The Count of Monte Cristo: Alexandre Dumas

Translated from French by Robin BussPublished by Penguin, 1996, 1276 pages. Original version serialized in 1844-46 and published as a book in 1846. First unabridged translation by Emma Hardy, 1846. France, 1815. Napoleon is in exile, but has escaped from Elba. The Bourbons are on the throne. France is divided between the Bonapartists, who secretly …

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Station Island: Seamus Heaney

Published by Faber & Faber, 1984, 123 pages. “I was stretched between contemplationof a motionless pointand the command to participateactively in history.”—Away from It All, quote from Czesław Miłosz, Native Realm: A Search for Definition The thread that runs through this collection the poet’s role in history and politics. Is the poet an observer or …

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Time Shelter: Georgi Gospodinov

Translated from Bulgarian by Angela RodelPublished by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2023, 304 pages. Original version published in 2020. What if there was a way to turn back the clock and live in the past? A geriatric psychiatrist called Gaustine, living in Zurich, believes that patients with dementia and Alzheimer’s can be helped by going into …

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The Last Day: Jaroslavas Melnikas

Translated from Lithuanian by Marija MarcinkutePublished by Noir Press, 2018, 175 pages. Original version published in 2018. The Last Day is a book of absurdist short stories by a Lithuanian writer. The protagonists, mainly men (with one exception), are victims of circumstance, caught up in strange situations that they cannot control. In the title story, …

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