New Releases by A. S. Byatt

★布克獎、伊拉斯謨獎、朴景利文学獎、安徒生文學獎 得主！ ★戰後最偉大的英國作家之一 A．S．拜厄特 經典之作！ ──電影《三千年的渴望》原著小說── 《雷神索爾》守門人 伊卓瑞斯．艾巴 《納尼亞傳奇》白女巫 蒂妲．史雲頓 主演 充滿哲學寓意、奇幻色彩的現代版暗黑童話故事 一窺鄂圖曼六百年帝國風華！ 「從前從前……」 故事中最不缺的就是悲劇女子， 戀情受阻、遭父王或丈夫虐待、紅顏薄命…… 吉莉安慶幸她與這些慘事毫無關聯， 她不再是母親，兒女皆已成年， 也不是妻子或情婦，丈夫已跟其他女人私奔； 她是名敘事學家，熟知拉丁文與古今中外的文學， 此刻正享受空中旅行的樂趣──她是她自己。 當她來到伊斯坦堡的市集， 一只古雅的玻璃瓶吸引她的目光，裡頭竟住著一位精靈； 精靈和她談起古往今來的祕密，與自己跟人類的戀情。 語畢，精靈要吉莉安也說說自己的故事， 且那段故事她從未向別人提過，專屬於精靈。 吉利安只好挖出塵封已久、不堪回首的記憶…… 五篇震撼心靈的現代童話故事， 如入迷人夢境，更發人深省， 一窺布克獎得主、英國文學評論權威 A．S．拜厄特的精巧傑作。 【目次】 ª玻璃棺 ª哥德的故事 ª長公主的故事 ª龍之吐息 ª夜鶯眼中的惡靈 【名家、媒體、讀者好評】 「故事精采的程度，足以讓蘇丹在王位坐上一千零一夜。」——《紐約時報》書評 「一如拜厄特的所有作品，故事中蘊含著磅礡的智慧與美麗細緻的詞藻。」——《出版人週刊》 「時而博學時而樸實，有時直接有時頑皮。如果《天方夜譚》聽久了需要休息一下，A．S．拜厄特絕對可以取而代之。」──《芝加哥論壇報》 「初入拜厄特的世界，這部作品是一個好的開始。徜徉於故事中的故事，你可以將之解讀為當代寓言中的任何事物，有如喚起每一個遭受戰爭或飢荒的敘事詩──或者純粹看作是一場故事的慶典。」──《Vogue》 「在A．S．拜厄特的妙筆下，童話故事中熟悉的元素變得栩栩如生……輕鬆、精確而優雅。」——《Observer》 「A．S．拜厄特顯然著迷於童話故事，這與她簡潔灑脫的文風相得益彰，而她也在這本作品集中創造出相當特別的效果……是一本精美動人的作品。」──《金融時報》 「夢幻般的饗宴……超越古怪，令人驚奇不已。」──《波士頓環球報》 「拜厄特的文筆清晰又充滿豐富的想像力……皆為上乘之作。」──《華盛頓郵報圖書世界》 「這是一部腦力盛宴，無處不是創意與巧思。」──《Spectator》

A ravishing, luminous selection of short stories from the prize-winning imagination of A. S. Byatt, "a storyteller who could keep a sultan on the edge of his throne for a thousand and one nights" (The New York Times Book Review). With an introduction by David Mitchell, best-selling author of Cloud Atlas Mirrors shatter at the hairdresser''s when a middle-aged client explodes in rage. Snow dusts the warm body of a princess, honing it into something sharp and frosted. Summer sunshine flickers on the face of a smiling child who may or may not be real. Medusa''s Ankles celebrates the very best of A. S. Byatt''s short fiction, carefully selected from a lifetime of writing. Peopled by artists, poets, and fabulous creatures, the stories blaze with creativity and color. From ancient myth to a British candy factory, from a Chinese restaurant to a Mediterranean swimming pool, from a Turkish bazaar to a fairy-tale palace, Byatt transports her readers beyond the veneer of the ordinary—even beyond the gloss of the fantastical—to places rich and strange and wholly unforgettable.

