The Tenant chronicles a harrowing, fascinating descent into madness as the pathologically alienated Trelkovsky is subsumed into Simone Choule, an enigmatic suicide whose presence saturates his new apartment. More than a tale of possession, the novel probes disturbing depths of guilt, paranoia, and sexual obsession with an unsparing detachment.

'...And then we heard the rain falling, and that was the drops of blood falling; and when we came to get the crops, it was dead men that we reaped.' Harriet TubmanIn five years, Jesmyn Ward lost five men in her life, to drugs, accidents, suicide, and the bad luck that can follow people who live in poverty, particularly black men. Dealing with these losses, one after another, made Jesmyn ask the question: why? And as she began to write about the experience of living through all the dying, she realized the truth--and it took her breath away. Her brother and her friends all died because of who they were and where they were from, because they lived with a history of racism and economic struggle that fostered drug addiction and the dissolution of family and relationships. Jesmyn says the answer was so obvious she felt stupid for not seeing it. But it nagged at her until she knew she had to write about her community, to write their stories and her own. Jesmyn grew up in poverty in rural Mississippi. She writes powerfully about the pressures this brings, on the men who can do no right and the women who stand in for family in a society where the men are often absent. She bravely tells her story, revisiting the agonizing losses of her only brother and her friends. As the sole member of her family to leave home and pursue high education, she writes about this parallel American universe with the objectivity distance provides and the intimacy of utter familiarity.

Lorsque Myriam, mère de deux jeunes enfants, décide malgré les réticences de son mari de reprendre son activité au sein d'un cabinet d'avocats, le couple se met à la recherche d'une nounou. Après un casting sévère, ils engagent Louise, qui conquiert très vite l'affection des enfants et occupe progressivement une place centrale dans le foyer. Peu à peu le piège de la dépendance mutuelle va se refermer, jusqu'au drame. À travers la description précise du jeune couple et celle du personnage fascinant et mystérieux de la nounou, c'est notre époque qui se révèle, avec sa conception de l'amour et de l'éducation, des rapports de domination et d'argent, des préjugés de classe ou de culture. Le style sec et tranchant de Leïla Slimani, où percent des éclats de poésie ténébreuse, instaure dès les premières pages un suspense envoûtant.

Jean Valjean soutient depuis toujours sa soeur et ses 7 enfants. Il essaie de gagner de l’argent et de les nourrir comme il peut en élaguant des arbres. Mais l’hiver arrivé, il n’a plus de travail. Après avoir vendu le pistolet de son défunt père, il ne peut même plus braconner et se trouve obligé de voler du pain pour les empêcher de mourir de faim. Malheureusement, il se fait arrêter. Sorti de prison après 19 ans d’incarcération, c’est un homme changé, un rebut de la société qui n’a plus foi en rien. Après s’être fait rejeter de toutes les auberges et tous les villages sur son passage, il trouve refuge chez l’évêque Bienvenu, un homme d’église au cœur bon, qui ne vit que pour aider son prochain… Commence alors pour Jean Valjean, l’ancien forçat, une nouvelle vie.

"People are almost always better than their neighbours think they are" George Eliot’s most ambitious novel is a masterly evocation of diverse lives and changing fortunes in a provincial community. Peopling its landscape are Dorothea Brooke, a young idealist whose search for intellectual fulfillment leads her into a disastrous marriage to the pedantic scholar Casaubon; the charming but tactless Dr Lydgate, whose pioneering medical methods, combined with an imprudent marriage to the spendthrift beauty Rosamond, threaten to undermine his career; and the religious hypocrite Bulstrode, hiding scandalous crimes from his past. As their stories interweave, George Eliot creates a richly nuanced and moving drama, hailed by Virginia Woolf as "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people".

High in the Accursed Mountains, in a village ruled by the ancient laws of the Kanun, Bekja escapes an arranged marriage by becoming a sworn virgin, renouncing her womanhood to live as a man. Her decision sets off a brutal chain of events, destroying her family and separating her from the one she loves the most. Years later, as Bekija – now Matija – tells their story to a visiting journalist, long-buried truths come to light, along with the realisation of all that might have been.

