Ramón Gómez de la Serna, como hijo de una familia de clase media con abono en la ópera, decide desde muy joven tener estudio propio para recluirse a escribir sus cosas y ganarse la vida. Se pensaría en lo que entonces llamaban una “garçoniere”, pero la única señorita a lo garzón que tiene capilla en la alta basílica ramoniana, calle de Velázquez, es una muñeca de cera con la que se hacía las fotos para los periódicos.

Небольшой сборник стихов Ильяса ибн Юсуф Низами (1141-1211), Муслихиддина Саади (1184-1292), Абдуррахмана Джами (1414-1492), Афзаладдина Хакани (1121-1199) и Насира Хосрова (1003-1123). 

Annales Vedastini Ведастинские анналы впервые были обнаружены в середине XVIII в. французским исследователем аббатом Лебефом в библиотеке монастыря Сент-Омер и опубликованы им в 1756 году. В тексте анналов есть указание на то, что их автором являлся некий монах из монастыря св. Ведаста, расположенного возле Appaca. Во временном отношении анналы охватывают 874—900 гг. В территориальном плане наибольшее внимание автором уделяется событиям, происходящим в Австразии и Нейстрии. Однако, подобно Ксантенским анналам, в них достаточно фрагментарно говорится о том, что совершалось в Бургундии, Аквитании, Италии, а также на правом берегу Рейна. До 882 года Ведастинские анналы являются, по сути, лишь извлечением из Сен-Бертенских анналов, обогащенным заметками местного значения. Далее записи становятся самостоятельными. Они приобретают особую важность вследствие обстоятельного описания походов норманнских дружин в пределы франкского королевства. Анналист сообщает подчас уникальную информацию о боевой тактике норманнов, об их отношениях с франкскими правителями. Автор не обходит молчанием и важнейшие политические события того времени (борьбу королей Одо и Карла, партийное размежевание в среде франкской знати, политические контакты с Лотарингией и Восточно-франкским королевством и др.). Стиль автора отличается суровой монотонностью и большим количеством грамматических ошибок. Текст практически не содержит библейских реминисценций.

Centauro es un texto diáfano para el lector, sin zonas que para ser transitadas requieran de su complicidad, servido una vez más por la voluntad de estilo puntilloso que personaliza la prosa de Updike. Si los personajes casi nunca logran hacernos olvidar la firmeza y la elegancia formales que los especifican, es decir, la riqueza del verbo aplicado a sus vidas ficticias, se debe en gran medida a que expresamente son deudores de la leyenda mitológica que Updike quiso insertar en la historia contemporánea, con lo cual en su composición tiene más peso lo arquetípico que lo propiamente substantivo de las criaturas humanas susceptibles de desenvolverse libres de vínculos o afinidades prefijadas. Por lo tanto, no alimento la menor duda acerca del valor de Centauro como una obra que al mismo tiempo que ejemplifica con fidelidad las maneras narrativas de John Updike -las virtudes y las servidumbres del Updike de la primera etapa-, se aparta un buen trecho del camino real que a lo largo de una cuarentena de títulos le llevarían a erigirse en el novelista por excelencia de la domesticidad norteamericana, el que con mayor profundidad ha analizado los conflictos y evolución de la pareja liberal, esto es, de la familia, y la transformación de sus esquemas sociales y morales al ritmo de los acontecimientos históricos que a su vez han modificado la sociedad desde el ya lejano mandato de Kennedy al de Bush. Updike no ha vuelto a servirse de la mitología griega como soporte, quizá porque ha sido precisamente él, junto con Saul Bellow, quien de manera convincente ha creado una simbología no codificada del individuo moderno en una sociedad lastrada por la violencia, la dureza y el vacío espiritual, que lo perturba. En tanto que cronista veraz de esa confrontación trascendental, molesta e inquietante, John Updike es soberbio y, aunque sólo fuera por eso, habría que leer sus obras de ficción con interés y respeto. De la Introducción de Robert Saladrigas

