Cosmicomics

Italo Calvino
1965

Summary:

Each chapter of Cosmicomics begins with a blurb which sounds like the dry, tasteless extract of a physics, astronomy or geology textbook, describing how solar systems formed from nebula, the universe started from a point smaller than an atom, the orbit of the moon changed long ago, dinosaurs became extinct, space is curved, expands, etc. On each of these topics, our narrator, Qfyfq, immediately launches. His idiosyncratic voice, omniscient, blithering, self-centered, unerring, ridiculous, is recognizable, exactly consistent, no matter if he is talking about his life as a mollusk, a dinosaur, a moon-being before color, or life before there was form, when the whole family lived on a nebula, or in the point before space.

Most of Qfyfq’s friends and relatives have unpronounceable names. Xlthlx, Rwzfs, Mrs. Vhd Vhd, the beloved Mrs. Ph (i) Nk0 (actually a special typeset must have been developed, now that I think about it, since my keyboard doesn’t have all the options necessary to even write these names), Z’zu, De XuaeauX, etc. However, they, and he, have distinctly human foibles (neuroses, competitiveness, love triangles, gambling, boredom, incomprehension of their bodies and environment), although in most cases they are not human. And while Qfyfq tells tales of many different lives, seemingly beginningless, which seem to imply transmigration and transformation, all mention of death and birth is conspicuously absent.

about book:

Cosmicomics is a book of short stories by Italo Calvino first published in Italian in 1965 and in English in 1968. Each story takes a scientific “fact” (though sometimes a falsehood by today’s understanding), and builds an imaginative story around it. An always extant being called Qfwfq narrates all of the stories save two, each of which is a memory of an event in the history of the universe. Qfwfq also narrates some stories in Calvino’s t zero. All of the stories in Cosmicomics, together with those from t zero and other sources, are now available in a single volume collection, The Complete Cosmicomics (Penguin UK, 2009).

...

Glengarry Glen Ross

Glengarry Glen Ross
1984

David Mamet

Summary:

Glengarry Glen Ross is the story of four Chicago salesmen—Levene, Roma, Moss, and Aaronow—and their supervisor, Williamson, who work together selling undesirable real estate at inflated prices. The play takes place at the end of a month in which the bosses of the company, Mitch and Murray, have declared a "sales contest": The salesman who clears a certain high dollar amount will win a Cadillac, and the two salesmen who perform worst will be fired. A chalkboard is used to keep track of each man's sales. Roma, who makes good sales, is the top man on the board, but the other three are all having trouble and getting increasingly worried.

For Love of the Game

For Love of the Game
1999

Michael Shaara

Plot :

On the second to last day of the season, Chapel's team, the Atlanta Hawks, are about to play against the New York Yankees. Chapel receives news from a friend in the media that is about to be traded. Just the night before, his girlfriend Carol did not show up at his hotel room, and Chapel reaches the conclusion that it is time to move on and finally make the transition from boyhood to manhood. Over half the book tells the story of that final game, with flashbacks from the pitching mound and dugout to incidents throughout Chapel's life. Chapel is determined that his last game will also be his greatest, even though, with all the young new players on the Yankees, they are a far superior team. As he strikes out his opponents one after the other, he soon becomes aware of the fact that he has held the Yankees at bay thus far, not allowing one hit from the more talented Yankees team. He soon becomes determined to pitch a perfect game. Meanwhile, he reflects on his personal life, and especially on Carol, whom he finally realizes that he loves, even though he has never shown her that he really does. That morning Carol told him she was going to London and was leaving immediately, so the two key passions of his life, Carol and baseball, are about to vanish forever...

Michael Shaara (June 23, 1928 - May 5, 1988) was an American writer of science fiction, sports fiction, and historical fiction. He was born to Italian immigrant parents (the family name was originally spelled Sciarra, which in Italian is pronounced the same way) in Jersey City, New Jersey, graduated from Rutgers University in 1951, and served as a sergeant in the 82nd Airborne division prior to the Korean War.

