Susanna Basso Books

All'età di tredici anni, in un caldo giorno d'estate del 1935, Briony Tallis sente di essere diventata una scrittrice. La sera stessa, accusando di un crimine odioso un innocente, commette l'errore che la segnerà per tutta la vita. Eppure la giornata era iniziata sotto i migliori auspici. C'era la commedia da mettere in scena, i cugini arrivati dal nord per trascorrere qualche tempo in casa Tallis, e da Londra era atteso l'amatissimo fratello Leon con un amico, industriale della cioccolata. Soltanto la sorella maggiore Cecilia impensieriva Briony, con quel suo misterioso rapporto che la legava a Robbie Turner, il figlio della loro donna di servizio. Tutti i personaggi entrano in scena ma, nella commedia della vita, non ci sono prove prima della recita e ogni gesto assume un carattere definitivo. Presto, sarà troppo tardi per fermare la macchina dell'ingiustizia e la guerra arriverà a spazzare via il vecchio mondo con le sue raffinate ipocrisie.

A woman haunted by dreams of her dead mother. An adulterous couple stepping over the line where the initial excitement ends and the pain begins. A widow visiting a Scottish village in search of her husband's past - and instead discovering unsettling truths about a total stranger. The ten stories in this collection not only astonish and delight but also convey the unspoken mysteries at the heart of all human experience.

WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE Previously published as 'The Beggar Maid' Born into the back streets of a small Canadian town, Rose battled incessantly with her practical and shrewd stepmother, Flo, who cowed her with tales of her own past and warnings of the dangerous world outside. But Rose was ambitious - she won a scholarship and left for Toronto where she married Patrick. She was his Beggar Maid, 'meek and voluptuous, with her shy white feet', and he was her knight, content to sit and adore her. Alice Munro's wonderful collection of stories reads like a novel, following Rose's life as she moves away from her impoverished roots and forges her own path in the world.

THE WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATUREThe characters who populate an Alice Munro story live and breathe. Passions hopelessly conceived, affections betrayed, marriages made and broken: the joys, fears, loves and awakenings of women echo throughout these twelve unforgettable stories, laying bare the unexceptional and yet inescapable pain of human contact.

Berlino, inverno 1955: il tempo della guerra fredda, il tempo delle spie. Nelle viscere della città devastata si lavora all'"Operazione Oro", lo scavo di un tunnel al confine con la zona russa, allo scopo di immettersi sulle frequenze telefoniche sovietiche ed intercettare i messaggi operativi: un progetto ardito e pericoloso a cui collaborano la Cia e l'M16, i due servizi segreti alleati ed al tempo stesso rivali. In un simile clima di tensione e sospetto prende avvio la vicenda di Leonard, timido tecnico inglese coinvolto nel progetto spionistico, e Maria, donna tedesca, esuberante e desiderosa di vivere: una struggente storia d'amore e di iniziazione ai sensi ed alle emozioni. Un genere classico, la spy - story, reinventato da McEwan in un crescendo di orrore che a poco a poco dilaga sino all'esplodere della tragedia, ineluttabile e cruenta come un mito greco.

Ian McEwan’s symphonic novel of love and war, childhood and class, guilt and forgiveness provides all the satisfaction of a brilliant narrative and the provocation we have come to expect from this master of English prose. On a hot summer day in 1934, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses a moment’s flirtation between her older sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, the son of a servant and Cecilia’s childhood friend. But Briony’s incomplete grasp of adult motives—together with her precocious literary gifts—brings about a crime that will change all their lives. As it follows that crime’s repercussions through the chaos and carnage of World War II and into the close of the twentieth century, Atonement engages the reader on every conceivable level, with an ease and authority that mark it as a genuine masterpiece.

'You put together two things that have not been put together before. And the world is changed...' Julian Barnes's new book is about ballooning, photography, love and grief; about putting two things, and two people, together, and about tearing them apart. One of the judges who awarded him the 2011 Man Booker Prize described him as 'an unparalleled magus of the heart'. This book confirms that opinion.