A.S. Byatts satiriska och romantiska roman De besatta belönades med Bookerpriset 1990 och finns översatt till ett trettiotal språk. Forskningsassistenten Roland Mitchell hittar av en slump två brev i en efterlämnad bok av Randolph Henry Ash, en fiktiv viktoriansk poet som bär vissa likheter med Robert Browning. Roland inser genast värdet av de två breven som avslöjar en relation mellan Ash och en kvinnlig poet, Christabel LaMotte, Cristina Rosetti i lätt förklädnad, som ingen inom Ash-forskningen upptäckt. Så inleds sökandet efter sanningen bakom breven och till sin hjälp tar Roland den feministiska forskaren Maud Bailey. Det udda paret ger sig ut på en vindlande jakt och tvingas genskjuta amerikanska forskningskollegor med större finansiella muskler än de själva och även föra Rolands handledare, professor Blackadder, bakom ljuset. Parallellt berättar Byatt den hemlighållna kärlekshistorien mellan Ash och LaMotte i 1800-talets viktorianska England.

From the winner of the Booker Prize: A ravishing book that opens a window into the lives, designs, and passions of Mariano Fortuny and William Morris, two remarkable artists who themselves are passions of the writer A. S. Byatt. Born a generation apart in the mid-1800s, Fortuny and Morris were seeming opposites: Fortuny a Spanish aristocrat thrilled by the sun-baked cultures of Crete and Knossos; Morris a member of the British bourgeoisie, enthralled by Nordic myths. Through their revolutionary inventions and textiles, both men inspired a new variety of art that is as striking today as when it was first conceived. In this elegant meditation, Byatt traces their genius right to the source. Fortuny’s Palazzo Pesaro Orfei in Venice is a warren of dark spaces imbued with the rich hues of Asia. In his attic workshop, Fortuny created intricate designs from glowing silks and velvets; in the palazzo he found “happiness in a glittering cavern” alongside the French model who became his wife and collaborator, including on the famous “Delphos” dress—a flowing, pleated gown that evoked the era of classical Greece. Morris’s Red House outside London, with its Gothic turrets and secret gardens, helped inspire his stunning floral and geometric patterns; it likewise represented a coming together of life and art. But it was a “sweet simple old place” called Kelmscott Manor in the countryside that he loved best—even when it became the setting for his wife’s love affair with the artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Generously illustrated with the artists’ beautiful designs—pomegranates and acanthus, peacock and vine—among other aspects of their worlds, this marvel-filled book brings the visions and ideas of Fortuny and Morris to vivid life.

This ravishing book opens a window onto the lives, designs, and passions of two charismatic artists. Born a generation apart, they were seeming opposites: Mariano Fortuny, a Spanish aristocrat thrilled by the sun-baked cultures of Crete and Knossos; William Morris, a British craftsman, in thrall to the myths of the North. Yet through their revolutionary inventions and textiles, both men inspired a new variety of art, as vibrant today as when it was first conceived. Acclaimed writer A.S. Byatt traces their genius right to the source. The Palazzo Pesaro Orfei in Venice is a warren of dark spaces leading to a workshop where Fortuny created his designs for pleated silks and shining velvets. Here he worked alongside the French model who became his wife and collaborator, including on the ''Delphos'' dress - a flowing gown evoking classical Greece. Morris''s Red House, outside London, with its Gothic turrets and secret gardens, helped inspire his stunning floral and geometric patterns; it also represented a coming together of life and art. But it was Kelmscott Manor in the English countryside that he loved best - even when it became the setting for his wife''s love affair with Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Generously illustrated with the artists'' beautiful designs - pomegranates and acanthus, peacock and vine - A.S. Byatt brings the visions and ideas of Fortuny and Morris dazzlingly to life.

Due giovani studiosi di letteratura dell''Inghilterra contemporanea, ripercorrendo i passi di un uomo e una donna vissuti un secolo prima, ricostruiscono una vicenda d''amore che ben presto diventa la loro.

''Baglady'' is a surprising, and brilliant short story. Here, Byatt presents a horror story in which a woman gets trapped in a mall. Although the messages may not be original, Byatt''s short but effective look at narcissism and capitalism is wittily told.

