Dreggjar dagsins
3.990 kr.Stevens, bryti á ensku yfirstéttarsetri, hefur alla tíð sett starfið og hollustu við herra sína ofar öllu. Hinar fastmótuðu samskiptareglur þjóns og herra hafa verið kjölfesta lífs hans. Nú hafa aðstæður breyst. Bandarískur auðmaður með sérkennilegt skopskyn hefur keypt setrið. Nýja herranum fylgja nýir siðir sem kippa fótunum undan Stevens. Hið fastmótaða samband þjóns og herra fer úr skorðum og verður uppspretta áleitinna spurninga um ábyrgð mannanna á eigin lífi.
Dreggjar dagsins er framúrskarandi vel skrifuð og hrífandi skáldsaga og hefur hvarvetna vakið gífurlega athygli. Á yfirborðinu ríkir svotil fullkomin ró en undir niðri býr ógnvekjandi kraftur sem á upptök sín í lífstíðar langri sjálfsblekkingu Stevens.
Bókin hlaut eftirsóttustu bókmenntaverðlaun — Breta Booker verðlaunin — 1989 og hefur setið á metsölulistum víða um heim.
Fear of Flying
990 kr.Before Hannah from Girls, Anastasia Steele from Fifty Shades of Grey, and Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City, there was Isadora Wing, the uninhibited, outspoken protagonist of Erica Jong’s revolutionary novel.
First published in 1973, Fear of Flying caused a national sensation, fueling fantasies, igniting debates about women and sex, and introducing a notorious phrase to the English language. Forty years later, Isadora’s honest and exuberant retelling of her sexual adventures—and misadventures—continues to provoke and inspire, and stands as an iconic tale of self-discovery, liberation, and womanhood. With provocative cover art by illustrator Noma Bar, this special fortieth-anniversary edition will introduce a new generation of women to Jong’s pioneering novel.
Life on Air
990 kr.Sir David Attenborough is Britain’s best-known natural history film-maker. His career as a naturalist and broadcaster has spanned nearly five decades and there are very few places on the globe that he has not visited. In this volume of memoirs David tells stories of the people and animals he has met and the places that he has visited. Sir David’s first job – after Cambridge University and two years in the Royal Navy was at the London publishing house Hodder & Stoughton. Then in 1952 he joined the BBC as a trainee producer and it was while working on the Zoo Quest series (1954-64) that he had his first opportunity to undertake expeditions to remote parts of the globe to capture intimate footage of rare wildlife in its natural habitat. He was Controller of BBC2 (1965-68), during which time he introduced colour television to Britain, then Director of Programmes for the BBC (1969-1972). However in 1973 he abandoned administration altogether to return to documentary-making and writing. Over the last 25 years he has established himself as the World’s leading Natural History programme maker with several landmark BBC series, including Life on Earth (1979), The Living Planet (1984), The Trials of Life (1990), The Private Life of Plants (1995) and Life of Birds (1998). Sir David is a Trustee of the British Museum and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; an Honorary Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge; a Fellow of the Royal Society and was knighted in 1985.
The House of Sleep
990 kr.Sarah is narcoleptic. Her inability to distinguish between dreams and waking reality gives rise to many misunderstandings. For Terry, a disillusioned film critic, sleep is merely a memory. For Dr Dunstan, sleep is nothing less than a global disease.Constructed to reflect the different stages of sleep, The House of Sleep is a brilliant and original comedy about the powers we acquire – and those we relinqish – when we fall asleep, and when we fall in love.
Pigeon English
990 kr.Newly arrived from Ghana with his mother and older sister, eleven-year-old Harrison Opoku lives on the ninth floor of a block of flats on a London housing estate. The second best runner in the whole of Year 7, Harri races through his new life in his personalised trainers – the Adidas stripes drawn on with marker pen – blissfully unaware of the very real threat all around him.
With equal fascination for the local gang – the Dell Farm Crew – and the pigeon who visits his balcony, Harri absorbs the many strange elements of his new life in England: watching, listening, and learning the tricks of inner-city survival.
But when a boy is knifed to death on the high street and a police appeal for witnesses draws only silence, Harri decides to start a murder investigation of his own. In doing so, he unwittingly endangers the fragile web his mother has spun around her family to try and keep them safe.
A story of innocence and experience, hope and harsh reality, Pigeon English is a spellbinding portrayal of a boy balancing on the edge of manhood and of the forces around him that try to shape the way he falls.
