Everyone in Madrid in the torrid fall of 1868 is discussing political plots and revolution except for Don Jaime. He is a fencing master and a man of honor, an anachronism. For years he has been working on a Treatise on the Art of Fencing, the heart of which is his perfection of the unstoppable thrust. He is approached one day by a beautiful and mysterious woman with a scar at the corner of her mouth that hints at dark violence. She asks the maestro to teach her the unstoppable thrust. Even though Do-a Adela de Otero's weapons of charm and elegance are formidable, Don Jaime declines. But he is entirely unprepared for the unhurried, sure, and inexplicable movements that follow. Soon he finds himself involved in a plot that includes seduction, politics, secret documents, and murder. Rich with the historical detail of a decaying world that agonizes-as does the art of fencing-over ideals of honor and chivalry, The Fencing Master is superb literature and an honest-to-goodness page-turner.

The Fencing Master

Literature & Fiction

Costa, Margaret Jull

PEREZ-REVERTE,ARTURO

Soto, Sonia

Literary

Houghton, mifflin, harcourt

A previously unpublished novel by a literary master, Skylight tells the intertwined stories of the residents of a faded apartment building in 1940s Lisbon. Silvestre and Mariana, a happily married elderly couple, take in a young nomad, Abel, and soon discover their many differences. Adriana loves Beethoven more than any man, but her budding sexuality brings new feelings to the surface. Carmen left Galicia to marry humble Emilio, but hates Lisbon and longs for her first love, Manolo. Lidia used to work the streets, but now she’s kept by Paulo, a wealthy man with a wandering eye. These are just some of the characters in this early work, completed by Saramago in 1953 but never published until now. With his characteristic compassion, depth, and wit, Saramago shows us the quiet contentment of a happy family and the infectious poison of an unhappy one. We see his characters’ most intimate moments as well as the casual encounters particular to neighbors living in close proximity. Skylight is a portrait of ordinary people, painted by a master of the quotidian, a great observer of the immense beauty and profound hardships of the modern world.

Skylight

SARAMAGO, JOSÉ

Contemporary

“The inklings of Saramago’s style swell throughout . . . Skylight shines.” — New York Times “Unmistakably Saramago . . . There is no shortage of wonders to be found in [Skylight].” — Washington Post “A fascinating and startlingly mature work . . . The book is a gem.” — Boston Globe Lisbon, late 1940s. The inhabitants of a faded apartment building are struggling to make ends meet: Silvio the cobbler and his wife take in a disaffected young lodger; Dona Lídia, a retired prostitute, is kept by a businessman with a roving eye. Humble salesman Emilio’s Spanish wife is in a permanent rage; beautiful Claudinha’s boss lusts for her; Justina and her womanizer husband live at war with each other. Happy marriages, abusive relationships, jealousy, gossip, love—Skylight is a portrait of ordinary people painted by the master of the quotidian, a great observer of the immense beauty and profound hardship of the modern world. “The gifted young Saramago makes these characters click together in a way that's extremely sympathetic.” — NPR, All Things Considered “It was only a matter of time before a work of such extraordinary honesty and perception would make its way into the world.” — San Francisco Chronicle

