Engelska

A collection of sparkling award-winning stories from Maggie Shipstead, epic storyteller and astonishing chronicler of the daring and the damaged. Diving into eclectic and vivid settings, from an Olympic village to a deathbed in Paris to a Pacific atoll, and illuminating a cast of unforgettable characters, Shipstead traverses the ordinary and extraordinary with cunning, compassion, and wit. Meet the silent cowgirl looking for a quiet life on a remote ranch in Montana, only to fall into a triangle of unrequited love; a self-aggrandizing male novelist who comes to terms with the girlfriend he never had just as his literary debut goes to print; a honeymoon couple's time in the hills of Romania builds into a moment of shattering tragedy. In the title story, a famous child actress breaks away from a religious cult, as she tells - with brittle candour - her tale of childhood damage and the dark side of fame.

Margaret Atwood is celebrated as one of the most gifted storytellers in the world. These stories explore the full warp and weft of experience, from two best friends disagreeing about their shared past, to the right way to stop someone from choking; from a daughter determining if her mother really is a witch, to what to do with inherited relics such as World War II parade swords. They feature beloved cats, a confused snail, Martha Gellhorn, George Orwell, philosopher-astronomer-mathematician Hypatia of Alexandria, a cabal of elderly female academics, and an alien tasked with retelling human fairy tales. At the heart of the collection is a stunning sequence that follows a married couple as they travel the road together, the moments big and small that make up a long life of love -- and what comes after. The glorious range of Atwood's creativity and humanity is on full beam in these tales, which by turns delight, illuminate and quietly devastate.

<b>This volume is an in-depth and exquisitely illustrated guide to the Second Age of Middle-earth, one of the least-explored periods of Arda's history.</b><br/><br/><i>The Illustrated World of Tolkien: The Second Age</i>, is the follow up companion to the best-selling <i>The Illustrated World of Tolkien</i>, and gathers together artwork, charts, and fascinating and scholarly writing from renowned Tolkien expert David Day. Exploring the languages, poetry and elements of the heroic ages of Norse, Greek and Roman mythologies that may have influenced Tolkien's writing, it is a reference guide for any fan of Tolkien's work, Tolkien's world and the imaginative brilliance his vision inspired.<br/><br/>The Second Age is made up of two great narrative channels: on the one hand the rise and cataclysmic downfall of the island-kingdom of Numenor and its aftermath, and on the other the forging of the Rings of Power and the rise to power of the new dark lord.<br/>Tolkien's sources for his Second Age are, of course, as rich and varied as ever and this book delves into some of these influences and shows how the power of Tolkien's imagination is manifest even in the lesser-known parts of his legendarium.<br/><br/><i>This work is unofficial and is not authorised by the Tolkien Estate or HarperCollins Publishers.</i>

From the celebrated poet, novelist and memoirist, <i>The Vast Extent </i>is an ingenious constellation of "exploded essays" about light and image, seeing and the unseen. Each is a record of how thought builds and ideas emerge, aligning art, myth, strange voyages, scientific scrutiny and a poet's response so that they cast light upon each other. Ranging across caves, seasickness, early photography, boredom, wonder, mountains, mice, the body and its shadow, from the Arctic at midwinter to a shingle spit in Norfolk at midsummer, Lavinia Greenlaw invites us to travel such questions as how we might describe what we have never seen before or what helps us to see more clearly or persuades us to see what's not there. Art, science, vision and memory inform one another in this original and illuminating work.<br/><br/>'Greenlaw's prose has a sharp honesty and she wields her erudition lightly.' <i>Sunday Times</i>

<i>Zombies want brains. Vampires want blood. Cannibals want human flesh. </i>All<i> monsters need feeding.</i><br/><br/>Horror has been embraced by mainstream pop culture more than ever before, with horror characters and aesthetics infecting TV, music videos and even TikTok trends. Yet even with the commercial and critical success of <i>The Babadook, Hereditary, Get Out, The Haunting of Hill House, Yellowjackets</i> and countless other horror films and TV series over the last few years, loving the genre still prompts the question: <i>what's wrong with you?</i> Implying, of course, that there is something <i>not quite right</i> about the people who make and consume it. In <i>Feeding the Monster</i>, Anna Bogutskaya dispels this notion once and for all by examining how horror responds to and fuels our feelings of fear, anxiety, pain, hunger and power.