 

Before Shaara began selling science fiction stories to fiction magazines in the 1950s, he was an amateur boxer and police officer. He later taught literature at Florida State University while continuing to write fiction. The stress of this and his smoking caused him to have a heart attack at the early age of 36; from which he fully recovered. His novel about the Battle of Gettysburg, The Killer Angels, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1975. Shaara died of another heart attack in 1988.

 

Shaara's son, Jeffrey Shaara, is also a popular writer of historical fiction; most notably sequels to his father's best-known novel. His most famous is the prequel to The Killer Angels, Gods and Generals. Jeffrey was the one to finally get Michael's last book, For Love of the Game, published three years after he died. Today there is a Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction, established by Jeffrey Shaara, awarded yearly at Gettysburg College.

A Slight Ache

A Slight Ache
1958

Harold Pinter

Summary:

Flora and Edward sit at the breakfast table chatting of flowers and wasps and of the slight ache which Edward feels in his eyes. Their conversation, which seems so simple and is yet so strangely revealing, then shifts to the mysterious matchseller who has been standing by their back gate for many weeks. Somehow his presence intimidates them, particularly Edward, whose ache becomes aggravated as they discuss who the matchseller may really be, and they resolve to call him in for a direct confrontation. Flora goes out to invite him to come into the house, and when he appears he proves to be an old man, dressed in rags, and so feeble that it is doubtful whether he can see or hear. Seating him in a chair Edward speaks to him in an unnaturally jovial and somehow terrifying manner and soon Edward, without a word of reply from the matchseller, is so unstrung that he cannot go on. Flora takes over the interrogation, and again the old man's silence spurs the spilling out of buried frustrations and fears. Edward returns, and this time there is a note of desperation in his attempts to break through and understand the meaning of the matchseller. But it is Flora who leads the old man off at last, as a young girl might take her lover to the garden. As she goes she hands his tray of matches to Edward. He has lost the struggle, the nameless competition in which he has been engaged, and now it is he who has become the matchseller.

A Slight Ache premièred as a radio broadcast in 1959, prior to its first stage production. On radio, because the Matchseller does not speak in the play, he appeared to its audience to be a figment of Edward's imagination. The play has subsequently enjoyed a number of successful stage productions. In 2008 it was performed at the National Theatre, starring Simon Russell Beale and Clare Higgins, and directed by Iqbal Khan. The character of the matchseller appeared on the stage, played by Jamie Beamish.

Harold Pinter (10 October 1930 – 24 December 2008) was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party (1957), The Homecoming (1964), and Betrayal (1978), each of which he adapted to film. His screenplay adaptations of others' works include The Servant (1963), The Go-Between (1970), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), The Trial (1993), and Sleuth (2007). He also directed or acted in radio, stage, television, and film productions of his own and others' works.

In 1948–49, when he was 18, Pinter opposed the politics of the Cold War, leading to his decision to become a conscientious objector and to refuse to comply with National Service in the British military. But he was not a pacifist. He told interviewers that, if he had been old enough at the time, he would have fought against the Nazis in World War II. He seemed to express ambivalence, both indifference and hostility, towards political structures and politicians in his Fall 1966 Paris Review interview conducted by Lawrence M. Bensky. Yet, he had been an early member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and also had supported the British Anti-Apartheid Movement (1959–1994), participating in British artists' refusal to permit professional productions of their work in South Africa in 1963 and in subsequent related campaigns. In "A Play and Its Politics", a 1985 interview with Nicholas Hern, Pinter described his earlier plays retrospectively from the perspective of the politics of power and the dynamics of oppression.

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The Mousetrap

The mousetrap
1952
Agatha chirtie

 Plot :

A woman has been murdered in London. A young couple, Mollie and Giles Ralston, have started a guest house in the converted Monkswell Manor. Their first four guests arrive: Christopher Wren, Mrs. Boyle, Major Metcalf and Miss Casewell. Mrs. Boyle complains about everything, and Giles offers to cancel her stay, but she refuses the offer. They become snowed in together and read in the newspaper of the murder. An additional traveller, Mr. Paravicini, arrives stranded after he ran his car into a snowdrift, but he makes his hosts uneasy.

