The Elegance of the Hedgehog

The Elegance of the Hedgehog
Author: Muriel Barbery
Publisher: Europa Editions
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2008-09-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1609450132

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The phenomenal New York Times bestseller that “explores the upstairs-downstairs goings-on of a posh Parisian apartment building” (Publishers Weekly). In an elegant hôtel particulier in Paris, Renée, the concierge, is all but invisible—short, plump, middle-aged, with bunions on her feet and an addiction to television soaps. Her only genuine attachment is to her cat, Leo. In short, she’s everything society expects from a concierge at a bourgeois building in an upscale neighborhood. But Renée has a secret: She furtively, ferociously devours art, philosophy, music, and Japanese culture. With biting humor, she scrutinizes the lives of the tenants—her inferiors in every way except that of material wealth. Paloma is a twelve-year-old who lives on the fifth floor. Talented and precocious, she’s come to terms with life’s seeming futility and decided to end her own on her thirteenth birthday. Until then, she will continue hiding her extraordinary intelligence behind a mask of mediocrity, acting the part of an average pre-teen high on pop culture, a good but not outstanding student, an obedient if obstinate daughter. Paloma and Renée hide their true talents and finest qualities from a world they believe cannot or will not appreciate them. But after a wealthy Japanese man named Ozu arrives in the building, they will begin to recognize each other as kindred souls, in a novel that exalts the quiet victories of the inconspicuous among us, and “teaches philosophical lessons by shrewdly exposing rich secret lives hidden beneath conventional exteriors” (Kirkus Reviews). “The narrators’ kinetic minds and engaging voices (in Alison Anderson’s fluent translation) propel us ahead.” —The New York Times Book Review “Barbery’s sly wit . . . bestows lightness on the most ponderous cogitations.” —The New Yorker

A Single Rose

A Single Rose
Author: Muriel Barbery
Publisher: Europa Editions
Total Pages: 121
Release: 2021-09-28
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1609456785

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“A magnificent romance redolent of ancient wisdom and rich with melancholy, loss, and love” from the bestselling author of The Elegance of the Hedgehog (Le Monde). Rose has just turned forty when she gets a call from a lawyer asking her to come to Kyoto for the reading of her estranged father’s will. And so for the first time in her life she finds herself in Japan, where Paul, her father’s assistant, is waiting to greet her. As Paul guides Rose along a mysterious itinerary designed by her deceased father, her bitterness and anger are soothed by the stones and the trees in the Zen gardens they move through. During their walks, Rose encounters acquaintances of her father—including a potter and poet, an old lady friend, his housekeeper and chauffeur—whose interactions help her to slowly begin to accept a part of herself that she has never before acknowledged. As the reading of the will gets closer, Rose’s father finally, posthumously, opens his heart to his daughter, offering her a poignant understanding of his love and a way to accept all she has lost. “Interspersed with aphoristic Japanese tales from various periods, as melancholy is gradually transmuted into joy.” —The New Yorker “[A] luminous meditation on grief.” —Booklist “With elegant and careful prose, [Barbery] offers descriptions of Kyoto and Japanese culture that transcend the genre of a travelogue. This novel will appeal to readers who long for happy endings and escape.” —Library Journal “The novel balances lush, cultivated gardens and weighted symbolism with mischievous foxes, matcha, sliced eel, and sushi, all forming ‘one happy chaos’ and a fascinating maze of emotional release.” —Foreword Reviews

Confessions of a Wall Street Insider

Confessions of a Wall Street Insider
Author: Michael Kimelman
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2017-03-28
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1510713387

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Although he was a suburban husband and father, living a far different life than the “Wolf of Wall Street,” Michael Kimelman had a good run as the cofounder of a hedge fund. He had left a cushy yet suffocating job at a law firm to try his hand at the high-risk life of a proprietary trader — and he did pretty well for himself. But it all came crashing down in the wee hours of November 5, 2009, when the Feds came to his door—almost taking the door off its hinges. While his wife and children were sequestered to a bedroom, Kimelman was marched off in embarrassment in view of his neighbors and TV crews who had been alerted in advance. He was arrested as part of a huge insider trading case, and while he was offered a “sweetheart” no-jail probation plea, he refused, maintaining his innocence. The lion’s share of Confessions of a Wall Street Insider was written while Kimelman was an inmate at Lewisburg Penitentiary. In nearly two years behind bars, he reflected on his experiences before incarceration—rubbing elbows and throwing back far too many cocktails with financial titans and major figures in sports and entertainment (including Leonardo DiCaprio, Alex Rodriguez, Ben Bernanke, and Alan Greenspan, to drop a few names); making and losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in daily gambles on the Street; getting involved with the wrong people, who eventually turned on him; realizing that none of that mattered in the end. As he writes: “Stripped of family, friends, time, and humanity, if there’s ever a place to give one pause, it’s prison . . . Tomorrow is promised to no one.” In Confessions of a Wall Street Insider, he reveals the triumphs, pains, and struggles, and how, in the end, it just might have made him a better person. Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Gourmet Rhapsody

