Silvia Pareschi Boeken

Twin brothers born from a secret love affair between an Indian nun and a British surgeon in Addis Ababa, Marion and Shiva Stone come of age in Ethiopia, where their love for the same woman drives them apart.

De zestienjarige Elwood Curtis werkt hard, haalt goede cijfers op school en is verzekerd van een plek op het plaatselijke college voor kleurlingen in zijn thuisstad Tallahassee, de hoofdstad van Florida. Het zijn de beginjaren van de burgerrechtenbeweging, en Elwood gaat zijn toekomst vol vertrouwen tegemoet. Totdat hij vanwege een onschuldige vergissing op de Nickel Academy belandt, en zijn dromen wreed verstoord worden. Nickel is een tuchtschool, en Nickel is de hel op aarde. Met name de zwarte jongens worden aan het sadisme van hun witte bewakers uitgeleverd. Misbruik, marteling en corruptie zijn aan de orde van de dag; voor het minste vergrijp worden de jongens ‘naar achteren’ gebracht – vanwaar ze nooit meer terugkomen. In deze gruwelkamer is er voor Elwood één houvast: zijn vriend Turner, die door het leven gehard is en geen enkele ambitie koestert, behalve ontsnappen uit Nickel.

Het is 23 december 1971 en er wordt zwaar weer voorspeld voor Chicago. Russ Hildebrandt, de associate pastor van een liberale kerk in de voorsteden, staat op het punt om zich los te maken van een huwelijk dat hij als vreugdeloos ervaart, tenzij zijn vrouw Marion, die haar eigen geheimen heeft, hem voor is. Hun oudste kind, Clem, komt vol moreel absolutisme van de universiteit thuis, na een daad die zijn vader zal verwoesten. Clem's zus, Becky, ooit de sociale koningin van haar klas, heeft een scherpe wending naar de tegencultuur gemaakt, terwijl hun briljante jongere broer Perry, die drugs aan zevende klassers verkoopt, heeft besloten een beter persoon te worden. Elk lid van de familie Hildebrandt zoekt naar vrijheid, die de anderen dreigen te compliceren. In "Kruispunt" verkent Franzen de geschiedenis van twee generaties met humor en complexiteit, en roept hij een wereld op die krachtig resoneert met de onze. Dit verhaal van een Midwestse familie bevindt zich op een cruciaal moment van morele crisis.

The long awaited follow-up to 'When the Emperor was Divine' tells the story of a group of young women brought over from Japan to San Francisco as mail-order brides, nearly a century ago.

Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd, a New Jersey romantic who dreams of becoming the Dominican J. R. R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the fukú–the ancient curse that has haunted Oscar's family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents, and, above all, ill-starred love. Oscar, still dreaming of his first kiss, is only its most recent victim–until the fateful summer that he decides to be its last. With dazzling energy and insight, Junot Díaz immerses us in the uproarious lives of our hero Oscar, his runaway sister Lola, and their ferocious beauty-queen mother Belicia, and in the family's epic journey from Santo Domingo to Washington Heights to New Jersey's Bergenline and back again. Rendered with uncommon warmth and humor, THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO presents an astonishing vision of the contemporary American experience and the endless human capacity to persevere–and to risk it all–in the name of love. A true literary triumph, this novel confirms Junot Díaz as one of the best and most exciting writers of our time.

In his first novel since The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen has given us an epic of contemporary love and marriage. Freedom comically and tragically captures the temptations and burdens of liberty: the thrills of teenage lust, the shaken compromises of middle age, the wages of suburban sprawl, the heavy weight of empire. In charting the mistakes and joys of Walter and Patty Berglund as they struggle to learn how to live in an ever more confusing world, Franzen has produced an indelible and deeply moving portrait of our time. (from the back cover)

Zuiverheid, de nieuwe, grote roman van Jonathan Franzen, is het verhaal van de Amerikaanse Purity Tyler, die bij vrijwel iedereen slechts bekend is als Pip - zij schaamt zich voor haar voornaam. Haar moeder heeft nooit willen vertellen wie haar vader is, en als Pip een traumatische ervaring heeft in haar Californische jongerenhuis, besluit ze naar hem op zoek te gaan. Haar zoektocht leidt haar door Noord-Amerika en Latijns-Amerika, waar ze in contact komt met een charismatische, wereldberoemde internethacker, Andreas Wolf. Maar Pip weet niet dat Wolf zelf een geheim met zich meedraagt, uit een ver verleden, toen hij in Oost-Duitsland woonde en de Berlijnse Muur nog niet gevallen was. Zuiverheid is een grootse, ontzagwekkende roman over identiteit, afstamming, liefde en seksualiteit, maar vooral over geheimen: van de intieme geheimen binnen een familie tot de levensgevaarlijke geheimen van kapitalistische multinationals en de hele westerse maatschappij. Franzens fabelachtige pen en de mythische structuur van zijn nieuwe roman maken Zuiverheid tot de belangrijkste Amerikaanse roman van 2015, die de lezer vele schitterende uren zal bezorgen.

