Granta books gb (Oltre 1800 risultati)

Paperback. Condizione: New. Intrigued by reports of increasing poverty and despair within America's white-collar corporate workforce, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to infiltrate their world as an undercover reporter and learn about the problems facing middle-class executives at first hand. Thinking she had set herself an easy challenge, the author was quite unprepared for what happened next. Ehrenreich found herself entering a shadowy world of Internet job searches, lonely networking events and costly career-coaching sessions, a world in which 'professional' mentors and trainers offer pop-psychology and self-help mantras to desperate would-be employees. Her story is an important one - poignant and blackly funny - that delivers a stark warning about the future that faces corporate employees everywhere and calls for collective action to guard against it.…

Paperback. Condizione: New. John Philips introduces the Marquis de Sade's highly original and thoroughly subversive depiction of human sexuality and the philosophical and political thinking that underpins it. He shows how, though Sade's work continues to shock, it can also be seen as the logical conclusion of eighteenth-century materialism. As the only writer of his time who dared to put the body at the centre of philosophy, Sade has a unique place in the history of modern thought. Extracts are taken form the whole range of Sade's writings, including The 120 Days of Sodom, Philosophy in the Boudoir, Juliette and his Last Will and Testament.…

Paperback. Condizione: New. 'The world has enough for everybody's need, but not enough for one person's greed' GandhiGreens are driven by a concern with the fate of future generations and the natural world on which we all depend. They argue that theirs is the only way of ensuring the survival of a sustainable planet. The case they make is powerful, emotive, urgent and politically controversial. In the space of a couple of decades, Greens have shaped an influential movement. Issues such as climate change and biodiversity loss are now familiar and widely accepted.The challenge for Greens today is to turn mainstream rhetoric into meaningful action.In this readable and wide-ranging introduction, Joe Smith summarizes the historical roots of the Green movement and some of the main intellectual building blocks of Green thinking. He goes on to consider whether they have the appetite and potential to 'change the world'.…

Paperback. Condizione: New. There is a story about a Jew who travels from Israel to the United States. When he returns, he tells his friend some of the amazing things he has seen. 'I met a Jew who had grown up in a yeshiva and knew large sections of the Talmud by heart. I met a Jew who was an atheist. I met a Jew who owned a large business and I met a Jew who was an ardent communist.' 'So what's so strange?' the friend asks. 'America is a big country and millions of Jews live there.' 'You don't understand,' the man answers. 'It was the same Jew.'Judaism is not simply a series of beliefs. It is a practice and a way of life. What Do Jews Believe? explores the variety of ways Jews live their lives: religious and secular, Ashkenazi and Sephardi, Jews in Israel and Jews who live in the Diaspora. It asks what Judaism means and what it means to be a Jew. It also asks how and why such a small number of people, totalling no more than 20 million worldwide, have played such a significant role in our history.…

Paperback. Condizione: New. Sacred to millions across the world, translated into countless languages and with estimated annual sales of 25 million, The Bible is one of the most influential books of all time. But how, in the 21st century, should believers and non-believers alike approach the Book of Books? Here, acclaimed writer, respected thinker and former bishop Richard Holloway takes us from 'Genesis' to 'Revelation', illuminating key passages and helping us to achieve a deeper understanding of the Bible's message.…

Paperback. Condizione: New. With Gob's Grief, The Children's Hospital, and The Great Night Chris Adrian announced himself as a writer of rare talent and originality. The stories in A Better Angel, various of which have appeared in the New Yorker, Tin House and McSweeney's, demonstrate more of his endless inventiveness and wit, and confirm his growing reputation as a most exciting and unusual literary voice, and a writer of heartbreaking, magical and darkly comic tales.…

Paperback. Condizione: New. A young woman struggles to come to terms with her friend's murder; a man and his daughter-in-law confess their sins in the most unlikely of places; a daughter returns to her hated father's house to care for him in his final days and discovers an unexpected bond; and, in a set of interlocking stories, two middle-aged friends, married to others, find themselves irresistibly sexually drawn to one another. In this sensuous, funny and heartbreaking new book, Amy Bloom explores the unexpected patterns that love, and its absence, weave into our lives. With her generous and clear-eyed understanding of human complexity and contrariness, the award-winning author introduces us to some of her most unforgettable characters yet.…

