CUBI - Culture | Biblioteche | In rete

Abstract: Harry Potter è un ragazzo normale, o quantomeno è convinto di esserlo, anche se a volte provoca strani fenomeni, come farsi ricrescere i capelli inesorabilmente tagliati dai perfidi zii. Vive con loro al numero 4 di Privet Drive: una strada di periferia come tante, dove non succede mai nulla fuori dall'ordinario. Finché un giorno, poco prima del suo undicesimo compleanno, riceve una misteriosa lettera che gli rivela la sua vera natura: Harry è un mago e la Scuola di Magia e Stregoneria di Hogwarts è pronta ad accoglierlo...

Abstract: Don Jaime Astarloa es uno de los pocos maestros de esgrima que quedan en la España de finales del siglo XIX. De edad avanzada, subsiste dando clases a algunos alumnos. Dedica su tiempo libre a la que ha sido la obsesión de toda su vida: hallar la estocada perfecta. Un día, una misteriosa mujer, se presenta reclamando los servicios del maestro. No solo eso; además quiere que le enseñe la estocada de los doscientos escudos, uno de los movimientos más efectivos ideados por el maestro. Lo que don Jaime ignora es el verdadero motivo por el que la mujer recurre a él. Esta novela es la historia de un mundo de tahúres y mercachifles mantenido a distancia por un florete honorable. Pero es, sobre todo, una inquietante parábola sobre el poder del dinero, la ambición política y la extinción de los valores de honradez y fidelidad en los finales del siglo XX.

Abstract: Tertuliano Mximo Afonso is a divorced, depressed history teacher. To lift his spirits, a colleague suggests he rent a certain video. Tertuliano watches the film, unimpressed. But during the night, when he is awakened by noises in his apartment, he goes into the living room to find that the VCR is replaying the video. He watches in astonishment as a man who looks exactly like him-or, more specifically, exactly like he did five years before, mustachioed and fuller in the face-appears on the screen. He sleeps badly. Against his better judgment, Tertuliano decides to pursue his double. As he roots out the man's identity, what begins as a whimsical story becomes a "wonderfully twisted meditation on identity and individuality" (The Boston Globe). Saramago displays his remarkable talent in this haunting tale of appearance versus reality.

Abstract: it's been ages since Molly last heard from her mum, Ro, and she's worried. Not that Ro hasn't done this before - since the divorce, Molly hasn't known what to expect from her mother. if only things could go back to the way they were before Ro disappeared and her dad remarried . . . but then she wouldn't have her half-brother Locky, and now she can't imagine her life without him. When a letter finally does arrive, Molly learns her mum's made some big changes . . . but there's an even bigger surprise in store for all of them . . .

Abstract: These deeply empathic and beautifully crafted stories explore the interwoven lives and histories of the people of Tenney's Landing, a small Pennsylvania river town. Catherine Tudish has assembled an array of richly textured characters whose paths intersect in ways both incidental and intimate as they learn that their capacity for hope and forgiveness is greater than they thought.In "Where the Devil Lost His Blanket," Elizabeth Tenney embarks on an unexpected journey to return the remains of her recently deceased neighbor, a woman she barely knew, to South America. "The Dowry" portrays a woman, who, faced with her father's fatal illness, finds herself confronting the tragedy and betrayal that drove her from home. The title character of "Jordan's Stand," a gruff old farmer, forms an unlikely friendship with a young widow as he tries to teach her how to hunt. In "The Springhouse," a woman finds the strength to leave her husband and return to her parents' home, where she becomes the unofficial guardian of all manner of community secrets.Wise, resonant, and exquisitely tender, these stories capture moments of change -- upheaval, renewal, and the quieter revolutions inspired by the small eventfulness of everyday life. Tudish's remarkable debut illuminates the shared human condition through the particulars of a small American town.

Abstract: Una ragazzina si aggira per un luna park ma non ha abbastanza soldi per nessuno dei divertimenti finché trova un tendone con su scritto "Cinema Panopticum". All'interno ci sono cinque scatole, ciascuna delle quali contiene uno schermo su cui viene proiettato un film. Per assistere a una proiezione basta un penny, così la bambina infila una monetina nella prima scatola e, uno dopo l'altro, i film scorrono sotto i suoi occhi e sotto i nostri... Le uniche parole che si accompagnano alle immagini sono i titoli che appaiono sugli schermi: L'hotel, Il campione, L'esperimento, Il profeta, La ragazza. Le incisioni allucinate di Thomas Ott, realizzate con la tecnica dello "scratchboard", ci sprofondano nell'oscurità attraverso cinque racconti horror, inclusa la storia della ragazza che funge da cornice. L'aspetto grezzo connaturato alla tecnica, che consiste nel ricoprire di inchiostro nero il foglio e grattarlo via con un pennino per far emergere i disegni, è sapientemente controbilanciato dalla ricchezza di dettagli e dalla finezza delle espressioni che l'artista conferisce ai personaggi. I loro volti trasmettono con grande efficacia i pensieri e i sentimenti più svariati: curiosità, gioia, diffidenza, disgusto... e, soprattutto, terrore.

Abstract: "A young Don Juan is found murdered in front of his apartment building early one morning, and an elderly couple is reported missing after an excursion to the ancient site of Tindari - two seemingly unrelated cases for Inspector Montalbano to solve amid the daily complications of life at Vigata police headquarters. But when Montalbano discovers that the couple and the murdered young man lived in the same building, his investigation stumbles onto Sicily's brutal "New Mafia," which leads him down a path more evil and far-reaching than any he has been on before."--BOOK JACKET.

Abstract: Set against the backdrop of the Millennium celebrations and Britain's increasingly compromised role in America's war against terrorism, The Closed Circle lifts the lid on an era in which politics and presentation, ideology and the media have become virtually indistinguishable. Darkly comic, hugely engaging, and compulsively readable, it is the much-anticipated follow-up to Jonathan Coe's bestselling novel The Rotters' Club, and reintroduces us to the characters first encountered in that book. But whereas The Rotters' Club was a novel of innocence, The Closed Circle is its opposite: a novel of experience.

Abstract: Edizione integrale in lingua inglese.