Medea longs for a different life. Since childhood, she has been separated from her sister, shunned by her mother, and persecuted and tormented by her brother and father. All because of a unique and dangerous witchcraft. But when a dashing young hero, Jason, arrives to claim the famed Golden Fleece that her father fiercely protects, Medea sees her opportunity for escape. Her offer to help Jason overcome the trials set by her father sets in motion a journey that will test every ounce of her strength, magic and loyalty; a journey that will see her battle monsters, dethrone kings and fall in love. But when faced with the ultimate betrayal, Medea is driven to an act of desperation so brutal it rips apart the lives of everyone involved...

Kdyby se Hemingway narodil v Polsku, psal by jako Kapuściński. Reportér stojí uprostřed zuřícího davu, na hlavu mu míří samopal africké hlídky nebo se plazí džunglí – a my s ním. Ryszard Kapuściński vždycky dokázal být ve správnou chvíli na místech, kde se něco dělo. Fotbalová válka je autorský výbor z jeho afrických a latinskoamerických reportáží ze šedesátých a sedmdesátých let, ale také velmi osobní zpověď válečného korespondenta. „Afrika byla tedy mým soukromým osvobozením, tam někde mezi 37° 21' severní a 34° 52' jižní šířky a mezi 17° 32' a 51° 23' východní délky, to znamená mezi Bílým mysem na severu a mysem Dobré naděje na jihu, mezi Zeleným mysem na západě a Ras Hafunem na východě, tam zůstala část mého já,“ píše. A přitom na mnoha místech, v Ghaně, v Kongu nebo v Jihoafrické republice mu šlo o život. Dokonce i v té válce mezi Hondurasem a Salvadorem, kterou nazval fotbalovou. Ze všech jeho textů, ať už v nich sleduje důsledky apartheidu nebo dopad francouzské kolonizace na alžírskou společnost, cítíme jeho zájem o konkrétní lidi kolem, nedrží si odstup. Kapuściński vždycky stál na straně těch slabších. Tvrdil, že reportáž bez emocí neexistuje.

Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! is a paean to how we spend our lives seeking meaning—in faith, art, ourselves, others—in which a newly sober, orphaned son of Iranian immigrants, guided by the voices of artists, poets, and kings, embarks on a search that leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum. Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with an inheritance of violence and loss: his mother’s plane was shot down over the skies of Tehran in a senseless accident; and his father’s life in America was circumscribed by his work killing chickens at a factory farm in the Midwest. Cyrus is a drunk, an addict, and a poet, whose obsession with martyrs leads him to examine the mysteries of his past—toward an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the Angel of death to inspire and comfort the dying, and toward his mother, through a painting discovered in a Brooklyn art gallery that suggests she may not have been who or what she seemed. Electrifying, funny, wholly original, and profound, Martyr! heralds the arrival of a blazing and essential new voice in contemporary fiction.

It is 1905 and Luis Bernardo Valenca, a thirty-seven-year-old bachelor and owner of a small shipping company, is revelling in Lisbon’s grand and luxurious high society. But his life is turned upside down when King Dom Carlos invites him to become governor of Portugal’s smallest colony, the island of São Tomé e Principe. Luis Bernardo is ill-prepared for the challenges of plantation life – used to a softer urban existence, he is shocked by the conditions under which the workers labour. But with the English closing in on São Tomé’s cocoa plantations, the island’s main means of survival, Luis Bernardo must endeavour to protect the island and its community.

A traditional American woman, a “tradwife” influencer, suddenly awakens in the brutal reality of 1855—where she must unravel whether this living nightmare is an elaborate hoax, a twisted reality show, or something far more sinister in this sensational debut novel. My name was Natalie Heller Mills, and I was perfect at being alive. Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle. Her charming farmhouse is rustic, her husband a handsome cowboy, her six children each more delightful than the last. So what if there are nannies and producers behind the scenes, her kitchen hiding industrial-grade fridges and ovens, her husband the heir to a political dynasty? What Natalie’s followers—all 8 million of them—don’t know won’t hurt them. And The Angry Women? The privileged, Ivy League, coastal elite haters who call her an antifeminist iconoclast? They’re sick with jealousy. Because Natalie isn’t simply living the good life, she’s living the ideal—and just so happens to be building an empire from it. Until one morning she wakes up in a life that isn’t hers. Her home, her husband, her children—they’re all familiar, but something’s off. Her kitchen is warmed by a sputtering fire rather than electricity, her children are dirty and strange, and her soft-handed husband is suddenly a competent farmer. Just yesterday Natalie was curating photos of homemade jam for her Instagram, and now she’s expected to haul firewood and handwash clothes until her fingers bleed. Has she become the unwitting star of a ruthless reality show? Could it really be time travel? Is she being tested by God? By Satan? When Natalie suffers a brutal injury in the woods, she realizes two things: This is not her beautiful life, and she must escape by any means possible. A gripping, electrifying novel that is as darkly funny as it is frightening, Yesteryear is a gimlet-eyed look at tradition, fame, faith, and the grand performance of womanhood.