The imposing Mrs Boyle complains to the other guests, first to Metcalf and then to Miss Casewell, who both try to get away from her. Wren comes into the room claiming to have fled Mrs. Boyle in the library. Shortly afterwards, the police call on the phone, creating great alarm amongst the guests. Mrs. Boyle suggests that Mollie check Wren's references. Detective Sergeant Trotter arrives on skis to inform the group that he believes a murderer is at large and on his way to the hotel, following the death of Mrs Maureen Lyon in London. When Mrs Boyle is killed, they realise that the murderer is already there.

Ten minutes later, the investigation is ongoing. Each character is scrutinized and suspected. Mollie and Giles get into a fight, and Chris Wren and Giles argue over who should protect Mollie. Suspicion falls first on Christopher Wren, an erratic young man who fits the description of the supposed murderer. However, it quickly transpires that the killer could be any one of the guests, or even the hosts themselves. The characters re-enact the second murder, trying to prevent a third...

The Mousetrap is a murder mystery play by Agatha Christie. The Mousetrap opened in the West End of London in 1952, and has been running continuously since then. It has the longest initial run of any play in history, with over 24,000 performances so far. It is the longest running show (of any type) of the modern era. The play is also known for its twist ending, which at the end of every performance the audience is asked not to reveal. For the last 34 years the St Martin's has been the home of The Mousetrap, more than half of its record breaking run! The Mousetrap has been thrilling audiences from around the world for as long as HRH Queen Elizabeth II has been on the throne. On the 25th of November 2002 a Royal Gala Performance was held, attended by Her Majesty The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh.During this phenomenal run there have been no fewer than 382 actors and actresses appearing in the play, 116 miles of shirts have been ironed and over 415 tons of ice cream sold.

Agatha Christie, (15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976), was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 80 detective novels—especially those featuring Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple—and her successful West End theatre plays.

Agatha Christie's first novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles was published in 1920 and introduced the long-running character detective Hercule Poirot, who appeared in 33 of Christie's novels and 54 short stories. Her other well known character, Miss Marple, was introduced in The Tuesday Night Club in 1927 (short story) and was based on women like Christie's grandmother and her "cronies". During the Second World War, Christie wrote two novels, Curtain and Sleeping Murder, intended as the last cases of these two great detectives, Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple, respectively. Both books were sealed in a bank vault for over thirty years and were released for publication by Christie only at the end of her life, when she realised that she could not write any more novels. These publications came on the heels of the success of the film version of Murder on the Orient Express in 1974. Like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with Sherlock Holmes, Christie was to become increasingly tired of her detective Poirot. In fact, by the end of the 1930s, Christie confided to her diary that she was finding Poirot “insufferable," and by the 1960s she felt that he was "an ego-centric creep." However, unlike Conan Doyle, Christie resisted the temptation to kill her detective off while he was still popular. She saw herself as an entertainer whose job was to produce what the public liked, and the public liked Poirot. In contrast, Christie was fond of Miss Marple. However, it is interesting to note that the Belgian detective’s titles outnumber the Marple titles more than two to one. This is largely because Christie wrote numerous Poirot novels early in her career, while The Murder at the Vicarage remained the sole Marple novel until the 1940s. Christie never wrote a novel or short story featuring both Poirot and Miss Marple. In a recording, recently rediscovered and released in 2008, Christie revealed the reason for this: "Hercule Poirot, a complete egoist, would not like being taught his business or having suggestions made to him by an elderly spinster lady". Poirot is the only fictional character to have been given an obituary in The New York Times, following the publication of Curtain in 1975. Following the great success of Curtain, Dame Agatha gave permission for the release of Sleeping Murder sometime in 1976 but died in January 1976 before the book could be released. This may explain some of the inconsistencies compared to the rest of the Marple series — for example, Colonel Arthur Bantry, husband of Miss Marple's friend Dolly, is still alive and well in Sleeping Murder despite the fact he is noted as having died in books published earlier. It may be that Christie simply did not have time to revise the manuscript before she died. Miss Marple fared better than Poirot, since after solving the mystery in Sleeping Murder she returns home to her regular life in St. Mary Mead. On an edition of Desert Island Discs in 2007, Brian Aldiss claimed that Agatha Christie told him that she wrote her books up to the last chapter and then decided who the most unlikely suspect was. She would then go back and make the necessary changes to "frame" that person. The evidence of Christie's working methods, as described by successive biographers, contradicts this claim.

