Born in Prague when it was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire and recognized today as a master of verse, poet Rainer Maria Rilke was considerably less well known in 1902 when he received a heartfelt letter from an aspiring poet. A 19-year-old student sent Rilke some of his verses, seeking an opinion of their worth. Rilke declined to offer a critique, instead encouraging the student to rely upon his own inner judgment: "Nobody can advise and help...

From Jonathan Franzen, bestselling author of The Corrections and Crossroads, comes his razor-sharp translation of Frank Wedekind's major modern play, Spring Awakening. Featuring an introduction by Franzen. First performed in Germany in 1906, Frank Wedekind's controversial play Spring Awakening closed after one night in New York in 1917 amid charges of obscenity and public outrage. For the better part of the twentieth century Wedekind's intense body...

In the tradition of Agent Zigzag comes this breathtaking biography, as fast-paced and emotionally intuitive as the very best spy thrillers, which illuminates an unsung hero of the French Resistance during World War II-Robert de La Rochefoucald, an aristocrat turned anti-Nazi saboteur-and his daring exploits as a résistant trained by Britain's Special Operations Executive. A scion of one of the most storied families in France, Robert de La Rochefoucald...

"As bombs fall across Europe, fourteen-year-old Lien Vinke fears that the reality of war is inescapable. Though she lives a quiet life with her mother and older sister, Elif, in their small town of Haarlem, they are no strangers to heartache, having recently suffered an immeasurable loss. And when the Nazis invade the Netherlands, joining the Dutch resistance with Elif offers just the atonement Lien craves. Trained to shoot by their late father, the...

Twelve-year-old Trevor Firestone loves playing war-based video games and he idolizes his great-grandfather Jacob who came home from World War II a celebrated hero; now ninety-three Jacob wants to retrace his journey in memory and reality and return to the small French village that his unit liberated, and Trevor is going with him--but not everyone in the town want Jacob to come, and Trevor is going to learn an important lesson: real war is not a video...

"Anne Berest's The Postcard is among the most acclaimed and beloved French novels of recent years. Luminous and gripping to the very last page, it is an enthralling investigation into family secrets, a poignant tale of mothers and daughters, and a vivid portrait of twentieth-century Parisian intellectual and artistic life. January, 2003. Together with the usual holiday cards, an anonymous postcard is delivered to the Berest family home. On the front,...

As autumn approaches Ilse Stern is thinking about her infatuation with Hermann Rød, and whether his determination to be a painter will interfere with their romance--but the reality of being Jewish in occupied Oslo is about to turn her whole world upside down, as the deportation of the Norwegian Jews begins.

This heroic true story of the three youngest children of a bourgeois Catholic family who worked together in the French Resistance is told by an American writer who has known and admired the family for five decades. In the autumn of 1943, André Boulloche became de Gaulle's military delegate in Paris, coordinating all the Resistance movements in the nine northern regions of France only to be betrayed by one of his associates, arrested, wounded by...

First published in Germany in 1901 and translated into English in 1924, Thomas Mann's "Buddenbrooks" is the story of the decline of a wealthy German family over four generations which takes place in the years 1835 to 1877. Mann began writing the novel, his first, when he was only twenty-two years old and based much of his critically acclaimed work on the story of his own family and their peers. Mann was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929...

VON ADVENT BIS NEUJAHR - TIROLER MUNDARTGEDICHTE Vom einleitenden "Adventsingen" spannt sich der zeitliche Bogen des Büchleins bis um die Zeit "Nach Neujahr". Natur und Brauchtum in den festlichen Tagen rund um die Weihnachtszeit bilden den Mittelpunkt dieser Verssammlung.