Gourmet Rhapsody
Author: Muriel Barbery
Publisher: Europa Editions
Total Pages: 100
Release: 2009-08-25
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1609452216

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A French food critic faces his mortality in an “entertaining [and] witty” novel by the New York Times–bestselling author of The Elegance of the Hedgehog (Newsday). In the heart of Paris, in the same posh building made famous in The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Pierre Arthens, the greatest food critic in the world, is dying. Revered by some and reviled by many, Monsieur Arthens has been lording it over the world’s most esteemed chefs for years, passing judgment on their creations, deciding their fates with a stroke of his pen, destroying and building reputations on a whim. But now, during his final hours, his mind has turned to simpler things. He is desperately searching for that singular flavor, that sublime something once sampled, never forgotten, the flavor par excellence. Indeed, this flamboyant and self-absorbed man desires only one thing before he dies: one last taste. Thus begins a charming voyage that traces the career of Monsieur Arthens from childhood to maturity across a celebration of all manner of culinary delights. Alternating with the voice of the supercilious Arthens is a chorus belonging to his acquaintances and familiars—relatives, lovers, a would-be protégé, even a cat. Each will have his or her say about M. Arthens, a man who has inspired only extreme emotions in people. Here, as in The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Muriel Barbery’s story celebrates life’s simple pleasures and sublime moments while condemning the arrogance and vulgarity of power. “Lush and satisfying prose.” —Publishers Weekly

A Strange Country

A Strange Country
Author: Muriel Barbery
Publisher: Gallic Books
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2020-07-16
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1910477818

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From the acclaimed author of The Elegance of the Hedgehog, A Strange Country, the sequel to The Life of Elves and described as a 'strange and poetic fantasy similar to the work of Tolkien' by the San Francisco Book Review, will transport readers to a lost world and remind them of the power of poetry and imagination. ‘Bewitching’ … ‘[an] enchanting hero’s journey’ Foreword Reviews Alejandro de Yepes and Jesús Rocamora, young officers in the Spanish regular army, are stationed alone at Castillo when a friendly redhead named Petrus appears out of nowhere. There is something magnetic and deeply mysterious about him. Alejandro and Jesús are bewitched, and, in the middle of the sixth year of the longest war humankind has ever endured, they abandon their post to follow him across a bridge that only he can see. Petrus brings them to a world of lingering fog, strange beings, poetry, music, natural wonders, harmony and extraordinary beauty. This is where the fate of the world and all its living creatures is decided. Yet this world too is under threat. A long battle against the forces of disenchantment is drawing to a climactic close. Will poetry and beauty prevail over darkness and death? And what role will Alejandro and Jesús play?

The Writer's Cats

The Writer's Cats
Author: Muriel Barbery
Publisher: Gallic Books
Total Pages: 66
Release: 2021-10-19
Genre: Pets
ISBN: 1913547264

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An entertaining and gorgeously illustrated portrait of a writer’s life avec chats from the acclaimed author of The Elegance of the Hedgehog – and her four cats. Like so many writers, Muriel Barbery is a lover of cats. Grey-furred and amber-eyed (matching her home décor), Barbery’s four Chartreux cats keep her company as she works from her house in the French countryside, entertaining her with their quirks and foibles, inspiring her with their beauty, and soothing her nerves. But that’s not all. For Kirin, Ocha, Mizu and Petrus – named after the writer’s love of all things Japanese, and, in true French style, of good wine – are no ordinary felines. These intelligent creatures have taken it upon themselves to guide their owner’s writing – flicking aside sections of her manuscript with a disdainful tail, pointing an approving paw at others. And it’s time these put-upon literary consultants got the recognition they deserve. With delicious wit and irony, the international bestselling author of The Elegance of the Hedgehog gives an insight into her writing life – and the paws behind the pen. Accompanied by delightful illustrations by Maria Guitart, The Writer’s Cats is the perfect gift for cat lovers and book lovers everywhere.

Justice for Hedgehogs

Justice for Hedgehogs
Author: Ronald Dworkin
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 521
Release: 2011-05-03
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0674071964

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The fox knows many things, the Greeks said, but the hedgehog knows one big thing. In his most comprehensive work, Ronald Dworkin argues that value in all its forms is one big thing: that what truth is, life means, morality requires, and justice demands are different aspects of the same large question. He develops original theories on a great variety of issues very rarely considered in the same book: moral skepticism, literary, artistic, and historical interpretation, free will, ancient moral theory, being good and living well, liberty, equality, and law among many other topics. What we think about any one of these must stand up, eventually, to any argument we find compelling about the rest. Skepticism in all its forms—philosophical, cynical, or post-modern—threatens that unity. The Galilean revolution once made the theological world of value safe for science. But the new republic gradually became a new empire: the modern philosophers inflated the methods of physics into a totalitarian theory of everything. They invaded and occupied all the honorifics—reality, truth, fact, ground, meaning, knowledge, and being—and dictated the terms on which other bodies of thought might aspire to them, and skepticism has been the inevitable result. We need a new revolution. We must make the world of science safe for value.

