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Pavel Dominik

    Pale fire : a novel
    Glory
    The Importance of Being Earnest
    Povídky / 2 1930-1937
    Tremendous Trifles
    Kaleidoscope and Other Short Stories
    • Pozvání na popravu

      • 192 pages
      • 7 hours of reading

      „Rozsudek smrti byl v souladu se zákonem oznámen Cincinnatovi C. šeptem.“ V žádné jiné ze svých próz se Nabokov nepřiblížil literárnímu světu Franze Kafky tak jako v Pozvání na popravu. Zjitřené vnímání společenské látky se tu spojuje s pocitem hlubokého existenciálního traumatu, jež má obecný charakter a o to více promlouvá k současnému čtenáři. Mladý hrdina čeká na svou popravu, přičemž není zcela zřejmá ani povaha jeho skutečného provinění, ani bližší okolnosti chystané exekuce. V tomto svíravém rámci jde odsouzenci o jediné – vymezit se vůči netečnosti světa prostřednictvím vlastního psaní. Román pochází z Nabokovova „ruského“ období, tedy z doby, kdy autor již nežil ve své vlasti, ale byl součástí široké ruské diaspory v Evropě. Přestože se příběh odehrává ve fiktivním prostředí, odkaz k mašinérii stalinské hrůzovlády je nepopiratelný. Kniha je tak považována za stěžejní dílo ruské literatury 20. století. Román doprovází doslov literárního vědce Richarda Müllera.

      Pozvání na popravu2025
    • Glory

      • 192 pages
      • 7 hours of reading

      A novel by the author of Mary, The Eye, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, Transparent Things and Lolita.

      Glory2021
      4.2
    • Real Life of Sebastian Knight

      • 192 pages
      • 7 hours of reading

      A perversely, magical, literary detective story about the mysterious life of the famous writer, a biography as it were, narrated by his half brother.

      Real Life of Sebastian Knight2018
      4.0
    • Neznámí pachatelé vyhodí do vzduchu jachtu profesora Meyera. Při výbuchu zahynou tři lidé, mezi nimi profesorova neteř, která se před nedávnem vdala. Vypátrat viníky se snaží dlouholetý profesorův přítel Travis McGee, který postupně shromažďuje fakta a rozplétá složitý příběh podvodníka. Nakonec odhaluje prohnaného několikanásobného vraha, jenž pod různými jmény sváděl a zabíjel ženy, aby získal jejich peníze.

      Skořicová pleť2018
      3.7
    • Ada Or Ardor

      • 512 pages
      • 18 hours of reading

      On the country estate of his art-collecting uncle, Van Veen meets Ada, his beautiful cousin. Their relationship flourishes, but both were born into one of America's illustrious families, a vast over-extended empire, and this causes problems for the lovers.

      Ada Or Ardor2015
      4.2
    • With his fortieth birthday receding into the distance, along with his hairline and his most successful novel, the writer Nathan Zuckerman comes down with a mysterious affliction - pure pain, beginning in his neck and shoulders, invading his torso, and taking possession of his spirit. What will it take for the pain to finally leave him alone?

      The Anatomy Lesson2014
      3.7
    • Соглядатай

      • 154 pages
      • 6 hours of reading

      Повесть иронично обыгрывающая давнюю литературную тему двойничества. Главный герой повествования, живущий в Берлине русский эмигрант, оскорбительным образом избит ревнивым мужем своей любовницы и, не в силах пережить унижения, решается на самоубийство

      Соглядатай2013
      3.7
    • Tropic of Cancer

      • 336 pages
      • 12 hours of reading

      Set in Paris in the 1930s, this novel features a starving American writer who lives a bohemian life among prostitutes, pimps, and artists. It asks us to reconsider everything we know about art, freedom, and morality.

      Tropic of Cancer2012
      3.7
    • Witty and buoyant comedy of manners is brilliantly plotted from its effervescent first act to its hilarious denouement, and filled with some of literature's most famous epigrams. Widely considered Wilde's most perfect work, the play is reprinted here from an authoritative early British edition. Note to the Dover Edition.