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raleigh little theatre            St. Martin's theatre

Touba and the Meaning of Night

Touba and the Meaning of Night
(Touba va ma'na-ye Shab)

1989
Shahrnush Parsipur

Review :

Touba and the Meaning of Night centres largely around Touba and her experiences of the rapid changes Iran underwent in the 20th century. Born at the end of the 19th century, when a woman's role was often still very limited, Touba is confronted with constant change; from early on she wants simply to search for God -- a pursuit of something pure, simple, and complete -- but the world around her, and all it entails, holds her back.

 Touba is fortunate in that her father recognises that the world is changing. Haji Adib isn't comfortable with much that is happening, but he recognises that knowledge can't be held at bay. He knows, for example, that it has now been proved that the world is not square or flat but round -- "yet he wanted to continue believing in the squareness of the earth". Admirably, he is willing to question himself:

    He needed to understand why he wanted the earth to remain square.

       And he also understands:

    Now that the earth was round, everything took on a different meaning.

       Appropriately enough, one of the gifts he gives his daughter is a globe. More importantly, he teaches her how to read (even as he knows that giving women knowledge and allowing them to think undermines much of what he grew up with).

       Her father dies when she is only twelve, but as the only member of the family with any education Touba essentially runs it. At fourteen she makes a great sacrifice, daringly essentially proposing marriage to Haji Mahmud, a relative who supported the household, in order to save her mother from having to marry him. Haji Mahmud is much older than her, and the marriage is no great success; it ends in divorce after only a few years...

Shahrnush Parsipur, Born and raised in Tehran, she received her B.A. in sociology from Tehran University in 1973 and studied Chinese language and civilization at the Sorbonne from 1976 to 1980. Her first book was Tupak-e Qermez (The Little Red Ball – 1969), a story for young people. Her first short stories were published in the late 1960s. One early story appeared in Jong-e Isfahan, no. 9 (June 1972), a special short-story issue which also featured stories by Esma'il Faish, Houshang Golshiri, Taqi Modarresi, Bahram Sadeqi, and Gholam Hossein Saedi. Her novella Tajrobeh'ha-ye Azad (Trial Offers – 1970) was followed by the novel Sag va Zemestan-e Boland (The Dog and the Long Winter), published in 1976. In 1977, she published a volume of short stories called Avizeh'ha-ye Bolur (Crystal Pendant Earrings)...

The Three Musketeers

The Three Musketeers1844
Alexandre Dumas

Plot:

The poor d'Artagnan travels to Paris to join the Musketeers. He suffers misadventure and is challenged to a duel by each of three musketeers (Athos, Aramis and Porthos). Attacked by the Cardinal's guards, the four unite and escape.

D'Artagnan and his new love interest, Constance, help the French queen give a particular piece of jewelry to her paramour, the Duke of Buckingham. The Cardinal learns of this and coaxes the French king to hold a ball where the queen must wear the jewelry; its absence will reveal her infidelity. The four companions retrieve the jewelry from England.

The Cardinal kidnaps Constance who is later rescued by the queen. D'Artagnan meets Milady de Winter and discovers she is a felon, the ex-wife of Athos and the widow of Count de Winter. The Cardinal recruits Milady to kill Buckingham, also granting her a hand-written pardon for the future killing of d'Artagnan. Athos learns of this, takes the pardon but is unable to warn Buckingham. He sends word to Lord de Winter that Milady is arriving; Lord de Winter arrests her on suspicion of killing Count de Winter, his brother.

She seduces her guard and escapes to the monastery in France where the queen secreted Constance. Milady kills Constance. The four companions arrive and Athos identifies her as a multiple murderess. She is tried and beheaded.

On the road, d'Artagnan is arrested. Taken before the Cardinal, d'Artagnan relates recent events and reveals the Cardinal's pardon. Impressed, the Cardinal offers him a blank musketeer officer's commission. D'Artagnan's friends refuse the commission, each retiring to a new life, telling him to take it himself, and so he takes it and later on he becomes a well known lieutenant.

