LETRAS

2014: At a dinner for close friends and colleagues, renowned poet Francis Blundy honors his wife’s birthday by reading aloud a new poem dedicated to her, ‘A Corona for Vivien’. Much wine is drunk as the guests listen, and a delicious meal consumed. Little does anyone gathered around the candlelit table know that for generations to come people will speculate about the message of this poem, a copy of which has never been found, and which remains an enduring mystery. 2119: Just over one hundred years in the future, much of the western world has been submerged by rising seas following a catastrophic nuclear accident. Those who survive are haunted by the richness of the world that has been lost. In the water-logged south of what used to be England, Thomas Metcalfe, a lonely scholar and researcher, longs for the early twenty-first century as he chases the ghost of one poem, ‘A Corona for Vivian’. How wild and full of risk their lives were, thinks Thomas, as he pores over the archives of that distant era, captivated by the freedoms and possibilities of human life at its zenith. When he stumbles across a clue that may lead to the elusive poem’s discovery, a story is revealed of entangled loves and a brutal crime that destroy his assumptions about people he thought he knew intimately well.

In the garden of a large Georgian villa in Southwest London, socialites and politicos swap gossip and sip Pimm's while making snide remarks at each other. Not far from this frivolity, though, a body has been discovered in the River Thames. At first, it appears to be an unfortunate accident, but the death is connected to this gathering of who's who in a way that may spell scandal. Meanwhile, Detective Inspector Caius Beauchamp, attempting to enjoy an evening at the theatre, is shocked to discover another dead body, just a few seats away. The death is linked to the decades-old disappearance of a fourteen-year-old girl at a boarding school in Cornwall. Now Caius has two cases on his plate, but if he wants the resources to solve the tragic mystery of the girl's disappearance, he will have to take new orders from a shadowy government minister who contends that the accidental drowning in the Thames was anything but.

Dazzling new short stories from Salman Rushdie that transport us around the world from Bombay neighbourhoods to elite English universities, in his first new fiction since "Victory City".

Most of us don’t know how to spend money. We chase things that impress others but leave us cold. Or we save endlessly, afraid to spend on what would actually make life better. We confuse admiration with envy, comfort with excess, and utility with status. The Art of Spending Money doesn't provide budgets, hacks, or one-size-fits-all solutions. It gives you understanding of how your relationship with money shapes your decisions—and how to reshape it so money works for you. Morgan Housel’s work has helped millions rethink how they earn, save, and invest. Now he turns his attention to the other side of the equation: how to spend. With insight and warmth, he shows why the most valuable return on investment is peace of mind, why expectations matter more than income, and why doing well with money has less to do with spreadsheets and more to do with self-awareness. This book isn’t about getting rich. It’s about getting the most out of what you already have—and learning to want what’s worth wanting.

Welcome back to the Full Moon Coffee Shop, serving up star-spun treats and magical insights for the holidays. In Japan, cats are a symbol of good luck. As the myth goes, if you are kind to them, they’ll one day return the favor. And if you are kind to the right cat, you might just find yourself invited to a mysterious coffee shop under a Christmastime Kyoto moon. Satomi is devoted to her job in Tokyo, but when her long-distance boyfriend hints that he is going to propose to her on Christmas Day, she feels pulled between the career that she loves and a quieter life in the country. What will the magical cats see for her future?