Sjálfstætt fólk
9.990 kr.Saga hins þrjóska einyrkja, Bjarts í Sumarhúsum, og baráttu hans við allt og alla er bæði þjóðleg og alþjóðleg – sígild frásögn af hlutskipti fátæks fólks í hörðum heimi. Magnaðar persónulýsingar og djúpur mannskilningur gera þessa miklu sögu að óviðjafnanlegu bókmenntaverki þar sem leikið er á strengi andstæðra tilfinninga af stakri snilld.
Sjálfstætt fólk er þekktasta skáldsaga Halldórs Laxness og sú sem víðast hefur ratað. Hún kom fyrst út í tveimur bindum 1934–1935 og hefur verið gefin út margsinnis síðan á ótal tungumálum.
Samfélag heilagra
4.590 kr.Samfélag heilagra er rannsókn á mannlegu samfélagi þar sem umbreytandi tímamót í lífi og dauða fólks eru krufin. Sex höfundar flétta saman sjálfssögum um vígslur, veislur og nýtt upphaf þar sem tekist er á við spurningar um hlutverk trúarbragða í nútímanum og kannað hvernig manneskjan mótar sjálfsmynd sína í tengslum við það samfélag sem hún tilheyrir.
„Og þetta er það sem er virkilega í húfi, Síta – þetta samfélag heilagra. Ekki heilagra manna og kvenna, ekki heilags anda eða orða, heldur tengsla – tengsla sem binda okkur hvert við annað…“
Bókin er samstarfsverkefni meistaranema í ritlist og hagnýtri ritstjórn og útgáfu við Háskóla Íslands
Í fylgd norðanpósts í 150 ár
5.190 kr.Var póstur kominn?
Nú ætlar honum að seinka!Magnús Pétursson fór á árunum 2021 til 2023 gangandi og á hestum milli Reykjavíkur og Skagafjarðar og fylgdi á ferðalaginu slóð norðanpósta fyrri tíðar sem fóru vegleysur og yfir heiðar og ár í öllum veðrum. Hann fer yfir póstsöguna, rifjar upp frásagnir um hetjudáðir landpósta og hrakninga og segir frá þætti þeirra í því að færa fólki nauðsynlega upplýsingu og fróðleik til að efla vitund þess um eigin getu í framfarasókn þjóðarinnar. Þetta er alvöruþrungin frásögn en oft í gamansömum tón.
Þú sem ert á jörðu (kilja)
4.790 kr.„Smám saman brá dagrenning birtu á landslagið. Að baki þeim rann jökullinn til sjávar og snæviþaktar þúfur vörpuðu löngum skuggum undir fannhvítum fjallshlíðum. Manneskjan gekk um þennan svarthvíta heim í skærlitum dúnjakka og með rauða púlku í eftirdragi. Á eftir henni tölti hundurinn í nokkuð hófsamari litbrigðum“
Í þessari mögnuðu skáldsögu fylgjum við lífshlaupi konu sem elst upp á heimskautasvæði á tímum mikilla umhverfis- og samfélagsbreytinga. Líf hennar tekur stakkaskiptum og hún flækist inn í atburðarás sem flytur hana yfir heimshöfin. Á einmanalegri ferð sinni um ólík vistkerfi sér hún gjörbreyttan heim og rifjar upp örlög horfinna ástvina, sem og heimsins sem hún kveður.
Þú sem ert á jörðu er hugleiðing um hamfarahlýnun, útdauða og mannmiðaða sýn á veröldina. Hér er maðurinn ekki guð heldur tilheyrir náttúrunni og er jafn háður kenjum hennar og aðrar lífverur á jörðinni.
Krummi og Kría
3.690 kr.Frá því að Krummi litli klekst úr egginu á frostköldum vordegi í Rauðhólum er hann sannfærður um að ævintýrin bíði hans. Hann lendir í ýmsum hrakföllum en á alltaf öruggt skjól í faðmi foreldra sinna.
Dag einn bjargar hann fuglsunga úr lífsháska og kynnist Kríu sem verður besta vinkona hans. Þau njóta sumarsins saman og læra ýmislegt um siði hvort annars.
