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Literature in English

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The Cost of Living By Mavis Gallant Introduction by Jhumpa Lahiri An original collection of stories—many originally published in The New Yorker—from a woman widely considered to be one of the most thrilling practitioners of the genre. Gallant's tales of exile and displacement are admired by Margaret Atwood, Deborah Eisenberg, Michael Ondaatje, Russell Banks, and others. Price: $12.71 (25% off)

Hard Rain Falling By Don Carpenter Introduction by George Pelecanos A gripping novel of being down and out, but never down for good—a Dostoyevskian tale of crime, punishment, and the pursuit of an ever-elusive redemption. Price: $12.71 (25% off)

Summer Will Show By Sylvia Townsend Warner Introduction by Claire Harman Townsend Warner brings 19th-century Paris to pungent life in this thrilling novel of a proper Victorian aristocrat's political and emotional awakening among the barricades. "Her best book."—Sarah Waters Price: $12.71 (25% off)

The Old Man and Me By Elaine Dundy In Elaine Dundy's follow-up to her best-selling The Dud Avocado, a young American named Honey Flood arrives in London with the goal of seducing its brightest literary star. "A witty black comedy of errors."—Gore Vidal Price: $11.96 (25% off)

The Complete Fiction By Francis Wyndham Introduction by Alan Hollinghurst Wyndham is one of Britain's greatest living story writers, and a legendary editor. "He brings to his work an eye for the absolutely essential and a haunting sense of what lives are made up of—not the peaks and troughs...but the more elusive continuities and absences, ephemeral obsessions, a sense of permanently deferred expectation and hilarious consequences."—Interview Price: $12.71 (25% off)

A Meaningful Life By L. J. Davis Introduction by Jonathan Lethem A black comedy about real estate and redemption and the pitfalls of using the one to get the other. Lowell Lake (from Idaho) thinks that he has found the cure for the quarter-life doldrums in the form of a fixer-upper in Brooklyn, but soon discovers that he has lost his livelihood, his wife, and possibly his sanity. Price: $11.21 (25% off)

School for Love By Olivia Manning Introduction by Jane Smiley A sadly sweet, yet peculiarly uplifting story about displaced people attempting to repair their broken lives at the end of the Second World War. At the center of the book is Felix, an orphan, who arrives at the Jerusalem home of his horrible holy-rolling aunt and is forced to grow up fast. Price: $10.50 (25% off)

The Chrysalids By John Wyndham Introduction by Christopher Priest Like everyone else in the nuclear-wasted world he lives in, David is loyal to his kind and on the watch for anyone who deviates from the ideological or genetic norm. But what would happen if it were revealed that David himself was a mutant? Wyndham's novel is a thrilling science fiction classic for teens and adults alike. Price: $10.50 (25% off)

Don't Look Now By Daphne du Maurier Selected and with an introduction by Patrick McGrath Novelist Patrick McGrath (Asylum, Trauma) selects eight of his favorite stories—including "The Birds" and "The Blue Lenses"—by du Maurier, a writer who excelled at the art of the psychologically telling horror tale. Price: $11.96 (25% off)

In Hazard By Richard Hughes Introduction by John Crowley The author of A High Wind in Jamaica is at his best on the high seas, where man's furious nature is matched—perhaps outpaced—by the intensity of the natural world. "A small masterpiece of lyric terror about a cargo ship that runs into a hurricane, but also about the rest of life." —Simon Schama Price: $11.21 (25% off)

Victorine By Maude Hutchins Introduction by Terry Castle A sexual awakening novel like none other, mixing elements of Adleran psychology, surrealism, and the American pastoral. "Maude Hutchins writes like a lascivious Ivy Compton-Burnett.... Somehow she manages to remain irreverent and even lighthearted about the transgressions she describes."—Time Price: $11.21 (25% off)

Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky By Patrick Hamilton Introduction by Susanna Moore A London La Ronde: Ella harbors a secret love for Bob, Bob is infatuated with prostitute Jenny, and the odious Mr. Eccles has designs on Ella. Hamilton's psychologically astute novel gives us three stories of thwarted passion. Price: $13.46 (25% off)

Belchamber By Howard Sturgis Introduction by Edmund White Afterword by E.M. Forster Howard Sturgis was close friends with Henry James and Edith Wharton. "More Jamesian than the Master in hinting at melodrama yet keeping it at arm's length, Sturgis is an absolute modern in stirring up tensions on behalf of one of the quietest heroes in British fiction." —The New Republic Price: $11.96 (25% off)

