With ravishing beauty and unsettling intelligence, Michael Ondaatje's Booker Prize-winning novel traces the intersection of four damaged lives in an Italian villa at the end of World War II. Hana, the exhausted nurse; the maimed thief, Caravaggio; the wary sapper, Kip: each is haunted by the riddle of the English patient, the nameless, burned man who lies in an upstairs room and whose memories of passion, betrayal, and rescue illuminate this book like flashes of heat lightning.

The Elephant Vanishes is a collection that showcases the imaginative genius of Haruki Murakami, an international literary icon. These stories blend the mundane with the extraordinary, creating a world where the surreal becomes the new normal.

A man witnesses the inexplicable disappearance of his favorite elephant, newlyweds find themselves driven by insatiable hunger to rob a McDonald's, and a young woman becomes the object of affection for a peculiar green monster. Each story takes the reader on a journey across the boundaries of reality, returning with remarkable treasures.

By turns haunting and hilarious, this collection includes the story Barn Burning, which inspired the major motion picture Burning.

Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality, they slip gradually from obsession to corruption and betrayal, and at last—inexorably—into evil.

Big Sur is a poignant masterpiece of wrenching personal expression from the author of On the Road and The Dharma Bums. In this 1962 novel, Kerouac's alter ego Jack Duluoz, overwhelmed by success and excess, gravitates back and forth between wild binges in San Francisco and an isolated cabin on the California coast where he attempts to renew his spirit and clear his head of madness and alcohol. Only nature seems to restore him to a sense of balance.

In the words of Allen Ginsberg, Big Sur "reveals consciousness in all its syntactic elaboration, detailing the luminous emptiness of his own paranoiac confusion."

Sophie's Choice is a poignant and deeply moving novel that intertwines the narratives of three distinct individuals. At the heart of the story is the aspiration of a young man from the South, who holds an unwavering dream of becoming a writer. This ambition is set against the backdrop of a tumultuous love affair, marked by both passion and strife, between a brilliant Jewish man and a captivating Polish woman.

The novel delves into the harrowing past of the woman, Sophie, revealing a traumatic wound that haunts her—the very wound that propels both her and Nathan, her lover, on a path towards destruction. Sophie's Choice explores themes of love, guilt, and the lasting impact of the past on the present, making it a timeless exploration of the human condition.

El libro de los abrazos es una síntesis perfecta del imaginario más inspirado de su autor. Celebraciones, sucedidos, profecías, crónicas, sueños, memorias y desmemorias, deliciosos relatos breves en los que hasta las paredes hablan.

Un libro ilustrado por partida doble: a la mirada luminosa de Galeano se suman sus grabados.

“Lea una historia por día y será usted feliz la mitad del año. Lea una historia por día y estará usted triste la otra mitad. Cada página es tan hermosa como el libro.” (Koos Hageraats, HP/De Tijd, Holanda.)

Orphaned siblings create a macabre secret world for themselves in this “irresistibly readable” novel by the New York Times-bestselling author (The New York Review of Books).

This “powerful and disconcerting” novel by the Booker Prize-winning author of The Children Act and Atonement (The Daily Telegraph) tells the story of a dying family who live in a dying part of the city.

A father of four children decides, in an effort to make his garden easier to control, to pave it over. In the process, he has a heart attack and dies, leaving the cement garden unfinished and the children to the care of their mother. Soon after, the mother too dies and the children, fearful of being separated by social services, decide to cover up their parents’ deaths: they bury their mother in the cement garden.

The story is told from the point of view of Jack, one of the sons, who is entering adolescence with all of its attendant curiosity and appetites. Julie, the eldest, is almost a grown woman. Sue is rather bookish and observes all that goes on around her. And Tom is the youngest and the baby of the lot. The children seem to manage in this perverse setting rather well—until Julie brings home a boyfriend who threatens their secret by asking too many questions.

“[A] beautiful but disturbing novel.”—The AV Club
“McEwan’s evocative detail and perfect British prose lend a genteel decorum to the death and decay that surround the family.”—The New Yorker

A magnificent coming-of-age story steeped in nostalgia, Norwegian Wood blends the music, the mood, and the ethos that were the sixties with a young man’s hopeless and heroic first love.

Toru, a quiet and preternaturally serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before. Toru begins to adapt to campus life and the loneliness and isolation he faces there, but Naoko finds the pressures and responsibilities of life unbearable. As she retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself reaching out to others and drawn to a fiercely independent and sexually liberated young woman. 

