Winter Essentials We Love

Lóri, a primary school teacher, is isolated and nervous, comfortable with children but unable to connect to adults. When she meets Ulisses, a professor of philosophy, an opportunity opens: a chance to escape the shipwreck of introspection and embrace the love, including the sexual love, of a man. Her attempt, as Sheila Heti writes in her afterword, is not only “to love and to be loved,” but also “to be worthy of life itself.”

Published in 1968, An Apprenticeship is Clarice Lispector’s attempt to reinvent herself following the exhausting effort of her metaphysical masterpiece The Passion According to G. H. Here, in this unconventional love story, she explores the ways in which people try to bridge the gaps between them, and the result, unusual in her work, surprised many readers and became a bestseller.

Some appreciated its accessibility; others denounced it as sexist or superficial. To both admirers and critics, the olympian Clarice gave a typically elliptical answer: “I humanized myself,” she said. “The book reflects that.”

• Language: English
• No. of Pages: 160
• Publisher: New Directions Publishing
• ISBN: 9780811232210

about Author

Clarice Lispector (1920–1977), the greatest Brazilian writer of the twentieth century, has been called "astounding" (Rachel Kushner), "a penetrating genius" (Donna Seaman, Booklist ), and "one of the twentieth century's most mysterious writers" (Orhan Pamuk). Born in Belém, Brazil,Stefan Tobler is the publisher of And Other Stories and, whenever time permits, a translator from Portuguese and German. His translation of Arno Geiger's  The Old King in His Exile  was shortlisted for both the Helen and Kurt Wolff Prize and Schlegel-Tieck Prize, and his other translations include the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize-shortlisted  Água Viva  by Clarice Lispector and the Man Booker International Prize finalist  A Cup of Rage  by Raduan Nassar. Sheila Heti is the author of several books of fiction and nonfiction, including How Should a Person Be?, which New York Magazine deemed one of the "New Classics of the 21st century. She was named one of "The New Vanguard" by The New York Times book critics, who, along with a dozen other magazines and newspapers, chose Motherhood as a top book of 2018. Her books have been translated into twenty-one languages."

By the International Booker Prize Shortlisted Author of On Earth As It Is Beneath

Animals go mad and men die (accidentally and not) at a slaughterhouse in an impoverished, isolated corner of Brazil.In a landscape worthy of Cormac McCarthy, the river runs septic with blood. Edgar Wilson makes the sign of the cross on the forehead of a cow, then stuns it with a mallet. He does this over and over again, as the stun operator at Senhor Milo’s slaughterhouse: reliable, responsible, quietly dispatching cows and following orders, wherever that may take him. It’s important to calm the cows, especially now that they seem so unsettled: they have begun to run in panic into walls and over cliffs. Bronco Gil, the foreman, thinks it’s a jaguar or a wild boar. Edgar Wilson has other suspicions. But what is certain is that there is something in this desolate corner of Brazil driving men, and animals, to murder and madness. 

About the Author

A well-written, deeply personal saga that acknowledges the resonance of historical identity, art, and literature in our present lives." --KIRKUS REVIEWS

1570: A street teems with activity in Renaissance Lisbon: boatmen unload passengers as jugglers entertain the crowd and vendors hawk their goods. The crowd is large, and more than half of it is Black. Most are enslaved African people performing an array of duties, but there are free Africans too, and somebody else: a Black knight astride a horse.

Four hundred and fifty years later, novelist and journalist Joaquim Arena stands in a museum, transfixed by the character depicted on this canvas by an anonymous Flemish painter. He doesn't know it yet, but the knight is Joao de S Panasco, a one-time slave who nevertheless became an Afro-Portuguese nobleman. So begins Under Our Skin, a wide-ranging investigation that seeks to know the people of the early African diaspora, and tell their stories.

