MINERVA

(P/B) MARIO AND THE MAGICIANS
Mann's short stories explore his abiding interest in the split nature of humanity and the discordance of the world it inhabits. In 'A Man and his Dog', domestic tempests are symbols of the muddle of humanity. In 'The Black Swan', the demands of intellect clash with physical desires. And in 'Mario and the Magician' a young family on holiday in Italy encounters a creepy entertainer: Cipolla, a hypnotist with a fascist-like will to control his audience. Written between 1918 and 1953, this collection shows the literary development of one of Ge...
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(P/B) THE NAME OF THE ROSE
Set in Italy in the Middle Ages, this is not only a narrative of a murder investigation in a monastery in 1327, but also a chronicle of the 14th century religious wars, a history of monastic orders, and a compendium of heretical movements. (From the publisher)...
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(P/B) MAKIOKA SISTERS
Tanizaki's masterpiece is the story of four sisters, and the declining fortunes of a traditional Japanese family. It is a loving and nostalgic recreation of the sumptuous, intricate upper-class life of Osaka immediately before World War Two. With surgical precision, Tanizaki lays bare the sinews of pride, and brings a vanished era to vibrant life. (From the publisher) "The outstanding Japanese novelist of the twentieth century... The Makioka Sisters is his greatest book" (Edmund White, New York Times) "Complex, detailed, agreeably gossipy...
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(P/B) THE COMPLETE SHORT STORIES
This volume contains all of Kafka's shorter fiction, from fragments, parables and sketches to longer tales. Together they reveal the breadth of Kafka's literary vision and the extraordinary imaginative depth of his thought. Some are well-known, others are mere jottings; observations of daily life given artistic form through Kafka's unique perception of the world. (from the publisher)...
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(P/B) CAPTAIN CORELLI'S MANDOLIN
It is 1941 and Captain Antonio Corelli, a young Italian officer, is posted to the Greek island of Cephallonia as part of the occupying forces. At first he is ostracised by the locals, but as a conscientious but far from fanatical soldier, whose main aim is to have a peaceful war, he proves in time to be civilised, humorous - and a consumate musician. When the local doctor's daughter's letters to her fianc? - and members of the underground - go unanswered, the working of the eternal triangle seems inevitable. But can this fragile love surv...
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(P/B) VINELAND
'A major political novel about what America has been doing to itself, to its children, all these many years... One of America's great writers has, after long wanderings down his uncharted roads, come triumphantly home'. (Salman Rushdie, New York Times Book Review)...
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(P/B) DOG YEARS
In an explosive fusion of myth and reality, magic and romance, Dog Years charts forty years of German history, starting with 1917, to expose the madness of a society that bred and nurtured the horrors of the Third Reich before anaesthetising itself with the chaos of disintegration....
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(P/B) CAT AND MOUSE
To compensate for his unusually large Adam's apple - source of both discomfort and distress - fourteen year old Joachim Mahlke turns himself into athlete and ace diver. Soon he is known to his peers and his nation as 'The Great Mahlke'. But to his enemies, he remains a target. He is different and doomed in a country scarred by the war. Cat and Mouse was first published in 1961, two years after Gunter Grass' controversial and applauded masterpiece, The Tin Drum. Once again Grass turns his attention on Danzig. With a subtle blend of humour a...
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(P/B) ISLAND OF THE DAY BEFORE
The year is 1643. Roberto, a young nobleman, survives war, the Bastille, exile and shipwreck as he voyages to a Pacific island straddling the date meridian. There he waits now, alone on the mysteriously deserted Daphne, separated by treacherous reefs from the island beyond: the island of the day before. If he could reach it, time - and his misfortunes - might be reversed. But first he must learn to swim... (From the publisher)...
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(P/B) MAUGHAM: SHORT STORIES
Somerset Maugham is the acknowledged master of the short story, and his full range is represented in this collection. In acclaimed stories such as 'Rain', 'The Letter', 'The Vessel of Wrath' and 'The Alien Corn', Maugham illustrates his wry perception of human weakness and his genius for evoking compelling drama and an acute sense of time and place. (From the publisher)...
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(P/B) THE MALAYAN TRILOGY
Anthony Burgess was an officer in the Colonial Service. In The Malayan Trilogy - Time for a Tiger, The Enemy in the Blanket and Beds in the East - he satirises the dog days of colonialism. Victor Crabbe is a well meaning, ineffectual English man in the tropics, keen to teach the Malays what the West can do for them. Through Crabbe's rise and fall and a series of wonderfully colourful characters, Burgess lays bare racial and social prejudices of post-war Malaya during the upheaval of Independence. (From the publisher)...
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(P/B) FAITH IN FAKES
Holography, wax museums, the secret meaning of spectator sports, Superman and the intellectual effects of over-tight jeans are just a few of the subjects covered in this collection of witty, entertaining and thought-provoking delights from Umberto Eco, celebrated author of The Name of the Rose. (From the publisher)...
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(P/B) CALL OF THE TOAD

(P/B) BOATING FOR BEGINNERS

(P/B) THE TROUBLESOME OFFSPRING OF CARDINAL GUZMAN

(P/B) KAFKA: COMPLETE NOVELS

(P/B) MEFISTO

(P/B) LETTERS TO FELICE

(P/B) LOST HONOUR OF KATHARINA BLUM

(P/B) THE WAR OF DON EMMANUEL'S NETHER PARTS