Amadou Hampaté Bâ, le grand défenseur de la tradition orale africaine né au Mali en 1901, raconte ici l'histoire d'un homme qui fut son ami. Cet homme, voué dès sa jeunesse au dieu "Gongoloma Soké", dieu des contraires et de la ruse, en portait lui-même les contradictions. Bravant impunément la chance, il nous entraîne dans une suite d'aventures cocasses où nous le voyons, avec pour seules armes son intelligence et sa connaissance des hommes, se hisser au sommet de la puissance et de la fortune, dépouiller les riches au bénéfice des pauvres et, suprême exploit pour l'époque, rouler les "Dieux de la Brousse" d'alors : Messieurs-les-Administrateurs coloniaux ! Mais il arrive que les dieux se fâchent…

Amadou Hampaté Bâ, le grand défenseur de la tradition orale africaine né au Mali en 1901, raconte ici l'histoire d'un homme qui fut son ami. Cet homme, voué dès sa jeunesse au dieu "Gongoloma Soké", dieu des contraires et de la ruse, en portait lui-même les contradictions. Bravant impunément la chance, il nous entraîne dans une suite d'aventures cocasses où nous le voyons, avec pour seules armes son intelligence et sa connaissance des hommes, se hisser au sommet de la puissance et de la fortune, dépouiller les riches au bénéfice des pauvres et, suprême exploit pour l'époque, rouler les "Dieux de la Brousse" d'alors : Messieurs-les-Administrateurs coloniaux ! Mais il arrive que les dieux se fâchent…

What really goes on behind the scenes in a small book publishing company? After a decade of running the award-winning publisher 404 Ink, McDaid and Jones-Rivera call time on their venture and invite readers into their little corner of the book world. From their promises of "publishing loudly" and public financial transparency to the inevitable pit falls and political upheavals, Publisher Not Found reveals the inspirations, tensions and costs necessary to keep a cultural organisation afloat against an unstable economic backdrop where purse strings are ever-tightening. On the eve of their closure, they make the case for meaningful literary culture support for other institutions across the country before it is too late, and essential platforms and voices are lost. 404 Ink's story comes to an end not with a whimper but with a celebration of their authors and books, exploring what it means to be disruptive and disrupted, for those who seek to find their own place in the industry, shaking up the status quo along the way.

You're probably familiar with tired cliches around gaming culture in the media... that video games are violent and damaging. That they're for children, or society's outcasts; for the lazy and those without purpose. Joe Donnelly is here to tell you that video games, in fact, save lives. They saved his. Inspired by his own experience navigating depression following a tragic personal loss, Checkpoint reflects on the comforting and healing effect that entering into new digital worlds and narratives can have on mental health both personally and on a wider scale. From the big-budget triple A studios, to the one-person indie set-ups, there are thousands of eye-opening games exploring human complexities overtly and subtly all waiting to enthral and comfort players old and new. Through exclusive, in-depth interviews with video game developers, health professionals, charities and gamers alike, Joe makes the case for the vital value of gaming culture and why we should be more open minded and willing to pick up a controller if not for fun, for the well-being of ourselves and our loved ones.

Winner of the Prix Goncourt for first novel, one of the most prestigious literary awards in France A young revolutionary plants a bomb in a factory on the outskirts of Algiers during the Algerian War. The bomb is timed to explode after work hours, so no one will be hurt. But the authorities have been watching. He is caught, the bomb is defused, and he is tortured, tried in a day, condemned to death, and thrown into a cell to await the guillotine. A routine event, perhaps, in a brutal conflict that ended the lives of more than a million Muslim Algerians. But what if the militant is a “pied-noir”? What if his lover was a member of the French Resistance? What happens to a “European” who chooses the side of anti-colonialism? By turns lyrical, meditative, and heart-stoppingly suspenseful, this novel by Joseph Andras, based on a true story, was a literary and political sensation in France, winning the Prix Goncourt for First Novel and being acclaimed by Le Monde as “vibrantly lyrical and somber” and by the journal La Croix as a “masterpiece”.

Suburbia. Shady, tree-lined streets, well-tended lawns and cozy homes. A nice, quiet place to grow up. Unless you are teenage Meg or her crippled sister, Susan. On a dead-end street, in the dark, damp basement of the Chandler house, Meg and Susan are left captive to the savage whims and rages of a distant aunt who is rapidly descending into madness. It is a madness that infects all three of her sons and finally the entire neighborhood. Only one troubled boy stands hesitantly between Meg and Susan and their cruel, torturous deaths. A boy with a very adult decision to make.

In a time not far from our own, Lawrence sets out simply to build an artifical intelligence that can pass as human, and finds himself instead with one that can pass as a god. Taking the Three Laws of Robotics literally, Prime Intellect makes every human immortal and provides instantly for every stated human desire. Caroline finds no meaning in this life of purposeless ease, and forgets her emptiness only in moments of violent and profane exhibitionism. At turns shocking and humorous, Prime Intellect looks unflinchingly at extremes of human behavior that might emerge when all limits are removed.