Irving Pardoen Books

It is 1945. As the German Army retreats and the tide of war sweeps back over Eastern Europe, the lives of the inhabitants are changed forever.

'When you read his extraordinary memoir you don't laugh, then cry, then laugh again; you somehow experience these emotions all at once.' "Well, this was when Bill was sighing a lot. He had decided that after our parents died he just didn't want any more fighting between what was left of us. He was twenty-four, Beth was twenty-three, I was twenty-one, Toph was eight, and all of us were so tried already, from that winter. So when something would come up, any little thing, some bill to pay or decision to make, he would just sigh, his eyes tired, his mouth in a sorry kind of smile. But Beth and I...Jesus, we were fighting with everyone, anyone, each other, with strangers at bars, anywhere -- we were angry people wanting to exact revenge. We came to California and we wanted everything, would take what was ours, anything within reach. And I decided that little Toph and I, he with his backward hat and long hair, living together in our little house in Berkeley, would be world-destroyers. We inherited each other and, we felt, a responsibility to reinvent everything, to scoff and re-create and drive fast while singing loudly and pounding the windows. It was a hopeless sort of exhilaration, a kind of arrogance born of fatalism, I guess, of the feeling that if you could lose a couple of parents in a month, then basically anything could happen, at any time -- all bullets bear your name, all cars are there to crush you, any balcony could give way; more disaster seemed only logical. And then, as in Dorothy's dream, all these people I grew up with were there, too, some of them orphans also, most but not all of us believing that what we had been given was extraordinary, that it was time to tear or break down, ruin, remake, take and devour. This was San Francisco, you know, and everyone had some dumb idea -- I mean, wicca? -- and no one there would tell you yours was doomed. Thus the public nudity, and this ridiculous magazine, and the Real World tryout, all this need, most of it disguised by sneering, but all driven by a hyper-awareness of this window, I guess, a few years when your muscles are taut, coiled up and vibrating. But what to do with the energy? I mean, when we drive, Toph and I, and we drive past people, standing on top of all these hills, part of me wants to stop the car and turn up the radio and have us all dance in formation, and part of me wants to run them all over."

London cycle courier Astrid Bell has known most of her housemates for years, but while they have a tangled history together--romantic pairings, one-night stands, friendships--they each have secrets. Astrid is on her way home one day when her neighbor accidentally knocks her off her bike. Suffering a few bruises, her roommates help her home. The next day, they learn that same neighbor was bludgeoned to death only hours after the accident. Each of them tells the police what little they know and are dismissed. Then a few days later, Astrid is asked to pick up a package from a wealthy woman called Ingrid de Soto. When she arrives, the client is lying in the hall of her luxurious home--and it's apparent she's also been murdered. For the police, it's more than bad luck. For Astrid and her six housemates, it's the beginning of a nightmare: suspicious glances, bitter accusations, and a growing fear that the worst is yet to come. As the difference between friend and stranger grows harder to judge, the line between attraction and danger thins. The housemates--unsure if there's a killer in their midst--guard themselves against becoming the next victim. Because if it's true that bad luck comes in threes--who will be the next to die?

A woman's body is washed up on a shore on the south coast of England and her traumatized three-year-old daughter is found 20 miles away walking the streets alone. Suspicion centres on a young actor with an obsession for pornography, but attention soon shifts towards the murdered woman's husband

Bonnie finds her summer fling boyfriend and fellow band member, Hayden, dead on the floor of a friend's London apartment. She proceeds to hide the corpse and obliterate every sign of her presence at the crime scene. Hayden's well-known involvement with other women could have provided Bonnie a motive for murder. To complicate matters, at least one more person appears to have altered the crime scene.

'This is not my world. Something is wrong, askew. . . I am Ellie Falkner, thirty-four years old and married to Greg Manning. Although two police officers have just come to my door and told me he is dead . . . ' It's devastating to hear that your husband has died in a horrific car accident. But to learn that he died with a mystery woman as his passenger is torment. Was Greg having an affair? Drowning in grief, Ellie clings to Greg's innocence, and her determination to prove it to the world at large means she must find out who Milena Livingstone was and what she was doing in Greg's car. But in the process those around her begin to question her sanity and motive. And the louder she shouts that Greg must have been murdered, the more suspicion falls on Ellie herself. Sometimes it's safer to keep silent when someone dies. Suspicion, paranoia and gut-wrenching deception are at the heart of Nicci French's gripping new thriller. 'French is excellent at building up suspense and elegantly exploiting all our worst fears.' Daily Mail

In the small Hampshire village of Sowerbridge, Irish labourer Patrick O'Riordan has been arrested for the brutal murder of elderly Lavina Fanshaw & her live-in nurse

Elizabeth Costello is an Australian writer of international renown. Famous principally for an early novel that established her reputation, she has reached the stage where her remaining function is to be venerated and applauded. Her life has become a series of engagements in sterile conference rooms throughout the world - a private consciousness obliged to reveal itself to a curious public: the presentation of a major award at an American college where she is required to deliver a lecture; a sojourn as the writer in residence on a cruise liner; a visit to her sister, a missionary in Africa, who is receiving an honorary degree, an occasion which both recognise as the final opportunity for effecting some form of reconciliation; and a disquieting appearance at a writers' conference in Amsterdam where she finds the subject of her talk unexpectedly amongst the audience. She has made her life's work the study of other people yet now it is she who is the object of scrutiny. But, for her, what matters is the continuing search for a means of articulating her vision and the verdict of future generations.

Deze razend knap, geserreerd geschreven thriller gaat over een man op leeftijd die zich op het eerste gezicht lijkt te hebben teruggetrokken in een prachtig Italiaans dorp in de bergen, om te genieten van een welverdiende oude dag. De inwoners van het dorp kennen hem als signor Farfalla, vanwege de vlinders die hij schildert. Hij is een zogeheten 'schaduwfiguur', een wapenspecialist en hitman op bestelling. Signor Farfalla deelt zijn maaltijden en glazen armagnac met de lokale priester, inspecteert de wijnkelders en huisgerookte prosciutto, schildert en bezoekt regelmatig het bordeel in het dorp, waar hij vriendschap sluit met twee dames. Maar voordat hij echt kan genieten van zijn oude dag, moet hij nog één allerlaatste klus klaren...

Van je familie moet je het hebben bevat een zorgvuldig en kundig samengestelde en ingeleide selectie door Aaf Brandt Corstius van David Sedaris' mooiste, ontroerendste en vooral geestigste verhalen: ze gaan over de dood, over zijn knotsgekke familie, over nudistencampings, over roken, over de zes tot acht zwarte mannen die Sinterklaas assisteren, over dwangneuroses, lichamelijk verval, over shoppen met zijn zus Amy, en over nog meer dood.David Sedaris is een fenomeen in de Verenigde Staten: van zijn boeken zijn meer dan een miljoen exemplaren verkocht. Zijn verhalen verschijnen in The New Yorker, hij leest voor op National Public Radio, en is regelmatig te zien bij David Letterman. Ook in België is zijn faam groot: 'Is David Sedaris de grappigste schrijver ter wereld? Wij zijn er alvast van overtuigd,' schreef Het Nieuwsblad geheel terecht.