Challenging every preconception about storytelling and prose style, mixing wry humor and riveting emotional depth, Kawakami is today one of Japan’s most important and best-selling writers. She exploded onto the cultural scene first as a musician, then as a poet and popular blogger, and is now an award-winning novelist. Breasts and Eggs paints a portrait of contemporary womanhood in Japan and recounts the intimate journeys of three women as they confront oppressive mores and their own uncertainties on the road to finding peace and futures they can truly call their own. It tells the story of three women: the thirty-year-old Natsu, her older sister, Makiko, and Makiko’s daughter, Midoriko. Makiko has traveled to Tokyo in search of an affordable breast enhancement procedure. She is accompanied by Midoriko, who has recently grown silent, finding herself unable to voice the vague yet overwhelming pressures associated with growing up. Her silence proves a catalyst for each woman to confront her fears and frustrations. On another hot summer’s day ten years later, Natsu, on a journey back to her native city, struggles with her own indeterminate identity as she confronts anxieties about growing old alone and childless.

‘For a very long time, the days went by, each just like the day before, then I began to think, and everything changed’ Deep underground, thirty-nine women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only vague recollection of their lives before. As the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl - the fortieth prisoner - sits alone and outcast in the corner. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others' escape and survival in the strange world that awaits them above ground. Jacqueline Harpman was born in Etterbeek, Belgium, in 1929, and fled to Casablanca with her family during WWII. Informed by her background as a psychoanalyst and her youth in exile, I Who Have Never Known Men is a haunting, heartbreaking post-apocalyptic novel of female friendship and intimacy, and the lengths people will go to maintain their humanity in the face of devastation. Back in print for the first time since 1997, Harpman’s modern classic is an important addition to the growing canon of feminist speculative literature.

From the Whiting and O. Henry–winning author of Private Citizens (“the first great millennial novel,” New York Magazine), an electrifying novel-in-stories that follows a cast of intricately linked characters as rejection throws their lives and relationships into chaos. Sharply observant and outrageously funny, Rejection is a provocative plunge into the touchiest problems of modern life. The seven connected stories seamlessly transition between the personal crises of a complex ensemble and the comic tragedies of sex, relationships, identity, and the internet. In “The Feminist,” a young man’s passionate allyship turns to furious nihilism as he realizes, over thirty lonely years, that it isn’t getting him laid. A young woman’s unrequited crush in “Pics” spirals into borderline obsession and the systematic destruction of her sense of self. And in “Ahegao; or, The Ballad of Sexual Repression,” a shy late bloomer’s flailing efforts at a first relationship leads to a life-upending mistake. As the characters pop up in each other’s dating apps and social media feeds, or meet in dimly lit bars and bedrooms, they reveal the ways our delusions can warp our desire for connection. These brilliant satires explore the underrated sorrows of rejection with the authority of a modern classic and the manic intensity of a manifesto. Audacious and unforgettable, Rejection is a stunning mosaic that redefines what it means to be rejected by lovers, friends, society, and oneself.

Misogyny is being hardwired into our future. Can we stop it? We like to believe we’re moving closer to equality, riding the wave of technological progress into a brighter, fairer future. But beneath the glossy surface of innovation lies a chilling truth: new technologies are not just failing to solve age-old inequalities—they’re deepening them. In The New Age of Sexism, acclaimed author and activist Laura Bates exposes how misogyny is being coded into the very fabric of our future. From the biases embedded in artificial intelligence to the alarming rise of sex robots and the toxic dynamics of the metaverse, Bates takes readers on a shocking journey into a world where technology is weaponized against women. This isn’t a dystopian warning about what might happen. It’s a harrowing account of what’s happening now and the dangers we face if we don’t act. With clarity and urgency, Bates reveals how these advancements are dragging society backward, reinforcing harmful stereotypes, and jeopardizing decades of progress in the fight for gender equality. Eye-opening and empowering, The New Age of Sexism is a rallying cry for awareness and action in a world where the battle for equality has entered a dangerous new frontier.

