Iceland: A Literary Guide for Travellers
4.990 kr.A guide to Iceland’s rich literary heritage – from Norse witches to contemporary crime fiction. Iceland is an island of multiple identities in constant flux, just like its unruly, volcanic ground. Shaped as much by storytelling as it is by tectonic activity, Iceland’s literary heritage is one of Europe’s richest – and most ancient.
Iceland: A Literary Guide for Travellers takes the literary-minded traveller (either in person or in an armchair) on a vivid and illuminating journey. It follows Iceland’s many stories that have been passed down through the generations: told and retold by sheep farmers, psalm-writers, travelling reverends, independence fighters, scholars and hedonists. From the captivating Norse myths, which continue to inspire contemporary authors such as A. S. Byatt, to gripping Scandinavian crime fiction and Game of Thrones, via Jules Verne and J. R. R. Tolkien, W. H. Auden and Seamus Heaney, Iceland’s influence has spread far beyond its frozen shores. Peopled by Norse maidens and witches, elves and outlaws, and taking the reader and traveller from Reykjavik and the Bay of Smokes to the remote Westfjords and desolate highlands, this is an enthralling portrait of the Land of Ice and Fire.
Ariel
3.990 kr.‘The world is blood-hot and personal’: in her moving and illuminating introduction, the poet Emily Berry remembers her own teenage encounters with Ariel and offers a personal way into this definitive collection. She shows us how Plath can crystallize our most volatile emotions, transforming them into images so potent and precise that they resonate with us all. Plath has been an inspiration to successive generations; her influence, enduring and profound.
‘If the poems are despairing, vengeful and destructive, they are at the same time tender, open to things, and also unusually clever, sardonic, hardminded . . . They are works of great artistic purity and, despite all the nihilism, great generosity . . . the book is a major literary event.’ A. Alvarez, Observer, 1965
Brief Notes on the Art and Manner of Arranging One’s Books
2.990 kr.One of the most singular and extravagant imaginations of the twentieth century, the novelist and essayist Georges Perec was a true original who delighted in wordplay, puzzles, taxonomies and seeing the extraordinary in the everyday. In these virtuoso writings about books and language, he discusses different ways of reading, a list of the things he really must do before he dies and the power of words to overcome the chaos of the world.
Meet the Elves
3.690 kr.Those who travel around Iceland with an open mind will have a colourful and enjoyable journey ahead of them. With a bit of luck (and GPS navigation) travelers might even encounter an elf – almost no Icelandic farm is without stories of elfdwellings located somewhere on the property.
This book contains a collection of stories and sources that shed light on the relationship between humans and elves in Iceland, from ancient to relatively recent times.
Parade
3.490 kr.Midway through his life, an artist begins to paint upside down.
In Paris, a woman is attacked by a stranger in the street.
A mother dies. A man falls to his death. Couples seek escape in distant lands.
The new novel from one of the most distinctive writers of the age, Parade sets loose a carousel of lives. It surges past the limits of identity, character, and plot, to tell a true story – about art, family, morality, gender, and how we compose ourselves.
The Latehomecomer: Essential Stories
3.990 kr.In stories of astonishing compression and insight, Mavis Gallant wrote of characters severed from their home, exiles disconnected from each other and from themselves. Tracing the fault lines of the post-war world in the intimate lives of her characters, she could conjure an entire worldview in a telling gesture or passing comment. This new volume, selected and introduced by Tessa Hadley, collects the finest work from across Gallant’s career.
mavisHere are stories of young men returning from wartime internment to changed families, snobbish social climbers haunted by the words of their downtrodden colleagues, and children peering through glass at the secrets and infidelities of their parents. Complex, moving and painfully true, they secure her position among the world’s great short story writers.
The City and The House
3.690 kr.Giuseppe is leaving his flat in the city of Rome, where he has lived for more than twenty years, to go and live with his brother in America. He must say goodbye to his cousin Roberta; to his former lover Lucrezia and her husband Piero; and to all his friends who used to gather for weekends at Le Margherite, Lucrezia’s splendid house in the country. But even before Giuseppe’s departure, friendships have begun to fracture as frustrated yearnings and past infidelities strain the bonds.
The sale of Le Margherite marks the end of an era and its old inhabitants and visitors are left to pursue happiness on their own. Their stories unfold through an exchange of letters that reveal with great poignancy the thoughts, passions and desires of the protagonists.
Valentino
3.490 kr.So there is no one to whom I can speak the words that most need to be spoken, about the events which most closely concern our family and what has happened to us; I have to keep them bottled up inside me and there are times when they threaten to choke me.
Valentino is the spoiled child of doting parents who have no doubt he will be ‘a man of consequence’. His sisters, however, see him for what he truly is: lazy, apathetic, self-absorbed and far more interested in partying than applying himself to his studies at medical school.
His parents’ dreams begin to unravel when, out of the blue, Valentino becomes engaged to the wealthy yet strikingly ugly Maddalena. The family is scandalised by his choice of bride – and suspicious of his motives.
In Valentino, class, social expectations, wealth and marriage come under Natalia Ginzburg’s forensic scrutiny, her unflinching moral realism and her keen psychological insight resulting in a work of quiet devastation.
In the Garden: Essay on Nature and Growing
3.490 kr.Outdoor space is something everyone should have access to. But you don’t need a garden to become a gardener.
Growing plants and vegetables forces us to pause, pay attention and look more closely. From the vantage point of even the smallest windowsill garden we can observe the passing of time through the shifting of the seasons, as well as the environmental changes the planet is undergoing.
