How Music Works
5.490 kr.How Music Works is David Byrne’s bestselling, buoyant celebration of a subject he has spent a lifetime thinking about. Drawing on his own work over the years with Talking Heads, Brian Eno, and his myriad collaborators – along with journeys to Wagnerian opera houses, African villages, and anywhere music exists – Byrne shows how music emerges from cultural circumstance as much as individual creativity. It is his magnum opus, and an impassioned argument about music’s liberating, life-affirming power.
Chromorama
4.690 kr.Have you ever wondered why so many pencils are yellow? Why black is the colour of mourning? Or why carrots are orange?
In Chromorama, acclaimed graphic designer Riccardo Falcinelli delves deep into the history of colour to show how it has shaped the modern gaze. With over four hundred illustrations throughout and with examples ranging widely across art and culture – from Flaubert’s novels to The Simpsons, from Byzantine jewellery to misshapen fruit, from the black lines of Mondrian to the thrillers of Hitchcock – Falcinelli traces the evolution of our long relationship with colour, and how first the industrial revolution, and then the dawn of the internet age, changed it forever.
Beautiful, warm and wise, taking in the lives of philosophers, entrepreneurs, designers, astrologists, shop assistants and pastry chefs, Chromoroma is an engrossing account of shade and light, of tone and hue, of dyes, pigments, and pixels. It is the story of why we now see the world the way we do.
Ætíð minnast – Strákurinn, moldvarpan, refurinn, hesturinn og stormurinn
6.390 kr.„Dag nokkurn munt þú líta til baka og gera þér grein fyrir hversu erfitt þetta var, og hversu vel þú stóðst þig.“
Love In Exile
3.990 kr.Shon Faye grew up quietly obsessed with the feeling that love was not for her. Not just romantic love: the secret fear of her own unworthiness penetrated every aspect and corner of her life. It was a fear that would erupt in destructive, counterfeit versions of the real love she craved: addictions and short-lived romances that were either euphoric and fantastical, or excruciatingly painful and unhinged, often both. Faye’s experience of the world as a trans woman, who grew up visibly queer, exacerbated her fears. But, as she confronted her damaging ideas about love and lovelessness, she came to realize that this sense of exclusion is symptomatic of a much larger problem in our culture.
Love, she argues, is as much a collective question as a personal one. Yet our collective ideals of love have developed in a society which is itself profoundly sick and loveless; in which consumer capitalism sells us ever new, engrossing fantasies of becoming more loved or lovable. In this highly politicized terrain, boundaries are purposefully drawn to keep some in and to keep others out. Those who exist outside them are ignored, denigrated, exiled.
In Love in Exile, Shon Faye shows love is much greater than the narrow ideals we have been taught to crave so desperately that we are willing to bend and break ourselves to fit them. Wise, funny, unsparing, and suffused with a radical clarity, this is a book of and for our times: for seeing and knowing love, in whatever form it takes, is the meaning of life itself.
Zone
3.490 kr.Francis Mirkovic, a French Intelligence Services agent for fifteen years, is travelling first class on the train from Milan to Rome. Handcuffed to the luggage rack above him is a briefcase containing a wealth of information about the war criminals, terrorists and arms dealers of the Zone – the Mediterranean region, from Barcelona to Beirut, from Algiers to Trieste, which has become his speciality – to sell to the Vatican. Exhausted by alcohol and amphetamines, he revisits the violent history of the Zone and his own participation in that violence, beginning as a mercenary fighting for a far-right Croatian militia in the 1990s. One of the truly original books of the decade, and written as a single, hypnotic, propulsive, physically irresistible sentence, Mathias Enard’s Zone is an Iliad for our time, an extraordinary and panoramic view of violent conflict and its consequences in the twentieth century and beyond
Compass
4.690 kr.As night falls over Vienna, Franz Ritter, an insomniac musicologist, takes to his sickbed with an unspecified illness and spends a restless night drifting between dreams and memories, revisiting the important chapters of his life: his ongoing fascination with the Middle East and his numerous travels to Istanbul, Aleppo, Damascus, and Tehran, as well as the various writers, artists, musicians, academics, orientalists, and explorers who populate this vast dreamscape. At the centre of these memories is his elusive, unrequited love, Sarah, a fiercely intelligent French scholar caught in the intricate tension between Europe and the Middle East. An immersive, nocturnal, musical novel, full of generous erudition and bittersweet humour, Compass is a journey and a declaration of admiration, a quest for the otherness inside us all and a hand reaching out like a bridge between West and East, yesterday and tomorrow.
Winner of the 2015 Prix Goncourt, this is Mathias Enard’s most ambitious novel since Zone.
