Intermezzo
3.490 kr.Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties – successful, competent and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women – his enduring first love Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke.
Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined.
For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude – a period of desire, despair and possibility – a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.
Stan the Killer
2.490 kr.‘Maigret moved slowly, edging his bulky frame through the throng in Rue Saint-Antoine, which burst into life every morning, the sunshine streaming down from a clear sky on to the little barrows piled high with fruit and vegetables.’ In these three tales of deception, set in and around Paris, Simenon’s celebrated detective uncovers chilling truths about the depths of the human instinct for self-preservation.
The Lady Bandit
2.490 kr.Priests with shotguns, scheming lovers and a necrophiliac gravedigger haunt the fables of Emilia Pardo Bazán, the formidable Spanish aristocrat, intellectual and feminist. These stories paint a rich and variegated image of Old Spain – sometimes tender, often provocative, always entertaining. But if you decide to visit, beware the Lady Bandit, whose strong, rough hands might grab your neck, and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze .
The House of Hunger
2.490 kr.‘No, I don’t hate being black. I’m just tired of saying it’s beautiful. No, I don’t hate myself.
I’m just tired of people bruising their knuckles on my jaw.’A novella with the force of a screaming trumpet flare, Dambudzo Marechera’s seminal literary debut explores a body and spirit exiled from the land and the self. An inimitable and internationally admired writer, his profound ambivalence and wry, existential sensibility was forged in this iconic book.
The Emperor’s New Clothes
2.490 kr.Many years ago there lived an Emperor who was so terribly fond of beautiful new clothes that he spent all his money on dressing elegantly… Jewels in storytelling, these magical fairytales by Hans Christian Andersen were inspired by his own life as an outsider. From ‘The Little Mermaid’ to ‘The Red Shoes’, his fables show the ugliest of humanity – its power, greed, vanity – but also how suffering can lead to beauty.
Tristessa
2.490 kr.Tristessa is a strange fever-dream of morphine sickness and belly-deep sadness. Or, in the words of Allen Ginsberg: ‘a narrative meditation studying a hen, a rooster, a dove, a cat, a chihuahua dog, family meat, and a ravishing, ravished junky lady, first in their crowded bedroom, then out to drunken streets, taco stands, and pads at dawn in Mexico City slums’.
The Genius
2.490 kr.Known as Ireland’s Chekhov, Frank O’Connor was a master of the modern short story, with an eye for capturing the spaces between our selves and our surroundings. The Genius brings together some of his very best stories, often told from the perspective of young children and forming a revealing portrait of coming of age in postwar Ireland. Humorous and poignant in equal parts, these stories are a lesson in craft from a celebrated, prolific author.
Kudos
3.490 kr.A woman on a plane listens to the stranger in the seat next to hers telling her the story of his life: his work, his marriage, and the harrowing night he has just spent burying the family dog. That woman is Faye, who is on her way to Europe to promote the book she has just published. Once she reaches her destination, the conversations she has with the people she meets – about art, about family, about politics, about love, about sorrow and joy, about justice and injustice – include the most far-reaching questions human beings ask. These conversations, the last of them on the phone with her son, rise dramatically and majestically to a beautiful conclusion.
Following the novels Outline and Transit, Kudos completes Rachel Cusk’s trilogy with overwhelming power.
Marginalía
4.390 kr.Mörgum árum eftir að leiðir þeirra skildu hittast íslenskufræðingurinn Styrkár og blaðakonan Garún í Eddu, nýju heimili handritanna og húsi íslenskunnar.
Ljós flökta, hurðir opnast og lokast án sýnilegrar ástæðu og ógnandi nærvera gerir vart við sig. Skyndilega eru Styrkár og Garún læst inni og verða að vinna saman til að komast aftur út. Áður en hryllingurinn nær yfirhöndinni þurfa þau að horfast í augu við fortíðardraug sem þau töldu sig hafa kveðið niður fyrir fullt og allt.
Höfundar: Áslaug Ýr Hjartardóttir, Unnar Ingi Sæmundsson, Katrín Mixa og Vala Hauksdóttir.
Ritstjórar: Anna Margrét Bragadóttir, Elías Rúni Þorsteins og Fjóla K. Guðmundsdóttir
Bókin er samstarfsverkefni nemenda í ritlist Hagnýtri ritstjórn og útgáfu við Háskóla Íslands.
Áður en ég brjálast – Játningar á miðjunni
4.390 kr.Kona á miðjum aldri flytur til Kalima þar sem ryk og sandur frá Sahara þyrlast um. Heimsmyndin er að molna og hún raðar saman minningarbrotum sem hafa umbreytt tilverunni. Dimmblár drykkfelldur hestur verður á vegi hennar og fylgir áleiðis að hvörfum.
Bókin er feminískt skáldverk um ástir, ólík breytingaferli og lífsreynslu róttækrar móður sem leitar heim í skáldskapinn þar sem goðsagnaverur vappa um. Úr verður mósaík minninga, áleitin samtímasaga sem er full af óslökkvandi ævintýraþrá, næmi og tragikómískum galsa.
Við tölum ekki um þetta
4.390 kr.Gríðarlega áhrifarík, hugrökk, erfið og átakanleg saga andspænis hinu versta sem getur gerst.
Hér vefur Alejandro Palomas kyrrlátan og rafmagnaðan þráð svo úr verður saga sem rekur erfiðar bernskuminningar, einstakt samband hans við móður sína, skugga ósýnilegs föður og óheft ímyndunaraflið. Þetta er einlægur vitnisburður manns sem valdi að lifa – þökk sé ástríðu hans fyrir að skrifa sögur. Af blaðsíðunum stafar blíðu og kímni, trega og ást.
