1942: Boldly advancing through Asia, the Japanese need a train route from Burma going north. In a prison camp, British POWs are forced into labor. The bridge they build will become a symbol of service and survival to one prisoner, Colonel Nicholson, a proud perfectionist. Pitted against the warden, Colonel Saito, Nicholson will nevertheless, out of a distorted sense of duty, aid his enemy. While on the outside, as the Allies race to destroy the bridge, Nicholson must decide which will be the first casualty: his patriotism or his pride

In London, Katie Byrne is an American actress on the verge of a triumph. But Katie seems barely aware of her charisma or her fortune. Caught up in a relentless quest for perfection onstage, Katie is not sure she will accept the career-making role she has been offered, even less sure that she could do justice to the part. 

Suddenly, Katie seems incapable of taking the steps she has dreamed of taking all her life — of claiming her life as an actress and of letting a promising love affair blossom. For Katie, the answer lies in a past she has shared with almost no one, in the small Connecticut town where she was born and raised in an adoring, close-knit family. 

There, on a fall day ten years before, tragedy crossed Katie Byrne’s path. Now she must return there — for answers, for a miracle, and for the kind of forgiveness that can set her free....

Wiliam Boyd, winner of the Whitbread and Somerset Maugham Awards, introduces unlikely heroes desperate to redeem their unsatisfying lives.

From California poolsides to the battlegrounds of Vietnam, here is a world populated by weary souls who turn to fantasy as their sole escape from life's inequities. Stranded in an African hotel during a coup, an oafish Englishman impresses a young stewardess with stories of an enchanted life completely at odds with his sordid existence in "The Coup." In the title story, an arrogant, sadistic American pilot in Vietnam underestimaets the power of revenge when he relentlessly persecutes a member of his maintenance crew. With droll humor and rare compassion, Boyd's enthralling stories remind us of his stature as one of contemporary fiction's finest storytellers.

Nadja, originally published in France in 1928, is the first and perhaps best Surrealist romance ever written, a book which defined that movement's attitude toward everyday life.

The principal narrative is an account of the author's relationship with a girl in the city of Paris, the story of an obsessional presence haunting his life. The first-person narrative is supplemented by forty-four photographs which form an integral part of the work -- pictures of various "surreal" people, places, and objects which the author visits or is haunted by in Nadja's presence and which inspire him to mediate on their reality or lack of it. The Nadja of the book is a girl, but, like Bertrand Russell's definition of electricity as "not so much a thing as a way things happen," Nadja is not so much a person as the way she makes people behave. She has been described as a state of mind, a feeling about reality, a kind of vision, and the reader sometimes wonders whether she exists at all. yet it is Nadja who gives form and structure to the novel

Within this novel Ms. Buck paints the portrait of a poor woman living in a remote village whose joys are few and hardships are many. As the ancient traditions, which she bases her philosophies upon, begin to collide with the new ideals of the communist era, this peasant woman must find a balance between them and deal with the consequences.

Jean-Baptiste Clamence, a successful Parisian barrister, has come to recognize the deep-seated hypocrisy of his existence. His epigrammatic and, above all, discomforting monologue gradually saps, then undermines, the reader's own complacency.

The romantic story of the destruction caused by the frustrated love of Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, set against the moors of England, creates a rare blend of violence, beauty and erotic love.

Heathcliff, an orphan, is raised by Mr Earnshaw as one of his own children. Hindley despises him but wild Cathy becomes his constant companion, and he falls deeply in love with her, discovering that he can tame her unruly nature. Their tumultuous but passionate romance is threatened by the Lintons, who are determined to civilise Cathy. She endeavours to be a lady when they are present, but is as wild as ever when they are not—and remains forever untameable by anyone other than her lover, Heathcliff.

When she will not marry him, Heathcliff's terrible vengeance ruins them all—but still his and Cathy's love will not die...

A story of doomed love and revenge with a brilliant new introduction of passion fulfilled

With years of abuse behind her and a bleak future ahead, a young German woman dreams of her country's colony in South-West Africa. When she learns of the women being transported to the colony to attend to the needs of male settlers, Hanna X takes the leap. 
In Africa she is confronted with the harsh realities of colonial life. For resisting the advances of a German officer, she is banished to Frauenstein, a phantasmagoric outpost that is at once a "prison, nunnery, brothel, and shithouse." When the drunken excesses of visiting soldiers threaten the young girl who has become her only companion, Hanna revolts.
Mounting a ragtag army of women and native victims of brutality, she sets out on an epic journey to take on the German Reich. Combining the history of colonialism with the myths of Africa, this is an exquisitely written tale of suffering, violence, revenge, and, simply, love.

In another triumphant cultural and historical novel from Pearl S. Buck, The Promise chronicles a band of Chinese soldiers who are sent to rescue a British-American platoon, pinned down in Burma, while the Japanese army attacks Burma Road during World War II. The dangers that await the brave soldiers are heightened, as they encounter unthankfulness and ingratitude from the foreign soldiers that they hadn't expected. Confronted with an impending attack from the Japanese, growing tension from the Anglo-American forces, the Chinese soldiers must make a difficult choice: abandon their posts or continue on with a suicidal mission.