Arena was born in the tiny state of Cape Verde, a small chain of islands off the West Coast of Africa which were uninhabited before Portugal chose them for a slave-trade post--a place made famous in part by Herman Melville's essay on the nature of Cape Verdeans (known as 'Gees') who were common fixtures on whaling vessels.
With this awareness, Arena creates a hybrid text of travel writing, memoir, and history, filled with portraits of complex and fascinating characters. There is Dido Elizabeth Belle, the daughter of a slave raised a gentlewoman in England; Abraham Petrovitch Gannibal, abducted from Africa as a boy, only to be groomed as a nobleman under Peter the Great; Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, son of a Haitian slave, who became a French general in the Napoleonic Wars; Jacobus Capitein, from Ghana, who studies at a European university only to become a pro-slavery Christian minister in the Netherlands; and Carlos Marcelino

Author: Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen & Jorge de Sena Language: Portuguese,

Este volume reúne a troca epistolar entre Sophia de Mello Breyner e Jorge de Sena, desde o ano que marcou o exílio do escritor no Brasil até à data da sua morte.

O resultado é um impressionante retrato social, histórico e moral do Portugal dos anos 60 e 70.

Retrato de um país perdido. Retrato de «dezoito anos de ausência que poderiam ter sido dezoito anos de convívio, de encontros, conversas, riso comum, aflições e alegrias comunicadas.»

English overview

This volume brings together the correspondence between Sophia de Mello Breyner and Jorge de Sena, from the year that marked the writer's exile in Brazil until the date of his death.

The result is an impressive social, historical, and moral portrait of Portugal in the 1960s and 70s.

A portrait of a lost country. A portrait of "eighteen years of absence that could have been eighteen years of companionship, of encounters, conversations, shared laughter, shared anxieties and joys."

Author

Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen (Oporto, November 6, 1919 – Lisbon, July 2, 2004) was an award-winning Portuguese poet and writer.

Sophia, as she is often referred to in Portugal, was born in Porto to a wealthy aristocratic family. She inherited the surname ‘Andresen’ from her paternal grandfather, a Danish merchant. She received a strict Catholic upbringing, and was to remain a fervent believer until the end of her life. After spending her childhood in Porto she moved to Lisbon, where she attended the Universidade de Lisboa. As a student, she was activelly involved in Catholic movements. Politically, she defended constitutional monarchy and openly criticized Salazar’s dictatorship. In 1946 she married lawyer and politician Francisco Sousa Tavares. They had five children, among whom journalist and best-selling author Miguel Sousa Tavares. After the Carnation Revolution in 1974, she made a brief incursion into politics as an MP for the Socialist Party (centre-left).

Andresen won acclaim as a storyteller with Contos Exemplares (Exemplary Tales),”Histórias da Terra e do Mar” (Stories of Land and Sea), and a number of children’s books – A Menina do Mar (The Sea Girl), O Cavaleiro da Dinamarca (The Danish Knight), A Floresta(The Forest), O Rapaz de Bronze (The Bronze Boy), A Fada Oriana (The Fairy Oriana). She also published several poetry books and anthologies, including: Poesia, Dual, Livro Sexto, Coral, Dia do Mar, No Tempo Dividido, Grades, O Nome das Coisas, As Ilhas, Antologia, Geografia, Navegações, O Búzio de Cós. In 1999 she became the first woman to receive the highest Portuguese award for poetry, the Prémio Camões. She was also awarded the Spanish Premio Reina Sofia in 2003.

“Poetry,” she explained, “is my understanding of the universe, my way of relating to things, my participation in reality, my encounter with voices and images. This is why the poem speaks not of an ideal life but of a concrete one: the angle of a window, the resonance of streets, cities and rooms, the shadow cast by a wall, a sudden face, the silence, distance and brightness of the stars, the night’s breath, the scent of linden and of oregano.” The sea is probably the most central theme in her poetical works. Other recurring themes are Ancient Greece and ideas of freedom and justice.

