Edgar Colt

Vitor Miguel

Prisma Soulstorm

Serena

Jordan

Bruna Guedes

Husain Kothari

FRNK

Uendi Prifti

Abdul Hasib

Loughlin Sullivan

Delaney Knopp

Harry Potter's life is miserable. His parents are dead and he's stuck with his heartless relatives, who force him to live in a tiny closet under the stairs. But his fortune changes when he receives a letter that tells him the truth about himself: he's a wizard. A mysterious visitor rescues him from his relatives and takes him to his new home, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.After a lifetime of bottling up his magical powers, Harry finally feels like a normal kid. But even within the Wizarding community, he is special. He is the boy who lived: the only person to have ever survived a killing curse inflicted by the evil Lord Voldemort, who launched a brutal takeover of the Wizarding world, only to vanish after failing to kill Harry.Though Harry's first year at Hogwarts is the best of his life, not everything is perfect. There is a dangerous secret object hidden within the castle walls, and Harry believes it's his responsibility to prevent it from falling into evil hands. But doing so will bring him into contact with forces more terrifying than he ever could have imagined.Full of sympathetic characters, wildly imaginative situations, and countless exciting details, the first installment in the series assembles an unforgettable magical world and sets the stage for many high-stakes adventures to come.

Steppenwolf is a poetical self-portrait of a man who felt himself to be half-human and half-wolf. This Faust-like and magical story is evidence of Hesse's searching philosophy and extraordinary sense of humanity as he tells of the humanization of a middle-aged misanthrope. Yet his novel can also be seen as a plea for rigorous self-examination and an indictment of the intellectual hypocrisy of the period. As Hesse himself remarked, "Of all my books Steppenwolf is the one that was more often and more violently misunderstood than any of the others".

"The year is 2051. CONTROL, the government of Europe, keeps everyone happy in a virtual reality. This is a world where it is too hot to go out, and where wonderful music made by dolphins gives everyone pleasure. It's a world which is changed forever when music critic Saul Grant discovers what makes dolphins sing and sets out to free them."Wouldn't this back-cover tidbit catch your attention immediately if you stumbled upon it while browsing through used books? I know it caught mine. It was in the open-air book market in front of Sofia City Library, where I'm doing my EVS. If anything with either 1) dolphins, 2) the Web or 3) dystopian sci-fi is easy enough to pique my interest on its own, imagine my face seeing them combined.The book itself is only 96 pages long and, regardless of the simple language because the book was written specifically for EFL students of around FCE level, I found it to be quite enjoyable and engaging; not pretentious yet interesting; simplified in language but not messages, and quite relevant ones, too.To tell you the truth, I find telling a story in the easiest words possible quite charming. Something in the style just makes my heart softer, like ice cream with warm cookies. It's like watching children's cartoons and being able to appreciate the simple beauty of it just because you're an adult. If a universal truth were spoken, I'm sure it would be closer to such language than to the kind reserved for high philosophy. They say that life is complicated; that's true, but it's also fantastically simple.For what it is, Dolphin Music is really good. I started off by giving this book three stars but writing about it made me happier. I can't see what should stop me from giving it four.

Japan's most highly regarded novelist now vaults into the first ranks of international fiction writers with this heroically imaginative novel, which is at once a detective story, an account of a disintegrating marriage, and an excavation of the buried secrets of World War II.In a Tokyo suburb a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife's missing cat. Soon he finds himself looking for his wife as well in a netherworld that lies beneath the placid surface of Tokyo. As these searches intersect, Okada encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists: a psychic prostitute; a malevolent yet mediagenic politician; a cheerfully morbid sixteen-year-old-girl; and an aging war veteran who has been permanently changed by the hideous things he witnessed during Japan's forgotten campaign in Manchuria.Gripping, prophetic, suffused with comedy and menace, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a tour de force equal in scope to the masterpieces of Mishima and Pynchon.Three books in one volume: The Thieving Magpie, Bird as Prophet, The Birdcatcher. This translation by Jay Rubin is in collaboration with the author.

ONE BILLION YEARS FROM NOW . . . Mankind has reached the heights of civilization. Men live thousands of years in perfect freedom and leisure - their wants are attended to by ingenoius machines - peace and culture flourish in ways undreramed of in our time. And yet . . . mankind is dying. The price of peace has been the loss of the needed human qualities of curiosity and drive - they have been bred out of the human race. So when young Alvin of Diaspar began asking questions, he was looked on as a dangerous freak, a throwback. But Alvin kept asking, kept looking, kept seeking out the truth . . . . . . and what he found offered his people a dreadful choice - battle and destruction, or a new and richer destiny!

Faking News! Newts Trump Humans! I'd become rather blasé when it comes to apocalyptic science fiction. I thought I knew them all, those brave new worlds that writers invent to symbolise the immediate danger of human self-destruction out of sheer stupidity?Think again, Lisa! The newts invited me to the ultimate, unexpected, completely logical fantasy, containing it ALL. Welcome to a roller coaster of the hilarious kind!Does it start with the end of the world as we know it, with the destruction of Earth to give way for a space highway like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? Not quite, but we are heading there…Does it contain human scientific hubris, like The Island of Dr. Moreau? Oh yes, and a lot more ridiculous naivety, if possible! What humans can do, they will do. No matter what the results will be.What about genetically modified plants that fulfill no purpose except for showing us our irresponsible use of natural resources, like in The Day of the Triffids? Actually, the specialised and well-equipped newts make more sense, and are more useful, and potentially more dangerous…What about weapons of mass destruction, used against unknowing humanity, like in The War of the Worlds? Well, humans gave the newts the weapons, and they were not to be beaten by bacteria in the end, despite an internal discussion between the author and the writer (yes!) to consider such a possibility.Best of all, it even suggests a bleak future in Atwood’s spirit, showing a drastically reduced humanity in search of new myths, like MaddAddam and his people.All this, and much, much more, is contained in a small unpretentious book, starting off as a mere farcical adventure story. It changes its shape as the story itself changes, from narrative, to report, to discursive essay, to newspaper clippings and back to farcical narrative again. Not once is it boring, even when you have to go back and forth to read the several pages long footnotes explaining the one sentence you read two pages before. Or when newspaper clippings are published in languages nobody has ever been able to translate. Or when…Not once is it boring. It is the funniest road trip to destruction I have ever read, despite the fact that it is a chillingly truthful allegory on the political developments in the 1930s.It is one of a kind!And universal! Yes, universal Salamandrism is the natural effect of human hubris and stupidity. It was nobody’s fault, really. Everyone just did what they needed to do, to earn more money, to expand territory, to show off power, to do whatever it is humanity does on a daily basis without thinking.That the newts were able to take over and to start changing the world according to their needs, thus creating a mythical flood that reset humanity in a state of pre-biblical, pre-Gilgamesh history, was ultimately the direct consequence of humankind’s delusion that they would always be stronger, more clever, less vulnerable than all other species!Beaten by the mediocrity and homogeneity of a species with less extravagant desires, humanity now has to wait for centuries in remote mountain villages until they can start their comeback:“A new myth about a world flood will arise which God sent for the sins of mankind. There will also be legends of submerged and mythical lands which were the cradle of human culture; perhaps there will be a fable about a land called England, or France, or Germany.”“And then?”“I don’t know what comes next.”Thus ends the final dialogue between author and writer, and despite highlighting three quarters of the book, I will not add any more quotes, for it is my honest opinion that every human being and newt on earth should read this excellent tale firsthand!

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