In a remote Polish village, Janina devotes the dark winter days to studying astrology, translating the poetry of William Blake, and taking care of the summer homes of wealthy Warsaw residents. Her reputation as a crank and a recluse is amplified by her not-so-secret preference for the company of animals over humans. Then, a neighbor, Big Foot, turns up dead. Soon, other bodies are discovered, in increasingly strange circumstances. As suspicions mount, Janina inserts herself into the investigation, certain that she knows whodunit. If only anyone would pay her mind....

Im Sommer tummeln sich wohlhabende Städter auf dem Hochplateau an der polnisch-tschechischen Grenze. Im Winter hütet die ehemalige Englischlehrerin Janina Duszejko deren Häuser und widmet sich der Astrologie und der Lyrik von William Blake. Man hält die ältere Dame für verschroben, wenn nicht gar für verrückt, auch weil sie die Gesellschaft von Tieren der von Menschen vorzieht. Dann gibt es einen Toten. Und es bleibt nicht bei einer Leiche .Janina ermittelt auf eigene Faust und scheint der Polizei immer einen Schritt voraus zu sein.

Als Bruno von einer Geschäftsreise aus Finnland nach Hause zu seinem Sohn und seiner Frau in den hellen Bungalow am Hang zurückkehrt, weiß er noch nicht, dass es der letzte gemeinsame Abend als Familie sein wird. Am Tag darauf beschließen beide, sich zu trennen. Eine Erklärung für die Trennung gibt es nicht. "Für immer?", fragt Bruno. Und nach und nach hören sie auf, die Tage zu zählen, die sie allein sind. Die neue Form des Daseins beginnt sie zu schützen und zu stärken.

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late 20s, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born - a history whose epicentre is rooted in Vietnam - and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class and masculinity. 

The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, Southern Black community and running away at age 16, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: Their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her Black daughter in the same Southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for White, and her White husband knows nothing of her past.

Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living, with her confidence-driven brand, showing other women how to do the same. So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains' toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high-end supermarket. The store's security guard, seeing a young Black woman out late with a White child, accuses Emira of kidnapping two-year-old Briar. A small crowd gathers, a bystander films everything, and Emira is furious and humiliated. Alix resolves to make things right.

Es gibt also noch wirkliche Heldinnen, ganz ohne Anführungszeichen, denen man auf der Straße begegnen, mit denen man reden, die man kennenlernen kann? In Südfrankreich lebt Anne Beaumanoir, genannt Annette, eine lebhafte Frau mit lichtblauen Augen. Mitglied der kommunistischen Résistance, "Gerechte unter den Völkern", Neurologin, engagiert auf der Seite der algerischen Unabhängigkeitsbewegung, verurteilt zu zehn Jahren Haft, nach einer abenteuerlichen Flucht beteiligt am Aufbau des algerischen Gesundheitssystems... und heute 96 Jahre alt. So ihr Leben in ein paar Worten.

Mutter, Tochter, Enkelin. Drei Frauen auf der Suche nach einem Ort - im Leben und im Sterben. Ida möchte noch einmal in ihr Elternhaus. Doch sie hat einen Unfall im Schneetreiben und findet Unterschlupf bei einem älteren Ehepaar. Dort erscheint ihr ihre Mutter Paraskewia. Nach langer Ehe ist Paraskewias Mann gestorben, in ihrem Haus oben auf dem Berg, das im Winter von der Außenwelt abgeschnitten ist. Und so schreibt sie die Nachricht von seinem Tod in den Schnee. Ihre Enkelin Maja erlebt das Sterben ganz anders.

The Greek myths are amongst the greatest stories ever told, passed down through millennia and inspiring writers and artists as varied as Shakespeare, Michelangelo, James Joyce and Walt Disney. They are embedded deeply in the traditions, tales and cultural DNA of the West. You'll fall in love with Zeus, marvel at the birth of Athena, wince at Cronus and Gaia's revenge on Ouranos, weep with King Midas and hunt with the beautiful and ferocious Artemis.

A contemporary classic, The Remains of the Day is Kazuo Ishiguro's beautiful and haunting evocation of life between the wars in a Great English House. In the summer of 1956, Stevens, the ageing butler of Darlington Hall, embarks on a leisurely holiday that will take him deep into the countryside – and into his past.

Dorothea Brooke is an ardent idealist who represses her vivacity and intelligence for the cold, theological pedant Casaubon. One man understands her true nature: the artist Will Ladislaw. But how can love triumph against her sense of duty and Casaubon’s mean spirit? Meanwhile, in the little world of Middlemarch, the broader world is mirrored: the world of politics, social change, and reforms, as well as betrayal, greed, blackmail, ambition, and disappointment.

From the acclaimed author of Stories of Your Life and Others - the basis for the Academy Award-nominated film Arrival: a groundbreaking new collection of short fiction. In these nine stunningly original, provocative, and poignant stories, Ted Chiang tackles some of humanity’s oldest questions along with new quandaries only he could imagine.

For years, rumors of the "Marsh Girl" have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand.

At times stern, at other times patient, at times perceptive, at other times in sad denial, Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little town of Crosby, Maine, and in the world at large, but she doesn’t always recognize the changes in those around her: a lounge musician haunted by a past romance; a former student who has lost the will to live; Olive’s own adult child, who feels tyrannized by her irrational sensitivities; and her husband, Henry, who finds his loyalty to his marriage both a blessing and a curse. 

Our brains stay active for 10 minutes after our heart stops beating. For Leila, each minute brings with it a new memory: growing up with her father and his wives in a grand old house in a quiet Turkish town; watching the women gossip and wax their legs while the men went to mosque; sneaking cigarettes and Western magazines on her way home from school; running away to Istanbul to escape an unwelcome marriage; falling in love with a student who seeks shelter from a riot in the brothel where she works.