Mið-Austurlönd – fortíð, nútíð og framtíð
6.990 kr.Mið-Austurlönd – sem afmarkast af Egyptalandi í vestri, Íran í austri, Tyrklandi í norðri og Jemen í suðri – eru einhver mesti suðupottur okkar tíma og hafa raunar verið um áratugaskeið. Nær daglega flytja fjölmiðlar þaðan fréttir af stríðshörmungum, kvennakúgun, misskiptingu og neyð. Um leið hafa víglínurnar færst óþægilega nærri Vesturlöndum – hryðjuverk í nágrannalöndum okkar og straumur flóttafólks meinar okkur að loka augunum fyrir ástandinu.Ýmis vandamál Mið-Austurlanda eiga rætur í tíðum og víðtækum afskiptum Vesturlanda af þessum heimshluta í fortíð og nútíð. Fleira kemur þó til því íbúar svæðisins hafa á síðastliðnum hundrað árum beitt ýmsum aðferðum til að finna hinn gullna meðalveg hefðar og nútíma, sjálfstæðis og jafnréttis, ofbeldis og framfara, trúfrelsis og einstaklingsfrelsis.Þessi þýðingarmikla bók kom fyrst út árið 2018, hlaut þá einstakar viðtökur og hefur ítrekað verið endurprentuð. Hér er um nýja útgáfu að ræða þar sem síðustu vendingum sögunnar eru gerð skil, meðal annars atburðum á Gaza, þróun mála í Sýrlandi og borgarastríði í Jemen.Magnús Þorkell Bernharðsson, prófessor í nútímasögu Mið-Austurlanda við Williams College í Massachusetts og gistikennari við guðfræði- og trúarbragðafræðideild Háskóla Íslands, er helsti sérfræðingur okkar í sögu þessa svæðis. Hér fjallar hann um öll meginstefin í sögu Mið-Austurlanda á yfirvegaðan og aðgengilegan hátt.
Irpa
4.990 kr.Eftir ítrekuð fósturlát þráir Edda tilbreytingu. Hún er orðin þreytt á vinnunni, íbúðinni, matarboðunum með vinkonunum og eilífum óléttutilkynningum þeirra … öllu. Þegar hún sér litla eyju á Austfjörðum auglýsta til sölu sannfærir hún Atla um að þar geti þau byrjað nýtt líf.
Á Varpey vex allt og dafnar, björgin eru full af fugli, brekkurnar þaktar berjalyngi og hafið í kring krökkt af fiski. Edda og Atli koma sér fyrir í litla íbúðarhúsinu og hefjast handa við að breyta hlöðunni í gistiheimili. Þegar Edda tekur að sjá hvítklæddri konu bregða fyrir telur hún fyrst að sér hljóti að hafa missýnst. Smám saman verður hún þó sannfærð um að þau séu ekki ein á eyjunni heldur deili henni með einhverjum sem vilji þeim illt, einhverjum sem hefur bæði líf og dauða í hendi sér.
Hildur Knútsdóttir er einn virtasti ungmennabókahöfundur landsins en hún hefur einnig slegið í gegn með nóvellum sínum fyrir fullorðna, ekki síst í hinum enskumælandi heimi. The New York Times útnefndi Myrkrið milli stjarnanna eina af tíu bestu hrollvekjum ársins 2024 og bókin hefur jafnframt verið tilnefnd til bæði Dublin-bókmenntaverðlaunanna og World Fantasy-verðlaunanna. Kvikmyndarétturinn að bæði þeirri bók og Irpu hefur auk þess verið seldur til erlendra framleiðslufyrirtækja.
Dagar mínir í Morisaki-bókabúðinni
4.790 kr.Þegar Takako missir í einu vetfangi kærastann, vinnuna og trúna á sjálfa sig, býðst henni óvænt skjól hjá sérvitringnum frænda sínum í lítilli fornbókabúð í Tókýó. Jimbocho-hverfið iðar af lífi, ágeng kryddangan er í loftinu og neonljós borgarinnar flökta stöðugt en í Morisaki-bókabúðinni opnast annar heimur – kyrrlátur, hlýr og fullur af sögum. Þar hefst heillandi ferðalag sem á eftir að umbreyta lífi Takako.
Dagar mínir í Morisaki-bókabúðinni er seiðandi saga um vináttu sem sprettur á ólíklegustu stöðum, sérkennilega fastagesti og ómótstæðilega japanska menningu.
Satoshi Yagisawa hlaut verðskuldaða athygli fyrir þessa hrífandi sögu sem hefur komið út víða um heim og var kvikmynduð í Japan.
