MacLehose Press Madame Bovary of the Suburbs Divry Sophie

In Kirkeveien, Oslo, in the year 1956, forty-year-old Maj is worn down by being a homemaker and widowed mother. To the indignation of the Red Cross ladies, she cautiously frees herself from the role she has otherwise fulfilled to the letter. She finds a job that she turns out to be more than good at, and some kind of love, too. Her friend Margrethe is sick of her marriage to the antiquarian bookseller, Olaf Hall, but cannot think of divorce. Jesper gets a girlfriend who opens the door to a new, more liberated environment of vegetarianism and politics. And his best friend Jostein realises that his talent for making money will allow him access to a world that is larger and richer than that of the Oslo slaughterhouse • Friendship is a beautifully orchestrated story about people and their dreams, about social conventions, personal constraints and what it takes to have the courage to realise oneself

A lonely librarian opens her heart • One morning a librarian finds a reader who has been locked in overnight • She begins to talk to him, a one-way conversation full of sharp insight and quiet outrage. As she rails against snobbish senior colleagues, an ungrateful and ignorant public, the strictures of the Dewey Decimal System and the sinister expansionist conspiracies of the books themselves, two things shine through: her unrequited passion for a researcher named Martin, and an ardent and absolute love for the arts • A delightful divertissement for the discerning bookworm

Following the conventions of a different genre, each of the pieces in Schalansky's Inventory considers something that is irretrievably lost to the world, from the paradisal island of Tuanaki, the Caspian Tiger or the Villa Sacchetti in Rome, to Sappho's love poems, Greta Garbo's fading beauty or a painting by Caspar David Friedrich • As a child of the former East Germany, it's not surprising that "loss" and its aftermath should haunt Schalansky's writing, but what is extraordinary and exhilarating is the engaging mixture of intellectual curiosity, ironic humour, stylistic elegance, intensity of feeling and grasp of life's pitiless vitality, that combine to make this one of the most original literary works of recent times

Beginning in 1907 with the founding of a factory in Songarh, a small provincial town where narrow attitudes prevail, the story is of three generations of an Indian family, brilliantly told, in which a sensitive and intelligent foundling boy orphan who is casteless and without religion and Bakul, the motherless granddaughter of the house, grow up together. The boy, Mukunda, spends his time as a servant in the house or reading the books of Mrs Barnum, an Anglo-Englishwoman whose life was saved long ago by Bakul’s grandmother, by now demented by loneliness. Mrs Barnum gives Mukunda the run of her house, but as he and Bakul grow, they become aware that their intense closeness is becoming something else, and Bakul’s father is warned to separate them

For reasons that will eventually become clear, Paul Hansen is in prison. He's been in prison for a couple of years now, sharing his cell with a fearsome Hells Angel murderer, who often reminds Paul that he could kill him at any moment • But life wasn't always like this for Paul Hansen. Before prison, there were his parents: Danish pastor Johannes and free-spirited Anna, the proprietor of a controversial art house cinema. There were his friends in L'Excelsior, the block of luxury flats where Paul worked officially as a caretaker, and unofficially as a restorer of souls and comforter of the afflicted. And above all, there was his partner, Winona, the daring seaplane pilot, and their beloved dog Nouk • Many of them are dead now: his parents, friends, Winona and Nouk

To Christina Olson, the entire world is her family’s remote farm in the small coastal town of Cushing, Maine. Born in the home her family has lived in for generations, and tied to the farm by health and circumstance, Christina seems destined for a small life. Instead, by chance she becomes the inspiration for the artist Andrew Wyeth, and eventually the subject of one of the best-known paintings of the twentieth century, Christina’s World