In this collection of essays, fourteen writers go beyond simply considering a plot of soil to explore how gardening is a shared language, an opportunity for connection, something that is always evolving. Penelope Lively trains her gardening eye on her gardens past and present; Paul Mendez reflects on the image of the paradisal garden; Jon Day asks whether an urban community garden can be a radical place; and Victoria Adukwei Bulley considers the power of herbs and why there is no such thing as a weed.
A collection about gardening unlike any other, In the Garden brings together fourteen brilliant writers to interrogate what is most important and pressing about growing today.
Creation Lake
3.490 kr.This summer, meet Sadie Smith: seductive, cunning and going undercover – the Booker-shortlisted, wickedly entertaining New York Times bestseller.
The End Of Eddy
3.490 kr.Édouard Louis grew up in a village in northern France where many live below the poverty line. His bestselling debut novel about life there, The End of Eddy, has sparked debate on social inequality, sexuality and violence. It is an extraordinary portrait of escaping from an unbearable childhood, inspired by the author’s own.
Written with an openness and compassionate intelligence, ultimately, it asks, how can we create our own freedom?
Touch
3.490 kr.When the pandemic hits, Kristofer is forced to shutter his successful restaurant in Reykjavik, sending him into a spiral of uncertainty, even as his memory seems to be failing. But an uncanny bolt from the blue—a message from Miko Nakamura, a woman whom he’d known in the sixties when they were students in London—both inspires and rattles him, as he is drawn inexorably back into a love story that has marked him for life. Even as the pandemic upends his world, Kristofer finds himself pulled toward an answer to the mystery of Miko’s sudden departure decades before, compelling him to travel to London and Japan as the virus threatens to shut everything down.
A heart-wrenching love story and an absorbing mystery, Touch delves into the secrets of the past to explore the hidden lives that we all possess, the pain and beauty of our past loves and friendships that continue to leave their mark on us. Searching and lyrically rendered by acclaimed author Olaf Olafsson, Touch is a stunning tribute to the weight of history and the complexities of the human heart.
Eat Frozen Shit!
3.890 kr.Look no further! The book you’re currently holding is the only Icelandic phrasebook you’ll ever actually need. Eat Frozen Shit is not just a handy guide to “colorful language”, it is so much more!
Included in this book:
* A practical no-bullshit guide to everyday words and phrases!
* Filthy curse words!
* Funny sex phrases!
* Essential party vernacular!
* Cool slang!
* Uncool grandparents’ slang!
* Hilarious illustrations!
* A bunch of useless information!
* And more!Impress your friends and family by learning to curse in one of the oldest languages in the world. It’s a gift that keeps on giving.
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The Book of the New Sun – Volume 2: Sword and Citadel
Original price was: 3.690 kr..1.845 kr.Current price is: 1.845 kr..An extraordinary epic, set a million years in the future, in the time of a dying sun, when our present culture is no longer even a memory. The torturer’s apprentice, Severian, exiled from his guild after falling in love with one of his prisoners, is now the Lictor of Thrax, a city far distant from his home. But it is not long before Severian must flee this city, too, and journey again into the world.
Embattled by friends and enemies alike, pursued by monstrous creatures, the one-time torturer’s apprentice must overcome hitherto unimagined perils, as he moves closer to fulfilling his ultimate destiny. This edition contains the concluding two volumes of this four-volume novel, The Sword of the Lictor and The Citadel of the Autarch.
Jasmine Tea
2.490 kr.But how sweet a fruit the ‘suppose’ must be, that people will sup and sup on it! A juicy fruit, like a lychee but without the pit, sparkling and light green: a fruit that hides the tart within the sweet.
In this haunting collection of stories, a young man’s obsession leads to tragedy and a woman’s bitterness poisons a family’s legacy. In delicate, piercing prose, Chang captures a world of quiet cruelties and calamitous desires in pre-revolutionary China.
Coal
2.490 kr.I am Black because I come from the earth’s insidenow take my word for jewel in the open light.
Impassioned and profound, the poems in Coal showcase Audre Lorde in all her dazzling elegance and multiplicity. Mournful, celebratory, politically conscious, this early collection is a testament to Lorde’s beloved and hugely influential lyric voice, which faithfully captures the complex interiority of the self. These timeless poems resonate down the years.
Baron Bagge
2.490 kr.Baron Bagge, a cavalry officer during the First World War, receives orders from his unhinged commander to ride into Russian machine guns. But instead of meeting certain death, he and his brigade pass, unscathed, into a peaceful, otherworldly country where festivities are in full swing… Alexander Lernet-Holenia, championed in his lifetime by Roberto Calasso, Stefan Zweig and Rainer Maria Rilke, triumphs in this dreamlike novel of mystery and yearning.
Tales from the Heart : True Stories from my Childhood
2.490 kr.‘I walked in a daze of illusions toward my future.’
Deeply felt and told with an intrepid spirit, Tales from the Heart are the intimate, formative stories from the childhood of the legendary Caribbean writer, Maryse Condé. These affecting vignettes follow Condé’s early encounters with love, grief, friendship, as she navigates the pernicious legacy of slavery and colonialism in her home of Guadeloupe and as a student in Paris.
I am a Bird from Paradise
2.490 kr.May I remember always when
Your glance in secrecy met mine,
And in my face your love was like
A visibly reflected sign.
From the greatest and most popular of all Persian poets, a selection celebrating love, beauty and the profound connection between the human and the divine.
A Moment of War
2.490 kr.In one of the great English war memoirs, we learn what it is to cross the Pyrenees through freezing snow to fight fascism in Spain; to narrowly escape execution by your own side; to kill a man with a borrowed rifle and feel nothing but shame. Moving and shrapnel-sharp, A Moment of War recalls the defeat of idealism; ‘that flush of youth which never doubts self-survival, that idiot belief in luck’.