Rabbit, now in his 50s and with a heart condition, is living in a condo in Florida. Nelson and his family come to stay and disaster unfolds. Rabbit has a serious heart attack after a boating accident with his granddaughter and Nelson has been embezzling the family firm to feed his cocaine habit. *** Amazon.com Review It's 1989, and Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom feels anything but restful. In fact he's frozen, incapacitated by his fear of death-and in the final year of the Reagan era, he's right to be afraid. His 55-year-old body, swollen with beer and munchies and racked with chest pains, wears its bulk "like a set of blankets the decades have brought one by one." He suspects that his son Nelson, who's recently taken over the family car dealership, is embezzling money to support a cocaine habit. Indeed, from Rabbit's vantage point-which alternates between a winter condo in Florida and the ancestral digs in Pennsylvania, not to mention a detour to an intensive care unit-decay is overtaking the entire world. The budget deficit is destroying America, his accountant is dying of AIDS, and a terrorist bomb has just destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 above Lockerbie, Scotland. This last incident, with its rapid transit from life to death, hits Rabbit particularly hard: Imagine sitting there in your seat being lulled by the hum of the big Rolls-Royce engines and the stewardesses bring the clinking drinks caddy… and then with a roar and giant ripping noise and scattered screams this whole cozy world dropping away and nothing under you but black space and your chest squeezed by the terrible unbreathable cold, that cold you can scarcely believe is there but that you sometimes actually feel still packed into the suitcases, stored in the unpressurized hold, when you unpack your clothes, the dirty underwear and beach towels with the merciless chill of death from outer space still in them. Marching through the decades, John Updike's first three Rabbit novels-Rabbit, Run (1960), Rabbit Redux (1971), and Rabbit Is Rich (1981)-dissect middle-class America in all its dysfunctional glory. Rabbit at Rest (1990), the final installment and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, continues this brilliant dissection. Yet it also develops Rabbit's character more fully as he grapples with an uncertain future and the consequences of his past. At one point, for example, he's taken his granddaughter Judy for a sailing expedition when his first heart attack strikes. Rabbit gamely navigates the tiny craft to shore-and then, lying on the beach, feels a paradoxical relief at having both saved his beloved Judy and meeting his own death. (He doesn't, not yet.) Meanwhile, this all-American dad feels responsible for his son's full-blown drug addiction but incapable of helping him. (Ironically, it's Rabbit's wife Janice, the "poor dumb mutt," who marches Nelson into rehab.) His misplaced sense of responsibility-plus his crude sexual urges and racial slurs-can make Rabbit seems less than lovable. Still, there's something utterly heroic about his character. When the end comes, after all, it's the Angstrom family that refuses to accept the reality of Rabbit's mortality. Only Updike's irreplaceable mouthpiece rises to the occasion, delivering a stoical, one-word valediction: "Enough."

The hero of John Updike's Rabbit, Run (1960), ten years after the hectic events described in Rabbit Redux (1971), has come to enjoy considerable prosperity as Chief Sales Representative of Springer Motors, a Toyota agency in Brewer, Pennsylvania. The time is 1979: Skylab is falling, gas lines are lengthening, the President collapses while running in a marathon, and double-digit inflation coincides with a deflation of national confidence. Nevertheless, Harry Angstrom feels in good shape, ready to enjoy life at last – until his son, Nelson, returns from the West, and the image of an old love pays a visit to his lot. New characters and old populate these scenes from Rabbit's middle age, as he continues to pursue, in his erratic fashion, the rainbow of happiness.

The assumptions and obsessions that control our daily lives are explored in tantalizing detail by master novelist John Updike in this wise, witty, sexy story. Harry Angstrom – known to all as Rabbit, one of America's most famous literary characters – finds his dreary life shattered by the infidelity of his wife, Janice. How he resolves – or further complicates – his problems, makes for a novel of the first order. Rabbit Redux is the second of five John Updike Rabbit novels, all of which focus on their central character Harry Angstrom. In Rabbit Redux, Harry Angstrom – known to all as Rabbit, one of America's most famous literary characters – finds his dreary life shattered by the infidelity of his wife, Janice. How he resolves or further complicates his problems makes for a novel of the first order. The assumptions and obsessions that control our daily lives are explored in tantalizing detail by master novelist John Updike in this wise, witty, and sexy story.

The stunning novella that concludes John Updike's acclaimed Rabbit series is now available on audio. Set 10 years after Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom's death, Rabbit Remembered returns listeners to the small Pennsylvania town where Harry's widow, Janice, and his son, Nelson, still reside. They are faced with a surprise when Annabelle, Harry's 39-year-old illegitimate daughter, arrives on the scene, bringing with her ghosts from the past.