Skáldskapurinn gerði honum kleift að skapa ímyndaða veröld sem var betri en myrkrið sem umlukti hann og í gegnum árin hefur þessi skáldskapur hjálpað honum að finna orðin til að segja frá sannleikanum – öllum sannleikanum.
„Og sannleikurinn er sá að án allra þessara kvenna í lífi mínu hefði ég líklega ekki faðmað aftur.“
Algerlega mögnuð bók
Kertin brenna niður
1.290 kr.Tveir gamlir vinir, sem áður voru óaðskiljanlegir, fyrrverandi foringjar í her Austurríkis-Ungverjalands, hittast á ný eftir ríflega fjörutíu ára aðskilnað. Fjórum áratugum fyrr gerðist örlagaríkur atburður sem leiddi til algers skilnaðar þeirra og lagði líf þeirra í rúst. Allan þennan tíma hafa þeir beðið endurfundanna, og nú þegar ævilokin nálgast verður hinn raunverulegi sannleikur afhjúpaður.
Ungverski rithöfundurinn Sándor Márai (1900-1989) féll í ónáð við valdatöku kommúnista þar í landi, flýði til Bandaríkjanna og lést þar í útlegð 1989. Kertin brenna niður kom fyrst út í Ungverjalandi 1942, var síðan bönnuð en eftir fall kommúnismans var hún endurútgefin og hefur síðan farið sigurför um alla Evrópu. Sándor Márai er nú einn virtasti og vinsælasti höfundur álfunnar og hefur verið líkt við Thomas Mann og Gabriel García Márquez.
Kertin brenna niður er áhrifamikil skáldsaga og frábærlega skrifuð; undir kyrru yfirborði bærist söknuður og sársauki, eftirsjá eftir veröld sem var. Hún er hugleiðing um sígilt efni; tryggð og mikla ást, sannleika og blekkingu – sem situr lengi eftir í huga lesanda.
Hjalti Kristgeirsson þýddi.
Sumarblóm og heimsins grjót
990 kr.Sumarblóm og heimsins grjót er grípandi örlagasaga um ást og vináttu, vonir og vonbrigði, flókin fjölskyldubönd – en ekki síst um aðstæður kvenna og óvenjulegar leiðir til að bjarga sér við erfiðar aðstæður.
Í byrjun síðustu aldar blasir fátt annað við fátækri stúlku í litlum firði en að giftast, eignast börn, strita ævilangt á sama stað eins og formæðurnar. En Sóleyjar bíður öðruvísi líf og örlögin bera hana burt úr firðinum, til móts við nýja tíma og nýjar hugmyndir. Þegar hún stendur uppi ein með nýfætt barn þarf hún að gangast undir samkomulag sem færir henni bæði frelsi og fjötra. Seiglan fleytir henni gegnum brimrót áfalla og erfiðleika, lífsgleði og traustir vinir halda henni uppi þegar reynir á. Og stundum virðist hamingjan í sjónmáli.
Þetta er fyrsta skáldsaga Sigrúnar Ölbu Sigurðardóttur sem byggir söguna að hluta til á raunverulegum atburðum og persónum.
The Whispering Muse
3.490 kr.Valdimar Haraldsson is an eccentric Icelander with dubious ideas about the relationship between fish consumption and Nordic superiority. To his delight, in the spring of 1949, he is invited to join a Danish merchant ship on its voyage to the Black Sea.
He is less delighted with the lack of fish on the menu. Worse, his fellow travellers show no interest in his ‘Fish and Culture’ lecture. They prefer the enthralling tales of the second mate, Caeneus, who every evening regales them with his adventures aboard the Argo, on Jason’s legendary quest for the Golden Fleece.
A master storyteller, Sjón weaves together Greek and Nordic myths with the legacies of the Second World War in this mesmerising novel, which reminds us that everything is capable of change.
Red Milk
3.490 kr.Gunnar Kampen grows up in Reykjavík during the Second World War in a household fiercely opposed to Hitler and Nazism. A caring brother and son, at nineteen he seems set to lead a conventional life. Yet in the spring of 1958, he founds a covert, anti-Semitic nationalist party with ties to a burgeoning international network of neo-Nazis – a cause that will take him on a clandestine mission to England from which he never returns.
In this striking novel, inspired by one of the ringleaders of an Icelandic neo-Nazi group formed in the late 1950s, Sjón masterfully constructs the portrait of an ordinary young man who becomes a right-wing zealot. Exposing the roots of the far-right movements of today, Red Milk is a timely reminder that the seeds of extremism can be hard to detect and the allure of fascism remains dangerously potent.
From the Mouth of the Whale
3.490 kr.In this magical evocation of a vanished age, a poet and self-taught healer is banished in 1635 to a barren island off Iceland – a place darkened by superstition, poverty and cruelty.
With only a purple sandpiper for company, Jónas Pálmason retraces his path to exile, recalling his exorcism of a walking corpse, the massacre of innocent Basque whalers at the hands of local villagers and the deaths of three of his children.
But amid the cacophony of Copenhagen he will find hope and, finally, recognition of his enlightened ideas.
CoDex 1962
3.490 kr.Jósef Loewe enters the world as a lump of clay – carried in a hatbox by his Jewish father Leo, a fugitive in WWII Germany.
Taking refuge in a small-town guesthouse, Leo discovers a kindred spirit in the young woman who nurses him back to health and together they shape the clay into a baby. But en route to safety in Iceland, he is robbed of the ring needed to bring the child to life. It is not until 1962 that Jósef can be ‘born’, only to grow up with a rare disease. Fifty-three years on, it leads him into the hands of a power-hungry Icelandic geneticist, just when science and politics are threatening to lead us all down a dark, dangerous road.
At once playful and profoundly serious, this remarkable novel melds multiple genres into a unique whole: a mind-bending read and a biting, timely attack on nationalism.
