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A huge international bestseller, with over 2 million copies sold worldwide, Night Train to Lisbon is an utterly compelling novel about one man's escape from a humdrum life in search of passion and spontaneity. Night Train to Lisbon tells the story of mild-mannered, middle-aged Classics scholar Raimund Gregorius. When, one afternoon, he walks out of his class while in the middle of giving a lesson, his uncharacteristic impulsiveness surprises him as much as his students. This break from his usually predictable routine is driven by two chance encounters that morning on his way to work - the first with a mysterious Portuguese woman, and the second with a book discovered in a forgotten corner of...
From the internationally bestselling author of Night Train to Lisbon comes a compelling novel about one man's attempt to extricate himself from his featureless existence and find a life of passion and danger. LONGLISTED FOR THE 2013 IMPAC AWARD In a quiet seaside town near Genoa, experts are gathering for a linguistics conference. One speaker, Philipp Perlmann is recently widowed and, struggling to contend with his grief, is unable to complete his keynote address. As the hour approaches, an increasingly desperate Perlmann decides to plagiarize the work of Leskov, a Russian colleague who cannot attend, and pass it off as his own. But when word reaches Perlmann that Leskov has arrived unexpectedly in Genoa, Perlmann must protect himself from exposure by constructing a maelstrom of lies and deceit, which will lead him to the brink of murder. In this intense psychological drama, the author of Night Train to Lisbon again takes the reader on a journey into the depths of human emotion and the language of memory and loss.
From the author of Night Train to Lisbon: a father’s story about his daughter unravels “[a] tale of grief, fraud, guilt and madness . . . Revelatory” (The New York Times Book Review). Pascal Mercier’s international bestseller Night Train to Lisbon mesmerized readers around the world, and was adapted into a film starring Jeremy Irons. Now, in Lea, Mercier returns with a mysterious tale of a father’s love and a daughter’s ambition in the wake of devastating tragedy. It starts with the death of Martijn van Vliet’s wife. Grief-stricken, his young daughter Lea retreats into the darkness of mourning. Then she hears the unfamiliar sound of a violin being played in the hall of a train ...
From the author of the giant bestseller, Night Train to Lisbon, comes a finely calibrated heartbreaker of a novel about fathers and daughters, great rises and sudden falls. It all starts with the death of Martijn van Vliet's wife. His grief-stricken young daughter, Lea, cuts herself off from the world, right up until the day that she hears a snatch of Bach being played on a violin by a busker. Transfixed by the sweet melody, she emerges from her mourning, vowing to learn the instrument. Lea's all-consuming passion is matched by talent, and she becomes one of the finest players in the country - but as her fame blossoms, her relationship with her father only withers. Desperate to hold on to Lea, Martijn is driven to commit an act that threatens to destroy both him and his daughter.
Why people are not as gullible as we think Not Born Yesterday explains how we decide who we can trust and what we should believe—and argues that we're pretty good at making these decisions. In this lively and provocative book, Hugo Mercier demonstrates how virtually all attempts at mass persuasion—whether by religious leaders, politicians, or advertisers—fail miserably. Drawing on recent findings from political science and other fields ranging from history to anthropology, Mercier shows that the narrative of widespread gullibility, in which a credulous public is easily misled by demagogues and charlatans, is simply wrong. Why is mass persuasion so difficult? Mercier uses the latest fin...
“Brilliant...Timely and necessary.” —Financial Times “Especially timely as we struggle to make sense of how it is that individuals and communities persist in holding beliefs that have been thoroughly discredited.” —Darren Frey, Science If reason is what makes us human, why do we behave so irrationally? And if it is so useful, why didn’t it evolve in other animals? This groundbreaking account of the evolution of reason by two renowned cognitive scientists seeks to solve this double enigma. Reason, they argue, helps us justify our beliefs, convince others, and evaluate arguments. It makes it easier to cooperate and communicate and to live together in groups. Provocative, entertai...
Film tie-in edition of Pascal Mercier's haunting novel of the paths not taken, the choices not made, the lives not lived.
'The stories in Refresh, Refresh are big-hearted and drunk and dangerous, and there's a heightened, unnerving vibe as you travel through Percy's world. You never know where you will end up ... but you can be sure that he'll actually take you somewhere.' Dan Chaon Here is the United States of today. The young men and boys in this bold, fiery collection do the unthinkable to prove to themselves - to everyone - that they are strong enough to face the heartbreak in this world. The war in Iraq empties the small town of Tumalo, Oregon of fathers, leaving their sons to fight among themselves. There is a bear on the loose, a house with a basement that opens up into a cave and a nuclear meltdown that renders the Pacific Northwest into a contemporary Wild West. 'Benjamin Percy moves instinctively toward the molten center of contemporary writing, the place where genre fiction ... overflows its boundaries and becomes something dark and grand and percipient. These stories contain a brutal power and are radiant with pain-only a writer of surpassing honesty and directness could lead us here.' Peter Straub
An international bestseller being published in more than 20 countries, "Theo's Odyssey" is an extraordinary journey through the world's religions that does for spirituality what "Sophie's World" did for philosophy.
This book is open access under a CC BY license. This book offers a unique and insightful analysis of Western and Middle Eastern concepts of dignity and illustrates them with examples of everyday life. Dignity in the 21st Century - Middle East and West is unique and insightful for a range of reasons. First, the book is co-authored by scholars from two different cultures (Middle East and West). As a result, the interpretations of dignity covered are broader than those in most Western publications. Second, the ambition of the book is to use examples from everyday life and fiction to debate a range of dignity interpretations supplemented by philosophical and theological theories. Thus, the book ...