Wonderful stories of Communist Prague by “the masterly Bohumil Hrabal” (The New Yorker) Never before published in English, the stories in Mr. Kafka and Other Tales from the Time of the Cult were written mostly in the 1950s and present the Czech master Bohumil Hrabal at the height of his powers. The stories capture a time when Czech Stalinists were turning society upside down, inflicting their social and political experiments on mostly unwilling subjects. These stories are set variously in the gas-lit streets of post-war Prague; on the raucous and dangerous factory floor of the famous Poldi steelworks where Hrabal himself once worked; in a cacophonous open-air dance hall where classical and popular music come to blows; at the basement studio where a crazed artist attempts to fashion a national icon; on the scaffolding around a decommissioned church. Hrabal captures men and women trapped in an eerily beautiful nightmare, longing for a world where “humor and metaphysical escape can reign supreme.”

A sexy and hilarious new novel from the bestselling author of Perfect Strangers. British and ballsy, Freya is a free-spirited Manhattan art dealer who thinks her live-in lawyer boyfriend, Michael, is about to propose. So what if he's as straight-laced as she is fearless - who needs passion? But when she shows up for their romantic dinner in a thousand-dollar dress and a new hairstyle, he takes her hand, looks deeply into her eyes, and asks if they can be--just friends. Next thing she knows, Freya is paying a desperate visit to her long-time friend Jack, crashing his poker game and bunking temporarily with him. Tensions inevitably begin to rise. Freya's caustic take on Candace, Jack's luscious new girlfriend, is cramping his style. Besides, he has to finish writing the great American novel, and prove himself to his wealthy father. But he is willing to help Freya out (of his apartment, that is). Meanwhile, Freya's biggest dilemma is that she needs a date (and fast) for the wedding of the century: her younger sister has nabbed the most eligible bachelor in London. Freya desperately wants someone to show off, and suddenly, Jack, in all his sexy blond gorgeousness, is starting to look more and more like wedding - if not exactly marriage - material. From New York to London, and all the urban hot spots, watering holes, and dating disaster grounds in between, Just Friends is a delightful, devilishly clever look at the enduring quest to find "the one."

John Fante is a lost gem of American literature and the man who was credited by Charles Bukowski as the inspiration for him to start writing. In a life that spanned 74 years, Fante wrote several great novels, such as Ask the Dust, and numerous screenplays. He died in 1983 from diabetes-related complications. Trapped in a small, poverty-ridden town in 1933, seventeen-year-old Dominic Molise yearns to fulfil his own dreams of becoming an American sports hero. This teenage southpaw aspires to the big leagues, big recognition and big love. He struggles, though, against the reality of his Italian parents, and comes under pressure to go into the family business. Brick-laying is not for Dominic. His father, however, seeks to pre-empt the inevitable road to failure by wanting Dominic to pick up a trowel instead of a pitcher's glove. His mother's response is to pray. At once the story of class and an individual's struggle during hard times in America, 1933 was a Bad Year is a wonderful tale of childhood and its dissipation into adulthood.

Enter the gas-lit streets of post-war Prague, the steelworks run by singed men, the covered market that smells of new-born babes, the cacophonous open-air dance hall. Mr Kafka is avoiding his landladyâe(tm)s blueberry wine breath, a stonemason witnesses the destruction of a monument to Stalin he risked his life to build, and factory men strain to catch a glimpse of a beautiful bathing murderess. In these newly discovered stories, Hrabal captures men and women in an eerily beautiful nightmare and their spirit in all its misery and splendour.

Since it was first published in 2005, Grimm Fairy Tales has been one of the hottest independent comics on the market. Featuring some of the most beautiful women in comics, Grimm Fairy Tales covers have been turning heads from day one. Collected digitally for the first time are the covers for the first 50 issues of this landmark series. With stunning artwork by some of the top artists in the industry including Al Rio, J. Scott Campbell and Eric Basuldua, this collector's edition is sure to be a fan favorite.

In The Seigneurial Transformation, Alessio Fiore discusses the transformation of the fabric of power in the kingdom of Italy in the period between the late eleventh century and the early twelfth century. The study analyses the major socio-political change of this period, the crisis of royal and public structures, and the development of seigneurial powers, using as a starting point the structures of power over men and land, and the discourses about the exercise of local power. This period was marked by a rapid reshaping of the structures of local power; while the outbreak of civil wars in the 1080s did not imply a clear-cut rupture with the past, it led to a staggering acceleration of pre-existing dynamics, with a reconfiguration of the matrix of power, in turn expressed in a transformation both of the instruments of local political communications and of the practices of power.