When it was published in 1932, this revolutionary first fiction redefined the art of the novel with its black humor, its nihilism, and its irreverent, explosive writing style, and made Louis-Ferdinand Celine one of France's--and literature's--most important 20th-century writers. The picaresque adventures of Bardamu, the sarcastic and brilliant antihero of Journey to the End of the Night move from the battlefields of World War I (complete with buffoonish officers and cowardly soldiers), to French West Africa, the United States, and back to France in a style of prose that's lyrical, hallucinatory, and hilariously scathing toward nearly everybody and everything. Yet, beneath it all one can detect a gentle core of idealism.

Titling his book Journey to the End of the Century, SACHAL puts us in the macrocosm of the culture of the Soviet Union through the microcosm of his life there. It was a harsh and difficult beginning: homelessness, starvation, loneliness, diseases, and a painful existence. Never complaining, little Sacha learns how to use experience in the most magical ways. He recounts how he bravely endured, how to use the system of control to survive and fully be himself. This severe beginning prepared Sacha for the horrors of war, for the harshness and severity of the German prison camp and the French Resistance. This hero received the Croix de Guerre in France. He learned how to survive homelessness, severe cold, no food, cruelty, and brutality, and all with a smile, ingenuity, a song on his lips, or his gift of art. He was a genius with poetry in his soul that he later put on canvas. This unforgettable history speaks to us about how to use adversity and to triumph in a sometimes cruel, brutal world. It is a powerful story of how one man learned to be himself, gentle, powerful, resilient, uncomplaining of himself or others throughout this saga of his life. While his story is devastating, it is magnificent that a man such as Sacha can endure and learn from every adversity that being true to himself is the greatest response. This book is an unforgettable read and will enrich all those who venture into Journey to the End of the Century. For more information on Sacha, the man and his art, see www.sachal.com.

The bestselling Journey to the West comic book by artist Chang Boon Kiat is now back in a brand new fully coloured edition. Journey to the West is one of the greatest classics in Chinese literature. It tells the epic tale of the monk Xuanzang who journeys to the West in search of the Buddhist sutras with his disciples, Sun Wukong, Sandy and Pigsy. Along the way, Xuanzang's life was threatened by the diabolical White Bone Spirit, the menacing Red Child and his fearsome parents and, a host of evil spirits who sought to devour Xuanzang's flesh to attain immortality. Bear witness to the formidable Sun Wukong's (Monkey God) prowess as he takes them on, using his Fiery Eyes, Golden Cudgel, Somersault Cloud, and quick wits! Be prepared for a galloping read that will leave you breathless!

The year is 999 A.D. Christians in Europe are preparing themselves for the arrival of the Messiah at the millennium and religious fervour is in the air. Sailing from the North African port of Tangier to a small, distant town called Paris are a Jewish merchant, Ben Attar, his two beloved wives and his Arab partner, Abu Lutfi. They have come for a meeting with their third partner the widower, Raphael Abulafia who has been forced to turn his back on their previous trading partnership because of his new wife's distrust of the dual marriage of Ben Attar. The latter turns this annual trading voyage into a personal quest to legitimise his second wife, restore his honour and, equally important, to show others the richness and humanity in his way of life. A confrontation ensues between people of different cultures whose ways of living and loving are so different, and yet who are of the same religion, believe in the same God and in the same morality. Thus we enter a profound human drama whose moral conflicts of fidelity and desire resonate deeply with our times. A. B. Yehoshua has imaginatively recreated a medieval world with its merchant trade in great depth and sensuous detail. His evocation of one man's love is lyrical, erotic even, and A Journey to the End of the Millennium will rank with the best of Yehoshua's work.

A detailed study of Céline's novel, Journey to the End of the Night

On a sunny July morning in 1919, some 300 military personnel and 81 heavy vehicles assembled on the south side of the White House in Washington DC. The convoy was about to embark on a historic trip over the Lincoln Highway. Their destination was 3,200 miles away in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. There were no maps for the route out west, no service stations, and the convoy relied on the limited knowledge of a handful of earlier pioneers. The convoy was a huge national story, cheered on by millions of people who lined the route. Among the 300 members of the convoy was a 28-year-old lieutenant colonel named Dwight Eisenhower. Utilizing the convoy's official daily log and other secondary material, author Michael Owen drove the exact route of the convoy over what are now lonely backcountry roads or dusty tracks across open western landscapes. Owen relates the particulars of the convoy's historic trip and chronicles the myriad changes along the route over the years. After Ike is the story of a century-old trip that changed the United States and continues to impact us all. About the Author Michael S. Owen is a retired US Ambassador. During his 30 years as a Foreign Service Officer he worked in numerous countries across Africa and Asia. Now that he's back home, he's delighting in traveling around his own country and has driven over the Lincoln Highway several times. He has published several short stories in literary journals, but After Ike is his first full-length book. He lives in Reston, Virginia, with his wife, Annerieke, and their cat, Rusty.

The most blackly humorous and disenchanted voice in all of French literature. London Review of Books