Philip Roth’s new novel is a candidly intimate yet universal story of loss, regret, and stoicism. The bestselling author of The Plot Against America now turns his attention from “one family’s harrowing encounter with history” (New York Times) to one man’s lifelong skirmish with mortality. The fate of Roth’s everyman is traced from his first … More Everyman by Philip Roth
From perfectly formed potatoes to adulterous US presidents, and from domestic upsets to millennial fever, Bill Bryson just cannot resist airing his opinions and standing up for his (mostly) law-abiding fellow American citizens. But of course after twenty years in England, he is now back on the other side of the pond, and is obviously … More Notes from a Big Country by Bill Bryson
Eddie is a wounded war veteran, an old man who has lived, in his mind, an uninspired life. His job is fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. On his 83rd birthday, a tragic accident kills him as he tries to save a little girl from a falling cart. He awakes in the afterlife, where … More The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
Written by Naoki Higashida, a very smart, very self-aware, and very charming thirteen-year-old boy with autism, it is a one-of-a-kind memoir that demonstrates how an autistic mind thinks, feels, perceives, and responds in ways few of us can imagine. Parents and family members who never thought they could get inside the head of their autistic … More The Reason I Jump: One Boy’s Voice from the Silence of Autism, by Naoki Higashida
If you’ve always wanted to start reading in Spanish, but were always too intimidated to actually begin, this is the book for you. Barcelona al Alba is a graphic novel by Spanish cartoonist Alfonso Font, perhaps best known in Italy for his years working on popular comic Tex. Engaging and intriguing, this novel is beautifully … More Barcelona al Alba
First published in 2002, this book by UK-based academics David Held and Anthony McGrew deals with one of the main debates in the field of international relations: can globalization survive in the twenty-first century? The answer, according to the authors, is a resounding yes; and they make their case in this insightful and accessible work … More Globalization / Anti-Globalization: Beyond the Great Divide
In his trademark charismatic and honest style, RICHARD BRASON shares the inside track on some of his greatest achievements over 40 years in business as well as the lessons he has learned from his setbacks. In Business Stripped Bare he discusses why he took on one of the world’s biggest superbrands, how he built Virgin … More Business Stripped Bare: Adventures of a Global Entrepreneur
Covering an exhaustive range of information about Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island, the first edition of The Encyclopedia of New York City was a success by every measure, earning worldwide acclaim and several awards for reference excellence, and selling out its first printing before it was officially published. But much has changed … More The Encyclopedia of New York City: Second Edition
Ayn Rand (1905-82), born Alisa Rosenbaum in St. Petersburg, Russia, emigrated to America with her family in January 1926, never to return to her native land. Her novel The Fountainhead was published in 1943 and eventually became a bestseller. Still occasionally working as a screenwriter, Rand moved to New York City in 1951 and published Atlas Shrugged in 1957. … More Atlas Shrugged. By Ayn Rand.
It is to Churchill’s bestselling history of the First World War, The World Crisis, published in the Thirties, that we owe the view that the Battle of the Somme was an unmitigated disaster: a futile exercise in mass slaughter commanded by incompetent generals. 1 July 1916: the first day of the Battle of the Somme. … More Bloody Victory. By William Philpott.
languagecafeblog.wordpress.com 