Anthea Bell

In this collection of Stefan Zweig's short stories, the very best and worst of human nature are captured with sharp observation, understanding and vivid empathy. Ranging from love and death to faith restored and hope regained.

"The #1 bestselling international phenomenon that asks, If you won the lottery, would you trade your life for the life of your dreams? Jocelyne lives in a small town in France where she runs a fabric shop, has been married to the same man for twenty-one years, and has raised two children. She is beginning to wonder what happened to all those dreams she had when she was seventeen. Could her life have been different? Then she wins the lottery-and suddenly...

Raised by a harsh Jewish single mother who prioritizes her socialist party connections over her family in mid-twentieth-century East Berlin, Thomas is forced to abandon his dream of becoming a writer while his sister, Ella, becomes increasingly introverted.

A grieving widow and professional mortician discovers there was more to the hit-and-run accident that took her husband's life than she originally thought, and vows to find out and get revenge on those responsible.

"Austerlitz is the story of a man's search for the answer to his life's central riddle. A small child when he comes to England on a Kindertransport in the summer of 1939, Jacques Austerlitz is told nothing of his real family by the Welsh Methodist minister and his wife who raise him. When he is a much older man, fleeting memories return to him, and obeying an instinct he only dimly understands, Austerlitz follows their trail back to the world he left...

It's the night before the feast in the village of Furstenfelde (population: an odd number). The village is asleep. Except for the ferryman - he's dead. And Mrs. Kranz, the night-blind painter, who wants to depict her village for the first time at night. A bell-ringer and his apprentice want to ring the bells - the only problem is that the bells have gone. A vixen is looking for eggs for her young, and Mr. Schramm is discovering more reasons to quit...