Straddling the genres of travelogue and critical essay, As We Used To Float explores Bikini Atoll as a space of fantasy and trauma. Situated in a remote region of the Pacific Ocean, between 1946 and 1958 its "paradise" islands were subjected to twenty-three of the most powerful explosions in history - during Operation Crossroads, the United States nuclear testing program. Since then, their fate has been largely ignored. While toggling between a personal account of a sea journey, above and below water, and a critical investigation of postcolonial geography, As We Used To Float develops broader reflections on place and subjectivity. These spring from a series of narrative immersions, variously taking on the psychological and aesthetic parameters of ultra-deep scuba diving, the abject poetics of sea craft, and the stakes of subaquatic image making. Through its vivid account of concrete bunkers on white sand beaches, the decaying "Ghost Fleet" of World War II battleships, irradiated coconuts, and more, As We Used To Float is a sea-story for our times.

Straddling the genres of travelogue and critical essay, As We Used To Float explores Bikini Atoll as a space of fantasy and trauma. Situated in a remote region of the Pacific Ocean, between 1946 and 1958 its "paradise" islands were subjected to twenty-three of the most powerful explosions in history - during Operation Crossroads, the United States nuclear testing program. Since then, their fate has been largely ignored. While toggling between a personal account of a sea journey, above and below water, and a critical investigation of postcolonial geography, As We Used To Float develops broader reflections on place and subjectivity. These spring from a series of narrative immersions, variously taking on the psychological and aesthetic parameters of ultra-deep scuba diving, the abject poetics of sea craft, and the stakes of subaquatic image making. Through its vivid account of concrete bunkers on white sand beaches, the decaying "Ghost Fleet" of World War II battleships, irradiated coconuts, and more, As We Used To Float is a sea-story for our times.

A traditional American woman, a “tradwife” influencer, suddenly awakens in the brutal reality of 1855—where she must unravel whether this living nightmare is an elaborate hoax, a twisted reality show, or something far more sinister in this sensational debut novel. My name was Natalie Heller Mills, and I was perfect at being alive. Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle. Her charming farmhouse is rustic, her husband a handsome cowboy, her six children each more delightful than the last. So what if there are nannies and producers behind the scenes, her kitchen hiding industrial-grade fridges and ovens, her husband the heir to a political dynasty? What Natalie’s followers—all 8 million of them—don’t know won’t hurt them. And The Angry Women? The privileged, Ivy League, coastal elite haters who call her an antifeminist iconoclast? They’re sick with jealousy. Because Natalie isn’t simply living the good life, she’s living the ideal—and just so happens to be building an empire from it. Until one morning she wakes up in a life that isn’t hers. Her home, her husband, her children—they’re all familiar, but something’s off. Her kitchen is warmed by a sputtering fire rather than electricity, her children are dirty and strange, and her soft-handed husband is suddenly a competent farmer. Just yesterday Natalie was curating photos of homemade jam for her Instagram, and now she’s expected to haul firewood and handwash clothes until her fingers bleed. Has she become the unwitting star of a ruthless reality show? Could it really be time travel? Is she being tested by God? By Satan? When Natalie suffers a brutal injury in the woods, she realizes two things: This is not her beautiful life, and she must escape by any means possible. A gripping, electrifying novel that is as darkly funny as it is frightening, Yesteryear is a gimlet-eyed look at tradition, fame, faith, and the grand performance of womanhood.

What would happen if the world were ending? A catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb. In a feverish race against the inevitable, nations around the globe band together to devise an ambitious plan to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere, in outer space. But the complexities and unpredictability of human nature coupled with unforeseen challenges and dangers threaten the intrepid pioneers, until only a handful of survivors remain... Five thousand years later, their progeny -- seven distinct races now three billion strong -- embark on yet another audacious journey into the unknown ... to an alien world utterly transformed by cataclysm and time: Earth.