      The Importance of Being Earnest2012
      4.3
    • Tremendous Trifles

      • 150 pages
      • 6 hours of reading

      The thirty-nine short essays that make up Chesterton's delightful book are the result of "sitting still and letting marvels and adventures settle on him like flies." Actually, the author does move around quite a bit-to Germany, France, and on foot in England when he tires of waiting for a train. Everywhere he goes, Chesterton looks at ordinary things and asks us to see how extraordinary they are: the contents of his pockets, the items in a railway station, pedestrians in the street. What appear to be trifles are actually tremendous, and he uses them as a springboard to expound on Christianity, the nuclear family, democracy, and the like with supreme clarity and wit. The essays gathered here are a testament to G.K. Chesterton's faith-not his faith in religion or a higher power, but in the ability to discover something wonderful in the objects, the experiences, and the people that cross our paths every single day. With his unique brand of humor and insight, he demonstrates how the commonplace adds enormous value to the landscape of daily life. Full of both good sense and nonsense, Chesterton's commentaries-first published nearly a century ago-remain fresh today.

      Tremendous Trifles2011
      4.5
    • A darkly comic novel of suspense, literary idolatry and one-upmanship, and political intrigue from one of the leading writers of the twentieth century, the acclaimed author of Lolita. "Half-poem, half-prose...a creation of perfect beauty, symmetry, strangeness, originality and moral truth. One of the great works of art of this century." —Mary McCarthy, New York Times bestselling author of The Group An ingeniously constructed parody of detective fiction and learned commentary, Pale Fire offers a cornucopia of deceptive pleasures, at the center of which is a 999-line poem written by the literary genius John Shade just before his death. Surrounding the poem is a foreword and commentary by the demented scholar Charles Kinbote, who interweaves adoring literary analysis with the fantastical tale of an assassin from the land of Zembla in pursuit of a deposed king. Brilliantly constructed and wildly inventive, Vladimir Nabokov's witty novel achieves that rarest of things in literature—perfect tragicomic balance.

      Pale fire : a novel2011
      4.2
    • The Enchantress of Florence

      • 455 pages
      • 16 hours of reading

      A tall, yellow-haired young European traveller calling himself 'Mogor dell'Amore', the Mughal of Love, arrives at the court of the real Grand Mughal, the Emperor Akbar, with a tale to tell that begins to obsess the whole imperial capital.

      The Enchantress of Florence2010
      3.6
    • Kaleidoscope and Other Short Stories

      • 191 pages
      • 7 hours of reading

      Une audio-cassette accompagne le livre (60 mn). Appartient à la collection livre de poche et à la collection les langues modernes. Choix et annotations par William B. Barrie

      Kaleidoscope and Other Short Stories2009
      4.6
    • 'Vladimir Nabokov was a literary genius' David Lodge'Of all my novels this bright brute is the gayest', Nabokov wrote of King, Queen, Knave. Comic, sensual and cerebral, it dramatizes an Oedipal love triangle, a tragi-comedy of husband, wife and lover, through Dreyer the rich businessman, his ripe- lipped ad mercenary wife Martha, and their bespectacled nephew Franz. 'If a resolute Freudian manages to slip in' - Nabokov darts a glance to the reader - 'he or she should be warned that a number of cruel traps have been set here and there...

      King, Queen, Knave2009
      4.2
    • Nabokov's first novel is now available in a trade paper edition. Here is the dark tale of a handsome officer who lives next door to his lover's husband in a dreary Berlin boarding house.

      Mary2008
      4.1
    • Tropic of Capricorn

      • 300 pages
      • 11 hours of reading

      'It was the ideal street - for a boy, a lover, a maniac, a drunkard, a crook, a lecher, a thug' In 1920s New York one Henry V. Miller, personnel manager of the Cosmodemonic Telegraph Co., spends his days hiring and firing a succession of wasters, maniacs, perverts, ex-cons, idiots and whores - while also writing the most important work of literature ever published and enjoying increasingly outrageous erotic exploits. Banned for thirty years, this riotous companion piece to Tropic of Cancer is a frank portrait of the Brooklyn of Miller's youth - its skyscrapers and sewers, its lusts and dejection - and a savage attack on America. 'American Literature begins and ends with the meaning of what Miller has done.' Lawrence Durrell 'His writing is flamboyant, torrential, chaotic, treacherous, and dangerous.' Anaïs Nin