An anthology of contemporary women's short fiction in translation, featuring work by emerging women writers from across Afghanistan • "My pen is the wing of a bird; it will tell you those thoughts we are not allowed to think, those dreams we are not allowed to dream" • Afghanistan has a rich literary history, but chronic instability, compounded now by the current crisis, have meant that women's voices have remained hidden. This anthology is the result of more than two years working Afghan women writers. They have strong, original, and unexpected stories to tell, but until now have had no opportunity to publish these locally or beyond their borders. Now it seems certain that this opportunity will be taken from them again • "Men always want to speak on behalf of Afghan women, but now it is time for Afghan women to speak for themselves

What does the sea make you think of? Crashing waves, crumbling sandcastles . . . maybe a squawking seagull or two? Well, how about • Ghost ships! Mega sharks! The Bermuda triangle! Zombie starfish! Psychic sea serpents! And don't even get us started on something called the Hot Tub of Despair • You see, the sea is actually weird. Really weird. Not only is it full of amazing creatures and mini monsters, some of the world's most mind-blowing myths and legends revolve around the sea too • So what are you waiting for? Come with our wonderful narrator, Shrimpy, and dive into some of the incredible secrets of our weird, wonderful and totally wild oceans • Filled with brilliant facts and myths as well as hilarious illustrations in beautiful full colour, Weird Sea is the perfect gift for little explorers who can't wait to tell you DID YOU KNOW? and is the perfect antidote to boring kids non-fiction

A fascinating history of World War I in the words of those who were there - 'an extraordinary and immensely moving book' Stephen Fry • This unique landmark oral history uses first-hand accounts from ordinary men and women who were there. Gripping, poignant, surprising and even humorous, the personal experiences of these soldiers, civilians, marines and medics from both sides tell us what it was really like to live through what was supposed to be the war to end all wars. Skilfully assembled by acclaimed author and historian Max Arthur using the IWM's remarkable sound archive, Forgotten Voices of the Great War became an instant classic on first publication with close to half a million copies sold • In 1972, the Imperial War Museum began a momentous and important task

A revised checklist of the Palaearctic Procridinae is given. The order of tribes, genera and species differs from that published in the previous checklists (Efetov & Tarmann, 1995; 1999). Artonini are placed at the beginning as they are considered to represent a more ancient group than Procridini. The 'Clelea-group' as well as Chrysartona, Hysteroscene, Tasema, Morionia, and Inope are transferred to Artonini. Funeralia is transferred to Procridini. The order of the genera Theresimima, Rhagades, Zygaenoprocris, Adscita, Jordanita and their subgenera is in accordance with the latest phylogenetic investigations (Efetov, 2004; 2005) and new molecular data (Efetov et al. , 2010; 2011; 2012). The following taxa are newly described: Fuscartona Efetov & Tarmann, gen

The Dog Islands are a small, isolated cluster of islands in the Mediterranean - so called because together, when viewed from above, they form the shape of a dog, twisting and baring its teeth against a brilliant blue sea. One of the only inhabited islands (the one that takes the place of one of the dog's teeth) is dominated by a gently smoking volcano, fringed by black volcanic beaches and under the iron rule of the heads of community who are loath to let any outside influence disrupt the quiet way of life on the island • Then one morning, an old woman comes across three bodies that have washed up with the tide: three young black men, who have apparently drowned in their attempt to cross the sea. The initial reaction of the island community is that this tragedy must be covered up, lest any association with the drownings damages the island's tourism industry

The village of Shimae is thrown into turmoil when master carp-catcher Katsuro suddenly drowns in the murky waters of the Kusagawa river. Who now will carry the precious cargo of carp to the imperial palace and preserve the crucial patronage that everyone in the village depends upon? • Step forward Miyuki, Katsuro's grief-struck widow and the only remaining person in the village who knows anything about carp. She alone can undertake the long, perilous journey to the imperial palace, balancing the heavy baskets of fish on a pole across her shoulders, and ensure her village's future • So Miyuki sets off. Along her way she will encounter a host of remarkable characters, from prostitutes and innkeepers, to warlords and priests with evil in mind. She will endure ambushes and disaster, for the villagers are not the only people fixated on the fate of the eight magnificent carp