Peter Abelsen Book order (chronological)

A sharp and provocative new essay collection from the award-winning author of Freedom and The Corrections

A magnum opus for our morally complex times from the author of FREEDOM and THE CORRECTIONS

With profound emotional insight, especially into the effects of a hidden war on mothers and families at home, The Yellow Birds is a groundbreaking novel about the costs of war that is destined to become a classic. "The war tried to kill us in the spring," begins this breathtaking account of friendship and loss. In Al Tafar, Iraq, twenty-one-year old Private Bartle and eighteen-year-old Private Murphy cling to life as their platoon launches a bloody battle for the city. In the endless days that follow, the two young soldiers do everything to protect each other from the forces that press in on every side: the insurgents, physical fatigue, and the mental stress that comes from constant danger. Bound together since basic training when their tough-as-nails Sergeant ordered Bartle to watch over Murphy, the two have been dropped into a war neither is prepared for. As reality begins to blur into a hazy nightmare, Murphy becomes increasingly unmoored from the world around him and Bartle takes impossible actions. With profound emotional insight, especially into the effects of a hidden war on mothers and families at home, The Yellow Birds a groundbreaking novel about the costs of war that is destined to become a classic.

The acclaimed new novel from the author of The Corrections.

Things have never been easy for Oscar. A ghetto nerd living with his Dominican family in New Jersey, he's sweet but disastrously overweight. He dreams of becoming the next J. R. R. Tolkien and he keeps falling hopelessly in love. With dazzling energy and insight, Díaz immerses us in the tumultuous lives of Oscar and his family and their attempts to find love and belonging. Rendered with uncommon warmth and humour, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is an exciting and completely original first novel from Junot Diaz.

Een jonge Duitse weduwe trekt na de Tweede Wereldoorlog met haar twee zoontjes naar haar zwager in Zuid-Amerika om er een nieuw leven op te bouwen, maar alles loopt anders dan zij verwachten.

Een jonge joods-Amerikaanse schrijver gaat op zoek naar sporen van zijn familie op het Oekraïense platteland.

Following the curves of history in the first half of the twentieth century, Fall on Your Knees takes us from haunted Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, through the battlefields of World War I, to the emerging jazz scene in New York City, and into the lives of four unforgettable sisters. The mythically charged family - James, a father of intelligence and immense ambition ; Materia, his Lebanese child-bride ; and their daughters: Kathleen, the eldest, a beautiful talent preparing for a career as an opera diva ; Frances, incorrigible liar and hell-bent bad girl ; Mercedes, obsessive Catholic and protector of the flock ; and Lily, the adored invalid who takes us on a quest for truth and redemption - is supported by a richly textured cast of characters. Fall on Your Knees is a story of inescapable family bonds, of terrible secrets, of miracles, racial strife, attempted murder, birth and death, and forbidden love

Beautifully written and completely unforgettable, Water for Elephants is an atmospheric, gritty, and compelling novel of star-crossed lovers, set in the US circus world circa 1932.

No one knows us quite the same way as the men and women who sit beside us in department meetings and crowd the office refrigerator with their labeled yogurts. Every office is a family of sorts, and the ad agency Joshua Ferris brilliantly depicts in his debut novel is family at its strangest and best, coping with a business downturn in the time-honored way: through gossip, pranks, and increasingly frequent coffee breaks. With a demon's eye for the details that make life worth noticing, Joshua Ferris tells a true and funny story about survival in life's strangest environment--the one we pretend is normal five days a week.

The story follows a young reporter who embarks on an adventurous journey from his small-town newspaper to uncover a longstanding international smuggling operation. This clandestine ring is involved in the acquisition of alchemical artifacts believed to grant eternal life, intertwining themes of ambition, discovery, and the quest for immortality. The novel blends elements of mystery and intrigue, showcasing the reporter's transformation as he navigates a world filled with secrets and danger.

