She and Her Cat

She and Her Cat
Author: Makoto Shinkai
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 144
Release: 2022-11-22
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1982165766

For fans of Mieko Kawakami’s Breasts and Eggs and Murata Sayaka’s Earthlings, this Japanese bestseller from renowned anime director Makoto Shinkai features four inspirational and heartwarming vignettes following women and their cats in their quests for love and connection. Lying alone on the edge of the sidewalk in an abandoned cardboard box, a nameless narrator contemplates the indifferent world around him. With his mother long gone, his only company is the sound of the nearby train. Just as he fears that the end is near, a young woman peers down at him, this fateful encounter changing their lives forever. So begins the first story in She and Her Cat, a collection of four interrelated, stream-of-conscious short stories in which four women and their feline companions explore the frailty of life, the pain of isolation, and the limits of communication. With clever narration alternating between the cats and their owners, She and Her Cat offers a unique and sly commentary on human foibles and our desire for connection. A whimsical short story anthology unlike any other, it effortlessly demonstrates that even in our darkest, most lonesome moments, we are still united to this wonderous world—often in ways we could never have expected.

Sissy Jupe

Sissy Jupe
Author: Charles Dickens
Publisher:
Total Pages: 185
Release: 1859
Genre: Electronic book
ISBN:

The Conservatory of Santa Teresa

The Conservatory of Santa Teresa
Author: Bilenchi, Romano
Publisher: Firenze University Press
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2015-10-22
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 8866558230

This volume is the first translation of Romano Bilenchi’s 1940 masterpiece to appear in English. This is surprising since The Conservatory of Santa Teresa is much more than an invaluable historical document of life in provincial Tuscany around the time of the First World War. It is truly one of the most important works of fiction published in Italy under Fascism. In telling of the pre-adolescent Sergio’s encounter with the larger world of sex, politics, and the violence and cruelty of adult life, Bilenchi succeeds in representing a universal paradigm, that of the clash of innocence with experience. But what makes Sergio’s trajectory unique is that he goes through it in the company of three extraordinary women who are at once femmes fatales and benevolent guides: his mother, his aunt, and his tutor, all almost unbearably beautiful, as least in Sergio’s eyes. These women, plus the dazzling landscape of the Sienese countryside as captured by Bilenchi, make Sergio’s journey an enviable even if sometimes painful and bewildering experience.