You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Twenty years after his mother and father jumped to their deaths from a balcony, Philippe Grimbert has written a gripping novel about the hidden memories that dominated their lives. A colossal bestseller in Europe, Memory is the story of a family haunted by the secret of their past: an illicit love affair, a lost child, and a devastating betrayal dating back to the Second World War. The day after my fifteenth birthday, I finally learned what I had always known.... Growing up in postwar Paris as the sickly only child of glamorous athletic parents, the narrator invents for himself a make-believe older brother, stronger and more brilliant than he can ever be. It is only when the boy begins talking to an old family friend that he comes to realize that his imaginary sibling had a real predecessor: a half brother whose death in the concentration camps is part of a buried family secret that he was intended never to uncover. A spare, erotic, and ultimately cathartic narrative, Memory is a mesmerizing tale of coming to terms with one's shameful past through the unraveling of a series of dark desires.
From mass murder to genocide, slavery to colonial suppression, acts of atrocity have lives that extend far beyond the horrific moment. They engender trauma that echoes for generations, in the experiences of those on both sides of the act. Gabriele Schwab reads these legacies in a number of narratives, primarily through the writing of postwar Germans and the descendents of Holocaust survivors. She connects their work to earlier histories of slavery and colonialism and to more recent events, such as South African Apartheid, the practice of torture after 9/11, and the "disappearances" that occurred during South American dictatorships. Schwab's texts include memoirs, such as Ruth Kluger's Still ...
Lou Bertignac has an IQ of 160 and a good friend called Lucas, who gets her through the school day. At home her father cries in secret in the bathroom and her mother hasn't been out of the house properly for years. But Lou is about to change her life - and that of her parents - for good, all because of a school project she decides to do about the homeless. Through the project Lou meets No, a teenage girl living on the streets. As their friendship grows, Lou cannot bear that No is still on the streets when she goes back home - even if it is to a home that is saddened and desolate. So she asks her parents if No can come to live with them. To her astonishment, her parents - eventually - agree. No's presence forces Lou and her parents to finally face the sadness that has enveloped them. But No has disruptive as well as positive effects. Can this shaky newfound family continue to live together? A tense, brilliant novel tackling the true meaning of home and homelessness.
The stories in Out of Chaos forms a profound testament to lost and found lives that are translated into compelling reading. The collection illuminates brief or elongated moments, fragments of memory and experience, what the great Holocaust writer Ida Fink called “a scrap of time.” In all, the anthology expresses survivors’ memories and reactions to a wide range of experiences as they survived in so many European settings, from Holland, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Greece, Yugoslavia, Poland, and France. The writers recall being on the run between different countries, escaping over mountains, hiding and even sometimes forgetting their Jewish identities in convents and rescuers’ homes and hovels, basements and attics. Some were left on their own; others found themselves embroiled in rescuer family conflicts. Some writers chose to write story clusters, each one capturing a moment or incident and often disconnected by memory or temporal and spatial divides.
A stunning, powerful debut novel set against the backdrop of the Cambodian War, perfect for fans of Chris Cleave and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie For seven-year-old Raami, the shattering end of childhood begins with the footsteps of her father returning home in the early dawn hours bringing details of the civil war that has overwhelmed the streets of Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital. Soon the family's world of carefully guarded royal privilege is swept up in the chaos of revolution and forced exodus. Over the next four years, as she endures the deaths of family members, starvation, and brutal forced labour, Raami clings to the only remaining vestige of childhood - the mythical legends and poems to...
A runaway bestseller in Europe, "Memory" is a stunning combination of memoir and fiction. Twenty years after his mother and father jumped to their deaths, Grimbert, a psychoanalyst, explores the secrets that dominated his parents lives, in this beautiful and gripping novel.
It was while she was ill and in bed for several weeks that Marianne found the pencil. It looked quite ordinary, but it wasn't. The things she drew with it - a house, a landscape, the face watching at the window - came alive in her dreams. Sometimes what she drew was good and friendly; sometimes bad and frightening. Once, without quite meaning to, she put herself and the boy in her dreams into a very real danger, from which the only possible escape needed more courage than Marianne thought she could possibly find ... The story has been adapted for the major feature film Paperhouse starring Charlotte Burke as Anna (Marianne), Elliot Spears and Ben Cross.
I go down to the shore in the morning and depending on the hour the waves are rolling in or moving out, and I say, oh, I am miserable, what shall- what should I do? And the sea says in its lovely voice: Excuse me, I have work to do. Whether studying the leaves of a tree or mourning her treasured dog Percy, Mary Oliver is beautifully open to the teachings contained within the smallest of moments. In A Thousand Mornings she explores, with startling clarity, humour and kindness, the mysteries of our daily experience.
Exam Board: AQA, Edexcel, Eduqas & CCEA Level: AS/A-level Subject: Modern Languages First Teaching: September 2016 First Exam: June 2017 Literature analysis made easy. Build your students' confidence in their language abilities and help them develop the skills needed to critique their chosen work: putting it into context, understanding the themes and narrative technique, as well as specialist terminology. Breaking down each scene, character and theme in No et moi (No and Me), this accessible guide will enable your students to understand the historical and social context of the novel and give them the critical and language skills needed to write a successful essay. - Strengthen language skills with relevant grammar, vocab and writing exercises throughout - Aim for top marks by building a bank of textual examples and quotes to enhance exam response - Build confidence with knowledge-check questions at the end of every chapter - Revise effectively with pages of essential vocabulary and key mind maps throughout - Feel prepared for exams with advice on how to write an essay, plus sample essay questions, two levels of model answers and examiner commentary
A moving and compelling emotional mystery, by one of the most exciting new talents in Norway Her name is Jane Ashland, and her life has spiralled out of control. Moving between Jane's past and this extraordinary remote landscape, Nicolai Houm weaves a dramatic trail of suspense through one woman's life - via love, grief, and a devastating accident that changes everything. The Gradual Disappearance of Jane Ashland is a compelling, beautifully-written tale of life at its most glorious, and most terrible. Born in 1974, Nicolai Houm has published two novels, a collection of stories and a picture book, all critically acclaimed in Norway. The Gradual Disappearance of Jane Ashland is his first book to be published in English. He works part-time as an editor in the publishing house Cappelen Damm, and lives in Lier with his wife and daughter.