Showing results by author "Sam Taylor" in All Categories

“A rich family saga . . . [written with] voluptuous lyricism and emotional precision.” —The Washington Post The rebellions within an interracial family play out against the countercultural rebellions of the 1960s in this sexy, stylish, sophisticated new novel by the award-winning...

Maddi Libéri is a successful doctor living an idyllic life in the South of France. On the morning of her son’s tenth birthday, they walk to the beach together. The boy presses for a quick swim, but when the surf is too rough, she sends him off to buy a baguette instead.

Is it true that every life is the stuff of novels? Or are some people just too ordinary? This is the question a struggling Parisian writer asks when he challenges himself to write about the first person he sees when he steps outside his apartment. Secretly hoping to meet the beautiful woman who occasionally smokes on his street, he instead sets eyes on octogenarian Madeleine. She’s happy to become his subject, but first she needs to put her shopping away. Wondering if his project is doomed to be hopelessly banal, he soon finds himself tangled in the lives of Madeleine’s family.

Brought to you by Penguin. Florence, New Year’s Day 1557. As dawn breaks, a painter is discovered lying on the floor of a church, stabbed through the heart. Above him, the paintings he laboured over for more than a decade. At his home, a hidden painting scandalously depicting Maria de Medici...

Morocco, 1968. As she stands at the window, Mathilde reflects on the opportunities before her. Looking out at her garden, the roses - brought in from Marrakech - have bloomed and their sweet, fresh scent pervades the garden. Anything feels possible, and she is determined to celebrate it. Don't they have the right to enjoy life, after dedicating their best years to the war and then to this farm?

Alsace, 1944. Mathilde finds herself falling deeply in love with Amine Belhaj, a Moroccan soldier, billeted in her town, fighting for the French. After the Liberation, Mathilde leaves France, following Amine to Morocco. But life here is unrecognisable to this brave and passionate young woman. Where she once danced, bickered with her sister, her life is now that of a farmer's wife - with all the sacrifices and vexations that brings. Suffocated by the heat, by her loneliness on the farm, by the mistrust she inspires as a foreigner and by the lack of money, Mathilde grows restless.

Over one night, alone in the Punta della Dogana Museum in Venice, Leïla Slimani grapples with the self as it is revealed in solitude. In a place of old and new, she confronts her past and her present, through her life as a Moroccan woman, as a writer, and as a daughter. Surrounded by art, she explores what it means to behold and clasp beauty; enveloped by night, she confronts the meaning of life and death.

Adèle appears to have the perfect life. A respected journalist, she lives in a flawless Parisian apartment with her surgeon husband and their young son. But beneath the veneer of 'having it all', she is bored - and consumed by an insatiable need for sex, whatever the cost. Struggling to contain the twin forces of compulsion and desire, she begins to orchestrate her life around her one-night stands and extramarital affairs, arriving late to work and lying to her husband about where she's been, until she becomes ensnared in a trap of her own making.

One of the most significant literary events of the century, the discovery of manuscript pages containing early drafts of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time put an end to a decades-long search for the Proustian grail. The Paris publisher Bernard de Fallois claimed to have viewed the folios, but doubts about their existence emerged when none appeared in the Proust manuscripts bequeathed to the Bibliotheque Nationale in 1962. The texts had in fact been hidden among Fallois's private papers, found upon his death in 2018.

More like a poetic biographical essay on a fictional person than a novel, The Cook is a coming-of-age journey centered on Mauro, a young self-taught cook. The story is told by an unnamed female narrator, Mauro’s friend and disciple who we also suspect might be in love with him. Set not only in Paris but in Berlin, Thailand, Burma, and other far-flung places over the course of fifteen years, the book is hyperrealistic - to the point of feeling, at times, like a documentary.

