Amsterdam Stories

Amsterdam Stories
Author: Nescio
Publisher: New York Review of Books
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2012-03-20
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1590175077

No one has written more feelingly and more beautifully than Nescio about the madness and sadness, courage and vulnerability of youth: its big plans and vague longings, not to mention the binges, crashes, and marathon walks and talks. No one, for that matter, has written with such pristine clarity about the radiating canals of Amsterdam and the cloud-swept landscape of the Netherlands. Who was Nescio? Nescio—Latin for “I don’t know”—was the pen name of J.H.F. Grönloh, the highly successful director of the Holland–Bombay Trading Company and a father of four—someone who knew more than enough about respectable maturity. Only in his spare time and under the cover of a pseudonym, as if commemorating a lost self, did he let himself go, producing over the course of his lifetime a handful of utterly original stories that contain some of the most luminous pages in modern literature. This is the first English translation of Nescio’s stories.

Ulrich Haarbürste's Novel of Roy Orbison in Clingfilm

Ulrich Haarbürste's Novel of Roy Orbison in Clingfilm
Author: Ulrich Haarbürste
Publisher: Courier Dover Publications
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2019-08-14
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0486834670

"This novel may appear to cater to specialised tastes. But it is highly recommended to nonfetishists, who will find it inventively hilarious." — The Guardian "The sunlight glints on the translucent triumph of science. The faint rasp as I unspool it sends delirious brightly colored butterflies flocking through my stomach. I am like a tailor of the elves bedecking him in a shimmering suit of some magical material. Soon, Roy Orbison stands before all of Düsseldorf wrapped up in clingfilm. Silent white light floods my whole being and I become one with the universe." Just as the avant-garde artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude employed cloth to drape prominent buildings, Ulrich Haarbürste has adopted plastic wrap — or clingfilm — as his medium. His focus, however, is no inanimate landmark; it's the popular music icon Roy Orbison. In this singular novel, Haarbürste relates a series of encounters with the legendary musician that culminate with the former wrapping the latter from head to toe in clingfilm, to the author's immense satisfaction. This edition includes several related short stories, and as the author modestly observes, "Not to speak boastfully, but it is perhaps the only book you will ever need to own on the subject of wrapping Roy Orbison in clingfilm."