Harry Angstrom was a star basketball player in high school and that was the best time of his life. Now in his mid-20s, his work is unfulfilling, his marriage is moribund, and he tries to find happiness with another woman. But happiness is more elusive than a medal, and Harry must continue to run–from his wife, his life, and from himself, until he reaches the end of the road and has to turn back.... From the Publisher I read Rabbit, Run when I was in high school (and it wasn't even a school assignment!). Twenty years later (at least!), three very vivid scenes from that book still pop into my head from time to time. The first is the used-car lot, where Rabbit Angstrom, the former basketball star, works for his father-in-law. The second scene is in a very red Chinese restaurant that had changed over from a French restaurant only the week before. Rabbit is there with his old coach and two women that are not their wives, and they drink daiquiris and whiskey sours. This restaurant could have been (and was) in my small town. The third scene is the most harrowing, and I've repeated it as a cautionary tale to young mothers for years, telling the story as if it had happened to someone I know. Janice, Rabbit's wife, who slugs alcohol throughout her pregnancy, is drunk and bathing her newborn baby when something terrible happens. I won't ruin it by telling you more. I read hundreds of books a year, both for my job and for pleasure, so the fact that parts of this book are so indelibly etched in my mind is a testament to the talent and genius of John Updike. P.S. all of the other books in the Rabbit series are equally unforgettable. –Maureen O'Neal

S. is Sarah Worth – doctor's wife, North Shore matron, loving mother, and now (suddenly!) ardent follower of a Hindu religious leader known as the Arhat. As this brilliant and very funny novel opens, Sarah is fleeing the confinement of her suburban life to become a sannyasin (pilgrim) at her guru's Arizona ashram. In the letters and audiocassettes that Sarah sends to her husband, daughter, mother, brother, best friend – to her psychiatrist and her hairdresser and her dentist – master novelist John Updike gives us a witty comedy of manners, a biting satire of life on a religious commune, and the story – deep and true – of an American woman in search of herself.

Terrorist by John Updike is a timely piece of contemporary literature that is well-written and dense with observation and description. Updike takes readers into the mind of a terrorist and helps us understand the possible motivation and mindset of those involved in terrorism. Terrorist is an important piece of social literature, but it is not light or easy reading. It is slow at points and requires concentration to read. Terrorist by John Updike is about Ahmad Ashmawy Mulloy, an 18-year-old boy in Northern New Jersey who is devoted to Islam. Ahmad was raised by an Irish-American mother after his Egyptian father disappeared when he was three. Ahmad converts to Islam at age 11 and is instructed in the Qur'an by a local imam. Ahmad is a sympathetic character. Updike lets readers into his head, forcing us to view American materialism and morality from his viewpoint. Updike also draws us into other characters' lives-Ahmad's mother, a high school guidance counselor, an African-American teenage girl, a worker in the Department of Homeland Security. It was striking to me how lost many of the characters were. In many ways, Ahmad was one of the most thoughtful and moral characters in the story. That is a disturbing realization when you consider that he is being groomed to be a terrorist. Indeed, just as the protagonist is a thoughtful young terrorist, the novel Terrorist is a thought-provoking book. It is clear that Updike has thought a lot about American society, the inner city and modern morality. His descriptions and complex characters compel readers to do the same. Terrorist is not easy reading. I did not get caught up in the plot, and that was disappointing. It was easy for me to put the novel down after 25 pages, both because I needed time to process and because it did not always keep my attention. Updike is a great writer, and Terrorist shows that; however, everyone may not like the book.

Ahmad ha nacido en New Prospect, una ciudad industrial venida a menos del área de Nueva York. Es hijo de una norteamericana de origen irlandés y de un estudiante egipcio que desapareció de sus vidas cuando tenía tres años. A los once, con el beneplácito de su madre, se convirtió al Islam y, siguiendo las enseñanzas de su rigorista imam, el Sheij Rashid, lo fue asumiendo como identidad y escudo frente a la sociedad decadente, materialista y hedonista que le rodeaba. Ahora, a los dieciocho, acuciado por los agobios y angustias sexuales y morales propios de un adolescente despierto, Ahmad se debate entre su conciencia religiosa, los consejos de Jack Levy el desencantado asesor escolar que ha sabido reconocer sus cualidades humanas e inteligencia, y las insinuaciones cada vez más explícitas de implicación en actos terroristas de Rashid. Hasta que se encuentra al volante de una furgoneta cargada de explosivos camino de volar por los aires uno de los túneles de acceso a la Gran Manzana. Con una obra literaria impecable a sus espaldas, Updike asume el riesgo de abordar un tema tan delicado como la sociedad estadounidense inmediatamente posterior al 11 de Septiembre. Y lo hace desde el filo más escarpado del abismo: con su habitual mezcla de crueldad y empatía hacia sus personajes, se mete en la piel del «otro», de un adolescente árabe-americano que parece destinado a convertirse en un «mártir» inmisericorde, a cometer un acto espeluznante con la beatífica confianza del que se cree merecedor de un paraíso de huríes y miel.