Alexandre Dumas, born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie (24 July 1802 – 5 December 1870)[1] was a French writer, best known for his historical novels of high adventure which have made him one of the most widely read French authors in the world. Many of his novels, including The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, and The Vicomte de Bragelonne were originally serialized. He also wrote plays and magazine articles and was a prolific correspondent.

The Feast of the Goat

The Feast of the Goat

2000

Mario Vargas Llosa

Plot summary

 The novel's narrative is divided into three distinct strands. One is centred on Urania Cabral, a fictional Dominican character; another deals with the conspirators involved in Trujillo's assassination; and the third focuses on Trujillo himself. The novel alternates between these storylines, and also jumps back and forth from 1961 to 1996, with frequent flashbacks to periods earlier in Trujillo's regime.

 The Feast of the Goat begins with the return of Urania to her hometown of Santo Domingo, a city which had been renamed Ciudad Trujillo during Trujillo's time in power. This storyline is largely introspective and deals with Urania's memories and her inner turmoil over the events preceding her departure from the Dominican Republic thirty-five years earlier. Urania escaped the crumbling Trujillo regime in 1961 by claiming she planned to study under the tutelage of nuns in Michigan. In the following decades, she becomes a prominent and successful New York lawyer. She finally returns to the Dominican Republic in 1996, on a whim, and finds herself compelled to confront her father and elements of her past she has long ignored. As Urania speaks to her ailing father, Agustin Cabral, she recalls more and more of the anger and disgust that led to her thirty-five years of silence. Urania retells her father's descent into political disgrace, and the betrayal that forms the crux of both Urania's storyline and that of Trujillo himself.

 The second and third storylines are set in 1961, in the weeks prior to and following Trujillo's assassination on the 30th of May. Each assassin has his own background story, explaining his motivation for his involvement in the assassination plot. Each has been wronged by Trujillo and his regime, by torture and brutality, or through assaults on their pride, their religious faith, their morality, or their loved ones. Vargas Llosa weaves the tale of the men as memories recalled on the night of Trujillo's death, as the conspirators lie in wait for "The Goat". Interconnected with these stories are the actions of other famous Trujillistas of the time; Joaquín Balaguer, the puppet president, Johnny Abbes García, the merciless head of the Military Intelligence Service (SIM), and various others—some real, some composites of historical figures, and some purely fictional.

 The third storyline is concerned with the thoughts and motives of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina himself. The chapters concerning The Goat recall the major events of his time, including the slaughter of thousands of Dominican Haitians in 1937. They also deal with the Dominican Republic's tense international relationships during the Cold War, especially with the United States under the presidency of John F. Kennedy, and Cuba under Castro. Vargas Llosa also speculates upon Trujillo's innermost thoughts and paints a picture of a man whose physical body is failing him. Trujillo is tormented by incontinence and impotence; and this storyline intersects with Urania's narrative when it is revealed that Urania was sexually assaulted by Trujillo. He is unable to achieve an erection with Urania, and in frustration and anger he rapes her with his hands. This event is the core of Urania's shame, and her hatred towards her father. In addition, it is the cause of Trujillo's repeated anger over the "anemic little bitch" that witnessed his impotence and emotion, and the reason he is en route to sleep with another girl on the night of his assassination.

 In the novel's final chapters, the three storylines intersect with increasing frequency. The tone of these chapters is especially dark as they deal primarily with the horrific torture and death of the assassins at the hands of the SIM, the failure of the coup, the rape of Urania, and the concessions made to Trujillo's most vicious supporters allowing them to enact their horrific revenge on the conspirators and then escape the country. The book ends as Urania prepares to return home, determined this time to keep in touch with her family back on the island.

Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquis of Vargas Llosa ; ( born March 28, 1936) is a Peruvian-Spanish writer, politician, journalist, essayist, and Nobel Prize laureate. Vargas Llosa is one of Latin America's most significant novelists and essayists, and one of the leading authors of his generation. Some critics consider him to have had a larger international impact and worldwide audience than any other writer of the Latin American Boom. He was awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat".