The Oresteia
3.990 kr.In the Oresteia Aeschylus addressed the bloody chain of murder and revenge within the royal family of Argos. As they move from darkness to light, from rage to self-governance, from primitive ritual to civilized institution, their spirit of struggle and regeneration becomes an everlasting song of celebration. In Agamemnon, a king’s decision to sacrifice his daughter and turn the tide of war inflicts lasting damage on his family, culminating in a terrible act of retribution; The Libation Bearers deals with the aftermath of Clytemnestra’s regicide, as her son Orestes sets out to avenge his father’s death; and in The Eumenides, Orestes is tormented by supernatural powers that can never be appeased. Forming an elegant and subtle discourse on the emergence of Athenian democracy out of a period of chaos and destruction, The Oresteia is a compelling tragedy of the tensions between our obligations to our families and the laws that bind us together as a society.
The only trilogy in Greek drama that survives from antiquity, Aeschylus’ The Oresteia is translated by Robert Fagles with an introduction, notes and glossary written in collaboration with W.B. Stanford in Penguin Classics.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Strange Buildings
4.390 kr.The addictive mystery taking the world by storm, from the author of The Times Bestseller Strange Pictures
Eleven strange buildings. One terrible secret.
A lonely hut in the woods.
A hidden chamber.
A mysterious shrine.
A home in flames.
A nightmarish prison…
Each of the buildings in this book tells a chilling story. Each one is part of a puzzle.
Look closely… and you’ll see that everything is connected.
All leading to a revelation so horrifying you won’t want to believe it.
Millions of readers have become addicted to solving Uketsu’s dark mysteries.
Strange Buildings is the strangest, and darkest, so far.
Wuthering Heights
4.690 kr.Part of Penguin’s beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design.
In a house haunted by memories, the past is everywhere …
As darkness falls, a man caught in a snowstorm is forced to shelter at the strange, grim house Wuthering Heights. It is a place he will never forget. There he will come to learn the story of Cathy: how she was forced to choose between her well-meaning husband and the dangerous man she had loved since she was young. How her choice led to betrayal and terrible revenge – and continues to torment those in the present. How love can transgress authority, convention, even death.
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The Sisters
Original price was: 5.690 kr..2.845 kr.Current price is: 2.845 kr..Meet the Mikkola sisters: Ina, Evelyn, and Anastasia. Ina is tall, serious, a compulsive organizer. Evelyn is dreamy, magnetic, a smooth talker. And Anastasia is moody, chaotic, quick to anger. Following them from afar is Jonas. Like the sisters, he’s Swedish Tunisian, raised in Stockholm but yearning for so much more. His life intersects with theirs across decades and continents, from Tunis to Berlin and New York. And when Evelyn goes missing, it’s Jonas who tracks her down – and helps break the curse that has loomed over the Mikkolas for years.
Wuthering Heights
3.490 kr.May you not rest, as long as I am living. You said I killed you – haunt me, then
Lockwood, the new tenant of Thrushcross Grange on the bleak Yorkshire moors, is forced to seek shelter one night at Wuthering Heights, the home of his landlord. There he discovers the history of the tempestuous events that took place years before: of the intense passion between the foundling Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, and her betrayal of him.
As Heathcliff’s bitterness and vengeance is visited upon the next generation, their innocent heirs must struggle to escape the legacy of the past. The Penguin English Library – 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.
Half His Age
4.990 kr.Waldo is ravenous. Horny. Blunt. Naive. Wise. Impulsive. Lonely. Angry. Hurting. Endlessly wanting. And the thing she wants most of all? Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher.
Mr Korgy, with the wife and the kid and the mortgage and the bills, with the dead dreams and the atrophied looks and the growing paunch. She doesn’t know why she wants him. Is it his passion? His life experience? The fact that he knows books and films that she doesn’t? Or are they actually kindred spirits, sharing the same filter with which they each take in the world around them? Or, perhaps, it’s just enough that he sees her when no one else does.
Startlingly perceptive, mordantly funny, and keenly poignant, Half His Age is an incisive study of a yearning seventeen-year-old who disregards all obstacles in her effort to be seen, to be desired and to be loved.
Glyph
5.690 kr.It all starts when Petra and her little sister Patch hear a horrifying story from the past and find themselves making up a ghost.
Is it imaginary? Is it real?Then it all starts again thirty years later when Petra, now estranged from Patch, finds a phantom horse kicking the furniture to pieces in her bedroom.
What to do? She phones her sister.In a chiaroscuro dance through our increasingly antagonistic era, Glyph asks if we’re attending to the history that’s made us and to the history we’re making. A funny, warm and clear-eyed take on where we are now, Glyph is about what our imaginations are for and how, in a broken, brutal and divided time, we rekindle care, solidarity, resistance and openness.
This anti-war novel, Ali Smith’s most soulful, playful and vital yet, is a work of lightness that goes deep to counter the forces currently flattening the modern world.
A standalone novel, it’s family to Gliff (2024).