Calder Publications The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs Benmussa Simone

For readers of The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly and The Guest Cat comes this passionate, bittersweet love story that will move readers old and young • Secretly steaming open envelopes and reading the letters inside, Bilodo has found an escape from his lonely and routine life as a postman. When one day he comes across a mysterious letter containing a single haiku, he finds himself avidly caught up in the relationship between a long-distance couple who write to each other using only beautiful poetry. He feasts on their words, vicariously living a life for which he longs. But it will only be a matter of time before his world comes crashing down around him

The Wallace is a historical play dramatizing the life of one of Scotland’s greatest heroes, William Wallace, whose revolt against England in the early fourteenth century led to his capture and execution, but, also through the continuing and successful rebellion of his successor, Robert the Bruce, to eventual Scottish independence • The author is revealed not only as a major dramatic poet, but as a chronicler of history. The work carries an excitement and emotional charge that can infect an audience with the author’s own concern for freedom and justice

Like all the greatest writers, Samuel Beckett was primarily interested in discovering the meaning and purpose of life and of the world into which we are born. Knowledgeable about the religion his family and education instilled in him, which as an adult he could neither accept nor reject, he used it extensively in his novels, plays and poetry. Beckett’s works also explored philosophy and the imaginative world of Dante and Milton, as well as the theories of Darwin and scientific speculation, in order to create a literature that investigates human destiny more deeply and originally than any other writer had done before • In this, his second book about the essence and depth of Samuel Beckett’s thinking and literary art, John Calder analyses the dualism of Beckett’s theological writing, his debt to the Gnostics, Manichaeism and Geulincx in particular, the presence of ghosts in his work, and why his late writing has received so little attention compared to the early and middle periods

Increasingly Samuel Beckett’s writing is seen as the culmination of the great literature of the twentieth century – succeeding the work of Proust, Joyce and Kafka. Beckett is a writer whose relevance to his time and use of poetic imagery can be compared to Shakespeare’s in the late Renaissance. John Calder has examined the work of Beckett principally for what it has to say about our time in terms of philosophy, theology and ethics, and he points to aspects of his subject’s thinking that others have ignored or preferred not to see. Samuel Beckett’s acute mind pulled apart with courage and much humour the basic assumptions and beliefs by which most people live. His satire can be biting and his wit devastating. He found no escape from human tragedy in the comforts we build to shield ourselves from reality – even in art, which for most intellectuals has replaced religion

When the young priest Francesco Vela becomes the incumbent of the parish of Soana, a small village in Ticino, he is tasked with bringing back into the Catholic fold a family of shepherds, the Scarabotas, who are accused of indecency and incest. Yet, after visiting them among the grandiose scenery of the alpine mountains and meeting their beautiful daughter Agata, Francesco experiences a spiritual and sensual awakening that throws his world and his beliefs upside down, forcing him to choose between his faith and his desire to connect with nature • This multi-layered tale, first published in 1918, is widely regarded as the crowning achievement of Gerhart Hauptmann, the recipient of the 1912 Nobel Prize in Literature and one of the most important exponents of German Naturalism

During the German advance through Belgium into France in 1940, Captain de Reixach is shot dead by a sniper. Three witnesses, involved with him during his lifetime in different capacities – a distant relative, an orderly and a jockey who had an affair with his wife – remember him and help the reader piece together the realities behind the man and his death • A groundbreaking work, for which Claude Simon devised a prose technique mimicking the mind’s fluid thought processes, The Flanders Road is not only a masterpiece of stylistic innovation, but also a haunting portrayal – based on a real-life incident – of the chaos and savagery of war

Above a disused bar, in a dilapidated Parisian hotel that houses an assortment of indigent, marginalized lost souls, one of the inhabitants, a mysterious, reclusive holy man, is the subject of much speculation from some of his fellow occupants and respectful reverence from others. As the tale unfolds, the dynamics of this precarious microcosm are laid bare, in a powerful portrayal of those society has forgotten • Written when the author of Cain’s Book was at the height of his creative powers and enjoying an increasing reputation in avant-garde literary circles, ‘The Holy Man’ is here presented with ‘A Being of Distances’, ‘Peter Pierce’ and ‘A Meeting’, stories which similarly tackle themes of loneliness and disenfranchisement

This collection brings together the four plays that feature Ionesco’s everyman protagonist Jean Berenger. In ‘The Killer’, he comes across a “radiant city”, an ideal civilization which is being terrorized by a killer, whom he tries to help apprehend. In ‘Rhinoceros’, he is the only person in a provincial town who is not affected by a condition that turns its victims into the eponymous horned beast. In ‘Exit the King’, he is the powerful King Berenger the First, who refuses to accept that he is dying. And in ‘A Stroll in the Air’ he acquires the capacity of flight and sees another world lying beyond the clouds • While each play in the Berenger cycle is unique, they are all prime examples of Ionesco’s conception of the theatre of the absurd, and touch on themes that preoccupied the author throughout his career, such as mortality, alienation, freedom and the evils of Fascism

A young woman, who works as a maid for a living, takes her charge out to play in a Parisian garden square. Sitting on a bench, she starts talking to a stranger, a travelling salesman, and their conversation gradually turns into an exchange of confidences, as she speaks of her desire for a more stable future and he of his feelings of rootlessness and disillusionment. As the afternoon wears on, the two sense an increasing connection between them • Understated and impressionistic, and consisting almost entirely of dialogue, The Garden Square is one of Marguerite Duras’s finest novels, which she also adapted for the stage

The secret life of Sherlock Holmes's nemesis, Moriarty • We think of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, but far more seductive is the pairing of Holmes and Professor James Moriarty, 'the Napoleon of crime' - a rivalry unparalleled in the world of crime fiction. Fiercely intelligent and a relentless schemer, Moriarty is the super-villain as megastar • This wonderfully diverse collection by writers such as Martin Edwards, Jurgen Ehlers, Barbara Nadel, L. C. Tyler, Michael Gregorio, Alison Joseph and Peter Guttridge reveals not just the evil side of Moriarty's personality, but his humanity, his motivations and his human failings. Some of the stories are humorous, some scary, but all are hugely entertaining

Where do our thoughts come from? • How can we manipulate our dreams? • What is the role of the unconscious? • How do we make decisions and trust the judgement of both others and ourselves? • In this mind-bending international bestseller by Mariano Sigman, one of the world’s leading neuroscientists reveals his life’s work exploring the intricacies of the human brain. Building on his awe-inspiring TED talk and drawing on examples in science and the arts, The Secret Life of the Mind offers an accessible guide to how the human brain works and its impact on our everyday life. This informative, lucid book is essential reading for anyone curious about how we perceive, reason and communicate