Hamlet, probably composed between 1599 and 1601, takes place in Denmark and tells how Prince Hamlet carries out his revenge on his uncle Claudius who murdered Hamlet's father, the king, and holds the usurped crown as well as nuptials with Gertrude, the mother of Hamlet. The play is vividly traced around insanity (both real and feigned) and the course from deep pain to inordinate anger. It also explores the themes of betrayal, revenge, incest, and moral corruption.

Raised from birth in the orphanage at St. Cloud's, Maine, Homer Wells has become the protege of Dr. Wilbur Larch, its physician and director. There Dr. Larch cares for the troubled mothers who seek his help, either by delivering and taking in their unwanted babies or by performing illegal abortions. Meticulously trained by Dr. Larch, Homer assists in the former, but draws the line at the latter.

Then a young man brings his beautiful fiancee to Dr. Larch for an abortion, and everything about the couple beckons Homer to the wide world outside the orphanage...

Carson McCullers’ prodigious first novel was published to instant acclaim when she was just twenty-three. Set in a small town in the middle of the deep South, it is the story of John Singer, a lonely deaf-mute, and a disparate group of people who are drawn towards his kind, sympathetic nature. The owner of the café where Singer eats every day, a young girl desperate to grow up, an angry drunkard, a frustrated black doctor: each pours their heart out to Singer, their silent confidant, and he in turn changes their disenchanted lives in ways they could never imagine.

The year is 1327. Benedictines in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate. When his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths, Brother William turns detective. His tools are the logic of Aristotle, the theology of Aquinas, the empirical insights of Roger Bacon—all sharpened to a glistening edge by wry humor and a ferocious curiosity. He collects evidence, deciphers secret symbols and coded manuscripts, and digs into the eerie labyrinth of the abbey, where “the most interesting things happen at night.”

Look Homeward, Angel: A Story of the Buried Life is a 1929 novel by Thomas Wolfe. It is Wolfe's first novel and is considered a highly autobiographical American Bildungsroman. The character of Eugene Gant is generally believed to be a depiction of Wolfe himself. The novel covers the span of time from Gant's birth to the age of 19. The setting is the fictional town and state of Altamont, Catawba, a fictionalization of his home town, Asheville, North Carolina.

Playwright Ketti Frings wrote a theatrical adaptation of Wolfe's work in a 1957 play of the same title.

In his second collection of stories, as in his first, Carver's characters are peripheral people--people without education, insight or prospects, people too unimaginative to even give up. Carver celebrates these men and women.

The most celebrated story collection from “one of the true American masters” (The New York Review of Books)—a haunting meditation on love, loss, and companionship, and finding one’s way through the dark that includes the iconic and much-referenced title story featured in the Academy Award-winning film Birdman. "Raymond Carver's America is ... clouded by pain and the loss of dreams, but it is not as fragile as it looks. It is a place of survivors and a place of stories.... [Carver] has done what many of the most gifted writers fail to do: He has invented a country of his own, like no other except that very world, as Wordsworth said, which is the world to all of us." —The New York Times Book Review

The World According to Garp is a novel that chronicles the life and times of T. S. Garp, the bastard son of Jenny Fields—a feminist leader ahead of her times. This story delves into the world of sexual extremes and even sexual assassinations. Despite the dark and violent events that unfold, the tale maintains a comedic tone that is both ribald and robust.

Translated into more than thirty languages and available in over forty countries, this novel has sold more than ten million copies worldwide. It offers almost cheerful, even hilarious evidence of its famous last line: "In the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases."

Black Beauty spends his youth in a loving home, surrounded by friends and cared for by his owners. But when circumstances change, he learns that not all humans are so kind. Passed from hand to hand, Black Beauty witnesses love and cruelty, wealth and poverty, friendship and hardship. Will the handsome horse ever find a happy and lasting home?

Carefully retold in clear contemporary language, and presented with delightful illustrations, these favorite classic stories capture the heart and imagination of young readers. By retelling the story in a shorter, simpler form, these books become highly engaging for children, and the color illustrations help with both comprehension and interest level. Black Beauty is part of a collectible series that has strong gift appeal.

Cien años de soledad es una obra clave en la literatura hispanoamericana, una magnífica creación del escritor colombiano Gabriel Garcíaa Márquez. Reconocida como una de las más importantes novelas del siglo XX, esta obra se considera un pilar del realismo mágico, un estilo literario que mezcla lo maravilloso con la realidad.

