Fiction Realism

From charity to deceit, benevolence to violence, fear of God to extreme cruelty, the dictator of The Autumn of the Patriarch embodies the best and the worst of human nature. Gabriel García Márquez, the renowned master of magical realism, vividly portrays the dying tyrant caught in the prison of his own dictatorship. Employing an innovative, dreamlike style, and overflowing with symbolic descriptions, the novel transports the listener to a world that is at once fanciful and real.

Though published second after Altmann's Tongue, The Din of Celestial Birds (1997) consists of the best of Evenson's early stories. They take place in a country (perhaps several countries) that seems at once everywhere and nowhere, haunted by birds, ghosts, poverty, tyranny, and the permeability of the line between the living and the dead. These stories offer a heady mix of absurdity and bleakness on the one hand and exuberant magic realism on the other.

Despite his warriors' lineage, Erroh would rather waste his potential stumbling alone from one tavern to the next, drinking and gambling. Fate, however, has greater plans for him. After decades of peace, a great war draws near, and though he doesn't know it, he is standing in the way of the first wave. What is more, and very much to his dismay, he's about to find out he's not entirely alone either. But Erroh has a plan, a simple plan.

Generations of Montrose women—Augusta, Victoria, Willow—have lived together in their quaint two-story bungalow in California for years. They keep to themselves, never venture far from home, and their collection of tinctures and spells is an unspoken bond between them. But when seventeen-year-old Nickie Montrose brings home a boy for the first time, their quiet lives are thrown into disarray. For the other women have been withholding a secret from Nickie that will end her relationship before it’s even begun: the decades-old family curse that any person they fall in love with dies.

Canisia Lubrin's debut fiction is that rare work of art—a brilliant, startlingly original book that combines immense literary and political force. Its structure is deceptively simple: it departs from the infamous real-life “Code Noir,” a set of historical decrees originally passed in 1685 by King Louis XIV of France defining the conditions of slavery in the French colonial empire. The original Code had fifty-nine articles; Code Noir has fifty-nine linked fictions—vivid, unforgettable, multi-layered fragments filled with globe-wise characters who desire to live beyond the ruins of the past.

Queen Isadora reigns with secrets and lies and will do whatever it takes to keep her throne, including killing the rightful heir. Hunted by the queen, Kenna is thrust into the center of a rebellion that seeks to end her tyranny. Now, she must learn what it means to rise up and rule, but does she have what it takes? Or will the cost of the rebellion be more than she can give? As the stirrings of war threaten to tear the country apart, Kenna must fight to hold her Chosen together before they too become another causality.

Un volumen excepcional que reúne por primera vez en un solo volumen todos los cuentos del Premio Nobel de Literatura Gabriel García Márquez.

"The unknown masterpiece", or "Le chef-d'œuvre inconnu", is a story by the French author Honoré de Balzac. This short text was of tremendous importance in the world of art, for it holds a groundbreaking reflection about artistic creation: what does completion or failure mean, and how is it that technique does not guarantee either. Paul Cézanne famously said "I am Frenhofer", identifying with the old master around which the story revolves. Pablo Picasso himself was absolutely fascinated by the text, so much that he had his studio moved in the Parisian street named in the story; there, he painted his own masterpiece, Guernica.

As a little girl, Jane has no one. Her mother, Vivienne Margaux, the powerful head of a major New York theater company has no time for her. She does have one friend - Michael - but no one can see him except her. When Jane is in her 30s, working for her mother's company, she is just as alone as she was as a child. Then she finds Michael again - handsome and just the same as she remembers him, only now he's not imaginary.

On her 12th birthday, Sierva Maria - the only child of a decaying noble family in an 18th-century South American seaport - is bitten by a rabid dog. Believed to be possessed, she is brought to a convent for observation. And into her cell stumbles Father Cayetano Delaura, who has already dreamed about a girl with hair trailing after her like a bridal train. As he tends to her with holy water and sacramental oils, Delaura feels something shocking begin to occur.