United States

Mariner Books

An affectionate and very funny gallery of twenty great world authors from the pen of "the most subtle and gifted writer in contemporary Spanish literature" (The Boston Globe). In addition to his own busy career as "one of Europe's most intriguing contemporary writers" (TLS), Javier Marías is also the translator into Spanish of works by Hardy, Stevenson, Conrad, Faulkner, Nabokov, and Laurence Sterne. His love for these authors is the touchstone of Written Lives. Collected here are twenty pieces recounting great writers' lives, "or, more precisely, snippets of writers' lives." Thomas Mann, Rilke, Arthur Conan Doyle, Turgenev, Djuna Barnes, Emily Brontë, Malcolm Lowry, and Kipling appear ("all fairly disastrous individuals"), and "almost nothing" in his stories is invented. Like Isak Dinesen (who "claimed to have poor sight, yet could spot a four-leaf clover in a field from a remarkable distance away"), Marías has a sharp eye. Nabokov is here, making "the highly improbable assertion that he is 'as American as April in Arizona,'" as is Oscar Wilde, who, in debt on his deathbed, ordered up champagne, "remarking cheerfully, 'I am dying beyond my means.'" Faulkner, we find, when fired from his post office job, explained that he was not prepared "to be beholden to any son-of-a-bitch who had two cents to buy a stamp." Affection glows in the pages of Written Lives, evidence, as Marías remarks, that "although I have enjoyed writing all my books, this was the one with which I had the most fun."

Written Lives: Essays

MARÍAS,JAVIER

New Directions

A daring masterwork by Javier Marias: "Spain's most subtle and gifted writer." (The Boston Globe) Part spy novel, part romance, part Henry James, Your Face Tomorrow is a wholly remarkable display of the immense gifts of Javier Marias. With Fever and Spear, Volume One of his unfolding novel Your Face Tomorrow, he returns us to the rarified world of Oxford (the delightful setting of All Souls and Dark Back of Time), while introducing us to territory entirely new--espionage. Our hero, Jaime Deza, separated from his wife in Madrid, is a bit adrift in London until his old friend Sir Peter Wheeler―retired Oxford don and semi-retired master spy―recruits him for a new career in British Intelligence. Deza possesses a rare gift for seeing behind the masks people wear. He is soon observing interviews conducted by Her Majesty's secret service: variously shady international businessmen one day, would-be coup leaders the next. Seductively, this metaphysical thriller explores past, present, and future in the ever-more-perilous 21st century. This compelling and enigmatic tour de force from one of Europe's greatest writers continues with Volume Two, Dance and Dream.

Your Face Tomorrow: Fever and Spear

Review\n"A big, satisfying national saga... A long, immersive novel that parcels out information and plot turns at a methodical pace. This feels very natural: The novel is a flexible art form, of course, but among its signal virtues are patience and deliberation. Depicting the decline of an old order is something it is uniquely good at doing and there is great pleasure to be had in Ms. Jorge’s confident handling of the classic subject. As private desires clash with public appearance, a quiet moral accounting emerges in Milene’s consciousness. 'What did goodness have to do with strength?' she wonders. 'Were the two qualities mutually repellant?' The answer is as layered and ambiguous as the rest of this fine book." 
― Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal\n"The novel moves rhythmically, as if wavering under the blazing sun...This is a thrillingly immersive 'parable about life, about the struggle between rich and poor, between one race and another.' Even the trees and surrounding landscape--'mute figures who, of course, had knowledge and memory'--have their point of view." 
― Anderson Tepper, New York Times Book Review\n"[A] captivating Romeo and Juliet–style love story set in the Algarve of Portugal . . . Jorge blends the personal drama with insight on the compounding social issues, making the account sing on several levels. The result is brilliant and trenchant." 
― Publishers Weekly, starred review\n"Award-winning Jorge’s richly layered family epic, in its first English translation, examines racial, social, and economic history in Portugal." 
― Laura Chanoux, Booklist\n"Manages to recapitulate many of the issues present in post-colonial Portugal . . . Jorge’s narrative ranges from the lyrical to the mundane but conveys the universality of a specific, familial place.... A dose of near-contemporary history tempered by a page-turning family saga and romance." 
― Kirkus Reviews\nFrom the winner of the prestigious FIL Prize in Romance Languages comes this masterpiece saga, set in the twilight of the late twentieth century, of two clashing families in coastal Portugal. 
With the grand sweep of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, this enduring tale transports us to a picturesque seaside town haunted by its colonial past. 
Considered one of Europe’s most influential contemporary writers, Portuguese novelist Lídia Jorge has captivated international audiences for decades. With the publication of The Wind Whistling in the Cranes, English-speaking readers can now experience the thrum of her signature poetic style and her delicately braided multicharacter plotlines, and witness the heroic journey of one of the most maddening, and endearing, characters in literary fiction. 
Exquisitely translated by Margaret Jull Costa and Annie McDermott, this breathtaking saga, set in the now-distant 1990s, tells the story of the landlords and tenants of a derelict canning factory in southern Portugal. The wealthy, always-scheming Leandros have owned the building since before the Carnation Revolution, a peaceful coup that toppled a four-decade-long dictatorship and led to Portugal’s withdrawal from its African colonies. It was Leandro matriarch Dona Regina who handed the keys to the Matas, the bustling family from Cape Verde who saw past the dusty machinery and converted the space into a warm―and welcoming―home. 
When Dona Regina is found dead outside the factory on a holiday weekend, her body covered in black ants, her granddaughter, Milene, investigates. Aware that her aunts and uncles, who are off on vacation, will berate her inability to articulate what has just happened, she approaches the factory riddled with anxiety. Hours later, the Matas return home to find this strange girl hiding behind their clotheslines, and with caution, they take her in . . . 
“Some said that Milene had been found wandering near the golf course. . . . Still others that she must have spent those five days at the beach, eating raw fish and sleeping out in the open . . .”