Like many Latin American authors, Vargas Llosa has been politically active throughout his career; over the course of his life, he has gradually moved from the political left towards liberalism or neoliberalism, a definitively more conservative political position. While he initially supported the Cuban revolutionary government of Fidel Castro, Vargas Llosa later became disenchanted with the Cuban dictator and his authoritarian regime. He ran for the Peruvian presidency in 1990 with the center-right Frente Democrático (FREDEMO) coalition, advocating neoliberal reforms. He has subsequently supported moderate conservative candidates.

Wise Blood

Wise Blood

1952

Flannery O'Connor

Plot

Hazel Motes begins the novel having returned from serving in the Army, and he is travelling by train to the city of Taulkinham having just found his family home abandoned. His grandfather was a tent revival preacher, and Hazel himself is irresistibly drawn to wearing a bright blue suit and a black hat. He is told repeatedly that he "looks like a preacher," though he despises preachers. In the United States Army, presumably during the Korean War era (when the book was published), Hazel came to the conclusion that the only way to escape sin is to have no soul. In Taulkinham, he first goes to the home of a Mrs. Leora Watts, a casual prostitute, who tells him "Mamma don't care if you ain't a preacher," and provides him services. The next night, he comes across a street vendor hawking potato peelers and Enoch Emery, a sad and manic 18-year-old who was forced to come to the big city after his father abandoned him. The huckster is interrupted by a blind preacher, Asa Hawks, and his young daughter, Sabbath Lily Hawks. Motes finds the daughter eerie, and the preacher says that he has really been attracted to him for repentance. In attempted blasphemy, Hazel says, to Hawks, "My Jesus!" He turns to a crowd Hawks is attempting to reach and begins to announce his "church of truth without Jesus Christ Crucified," but no one seems to be listening. Enoch Emery is attracted to Hazel's new "Church Without Christ," and ...

Wise Blood can be read simply as a comedy of grotesques (the so-called "Southern Gothic" genre), for its comedic effects and many grotesque elements. It can also be read as a philosophical novel, for it presents opposing views of reality and asks the reader to resolve the conflict. It can even be read as a social text, for the novel captures the South at a time of great tension, when, after World War II, the rural and cosmopolitan populations were clashing, and tent-revival preachers encountered big city marketing. Finally, Wise Blood can also be read as an unusual case study of heresy and redemption. O'Connor frequently creates heretical characters and victims of spiritual confusion; however, Wise Blood not only has such a character, but also offers a complete biography that explains the psychological and spiritual crises that have brought her character to such a state of "grotesqueness."

Mary Flannery O'Connor (March 25, 1925 – August 3, 1964) was an American novelist, short-story writer and essayist. An important voice in American literature, O'Connor wrote two novels and 32 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries. She was a Southern writer who often wrote in a Southern Gothic style and relied heavily on regional settings and grotesque characters. O'Connor's writing also reflected her own Roman Catholic faith, and frequently examined questions of morality and ethics.

Malone Dies

Malone Dies
1951

Samuel Beckett

Samuel Barclay Beckett (13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish avant-garde writer, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human culture, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.

Beckett is widely regarded as among the most influential writers of the 20th century. Strongly influenced by James Joyce, he is considered one of the last modernists. As an inspiration to many later writers, he is also sometimes considered one of the first postmodernists. He is one of the key writers in what Martin Esslin called the "Theatre of the Absurd". His work became increasingly minimalist in his later career.

Beckett was awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his writing, which—in new forms for the novel and drama—in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation."

Plot :

Malone is an old man who lies naked in bed in either asylum or hospital--he is not sure which. Most of his personal effects have been taken from him, though he has retained some, notably his exercise book, brimless hat, and pencil. He alternates between writing his own situation and that of a boy named Sapo. When he reaches the point in the story where Sapo becomes a man, he changes Sapo's name to Macmann, finding Sapo a ludicrous name. Not long after, Malone admits to having killed six men, but seems to think it not a big deal—particularly the last, a total stranger whom he cut across the neck with a razor.

 Eventually, Macmann falls over in mud and is taken to an institution called St. John's of God. There he is provided with an attendant nurse—an elderly, thick-lipped woman named Moll, with crosses of bone on either ear representing the two thieves crucified with Jesus on Good Friday, and a crucifix carved on her tooth representing Jesus. The two eventually begin a stumbling sexual affair, but after a while she does not return, and he learns that she has died.