Paperback. Condizione: New. The Sandglass tells the story of two feuding families whose lives are interlinked by the changing fortunes of postcolonial Sri Lanka. Moving back and forth between London and Sri Lanka, the novel brings to life Prins Ducal and his search for answers about his family's past, including his father's rise to wealth, rivalry with the Vatunas family, and a suspicious death - a mystery that further unfolds upon Prins's arrival in London for his mother's funeral. Re-printed by Granta in a beautiful new edition.…

Paperback. Condizione: New. He disappeared. That's all she really knew.In search of her father Andreas, whom she has never met, Lena travels with her small son from Australia to Greece. On the island of Naxos she finds him, a wary, tormented man living in self-imposed exile and haunted by what happened to him under the rule of the Colonels in the 1960s. Slowly Lena unlocks the secrets of her father's past, and in getting to know him begins to understand the dark realities of contemporary Greek history.To the Island is a book about the impact of larger political events on the lives of ordinary people, and how political and personal betrayals reverberate across generations, beautifully evoking the currents and cross-currents between individuals, within families and in broader society. And in Lena and Andreas's stories, it shows how difficult it is to confront our personal and collective pasts - and the terrible consequences of being unable to do so.…

Paperback. Condizione: New. As a baby, Simon Gray discovered that he could move his pram while still nestling inside it. 'It was a complete mystery to the adult intelligences, how had he done it, if it was he who had done it, but if not he, who then and why? So the next afternoon they (Mummy and Nanny) planted the pram in the usual spot, and stood over it, watching - the baby lay there smiling or snivelling up at them, until it struck them that they should try observing the baby when unobserved by the baby, and they withdrew behind bushes and trees etc.; and thus witnessed the swaying of the pram, then the juddering of the pram, then its slow, unsteady progress along the path, the movement accompanied by a low humming and keening sound from within that reminded them more of a dog than a human . "jouncing" was the word they used for it. I was a jouncer therefore.' In the second book of his chronicles of triumph and disaster which started with The Smoking Diaries, Gray intertwined scenes from his adult and his childish self to produce a brilliant and moving counterpoint of life's unsteady progress.…

Paperback. Condizione: New. The story of the overcoat began with a chance meeting - between an obsessive book collector, Jacques Guérin, and his physician, Dr Robert Proust, brother of the late writer. Guérin immediately glimpsed the possibility of acquiring the novelist's personal effects, but it would be decades before he finally came to possess the relic he had most coveted: Proust's moth-eaten otter-lined overcoat.…

Paperback. Condizione: New. Every new mother has a story to tell - and this is Jane de la Rochefoucault's. It's a story that contains all the familiar yet magical landmarks of feeding, teething, toddling, and measuring stuff in and out of Tupperware. But, as an expat living in Paris, Jane also faces some challenges they never mention in the handbooks. Such as, how to juggle a new baby with the demands of an aristocratic husband, a competitive nursing circle, an artisan plumber, and a formidably French (and possibly law-breaking) mother-in-law. Swiftly plotted, linguistically playful and sparkling with wit, The Baby of Belleville will draw you into its unique imaginative universe and make you reluctant to leave.…

Paperback. Condizione: New. When Eva's mother abandons her on Iris's front porch, the girls don't seem to have much in common - except, they soon discover, a father. Thrown together with no mothers to care for them and a father who could not be considered a parent, Iris and Eva become one another's family. Iris wants to be a movie star; Eva is her sidekick. Together, they journey across 1940s America from scandal in Hollywood to the jazz clubs and golden mansions of Long Island, stumbling, cheating and loving their way through a landscape of war, betrayals and big dreams.…

