FREE/BARGAIN — Fiction (everything else)

[Dr. Drib]

^^^^^^^^^^

Additional info:

The above is a non-fictional book of literary criticism based upon a class the author taught (or continues to teach).

Regardless of its category, this sounds exciting to me, one which I will now purchase.

Off to spend some money! (Hey! it's only money!)

Thank you!

[salty-horse]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

^^^^^^^^^^

Additional info:

The above is a non-fictional book of literary criticism based upon a class the author taught (or continues to teach).

It also includes the short stories, which is why I thought it fits here best.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

It also includes the short stories, which is why I thought it fits here best.

I didn't see that. That's great.

Thank you for the additional info.

[GA Russell]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

It also includes the short stories, which is why I thought it fits here best.

Thanks! I bought it out of a sense of duty!

[salty-horse]

Minor Black Figures by Brandon Taylor is £1 in the UK (Kobo, Amazon)

Wyeth is a newcomer to New York, a young Black painter who is trying to find his place in the contemporary Manhattan art scene. He shares a studio with his friends and earns money working for a gallery and an art restorer but he’s struggling with his portrait painting, unable to truly capture the life of his subjects.

Then he meets Keating, a white former priest struggling with his faith. The two men seemingly have nothing in common, and yet Keating shows Wyeth how to see the world anew. But as the men grow closer, the differences between them become more stark, until Wyeth and Keating must decide what they are willing to risk – for art and for love.

[Cactus Chef]

Pale Fire (Vintage International) by Vladimir Nabokov is $2 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)

**A darkly comic novel of suspense, literary idolatry and one-upmanship, and political intrigue from one of the leading writers of the twentieth century, the acclaimed author of Lolita.

"Half-poem, half-prose...a creation of perfect beauty, symmetry, strangeness, originality and moral truth. One of the great works of art of this century." —Mary McCarthy, New York Times bestselling author of The Group**

An ingeniously constructed parody of detective fiction and learned commentary, Pale Fire offers a cornucopia of deceptive pleasures, at the center of which is a 999-line poem written by the literary genius John Shade just before his death. Surrounding the poem is a foreword and commentary by the demented scholar Charles Kinbote, who interweaves adoring literary analysis with the fantastical tale of an assassin from the land of Zembla in pursuit of a deposed king. Brilliantly constructed and wildly inventive, Vladimir Nabokov's witty novel achieves that rarest of things in literature—perfect tragicomic balance.

[salty-horse]

Our Ancestors by Italo Calvino is £1 in the UK (Kobo, Amazon)
Omnibus of 3 novellas.

Viscount Medardo is bisected by a Turkish cannonball, Baron Cosimo retires to the trees for the rest of his days, and Agiluf the Knight is an empty suit of armour.

Our Ancestors brings together three surreal novellas set in distinct historical worlds across medieval and early modern Europe.

In The Cloven Viscount, a nobleman returns from war as two separate beings, one cruel and one impossibly virtuous, leaving his community to suffer the consequences.

In The Baron in the Trees, a young aristocrat climbs into the branches of the Italian Riviera and refuses to touch the ground again, living out his life among the leaves while history moves below him.

In The Nonexistent Knight, a suit of armour fights in the army of Charlemagne, sustained only by will and duty.

Our Ancestors blends satire with fable, exploring how power, war and social expectation shape the self.