Literary Fiction Political

His last and most controversial novel, Jude the Obscure provoked such widespread and bitter attacks that Hardy claimed it caused him to stop writing novels. The primary causes of the uproar involved Hardy’s frank treatment of sexual themes and his unconventional portrayal of the pillars of Victorian society: the British university system, marriage, and religion. Today, many consider this to be Hardy’s finest work.

Forty years ago, Bakerton coal fueled the country. Then the mines closed, and the town wore away like a bar of soap. Now Bakerton has been granted a surprise third act: It sits squarely atop the Marcellus Shale, a massive deposit of natural gas. To drill or not to drill? Prison guard Rich Devlin leases his mineral rights to finance his dream of farming. He doesn't count on the truck traffic and nonstop noise, his brother's skepticism, or the paranoia of his wife, Shelby, who insists the water smells strange and is poisoning their frail daughter.

Claymore Straker is a fugitive with a price on his head. He's wanted by the CIA for acts of terrorism he did not commit; his best friend has just been murdered; and Rania, the woman he loves, has disappeared. Betrayed by those closest to him, he must flee the sanctuary of his safe house in Cornwall and track her down.

Christopher Buckley's comic thriller takes readers to the Arab land of Matar, where a philandering emir allays his restless wife by allowing her to start a TV network for Arab women. She is joined in this endeavor by a maverick American State Department officer known as Florence, who wants to use the TV network to start a revolution among Islamic women.

When a nameless, struggling actor in 1970s New York gets the call that an enigmatic director wants him for an art film set in the Amazon, he doesn't hesitate: He flies to South America, no questions asked. He quickly realizes he's made a mistake. He's replacing another actor who quit after seeing the script - a script the director now claims doesn't exist. The movie is over budget. The production team seems headed for a breakdown. The air is so wet that the celluloid film disintegrates.

En un penal de América Central, un preso político y un perro se observan fascinados el uno por el otro. Cuando el preso se evade tras herir mortalmente al guardián, el animal, condicionado por su amo antes de morir, se lanza en su persecución. Los dos adversarios se enfrentan en una lucha atroz e infatigable, y, a medida que transcurren las semanas, se establece entre ellos una extraña complicidad, hecha de sentimientos tan opuestos como el odio y la autoestima.

Egypt, 1914. It is the beginning of the war and Gareth Owen, Mamur Zapt and Head of Cairo’s Secret Police, is given the unhappy task of rounding up enemy aliens. But, in a land where adoption of foreign nationality is a popular means of avoiding trial by an Egyptian court, determining who counts as German proves contentious. And then there’s the face in the cemetery.

Nacido en una familia aristocrática venida a menos, Sebastian von Eschburg es un niño solitario e introvertido, con una madre que sólo se interesa por las carreras de caballos y un padre alcoholizado y aficionado a la caza, a quien, no obstante, lo une un fuerte vínculo. Con el tiempo, la extraordinaria percepción del color que posee Sebastian transformará al niño sensible y vulnerable en un famoso fotógrafo, un artista internacionalmente reconocido que plasma en sus obras una tormentosa relación entre ficción y realidad, verdad e ilusión.

Vietnam, 1969. Tweede luitenant Waino Mellas is eenentwintig jaar en net aangekomen op Matterhorn: een Amerikaanse vesting diep in de Vietnamese jungle. Vlak na zijn aankomst krijgt zijn eenheid het bevel in vijandig gebied op zoek te gaan naar een Noord-Vietnamese legerunit. Mellas en zijn mannen zullen ziekte, honger, bloedzuigers, tijgers en een vrijwel onzichtbare vijand moeten trotseren, maar het zijn de raciale spanningen en de valse loyaliteiten die hen ten val dreigen te brengen.

Pjotr Nesterenko ist mit dem Tod auf vertrautem Fuß. Als Direktor des Moskauer Krematoriums in der Stalin-Zeit hat er sie alle eingeäschert: die Abweichler, die angeblichen Spione und die einstigen Revolutionshelden, die den Säuberungen zum Opfer fallen. Er jedoch, davon ist er überzeugt, kann gar nicht sterben. So oft ist er dem Tod schon knapp entronnen. Bis der Tag seiner eigenen Verhaftung kommt.