Sheppard Lee, Written by Himself By Robert Montgomery Bird Introduction by Christopher Looby The eponymous hero of this early-American picaresque climbs the social ladder by inhabiting the bodies of the recently deceased, assuming the identities of, among others, a country squire, a young man of fashion, and a slave. Price: $12.71 (25% off)

Men and Gods By Rex Warner Illustrations by Edward Gorey Edward Gorey's drawings complement this modern retelling of some of the most beloved myths of ancient Greece. Men and Gods is wonderful introduction to these thrilling tales for the uninitiated and the perfect opportunity to get reacquainted with them. Price: $12.71 (25% off)

All About H. Hatterr By G.V. Desani Introduction by Anthony Burgess Heralded by T. S. Eliot and an inspiration to Salman Rushdie, All About H. Hatterr is one of the great eccentric books of all time. Newsweek called this comedic search for a man's enlightenment "a mischievous mulligatawny that reads like a collaboration between Mrs. Malaprop and Groucho Marx". Price: $11.96 (25% off)

Rogue Male By Geoffrey Household Introduction by Victoria Nelson On the brink of World War II a professional game hunter plots to assassinate a ruthless dictator. But what happens when the hunter becomes the hunted? The basis for the film Man Hunt, The Times of London called this astonishing thriller "simply the best escape and pursuit story yet written, with lip-chewing tension right to the end." Price: $10.50 (25% off)

The New York Stories of Edith Wharton By Edith Wharton Selected and with an introduction by Roxana Robinson The first collection to focus on what was perhaps Edith Wharton's greatest and most enduring subject, her native city. Price: $12.71 (25% off)

The Book of Ebenezer Le Page By G.B. Edwards Introduction by John Fowles Curmudgeonly and wise, Ebenezer le Page recounts his eighty years on the small island of Guernsey. "A true epic, as sexy as it is hilarious." — Allan Gurganus, O, The Oprah Magazine Price: $12.71 (25% off)

The Dud Avocado By Elaine Dundy Introduction by Terry Teachout Elaine Dundy's hilarious novel follows the misadventures of an American girl who impulsively quits college and heads off to conquer Paris in the 1950s. "A delightful few hours of sparkling reading entertainment. Summing up: Froth and frolic." —Newsweek Price: $11.21 (25% off)

The Enchanted April By Elizabeth von Arnim Introduction by Cathleen Schine Four women who share only their unhappiness and a love of wisteria flee 1920s London and converge on a magical villa in Portofino Italy in this charming comedy of manners that has been called "a feast of flowers"—Times Literary Supplement. Price: $11.21 (25% off)

The Slaves of Solitude By Patrick Hamilton Introduction by David Lodge 1940s England is a war zone. But for the residents of Mrs. Payne's boarding house the battlefield is the supper table, and the enemy is the resident of the room next door. Alternately bleak and hilarious, The Slaves of Solitude is a favorite of such writers as Sarah Waters and Nick Hornby. Price: $11.21 (25% off)

Butcher's Crossing By John Williams Introduction by Michelle Latiolais The author of Stoner dismantles the myth of the making of the American west in this tale of a Harvard dropout who seeks adventure hunting one of the last great buffalo herds, but ends up losing his innocence. Price: $11.21 (25% off)

The Secret Commonwealth By Robert Kirk Introduction by Marina Warner The legendary chronicle of the supernatural that inspired Robert Louis Stevenson and Sir Walter Scott. Price: $12.71 (25% off)

Clark Gifford's Body By Kenneth Fearing Introduction by Robert Polito Out of print for over fifty years, Clark Gifford's Body is a prophetic glimpse of the future as a poisonous fog. Price: $11.21 (25% off)

The Big Clock By Kenneth Fearing Introduction by Nicholas Christopher How does a man escape from himself? No book has ever dramatized that question to more perfect effect than The Big Clock, a masterpiece of American noir. Price: $11.21 (25% off)

Stoner By John Williams Introduction by John McGahern "A masterly portrait of a truly virtuous and dedicated man."—The New Yorker Price: $11.21 (25% off)

Conundrum Written and with a new introduction by Jan Morris A pioneering memoir exploring the borders of gender and early sex-reassignment surgery. Price: $10.50 (25% off)

English, August By Upamanyu Chatterjee Introduction by Akhil Sharma A satirical look at Indian society by an internationally acclaimed writer. Price: $11.21 (25% off)

What's For Dinner? By James Schuyler Afterword by James McCourt A bittersweet comedy of "group therapy manners" about cracking up and putting the pieces back together from the writer John Ashbery called "America's greatest poet." Price: $10.50 (25% off)

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