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Sergio Claudio Perroni

    Before I Die
    Small g: A summer idyll
    Heap House
    The Instant Millionaire
    Platform
    The Broom of the System
    • Ora saremo liberi

      • 480 pages
      • 17 hours of reading

      In una notte d’inverno del 1809 un uomo ferito nell’animo e nel corpo torna a casa sua, nel Somerset. È il capitano John Lacroix, sopravvissuto alla disastrosa campagna britannica contro le forze di Napoleone in Spagna. Accudito dalla governante Nell, Lacroix recupera la salute ma non la pace: un ricordo lo tormenta, troppo duro da affrontare. Quando arriva l’ordine di tornare al reggimento, John decide di fuggire verso le isole Ebridi con un bagaglio essenziale e il suo violino: spera che il viaggio verso un desiderato nulla riesca a tacitare i suoi sensi di colpa per quanto è successo durante la ritirata in un villaggio spagnolo. Approdato in una comunità di liberi pensatori, si innamora di Emily, afflitta da una malattia agli occhi: e per lei è pronto a mettere a repentaglio la propria vita. Intanto il tenente Medina e il caporale Calley, incaricati di far sommaria giustizia e chiudere i conti di guerra, sono sulle sue tracce. Una prosa luminosa e potente, tra romanzo storico e thriller, per la storia travagliata di un uomo in cerca di redenzione. “Trascinante.” Financial Times “Questa è finzione – narrazione – al suo meglio.” The Spectator “Eccellente. Un romanzo di atmosfere mutevoli: una commedia pastorale, un’appassionata storia romantica, un thriller nero e minaccioso.” The Observer

      Ora saremo liberi2020
      3.1
    • Heap House

      • 416 pages
      • 15 hours of reading

      A storm is brewing over Heap House. The Iremongers are growing restless and the whispers are getting louder. When Clod meets Lucy Pennant, a girl newly arrived from the city, everything changes. The secrets that bind Heap House together begin to unravel to reveal a dark truth that threatens to destory Clod's world.

      Heap House2015
      3.7
    • Fair Maiden

      A Novel of Dark Suspense

      • 231 pages
      • 9 hours of reading

      Sixteen-year-old Katya Spivak is out for a walk on the gracious streets of Bayhead Harbor with her two summer babysitting charges when she's approached by silver-haired, elegant Marcus Kidder. At first his interest in her seems harmless, even pleasant; like his name, a sort of gentle joke. His beautiful home, the children's books he's written, his classical music, the marvelous art in his study, his lavish presents to her -- Mr. Kidder's life couldn't be more different from Katya's drab working-class existence back home in South Jersey, or more enticing. But by degrees, almost imperceptibly, something changes, and posing for Mr. Kidder's new painting isn't the lighthearted endeavor it once was. What does he really want from her? And how far will he go to get it? In the tradition of Oates's classic story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" "A Fair Maiden "is an unsettling, ambiguous tale of desire and control.

      Fair Maiden2010
      3.1
    • Platform

      • 320 pages
      • 12 hours of reading

      "Michel is a civil-servant, an account manager at the Ministry of Culture. He is single, and likes his pleasures pre-packaged: game shows, TV movies, pornography and instant mash. When his father is murdered and he comes into some money, Michel takes leave of absence to go on a package tour to Thailand. Relieved to get away, he is nonetheless infuriated by the shallow hypocrisy and mediocrity of his fellow travellers. Only the awkward Valerie attracts his attention. Too bashful to pursue her, Michel prefers the uncomplicated pleasures of Thai massage parlours and sex with local women. Western society, he believes, has lost the sense of the 'other' - the sensual, the exotic - that is necessary to pleasure." "Back in Paris, he calls Valerie and they plunge into a passionate affair which strays far beyond the bounds of Michel's previous 'vanilla' existence, into S & M, partner-swapping and sex in public. Michel quits his job, and tries to help Valerie and her boss, Jean-Yves, in their ailing travel business, putting his philosophy into practice by offering consenting adults sexual tourism in the third world. The project is risky, but when the three return to Thailand, Michel discovers that sex is neither the most consuming nor the most dangerous of human passions."--Jacket

      Platform2009
      3.9
    • The Broom of the System

      • 480 pages
      • 17 hours of reading

      A visionary, a craftsman, a comedian and as serious as it is possible to be without accidentally writing a religious text. He can do anything with a piece of prose, and it is a humbling experience to see him go to work on what has passed up till now as "modern fiction". He's so modern he's in a different time-space continuum from the rest of us. Goddamn him' Zadie Smith The mysterious disappearance of her great- grandmother and twenty-five other elderly inmates from a Shaker Heights nursing home has left Lenore Stonecipher Beadsman emotionally stranded on the edge of the Great Ohio Desert. But that is simply one problem of many for the hapless switchboard operator, seriously compounded by her ongoing affair with boss Rick Vigorous; the TV stardom of her talking cockatiel, Vlad the Impaler; and other minor catastrophes that threaten to elevate Lenore's search for love and self-detemination to new heights of spasmodic weirdness.

