Other Classics

Nobel Prize–winning author Saramago departs from his usual dense, linguistic style to write a "mischievous and thoughtful satire on ruling elites and bold dreamers, cast in the form of revisionist fairy-tale" ( Kirkus Reviews ). "A man went to knock at the king's door and said, Give me a boat. The king's house had many other doors, but this was the door for petitions. Since the king spent all his time sitting at the door for favors (favors being offered to the king, you understand), whenever he heard someone knocking at the door for petitions, he would pretend not to hear . . ." Why the petitioner required a boat, where he was bound for, and who volunteered to crew for him, the reader will discover in this delightful fable, a philosophic love story worthy of Swift or Voltaire.

Librarian's note: Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780141182537. Humbert Humbert - scholar, aesthete and romantic - has fallen completely and utterly in love with Dolores Haze, his landlady's gum-snapping, silky skinned twelve-year-old daughter. Reluctantly agreeing to marry Mrs Haze just to be close to Lolita, Humbert suffers greatly in the pursuit of romance; but when Lo herself starts looking for attention elsewhere, he will carry her off on a desperate cross-country misadventure, all in the name of Love. Hilarious, flamboyant, heart-breaking and full of ingenious word play, Lolita is an immaculate, unforgettable masterpiece of obsession, delusion and lust.

An NYRB Classics Original. The tale of a high-spirited, ambitious young woman or man breaking free from stifling provincial constraints to pursue a life of independence is a staple of the novel. In 'Tristana' the great Spanish novelist Benito Pérez Galdós disconcertingly reverses the formula. His beautiful and brilliant and very winning heroine breaks free from a perverse and imprisoning relationship to a womanizing older man, supposed by all to be her father. But after a terrible stroke of misfortune, she retreats—either out of timidity or, perhaps, simply because confinement has its own seductive power. 'Tristana', here in an exceptionally fine and fluent new English rendering by Margaret Jull Costa, is an unequaled exploration of the tragedy of human desire.

Memories of My Melancholy Whores is Gabriel García Márquez’s first work of fiction in ten years, written at the height of his powers, the Spanish edition of which Ilan Stavans called, “Masterful. Erotic. As hypnotizing as it is disturbing” (Los Angeles Times). On the eve of his ninetieth birthday, our unnamed protagonist–an undistinguished journalist and lifelong bachelor–decides to give himself “the gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin.” The girl, whom an old madam procures for him, is splendidly young, with the silent power of a sleeping beauty. The night of love blossoms into a transforming year. It is a year in which he relives, in a rush of memories, his lifetime of (paid-for) sexual adventures and experiences a revelation that brings him to the edge of dying–not of old age, but, at long last, of uncorrupted love. Memories of My Melancholy Whores is a brilliant gem by the master storyteller.

Five-year-old Zezé lives in Rio de Janeiro, in a forgotten slum in great poverty. But Zezé is not alone. In this world of scolding and beating, he has discovered a magical universe where he spends most of his time: the realm of imagination. There rules a sweet orange tree called Minguinho, and he is a tree like no other: he can talk. First published in 1968, this autobiographical novel is one of the most important Brazilian classics.