For all who enjoy old-fashioned story-telling at its best. This stunning and original collection of carefully selected short stories features a famous array of literary talent and quality performance. With over twenty titles, authors and readers this excellent anthology of short stories from the last 25 years provides an ideal collection for the discerning listener. CD 1: Mothers and Fathers by Angela Huth read by Janet McTeer Shared Credit by Frederic Raphael read by Martin Jarvis The Year''s Midnight by Helen Simpson read by Harriet Walter A Place for Everything by Barry Unsworth read by Janet McTeer The Ghost of the Rain Forest by Barry Unsworth read by Rosalind Ayres CD 2: A Feeling for Birds by Lisa St Aubin de Teran read by Janet McTeer Battlefields by Alan Sillitoe read by Janet McTeer Who? by Fay Weldone read by Julie Christie Mrs Alcott Dances Naked in the Rain by Rosie Thomas read by Janet McTeer Presto Barbaro by Ronald Frame read by Janet McTeer CD 3: Sea Lion by Douglas Hurd read by Martin Jarvis The Sons of Upland Farm by George Mackay Brown read by Martin Jarvis Dressing Up by Angela Huth read by Rosalind Ayres Twenty Years by Doris Lessing read by Rosalind Ayres Humphrey''s Mother by Penelope Mortimer read by Martin Jarvis The Hero by Joanna Trollope read by Martin Jarvis CD 4: Shreds and Slivers by Ruth Rendell read by Martin Jarvis Brut Millésimé by Ludovic Kennedy read by Rosalind Ayres On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning by Haruki Murakami read by Walter Lewis Baglady by A S Byatt read by Rosalind Ayres Hotel des Voyageurs by William Boyd read by Martin Jarvis Toy Boy by Edwina Currie read by Rosalind Ayres Simon by Patrick O''Brian read by Martin Jarvis

«C''è nelle pagine di questa narratrice inglese una sapienza che ha lontane ascendenze, fino alla Austen. Il romanzo nelle sue mani cresce con una naturalezza invidiabile, i fatti avvolgono l''immaginazione del lettore con fare seducente, persuasivo». Enzo Siciliano

«La folle ambizione di Antonia S. Byatt, padroneggiata alla perfezione, consiste nel riunire in uno stesso spazio d''inchiostro e di carta i due universi, quello della teoria e quello delle passioni, che diventano tutt''uno». «Le Monde»

Uma releitura fascinante e profundamente pessoal da gênese e do desaparecimento dos deuses da mitologia nórdica, por uma das mais importantes escritoras britânicas da atualidade. Ragnarök, em islandês antigo, significa "crepúsculo dos deuses", ou ainda, "julgamento dos deuses". Ambas as acepções estão contidas nas sagas mitológicas germânicas e escandinavas compiladas a partir do século XIII. Para os antigos nórdicos, o fim dos deuses era também o fim dos tempos, comparável ao Juízo Final dos cristãos, com a importante diferença de que não havia esperanças de uma vida além-túmulo: após o colapso do Valhall - o suntuoso palácio das divindades -, o universo se transformará para sempre num lugar escuro, árido e desabitado. Neste livro híbrido entre mitologia e autobiografia, A. S. Byatt recupera algumas das mais importantes histórias sobre a gênese e o fim do mundo segundo os povos bárbaros - vikings, islandeses, germanos - que habitaram o norte da Europa até sua cristianização. Encantada desde a infância por deuses como Odin, Frigg, Loki e Thor, a autora de Possessão (romance vencedor do Man Booker Prize de 1990) reconta suas aventuras em meio a gigantes, elfos, lobos e serpentes monstruosas; paralelamente, Byatt rememora suas próprias experiências durante a primeira leitura das narrativas de que esses seres fantásticos são protagonistas. Ostentando poderes prodigiosos, equiparados às forças incontroláveis da natureza, mas também às fragilidades mais típicas dos homens, as divindades do panteão nórdico provocam seu próprio fim com suas paixões imprudentes. Trata-se de um eloquente eco das catástrofes humanas e naturais anunciadas pela atual degradação ambiental e pela escalada dos conflitos bélicos.