Þegar haustar þarf Krummi að kveðja vinkonu sína. Kría flýgur suður á bóginn með fjölskyldu sinni – alla leið til Suðurskautsins – og Krummi flýgur úr hreiðrinu. Helst af öllu vildi hann vera farfugl eins og hún.
Krummi og Kría er fyrsta sagan um ævintýri hrafnsungans forvitna.
A Shining
2.990 kr.A man starts driving without knowing where he is going. He alternates between turning right and left, and finally he gets stuck at the end of a forest road. Soon it gets dark and starts to snow, but instead of going back to find help, he ventures, foolishly, into the dark forest. Inevitably, the man gets lost, and as he grows cold and tired, he encounters a glowing being amid the obscurity. Strange, haunting and dreamlike, A Shining is the latest work of fiction by Jon Fosse.
Aliss at the Fire
2.990 kr.In her old house by the fjord, Signe lies on a bench and sees a vision of herself as she was more than twenty years earlier: standing by the window waiting for her husband Asle, on that terrible late November day when he took his rowboat out onto the water and never returned. Her memories widen out to include their whole life together, and beyond: the bonds of family and the battles with implacable nature stretching back over five generations, to Asle’s great-great-grandmother Aliss. In Jon Fosse’s vivid, hallucinatory prose, all these moments in time inhabit the same space, and the ghosts of the past collide with those who still live on. Aliss at the Fire, is a visionary masterpiece, a haunting exploration of love and loss that ranks among the greatest meditations on marriage and human fate.
Praiseworthy
5.490 kr.In a small Aboriginal town dominated by a haze cloud, which heralds both ecological disaster and a gathering of the ancestors, Cause Man Steel is chasing a mad vision: a national donkey transport scheme that will guarantee his people’s independence forever. He finds, however, as he bundles feral donkeys into his Ford Falcon and dumps them en masse in the cemetery, that not all of Praiseworthy agrees. Outrage ferments at his desecration of traditional land, while Cause’s wife Dance seeks refuge with butterflies and dreams of moving their family to China. Bad feelings reach fever pitch when citizens catch wind of the suicide of Aboriginal Sovereignty, Cause’s eldest son. All are distraught – all, that is, except eight-year-old Tommyhawk Steel, who, with his brother gone, gleefully pursues his dream of becoming white and powerful. Told with the richness of language and scale of imagery for which Alexis Wright has become renowned, Praiseworthy is a marvel of explosive sentences, a shock to allegory, an outraged cry against oppression, and a biting satire for the end of days.
Lincoln in the Bardo
3.690 kr.The American Civil War rages while President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son lies gravely ill. In a matter of days, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returns to the crypt several times alone to hold his boy’s body.
From this seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of realism, entering a thrilling, supernatural domain both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself trapped in a transitional realm – called, in Tibetan tradition, the bardo – and as ghosts mingle, squabble, gripe and commiserate, and stony tendrils creep towards the boy, a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie’s soul.
Unfolding over a single night, Lincoln in the Bardo is written with George Saunders’ inimitable humour, pathos and grace. Here he invents an exhilarating new form, and is confirmed as one of the most important and influential writers of his generation. Deploying a theatrical, kaleidoscopic panoply of voices – living and dead, historical and fictional – Lincoln in the Bardo poses a timeless question: how do we live and love when we know that everything we hold dear must end?
Devotion (Why I Write)
3.490 kr.A work of creative brilliance may seem like magic—its source a mystery, its impact unexpectedly stirring. How does an artist accomplish such an achievement, connecting deeply with an audience never met? In this groundbreaking book, one of our culture’s beloved artists offers a detailed account of her own creative process, inspirations, and unexpected connections.
Patti Smith, a National Book Award–winning author, first presents an original and beautifully crafted tale of obsession—a young skater who lives for her art, a possessive collector who ruthlessly seeks his prize, a relationship forged of need both craven and exalted. She then takes us on a second journey, exploring the sources of her story. We travel through the South of France to Camus’s house, and visit the garden of the great publisher Gallimard, where the ghosts of Mishima, Nabokov, and Genet mingle. Smith tracks down Simone Weil’s grave in a lonely cemetery, hours from London, and winds through the nameless Paris streets of Patrick Modiano’s novels. Whether writing in a café or on a train, Smith generously opens her notebooks and lets us glimpse the alchemy of her art and craft in this arresting and original book.