Englische Literatur in Reclams Roter Reihe: das ist der englische Originaltext – mit Worterklärungen am Fuß jeder Seite, Nachwort und Literaturhinweisen. Zu Ian McEwans großen literarischen Qualitäten zählt sein hohes Einfühlungsvermögen in die Psyche von Kindern und Jugendlichen. Davon legt auch »The Daydreamer« Zeugnis ab: Der zehnjährige Peter Fortune, »a difficult child«, lebt in seiner eigenen Welt der Fantasie. Er besitzt die Fähigkeit, sich und seine Umgebung zu verwandeln. Das führt zu den abenteuerlichsten Verwicklungen und erstaunlichsten »Lösungen«. Ein Buch für Kinder und für Erwachsene; eine Erinnerung an die eigene Kindheit und eine Besinnung auf das, was daraus geworden ist. Englische Lektüre: Niveau B2 (GER)

A brilliant short novel from a writer at the very height of his powers.

This collection of stories capture the essence of life. Moments of change, chance encounters, the twist of fate that leads a person to a new way of thinking or being. A portrait of how dangerous and strange ordinary life can be.

A brilliant, emotionally wrenching new novel from the author of Atonement and Amsterdam. Fiona Maye, a leading High Court judge, renowned for her fierce intelligence and sensitivity is called on to try an urgent case. For religious reasons, a seventeen-year-old boy is refusing the medical treatment that could save his life. Time is running out. She visits the boy in hospital - an encounter which stirs long-buried feelings in her and powerful new emotions in the boy. But it is Fiona who must ultimately decide whether he lives or dies and her judgement will have momentous consequences for them both.

Nell'inverno del '55 Berlino è ancora devastata nel corpo e nel cuore. È il tempo della guerra fredda, il tempo delle spie. Nella vita di Leonard Marnharm, il giovane tecnico inglese protagonista di questo romanzo, il "tunnel di Berlino" rappresenterà il luogo, reale e metaforico, di un viaggio apparentemente senza fine negli abissi dell'esistenza. L'amore di Leonard per la tedesca Maria ha dapprima un sapore dolcissimo, ma c'è ancora nell'aria come un morbo latente di violenza, di disfacimento, che a poco a poco invade i pensieri, i gesti, le azioni quotidiane. Nel momento cruciale della sua esistenza, Leonard appare sopraffatto da una forza e da un orrore che lo trascendono.

Saturday, February 15, 2003. Henry Perowne is a contented man- a successful neurosurgeon, the devoted husband of Rosalind and proud father of two grown-up children. Unusually, he wakes before dawn, drawn to the window of his bedroom and filled with a grow

The only novel from Alice Munro -- award-winning author of The Love of a Good Woman -- is an insightful, honest book, "autobiographical in form but not in fact," that chronicles a young girl's growing up in rural Ontario in the 1940s.Del Jordan lives out at the end of the Flats Road on her father's fox farm, where her most frequent companions are an eccentric bachelor family friend and her rough younger brother. When she begins spending more time in town, she is surrounded by women -- her mother, an agnostic, opinionated woman who sells encyclopedias to local farmers; her mother's boarder, the lusty Fern Dogherty; and her best friend, Naomi, with whom she shares the frustrations and unbridled glee of adolescence.Through these unwitting mentors and in her own encounters with sex, birth, and death, Del explores the dark and bright sides of womanhood. All along she remains a wise, witty observer and recorder of truths in small-town life. The result is a powerful, moving, and humorous demonstration of Alice Munro's unparalleled awareness of the lives of girls and women.

The story begins on a windy spring day in the Chilterns when the calm, organized life of Joe Rose is shattered by a ballooning accident. The afternoon, Joe reflects, could have ended in mere tragedy, but for his brief meeting with Jed Parry. Unknown to Rose, something passes between them - something that gives birth in Parry to an obsession so powerful that it will test to the limits Rose's beloved scientific rationalism, threaten the love of his wife, Clarissa, and drive him to take desperate measures to stay alive.

Stephen Lewis, a successful author of children's books, takes his three-year-old daughter on a routine Saturday morning trip to the supermarket. While waiting in line, his attention is distracted and his daughter is kidnapped. From there, Lewis spirals into bereavement that has effects on his relationship with his wife, his psyche and time itself.

"It is July 1962. Edward and Florence, young innocents married that morning, arrive at a hotel on the Dorset coast. At dinner in their rooms they struggle to suppress their private fears of the wedding night to come..." - Back cover.

