Heleen ten Holt Libri

What I Loved begins in New York in 1975, when art historian Leo Hertzberg discovers an extraordinary painting by an unknown artist in a SoHo gallery. He buys the work; tracks down the artist, Bill Wechsler; and the two men embark on a life-long friendship. Leo's story, which spans twenty-five years, follows the growing involvement between his family and Bill's--an intricate constellation of attachments that includes the two men, their wives, Erica and Violet, and their sons, Matthew and Mark.The families live in the same New York apartment building, rent a house together in the summers and keep up a lively exchange of ideas about life and art, but the bonds between them are tested, first by sudden tragedy, and then by a monstrous duplicity that slowly comes to the surface. A beautifully written novel that combines the intimacy of a family saga with the suspense of a thriller, What I Loved is a deeply moving story about art, love, loss, and betrayal.

White Oleander is a painfully beautiful first novel about a young girl growing up the hard way. It is a powerful story of mothers and daughters, their ambiguous alliances, their selfish love and cruel behaviour, and the search for love and identity.Astrid has been raised by her mother, a beautiful, headstrong poet. Astrid forgives her everything as her world revolves around this beautiful creature until Ingrid murders a former lover and is imprisoned for life. Astrid's fierce determination to survive and be loved makes her an unforgettable figure. 'LIQUID POETRY' - Oprah Winfrey 'Tangled, Complex and extraordinarily moving' - Observer

There were six of them. Professional men and their waiter. They gather at the Milano Restaurant once a month for good food and good conversation. But lately the Black Widowers have added a new entertainment to their meetings. They have begun to solve mysteries, murders, and conspiracies of seemingly impossible dimensions -- book cover

The 1660s represent a turning point in English history, and for the main events -- the Restoration, the Dutch War, the Great Plague and the Fire of London -- Pepys provides a definitive eyewitness account. As well as recording public and historical events, Pepys paints a vivid picture of his personal life, from his socializing and amorous entanglements, to his theatre-going and his work at the Navy Board. Unequaled for its frankness, high spirits and sharp observations, the diary is both a literary masterpiece and a marvelous portrait of seventeenth-century life.Previously published as The Shorter Pepys, this edition is edited and abridged by Robert Latham, Fellow and Pepys Librarian at Magdalene College, Cambridge.

Meet Macon Leary--a travel writer who hates both travel and strangeness. Grounded by loneliness, comfort, and a somewhat odd domestic life, Macon is about to embark on a surprising new adventure, arriving in the form of a fuzzy-haired dog obedience trainer who promises to turn his life around. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

Four mothers, four daughters, four families, whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who's telling the stories. In 1949, four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, meet weekly to play mahjong and tell stories of what they left behind in China. United in loss and new hope for their daughters' futures, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Their daughters, who have never heard these stories, think their mothers' advice is irrelevant to their modern American lives – until their own inner crises reveal how much they've unknowingly inherited of their mothers' pasts. With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters. As each woman reveals her secrets, trying to unravel the truth about her life, the strings become more tangled, more entwined. Mothers boast or despair over daughters, and daughters roll their eyes even as they feel the inextricable tightening of their matriarchal ties. Tan is an astute storyteller, enticing readers to immerse themselves into these lives of complexity and mystery.

Nella New York di fine Novecento Susan Sontag decide di scrivere un romanzo dal forte sapore storico, ambientandolo nella Napoli di fine Settecento, metropoli fastosa e disperata alle prese con la Rivoluzione che darà vita alla Repubblica Napoletana. Al centro del racconto un uomo all'apparenza algido e distaccato, animato da un'indomabile passione per il vulcano almeno quanto per l'arte e i ricercati pezzi di antiquariato di cui è collezionista: si tratta dell'ambasciatore inglese Sir William Hamilton, che, tra le altre vicende, si trova coinvolto in un triangolo amoroso che vede in lui uno dei vertici, assieme alla seconda moglie Emma, considerata una delle donne piú belle dell'epoca, e all'ammiraglio Horatio Nelson. Nell'intreccio narrativo le vicende storiche realmente accadute passano attraverso l'immaginazione dell'autrice, diventando vive e creando mondi imprevisti. Sempre presente sullo sfondo del romanzo, il Vesuvio pare simboleggiare la bellezza, l'imprevedibilità, l'inquietante vitalità e la potenza esplosiva delle cose che giacciono sotto la superficie e improvvisamente tornano visibili. Ne "L'amante del vulcano", da molti anni introvabile in Italia, Sontag mette in scena lo spettacolo della Storia, filtrandolo attraverso una forte coscienza autoriale.

Toby Hood, a young Englishman, shuns the politics and the causes his liberal parents passionately support. Living in Johannesburg as a representative of his family's publishing company, Toby moves easily, carelessly, between the complacent wealthy white suburbs and the seething, vibrantly alive black townships. His friends include a wide variety of people, from mining directors to black journalists and musicians, and Toby's colonial-style weekends are often interspersed with clandestine evenings spent in black shanty towns. Toby's friendship with Steven Sithole, a dashing, embittered young African, touches him in ways he never thought possible, and when Steven's own sense of independence from the rules of society leads to tragedy, Toby's life is changed forever.

In the mid-18th century James Dyer is born unable to feel pain, and grows up to be a brilliant but heartless brain surgeon. Then, en route to St Petersburg in 1767, he meets his match - a strange woman with supernatural healing powers. When she introduces him to pain he is driven mad with shock.

'If you're coming to Lurie for the first time, you must begin with the Pulitzer Prize-winning Foreign Affairs' GuardianVinnie Miner is an American professor of children's literature on her way to London for six months of research.

Een tienjarige weesjongen uit Edinburgh achterhaalt tijdens zijn verblijf bij zijn excentrieke oom in de Schotse Hooglanden de volledige waarheid omtrent zijn afkomst.

Vier Chinese vrouwen in San Francisco vertellen elkaar over hun jeugd in China.