      Tropic of Capricorn2006
      3.9
    • Dvaadvacet próz, jež tvoří druhý ze tří svazků souborného vydání Nabokovovy povídkové tvorby, přesvědčivě dokládá rychlý rozvoj autorova prozaického nadání i schopnost vracet se v nových a nápaditých variacích ke klíčovým tématům a motivům. Vstup do druhého desetiletí berlínského pobytu přináší v Nabokovově díle nové obrazy života v emigraci a reminiscence dětství v předrevolučním Rusku, spolu s nimi však i rostoucí pozornost vůči zostřující se atmosféře nacistického Německa. Přes mimořádnou vnímavost k podrobnostem a proměnám okolního světa ale Nabokov zůstává i v prózách ze třicátých let především tvůrcem bytostně zaujatým obecnými tématy lidské existence a formálním a estetickým potenciálem literárního textu. Čtrnáct z textů svazku vychází česky vůbec poprvé, překlady ostatních byly pro nové vydání revidovány nebo nahrazeny dosud nepublikovanými.

      Povídky / 2 1930-19372004
      4.5
    • Fury : a novel

      • 272 pages
      • 10 hours of reading

      Malik Solanka, a middle-aged ex-philosophy professor and millionaire creator of a hugely popular doll, seeks refuge from his unwanted fame and disintegrating marriage in New York City.

      Fury : a novel2003
      3.4
    • Lolita

      • 317 pages
      • 12 hours of reading

      The most famous and controversial novel from one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century tells the story of Humbert Humbert’s obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. “The conjunction of a sense of humor with a sense of horror [results in] satire of a very special kind.”—The New Yorker One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years Awe and exhilaration—along with heartbreak and mordant wit—abound in Lolita, which tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsession for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America. Most of all, it is a meditation on love—love as outrage and hallucination, madness and transformation.

      Lolita2003
      4.0
    • The first novel Nabokov wrote while living in America and the most overtly political novel he ever wrote, Bend Sinister is a modern classic. While it is filled with veiled puns and characteristically delightful wordplay, it is, first and foremost, a haunting and compelling narrative about a civilized man caught in the tyranny of a police state. Professor Adam Krug, the country's foremost philosopher, offers the only hope of resistance to Paduk, dictator and leader of the Party of the Average Man. In a folly of bureaucratic bungling and ineptitude, the government attempts to co-opt Krug's support in order to validate the new regime.

      Bend Sinister2002
      3.8
    • Pnin

      • 176 pages
      • 7 hours of reading

      In this moving, amusing story of a seeming born loser at odds with the New World, there is all the pathos of a generation cruelly and irrecoverably severed from its past.

      Pnin2001
      3.9
    • An automobile accident strands Nero Wolfe and Archie in the middle of a private pasture--and a family feud over a prize bull.The feud is about a restauranteur's plan to buy the stud and barbecue it as a publicity stunt. It may be in poor taste, but it isn't a crime . . . until Hickory Caesar Grindon, the soon-to-be-beefsteak bull, is found pawing the remains of a family scion. Wolfe is sure the idea that Caesar is the murderer is, well, pure bull. Now the great detective is on the horns of a dilemma as a veritable stampede of suspects--including a young lady Archie has his eye on--conceals a special breed of killer who wins a blue ribbon for sheer audacity.A grand master of the form, Rex Stout was one of America's greatest mystery writers, and his literary creation Nero Wolfe is one of the greatest fictional detectives of all time. Together, Stout and Wolfe have entertained--and puzzled--millions of mystery fans around the world. Along with Archie Goodwin, his perambulatory man-about-town, the arrogant, gourmandizing, sedentary sleuth Nero Wolfe stars in seventy-three cases of crime and detection.

      Some buried Ceasar1999
      4.2
    • "Moor" Zogoiby, only son of a wealthy, artistic Bombay family, finds himself at crisis point. After a tragic love affair, he plunges into a life of depravity in Bombay before leaving for involvement in financial scandal in London and, ultimately, violence in Spain

      The Moor's Last Sigh1999
      4.0
    • Nero Wolfe. Prisoner's Base

      • 286 pages
      • 11 hours of reading

      Hours after Priscilla Eads pleads with him to take her case, Nero Wolfe is shocked to find out that she was murdered, and soon he is investigating her fortune-hunting husband and greedy business associates.

