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The Penalty Area is a heartwarming novel about overcoming adversity, making human connections, and playing the glorious game of soccer.Vincent once had a shot at becoming a professional soccer player, but a career-ending injury put an end to his dreams. A tough kid from a poor family, he has become an emotionally cut-off man with frustrated hopes and limited options. He finds himself coaching an under-16 soccer club in an attempt to keep alive his only passion in life.The team he coaches is little more than a roster of hotheaded boys, none of whom understands the on-field chemistry needed to win. Simply put, they aren't of a championship caliber. When his unemployed sister Madeleine, a single mother, dumps her thirteen-year-old son on him, Vincent panics. With no clue how to take care of a teenager, he brings his nephew to practice and eventually throws him into the scrimmage. It's then that Vincent notices there's something strange about Leonard. He has a preternatural ability for anticipating each striker's intentions, making him a remarkably talented goalkeeper, but he seems detached, absent, lost. It becomes clear thatLeonardhas undiagnosed Asperger's syndrome, and also that, withLeonard's abilities as a goalkeeper, Vincent's ragtag team has a chance to reach the finals. For that to happen, for the team to find a reason to rally behind this strange kid from Paris, Vincent will have to let down his guard and open his heart for the first time ever.A warm and engaging read, The Penalty Area is about building a sense of family on your own terms.

Celebrated short-story writer, Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt's (The Most Beautiful Book in the World) first full-length novel to appear in English is a literary tour de force, a magnificent cathedral of contemporary eroticism.The Carousel of Desire is a sexual and romantic saga told with a master storyteller's feel for character and plot and a philosopher's abiding preoccupation with what makes life truly worthwhile. With tenderness and infectious delight, Schmitt tells an exuberant tale about class and community and about the vastness of human experience. Schmitt's love of coincidence and serendipity is surpassed only by his affection for his flawed, all-too-human characters: Zachary Bidermann, the powerful European Union commissioner; Faustina, the fashionable book publicist; Franois-Maxime de Couvigne, the happily married banker with more than a few secrets; Marcelle, enamored with a handsome illegal immigrant; Miss Beauvert, who makes love with her parrot, Copernicus. These and many more unforgettable characters animate this story of simmering desire and the antics of the mischievous and playful god, Eros.Schmitt's inclusive, affirming vision of human sexuality is refreshingly free of moral judgement, yet enriched by an understanding of the complex ethics of human relationships and the redemptive power of love.

A fun and farcical novel, this new "e;whodunit"e; about life in multicultural Italy by Amara Lakhous will delight fans of Lakhous' earlier bestseller, Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio, and readers of novels such as The Yacoubian Buildingby Alaa Al Aswany.Bittersweet, like any self-respecting Italian comedy, The Prankis a Pirandellian exploration of identity in today's multicultural, polyglot societies. Lakhous draws inspiration from everyday reality, describing his approach to writing as "e;total literature,"e; a term he has adapted from soccer's "e;total football."e; He plays in attack, describing in this work the realities of an Italy of the future with colorful characters portrayed in limpid but lively prose.From the Trade Paperback edition.

In the twelfth century AD, Venice is little more than an agglomeration of small islands snatched from the muddy tides. The magnificent city-lagoon of Venice, the rich and powerful Serene Republic, is yet to be born. Here, in this northern backwater, a group of artisans have proven themselves to be unrivalled in an art form that produces works of such astounding beauty that many consider it mystical in nature and think its practitioners possessed of otherworldly gifts. They are glassmakers. Presciently aware of the power they wield and the role they will play in the Venice of the future, the Venetian glassmakers inhabit a world of esoteric practices and secret knowledge that they protect at all costs. Into this world steps Edgardo D'Arduino, a cleric and a professional copyist. Edgardo's eyesight has begun to wavera curse for a man who makes his living copying sacred texts. But he has heard stories, perhaps legends, that in Venice, city of glassmakers, there exists a stone, the lapides ad legendum, that can restore one's sight. However, finding men who have knowledge of this wondrous stone proves almost impossible. After much searching, Edgardo meets a mysterious man who offers him a deal: he will lead him to the makers of the lapides ad legendum in exchange for Edgardo's stealing a secret Arabic scientific text that is kept in the abbey where Edgardo lodges. When a series of horrific crimes shakes the cloistered world of the glassmakers, Edgardo realizes that there is much more at stake than his faltering eyesight. Equal parts The Name of the Rose and The Da Vinci Code, Roberto Tiraboschi's English-language debut is a gripping historical thriller and a magnificent recreation of Venice in the Middle Ages.

