Author: Louis de Bernieres
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307822362
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 452
Get Book Here
Book Description
This rambunctious first novel by the author of the bestselling Corelli's Mandolin is set in an impoverished, violent, yet ravishingly beautiful country somewhere in South America. When the haughty Dona Constanza decides to divert a river to fill her swimming pool, the consequences are at once tragic, heroic, and outrageously funny. "Walks a precarious edge between slapstick and pathos, never once losing its balance."--Washington Post Book World.
Author: Louis de Bernieres
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307822389
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 528
Get Book Here
Book Description
With the same ebullient storytelling, luxuriant prose, and irrepressible eroticism he brought to The War of Don Emmanuel s Nether Parts and Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord, Louis de Bernières continues his chronicle of Cochadebajo, the Andean village where macho philosophers, defrocked priests, and reformed (though hardly inactive) prostitutes cohabit in cheerful anarchy. But this unruly utopia is imperiled when the demon-harried Cardinal Guzman decides to inaugurate a new Inquisition, with Cochadebajo as its ultimate target. On his side, the Cardinal has an army of fanatics who are all too willing to destroy bodies in order to save souls. The Cochadebajeros have precious little ammunition, unless you count chef Dolores's incendiary Chicken of a True Man, and a civil defense that deems nothing more crucial than the act of love. Part epic, part farce, The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman confirms de Bernières's reputation as England's answer to Gabriel García Márquez.
Author: Louis de Bernieres
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307424995
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 578
Get Book Here
Book Description
In his first novel since Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernières creates a world, populates it with characters as real as our best friends, and launches it into the maelstrom of twentieth-century history. The setting is a small village in southwestern Anatolia in the waning years of the Ottoman Empire. Everyone there speaks Turkish, though they write it in Greek letters. It’s a place that has room for a professional blasphemer; where a brokenhearted aga finds solace in the arms of a Circassian courtesan who isn’t Circassian at all; where a beautiful Christian girl named Philothei is engaged to a Muslim boy named Ibrahim. But all of this will change when Turkey enters the modern world. Epic in sweep, intoxicating in its sensual detail, Birds Without Wings is an enchantment.
Author: Louis de Bernières
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1446499200
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 546
Get Book Here
Book Description
**AS SEEN ON BBC BETWEEN THE COVERS** 25TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION - WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHOR 'A true diamond of a novel, glinting with comedy and tragedy' Daily Mail It is 1941 and Captain Antonio Corelli, a young Italian officer, is posted to the Greek island of Cephallonia as part of the occupying forces. At first he is ostracised by the locals but over time he proves himself to be civilised, humorous – and a consummate musician. When Pelagia, the local doctor's daughter, finds her letters to her fiancé go unanswered, Antonio and Pelagia draw close and the working of the eternal triangle seems inevitable. But can this fragile love survive as a war of bestial savagery gets closer and the lines are drawn between invader and defender? 'Louis de Bernières is in the direct line that runs through Dickens and Evelyn Waugh...he has only to look into his world, one senses, for it to rush into reality, colours and touch and taste' Evening Standard
Author: Louis de Bernieres
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1524747890
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 301
Get Book Here
Book Description
They were an inseparable tribe of childhood friends whose world was torn apart by the First World War. Some were lost in battle, and those who survived have had their lives unimaginably upended, scattered to Ceylon and India, France and Germany, and, inevitably, back to Britain. Now, at the dawn of the 1920s, all are trying to pick up the pieces. At the center of Louis de Bernières’s riveting novel are Daniel, an RAF flying ace, and Rosie, a wartime nurse. As their marriage is slowly revealed to be built on lies, Daniel finds solace—and, sometimes, family—with other women, and Rosie draws her religion around herself like a carapace. Here too are Rosie’s sisters—a bohemian, a minister’s wife, and a spinster, each seeking purpose and happiness in her own unconventional way; and Daniel’s military brother, unable to find his footing in a peaceful world. Told in brief, dramatic chapters, So Much Life Left Over follows the stories of these old friends over the decades as their paths re-cross or their ties fray, as they test loyalties and love, face survivor’s grief and guilt, and adjust to a new world.
Author: Louis de Bernières
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1473565030
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 334
Get Book Here
Book Description
'De Bernieres is a singular, cherishable voice' Mail on Sunday From the master of historical fiction, this book follows an unforgettable family after the Second World War. Some bonds are hard to break... Daniel Pitt was an RAF fighter in the First World War and an espionage agent for the SOE in the Second. Now the conflicts he faces are closer to home. Daniel's marriage has fractured beyond repair and Daniel's relationship with his son, Bertie, has been a failure since Bertie was a small boy. But after his brother Archie's death, Daniel is keen for new perspectives. He first travels to Peshawar to bury Archie in the place he loved best, and then finds himself in Canada, avoiding his family and friends back in England. Daniel and Bertie's different experiences of war, although devastating, also bring with them the opportunity for the two to reconnect. If only they can find a way to move on from the past...