Jorge de Sens

Jorge de Sena was a prominent Portuguese author born in Lisbon in 1919, known for his significant contributions to literature and his opposition to the authoritarian regime of António de Oliveira Salazar. Raised in a family with a strong emphasis on education, Sena was an early reader and demonstrated a passion for writing from a young age. After initially pursuing a military career, he shifted focus to his literary ambitions, publishing his first collection of poetry in 1942 and becoming a respected literary critic. His opposition to the Salazar regime led him to exile in Brazil after a failed coup attempt in 1959, where he embraced the country's intellectual freedom and continued his writing. Later, Sena moved to the United States, where he taught at the University of Wisconsin and the University of California, Santa Barbara. He was recognized for his literary achievements with several prestigious awards, including the Portuguese Order of Infante D. Henrique. Sena's legacy is marked by his dual identity as a Portuguese writer and a significant figure in Brazilian literature, remembered for his advocacy for democracy and artistic expression. He passed away from lung cancer in 1978, leaving behind a rich body of work and a large family.

His debut, Flight Path Home, explores migration, belonging, and the Portuguese diaspora through family stories and cultural memory.

A monster mender works hard to heal all wounds, but struggles to help a sea serpent who just seems … sad.

Dot is a monster healer. She treats bruises and burns and sore throats and sniffles for all sorts of creatures — dragons, krakens and gryphons included. But when Sea Serpent comes to see her because he’s feeling sad, Dot is stumped! She goes looking for the rarest ingredients to make something to get rid of Sea Serpent’s sad, but the potions and salves don’t help, and Sea Serpent doesn't seem too keen on trying any more exotic teas.

Dot is worried that she’ll never be able to help Sea Serpent feel better. Lately, all she’s brought Sea Serpent has been her own company, and not-at-all-special tea. Does this mean she isn’t a very good monster mender, after all? When Sea Serpent comes to her with an unexpected revelation, Dot learns the healing power of being a true friend.

A gentle (and fantastical!) tale of what it means to support a friend struggling with their mental health, from the award-winning author of Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress and Violet Shrink.

Christine Baldacchino

Ilona Iske

The search for a notorious vigilante exposes the secrets between three generations of women in this propulsive novel of female resistance and rage, sweeping from contemporary L.A. to gritty, 1970s New York.

Los Angeles, 2024. After learning that her A-List actor husband sent explicit photos to multiple girls on social media, Margot Cooper runs away from the world—and the paparazzi—by fleeing to her childhood home with her teenage daughter in tow.

But home isn’t the sanctuary Margot was hoping for. In a cardboard box in the corner of the attic, she finds damning evidence of an infamous urban legend, the mysterious vigilante “Lady X”—including a blurry newspaper photo of a woman who looks an awful lot like Margot’s mother.

New York City, 1977. In the midst of an infamous summer, Ginger Daughtry and her two beloved roommates are able to shield each other from the chaos—until one of them is assaulted. Astounded by the lack of response from police, the young women decide to engage in some light payback, signing their handiwork as “Lady X.”

Soon copycats appear, and a movement inspired by acts of vandalism against terrible men spirals out of control, with criminals running amok under the guise of the enigmatic “Lady X.” When a body is found fallen—or pushed—from five stories high, the hunt reaches a boiling point.

But Lady X has vanished into thin air.

The "Where Architects Stay"-Series heads towards the Sea: Stylish vacation accommodations at the coasts of Western Europe where architects would stay themselves when traveling.

Individuals with a passion for design may have high expectations of their vacation accommodations. The new volume is dedicated to the Atlantic coast of the western part of the European continent with its different landscapes and lively cities. Just as diverse as this region are the carefully selected accommodations presented here, imaginatively designed jewels, far from mass tourism.

This architecture and travel guide invites readers to discover enchanting vacation homes, whose architecture and interior design make each stay perfect: Ranging from lonely lighthouses to urban lofts, from sustainable tree houses to minimalist villas or historic structures. Each property is distinguished by the highest design quality with a personal touch, originality, and much attention to detail