Af steypu
2.990 kr.Afbók #5
Dagblaðið frá því í gær er í öllum aðalatriðum það sama og dagblaðið í dag. Þar að auki er stór hluti alls þessa texta tilþrifalaus, smekklaus, lágkúrulegur og beinlínis heimskulegur. Nefljóð? Öngljóð? Gómljóð? Vefðu bókinni upp, stingdu henni í flösku og fleygðu henni í hafið. Það getur verið svo mikill léttir að komast í óhlutbundið efni eftir áralanga neyslu alþjóðlegra fríljóða. Djöfulsins skens og stælar alltaf hreint. Starðu á tungumálið þar til það brotnar. Til að sjá það þarf engin gleraugu. Reglubundin hrynjandi fannst honum svæfandi. Lítið annað en leikfimisæfingar. Nema fallega innbundið flúr í bókasafn hinna vel stæðu. Þetta er reiturinn sem við fengum þér. Bíttu gras og haltu sáttmálann. Hrein og klár minni- máttarkennd sem á rætur sínar í grárri forneskju. Líkt og sífrið í (misgömlum) ellibjúgum er nýjunin eilíf og ódrepandi. Lífið er stutt og klisjurnar eru margar.
-Brot úr formála ritstjóra
The White Ship
990 kr.The sinking of the White Ship in 1120 is one of the greatest disasters England has ever suffered. In one catastrophic night, the king’s heir and the flower of Anglo-Norman society were drowned and the future of the crown was thrown violently off course.
In a riveting narrative, Charles Spencer follows the story from the Norman Conquest through to the decades that would become known as the Anarchy: a civil war of untold violence that saw families turn in on each other with English and Norman barons, rebellious Welsh princes and the Scottish king all playing a part in a desperate game of thrones. All because of the loss of one vessel – the White Ship – the medieval Titanic.
The History of Love
990 kr.Fourteen-year-old Alma Singer is trying to find a cure for her mother’s loneliness. Believing she might discover it in an old book her mother is lovingly translating, she sets out in search of its author.
Across New York an old man called Leo Gursky is trying to survive a little bit longer. He spends his days dreaming of the love lost that sixty years ago in Poland inspired him to write a book. And although he doesn’t know it yet, that book also survived: crossing oceans and generations, and changing lives. . .
Too Much Happiness
990 kr.These are dazzling, provocative stories about manipulative men and the women who outwit them, about destructive marriages and curdled friendships, about mothers and sons, about moments which change or haunt a life. Alice Munro’s stories surprise and delight, turning lives into art, expanding our world and shedding light on the strange workings of the human heart.
Henry V
1.290 kr.Henry V: The Astonishing Triumph of England’s Greatest Warrior King Hardcover
Henry V reigned over England for only nine years and four months and died at the age of just thirty-five, but he looms over the landscape of the late Middle Ages and beyond. The victor of Agincourt, he is remembered as the acme of kingship, a model to be closely imitated by his successors. William Shakespeare deployed Henry V as a study in youthful folly redirected to sober statesmanship. For one modern medievalist, Henry was, quite simply, “the greatest man who ever ruled England.”
For Dan Jones, Henry V is one of the most intriguing characters in all medieval history, but one of the hardest to pin down. He was a hardened, sometimes brutal warrior, yet he was also creative and artistic, with a bookish temperament. He was a leader who made many mistakes, who misjudged his friends and family, but he always seemed to triumph when it mattered. As king, he saved a shattered country from economic ruin, put down rebellions, and secured England’s borders; in foreign diplomacy, he made England a serious player once more. Yet through his conquests in northern France, he sowed the seeds for three generations of calamity at home, in the form of the Wars of the Roses.
Henry V is a historical titan whose legacy has become a complicated one. To understand the man behind the legend, Jones first examines Henry’s years of apprenticeship, when he saw the downfall of one king and the turbulent reign of another. Upon his accession in 1413, he had already been politically and militarily active for years, and his extraordinary achievements as king would come shortly after, earning him an unparalleled historical reputation. Writing with his characteristic wit and style, Jones delivers a thrilling and unmissable life of England’s greatest king.
Moldin heit (notuð)
2.990 kr.Ástin í lífi Karenar deyr. Hún mætir í jarðarförina óboðin, situr aftast og segir engum hver hún er. En eftir að hafa borið eina fortíð til grafar skýtur önnur upp kollinum. Hún sér Ými, kollega sinn, út um gluggann í erfidrykkjunni þar sem hann virðist ætla að fara sér að voða.
Í kjölfarið er þeim hrundið af stað í ferð þar sem þau þurfa að horfast í augu við hvaða hlutverk þau leiki hvort í annars lífi og í flóknu dansverki, og hvaða nýju hlutverk standa þeim til boða. Moldin heit allar um ástina, listina, sorg og missi. Hér er á ferðinni feikisterk skáldsaga frá nýrri og spennandi rödd í íslenskum bókmenntaheimi.