«La porta si richiuse. Ero solo, con quelle tre donne che avevano in mano il mio destino e avrebbero potuto distruggermi in qualsiasi momento. A questo punto non c’era più nulla da fare. Ero in loro balìa».Lione, 1941. Fuori, la guerra, l’occupazione, il coprifuoco, il razionamento. Dentro, nell’immenso appartamento borghese, buio, deserto e polveroso, come «perduto al fondo del tempo», due donne temibili e un uomo che pensava di usarle per i propri scopi – e invece somiglia sempre più a un condannato a vita. E dire che, quando si era presentato in casa della «madrina di guerra» del suo compagno di prigionia Bernard (morto durante la loro evasione dallo Stalag), Gervais era convinto di avercela si era spacciato per l’amico, la donna e la di lei sorella minore lo avevano accolto (almeno in apparenza) con assoluta fiducia, e lui si era lasciato avvolgere in un tiepido bozzolo di carezzevoli premure, riuscendo a sedurle entrambe senza troppa fatica. O forse erano state loro a sedurlo... e quel tiepido bozzolo non era che una ragnatela inestricabile... Quando ne arriverà una terza, di donna, la sorella di Bernard, il gioco si farà durissimo. Se non altro perché la posta è un’eredità di venti milioni di franchi. A poco a poco, tra ambiguità, sottintesi e secondi fini (tutti deliziosamente malvagi), assisteremo a una vertiginosa partita di scacchi, in cui da ogni frase e da ogni sorriso sembra nascere una minaccia, e ogni mossa può essere mortale. Dando prova, ancora una volta, di una prodigiosa abilità, la «coppia diabolica» del noir francese fa crescere la suspense fino all’ultimo, crudelissimo colpo di scena, e ci regala un romanzo claustrofobico che, a distanza di quasi settant’anni, non ha perso nulla del suo fascino sinistro.

«La porta si richiuse. Ero solo, con quelle tre donne che avevano in mano il mio destino e avrebbero potuto distruggermi in qualsiasi momento. A questo punto non c’era più nulla da fare. Ero in loro balìa».Lione, 1941. Fuori, la guerra, l’occupazione, il coprifuoco, il razionamento. Dentro, nell’immenso appartamento borghese, buio, deserto e polveroso, come «perduto al fondo del tempo», due donne temibili e un uomo che pensava di usarle per i propri scopi – e invece somiglia sempre più a un condannato a vita. E dire che, quando si era presentato in casa della «madrina di guerra» del suo compagno di prigionia Bernard (morto durante la loro evasione dallo Stalag), Gervais era convinto di avercela si era spacciato per l’amico, la donna e la di lei sorella minore lo avevano accolto (almeno in apparenza) con assoluta fiducia, e lui si era lasciato avvolgere in un tiepido bozzolo di carezzevoli premure, riuscendo a sedurle entrambe senza troppa fatica. O forse erano state loro a sedurlo... e quel tiepido bozzolo non era che una ragnatela inestricabile... Quando ne arriverà una terza, di donna, la sorella di Bernard, il gioco si farà durissimo. Se non altro perché la posta è un’eredità di venti milioni di franchi. A poco a poco, tra ambiguità, sottintesi e secondi fini (tutti deliziosamente malvagi), assisteremo a una vertiginosa partita di scacchi, in cui da ogni frase e da ogni sorriso sembra nascere una minaccia, e ogni mossa può essere mortale. Dando prova, ancora una volta, di una prodigiosa abilità, la «coppia diabolica» del noir francese fa crescere la suspense fino all’ultimo, crudelissimo colpo di scena, e ci regala un romanzo claustrofobico che, a distanza di quasi settant’anni, non ha perso nulla del suo fascino sinistro.

A grand tour through the hidden realms of animal senses that will transform the way you perceive the world--from the Pulitzer Prize-winning, New York Times bestselling author of I Contain Multitudes. The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every animal is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving but a tiny sliver of an immense world. This book welcomes us into a previously unfathomable dimension--the world as it is truly perceived by other animals. We encounter beetles that are drawn to fires, turtles that can track the Earth's magnetic fields, fish that fill rivers with electrical messages, and humans that wield sonar like bats. We discover that a crocodile's scaly face is as sensitive as a lover's fingertips, that the eyes of a giant squid evolved to see sparkling whales, that plants thrum with the inaudible songs of courting bugs, and that even simple scallops have complex vision. We learn what bees see in flowers, what songbirds hear in their tunes, and what dogs smell on the street. We listen to stories of pivotal discoveries in the field, while looking ahead at the many mysteries which lie unsolved. In An Immense World, author and acclaimed science journalist Ed Yong coaxes us beyond the confines of our own senses, allowing us to perceive the skeins of scent, waves of electromagnetism, and pulses of pressure that surround us. Because in order to understand our world we don't need to travel to other places; we need to see through other eyes.