      Nero Wolfe. Prisoner's Base1999
      4.2
    • Freddie Montgomery is a gentleman first and a murderer second. He committed two crimes - he stole a painting from a wealthy family friend and he killed a chambermaid who caught him in the act. Here he tells his story

      The book of evidence1999
      3.8
    • Odlesky západu slunce a jiné povídky

      • 142 pages
      • 5 hours of reading

      Rané autorovy povídky, ještě psané v ruštině, jsou motivované vzpomínkami na léta dětství a období berlínského exilu. Povídky jsou zřetelným dokladem Nabokovovy schopnosti jemné analýzy lidských osudů, které dokáže vyjádřit na malé dějové ploše. Jsou naplněny nostalgií, melancholií i intenzivními prožitky drobných událostí, které barvitě evokují ztracenou minulost.

      Odlesky západu slunce a jiné povídky1998
      3.7
    • Speak, Memory

      An Autobiography Revisited

      • 256 pages
      • 9 hours of reading

      From one of the 20th century's great writers comes one of the finest autobiographies of our time. Speak, Memory, first published in 1951 as Conclusive Evidence and then assiduously revised in 1966, is an elegant and rich evocation of Nabokov’s life and times, even as it offers incisive insights into his major works, including Lolita, Pnin, Despair, The Gift, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, and The Luhzin Defense. One of the 20th century’s master prose stylists, Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg in 1899. He studied French and Russian literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, then lived in Berlin and Paris, where he launched a brilliant literary career. In 1940 he moved to the United States, and achieved renown as a novelist, poet, critic, and translator. He taught literature at Wellesley, Stanford, Cornell, and Harvard. In 1961 he moved to Montreux, Switzerland, where he died in 1977.

      Speak, Memory1998
      4.1
    • East, West

      • 216 pages
      • 8 hours of reading

      A collection of six short stories in which Rushdie explores the relationship, the shared history, and the misunderstandings that both bind and separate East and West. From the winner of the Booker Prize for Midnight's Children, and the Booker of Bookers in 1993.

      East, West1997
      3.6
    • Smurov, a fussily self-conscious Russian tutor, shoots himself after a humiliating beating by his mistress' husband. Unsure whether his suicide has been successful or not, Smurov drifts around Berlin, observing his acquaintances, but finds he can discover very little about his own life from the opinions of his distracted, confused fellow-emigres.

      The Eye1996
      3.7
    • Saleem Sinai was born at midnight, the midnight of India's independence, and found himself mysteriously 'handcuffed to history' by the coincidence. He is one of 1,001 children born at the midnight hour, each of them endowed with an extraordinary talent -

      Midnight's Children1995
      4.0
    • Shame

      • 288 pages
      • 11 hours of reading

      "Omar Khayyam Shakil had three mothers who shared the smptoms of pregnancy, as they did everything else, inseparably. At their six breasts, Omar was warned against all feelings and nuances of shame. it was training which would prove useful when he left his mothers' fortress (via the dumb-waiter) to face his shameless future. As captivating fairy-tale, devastating political satire and exquisite, uproarious entertainment, Shame is a novel without rival." -- Back cover.

      Shame1990
      3.8
    • The Life and Times of Michael K

      • 192 pages
      • 7 hours of reading

      Coetzee here tells the story of a handicapped young man who has worked as a municipal gardener in Cape Town. His mother is dying, and she wishes to return to her birthplace out in the veldt. Without the required transit passes, mother and son set out on a journey that will end in death for her and in a new but temporary life on an abandoned farm for him. His respite in isolation and peace does not last long, however; grotesque reality soon returns to trouble this quiet new world. Against the solitude of this private drama, Coetzee paints an eloquent and pained picture of his homeland and of the bureaucrats, doctors, army deserters, and camp guards who reveal the stress and qualms of their existence and who uneasily sense that there is no conclusion to their troubles and no future for their lives.

      The Life and Times of Michael K1988
      3.8