LITERATURA

Diálogos insólitos, situaciones extrañas y un aire de magia absolutamente real impregnan las aventuras de Alicia. Si Alicia en el País de las Maravillas nació por casualidad de los relatos fantásticos que Lewis Carroll improvisaba para las tres hermanitas Lidell –Alicia, Lorina y Edith–, Al otro lado del espejo narra el viaje al extraño país que se encuentra Alicia tras cruzar el espejo. El autor utiliza el ingenio para burlarse de las convenciones y tradiciones de la sociedad inglesa de la época. «Alicia» no es sólo un libro para niños; es también el único libro en el que los adultos nos convertimos en niños.

Esta es la historia de cuatro amigos que subieron al cielo y bajaron a los infiernos. Cuatro niños que empezaron jugando al fútbol bajo el sol en el paseo de la Constitución de Baeza y que acabaron jugando a hacer música con su propio grupo en el quiosco de ese mismo paseo bajo la luna pocos años después. Un relato acerca de cómo los sueños se hacen realidad, pero también de su fragilidad. Supersubmarina ha sido y es una de las grandes bandas de pop-rock nacional de las últimas décadas. Su éxito fue abrumador; su talento, inconmensurable; su caída en desgracia tras un gravísimo accidente, inesperada y triste. El periodista Fernando Navarro les da voz a los cuatro y, después de escucharlos a ellos y a sus familias y amigos narrar sus recuerdos durante meses, ha escrito este libro para llenar sus silencios. Un testimonio de amistad, creación, éxito, dolor y superación. Una historia fieramente humana cuyo final es un enigma.

Los cuentos de John Cheever son el testimonio literario esencial de la clase media estadounidense de los años cincuenta y sesenta. Conocido como «el Chéjov de los suburbios», retrató con maestría la vida en las zonas residenciales a las afueras de las grandes ciudades. En ese escenario de aparente éxito y felicidad, supo descubrir la belleza y el drama cotidiano de familias marcadas por la frustración, el deseo y el tedio, componiendo un retrato profundo del alma humana que trasciende el tiempo y las fronteras.

¿Alguna vez te has preguntado cómo fue la vida de Aquiles antes de convertirse en el implacable combatiente que pintó Homero en la Ilíada? La historia de su pasado es mucho más que guerra y gloria. Estacio, poeta romano del s. I, nos narra por primera vez en esta obra la agreste infancia del niño, marcada por la dura educación del centauro Quirón; el afecto de su madre, Tetis, responsable de ocultarlo con ropajes de mujer en la isla de Esciros; el apasionado romance del joven con la princesa Deidamía y, por fin, las astutas artimañas que el sagaz Ulises emplea para descubrirlo y lograr que embarque rumbo a su destino troyano. Toda una serie de capítulos fascinantes y jalonados de aventuras que te permitirán descubrir las raíces y el pasado del más famoso de los héroes de la Antigüedad.

Milwaukee 1932, the Great Depression going full blast, repeal of Prohibition just around the corner, Al Capone in the federal pen, the private investigation business shifting from labor-management relations to the more domestic kind. Hicks McTaggart, a onetime strikebreaker turned private eye, thinks he’s found job security until he gets sent out on what should be a routine case, locating and bringing back the heiress of a Wisconsin cheese fortune who’s taken a mind to go wandering. Before he knows it, he’s been shanghaied onto a transoceanic liner, ending up eventually in Hungary where there’s no shoreline, a language from some other planet, and enough pastry to see any cop well into retirement—and of course no sign of the runaway heiress he’s supposed to be chasing. By the time Hicks catches up with her he will find himself also entangled with Nazis, Soviet agents, British counterspies, swing musicians, practitioners of the paranormal, outlaw motorcyclists, and the troubles that come with each of them, none of which Hicks is qualified, forget about being paid, to deal with. Surrounded by history he has no grasp on and can’t see his way around in or out of, the only bright side for Hicks is it’s the dawn of the Big Band Era and as it happens he’s a pretty good dancer. Whether this will be enough to allow him somehow to Lindy-hop his way back again to Milwaukee and the normal world, which may no longer exist, is another question.

While folks still like to focus on the crimes that shocked the small city of Orvop, Utah, back in the fall of 1982, not to mention the trials that followed, far more remember the adventure that took place beyond municipal lines. For sure no one expected the dead to rise, but they did. No one expected the mountain to fall either, but it did. No one expected an act of courage so great, and likewise so appalling, that it still staggers the heart and mind of anyone who knows anything about the Katanogos massif, to say nothing of Pillars Meadow. As one Orvop high school teacher described that extraordinary feat just days before she died, Fer sure no one expected Kalin March to look Old Porch in the eye and tell him: You get what you deserve when you ride with cowards.

When Sonia and Sunny first glimpse each other on an overnight train, they are immediately captivated yet also embarrassed by the fact that their grandparents had once tried to matchmake them, a clumsy meddling that served only to drive Sonia and Sunny apart. Sonia, an aspiring novelist who recently completed her studies in the snowy mountains of Vermont, has returned to her family in India. She fears that she is haunted by a dark spell cast by an artist to whom she had once turned for intimacy and inspiration. Sunny, a struggling journalist resettled in New York City, is attempting to flee his imperious mother and the violence of his warring clan. Uncertain of their future, Sonia and Sunny embark on a search for happiness together as they confront the many alienations of our modern world.

Meddy has spent her whole life as a footnote in someone else's story. Out of place next to her beautiful, immortal sisters, she dreams of leaving her family's island for a life of adventure. So when she catches the eye of the goddess Athena, who invites her to train as a priestess in her temple, Meddy leaps at the chance to see the world beyond her home. Flourishing in her role as Athena's favoured acolyte, all it takes is one fateful night to irrevocably alter the course of Meddy's promising future forever. With her locs transformed into snakes as punishment for a crime she did not commit, Meddy must embrace a new identity - not as a victim, but as a vigilante - and with it, the chance to write her own story as mortal, martyr and myth.

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.

In Daretana’s greatest mansion, a high imperial officer lies dead—killed, to all appearances, when a tree erupted from his body. Even here at the Empire’s borders, where contagions abound and the blood of the leviathans works strange magical changes, it’s a death both terrifying and impossible. Assigned to investigate is Ana Dolabra, a detective whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her eccentricities. Rumor has it that she wears a blindfold at all times, and that she can solve impossible cases without even stepping outside the walls of her home. At her side is her new assistant, Dinios Kol, magically altered in ways that make him the perfect aide to Ana’s brilliance. Din is at turns scandalized, perplexed, and utterly infuriated by his new superior—but as the case unfolds and he watches Ana’s mind leap from one startling deduction to the next, he must admit that she is, indeed, the Empire’s greatest detective.