The author presents his 1996 work, "The Harper's Essay," offering additional writings that consider a central theme of the erosion of civic life and private dignity and the increasing persistence of loneliness in postmodern American.

The lives of Skip Sands, a spy-in-training engaged in psychological operations against the Vietcong, and brothers Bill and James Houston, young men who drift out of the Arizona desert into a war, intertwine in a novel of America during the Vietnam War

Louis Holland arrives in Boston in a spring of ecological upheaval (a rash of earthquakes on the North Shore) and odd luck: the first one kills his grandmother. Louis tries to maintain his independence, but falls in love with a Harvard seismologist whose discoveries about the earthquakes' cause complicate everything.

Julian Lawndsley has renounced his high-flying job in the City for a simpler life running a bookshop in a small English seaside town. But only a couple of months into his new career, Julian's evening is disrupted by a visitor. Edward, a Polish emigre living in Silverview, the big house on the edge of town, seems to know a lot about Julian's family and is rather too interested in the inner workings of his modest new enterprise. When a letter turns up at the door of a spy chief in London warning him of a dangerous leak, the investigations lead him to this quiet town by the sea . . . Silverview is the mesmerising story of an encounter between innocence and experience and between public duty and private morals. In this last complete masterwork from the greatest chronicler of our age, John le Carre asks what you owe to your country when you no longer recognise it.

Il nuovo e attesissimo libro di Amy Hempel, una delle voci più celebri e originali della narrativa di oggi, si apre con un proverbio arabo: "Quando il pericolo si avvicina, cantagli una canzone". Queste quindici storie raffinate rivelano la parte più umana e vivace della leggendaria scrittrice, che ci presenta figure solitarie e alla deriva in cerca di una connessione. Le loro brevi vicende affrontano le nostre paure e i nostri desideri, costringendoci a compatirli. I personaggi di Amy Hempel, immediatamente vividi e memorabili, hanno cuori danneggiati e sono perseguitati dal dolore. Lottano per perdonare se stessi e gli altri. Ne La chicane l'incontro di una donna con un attore francese suscita un diluvio di ricordi legati a una zia suicida, incapace di trovare stabilità in amore e nella vita. In Un rifugio con tutti i servizi una volontaria di un ricovero per cani si prende cura con devozione degli animali da sopprimere. In Greed una moglie respinta esamina la relazione di suo marito con una donna affascinante e anziana. E in Cloudland, la storia più lunga della raccolta, una donna rimugina sulla scelta fatta da adolescente di rinunciare al suo bambino. Seducenti e inquietanti, tenere e cupamente divertenti, queste storie sono piene di rivelazioni inattese, narrate con lo stile singolare e inimitabile di Amy Hempel.

Heather, The Totality is superb. It gripped me at once. There was no question of turning away at any point. Weiner conveys the sense that beyond the brilliantly chosen details there was a wealth of similarly truthful social and psychological perception unstated. Then there was the ice-cold mercilessness, of a kind that reminded me (oddly, I suppose, but there it was) of Evelyn Waugh. This novel is something special PHILIP PULLMAN

Eric Packer is a twenty-eight-year-old multi-billionaire asset manager. He lives in Manhattan. We join him on what will become a particularly eventful day in his life. When he woke up, he didn’t know what he wanted. Then he knew. He wanted to get a haircut. As his stretch limousine moves across town, his world begins to fall apart. But more worrying than the loss of his fortune is the realization that his life may be under threat. ‘A brilliant excursion into the decadence of contemporary culture’ Sunday Times ‘One of America’s smartest and most disturbing writers’ The Times

Follows three friends and their overlapping social and family circles through their day-to-day lives, their perceived struggles and successes and their constant search for meaning and authenticity. This work is a portrait of a particular place at a particular moment and an illustration how the events of a single day can change everything for ever.