La novela se centra en la historia de la familia Buendía a lo largo de siete generaciones, en el pueblo ficticio de Macondo. Este relato épico abarca diversos temas como el amor, la muerte, la soledad, la riqueza, la guerra y la paz, creando un universo literario donde lo cotidiano y lo fantástico se entrelazan de manera natural y poética.

Con su poderosa narrativa y su rica imaginación, Gabriel García Márquez teje una historia que no solo cuenta la vida de los personajes, sino que también refleja la historia y el espíritu de toda una época y cultura.

"Muchos años después, frente al pelotón de fusilamiento, el coronel Aureliano Buendía había de recordar aquella tarde remota en que su padre lo llevó a conocer el hielo". Con estas palabras empieza una novela ya legendaria en los anales de la literatura universal, una de las aventuras literarias más fascinantes de nuestro siglo. Millones de ejemplares de Cien años de Soledad leídos en todas las lenguas y el premio Nobel de Literatura coronando una obra que se había abierto paso "boca a boca".

Mito por derecho propio, saludada por sus lectores como la obra en español más importante después de la Biblia, Cien años de soledad cuenta la saga de la familia Buendía y su maldición, que castiga el matrimonio entre parientes dándoles hijos con cola de cerdo. Como un río desbordante, a lo largo de un siglo se entretejerán sus destinos por medio de sucesos maravillosos en el fantástico pueblo de Macondo, en una narración que es la cumbre indiscutible del realismo mágico y la literatura del boom. Alegoría universal, es también una visión de Latinoamérica y una parábola sobre la historia humana.

Revelación literaria en los años cincuenta, Kenzaburo Oé quedó consagrado como el mejor novelista japonés de la generación posterior a Yukio Mishima desde los años sesenta y se ha afirmado que recuerda a Dante, William Blake y Malcom Lowry.

"Una cuestión personal", una de sus mejores y más crueles novelas, animada de una extraña violencia interior, cuenta la terrible odisea de Bird, un joven profesor de inglés abrumado por una cenagosa existencia cotidiana en el Japón contemporáneo. Su anhelo secreto es redimirse a través de un mítico viaje por África, donde, según cree, su vida renacerá plena de sentido. Pero tales proyectos sufren un vuelco de ciento ochenta grados: su esposa da a luz un monstruoso bebé, condenado a una muerte inminente o, en el mejor de los casos, a una vida de vegetal. Este hecho convulsiona el lánguido e indolente existir de Bird y, durante tres días y tres noches, se arrastra por un implacable recorrido hacia lo más profundo de su abismo interior. Descenso a los infiernos en el que le acompañará Himiko, una vieja compañera de estudios. Bird buscará refugio en el alcohol, en los brazos de Himiko y, principalmente, en su propia vergüenza y humillación: ¿debe aceptar la fatalidad, cargar para siempre con un hijo anormal y renunciar a sus planes de una vida mejor o, por el contrario, debe desembarazarse del bebé provocando un desenlace fatal?

Hopscotch is a novel by Julio Cortazar, translated by Gregory Rabassa, that revolutionized the narrative structure with its non-linear approach. The story follows Horacio Oliveira, an Argentinian writer living in Paris with his mistress, La Maga, amid a group of bohemian friends known as "the Club." After a series of personal tragedies, Oliveira returns to Buenos Aires, where his life takes a series of unexpected turns as he takes on various odd jobs.

The novel is famous for its unique structure, allowing readers to navigate through its chapters in a non-conventional order. This innovative layout mirrors the book’s thematic exploration of life's complexity and the search for meaning. Cortazar drew inspiration from a variety of sources, including Henry Miller's quest for truth, Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki's Zen Buddhism teachings, and the aesthetics of Modernist writers like Joyce. Additionally, the novel reflects influences from Surrealism, the French New Novel, jazz music, and New Wave Cinema.

Gregory Rabassa's translation of Hopscotch won the National Book Award in 1966, marking a significant moment for the recognition of translation in literature. Cortazar's approval of Rabassa's work led to the translator's collaboration with Gabriel García Márquez on One Hundred Years of Solitude, further cementing Rabassa's reputation as a master translator.

En 1963, cuatro años antes de la publicación de Cien años de soledad, apareció en México una novela singular, historia de amor sombría, misteriosa, que cambió el tono de la narrativa mexicana de tan profunda y sorprendente manera como Pedro Páramo de Juan Rulfo: Los recuerdos del porvenir.