Paperback. Condizione: New. When he turned sixty-five, the playwright Simon Gray began to keep a diary: not a careful honing of the day's events with a view to posterity but an account of his thoughts as he had them, honestly, turbulently, digressively expressed. The Smoking Diaries was the result, in which one of Britain's most beloved and original writers reflected on a life filled with cigarettes (continuing), alcohol (stopped), several triumphs and many more disasters, shame, adultery, friendship and love. Few diarists have been as frank about themselves, and even fewer as entertaining. …

Paperback. Condizione: New. Like his father before him, Octavio runs the Notre Dame bakery and knows the secret recipe for the perfect Parisian baguette. But, also like his father, Octavio has never mastered the art of reading and his only knowledge of the world beyond the bakery door comes from his own imagination. Just a few streets away, Isabeau works out of sight in the basement of the Louvre, trying to forget her disfigured beauty by losing herself in the paintings she restores and the stories she reads. The two might never have met, but for a curious chain of coincidences involving an impoverished painter, a jaded bookseller, and a book of fairytales, lost and found. Evocative, romantic, and wise, this is a magical novel about the power of stories - to help us find enchantment, freedom, and sometimes even love.…

Paperback. Condizione: New. Yesterday Morning is a vivid recollection of Diana Athill's joyful beginnings. It is also a remarkable insight into a now vanished world; this is England in the 1920s, seen with a clear and unsentimental eye from the vantage point of the 21st century. Growing up in a Norfolk country house with servants, Athill's upbringing was rich and loving: filled with the pleasures of horse riding and the unfolding secrets of adults and sex. However, here, she probes these foundations, asking: does privilege equate to happiness.…

Paperback. Condizione: New. When Elena falls in love with Riccardo, she also falls in love with the idea of a world beyond her sheltered life in rural Italy. And when she loses him, she gives up her hopes for the future and her expectations of happiness, filling the sudden void in her life with her son and brother-in-law. It is only when the young Marco rejects the role his mother has created for him and flees to Paris, with its migrant populations, political protests and romantic possibilities, that all three come to realize how tightly they have been bound within a triangle of conspiracy and how much they must risk to break free from the secrets of the past.…

Paperback. Condizione: New. Once the elegant second city of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Budapest, the 'Queen of the Danube', is now being rediscovered as one of the liveliest and most attractive destinations in Europe. Equipped with Michael Jacob's guide, you will be able to get the most out of this fascinating city, whether you're on a weekend break or a longer visit. It will help you discover: the distinct characters of the city's 'two halves' - Buda, set on gently rolling hills, and across the river energetic, modern Pest; the best of its almost 100 thermal springs and 12 medicinal baths; Margaret Island, a leafy park in the centre of the Danube where you can cycle or play tennis; the city of artists, architects and writers; and, its cafes and restaurants, many of them redolent of the city's days of imperial splendour. The book takes the visitor on six walks arranged by district, featuring all the major sites and a personal selection of less well known, often neglected ones.…

Paperback. Condizione: New. 'I believe that every human being has an innate desire for happiness and does not want to suffer. I also believe that the very purpose of life is to experience this happiness' The Dalai Lama Buddhism is one of the world's oldest and most widespread belief systems. Its history spans two and a half thousand years and Buddhism today has over 500 million adherents throughout almost every country in the world. Virtually unknown outside Asia until the last century, it is now the fastest-growing religion in the West. What is it about Buddhism that attracts so many in an age when people seem to be turning away from organized religion? The teachings of Buddhism are voluminous and varied, and it has a well-developed philosophical and mystical dimension; but at its core is a simple set of propositions and practices designed to meet the practical day-to-day concerns of ordinary people: how to live a compassionate, creative, wise and, above all, happy life. Tony Morris explores Buddhism's appeal and gives an acute insight into its essential beliefs.…