Here is the gorgeous and sinister story of Marius, patrician by birth, scholar by choice, one of the oldest vampires of them all, which sweeps from his genesis in ancient Rome, in the time of the Emperor Augustus, to his meeting in the present day with a creature of snow and ice. Thorne is a Northern vampire in search of Maharet, his 'maker', the ancient Egyptian vampire queen who holds him and others in thrall with chains made of her red hair, 'bound with steel and with her blood and gold'. When the Visigoths sack his city, Marius is there; with the resurgence of the glory that was Rome, he is there, still searching for his lost love Pandora, but bewitched in turn by Botticelli, the Renaissance beauty Bianca, with her sordid secrets, and the boy he calls Amadeo (otherwise known as the Vampire Armand). Criss-crossing through the stories of other vampires from Rice's glorious Pantheon of the undead, haunted by Pandora and by his alter ego Mael, tracked by the Talamasca, the tale of Marius, the self-styled guardian of 'those who must be kept' is the most wondrous and mind-blowing of them all.

The Turn of the Screw is an 1898 horror novella by Henry James that first appeared in serial format in Collier's Weekly magazine (January 27 - April 16, 1898). In October 1898 it appeared in The Two Magics, a book published by Macmillan in New York City and Heinemann in London. A very young woman's first job: governess for two weirdly beautiful, strangely distant, oddly silent children, Miles and Flora, at a forlorn estate... An estate haunted by a beckoning evil. Half-seen figures who glare from dark towers and dusty windows- silent, foul phantoms who, day by day, night by night, come closer, ever closer. With growing horror, the helpless governess realizes the fiendish creatures want the children, seeking to corrupt their bodies, possess their minds, own their souls. But worse-much worse- the governess discovers that Miles and Flora have no terror of the lurking evil. For they want the walking dead as badly as the dead want them. Excerpt: I remember the whole beginning as a succession of flights and drops, a little seesaw of the right throbs and the wrong. After rising, in town, to meet his appeal, I had at all events a couple of very bad days - found myself doubtful again, felt indeed sure I had made a mistake. In this state of mind I spent the long hours of bumping, swinging coach that carried me to the stopping place at which I was to be met by a vehicle from the house.

It was a cloudless summer day in the year nineteen hundred. Everyone at Appleyard College for Young Ladies agreed it was just right for a picnic at Hanging Rock. After lunch, a group of three of the girls climbed into the blaze of the afternoon sun, pressing on through the scrub into the shadows of Hanging Rock. Further, higher, till at last they disappeared. They never returned. Whether Picnic at Hanging Rock is fact or fiction the reader must decide for themselves.

Published in 1936, Absalom, Absalom! is considered by many to be William Faulkner's masterpiece. Although the novel's complex and fragmented structure poses considerable difficulty to readers, the book's literary merits place it squarely in the ranks of America's finest novels. The story concerns Thomas Sutpen, a poor man who finds wealth and then marries into a respectable family. His ambition and extreme need for control bring about his ruin and the ruin of his family. Sutpen's story is told by several narrators, allowing the reader to observe variations in the saga as it is recounted by different speakers. This unusual technique spotlights one of the novel's central questions: To what extent can people know the truth about the past?

The Turn of the Screw is an 1898 horror novella by Henry James that first appeared in serial format in Collier's Weekly magazine (January 27 - April 16, 1898). In October 1898 it appeared in The Two Magics, a book published by Macmillan in New York City and Heinemann in London. A very young woman's first job: governess for two weirdly beautiful, strangely distant, oddly silent children, Miles and Flora, at a forlorn estate... An estate haunted by a beckoning evil. Half-seen figures who glare from dark towers and dusty windows- silent, foul phantoms who, day by day, night by night, come closer, ever closer. With growing horror, the helpless governess realizes the fiendish creatures want the children, seeking to corrupt their bodies, possess their minds, own their souls. But worse-much worse- the governess discovers that Miles and Flora have no terror of the lurking evil. For they want the walking dead as badly as the dead want them. Excerpt: I remember the whole beginning as a succession of flights and drops, a little seesaw of the right throbs and the wrong. After rising, in town, to meet his appeal, I had at all events a couple of very bad days - found myself doubtful again, felt indeed sure I had made a mistake. In this state of mind I spent the long hours of bumping, swinging coach that carried me to the stopping place at which I was to be met by a vehicle from the house.