The acclaimed author of Broken Glass Park brings her "e;warmth, humor and sharp observational eye"e; to a disfigured teenager's coming of age in Berlin (Kirkus Reviews).Once a handsome teenager, seventeen-year-old Marek is left badly disfigured after a Rottweiler attack. Now his mother sends him to a support group for young people with physical disabilities-what he calls "e;the cripple group"e;-led by an eccentric older man only known as "e;the guru"e;. Angry at the world and dismissive of the group, Marek sees no connection between their misfortunes and his own. Then a family crisis forces Marek to face his demons, and he finds himself in dire need of support. But the distance he has put between himself and the guru's misshapen acolytes may well be too great to bridge.Just Call Me Superhero cements Alina Bronsky's reputation as one of Germany's most compelling and stylish young authors. An atmospheric evocation of modern Berlin, a vivid portrait of youth under pressure, and a moving story about learning to love, this new novel from the author of Broken Glass Park and Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine is an irreverent look at the sometimes-difficult work of self-acceptance.

The Da Vinci Code meets Stephen Greenblatt's The Swerve in this erudite adventure story set at the dawn of the printed book about the outlaw poet Franois Villon and the power of words to change the world.Franois Villon, the world's first poet of modernity, was born in Paris in 1431. He was arrested and condemned to death by hanging in 1462 and exonerated in 1463. Shortly after his release from prison, as far as history is concerned, he disappeared forever. In Raphal Jerusalmy's thrilling novel, to ensure his release, Villon has accepted a shady deal offered by the Bishop of Paris at the behest of Louis XI. All Villon has to do to earn his freedom is to convince a printer and bookseller to move from Mayence to Paris, telling him that by doing so he'll be better able to circulate progressive ideas that aren't approved of in Rome. Not surprisingly, Villon's task becomes more complicated that it first seemed. With this riveting tale of plots and counterplots involving secret organizations in Jerusalem, intrigue in France, and brigands in Italy, Raphal Jerusalmy leaves readers with their hearts racing and their imaginations stirred. The Brotherhood of Book Hunters is an irresistible read for lovers of books, adventure, and fine writing.

This ';sharp-edged comedic novel of a semi-hapless Italian lawyer' who finds himself employed by the mob was a finalist for Italy's prestigious Strega Prize (Kirkus Reviews). Vincenzo Malinconico is a wildly unsuccessful lawyer who spends most of his time at the office trying to look busy. His wife has left him. His teenage children worry him to death. And he suffers from a chronic inability to control his sentence structure. When he is asked to fill in as the public defender for alleged Mafioso Mimmo 'o Burzone, Malinconico seizes the opportunity to turn his life around. Without dwelling too long on what it might mean to be employed by the mob, he rushes to re-learn the Italian criminal code. Soon, Malinconico's life becomes a comic battle to finish what he has started without falling further into the mafia's clutches. Diego De Silva's rollicking, Naples Prizewinning comic novel orbits the irresistible mind of one of contemporary Italian fiction's most beloved characters. Throughout his travails, Vincenzo contemplates every aspect of the life he sees before him in a wry voice that seduces, entertains, and moves the reader from the first page to the last.

From the author of The Angry Buddhist: ';An intoxicating and ultimately moving modern romance... A story that's all the sweeter for its shadows' (Los Angeles Review of Books). I Regret Everything confronts the oceanic uncertainty of what it means to be alive, and in love. Jeremy Best, a Manhattan-based trusts and estates lawyer, leads a second life as published poet Jinx Bell. To his boss's daughter, Spaulding Simonson, at thirty-three years old, Jeremy is already halfway to dead. When Spaulding, an aspiring nineteen-year-old writer, discovers Mr. Best's alter poetic ego, the two become bound by a devotion to poetry, and an awareness that time in this world is limited. Their budding relationship strikes at the universality of love and loss, as Jeremy and Spaulding confront their vulnerabilities, revealing themselves to one another and the world for the very first time. A skilled satirist with a talent for biting humor, Seth Greenland creates fully realized characters that quickly reveal themselves as complex renderings of the human conditionat its very best, and utter worst. I Regret Everything explores happiness and heartache with a healthy dose of skepticism, and an understanding that the reality of love encompasses life, death, iambic pentameter, regret, trusts, and estates. ';Affecting and funny.' The New York Times ';Edgy and sweet, witty and wise, I Regret Everything is rollicking good fun. It's also, in the end, a deeply moving love story between two unforgettable characters discovering what it means to truly be alive.' Maria Semple, New York Timesbestselling author of Where'd You Go Bernadette ';A poignant story of dreams and the way they can crash into the reality of the dreamers.' Booklist

A Paris police detective is haunted by a murderous evil in this chillingly macabre mystery.Murder and depravity are Police Commissioner Amedee Mallock's daily bread. As far as he is concerned, mankind has been thoroughly abandoned by God, and the visions that haunt him do nothing to disabuse him of this notion. But nothing he has encountered has prepared him for the sudden appearance of a serial killer dubbed "e;the Makeup Artist."e; The bodies of the killer's first victims, found in four separate neighborhoods of Paris, are monstrous works of art, demented expressions of corrupted piety. These crimes are unprecedented in their ferocity and their intricacy-and the deeper Mallock investigates, the greater the mysteries and the enigmas. Foremost among them: Is a solution to a series of crimes behind which the devil himself seems to lurk even conceivable?A blend of noir mystery, horror, and theological thriller, The Faces of God is ideal for fans of dark, atmospheric crime fiction.