      The Broom of the System2008
      4.1
    • Before I Die

      • 336 pages
      • 12 hours of reading

      For the many readers who love The Fault in Our Stars, this is the story of a girl who is determined to live, love, and to write her own ending before her time is finally up. Tessa has just months to live. Fighting back against hospital visits, endless tests, and drugs with excruciating side effects, Tessa compiles a list. It’s her To Do Before I Die list. And number one is Sex. Released from the constraints of “normal” life, Tessa tastes new experiences to make her feel alive while her failing body struggles to keep up. Tessa’s feelings, her relationships with her father and brother, her estranged mother, her best friend, and her new boyfriend, are all painfully crystallized in the precious weeks before Tessa’s time runs out. A Publishers Weekly Best Children’s Book of the Year A Booklist Editors’ Choice A Book Sense Children’s Pick A Kirkus Reviews Editors’ Choice A Publishers Weekly Flying Start Author An ALA-YALSA Top Ten Best Book for Young Adults The newly released feature film Now Is Good, starring Dakota Fanning, is based on Jenny Downham's intensely moving novel.

      Before I Die2008
      3.7
    • The Instant Millionaire

      • 144 pages
      • 6 hours of reading

      This delightful allegory by self-made millionaire Mark Fisher imparts the principles of wealth as Fisher learned them. A dissatisfied young man meets an old millionaire who reveals to him the secrets of acquiring not just material abundance, but also true wealth.

      The Instant Millionaire2003
      3.8
    • Opium

      • 186 pages
      • 7 hours of reading

      C'est une route aux mille parfums, aux mille périls aussi : celle qui, partant de Londres pour atteindre les Indes, se perd irrémédiablement dans l'Empire de la Chine. Un périple que l'on nomme la route du thé. Pour la première fois, en 1838, un homme va s'y aventurer, décidé à percer le secret des thés verts, bleus et blancs, inconnus en Angleterre. Au fil de son voyage, il va rencontrer Pearle, un riche négociant irlandais, Wang, le gardien de la vallée sacrée, Lu Chen, l'invisible empereur du thé, et Loan, une Chinoise aux yeux verts qui porte, tatouée sur son épaule, une fleur de pavot. Au terme de sa quête, l'opium. Un amour que l'on ne choisit pas.

      Opium2003
      3.5
    • Crime Wave

      Reportage and Fiction from the Underside of L.A.

      • 288 pages
      • 11 hours of reading

      Los Angeles. In no other city do sex, celebrity, money, and crime exert such an irresistible magnetic field. And no writer has mapped that field with greater savagery and savvy than James Ellroy. With this fever-hot collection of reportage and short fiction, he returns to his native habitat and portrays it as a smog-shrouded netherworld where"every third person is a peeper, prowler, pederast, or pimp." From the scandal sheets of the 1950s to this morning's police blotter, Ellroy reopens true crimes and restores human dimensions to their victims. Sublimely, he resurrects the rag Hush-Hush magazine. And in a baroquely plotted novella of slaughter and corruption he enlists the forgotten luminaries of a lost Hollywood. Shocking, mesmerizing, and written in prose as wounding as an ice pick, Crime Wave is Ellroy at his best.

      Crime Wave2002
      3.6
    • Baladicky laděný příběh odehrávající se v poslední čtvrtině 19. století vypráví o posedlosti provensálského mladíka, který svůj život zasvětil včelám. Hlavní hrdina příběhu žije se svým dědečkem v provensálské vesnici a sní o tom, jak se v životě uplatní a jednoho dne se rozhodne stát včelařem. Miluje včely a obdivuje jejich život, proto se mu daří a tvrdou prací se pomalu blíží svému cíli. Požár však po čase včelstva zničí a on na chvíli podlehne zoufalství. Sen o krásné ženě s medovou pletí ho ale nakonec vyžene do Afriky, kde po vysilující pouti nalézá legendární Včelí skálu a u ní i tajemnou ženu ze sna. Po dobrodružném návratu domů chce společně s přítelem vybudovat ohromující včelí město Apipolis a po počátečním úspěchu se i tento jeho plán zhroutí.

      Včelař2002
      3.7
    • En boheme-beværtning i det ellers så regelrette Zürich danner rammen om en cocktail af erotiske forviklinger og pardannelser

      Small g: A summer idyll1996
      3.4