Showing results by publisher "Tantor Media" in World Literature

In 1760, Guillaume le Gentil, real-life astronomer to King Louis XV, sets out for the oceans of India to document the transit of Venus. The weather is turbulent, the seas are rough and his quest may be more complicated than initially thought. 250 years later, estate agent Xavier Lemercier chances upon Guillaume's telescope in a property he's sold. As he looks out across the rooftops of Paris, he discovers an intriguing woman with a zebra in her apartment. Then the woman walks through the doors of his office, and his life changes forever.

Evicted from her Istanbul mansion, an elderly aristocrat forms surprising new connections across class and culture. The last living member of a great Ottoman family, the refined yet sheltered Leyla finds herself homeless and vulnerable when her house is sold by the bank to a business tycoon and his ambitious wife. Forced out of this historic mansion on the bank of the Bosphorus, Leyla is rescued and taken in by Yusuf, the son of her family's former gardener who has become a journalist.

All over the city, they are watching: Black men paid to stand guard, invisible among the wealthy flâneurs and yet the only ones who truly see. From Les Grands Moulins to a Sephora on the Champs-Élysees, Ferdinand, Ossiri, and Kassoum find their way as undocumented workers amidst political infighting and the ever-changing landscape of immigration policy. Fast-paced and funny, poignant and sharply satirical, Standing Heavy is a searing deconstruction of colonial legacies and capitalist consumption and an unforgettable account of everything that passes under the security guards' all-seeing eyes.

This Very Short introduction explores the major themes of Austen criticism through close analysis of her major and minor works, with particular emphasis on the literary, social, and political backgrounds from which the novels emerge, and with which they engage. Thomas Keymer combines critical introductions to each of Austen's six major novels with an exploration of the key themes in her works.

An undocumented woman answers a job posting only to find herself held hostage, a group of outcasts obsess over boys drowned while surfing, and an unhappy couple finds themselves trapped in a terrifying maze. With scalpel-like precision, Ampuero considers the price paid by those on the margins so that the elite might lounge comfortably, considering themselves safe in their homes.

Andrea and Julián haven't seen one another in twenty-one years—not since that tragic, fateful night their senior year of high school that marked their group of friends forever. A shocking phone call brings the two together again in Houston, where they begin to unravel the truth of that year, picking open long scabbed-over wounds from their upper-class adolescence in 1990s Bolivia and the scandal that ripped them apart.

Like many people the world over, Viv Groskop wishes she was a little more French. A writer, comedian, and journalist, Groskop studied the language obsessively starting at age eleven, and spent every vacation in France, desperate to escape her Englishness and to have some French chic rub off on her. In Au Revoir, Tristesse, Groskop mixes literary history and memoir to explore how the classics of French literature can infuse our lives with joie de vivre and teach us how to say goodbye to sadness.

Aesop's fables are among the most familiar and best-loved stories in the world. Tales like "The Tortoise and the Hare," "The Dog in the Manger," and "Sour Grapes" have captivated us for generations. The fables delight us and teach timeless truths. Aesop's tales offer us a world fundamentally simpler to ours—one with clear good and plain evil—but nonetheless one that is marked by political nuance and literary complexity. Newly translated and annotated by renowned scholar Robin Waterfield, this definitive translation shines a new light on four hundred of Aesop's most enduring fables.

The apparent suicide of a young Arapaho on sacred ground shocks the populace of the Wind River Reservation. But strange events following the death lead Vicky Holden and Father John O'Malley to suspect foul play...

According to legend, Sacajawea,the Native American woman who helped guide the Lewis and Clark expedition through the American wilderness, is buried on the Wind River Reservation. Now, a college professorand longtime friend of Arapaho attorney, Vicky Holdenhas disappeared while seeking the truth...

With the disappearance of a young man and his old friend Vicky Holden accused of murder, Father John O'Malley must prove his hunch that both events are connected to a dangerous sect leader known as Orlando—who has resurrected the old Shadow Dance religion...