La asombrosa novela de Elena Garro es gótica y barroca. Más que una crónica -que sí lo es, de la Revolución Mexicana y de la guerra de los Cristeros- es una nostalgia y una soledad, es la voz de un pueblo iluminado, hallado y perdido, que habla en una primera persona desesperanzada y triste.

Una familia y otra familia, más las amantes solitarias, el loco del pueblo, las cuscas, los soldados, las beatas, un cura y un sacristán, más un campanario y una joven endemoniada de amor por el general Francisco Rosas, constituyen los solistas, las parejas y las comparsas de esta bella, ebria y condenada Danza de la Muerte.

El amor turbulento de Oliveira y La Maga, los amigos del Club de la Serpiente, las caminatas por París en busca del cielo y el infierno, tienen su reverso en la aventura simétrica de Oliveira, Talita y Traveler en un Buenos Aires teñido por el recuerdo.

La aparición de Rayuela en 1963 fue una verdadera revolución dentro de la novelística en lengua castellana: por primera vez, un escritor llevaba hasta las últimas consecuencias la voluntad de transgredir el orden tradicional de una historia y el lenguaje para contarla.

El resultado es este libro único, abierto a multiples lecturas, lleno de humor, de riesgo y de una originalidad sin precedentes.

The Bell Jar is the only novel written by American poet Sylvia Plath. It chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under—maybe for the last time.

Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that Esther's insanity becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies. Such deep penetration into the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche is an extraordinary accomplishment and has made The Bell Jar a haunting American classic.

When Arkady Petrovich comes home from college, his father finds his eager, naive son changed almost beyond recognition, for the impressionable Arkady has fallen under the powerful influence of the friend he has brought with him. A self-proclaimed nihilist, the ardent young Bazarov shocks Arkady's father by criticizing the landowning way of life and by his outspoken determination to sweep away traditional values of contemporary Russian society.

Turgenev's depiction of the conflict between generations and their ideals stunned readers when Fathers and Sons was first published in 1862. But many could also sympathize with Arkady's fascination with its nihilist hero whose story vividly captures the hopes and regrets of a changing Russia.

Begin your journey into Middle-earth with The Fellowship of the Ring, the first part of J.R.R. Tolkien's epic adventure, The Lord of the Rings. Sauron, the Dark Lord, has gathered to him all the Rings of Power—the means by which he intends to rule Middle-earth. All he lacks in his plans for dominion is the One Ring—the ring that rules them all—which has fallen into the hands of the hobbit, Bilbo Baggins.

In a sleepy village in the Shire, young Frodo Baggins finds himself faced with an immense task, as his elderly cousin Bilbo entrusts the Ring to his care. Frodo must leave his home and make a perilous journey across Middle-earth to the Cracks of Doom, there to destroy the Ring and foil the Dark Lord in his evil purpose.

Breve e intensa novela publicada en 1948, este logrado fruto de la denominada "literatura existencial" le dio a su autor un reconocimiento que traspasó las fronteras nacionales. El túnel es la mejor introducción al universo prodigioso de Ernesto Sábato; un clásico de las letras del continente, una historia sobre el drama del hombre arrojado en el sinsentido más doloroso: la conciencia de la nada.
El narrador describe una historia de amor y muerte en la que muestra la soledad del individuo contemporáneo. No están ausentes de esta trama policial y de suspenso, la locura y la increíble reflexión del protagonista, el pintor Juan Pablo Castel, debatiéndose por comprender las causas que lo arrastraron a matar a la mujer que amaba, María Iribarne, y que era su única vía de salvación. En este alucinante drama de la vida interior, seres intrincados en la bestial búsqueda de comprensión ceden a la mentira, la hipocresía y los celos desmedidos hasta el crimen más inexplicable. Aventura amorosa, aventura onírica, aventura del ser que dan testimonio de un asesinato, de cierta memoria culpable y de una valiente introspección.
Técnicamente perfecta y de lectura apasionante, El túnel excede el negativismo ácido de Sartre y la frenética huida hacia el vacío que plantea El extranjero de Camus, pero tiene de esos dos maestros literarios la impronta genial que hace de la escritura una radiografía del alma atormentada.