 The new nurse is a man named Lemuel, and there is an animosity between the two. Macmann (and sometimes Malone drifts into the first-person) has an issue with a stick that he uses to reach things and Lemuel takes it away.

 At the end of the novel …

Malone Dies contains the famous line:

"Nothing is more real than nothing"

(New York: Grove, 1956; p. 16).

Sunstone

Sunstone
Piedra de sol
1957

Octavio Paz

A prolific author and poet, Paz published scores of works during his lifetime, many of which are translated into other languages. His poetry, for example, has been translated into English by Samuel Beckett, Charles Tomlinson, Elizabeth Bishop, Muriel Rukeyser and Mark Strand. His early poetry was influenced by Marxism, surrealism, and existentialism, as well as religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism. His poem, "Piedra de sol" ("Sunstone"), written in 1957, was praised as a "magnificent" example of surrealist poetry in the presentation speech of his Nobel Prize. His later poetry dealt with love and eroticism, the nature of time, and Buddhism. He also wrote poetry about his other passion, modern painting, dedicating poems to the work of Balthus, Joan Miró, Marcel Duchamp, Antoni Tapies, Robert Rauschenberg, and Roberto Matta. As an essayist Paz wrote on topics like Mexican politics and economics, Aztec art, anthropology, and sexuality. His book-length essay, The Labyrinth of Solitude (Spanish: El laberinto de la soledad), delves into the minds of his countrymen, describing them as hidden behind masks of solitude. Due to their history, their identity is lost between a pre-Columbian and a Spanish culture, negating either. A key work in understanding Mexican culture, it greatly influenced other Mexican writers, such as Carlos Fuentes. Ilan Stavans wrote that he was “the quintessential surveyor, a Dante's Virgil, a Renaissance man”.

The Name of the Rose

The Name of the Rose
1980

Umberto Eco

The Name of the Rose is the first novel by Italian author Umberto Eco. It is a historical murder mystery set in an Italian monastery in the year 1327, an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory. First published in Italian in 1980 under the title Il nome della rosa, it appeared in English in 1983, translated by William Weaver.

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Umberto Eco (born 5 January 1932) is an Italian medievalist, semiotician, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose (Il nome della rosa, 1980), an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory. He has also written academic texts, children's books and many essays. Eco is President of the Scuola Superiore di Studi Umanistici, University of Bologna, member of the Accademia dei Lincei (since November 2010) and an Honorary Fellow of Kellogg College, University of Oxford. Currently (2011), Eco one of the world's best selling authors due to his novel The Prague Cemetery.

In 1959, he published his second book, Sviluppo dell'estetica medievale (The Development of Medieval Aesthetics), which established Eco as a formidable thinker in medievalism and proved his literary worth to his father. After 18 months' military service in the Italian Army, he left RAI in 1959 to become the senior non-fiction editor of the Bompiani publishing house in Milan, a position he occupied until 1975...

Faithful place

Faithful place
2010

Tana French

Back in 1985, Frank Mackey was nineteen, growing up poor in Dublin's inner city and living crammed into a small flat with his family on Faithful Place. But he had his sights set on a lot more. He and his girl Rosie Daly were all set to run away to London together, get married, get good jobs, break away from factory work and poverty and their old lives.

But on the winter night when they were supposed to leave, Rosie didn't show. Frank took it for granted that she'd dumped him - probably because of his alcoholic father, nutcase mother, and generally dysfunctional family. He never went home again.

Neither did Rosie. Everyone thought she had gone to England on her own and was over there living a shiny new life. Then, twenty-two years later, Rosie's suitcase shows up behind a fireplace in a derelict house on Faithful Place, and Frank is going home whether he likes it or not.

Getting sucked in is a lot easier than getting out again. Frank finds himself straight back in the dark tangle of relationships he left behind. The cops working the case want him out of the way, in case loyalty to his family and community makes him a liability. Faithful Place wants him out because he's a detective now, and the Place has never liked cops. Frank just wants to find out what happened to Rosie Daly—and he's willing to do whatever it takes, to himself or anyone else, to get the job done.