Paperback. Condizione: New. As an infant, Jon Mosher tragically lost his older brother to a freak accident - something that could have happened to any family. There's nothing he could have done to prevent it, but there it is anyway, that loss echoing in every room and painted on the faces of his parents - German Jews who'd escaped the war - as if to say: you weren't, and aren't, enough. Saddled with this absence, Jon's life has been defined by what's missing and what he lacks; that is, until in high school he befriends wisecracking Ray, a reckless boy with a volatile father. Against the backdrop of the Summer of Love and the encroaching Vietnam War, Jon dreams of ultimately leaving his grey, blue-collar town, but is set on an irrevocable course as the escalating violence of Ray's home life threatens to shatter their bright-eyed plans to escape. Torn between obligation and desire, Jon's faced with the impossible decision of whether to help, or run.In this magnificent, haunting novel, Slouka brilliantly captures the polarising forces of a working class, hardscrabble ethos and the hopeful vibrancy of the sixties and early seventies. With concise, wise prose, Slouka weaves together a tapestry of family, fate, friendship, and the impossibility of ever, really, leaving home.…

Paperback. Condizione: New. 1st. Published as a standalone on International Woman's Day, the essay that became a touchstone of the feminist movement and inspired the term 'mansplaining', with an afterword on its originsThis famous and influential essay, which describes the time when, at a party, a man explained to Rebecca Solnit the argument of her own book, inspired the term 'mansplaining' and established Solnit as a vital figure of the feminist movement, and one of the leading thinkers of our time. Fierce, incisive and funny, it exposes the inherent sexism of our patriarchal culture.…

Paperback. Condizione: New. It is 1988, the year before the Berlin Wall came down. Jonathan Fabrizius, a journalist living in West Germany, is asked to travel to the contested lands of former East Prussia - where the Nazi legacy lives on in buildings and fortifications - to write about the route for a car rally. It's a plum job, but his interest is piqued by a personal connection. Here, among the refugees fleeing the advancing Russians in 1945, he was born.Homeland is a nuanced work from one of the great modern European storytellers, in which an everyday German comes face to face with his painful family history, and devastating questions about ordinary Germans' complicity in the war.…

Paperback. Condizione: New. 'Many years ago there lived in Zuchnow, in Russia, a man named Mendel Signer. He was pious, God-fearing and ordinary, an entirely commonplace Jew.'So Roth begins his novel about the loss of faith and the experience of suffering. His modern Job goes through his trials in the ghettos of Tsarist Russia and on the unforgiving streets of New York. Mendel Singer loses his family, falls terribly ill and is badly abused. He needs a miracle.…

Paperback. Condizione: New. 'A great novel of New York'- Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs To YouThe new novel from the New York Times-bestselling author of High DiveThe 'Father of Greater New York' is dead. Shot outside his Park Avenue mansion in the year of our Lord, 1903. In the hour of his death, will the truth of his life finally break free?Born to a struggling farming family in 1820, Andrew Haswell Green was a self-made man who reshaped Manhattan, built Central Park and turned New York into a modern metropolis. Now, at eighty-three, when he thought the world could hold no more surprises, he is murdered. As the detective assigned to the case traces his ghost across the city, other spectres appear: a wealthy courtesan; a broken-hearted man in a bowler hat; and an ambitious politician, Samuel, whose lifelong friendship was a source of joy and frustration.In a life of industry and restraint, where is the space for love? As restlessly inventive and absorbing as its protagonist, The Great Mistake is the story of a city, and a singular man, transformed by longing.'Jonathan Lee has taken the bare facts of a nearly forgotten life and turned them into a rich and unforgettable story'- Jon McGregor, author of Reservoir 13'A meditation on the meaning of success, and a magical escape from the twenty-first century that sent me back feeling wiser and more hopeful'- Sandra Newman, author of The Heavens'A wonder and a delight'- Téa Obreht, author of The Tiger's Wife.…

Paperback. Condizione: New. First heard on BBC Radio 4.Water is commodified. The Water Train that serves the city increasingly at risk of sabotage. As news breaks that construction of a gigantic Ice Dock will displace more people than first thought, protestors take to the streets and the lives of several individuals begin to interlock. A nurse on the brink of an affair. A boy who follows a stray dog out of the city. A woman who lies dying. And her husband, a marksman: a man forged by his past and fearful of the future, who weighs in his hands the possibility of death against the possibility of life. From one of the most celebrated writers of his generation, Stillicide is a moving story of love and loss and the will to survive, and a powerful glimpse of the tangible future.…