«Quand la sonnerie a encore retenti, que la porte du box s'est ouverte, c'est le silence de la salle qui est monté vers moi, le silence, et cette singulière sensation que j'ai eue lorsque j'ai constaté que le jeune journaliste avait détourné les yeux. Je n'ai pas regardé du côté de Marie. Je n'en ai pas eu le temps parce que le président m'a dit dans une forme bizarre que j'aurais la tête tranchée sur une place publique au nom du peuple français.»

L'étranger est le premier roman d'Albert Camus, Prix Nobel de littérature en 1957.

El juguete rabioso es la primera novela del escritor Roberto Arlt –marcadamente autobiográfica– publicada en el año 1926 por la Editorial Latina. Sus manuscritos datan de la década de 1920 y fueron bosquejados por Arlt en las argentinas Sierras de Córdoba, en una época en la cual su mujer, Carmen, atacada por una complicada tuberculosis, debe instalarse en esas geografías para intentar una difícil mejoría.

Arlt, en tanto acompaña a su esposa e invierte una considerable suma de dinero en negocios que no fructifican, hace nacer a El Juguete Rabioso.

Anna Karenina is a sophisticated woman who abandons her empty existence as the wife of Karenin and turns to Count Vronsky to fulfil her passionate nature - with tragic consequences. Levin, a reflection of Tolstoy himself, often expresses the author's own views and convictions.

Set against a vast and richly textured canvas of nineteenth-century Russia, the novel explores the complex interplay between love, family happiness, and the societal constraints that exist within the dynamics of city and country life. As the story unfolds, Anna's ill-fated affair with Vronsky leads to a life-altering crisis, while Levin's journey takes on a deeper philosophical significance.

The novel's seven major characters create a dynamic imbalance, exploring the variations on love and the search for happiness. Tolstoy's powerful narrative invites readers not to judge but to watch, presenting a panorama of humanity in all its flawed beauty.

Published to great acclaim and fierce controversy in 1866, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment has left an indelible mark on global literature and on our modern world.

Raskolnikov, a destitute and desperate former student, wanders through the slums of St Petersburg and commits a random murder without remorse or regret. He imagines himself to be a great man, a Napoleon: acting for a higher purpose beyond conventional moral law. But as he embarks on a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a suspicious police investigator, Raskolnikov is pursued by the growing voice of his conscience and finds the noose of his own guilt tightening around his neck. Only Sonya, a downtrodden sex worker, can offer the chance of redemption.

'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.' Thus memorably begins Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, one of the world's most popular novels.

Pride and Prejudice is an 1813 novel of manners written by Jane Austen. The novel follows the character development of Elizabeth Bennet, the dynamic protagonist of the book who learns about the repercussions of hasty judgments and comes to appreciate the difference between superficial goodness and actual goodness.

Mr. Bennet, owner of the Longbourn estate in Hertfordshire, has five daughters, but his property is entailed and can only be passed to a male heir. His wife also lacks an inheritance, so his family faces becoming very poor upon his death. Thus, it is imperative that at least one of the girls marry well to support the others, which is a motivation that drives the plot.

Delta of Venus by Anaïs Nin is a lush, magical world where the characters of her imagination possess the most universal of desires and exceptional of talents. Among these provocative stories, a Hungarian adventurer seduces wealthy women then vanishes with their money; a veiled woman selects strangers from a chic restaurant for private trysts; and a Parisian hatmaker named Mathilde leaves her husband for the opium dens of Peru. Delta of Venus is an extraordinarily rich and exotic collection from the master of erotic writing.

HOUDINI HEART harkens back to the masters of suspenseful supernatural horror: Poe, Lovecraft, Shirley Jackson, but speaks with a wholly fresh voice. Once caught in its pages, there's no escaping Longfellow's terrible tale. Weeks ago, she was one of Hollywood's biggest writers, wed to one of its greatest stars. The doting mother of their golden child. But now? She's alone, tortured by a horrifying secret no woman could bear. Pursued by those she can't outrun, anguished by a guilt she can't endure, and driven close to madness, she flees to the one place she's ever called home: a small town in Vermont where River House still stands. To a child, the splendid hotel was mysterious and magical and all its glamorous guests knew delicious secrets. Cocooned in its walls, she will write one last book. Her atonement? Or her suicide note? But life is never as you dream it, and River House isn't what she'd always imagined it was. Intense, literary, and harrowing, Houdini Heart is a tale of bone-chilling horror, emotional torment, and psychological terror. Gripped by River House, trapped in an aging hotel of mirrors only Houdini could escape, how much can haunt a mind before it too is only a thing once imagined?