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Reviews
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THE ALCHEMIST
by Paulo Coelho
Translated into 61 languages, and sold to more than 30 million people worldwide, The Alchemist is a classic of the modern age. A simple, wise and enchanting fable, The Alchemist has inspired readers the world over to listen to their hearts and follow their dreams. In the story we follow the quest of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd, as he journeys to North Africa in the search for missing treasure and spiritual fulfillment
“It is the simplest things in life that are the most extraordinary: only wise men are able to understand them,” a fortuneteller explains to Santiago at the beginning of his quest: the philosophy seems to have worked for Paul Coelho himself, now practically presiding over a literary genre all of his own.
A must-read for travelers, soul-searchers, dreamers, and philosophical alchemists.
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THE MASTER AND MARGARITA
by Mikhail Bulgakov
When the devil sweeps into Moscow wearing a fancy suit and accompanied by a gun-toting, human sized tomcat, it’s hardly surprising that havoc is set to ensue. A thorough rampaging through the city follows, involving death, destruction and debauchery, despite the devil’s protestations that his intentions are entirely admirable.
A twentieth century Russian classic, The Master and Margarita is bizarre, surreal and wonderful. Suppressed by the Stalinist authorities during Bulgakov’s lifetime, the novel is both a hilarious romp, and a sharp satire on the cultural and political climate in Soviet Moscow. Fans of the Salman Rushdie and Gabriel Garcia Marquez will delight in this masterpiece of the imagination, although make no mistake – The Master and Margarita is very definitely one of a kind.
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THE KITE RUNNER
by Khaled Hosseini
Interest in The Kite Runner has refused to die down in the three years since its publication. A haunting and beautiful novel, at its heart is the biggest and most unresolved of conflicts – the desire of men to rule one another, whether domestically or on the stage of world events.
Amir and Hassan are best of friends, and spend their days playing in the grounds of Amir’s beautiful home in Kabul. But the boys are also slave and master, a relationship that becomes increasingly complex and difficult to sustain as the boys grow and the affairs of their native Afghanistan begin to effect on their lives in ever more pressing and dangerous ways. A terrible event tests the strength of the friendship between Amir and Hassan, but before the boys are able to recover, the Russian invasion of Afghanistan whisks Amir off to America to pastures new and to the unsettled life of an émigré. When he finally returns, the country is barely recognizable, and Amir struggles to dig the remains of his childhood, and his dignity from the rubble of the shattered city. The Kite Runner is beautifully written, raw and evocative, and not to be missed.
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LORD OF THE FLIES
by William Golding
When a plane crashes on a deserted island, with the only survivors a pack of adolescent schoolboys, what follows is at first a riotous testing of the limits of their new found freedom. However, soon their exuberance gives way to something much darker, as fear begins to seep in, and as rescue seems a more and more distant hope, the fragile society the boys have created plunges into chaos.
The ultimate novel of dystopia, Lord of the Flies ticks as many boxes as it defies attempts to classify it. At once a thriller, an adventure story, an allegory, and a political treatise, the novel is disturbing, unpredictable, and terrifying in it’s exposure of the basest of human instincts. A true classic, this edition of Lord of the Flies contains a new introduction from E.M Forster. |
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THE SEA
by John Banville
So you think your vocabulary is extensive? Put your money where your mouth is with John Banville’s ridiculously lavish 2005 Booker Prize winner ‘The Sea’.
Set in a bleak, old fashioned seaside town on the West coast of Ireland, the novel flits between the distant childhood past and the alcohol soaked adulthood present of art historian Max Morden, as he attempts to reconcile the death of his wife and come to terms with a childhood trauma that irrevocably altered his future.
A joyous romp the novel is not, but as a work of art it can hardly be faulted. Elegant, disturbing and absolutely remarkable in it’s realization of character, place and pure, difficult, raw humanity, The Sea is a novel that will haunt both new readers and Banville fans alike.