National Book Award for Fiction In a small Pennsylvania town in the late 1940s, schoolteacher George Caldwell yearns to find some meaning in his life. Alone with his teenage son for three days in a blizzard, Caldwell sees his son grow and change as he himself begins to lost touch with his life. Interwoven with the myth of Chiron, the noblest centaur, and his own relationship to Prometheus, The Centaur one of John Updike's most brilliant and unusual novels.

Ben Turnbull is a retired investment executive living North of Boston in the year 2020. A recent war between the USA and China has thinned the population and brought social chaos. He finds his personal history caught up in the disjuntions and vagaries of the "many universes" theories.

When my mother named me Ophelia, she thought she was being literary. She didn't realize she was being tragic. On the surface, Annie Powers's life in a wealthy Floridian suburb is happy and idyllic. Her husband, Gray, loves her fiercely; together, they dote on their beautiful young daughter, Victory. But the bubble surrounding Annie is pricked when she senses that the demons of her past have resurfaced and, to her horror, are now creeping up on her. These are demons she can't fully recall because of a highly dissociative state that allowed her to forget the tragic and violent episodes of her earlier life as Ophelia March and to start over, under the loving and protective eye of Gray, as Annie Powers. Disturbing events-the appearance of a familiar dark figure on the beach, the mysterious murder of her psychologist-trigger strange and confusing memories for Annie, who realizes she has to quickly piece them together before her past comes to claim her future and her daughter.

The New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Lies and Fragile returns to The Hollows, delivering a thriller that explores matters of faith, memory, and sacrifice. After giving up his post at the Hollows Police Department, Jones Cooper is at loose ends. He is having trouble facing a horrible event from his past and finding a second act. He's in therapy. Then, on a brisk October morning, he has a visitor. Eloise Montgomery, the psychic who plays a key role in Fragile, comes to him with predictions about his future, some of them dire. Michael Holt, a young man who grew up in The Hollows, has returned looking for answers about his mother, who went missing many years earlier. He has hired local PI Ray Muldune and psychic Eloise Montgomery to help him solve the mystery that has haunted him. What he finds might be his undoing. Fifteen-year-old Willow Graves is exiled to The Hollows from Manhattan when six months earlier she moved to the quiet town with her novelist mother after a bitter divorce. Willow is acting out, spending time with kids that bring out the worst in her. And when things get hard, she has a tendency to run away – a predilection that might lead her to dark places. Set in The Hollows, the backdrop for Fragile, this is the riveting story of lives set on a collision course with devastating consequences. The result is Lisa Unger's most compelling fiction to date.

Isabel and Marcus Raines are the perfect couple. She is a well known novelist; he is a brilliant inventor of high-tech games. They've been married for five years and still enjoy a loving romance. But one morning, Marcus says he loves her, leaves for work, and disappears into thin air. Isabel relentlessly tried to reach him when he doesn't return home. But when his call finally comes, she hears only aman's terrified scream. The police are of no use. The screams she heardmay be a television show, a prank, they tell her.Men leave. They leave all the time. Isabel races to Marcus's office, trying to find some answers. Instead she finds herself in the middle of an FBI raid, and she is knocked unconscious.When she awakes in a hospital, she learns that everyone Marcus worked with is dead. She returns home to find their apartment ransacked, and the police are there. They urge her to check her bank accounts. Her money – their money – is gone. Then the police discover that Marcus Raines is a dead man. Long dead. Years dead. Isabel has been married to a stranger. And now the chase is on, because Isabel will not rest until she finds the truth about theman she loved, who he was, where he's gone, and how he was able to deceive her so completely.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Lies, Black Out, and Die For You comes a novel of corrosive secrets, tenuous connections, and the all-encompassing strength of a mother's faith. Despite their mostly happy marriage, when their son Ricky's girlfriend vanishes, Maggie and Jones find themselves at odds – Maggie is positive Ricky had nothing to do with Charlene's disappearance, while Jones isn't as sure. With Charlene gone, the memory of another young girl who went missing some twenty years ago is haunting the town. That story didn't have a happy ending, and almost everyone has an unrevealed reason to keep the horror of it firmly in the past. As Jones and the police turn their focus on Ricky, Maggie must find out the truth about what happened all those years ago. In order to save her son and the young woman whose life hangs in the balance, she'll test the bonds of her community – and find out just how fragile they can be.