Tana French (born 1973) is an Irish novelist and theatrical actress. She is a liaison of the Purple Heart Theatre Company and attended Trinity College, Dublin. She has dual citizenship of the United States and Ireland. Her father was an economist who worked on resource management for the developing world and this led to her childhood being spent in various nations. These include Ireland, Italy, the United States, and Malawi. She ultimately settled in Ireland and has lived in Dublin since 1990, which she considers "home." Trained as a professional actor at Trinity, she works in theater, film, and voice-over

Nicholas on Vacation / Les vacances du petit Nicolas

Nicholas on Vacation
(Les vacances du petit Nicolas)

Creator : René Goscinny
Cartoon By : Jean-Jacques Sempé

René Goscinny (14 August 1926 – 5 November 1977) was a French-Polish author, editor and humorist, who is best known for the comic book Astérix, which he created with illustrator Albert Uderzo, and for his work on the comic series Lucky Luke with Morris (considered the series' golden age) and Iznogoud with Jean Tabary.

Jean-Jacques Sempé, usually known as Sempé (born August 17, 1932 in Bordeaux), is a French cartoonist. Some of his cartoons are quite striking, but retain a sentimental and often a somewhat gentle edge to them, even if the topic is a difficult one to approach.

The humour of the books derives from their unique story-telling style: the adventures of Little Nicolas are told in the first person by Nicolas himself. On the one hand, the books are a parody of the story-telling habits of little children; for example, the author makes frequent use of stylistic features such as run-on sentences and employs an egocentric, naive point of view.

French Pdf

Morning and Evening Talk

MORNING AND EVENING TALK

1987

Najib Mahfouz

Born into a lower middle-class Muslim family in the Gamaleyya quarter of Cairo, Mahfouz was named after Professor Naguib Pasha Mahfouz (1882–1974), the renowned Coptic physician who delivered him. Mahfouz was the seventh and the youngest child in a family that had five boys and two girls. The family lived in two popular districts of the town, in el-Gamaleyya, from where they moved in 1924 to el-Abbaseyya, then a new Cairo suburb; both provided the backdrop for many of Mahfouz's writings. His father, whom Mahfouz described as having been "old-fashioned", was a civil servant, and Mahfouz eventually followed in his footsteps. In his childhood Mahfouz read extensively. His mother often took him to museums and Egyptian history later became a major theme in many of his books

The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas

 The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas
1881

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

The novel is narrated by the dead protagonist Bras Cubas, who tells his own life story from beyond the grave, noting his mistakes and failed romances.The fact of being already deceased allows Brás Cubas to sharply criticize the Brazilian society and reflect on his own disillusionment, with no sign of remorse or fear of retaliation. Brás Cubas dedicates his book to the first worm that gnawed his cold body: "To the worm who first gnawed on the cold flesh of my corpse, I dedicate with fond remembrance these Posthumous Memoirs."

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis was born on 21 June 1839 in Rio de Janeiro. was a Brazilian novelist, poet, playwright and short story writer. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer of Brazilian literature[2][3][4], but he did not gain widespread popularity outside Brazil in his own lifetime. He was multilingual, having learned French, English and German as well as Portuguese, and Greek late in life. Machado's style is unique, and several literary critics have tried to describe it since 1897.[81] He is considered by many the greatest Brazilian writer of all times, and one of the world's greatest novelists and short story writers. His chronicles do not share the same status. His poems are often shocking for the use of crude terms, sometimes similar to those of Augusto dos Anjos, another Brazilian writer.

...Slaughterhouse-Five

Slaughterhouse-Five...

or

The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death

1969

Kort Vonegut

Kort Vonegut was one of the most influential American writers of the 20th century. He wrote such works as Cat's Cradle (1963), Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), and Breakfast of Champions (1973) blending satire, black comedy, and science fiction. He was known for his humanist beliefs and was honorary president of the American Humanist Association.

Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost

Writer : John Milton

Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 (though written nearly ten years earlier) in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse. A second edition followed in 1674, redivided into twelve books (in the manner of the division of Virgil's Aeneid) with minor revisions throughout and a note on the versification; the majority of the poem was written while Milton was blind, and was transcribed for him ...

Tristram Shandy

Tristram Shandy

Writer : laurence sterne