A lovable loser tries to get his life in order. He is Barnaby Gaitlin, 30, the black sheep of a rich Baltimore family, ex-juvenile delinquent who specialized in housebreaking for kicks. He works for Rent-a-Back, moving furniture for old people, and dreams of having a future.

When Banana Yoshimoto's Kitchen was first published in Japan in 1988, "Banana-mania" seized the country. Kitchen won two of Japan's most prestigious literary prizes, climbed its way to the top of the best-seller list, then remained there for over a year and sold millions of copies. With the appearance of the critically acclaimed Tugumi (1989) and NP (1991), the Japanese literary world realized that in Banana Yoshimoto it was confronted not with a...

In Egypt, a Muslim on the run from a family feud seeks refuge in a Christian monastery. The novel traces the abrasive relationship between him and the monks. A clash of cultures.

The romance of two Indian musicians who form a band. He is Ormus, a composer, she is Vina, an American-raised singer, and their romance plays out across continents, parallel universes and different lives-- she dying and returning for a second life.

This Kraken Edition of Pierre, or The Ambiguities is a reconstruction of the text that Melville delivered to Harper & Brothers early in January 1852, just as some of the most devastating reviews of Moby-Dick were appearing. The Harper brothers apparently decided that Pierre was even more outrageous than Moby-Dick and tried to avoid publishing it by offering Melville less than half the royalties they had paid for his previous books. Accepting the humiliating...

"Un collage que reúne - a partes desiguales - la recreación de la vida de un grupo de adolescentes en una Cuba de apagones y abortos, nostalgias de exilio, denuncias políticas, fragmentos eróticos y una historia de amor, tan inverosímil y rocambolesca como sólo puedo suceder en la vida real. El estilo mezcla los juegos de palabras a lo Cabrera Infante con diálogos insulsos, que recuerdan las novelas de la España de los 1950s. Lo cubano y lo...