Cuando el narrador de esta novela conoce a Mirko Bevilacqua, un hombre extravagante que frecuenta de manera intermitente y clandestina a Clara, una joven que cuida de una anciana y elegante dama croata, su percepción de la realidad cambia irreversiblemente.

Eine junge Frau sitzt in ihrer Wohnung und blickt auf die kleinen Dramen, die sich in ihrer Nachbarschaft abspielen. Nur ihr eigenes Leben steht still. Nachdem der Bürgerkrieg in ihrer syrischen Heimat ausbrach, ist die Journalistin dem Versprechen von Sicherheit gefolgt und nach Europa geflüchtet. Betäubt von den Kriegstraumata verstummt sie. Aber sie beginnt, zu schreiben - über ihr Zuhause, die Flucht und die Einsamkeit im britischen Exil.

In this striking, enormously affecting novel, Joyce Carol Oates tells the story of two very different yet intimately linked American families. Luther Dunphy is an ardent Evangelical who envisions himself as acting out God's will when he assassinates an abortion provider in his small Ohio town while Augustus Voorhees, the idealistic doctor who is killed, leaves behind a wife and children scarred and embittered by grief.

Forester Gethin Thomas is struggling to make ends meet in his rural hometown in North Wales. Bright, charming, but unambitious, the thing that keeps him going is Ty Gwydr, a beautiful lakeside house that he keeps an eye on for absent English owners. The house has been empty for so long he's come to think of it as his own. That is until the owners decide to sell, sending Geth into freefall.

Hélène ist fast vierzig, hat in Paris Karriere gemacht, und lebt nun mit Philippe und ihren beiden gemeinsamen Töchtern in einem Architektenhaus in der Nähe von Nancy. Sie hat sich ihre Jugendträume erfüllt: raus aus der Provinz, dem Kleinbürgerdasein der Eltern entkommen, erfolgreich sein. Christophe hingegen hat die kleine Stadt im Osten Frankreichs, in der er und Hélène aufgewachsen sind, nie verlassen. Er ist Vertreter für Hundefutter und führt ein unentschlossenes Leben als Teilzeitpapa und alternder Eishockeyspieler.

First, in a small Midwestern city, the deer population starts attacking people. So Beryl, a feisty senior with a troubled past, decides to take matters into her own hands, training a squad of fellow retirees to hunt the animals down and reclaim their own vitality. At the same time, a group of protesters decides to abandon the "system" and live in the woods, leaving their children and all responsibility behind.

It’s 1969, and Bobby’s just returned from Vietnam with a Purple Heart and the wrecked face and arm it honors. Unfortunately, the small town he’s returned to no longer welcomes folk who are maimed, deformed, diseased, or otherwise “disgusting”. In fact, there’s a push on to not just fine them, but actively round them up.

Prof is an ex-prisoner, activist and retired academic, who resolves to live a life of darkness after his release from prison. He holes up in his apartment, pushing away friends and family, and embraces his status as an urban legend in the neighborhood until a knock at the door shakes his existence. His visitor is Desire, an orphan and final year student, who has grown up idolizing Prof, following a fateful encounter in her hometown of Maroko, Nigeria as a child. Tentatively, the two begin to form a bond, as she returns every night at 9 p.m. to see him.

Tras años de ausencia, Mauricio, un dentista con ideales pero sin carácter, regresa a Barcelona. Un encuentro casual le lleva a participar en la campaña del partido socialista y a entablar una intensa relación con dos mujeres: Clotilde, que trata de encontrar el equilibrio entre sus ilusiones y la prosaica realidad, y la conmovedora Porritos, que le revelará aspectos oscuros de su personalidad y de su mundo.

Rosa and Esther march through downtown Detroit in August 1968 to protest the war in Vietnam. When a bloodied teenager reports that mounted police are beating protesters a few blocks away, the young women hurry to offer assistance. They try to stop the violence, but an officer is injured and the sisters are arrested. Rosa sees an opportunity to protest the war in court. Esther has an infant daughter and wants to avoid prison, which means accepting a plea bargain and testifying against her sister.