The Why I Write series is based on the Windham–Campbell Lectures, delivered annually to commemorate the awarding of the Donald Windham–Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prizes at Yale University.
Benefactors
3.690 kr.Misty thought of them as friends, the three local boys from wealthy homes. Until upstairs at a house party an act of violence takes place, with lines drawn and repercussions for them all. On her side, Misty has her devoted father Boogie, and the formidable matriarch Nan D. On theirs, the boys have their mothers – Frankie, Bronagh and Miriam will use the considerable power at their disposal to protect their own children.
And all the while, anonymous voices across the city confide in us, sometimes offering us another perspective on what has happened, but more often telling their own stories – inviting us briefly into lives shaped by money and class, by family and love.
Son of Nobody
4.990 kr.The past is never done with: always the song continues…
Harlow Donne has devoted his life to the Classical world. When a chance comes up to study an obscure collection of papyrus fragments at Oxford University, he seizes it. Though it means leaving his daughter and fracturing marriage back home in Canada, this is the kind of career break he desperately needs.
In the depths of the Bodleian Library, Harlow discovers a lost account of the Trojan War, a glimpse into the founding of Western civilization itself. He names the epic poem The Psoad, after its protagonist, a Greek commoner identified as Psoas of Midea but known to all as ‘son of nobody’.
As sole translator and interpreter of the Psoad, Harlow dedicates the poem and its modern footnotes to his daughter, Helen. Under his gaze, the text unlocks echoes of Ancient Greece into the present day, and a personal message to his beloved child appears. Despite the three-thousand-year gap between the two, a thread hasn’t frayed: the universal song of homesickness and regret, of ambition and grief.
In this masterpiece of myth and history, Son of Nobody explores how stories become facts, the price we pay to share them and how we live – then, now and always.
The Best of Everything
3.690 kr.Paulette’s the kind of woman who likes the future all mapped out: the wedding to Denton, the Caribbean honeymoon, the gingham quilt on the baby’s crib. Until one morning Garfield, Denton’s friend, arrives at her door with the news that Denton won’t be coming around any more, that there won’t be time for her to say goodbye.
Somehow Garfield finds his way into her bed, and sooner than anyone can believe there is a baby, and suddenly giving Bird, her son, the best of everything is what gives Paulette’s life meaning.
So why is it another little boy, Nellie, who keeps Paulette awake at night? Nellie who is being raised a few streets away, with no sign of a mum. Surely Paulette is the last person who should be getting tangled up in any of that?
Krummi og Kría – Airborne Adventure in Iceland
3.690 kr.From the moment little raven Krummi hatches from his egg on a frosty spring day in Rauðhólar, lava mounds on the outskirts of Reykjavík, he is convinced that adventure awaits. He gets into all kinds of trouble, but the loving embrace of mom and dad is never far away.
One day, he saves a chick from mortal danger and meets Kría, an Arctic tern, who becomes his best friend. Together, they enjoy the summer around lake Rauðavatn and in Heiðmörk Forest, and learn various things about each other’s customs.
When autumn arrives, Krummi has to bid his dear friend goodbye. Kría flies south with her family—all the way to Antarctica—and Krummi flies the nest. He would have loved to be a migratory bird like her.
Krummi and Kría is the first story about the adventures of the curious raven chick.
Archipelago of the Sun
3.990 kr.In this concluding volume, intrepid Hiruko and her band of friends embark on a sea voyage in search of Hiruko’s lost island homeland – the Land of Sushi. The boat carrying the companions strikes east from Copenhagen across the Baltic Sea, but as it docks in coastal ports along the route, an array of mysterious characters boards the vessel.
Deeply inventive, poignant and sublime, Archipelago of the Sun is yet another masterful novel by the grande dame of Japanese literature.