those of us who were around 20 years old when Salvador Allende died." Set in the Chilean exile diaspora of Latin America and Europe, and peopled by Bolano's beloved "failed generation," the stories of _Last Evenings on Earth_ have appeared in The New Yorker and Grand Street.

Bret Easton Ellis - American ​Psycho
Patrick ​Bateman is twenty-six and works on Wall Street; he is handsome, sophisticated, charming and intelligent. He is also a psychopath. American Psycho is a bleak, bitter, black comedy about a world we all recognize but do not wish to face and it takes us on a head-on collision with America's greatest dream - and its worst nightmare.