Mynd örlaganna
1.290 kr.Isabel Allende hefur nú skrifað sjálfstætt framhald hinnar geysivinsælu sögu, Dóttir gæfunnar, og myndar þá þessi bók miðsöguna í þríleik sem endar á Húsi andanna, fyrstu bók Allende. Sú sem hér segir frá er Aurora del Valle, barnabarn Elísu Sommers og hins kínverska læknis Taos Chi’en. Sagan gerist bæði í San Francisco og Chile og við sögu koma meðal annarra undurfögur en ógæfusöm móðir Auroru, gerspilltur og lífsleiður faðir hennar, stórbrotin föðuramma og í fyllingu tímans eiginmaður sem býr yfir leyndarmáli og er þá fátt eitt talið af litríkum persónum sem fylla hér blaðsíðurnar eins og í fyrri bókum höfundar. Hér er sögð margþætt saga af stórbrotnum örlögum, ósviknum ástríðum og spaugilegum atvikum með samblandi af heitri samúð og stríðnisbliki í auga. Kolbrún Sveinsdóttir þýddi.
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Great Big Beautiful Life
Original price was: 4.690 kr..2.345 kr.Current price is: 2.345 kr..When Margaret Ives, the famously reclusive heiress, invites eternal optimist Alice Scott to the balmy Little Crescent Island, Alice knows this is it: her big break. And even more rare: a chance to impress her family with a Serious Publication.
The catch? Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud, Hayden Anderson, is sure of the same thing.
The proposal? A one-month trial period to unearth the truth behind one of the most scandalous families of the 20th Century, after which she’ll choose who’ll tell her story.
The problem? Margaret is only giving each of them tantalising pieces. Pieces they can’t put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they’re in the same room.
And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story – just like the tale Margaret’s spinning – could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad … depending on who’s telling it.
Death of a Diplomat
4.690 kr.A remote Icelandic island. A diplomatic dinner party. And a murderer in the midst.
When the deputy Canadian ambassador dies suddenly at a dinner party, attended by the great and the good from business, culture and politics, suspicion falls on everybody present, but particularly on the victim’s boss, the Canadian ambassador. Jane, the ambassador’s wife, knows that she has to solve the murder if she is to save her husband, and her marriage. But Jane knows better than anyone that, when it comes to protecting scandalous secrets, there are no lengths to which people won’t go. So soon the question becomes: can she track down the killer before they strike again?
Life: A User’s Manual
3.690 kr.In this ingenious book Perec creates an entire microcosm in a Paris apartment block. Serge Valene wants to make an elaborate painting of the building he has made his home for the last sixty years. As he plans his picture, he contemplates the lives of all the people he has ever known there. Chapter by chapter, the narrative moves around the building revealing a marvellously diverse cast of characters in a series of every more unlikely tales, which range from an avenging murderer to an eccentric English millionaire who has devised the ultimate pastime…
The Iliad
5.490 kr.A stunning Penguin clothbound edition of Homer’s great epic, in E. V. Rieu’s classic translation.
The Iliad is the first and the greatest literary achievement of Greek civilization – an epic poem without rival in the literature of the world, and the cornerstone of Western culture. The story centres on the critical events in the last year of the Trojan War, which lead to Achilleus’ killing of Hektor and determine the fate of Troy. But Homer’s theme is not simply war or heroism. With compassion and humanity, he presents a universal and tragic view of the world, of human life lived under the shadow of suffering and death, set against a vast and largely unpitying divine background..
Seven Greek cities claim the honour of being the birthplace of Homer (c. 8th-7th century BC), the poet to whom the composition of The Iliad and The Odyssey was attributed. The Iliad is the oldest surviving work of Western literature, but the identity – or even the existence – of Homer himself is a complete mystery, with no reliable biographical information having survived.
E. V. Rieu initiated Penguin Classics with Allen Lane and his famous translation of The Odyssey was the first book published in the series in 1947. The Iliad followed in 1950.
Froid comme l’enfer
3.490 kr.Deux sœurs. Un thriller original et captivant où tout se joue dans l’atmosphère et les détails.
Aurora vit en Angleterre et sa sœur Isafold en Islande, elles sont très différentes et ont des relations compliquées. Isafold disparaît et leur mère, ne faisant pas la différence entre enquêtrice financière et enquêtrice policière, supplie Aurora d’aller chercher sa sœur.
Aurora ne peut pas s’empêcher de pratiquer ce qu’elle fait de mieux, démasquer les fraudeurs et les faire payer. Elle va donc profiter de ce voyage pour examiner de près certains investissements financiers douteux, et analyser la corruption islandaise tout en testant ses capacités de séduction sur deux hommes.