The Booker Prize-winning author of Possession and a novelist of “dazzling inventiveness” (Time) delivers a stunning collection of essays on literature and life. Whether she is writing about George Eliot or Sylvia Plath; Victorian spiritual malaise or Toni Morrison; mythic strands in the novels of Iris Murdoch and Saul Bellow; politics behind the popularity of Barbara Pym or the ambitions that underlie her own fiction, Byatt manages to be challenging, entertaining, and unflinchingly committed to the alliance of literature and life.

Collected in a single volume for the first time—an unforgettable book of short stories from the Booker Prize-winning author of Possession that explores the fragile ties between generations, the dizzying abyss of loss, and the elaborate memories we construct against it. In this book of short fictions, A.S. Byatt compels us to inhabit other lives and returns us to our own with new knowledge, compassion, and a sense of wonder. "Byatt''s stories display all her talents as a novelist, but spiced with an additional friskiness." —Evening Standard

From the Booker Prize-winning author of Possession comes a novel portraying a sibling rivalry which compels us to reconsider the uses and misuses of imagination. "Complex and thoughtful."—The Times Literary Supplement When they were little girls, Cassandra and Julia played a game in which they entered an alternate world modeled on the landscapes of Arthurian romance. Now the sisters are grown, and hostile strangers—until a figure from their past, a man they once both loved and suffered over, reenters their lives.

From the Booker Prize-winning author of Possession comes a wonderfully erudite novel in which enlightenment and sexuality, Elizabethan drama and contemporary comedy, intersect richly and unpredictably. "Large, complex, ambitious, humming with energy and ideas ... a remarkable achievement." —Iris Murdoch In Yorkshire, the Potter family are preparing to celebrate Elizabeth II’s arrival on the throne. Its three youngest members, however, are preoccupied with other matters. Stephanie has grown tired of their overbearing father and resolves to marry the local curate. Anxious teenager Marcus gains a new teacher and suffers increasingly disturbing visions. Then there is Frederica. On the brink of adulthood, a love affair with a young playwright may offer the freedom she desperately desires.

In these two “astonishing” novellas (The New Yorker), the Booker Prize-winning author of Possession returns to the landscape of Victorian England, where science and spiritualism are popular manias, and domestic decorum coexists with brutality and perversion. "At once quirky and deep, brimming with generosity, imagination, and intelligence." —The New Yorker In Morpho Eugenia, an explorer realises that the behaviour of the people around him is alarmingly similar to that of the insects he studies. In The Conjugal Angel, curious individuals – some fictional, others drawn from history – gather to connect with the spirit world. Throughout both, Byatt examines the eccentricities of the Victorian era, weaving fact and fiction, reality and romance, science and faith into a sumptuous, magical tapestry.

The Booker Prize-winning author of Possession presents an extraordinary story set against the backdrop of the 1960s—a turbulent decade of clashing politics, passionate ideals, and shifting sexual roles. At the heart of Babel Tower are two law cases, twin strands of the Establishment''s web, that shape the story: a painful divorce and custody suit and the prosecution of an "obscene" book. Frederica, the independent young heroine, is involved in both. She startled her intellectual circle of friends by marrying a young country squire, whose violent streak has now been turned against her. Fleeing to London with their young son, she gets a teaching job in an art school, where she is thrown into the thick of the new decade. Poets and painters are denying the value of the past, fostering dreams of rebellion, which focus around a strange, charismatic figure—the near-naked, unkempt and smelly Jude Mason, with his flowing gray hair, a hippie before his time. We feel the growing unease, the undertones of sex and cruelty. The tension erupts over his novel Babbletower, set in a past revolutionary era, where a band of people retire to a castle to found an ideal community. In this book, as in the courtrooms, as in the art school''s haphazard classes and on the committee set up to study "the teaching of language," people function increasingly in groups. Many are obsessed with protecting the young, but the fashionable notion of children as innocent and free slowly comes to seem wishful, and perilous. In Byatt''s vision, the presiding genius of the day seems to be a blend of the Marquis de Sade and The Hobbit. Peopled with weird and colorful characters, charted with brilliant, imaginative sympathy, Babel Tower is as comic as it is threatening and bizarre.