Klimatická krize se městům nevyhýbá. A lidé z měst se nevyhýbají výzvám klimatické krize. Většina obyvatel západního světa žije ve městech. V „betonové džungli“, která v naší kulturní představivosti nahradila přírodu. Život ve městě si proto automaticky spojujeme s jejím opakem — kariérou, rychlostí, pokrokem, civilizací. Globální perspektiva klimatické krize však ukazuje, že nic není vzdálenější pravdě: požáry, povodně ani sucho se na adresu neptají. Ke zjištění, že příroda nikam nezmizela, se však dá dojít i pozorným lokálním zkoumáním. Tu je záhon, všude bzučí včely, tamhle někdo vysadil strom, v obchodě se prodávají vejce od nespoutaných slepic, kytička na kavárenském stole je z náletových rostlin… Spisovatelka Viktorie Hanišová v knize Beton a hlína prostřednictvím třinácti rozhovorů zachycuje rozmanitou snahu lidí žít udržitelně a zodpovědně i v hektickém prostředí měst. Zpovídá nadšence z komunitních zahrad i aktivisty ze zahrádkářských kolonií, pražské včelařky, organizátory kompostovacích systémů či provozovatele bezobalového obchodu. Osudy a přístupy se liší, avšak v jednom ohledu mají všichni zpovídaní stejně jasno — na kritickou otázku „Co dělat?“ odpovídají jednoznačně: „Něco!“ –––Co já mám komu co kázat, vždyť se sama nijak moc neangažuju a zvlášť šetrný život, jak jsem zjistila, taky nevedu. Možná tak mí kamarádi, se kterými se scházím na komunitní zahradě nebo v bezobalovém obchodě, ti by třeba věděli víc… Mám kolem sebe tolik lidí, kteří vymysleli a založili projekty, jež prospívají životnímu prostředí, a přitom je mimo komunitu lidí, kteří se aktivně angažují, často nikdo nezná. Dnes sice už prakticky není nikdo, kdo by nevěděl, co je to komunitní zahrada, vědí ale všichni, že se na komunitních zahradách také chovají zvířata, která se dají „adoptovat“? Vědí lidé, co to je sdílená dílna a z jakých principů vychází cirkulární ekonomika nebo uzavřený cyklus jídla? Jsou obyvatelé měst obeznámeni s tím, že bioprodukty lze jednoduše koupit přímo od zemědělců, aniž by pro ně museli někam jezdit autem? A tak se zrodila myšlenka napsat Beton a hlínu. — ukázka z knihy

An alternate cover edition can be found here. A novel of breathtaking sweep and emotional power that traces three hundred years in Ghana and along the way also becomes a truly great American novel. Extraordinary for its exquisite language, its implacable sorrow, its soaring beauty, and for its monumental portrait of the forces that shape families and nations, Homegoing heralds the arrival of a major new voice in contemporary fiction. Two half-sisters, Effia and Esi, are born into different villages in eighteenth-century Ghana. Effia is married off to an Englishman and lives in comfort in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle. Unbeknownst to Effia, her sister, Esi, is imprisoned beneath her in the castle's dungeons, sold with thousands of others into the Gold Coast's booming slave trade, and shipped off to America, where her children and grandchildren will be raised in slavery. One thread of Homegoing follows Effia's descendants through centuries of warfare in Ghana, as the Fante and Asante nations wrestle with the slave trade and British colonization. The other thread follows Esi and her children into America. From the plantations of the South to the Civil War and the Great Migration, from the coal mines of Pratt City, Alabama, to the jazz clubs and dope houses of twentieth-century Harlem, right up through the present day, Homegoing makes history visceral, and captures, with singular and stunning immediacy, how the memory of captivity came to be inscribed in the soul of a nation. Generation after generation, Yaa Gyasi's magisterial first novel sets the fate of the individual against the obliterating movements of time, delivering unforgettable characters whose lives were shaped by historical forces beyond their control. Homegoing is a tremendous reading experience, not to be missed, by an astonishingly gifted young writer.

The visionary author’s masterpiece pulls us—along with her Black female hero—through time to face the horrors of slavery and explore the impacts of racism, sexism, and white supremacy then and now. Dana, a modern Black woman, is celebrating her 26th birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned to save him. Dana is drawn back repeatedly through time to the slave quarters, and each time the stay grows longer, more arduous, and more dangerous until it is uncertain whether or not Dana’s life will end, long before it has a chance to begin.

Piranesi’s house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house. There is one other person in the house—a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.