Author: Louis de Bernieres
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1101946490
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 554
Get Book Here
Book Description
From the acclaimed author of Corelli’s Mandolin, here is a sumptuous, sweeping, powerfully moving new novel about a British family whose lives and loves are indelibly shaped by the horrors of World War I and the hopes for its aftermath. In the brief golden years of the Edwardian era the McCosh sisters—Christabel, Ottilie, Rosie and Sophie—grow up in an idyllic household in the countryside south of London. On one side, their neighbors are the proper Pendennis family, recently arrived from Baltimore, whose close-in-age boys—Sidney, Albert and Ashbridge—shake their father’s hand at breakfast and address him as “sir.” On the other side is the Pitt family: a “resolutely French” mother, a former navy captain father, and two brothers, Archie and Daniel, who are clearly “going to grow up into a pair of daredevils and adventurers.” In childhood this band is inseparable, but the days of careless camaraderie are brought to an abrupt halt by the outbreak of The Great War, in which everyone will play a part. All three Pendennis brothers fight in the hellish trenches at the front; Daniel Pitt becomes an ace fighter pilot with his daredevil tendencies intact; Rosie and Ottilie McCosh volunteer in the hospitals, where women serve with as much passion and nearly as much hardship as the men at the front; Christabel McCosh becomes one of the squad of photographers sending “snaps” of their loved ones at home to the soldiers; and Sophie McCosh drives for the RAF in France. In the aftermath of the war, as “the universal joy and relief were beginning to be tempered by . . . an atmosphere of uncertainty,” everyone must contend with the modern world that is slowly emerging from the ashes of the old. A wholly immersive novel about a particular time and place, The Dust That Falls from Dreams also illuminates the timeless ways in which men and women carry profound loss alongside indelible hope.
Author: Robert Wolff
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1594776717
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 154
Get Book Here
Book Description
• Explores the lifestyle of indigenous peoples of the world who exist in complete harmony with the natural world and with each other. • Reveals a model of a society built on trust, patience, and joy rather than anxiety, hurry, and acquisition. • Shows how we can reconnect with the ancient intuitive awareness of the world's original people. Deep in the mountainous jungle of Malaysia the aboriginal Sng'oi exist on the edge of extinction, though their way of living may ultimately be the kind of existence that will allow us all to survive. The Sng'oi--pre-industrial, pre-agricultural, semi-nomadic--live without cars or cell phones, without clocks or schedules in a lush green place where worry and hurry, competition and suspicion are not known. Yet these indigenous people--as do many other aboriginal groups--possess an acute and uncanny sense of the energies, emotions, and intentions of their place and the living beings who populate it, and trustingly follow this intuition, using it to make decisions about their actions each day. Psychologist Robert Wolff lived with the Sng'oi, learned their language, shared their food, slept in their huts, and came to love and admire these people who respect silence, trust time to reveal and heal, and live entirely in the present with a sense of joy. Even more, he came to recognize the depth of our alienation from these basic qualities of life. Much more than a document of a disappearing people, Original Wisdom: Stories of an Ancient Way of Knowing holds a mirror to our own existence, allowing us to see how far we have wandered from the ways of the intuitive and trusting Sng'oi, and challenges us, in our fragmented world, to rediscover this humanity within ourselves.
Author: Louis de Bernières
Publisher: Random House Australia
ISBN: 1742744729
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 124
Get Book Here
Book Description
The story of the legend of Red Dog, the most famous red Kelpie in Western Australia. Red Dog is a West Australian, a lovable friendly red kelpie who found widespread fame as a result of his habit of travelling all over Western Australia, hitching rides over thousands of kilometres, settling in places for months at a time and adopting new families before heading off again to the next destination and another family - sometimes returning to say hello years later. While visiting Australia, Louis de Bernieres heard the legend of Red Dog and decided to do some research on this extraordinary story. After travelling to Western Australia and meeting countless people who'd known and loved Red Dog, Louis decided to spread Red Dog's fame a little further. The result is an utterly charming tale of an amazing dog with places to go and people to see. Red Dog will delight readers and animal lovers of all ages. This book inspired the film, Red Dog, which has gone on to become one of Australia's highest grossing films of the past few decades.
Author: Thomas McGuane
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307822001
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 193
Get Book Here
Book Description
A funny, rueful, and beautifully rendered portrait of American manhood on the rocks from the highly acclaimed author of Cloudbursts and Ninety-two in the Shade In life Lucien Taylor has made several mistakes, but the two most grievous are as follows: leaving his wife and son to take up with his old flame, Emily; and putting up Emily's bail when she is arrested for murder. The upshot is that Lucien is left stranded in Montana, with a malodorous hot spring and a squandered sense of purpose. As told by Thomas McGuane, Lucien's attempt to recoup his losses makes for a book that says volumes about the lives of dogs and falcons, the yearnings of sons for fathers, and the skeptical truce that men and women sometimes reach when they get tired of fighting.