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Reviewed by
Austin M. Kramer
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MY NAME IS RED
by Orhan Pamuk
Unlike many of his characters, Orhan Pamuk has never lived beyond the city where he was born, but in a city like Istanbul there are already hundreds of lifetimes of stories yet to be told. Still, at the bridge between Europe and Asia it can seem that almost much of the far away worlds has already passed through these famous narrows, and traces still lay collecting in the cities Byzantine alleyways. My Name Is Red is a ruminating mystery haunted by love, art, religion, and politics. It is infused with cultures, legends, history and philosophy that all drift through the narrative like wisps of smoke. The tense interplay between ancient traditions and human passions is brilliantly illustrated through intersecting stories of painting, romance, faith, and murder. Slowly, piece by piece, a variety of highly subjective first-person narrators build the story out of beguiling dialogue and enchanting tangents. Fascinatingly, the fragments all begin to fold in upon each other, gradually fusing into a single dramatic conclusion. Desolate winter in the ancient city profuse with rich textures and disparate voices comes to life with the passion, melancholy and elegant, evocative complexity of an Arabesque illumination or Byzantine mosaic.
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Reviewed by
Austin M. Kramer |
EXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY CLOSE
by Jonathan Safran Foer
Although a spare four years has passed since the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers on September 11, 2001, ream upon ream has been written on the events and their consequences. Much, if not all of it makes no lasting contribution to the literary cannon. Perhaps the definitive book of these times has yet to be written, but among those that have been, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close stands out as a light of style and compassion. It is not an over-wrought elegy, nor a cynical political manipulation, but in rejecting these neither does it cheapen the tragedy simply because it has become a symbol. Al Queda, various governments, protesters, and indeed much of the world has fixated on the attacks as a symbol, or a catalyst, some kind of means, but Jonathan Safran Foer reminds us that the deaths of thousands can also be a very potent and devastating ends in and of itself. The book follows a sensitive prodigy, 9 years old and manically absorbed in a plethora of intellectual pursuits, as he embarks on the surreal, mystical and quixotic quest to find the lock that fits a key his father had left for him after he died in the towers. It provides a rich landscape of grief - lives now defined by the contrast of death - and shows the world in an ironic new light, reevaluating everything with a new point of view unavoidably affected by tragedy.
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Reviewed by
Austin M. Kramer |
EMBERS
by Sandor Marai
As traditions scatter on the winds of change and nations shift beneath our feet, the quintessential crisis of modernity is one of definition. Modernity, however, is not a single moment in time so much as every moment in time. In this way, Sandor Marai's lost novels from the first part of the 20th Century are prescient today as they were then. With the glittering age of the Austro-Hungarian Empire long past, two old men meet for a single, vital, and final survey of their lives, filled with love and friendship, but also loss and betrayal. Embers is a slim novel, a single claustrophobic dialogue in an isolated forest estate, but it ranges all across the world and the human experience over the course of a single night. Marai is a master of prose on par with or exceeding his peers Kafka, Hesse, and Mann. His style is brisk, fresh, and dazzlingly vivid. His mastery of the unsaid infuses the book with a sense of mystery and dark drama. With clarity and emotional force, Embers transcends its own generation and cuts to the core of what is modern life. |
Reviewed by
Austin M. Kramer |
AN ANTHROPOLOGIST ON MARS
by Oliver Sacks
Philosophers for years have speculated over the role of perception, memory and the mind in determining the substance of our reality, often with no conclusive results. Sheepishly they must realize, upon reading the works of Oliver Sacks, that perhaps they should have conducted more field research! In what is his best-developed collection of case studies to date, Dr. Sacks reveals a metaphysical laboratory through the practice of neurology. In recounting his experiences with artists, teachers, surgeons and Hare Krisnas, all somehow different from the clinical norm, he is neither obscurely technical nor needlessly simplistic. He does not romanticize the challenges in these people's lives, but his focus is clearly not on the pathos, but on the ethos. With tender subtlety we are led, not lectured, down the path of diagnosis, understanding, and ultimately to questions at the very foundations of the human experience as we know it. With a light touch, humor, and no small amount of empathy, Dr. Sacks brings some much needed humanity to the often cold and technical field of neuropsychology.
