რბილი ყდა

The Imitation of the Rose by Clarice Lispector (Penguin) — one of the most disturbing and most formally perfect short stories of the twentieth century, in which a woman’s too-perfectly-ordered house reveals a mind at the edge of breakdown. This Penguin Little Black Classic gathers it alongside other essential Lispector works — a concentrated introduction to a writer who uses ordinary surfaces to reveal extraordinary inner states. Published by Penguin.

White Nights by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Penguin Modern Classics) — a larger, fresh edition of Dostoevsky’s most delicate work: the novella of four conversations on a St Petersburg bridge between a lonely young man and Nastenka, a young woman waiting for someone else. Literature’s most precise account of romantic longing in a hundred pages, with an introduction situating it in Dostoevsky’s early development. Published by Penguin Modern Classics.

One Billion Years to the End of the World by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (Penguin Modern Classics) — Soviet science fiction at its most philosophically ambitious. A theoretical physicist on the verge of a breakthrough finds himself systematically interrupted by a universe that seems determined to prevent his discovery. A tightly plotted, psychologically acute masterpiece of the genre. Published by Penguin Modern Classics.

Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut (Penguin Modern Classics) — one of the great satirical novels of the twentieth century, in which a fictional religion called Bokononism, a Caribbean dictator, and a substance called ice-nine converge on the end of the world with hilarious and devastating results. Funnier than it has any right to be about the end of everything. Essential Vonnegut. Published by Penguin Modern Classics.

Star by Yukio Mishima (Penguin) — a short, brilliant novella in which a young film star discovers that celebrity has made him a surface onto which audiences project what they need, while behind the screen there is less and less of him. A contemporary, darkly satirical Mishima — neglected until now, and essential for anyone who wants to understand his full range. Published by Penguin.