The Novices of Lerna introduces the enigmatic fictions of Ángel Bonomini to English listeners for the first time. Shot through with wry humor and tender absurdity, these meditations on identity, surveillance, and isolation remain eerily prescient. The collection's central novella follows Ramon Beltra, an unambitious scholar who receives a mysterious invitation to a lucrative six-month fellowship at the University of Lerna in Switzerland.

In early February of 1885, the robbery of the Pensacola and Atlantic train could not have come at a worse time for Florida panhandle railroad magnate William Chipley. He had put time, money, and both his personal and business reputation on the line to host the first Gulf Chautauqua in DeFuniak Springs. Now, with the murder of two guards, and the theft of both a payroll and a shipment of new US Army rifles, the success of the Chautauqua was at risk.

Simpatía is set in the Venezuela of Nicolas Maduro amid a mass exodus of the intellectual class who have been leaving their pets behind. Ulises Kan, the protagonist and a movie buff, receives a text message from his wife, Paulina, saying she is leaving the country (and him). Two other events end up disrupting his life even further: the return of Nadine, an unrequited love from the past, and the death of his father-in-law, General Martín Ayala.

Take a trip to Blessings, Georgia, where bestselling author Sharon Sala welcomes you with a touching small-town romance. Ruby Butterman and her husband, Peanut, cannot have children, but they're given a second chance at a family when eight-year-old orphan Carlie is left in their care. It's a challenge for Carlie to adapt to a new town, a new school, and a new family, and when she gets bullied at school, Ruby and Peanut discover how to step up as parents, and how to make a forever family for their beloved little girl.

The world is changing at the dawn of the twentieth century, but respectable English families still dread a public scandal. So Minnie agrees to accompany her reckless sister, Delia, for a night on the town with her Bohemian friends. The evening involves a raucous house party, a visit to a fortune-teller, and an encounter with a flirtatious baron, but none of that unsettles Minnie more than running into Stephen Dorian, her former employer in Corfu, who stirs in her a mix of resentment and attraction.

It's the number one rule in this beach town: don't fall for a tourist. But Jonah Lachlan isn't like any tourist I've ever met. He's not here for a good time, that much is obvious. In fact, the brooding, boy-next-door cutie is clearly hell-bent on being miserable. Though he's here with his best friend, he doesn't seem interested in hook-ups. Or fun. The guy brought a book to this beach full of gorgeous single gay men, for crying out loud. Who does that?? And as if he couldn't be any more confusing, he seems superhumanly immune to anyone who flirts with him. Myself included.

First published in 1956, No-No Boy was virtually ignored by a public eager to put World War II and the Japanese internment behind them. No-No Boy tells the story of Ichiro Yamada, a fictional version of the real-life "no-no boys". Yamada answered "no" twice in a compulsory government questionnaire as to whether he would serve in the armed forces and swear loyalty to the United States. Unwilling to pledge himself to the country that interned him and his family, Ichiro earns two years in prison and the hostility of his family and community when he returns home to Seattle.

Returning to the fictional Ojibwe reservation in northern Minnesota she deftly mapped in her award-winning books, Linda LeGarde Grover reveals traumas old and new as Margie Robineau, in the midst of a fight to keep her family's land, uncovers events connected to a long-ago escape plan across the Canadian border, and the burial of not one crime but two. While Margie is piecing the facts together, Dale Ann is confronted by her own secrets and the truth that the long ago and the now, the vital and the departed are all indelibly linked.

When the Kitchen God is challenged by the Jade Emperor to fathom the workings of the human heart, he chooses to trace the lives of Jinyi and his wife, Yuying, from their blossoming love until their old age, in hope of finding an answer. The Kitchen God watches as government strictures split their family in two, living inside their hearts as they endure the losses of two children, homesickness, and isolation—all while keeping alive a love that survives famine, forced labor, and even death.