''Shimmers with something close to genius... it is a modern masterpiece'' Daily Mail Rediscover the classic Booker Prize-winning novel of romance, history, intrigue, and high drama. Possession is an exhilarating novel of wit and romance, at once a literary detective novel and a triumphant love story. It is the tale of a pair of young scholars investigating the lives of two Victorian poets. Following a trail of letters, journals and poems they uncover a web of passion, deceit and tragedy, and their quest becomes a battle against time. ''A novel for every taste... You turn the last age and feel stunned and elated, happy to have the chance to read it'' Washington Post ''A triumphant success on every level'' Cosmopolitan

Dall''Inghilterra a Parigi, a Monaco e infine alle trincee della Somme, le vicende di un gruppo di uomini e donne che si propongono di modificare convinzioni, comportamenti, stili di vita e che per propria cecità e per l''incalzare della storia finiranno per soccombere. Una lucida analisi sulla perfettibilità degli esseri umani, sul crudele egoismo della natura d''artista, sulla fascinazione per l''infanzia.

From the renowned author of Possession, The Children’s Book is the absorbing story of the close of what has been called the Edwardian summer: the deceptively languid, blissful period that ended with the cataclysmic destruction of World War I. In this compelling novel, A.S. Byatt summons up a whole era, revealing that beneath its golden surface lay tensions that would explode into war, revolution and unbelievable change — for the generation that came of age before 1914 and, most of all, for their children. The novel centres around Olive Wellwood, a fairy tale writer, and her circle, which includes the brilliant, erratic craftsman Benedict Fludd and his apprentice Phillip Warren, a runaway from the poverty of the Potteries; Prosper Cain, the soldier who directs what will become the Victoria and Albert Museum; Olive’s brother-in-law Basil Wellwood, an officer of the Bank of England; and many others from every layer of society. A.S. Byatt traces their lives in intimate detail and moves between generations, following the children who must choose whether to follow the roles expected of them or stand up to their parents’ “porcelain socialism.” Olive’s daughter Dorothy wishes to become a doctor, while her other daughter, Hedda, wants to fight for votes for women. Her son Tom, sent to an upper-class school, wants nothing more than to spend time in the woods, tracking birds and foxes. Her nephew Charles becomes embroiled with German-influenced revolutionaries. Their portraits connect the political issues at the heart of nascent feminism and socialism with grave personal dilemmas, interlacing until The Children’s Book becomes a perfect depiction of an entire world. Olive is a fairy tale writer in the era of Peter Pan and Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind In the Willows, not long after Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. At a time when children in England suffered deprivation by the millions, the concept of childhood was being refined and elaborated in ways that still influence us today. For each of her children, Olive writes a special, private book, bound in a different colour and placed on a shelf; when these same children are ferried off into the unremitting destruction of the Great War, the reader is left to wonder who the real children in this novel are. The Children’s Book is an astonishing novel. It is an historical feat that brings to life an era that helped shape our own as well as a gripping, personal novel about parents and children, life’s most painful struggles and its richest pleasures. No other writer could have imagined it or created it.

The magnificent title story of this collection of fairy tales for adults describes the strange and uncanny relationship between its extravagantly intelligent heroine--a world renowned scholar of the art of story-telling--and the marvelous being that lives in a mysterious bottle, found in a dusty shop in an Istanbul bazaar. As A.S. Byatt renders this relationship with a powerful combination of erudition and passion, she makes the interaction of the natural and the supernatural seem not only convincing, but inevitable. The companion stories in this collection each display different facets of Byatt''s remarkable gift for enchantment. They range from fables of sexual obsession to allegories of political tragedy; they draw us into narratives that are as mesmerizing as dreams and as bracing as philosophical meditations; and they all us to inhabit an imaginative universe astonishing in the precision of its detail, its intellectual consistency, and its splendor. "A dreamy treat.... It is not merely strange, it is wondrous." --Boston Globe "Alternatingly erudite and earthy, direct and playful.... If Scheherazade ever needs a break, Byatt can step in, indefinitely." --Chicago Tribune "Byatt''s writing is crystalline and splendidly imaginative.... These [are] perfectly formed tales." --Washington Post Book World

