The Door is a fascinating and unsettling exploration of the relationship between two very different women. Magda is a writer, educated, married to an academic, public-spirited, with an on-again-off-again relationship to Hungary’s Communist authorities. Emerence is a peasant, illiterate, impassive, abrupt, and seemingly ageless. She lives alone in a house that no one else may enter, not even her closest relatives. She is Magda’s housekeeper and has taken control over Magda’s household, becoming indispensable to her. And Emerence, in her way, has come to depend on Magda.

They share a kind of love—at least until Magda’s long-sought success as a writer leads to a devastating revelation. Len Rix’s prizewinning translation of The Door at last makes it possible for American readers to appreciate the masterwork of a major modern European writer.

A Cidade e as Serras é um romance de Eça de Queirós, publicado em 1901, pertencente à última fase do escritor, onde se afasta do realismo e abandona a crítica pesada que fazia à sociedade portuguesa da época. O próprio título já indica sobre o enredo.

A narrativa se passa no século XIX, quando Paris era considerada a capital da Europa e o centro do mundo. Portugal, no entanto, mantinha-se como um país agrário e decadente.

José Maria de Eça de Queirós nasceu a Novembro de 1845, numa casa na Praça do Almada, em Póvoa de Varzim. O seu pai, José Maria de Almeida de Teixeira de Queirós, provinha de uma família de magistrados perseguidos pelos seus ideais liberais que defendiam uma doutrina constitucional.

Eça foi internado no Colégio da Lapa, no Porto, e mais tarde estudou Direito na Universidade de Coimbra, onde conheceu futuros escritores e poetas como Antero de Quental. Influenciado pelas novas ideologias europeias como o Positivismo e o Realismo-Naturalismo, Eça tornou-se notável pela originalidade e riqueza do seu estilo e linguagem.

PASSION IN PROVENCE: Ben and Lee Alto follow Van Gogh’s 19th century path to Provence, hoping to find inspiration for their own lives and give their son, Misha, some insight into a world completely different from their own. They find art, of course, and a world of beautiful landscapes, warm temperatures, and, yes, wonderful food. But they also find a ghost of their past, and it’s not Vincent Van Gogh but a woman Ben once loved and a man, Zach, a well-known jazz musician, who teach them some hard lessons about art and life, as well as the art of life.

A SUMMER OF GOOD-BYES resonates with the warmth of France’s southern sun, famous artists, and violent conflicts. It’s a vital, romantic story filled with the tensions of love and marriage, sexual longing and family loyalty, and the struggle to live in the face of impending death and loss.

The Idiot, a novel by Elif Batuman, is a portrait of the artist as a young woman, exploring the themes of self-discovery and inventing oneself. Set in the year 1995, when email was a new phenomenon, we follow Selin, the daughter of Turkish immigrants, as she begins her freshman year at Harvard. Without any preconceived plans, she enrolls in classes on unfamiliar subjects, forges a friendship with the charismatic and worldly Serbian classmate Svetlana, and, almost by chance, starts corresponding with Ivan, a Hungarian mathematics student.

Despite their limited face-to-face interactions, Selin and Ivan develop a complex relationship through their email exchanges, with each message adding new and mysterious layers to the act of writing. As the school year concludes, Ivan departs for Budapest, and Selin embarks on a teaching assignment in the Hungarian countryside, a position arranged by one of Ivan's friends. Her journey also includes a two-week sojourn in Paris with Svetlana.

Unlike the typical narratives of American college students abroad, Selin's experiences in Europe lead her on an introspective journey. She confronts the bewildering and exhilarating turmoil of first love and comes to an important realization: she is destined to become a writer. The Idiot is a candid reflection on the complexities of becoming an adult, filled with exquisite emotional and intellectual sensitivity, mordant wit, and a writing style that captures the unpredictable nature of memory itself.