Elle découvrira surtout la violence domestique à laquelle était soumise Isafold et qu’elle niait farouchement subir ; au cours des témoignages qu’elle reçoit, elle voit évoluer les nuances de ses sentiments pour sa sœur. En même temps, des personnages inquiétants émergent peu à peu.
Nous suivons son enquête au fil des détails qu’elle nous donne sur les façons de vivre et de se parler, et par ce travail de dentellière elle nous fait entrer dans un monde plus complexe que ce dont il a l’air.
Rouge comme la mer
3.490 kr.Lorsque l’entrepreneur Flosi arrive chez lui pour dîner, il découvre que sa maison a été mise à sac et que sa femme Gudrún a disparu. Une lettre posée sur la table de la cuisine confirme qu’elle a été enlevée. Si Flosi n’accepte pas de payer une énorme rançon, Gudrún sera tuée. Effrayé, il prend contact avec Aurora, qui gagne sa vie en faisant des enquêtes financières et qui est spécia-liste de la discrétion. Alors que le brouillard s’installe, dans un automne islandais froid et pluvieux, les suspects se multiplient, les cheminements de l’argent créent des surprises, comme toujours, les mafias se rapprochent et tout prend un tour de plus en plus trouble. Dans le même temps, Aurora poursuit la recherche déroutante et dévastatrice de sa sœur, Ísafold, qui a disparu sans laisser de traces.
Un roman d’atmosphère prenant, des personnages attachants, un vrai suspense et un humour délectable, bref, un bon livre à la fois exotique et familier.
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.
Still Born
4.390 kr.Still Born, Guadalupe Nettel’s fourth novel, explores one of life’s most consequential decisions – whether or not to have children – with her signature charm and intelligence. Alina and Laura are independent and career-driven women in their mid-thirties, neither of whom have built their future around the prospect of a family. Laura has taken the drastic decision to be sterilized, but as time goes by Alina becomes drawn to the idea of becoming a mother. When complications arise in Alina’s pregnancy and Laura becomes attached to her neighbour’s son, both women are forced to reckon with the complexity of their emotions. In prose that is as gripping as it is insightful, Still Born explores maternal ambivalence with a surgeon’s touch, carefully dissecting the contradictions that make up the lived experiences of women.
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.
The Mark
3.490 kr.The Icelandic Psychological Association has prepared a test. They call it a sensitivity assessment: a way of measuring a person’s empathy and identifying the potential for anti-social behaviour.
In a few days’ time, Iceland will vote on whether to make the test compulsory for every citizen. The nation is bitterly divided. Some believe the test makes society safer; others decry it as a violation.
As the referendum draws closer, four people – Vetur, Eyja, Tristan and Ólafur – find themselves caught in the teeth of the debate. Each of them will have to reckon with uncomfortable questions: Where do the rights of society end and the rights of the individual begin? When does utopia become dystopia?No matter which side wins, they will all have to find a way to live with the result.
Eldri konur
4.590 kr.Ég hef alltaf verið rótlaus og vannærð. Þegar ég kynntist áfengi fannst mér eins og ég væri gróðursett í sólríkan lund. Tilveran fékk á sig fagurgulan blæ eins og horft væri gegnum litað gler. Allt varð bærilegra. Fljótlega fór ég þó út í harðara efni.
Efnið mitt gerir mig heila, fyllir mig krafti, lífi, fær mig til að engjast um af fráhvörfum og þráhyggju, lemja, slá, fær mig umsvifalaust til að steypa mér í glötun.
Efnið mitt er eldri konur.
Ung kona gefur rapport af þráhyggju sinni fyrir eldri konum og rekur líf sitt frá barnæsku til fullorðinsára gegnum frásagnir af konum sem hafa heltekið hana.
Eldri konur er röntgenmynd af ástandi. Við kynnumst konunni með ólíkum brotum af sögu hennar, uppvexti í flóknum heimilisaðstæðum, mismunandi vinnustöðum, vináttu, ástum, sigrum og ósigrum.
Himintungl yfir heimsins ystu brún (kilja)
4.590 kr.Hvort er mikilvægara, að segja sannleikann eða vernda þá sem maður elskar? Árið er 1615, og veröldin er gengin úr lagi, því jörðin er ekki lengur miðdepill alheimsins. Presturinn Pétur á Meyjarhóli skrifar bréf – eða skýrslu, jafnvel ákæruskjal – til að henda reiður á atburðum sem hafa skekið sveitina á Brúnasandi og kippt stoðum undan tilveru hans og ástvina hans.
Himintungl yfir heimsins ystu brún er saga sem talar til samtímans aftan úr öldum, um ástina, mennskuna og ábyrgðina sem við berum hvert á öðru. Hún dregur upp ljóslifandi mynd af opinni, forvitinni og ástríðufullri öld, þar sem ný vísindi takast á við trúna, og penninn er beittari en sverðið.