Paperback. Condizione: New. 'Jefferson's eye for details yields some devastatingly honest and painful insights' The Times'Captivating. Charm is this book's watchword' Colin Grant, Guardian The daughter of a successful paediatrician and a fashionable socialite, Margo Jefferson spent her childhood among Chicago's black elite. She calls this society 'Negroland': 'a small region of Negro America where residents were sheltered by a certain amount of privilege and plenty'. With privilege came expectation. Reckoning with the limits and demands of Negroland at crucial historical moments - the civil rights movement, the dawn of feminism, the fallacy of post-racial America - Jefferson brilliantly charts the twists and turns of a life informed by psychological and moral contradictions. Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. 'Negroland is a sharp-eyed cultural commentary on an era of America that has often been too simply told' Aminatta Forna, Guardian 'Jefferson writes with piercing clarity of a childhood which was full of love and opportunity at home, but also saturated by contradictions, confusions and a racism which corrodes, like rust, to the heart's core' Observer 'Utterly compelling. a remarkable achievement' Sunday Times.…

Paperback. Condizione: New. Things You Should Know is a collection of dazzling stories by one of the most talented and daring young American writers, whose distinctive narratives demonstrate how extraordinary the ordinary can be. A woman pursues an unconventional strategy for getting pregnant; a former First Lady shows despair and courage in dealing with her husband's Alzheimer's; a teacher's list of 'things you already should know but maybe are a little dumb, so you don't' becomes an obsession for someone who wasn't at school the day it was given out; and adult tragedy intrudes into a childhood friendship. The stories are full of magic and strangeness and humour, but also demonstrate an uncanny emotional accuracy and compassion.…

Paperback. Condizione: New. The Granta Book of India brings together, for the first time, evocative, personal and informative pieces from previous editions of Granta magazine on the experiences of Indian life, culture and politics, including extracts from the highly successful Granta 57: India! The Golden Jubilee. Included are: Suketu Mehta on Mumbai; Chitra Banerji's 'What Bengali Widows Cannot Eat'; Mark Tully on his childhood in Calcutta; Ian Jack's 'Unsteady People' - on unexpected parallels between Bihar and Britain; Urvashi Butalia on tracing her long-lost uncle; a poem by Salman Rushdie about the fatwa; Ramachandra Guha's 'What We Think of America'; Nirad Chaudhuri writing on his 100th birthday; Rory Stewart among the dervishes of Pakistan; Pankaj Mishra on the making of jihadis in Pakistan; as well as fiction by R. K. Narayan, Amit Chaudhuri and Nell Freudenberger.…

Paperback. Condizione: New. In present-day Vancouver, Gail Lim, a producer of radio documentaries, is haunted by the mysterious events in her father's childhood in war-torn Asia, and using her skills as a journalist is driven to unravel the mystery of his past. As a boy, Matthew Lim hid in the jungle fringe near Leila Road in Japanese-occupied Sandakan, North Borneo, with Ani, a girl whose friendship shapes the rest of his life. Together they barely survive the terrifying events of the war, which shatters their families and ultimately splits them apart - until years later, they meet again, only to endure another separation.At once sweeping and intimate, Certainty crosses continents, cultures and time to explore the legacies of loss, the dislocations of war and the redemptive qualities of love.…

Paperback. Condizione: New. When Rachel sets off alone for her mother's isolated country house, she promises herself that the business of packing up and selling will only take a couple of weeks, and then she'll be home again, and back to normal. But from the moment she steps through the front door, Rachel feels that the house contains more than she had expected: along with the memories of her mother, there is something else, a presence - not quite tangible - trying to make itself felt. As Rachel struggles to put her mother's affairs in order, she grows ever more convinced that the house holds a message for her. Can the ghosts of the past be forcing their way into the present, or is Rachel really beginning to lose her mind. …