Only R.W.B. Lewis-the renowned biographer and author of The City of Florence-could write so insightfully about Dante Alighieri, Florence's famous son. In Dante he traces the life and complex development-emotional, artistic, philosophical-of this supreme poet-historian, from his wanderings through Tuscan hills and splendid churches to his days as a young soldier fighting for democracy, and to his civic leadership and years of embittered exile from the city that would fiercely reclaim him a century later.Lewis reveals the boy who first encounters the mythic Beatrice, the lyric poet obsessed with love and death, the grand master of dramatic narrative and allegory, and his monumental search for ultimate truth in The Divine Comedy. It is in this masterpiece of self-discovery and redemption that Lewis finds Dante's own autobiography-and the sum of all his shifting passions and epiphanies.

Zoals alle tieners uit heden en verleden hunkert Liza Normal naar roem. Helaas voor haar is ze echter geen meisje dat voor het succes. In de wieg is gelegd. Eerder voor het tegendeel. Gehinderd door de vulkanische ambities van haar moeder en haar eigen gebrek aan smaak beleeft Liza de ene afgang na de andere; zeperds, dompers en rampzalige liefdes. Het enige wat in haar voordeel werkt is het feit dat ze een veel beter mens is dan het sterretje dat ze zou willen zijn. Liza is onverwoestbaar. En als ze zich ten slotte verzoent met haar bestaan in de marge, breekt het uur aan van haar zoete wraak op de Hollywoodmythen die haar al die tijd tot wanhoop hebben gedreven.

/ 9041406026 / Literature translated into Dutch / Nederlands / Dutch / Néerlandais / Niederländisch / paperback / 22 x 14 cm / 227 .pp /

An astonishing feat - The Times. A young man arrives in the Ukraine, clutching in his hand a tattered photograph. He is searching for the woman who fifty years ago saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Unfortunately, he is aided in his quest by Alex, a translator with an uncanny ability to mangle English into bizarre new forms; a blind old man haunted by memories of the war; and an undersexed guide dog named Sammy Davis Jr, Jr. What they are looking for seems elusive - a truth hidden behind veils of time, language and the horrors of war. What they find turns all their worlds upside down.

Ruth Young and her widowed mother, LuLing, have always had a tumultuous relationship. Now, before she succumbs to forgetfulness, LuLing gives Ruth some of her writings, which reveal a side of LuLing that Ruth has never known. . . . In a remote mountain village where ghosts and tradition rule, LuLing grows up in the care of her mute Precious Auntie as the family endures a curse laid upon a relative known as the bonesetter. When headstrong LuLing rejects the marriage proposal of the coffinmaker, a shocking series of events are set in motion–all of which lead back to Ruth and LuLing in modern San Francisco. The truth that Ruth learns from her mother’s past will forever change her perception of family, love, and forgiveness.

Dave travels to India with Liz hoping to get her into bed. Liz travels with Dave wanting a companion for her voyage of self-discovery. This novel is a satire about backpackers.

This sheet map, covering the whole of Lancashire, uses a large scale of 1 inch to 1.6 miles. It contains detailed coverage of the region's road network, including country lanes and rural lanes and tracks. Major footpaths, junctions, roundabouts and slip roads are also shown. Additional detail includes thousands of individually marked farms, houses and hamlets. Airports, airports, stations, ferries, houses, marinas and other places of interest are featured. Also included are town plans of Blackpool, Lancaster and Preston. Designed for both professional and leisure users, it is printed on one side to allow hanging as a wall map.

Olivia Yee is only five years old when Kwan, her older sister from China, comes to live with the family and turns her life upside down, bombarding her day and night with ghostly stories of strange ancestors from the world of Yin. Olivia just wants to lead a normal American life. For the next thirty years, Olivia endures visits from Kwan and her ghosts, who appear in the living world to offer advice on everything from restaurants to Olivia's failed marriage. But just when she cannot bear it any more, the revelations of a tragic family secret finally open her mind to the startling truths hidden in Kwan's unorthodox vision of the world.

Reisgids met de nadruk op culturele en historische zaken.