Ergebnis von "Lionel Shriver" in Alle Kategorien

In a reality not too distant from our own, where the so-called Mental Parity Movement has taken hold, the worst thing you can call someone is 'stupid'. Everyone is equally clever, and discrimination based on intelligence is 'the last great civil rights fight'. Best friends since adolescence, Pearson and Emory find themselves on opposing sides of this new culture war. Radio personality Emory – who has built her career riding the tide of popular thought – makes increasingly hard-line statements while, for her part, Pearson believes the whole thing is ludicrous.

The brilliant new novel from the Orange Prize-winning author of We Need to Talk About Kevin centres on three generations of the Mandible family as a fiscal crisis hits a near-future America. It is 2029. The Mandibles have been counting on a sizable fortune filtering down when their 97-year-old patriarch dies. Yet America's soaring national debt has grown so enormous that it can never be repaid. Under siege from an upstart international currency, the dollar is in meltdown.

Eva never really wanted to be a mother - and certainly not the mother of a boy who ends up murdering seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker, and a much-adored teacher who tried to befriend him, all two days before his 16th birthday. Now, two years later, it is time for her to come to terms with marriage, career, family, parenthood, and Kevin’s horrific rampage, in a series of startlingly direct correspondences with her estranged husband, Franklin.

When her father dies, Kay Wilkinson can’t cry. Over 10 years, Alzheimer’s had steadily eroded this erudite man into a paranoid lunatic. Surely one’s own father passing should never come as such a relief. Both medical professionals, Kay and her husband Cyril have seen too many elderly patients in similar states of decay. Although healthy and vital in their early 50s, the couple fears what may lie ahead. Determined to die with dignity, Cyril makes a modest proposal.

In Lionel Shriver's entertaining send-up of today's cult of exercise - which not only encourages better health, but now like all religions also seems to promise meaning, social superiority, and eternal life - an aging husband's sudden obsession with extreme sport makes him unbearable.

Kevin Khatchadourian killed several of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker, and a teacher, shortly before his 16th birthday. He is visited in prison by his mother, Eva, who narrates in a series of letters to her estranged husband, Franklin, the story of Kevin's upbringing. A successsful career woman, Eva is reluctant to forgo her independence and the life she shares with Franklin to become a mother.

In an alternative 2011, the Mental Parity movement takes hold. Americans now embrace the sacred, universal truth that there is no such thing as variable human intelligence. Because everyone is equally smart, discrimination against purportedly dumb people is "the last great civil rights fight." Tests, grades, and employment qualifications are all discarded. Children are expelled for saying the S-word (“stupid”) and encouraged to report parents who use it at home.

Irina McGovern's destiny hinges on a single kiss. Whether she gives into its temptation will determine whether she stays with her reliable partner, Lawrence, or runs off with Ramsey, a hard-living snooker player. Employing a parallel universe structure, Shriver spins Irina's competing futures with two drastically different men. An intellectual and fellow American, Lawrence is clever and supportive but rigid and emotionally withdrawn. A British celebrity, Ramsey is passionate and spontaneous but jealous and undereducated.

When Pandora picks up her older brother, Edison, at her local Iowa airport, she literally doesn’t recognize him. The once slim, hip New York jazz pianist has gained hundreds of pounds. What happened? Soon Edison’s slovenly habits, appalling diet, and know-it-all monologues are driving Pandora and her fitness-freak husband Fletcher insane. After the brother-in-law has more than overstayed his welcome, Fletcher delivers his wife an ultimatum: It’s him or me. Rich with Shriver’s distinctive wit and ferocious energy, Big Brother is about fat: why we overeat and whether extreme diets ever really work.

Allergic to group activities of any kind, all her life Serenata has run, swum and cycled on her lonesome. But now that she's hit 60, all that physical activity has destroyed her knees. As she contemplates surgery with dread, her previously sedentary husband, Remington, recently and ignominiously redundant, chooses this precise moment to discover exercise. Which should be good for his health, right? Yet as he joins the cult of fitness that seems increasingly to consume the whole of the Western world, her once-modest husband burgeons into an unbearable narcissist. 

World-famous anthropologist Gray Kaiser has almost everything. She is brilliance, self-sufficient, and beautiful. But at 59, one thing is still missing from her life. She has never been in love. Her assistant Errol McEchern has loved her for many years, but she doesn't know.

After having escaped for years to London, Corlis McCrea returns to the grand Reconstruction mansion where she grew up in North Carolina, now willed to the three grown children following the death of their parents. All three want the house. Fiscal necessity dictates that two must buy a third out. Just as she was torn as a girl, the sister must choose between her decent younger brother and the renegade eldest - the black sheep who covets his legacy in order to destroy it.

Determined to die with dignity, Kay and her husband, Cyril - both healthy and vital medical professionals in their early 50s - make a pact: to commit suicide together once they’ve both turned 80. A lot can change in 30 years, however....

Uma guerra fria de escala mundial reestrutura a ordem socioeconômica do planeta, criando novos eixos de poder. A União Europeia se desfaz, a China enfim é alçada ao posto de maior potência global e o longo período de prosperidade dos Estados Unidos chega ao fim. Da noite para o dia, o dólar despenca e, além do valor, perde também seu prestígio: uma nova moeda internacional, o bancor, chega para substituí-lo.

When Weston Babansky receives an extravagant engagement present from his best friend (and old flame), Jillian Frisk, he doesn't quite know what to make of it - or how to get it past his fiancée. Especially as it's a massive, handmade, intensely personal sculpture that they'd have to live with forever. As the argument rages about whether Jillian's gift was an act of pure platonic generosity or something more insidious, battle lines are drawn....

When Pandora picks up her older brother Edison at the airport, she doesn't recognize him. In the four years since the siblings last saw each other, he has gained hundreds of pounds. What happened? Imposing himself on Pandora's world, Edison breaks her husband Fletcher's handcrafted furniture, and entices her stepson to drop out of high school. After the brother-in-law has more than overstayed his welcome, Fletcher delivers his wife an ultimatum: It's him or me.

Avec une plume plus incisive que jamais et un humour ravageur, Lionel Shriver livre un roman explosif sur un couple de sexagénaires en crise, dressant au passage un portrait mordant de nos sociétés obsédées par la santé et le culte du corps. Un beau matin, au petit-déjeuner, Remington fait une annonce tonitruante à son épouse Serenata : cette année, il courra un marathon. Tiens donc ?

Une réflexion sur notre rapport à la vieillesse et sur l'art délicat de préparer sa sortie. Ils l'ont décidé depuis longtemps. Pour ne pas disparaître dans l'indignité, la sénilité, la misère d'un système de santé défaillant, Kay et Cyril mettront fin à leur vie le jour de leurs 80 ans – ensemble. Depuis lors, la petite pilule attend sur les étagères du frigo, dans une boîte à savon. Mais l'échéance approchant, le vieux couple ne voit plus la chose du même œil. Tandis que la date fatidique approche, douze fins potentielles s'ouvrent à eux. Douze options possibles. À prendre. Ou à laisser.

The first ever story collection from the inimitable Lionel Shriver. This landmark publication, the first collection of stories from a master of the form, explores the idea of 'property' in both senses of the word: real estate and stuff. These sharp, brilliantly imaginative pieces illustrate how our possessions act as proxies for ourselves and how tussles over ownership articulate the power dynamics of our relationships. In Shriver’s world, we may possess people and objects and places, but in turn they possess us.

A striking new collection of ten short stories and two novellas that explores the idea of property in every meaning of the word, from the acclaimed New York Times best-selling author of the National Book Award finalist So Much for That and the international best seller We Need to Talk About Kevin.