Jón Kalman Stefánsson er fæddur árið 1963. Himintungl yfir heimsins ystu brún er hans fimmtánda skáldsaga. Fjarvera þín er myrkur (2020) hlaut virt frönsk verðlaun LePoint og France Inter sem besta þýdda skáldsagan vorið 2022. Jón Kalman hlaut Íslensku bókmenntaverðlaunin árið 2005 fyrir Sumarljós, og svo kemur nóttin.
Bækur hans hafa verið þýddar á yfir 30 tungumál.
Óbærilegur léttleiki tilverunnar
1.290 kr.Hvað gerir maður þegar fallega þjónustustustúlkan á hótelinu úti á landi stendur allt í einu á tröppunum hjá honum í borginni með hafurtask sitt og er bara komin…? Tómas er góður læknir og ennþá betri kvennamaður og ákveður að hleypa hinni ástföngnu Teresu inn í líf sitt. En framhaldið er ekki á hans valdi – þau eru leiksoppar sögunnar, fórnarlömb ytri afla eins og heimaland þeirra, Tékkóslóvakía. Örlög þess í greipum grannans í austri fléttast óviðráðanlega saman við örlög persóna bókarinnar. Samt er þetta engin harmsaga: Óbærilegur léttleiki tilverunnar er full af óvæntri gamansemi og lýsir samhengi stjórnmála, kynlífs og dauða með grátbroslegum hætti. Léttleiki frásagnarinnar og frelsi draumsins verður athvarf mannshugans andspænis óbærilegum lögmálum sögunnar.
Friðrik Rafnsson íslenskaði.
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.
Sagan af Ara Fróðasyni og Hugborgu konu hans
1.290 kr.Þetta er saga af nokkrum framsæknum nútíma Íslendingum sem lenda í ýmsum ævintýrum en bjargast úr hverjum háska með þjóðlegu hugviti og hreysti.
Langt er síðan Guðbergur Bergsson skipaði sér í röð allra fremstu rithöfunda þjóðarinnar, og verk hans hafa notið mikillar hylli. Þessi bók er nýr sproti á þeim meiði. Persónurnar hafa ekki birst áður í bókum Guðbergs og stíllinn er nýr. Spurning er hvort skáldgáfa hans nýtur sín ekki einmitt best í þeim ærsla- og fjarstæðustíl sem hér er að finna.
Friðþæging
990 kr.Það er heitasti dagur sumarsins 1934 þegar 13 ára strákur, Briony, sér systur sína, Cecili, afklæðast og baða sig úti í garði á sveitasetri þeirra. Robbie Turner, æskuvinur hennar, stendur og horfir á.
Áður en næsti dagur rennur upp hefur líf þeirra þriggja tekið algjöra kollsteypu.
Friðþæging er í hópi meistaraverka hins virta breska rithöfundar Ian McEwans og hefur sópað til sín margvíslegum viðurkenningum.
1794: The City Between the Bridges
1.290 kr.The year is 1794. A young nobleman, Eric Three Roses, languishes in hospital. Some think he would be just at home in the madhouse across the road. Ridden with guilt, he spends his nights writing down memories of his lost love who died on their wedding night. Her mother also mourns her and when no one listens to her suspicions, she begs the aid of the only person who will listen: Jean Mickel Cardell, the one-armed watchman.
Cecil Winge is six months in the ground but when his younger brother Emil seeks out the watchman to retrieve his brother’s missing pocket watch, Cardell enlists his help to discover what really happened at Three Roses’ estate that night. But, unlike his dead brother, the younger Winge is an enigma, and Cardell soon realises that he may be more hindrance than help. And when they discover that a mysterious slave trader has been running Three Roses’ affairs, it is a race against time to discover the truth before it’s too late.
In 1794, the second installment of Niklas Natt och Dag’s historical noir trilogy, we are reunited with Mickel Cardell, Anna Stina Knapp, and the bustling world of late eighteenth century Stockholm from The Wolf and the Watchman. The city is about to see its darkest days yet as veneers crack and the splendour of old gives way to what is hiding in the city’s nooks and crannies.
1795: The Order of the Furies
1.290 kr.It is 1795 and evil lurks in the winding alleys of Stockholm. Tycho Ceton prowls the city, willing to do anything to survive and reclaim the honour he has lost. No one knows what he is planning next but Emil Winge, haunted by the ghosts of his past, is determined to stop him. Meanwhile, Jean Mickel Cardell is preoccupied with his own search for Anna Stina Knapp. She may have in her possession a letter which could have devastating consequences in the wrong hands.
All the while, hell looms inexorably . . .
In 1795: The Order of the Furies, the third instalment of Niklas Natt och Dag’s historical noir trilogy, we are plunged once again into the bustling world of late eighteenth-century Stockholm. The city is teetering on a precipice, with evil shaking its core, but can love and friendship prevail?