An unforgettable collection of fairy tales for grownups—from the Booker Prize-winning author of Possession. • “A delight.... provoking and alarming, richly yet tautly rendered.... [She] has the sheer narrative skill to raise the hairs on the back of your neck and make your pulse race.” —The New York Times Book Review Like Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm, Isak Dinesen and Angela Carter, A. S. Byatt knows that fairy tales are for adults. And in this ravishing collection she breathes new life into the form. Little Black Book of Stories offers shivers along with magical thrills. Leaves rustle underfoot in a dark wood: two middle-aged women, childhood friends reunited by chance, venture into a dark forest where once, many years before, they saw–or thought they saw–something unspeakable. Another woman, recently bereaved, finds herself slowly but surely turning into stone. A coolly rational ob-gyn has his world pushed off-axis by a waiflike art student with her own ideas about the uses of the body. Spellbinding, witty, lovely, terrifying, the Little Black Book of Stories is Byatt at the height of her craft.

From the Booker Prize-winning author of Possession comes a short story collection that transports the reader to a world where opposites—passion and loneliness, betrayal and loyalty, fire and ice—clash and converge. "A wonderful book—complex, amusing, clever, and thought-provoking—a reader''s dream." —The Plain Dealer A beautiful ice maiden risks her life when she falls in love with a desert prince, whose passionate touches scorch her delicate skin. A woman flees the scene of her husband''s heart attack, leaving her entire past behind her. Striving to master color and line, a painter discovers the resolution to his artistic problems when a beautiful and magical water snake appears in his pool. And a wealthy Englishwoman gradually loses her identity while wandering through a shopping mall. Elegantly crafted and suffused with boundless wisdom, these bewitching tales are a testament to a writer at the height of her powers.

The ideal introduction to the novels, stories, and essays of fabulist, realist, critic, and Booker Prize-winning author of Possession. • “Byatt is a gifted observer, able to discern the exact details that bring whole worlds into being.” —The New York Times A. S. Byatt has boundless intellectual and literary gifts and a fathomless imagination on which to nourish them. Her novels, stories, and essays allow us to see both our own and other worlds and times and, perhaps most brilliantly, the connections between them. Vintage Byatt includes a self-contained section from the bestselling Possession; selections from the Matisse Stories, Elementals, Sugar and Other Stories, and the recent Little Black Book of Stories; and essays from the collection Passions of the Mind. Vintage Readers are a perfect introduction to some of the great modern writers, presented in attractive, affordable paperback editions.

2 classic books for the price of 1: Vintage Love is a limited edition gift pack which consists of beautifully designed separate volumes of Middlemarch by George Eliot and A.S. Byatt''s highly acclaimed novel Possession. Vintage Love is just one of ten Vintage Classic Twins to collect. Each twin consists of two books: a specially designed limited edition of one modern classic title and one established classic work. The books in each pair have been carefully selected to provide a thought-provoking combination. Middlemarch: Dorothea is bright, beautiful and rebellious and has married the wrong man. Lydgate is the ambitious new doctor in town and has married the wrong woman. Both of them long to make a positive difference in the world. But their stories do not proceed as expected and both they, and the other inhabitants of Middlemarch, must struggle to reconcile themselves to their fates and find their places in the world. Possession: Possession is an exhilarating novel of wit and romance, both a literary detective novel and a triumphant love story. It is the tale of a pair of young scholars investigating the lives of two Victorian poets.Following a trail of letters, journals and poems they uncover a web of passion, deceit and tragedy, and their quest becomes a battle against time.

Una alquimia de magia y deleite sensual. Unas niñas se refugian en el bosque durante la guerra, donde tendrán una visión aterradora que las mantendrá unidas para siempre. Una mujer se convierte poco a poco en piedra y un escultor la reconoce como parte del mundo oculto de la mitología islandesa. Un hombre se encuentra con el fantasma de su propia esposa antes de que ésta muera... Cargadas de tensión dramática, las cinco fábulas de El libro negro de los cuentos concentran todo el poder evocador de las leyendas infantiles, el misterio del escenario gótico, las conmovedoras descripciones de los cuentos de hadas y constituyen una deslumbrante reflexión sobre el modo en que afrontamos nuestros miedos y deseos más ocultos. «El libro negro de los cuentos es la carta de presentación ideal para alguien que aún no ha descubierto a A. S. Byatt, y un placer para quienes ya lo han hecho.» Telegraph