Hubert Mingarelli’s simple, powerful, and moving stories of men in combat have established him as one of the most exciting new voices in international fiction. In Four Soldiers he tells the story of four young soldiers in 1919, members of the Red Army during the Russian civil war. It is set in the harsh dead of winter, just as the soldiers set up camp in a forest in Galicia near the Romanian front line. Due to a lull in fighting, their days are taken up with the mundane tasks of trying to scratch together what food and comforts they can find, all the time while talking.

In the cold, treacherous land of Vesimaa, children are stolen from their families by a cruel emperor, forced to undergo a horrific transformative procedure and serve in the army as magical fire-wielding soldiers. Pran and Oksana - both taken from their homeland at a young age - only have each other to hold onto in this heartless place. When they discover the emperor has a new, more terrible mission than ever for their kind, Pran and Oksana vow to escape his tyranny once and for all.

On the night of 22 December 1980, a plane crashes on the Franco-Swiss border and is engulfed in flames. Out of 169 passengers. 168 are killed instantly. The miraculous sole survivor is a newborn baby. But the identity of the child is unknown, and two families - one rich and affluent, and the other poor - step forward to claim her. So begins a private investigation that wil go on for the next 18 years.... The novel opens on the eve of the girl's 18th birthday.

In an idyllic resort on the island of La Réunion, Liane Bellion and her husband, Martial, are enjoying the perfect moment with their six-year-old daughter. Turquoise skies, blue sea, palm trees, a warm breeze. Then Liane disappears. She goes up to her hotel room between three and four p.m. and never comes back. Her husband, worried, goes to the room along with the concierge - the room is empty, but there is blood everywhere. Despite his protestations of innocence, the police view Martial as their prime suspect.

1950's Bordeaux. Even now, the Second World War is never far from people's memories, particularly in a city where the scars of collaboration and resistance are more keenly felt than ever. But another war has already begun. A war without a name, far away across the sea, in Algeria, where young men are sent to fight in a brutal conflict. Daniel knows what awaits him. He's heard stories. Patrols, ambushes, reprisals, massacres, mutilations, all beneath a burning North African sun.

In one unforgettable night, Max Spiegelman's life splits in two. As war looms and Nazism continues to rise, Max is forced into choices that place him and his alter ego on opposing sides of a divided world. Tethered by their dreams, the boys watch helplessly, haunted by visions of what could have been. But in each parallel universe, they share a magnetic bond with an enchanting, grey-eyed girl.

An elderly bookseller improbably keeps his shop open in Palestine, telling a foreign correspondent the ways in which literature has provided him with refuge and inspiration A young French photographer travels to Palestine to report on the bombings in the Gaza Strip. One morning, during a...

This is the story of two sisters, Mia and Inés. Two girls enveloped in love, trapped by social conventions of Casablanca at the dawn of the 21st century and silenced by the political 'truths' that envelop their lives. Mia - the older sister, a warrior and a pariah, her sexuality a matter of scorn, a truth to be erased. Inés - the little sister, a woman trying to carve out an identity in a Paris that derides and erases her with no way back to Morocco, a homeland her father has warned her never to return to for her own sake.

The Full Court Press is the most energetic and entertaining weekly college basketball related podcast. 40 mins of excitement as Sam Davidson and Luke Taylor discuss hoops with college coaches, current players, former greats and lovers of the greatest game on earth. Hear untold stories, unbiased commentary and reporting, insider information and so much more on the Full Court Press : A College Basketball Coaches Show.

Welcome to One Thing about Us, a show about 2 twenty-somethings balancing their life while learning and laughing on the way. Think of it like catching up with an old friend on FaceTime, or a girls chit chat over brunch and mimosas. Come along on our journey of personal growth, leveling up our lifestyle, enjoying city life, and feeling our best, with a little bit of chaos along the way. Wellness advice? Pop Culture? Fashion? Crazy party stories? You name it, we cover it. One thing about us, we LOVE to talk. So look forward to new episodes every Wednesday Keep up with us on socials: @...