Léon Delmont goes on the train from Paris to Rome to meet his mistress, Cécile. He yearns for a new life on a new footing and he is full of hopes and looks forward to the new start with his beloved and the cardinal changes in his life.
He scrupulously observes the other passengers, contemplates arts, recollects and analyzes his family life, his work, his habitual visits to Rome and his previous rendezvous with Cécile.
And the train goes on…  But the nearer is Rome the less sure becomes Léon… Doubts arrive instead of hopes… Anticipation turns into apprehension. Fears nest in his heart.
All the previous travels and the present ride merge in the single endless journey… Léon falls asleep and he dreams that Charon carries him across the river Styx in his boat to the world of the dead and dream merges with life…
Nostalgia reigns over the world so the past always seems to be better than the present. But the past will never repeat.

The unfinished manuscript of The First Man was discovered in the wreckage of car accident in which Camus died in 1960. Although it was not published for over thirty years, it was an instant bestseller when it finally appeared in 1994. The 'first man' is Jacques Cormery, whose poverty-stricken childhood in Algiers is made bearable by his love for his silent and illiterate mother, and by the teacher who transforms his view of the world. The most autobiographical of Camus's novels, it gives profound insights into his life, and the powerful themes underlying his work

This work explores the author's personal experience of psychoanalysis. It reveals her truamatic childhood and institutionalization, followed by her escape to the quiet cul-de-sac where her psychoanalysist lived. There, for many years, she made the journey towards recovery through Freudian analysis

Meursault is a modest employee of French extraction who lives in Algiers. He lives his daily routine with indifference, unable to openly manifest even the simplest emotions. And it is with apathy that he learns the news of the death of his mother, who lived her last years in a hospice. And it is again with apathy that one day, going to the beach with friends, Meursault kills an Arab. Emotionless, he undergoes the arrest and the consequent process, calmly accepting the inevitability of his destiny. Not a hero or an antihero, Meursault is the stranger par excellence, alien to all the emotional manifestations that are common to humans, more similar to an Asimovian android than to a man.

The stories explore common themes of existence, freedom, dilemma of a stranger; the vexation between solitude and togetherness, exile and repatriate, silence and noise. The protagonists of all the stories are exiled and feel inner conflict on these themes- Daru in The Guest faces the dilemma to choose between his loyalty to homeland or the place he's residing, Yvars in The Mute to choose between his resignation to demands of the firm or demand of rights as a worker.

All the stories are set in beautiful but cruel landscapes- the sea and sun of Algeria, its hostile desert plateaus, lonely plains, the dense forests, the river and red dust- which are evoked such with powerful and lyrical prose that these landscapes seem to possess power to seduce anyone with their ironic beauty.

A gripping tale of human unrelieved horror, of survival and resilience, and of the ways in which humankind confronts death, The Plague is at once a masterfully crafted novel, eloquently understated and epic in scope, and a parable of ageless moral resonance, profoundly relevant to our times. In Oran, a coastal town in North Africa, the plague begins as a series of portents, unheeded by the people. It gradually becomes an omnipresent reality, obliterating all traces of the past and driving its victims to almost unearthly extremes of suffering, madness, and compassion.

As Book II begins, Don Quixote is back at home in La Mancha, under the watch of his niece and housekeeper. The priest and barber visit Don Quixote to see how he is doing. They don't want to remind him of his recent adventures because the old gentleman needs to stay at home. Sancho arrives with news that there is a book called The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote de la Mancha. Sancho finds a young scholar named Sampson Carrasco and Carrasco gives the two men the details of the book. Quixote and Sancho are more energized to continue their adventures, now that their previous adventures have been chronicled and published. Quixote's niece and housekeeper insist that he should remain at home but Quixote does not pay much attention to them.

Don Quixote is a middle-aged gentleman from the region of La Mancha in central Spain. Obsessed with the chivalrous ideals touted in books he has read, he decides to take up his lance and sword to defend the helpless and destroy the wicked. After a first failed adventure, he sets out on a second one with a somewhat befuddled laborer named Sancho Panza, whom he has persuaded to accompany him as his faithful squire. In return for Sancho’s services, Don Quixote promises to make Sancho the wealthy governor of an isle. On his horse, Rocinante, a barn nag well past his prime, Don Quixote rides the roads of Spain in search of glory and grand adventure. He gives up food, shelter, and comfort, all in the name of a peasant woman, Dulcinea del Toboso, whom he envisions as a princess.

Situé dans la région cévenole dans la période des Camisards et son contexte de la persécution violente des protestants.

Quatrième de couverture:
J'en suis encore à me demander comment je m'y suis pris pour tant en dire à une jeune fille, fût-elle ma promise ! Nous étions à l'écart, Finette et moi, sans trop rien dire si ce n'est pour la santé, pour la parentèle, comme d'habitude quand nous nous trouvons seuls. Au vrai, c'est elle qui est allée au-devant, en me demandant de lui montrer mes pistolets qu'elle n'avait jamais bien regardés, disait-elle.Ce sont de beaux pistolets italiens, datés de 1670, et signés Lazaro Lazarino, dont le chien figure un petit enfant qui gonfle ses joues."C'est joli, a dit la raïoulette, et même, m'est avis que c'est une idée particulière, pamen ! de se donner tant de peine pour faire jolie une bésugno à donner la mort !"

The Saint and Hoppy Uniatz didn't go looking for trouble. But they didn't expect the barroom brawl, the gorgeous girl, or the murderous Reuben Graner and his gang. And they certainly didn't expect the two million dollar lottery ticket which read: "Pay to bearer".