Recently, Ridley Jones stepped off a street corner and into an abyss of violence, deception, and fear. She is being a lot more careful about where she steps and trying to get on with her life when another seemingly mundane act- picking up a few envelopes of prints at a photo lab- puts Ridley at the nexus of a global network of crime. A shadowy figure of a man appears in almost every picture she's taken in the last year, lurking just far enough away to make identification impossible. Everyone from the federal government to the criminal underworld wants to know who the man is- and where he is- and some people are willing to kill to find out. Now the FBI is at her door, some serious bad guys are following her every move, and the family she once loved and relied on is more distant than ever. Ridley has never felt so confused or alone in her life. Everyone she loves has turned out to be a stranger- she even feels like a stranger to herself. Is she a product of nature or nurture? At once hunting down a ghost and running for her life, Ridley doesn't know if she ever had the power to shape her own destiny or if love exists anywhere beyond her imagination. The only thing Ridley knows for sure is that she has to get to the truth about herself and her past if she's ever going to find her way home. Charged with relentless intensity and kinetic action, playing out with unnerving suspense on the streets of New York and London, and seen through the terrified but determined eyes of a young woman whose body and heart are pushed to the point of shattering, Sliver of Truth is another triumph from the New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Lies.

Lydia Strong's old writing student, Lily, has been missing for weeks. Before her disappearance, Lily had left a strange phone message for Lydia, asking for her help. But until now, Lydia did not pay much attention to the message because Lily tended to call occasionally. But when she learns that Lily had been looking into her brother's suicide, Lydia becomes concerned. In this fourth of Lisa Miscione's intense and gripping thrillers, Lydia teams up with her husband, ex-FBI agent, p.i. Jeffrey Mark, to uncover the truth behind Lily's disappearance.

Inspector Archie Penrose invites Josephine Tey down to his family home in Cornwall so she can recover from the traumatic events depicted in An Expert in Murder. Josephine welcomes the opportunity, especially since Archie's home is near the famous Minack open-air theatre perched on the cliffs overlooking the sea. However, Josephine's hopes of experiencing a period of rest are dashed when her arrival coincides with the funeral of a young man from the village who had drowned when his horse inexplicitly leapt into the nearby lake. When another young man disappears and the village's curate falls from the cliffs of the Minack Theatre onto the rocks below, Josphine and Archie begin to suspect the involvement a cold-blooded murderer. As Josephine and Archie try to unravel the mystery, they begin to see death as an angel with two faces -- one gazing at the violence in the present, the other looking back to the crimes hidden in the past.

Author Nicola Upson brings legendary mystery writer Josephine Tey back for a third investigation in Two for Sorrow, the spellbinding follow-up to An Expert in Murder and Angel with Two Faces. Fans of P.D. James, Agatha Christie, and Jacqueline Winspear will relish this ingenious literary creation, as one of the most beloved mystery writers of the twentieth century, while doing research for a new novel based on a horrific case of multiple child murder in 1903 London, is drawn into a chillingly related hunt for a sadistic, present-day killer.

«Сказание о Ёсицунэ» – памятник японской литературы конца XV – начала XVI века. В центре повествования – трагическая и яркая судьба Минамото Ёсицунэ, одного из героев войны феодальных домов Тайра и Минамото в 80-х годах XII века. Живость и занимательность языка оригинала, в, безусловно, блестящем переводе Аркадия Стругацкого, позволяют рекомендовать данную книгу самому широкому кругу читателей. Сопровождается вступительной статьёй Аркадия Стругацкого.