Red Is My Heart

Red Is My Heart
Author: Antoine Laurain
Publisher: Gallic Books
Total Pages: 158
Release: 2022-01-18
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 191354737X

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From the author of The Red Notebook, described as 'Parisian perfection' by HRH The Duchess of Cornwall, Red is My Heart is a stunning collection of words and images in collaboration with Parisian street artist, Le Sonneur, about how to mend a broken heart. 'Enchanting' Washington Post How can you mend a broken heart? Do you write a letter to the woman who left you – and post it to an imaginary address? Buy a new watch, to reset your life? Or get rid of the jacket you wore every time you argued, because it was in some way … responsible? Combining the wry musings of a rejected lover with playful drawings in just three colours – red, black and white – bestselling author of The Red Notebook, Antoine Laurain, and renowned street artist Le Sonneur have created a striking addition to the literature of unrequited love. Sharp, yet warm, whimsical and deeply Parisian, this is a must for all Antoine Laurain fans.

Feasting Wild

Feasting Wild
Author: Gina Rae La Cerva
Publisher: Greystone Books Ltd
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2020-05-26
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1771645342

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A New York Times Book Review Summer Reading Selection “Delves into not only what we eat around the world, but what we once ate and what we have lost since then.”—The New York Times Book Review Two centuries ago, nearly half the North American diet was foraged, hunted, or caught in the wild. Today, so-called “wild foods” are becoming expensive luxuries, served to the wealthy in top restaurants. Meanwhile, people who depend on wild foods for survival and sustenance find their lives forever changed as new markets and roads invade the world’s last untamed landscapes. In Feasting Wild, geographer and anthropologist Gina Rae La Cerva embarks on a global culinary adventure to trace our relationship to wild foods. Throughout her travels, La Cerva reflects on how colonialism and the extinction crisis have impacted wild spaces, and reveals what we sacrifice when we domesticate our foods —including biodiversity, Indigenous and women’s knowledge, a vital connection to nature, and delicious flavors. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, La Cerva investigates the violent “bush meat” trade, tracking elicit delicacies from the rainforests of the Congo Basin to the dinner tables of Europe. In a Danish cemetery, she forages for wild onions with the esteemed staff of Noma. In Sweden––after saying goodbye to a man known only as The Hunter––La Cerva smuggles freshly-caught game meat home to New York in her suitcase, for a feast of “heartbreak moose.” Thoughtful, ambitious, and wide-ranging, Feasting Wild challenges us to take a closer look at the way we eat today, and introduces an exciting new voice in food journalism. “A memorable, genre-defying work that blends anthropology and adventure.”—Elizabeth Kolbert, New York Times-bestselling author of The Sixth Extinction “A food book with a truly original take.”—Mark Kurlansky, New York Times bestselling author of Salt: A World History “An intense and illuminating travelogue... offer[ing] a corrective to the patriarchal white gaze promoted by globetrotting eaters like Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern. La Cerva combines environmental history with feminist memoir to craft a narrative that's more in tune with recent works by Robin Wall Kimmerer, Helen Macdonald and Elizabeth Rush.”—The Wall Street Journal

Reeling

Reeling
Author: Lola Lafon
Publisher: Europa Editions
Total Pages: 247
Release: 2022-03-08
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1609457323

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“The deep relevance and the nuanced portrayal of the myriad effects of abuse on [the characters] lives are skillfully done. Layered and disquieting.” —Kirkus Reviews Award-winning author Lola Lafon continues her exploration of the psyches of young girls–their fragility, their resilience. Fontenay, a Parisian suburb, 1984. Cléo is twelve when her parents prod her into taking ballet classes. She drops out after a long year of feeling lost, not classy nor graceful enough, and undoubtedly not as rich as the other kids. By chance, she signs up for Modern Jazz class at a MJC–a state funded organization whose mission is to provide access to art and culture to all children. Modern Jazz is her calling, and soon Cléo is transformed, working out constantly, dreaming of becoming a professional dancer. That’s when she catches the attention of Cathy, an elegant middle-aged woman, who is a talent scout for Galatée–a foundation that gives fellowships to exceptionally gifted teenagers. Fascinated by Cathy and the many gifts with which this providential “godmother” is showering her, Cléo introduces her to her parents, receiving their blessing to spend more time with her, ultimately falling prey to Galatée’s trap. “The great strength of Reeling is the way Lafon weaves together social failures that, on the surface, seem quite disparate.” —Los Angeles Review of Books “An immersive, captivating story.” —Buzz magazine, UK “An impassioned novel on the consequences of sexual exploitation and the dead ends of forgiveness.” —Pages of Hackney, London “Lola Lafon writes for all those who have stayed in the shadows, all those whose voices cannot be heard, shaking off the contemporary mythology of powerful women.” —France-Amerique