When the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has closed, 11-year-old Roland Baines's life is turned upside down. 2000 miles from his mother's protective love, stranded at an unusual boarding school, his vulnerability attracts piano teacher Miss Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade. Now, when his wife vanishes, leaving him alone with his tiny son, Roland is forced to confront the reality of his restless existence. As the radiation from Chernobyl spreads across Europe, he begins a search for answers that looks deep into his family history and will last for the rest of his life. Haunted by lost opportunities, Roland seeks solace through every possible means - music, literature, friends, sex, politics and, finally, love cut tragically short, then love ultimately redeemed. His journey raises important questions for us all. Can we take full charge of the course of our lives without causing damage to others? How do global events beyond our control shape our lives and our memories? And what can we really learn from the traumas of the past?

Britain has lost the Falklands war, Margaret Thatcher battles Tony Benn for power and Alan Turing achieves a breakthrough in artificial intelligence. In a world not quite like this one, two lovers will be tested beyond their understanding. Machines Like Me occurs in an alternative 1980s London. Charlie, drifting through life and dodging full-time employment, is in love with Miranda, a bright student who lives with a terrible secret. When Charlie comes into money, he buys Adam, one of the first batch of synthetic humans. With Miranda's assistance, he co-designs Adam's personality. This near-perfect human is beautiful, strong and clever - a love triangle soon forms. These three beings will confront a profound moral dilemma. Ian McEwan's subversive and entertaining new novel poses fundamental questions- what makes us human? Our outward deeds or our inner lives? Could a machine understand the human heart? This provocative and thrilling tale warns of the power to invent things beyond our control.

The Romans have long since departed, and Britain is steadily declining into ruin. But at least the wars that once ravaged the country have ceased. The Buried Giant begins as a couple, Axl and Beatrice, set off across a troubled land of mist and rain in the hope of finding a son they have not seen for years. They expect to face many hazards - some strange and other-worldly - but they cannot yet foresee how their journey will reveal to them dark and forgotten corners of their love for one another.

Fin da ragazzi, Parker e Jocelyn hanno condiviso letture, progetti e ambizioni letterarie, forgiando un'amicizia destinata a durare. Le loro carriere hanno preso strade opposte: Jocelyn ha raggiunto un improvviso successo, mentre Parker ha vissuto un rapido declino, con una famiglia numerosa e un lavoro da insegnante, i suoi pochi libri ormai dimenticati. Nonostante le loro vite si siano drasticamente separate, continuano a considerarsi "una famiglia". Tuttavia, tutto cambia quando Parker trova il dattiloscritto dell'ultimo romanzo di Jocelyn nella sua casa. Leggendolo, si rende conto che è il migliore che Jocelyn abbia mai scritto e potrebbe garantirgli la posterità. La tentazione di appropriarsi di quell'opera diventa irresistibile. Ma cosa significa davvero essere "io" o "lui"? Secondo una prospettiva cara ai romanzieri, l'io è un "racconto incessantemente riscritto", una "storia che raccontiamo a noi stessi". Così, se la biografia si sdoppia - con lo scrittore di successo contrapposto all'everyman travolto dal quotidiano - anche il racconto dell'io può sdoppiarsi, permettendo che tra le pagine di un unico romanzo si consumi il crimine perfetto.

Julian, Jake, Adrienne e Maggie: quattro ragazzi a Oxford, poco studio e molte discussioni, slanci di passione, litigi, spinelli e notti passate a raccontarsi la vita. Finché Maggie non decide che è venuto il momento di restituire al mittente tutto il male di cui ha sofferto Jake. Così la commedia delle loro esistenze si trasforma in un'assurda tragedia. L'amore e la crudeltà, l'irresponsabilità dell'adolescenza e il suo bisogno di assoluto nel nuovo romanzo dell'autore di Anime alla deriva.

In 1946, a young couple set off on their honeymoon. Fired by their ideals and passion for one another, they plan an idyllic holiday, only to encounter an experience of darkness so terrifying it alters their lives for ever.

"Michael Beard is a Nobel prize-winning physicist whose best work is behind him. Trading on his reputation, he speaks for enormous fees, lends his name to the letterheads of renowned scientific institutions and half-heartedly heads a government-backed initiative tackling global warming. A compulsive womaniser, Beard finds his fifth marriage floundering. But this time it is different: she is having the affair, and he is still in love with her. When Beard's professional and personal worlds collide in a freak accident, an opportunity presents itself for Beard to extricate himself from his marital mess, reinvigorate his career and save the world from environmental disaster. Ranging from the Arctic Circle to the deserts of New Mexico, "Solar" is a serious and darkly satirical novel, showing human frailty struggling with the most pressing and complex problem of our time. A story of one man's greed and self-deception, it is a profound and stylish new work from one of the world's great writers." -- Book jacket.