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《中国通/华尔街银行家跌倒在中国地图上》
作者：提姆·克里索德(英)
20世纪90年代初期，在中国，终于掀起了商业开放的浪潮，华尔街对于中国市场跃跃欲试。当身着细条纹服装、饮着小酒、持有哈佛大学MBA学位的投资银行家们从纽约来到中国，准备与这里的“老干部们”谈判时，一个华尔街亿万富翁与世界上最古老文化间相碰撞的舞台便被搭建了起来。这是一个关于到达事业顶峰却不满足的坚韧的华尔街银行家的真实故事。为了寻找辉煌，他来到中国投入到下一个新的投资浪潮中，在此期间，与一位红卫兵和一名居住北京的英国人结成结伴，三人共同筹集了4亿美元的资金在中国各地大办工厂。他们本以为计划得甚是周密，但严酷的现实却很快让他们意识到，中国并非一个按照常规出牌的地方。在他们的中国合作伙伴另谋出路的时候，剩下异乡人孤守着他们的会议室，看着他们数百万的资金流入深不见底的黑洞。在别无选择只能迎战的窘镜下，为重获对其企业的控制权，他们投身到了一系列孤注一掷的抗挣之中。在他们的挣扎过程中，揭开了这一广阔而复杂的国家的面纱，它知道现代化是一种必然，但在整个历史过程中，却在与外来者的交涉中始终保持着一种优势。克里索德时而会以愉快而有趣的口吻讲述着自己的离奇故事，结局是令人愉快的，整个故事是对传统中国商业的神秘世界的大开眼界，以及对华尔街和西方商业学校培训的局限性的富有教育性的洞察。通过一个真实而令人振奋的富有人情味的故事，作者为我们打开了一扇东、西方间相互理解的窗口，这其中，有冒险经历，有闹剧成分，同时还涉及到大额的资金投入。
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AN END TO SUFFERING
by Pankaj Mishra
An End to Suffering is a search to understand the Buddha's relevance in today's world, where religious violence, poverty, and terrorism prevail. Traveling extensively through the West as well at the East, Pankaj Mishra explores the myths and places of the Buddha's life, examines the West's "discovery" of Buddhism, and considers the impact of Buddhist ideas on modern politics. The result is the most ambitious,convincing book on the Buddha that we have. |
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ONE BILLION CUSTOMERS
James McGregor
With 1.3 billion mouths to feed, China's consumer market is larger than North America and Western Europe combined. Foreign companies are flocking there to both buy and sell. Now, the first book to present a coherent picture of China's emergence as a global economic power, One Billion Customers maximizes the expansive knowledge of a respected journalist, well-known advisor, and the ultimate China business insider.
A Communist dictatorship determined to practices its own form of capitalism, China has long perplexed foreign investors, who find Chinese business practices opaque and contradictory. This definitive text navigates the treacherous waters of Chinese business, offering compelling narratives of personalities, business deals, and lessons learned-from Morgan Stanley's creation of a joint-venture Chinese investment bank to the pleasure dome of a smuggler whose $6 billion operation demonstrates how corruption greases the wheels of Chinese commerce.
With more than one hundred strategies for conducting business in China, this unprecedented account pairs practical lessons with the story of China's remarkable rise to power. |
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CHINA SHAKES THE WORLD by James Kynge
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The Bookworm
Section 4 Renmin Nanlu, No 28
Postal Code: 610041
Chengdu
(At the side of the Sunjoy Inn)
Telephone: 028-8552 0177
Fax: 028-8552 1997
Email: books@chinabookworm.com |
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