Sextíu kíló af kjaftshöggum
990 kr.Annað bindið í Sextíu kílóa sögu Hallgríms Helgasonar um síldarævintýrið á Segulfirði og fylgifiska þess.
Sagan hefst í Segulfirði, árið 1906. Áfram vindur furðuríku ferðalagi Íslendinga út úr myrkum torfgöngum inn í raflýstar stofur. Lesandinn er hrifinn með í dans á síldarpalli, í ólgandi takti sem dunar í huganum að lestri loknum því enn á ný hefur Hallgrími tekist að kveða dýran óð úr örlögum fátæks fólks við ysta haf.
Auður
1.290 kr.Auður, dóttir víkingahöfðingjans Ketils flatnefs, vex upp á Suðureyjum, ættstór og skapheit. Allt hennar fólk er heiðið en þegar hún kynnist Gilla munki laðast hún bæði að honum og boðskap hans um Hvítakrist. Fullveðja er Auður gefin Ólafi hvíta, konungi yfir Dyflinni á Írlandi. Samband þeirra er heitt en stormasamt og vináttan við Gilla verður henni dýrkeypt …
Auður djúpúðga er í hópi þekktustu landnema Íslands. Hér er þroskasaga hennar sögð um leið og dregin er upp mynd af þeim róstusömu tímum þegar norrænir menn lögðu undir sig eyjarnar við Skotland og herjuðu í Vesturhafi. Vilborg Davíðsdóttir er þaulkunnug mannlífi sögutímans og Auður rís úr djúpi aldanna, sterk og heillandi kona.
Úti bíður skáldleg veröld
1.490 kr.Úti bíður skáldleg veröld er nýjasta ljóðabók Jakub Stachowiak. Jakub hefur komið sem ferskur andvari inn í íslenskan ljóðaheim en á síðasta ári kom út hans fyrsta bók, Næturborgir, sem hlaut mikið lof. Jakub flutti til Íslands frá Póllandi fyrir aðeins sex árum, en í dag hugsar hann, skrifar og yrkir á íslensku. Í ljóðum sínum blæs Jakub lífi í tungumálið og dregur fram ljóðrænar myndir með frumleika, glaðværð og áræðni.
The Portable Beat Reader
990 kr.Beginning in the late 1940’s, American literature discovered a four-letter word, and the word was “beat.” Beat as in poverty and beatitude, ecstasy and exile. Beat was Jack Kerouac touring the American road in prose as fast and reckless as a V-8 Chevy. It was the junk-sick surrealism of William Burroughs; the wild, Whitmanesque poetry of Allen Ginsberg; and the lumberjack Zen of Gary Snyder.
The Portable Beat Reader collects the most significant writing of these and fellow members (and spiritual descendants) of the Beat Generation, including Neal Cassady, Gregory Corso, Diane di Prima, Bob Dylan, Leroi Jones, and Michael McClure. In poetry, fiction, essays, song lyrics, letters, and memoirs, it captures the triumphant rudeness, energy, and exhilaration of a movement that swept through American letters with hurricane force.
Beckomberga-geðsjúkrahúsið
990 kr.Þegar Jimmie Darling er vistaður á Beckomberga-geðsjúkrahúsinu fer dóttir hans, Jackie, að eyða sífellt meiri tíma þar, og eftir að móðirin fer úr landi verður sjúkrahúsið hennar heimur. Þar er Edvard Winterson læknir sem tekur með sér Jim og sérvalda sjúklinga á hverri nóttu í partí niður í bæ, hjúkrunarkonan Inger Vogel sem fetar hárfína línu reglu og eyðileggingar í samskiptum og hin raunamædda en aðlaðandi Sabina. Þar er líka Paul og ástin, hin raunverulega geðveiki.
Beckomberga-geðsjúkrahúsið er heillandi frásögn um baráttuna og drauminn við að halda fólki í birtunni, um vanmátt foreldra og barna, um ótta og dauðageig. Í þessari seiðmögnuðu og hrífandi skáldsögu verður sjúkrahúsið táknmynd samfélags sem í senn reynir að halda utan um þá veiku en líka halda þeim fjarri.
Sara Stridsberg er einn virtasti rithöfundur Svíþjóðar, handhafi Bókmenntaverðlauna Norðurlandaráðs árið 2007 og hefur hlotið fjölda annarra viðurkenninga, ekki síst fyrir Beckomberga-geðsjúkrahúsið.
Tinna Ásgeirsdóttir þýddi.