The Wind Whistling in the Cranes: A Novel

Jorge, Lidia

Liveright

Stories that capture the absurdity of life. Valenzuela's view of life captures our imagination because we know how far it is from reality - cops in Buenos Aires are not afraid of dogs, latin lovers in cafes do make moves in the game of courtship, hotels in Venice overlook canals.

Symmetries: Stories (High Risk)

Valenzuela, Luisa

SERPENTS TAIL +

After four years in a Barcelona jail, Irene, an amnestied terrorist with a compromised reputation, is free to go, and finds herself traveling towards Bilbao and her family's home before she has even begun to consider her options

The Lone Woman

ATXAGA, BERNARDO

Harvill Pr

"Seni kendimden bile daha cok seviyorum." Eger bunu soyleyebilirsem kendimle baris icinde yasamayi surdurebilirim, cunku bu ask beni rehin aldi. Unlu, basarili, zengin bir yazarin savas muhabirligi yapan karisi Esther bir gun ansizin ortadan kaybolur. Esther kacirilmis midir, oldurulmus mudur, yoksa kocasini mi terk etmistir? Cok sevdigi karisini bulmak icin yanip tutusan yazar, Esther'in en son birlikte goruldugu Kazak genci Mikhail'le birlikte Fransa'dan Ispanya'ya, Hirvatistan'dan Orta Asya steplerine uzanan bir yolculukta bulur kendini. Bu buyulu yolculuk giderek bir 'ic yolculuga' donusecek, yazar yazginin gucu ve askin dogasini yeniden kesfedecek, yasamina yeni degerler bicecektir... Gunumuzun en cok okunan yazarlarindan Paulo Coelho, daha once yayinlanan Simyaci, On Bir Dakika, Veronika olmek Istiyor gibi romanlarindan sonra Zihir'de de, okurlarini bir ruh yolculuguna cikariyor. Zihir'i okudugunuzda, kendinizi daha derinden taniyacaksiniz.Ince Kapak: Sayfa Sayisi: 320Baski Yili: 2005e-Kitap: Sayfa Sayisi: 253Baski Yili: 2016Dili: TurkceYayinevi: Can Yayinlari

Zahir

Coehlo, Paulo

Coelho, Paul

Harpercollins

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Costa, Margaret Jull. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Costa, Margaret Jull

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Costa, Margaret Jull. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Fencing Master

Skylight

Skylight

Written Lives: Essays

Your Face Tomorrow: Fever and Spear

The Wind Whistling in the Cranes: A Novel

Symmetries: Stories (High Risk)

The Lone Woman

Zahir