Before marrying, Emma Bovary believed she would enter a life of luxury and passion like the sentimental stories she'd read in her novels and magazines. Now married to an ordinary country doctor her life is not the romantic ideal she imagined and seeks an escape through having extra-marital affairs. This devastating spiral into deceit and despair leads to catastrophic consequences. Emma Bovary continues to be enjoyed to this day because of its profound humanity, still as fresh today as when it was first written.

"You should be here; he's simply magnificent." These are the final words a biologist hears before his Margaret Mead-like wife dies at the hands of Godzilla. The words haunt him as he studies the kaiju (Japan's giant monsters) on an island reserve, attempting to understand the beauty his wife saw. Every story in the collection turns to the fantastic, the mysticism of the past, and the absurdities of the future to illuminate the spaces we occupy when we are at our most vulnerable."

Anthropologist Calliope Santiago awakens to find herself in a strange and sinister wasteland, a shadow of the New Mexico she knew. Empty vehicles litter the road. Everyone has disappeared - or almost everyone. Calliope, heavy-bellied with the twins she carries inside her, must make her way across this dangerous landscape with a group of fellow survivors in search of answers. Long-dead volcanoes erupt, the ground rattles and splits, and monsters come to ominous life. Calliope will be forced to reconcile the geological record with the heritage she once denied.

When the Night Foxes boldly break into the Fourth Precinct’s Evidence Building, it causes quite the stir. As a Magical Examiner, Henri Davenforth is immediately called in. To his astonishment, Captain Gregson has him work the case like a detective. More astounding, he assigns Henri a partner - The Shinigami Detective. The woman is famous for killing the most destructive rogue witch of the century, and no one is quite certain where she’s from. Every officer in the precinct is either in awe of her, or a little frightened by her. Henri is just baffled.

Linus Baker è un assistente sociale impiegato al Dipartimento della Magia Minorile. Il compito che esegue con scrupolosa professionalità è assicurarsi che i bambini dotati di poteri magici, cresciuti in appositi istituti in modo da proteggere quelli "normali", siano ben accuditi. La vita di Linus è decisamente tranquilla, per non dire monotona: vive in una casetta solitaria in compagnia di una gatta schiva e dei suoi amati dischi in vinile. Tutto cambia quando, inaspettatamente, viene convocato nell'ufficio della Suprema Dirigenza.

Included in this collection, totaling almost 35 hours of audio, are the following audiobooks: Book One, The Rebellious Sister; Book Two, The Uncooperative Warrior; Book Three, The Defiant Magician; Book Four, The Triumphant Daughter; and Book Five, The Loyal Friend.

Elmwood Springs, Missouri, is a small town like any other, but something strange is happening out at the cemetery. Still Meadows, as it's called, is anything but still. Funny and profound, this novel in the tradition of Flagg's Can't Wait to Get to Heaven and Thornton Wilder's Our Town deals with universal themes of heaven and earth and everything in between, as Flagg tells a surprising story of life, afterlife, and the mysterious goings-on of ordinary people.

Kenna is a human in a magic-biased world, but a night at the club changes everything. There she meets four sexy strangers who unbind the magic she never knew she had. Now, she needs their help to train her wild and unpredictable magic and to find the truth of who she really is before someone she loves gets hurt. She is tormented by events in her past, and the secret she has guarded for so long threatens to destroy everything.

Born in the Argentine town of Mina Clavero, Camila is designated male but begins to identify from an early age as a girl. She is well aware that she’s different from other children and reacts to her oppressive, poverty-stricken home life, with a cowed mother and abusive, alcoholic father, by acting out—with swift consequences. Deeply intelligent, she eventually leaves for the city to attend university, slipping into prostitution to make ends meet. And in Sarmiento Park, in the heart of Córdoba, she discovers the strange, wonderful world of the trans sex workers who dwell there.

Alec began his 18th birthday with the temple monks. By day's end, he discovers he possesses magical abilities. Except his magic is unique. He doesn't require grimoires and incantations to cast spells. Alec's magic is entirely natural. He can, somehow, absorb the elements from objects and manipulate them according to his will. This power is incredible, but difficult to master. If he's going to learn how to use his natural magic, it'll take the tutelage of Archmage Diamondspear, one of the most adept magic users in the kingdom.