has a neighbour who can tell people’s fortunes by looking at the indents in their beds; Marci and Ian battle cockroaches while entertaining in their student apartment; and Anika receives bizarre photographs from an anonymous fan. In this first collection of short fiction, Michael Trussler meticulously observes the human experience, painting a portrait of ordinary life as a collision between the bizarre and the prosaic. The characters in each tableau encounter their own strengths and limitations due to circumstances beyond their control. With Encounters, Trussler delves into the lives of a handful of contemporary urban dwellers from a variety of backgrounds, relating their stories with realism and self-awareness.  (less)

their footsteps, the narrator retraces routes which lead from Lithuania to London, from Munich to Manchester, from the South German provinces to Switzerland, France, New York, Constantinople, and Jerusalem. Along with memories of the Holocaust, he collects documents, diaries, pictures. Each story is illustrated with enigmatic photographs, making The Emigrants seem at times almost like a family album - but of families destroyed. Sebald weaves together variant forms (travelog, biography, autobiography, and historical monograph), combining precise documentary with fictional motifs. As he puts the question to realism, the four stories merge gradually into one requiem, overwhelming and indelible.  (less)

his own adventures in this exotic region against a rich historical and cultural background, recreating the exploits of and describing the dramatic changes that recent years have wrought on Chinese life and society. From the palaces of Lhasa to the pristine strongholds of the snow leopard, the 85 splendid color photographs and compelling narrative map a geography that stretches the bounds of imagination.brbrbriFrom the Trade Paperback edition./i"In this magnificent book the text becomes a moving counterpoint to photographs .... The ragged, gleaming peaks of the Himalayas are captured with an ultimate realism, as if a window had opened on the page, and we ourselves were peering through it .... This is a breaking free, a testimony to the Earth's original, untameable wildness."brbrNew York Times Book Reviewbrbr"Galen Rowell has surpassed himself. The pictures are magnificent and eloquent .... As clear-eyed and compelling a book about China today as I have read."brbrWall Street Journalbrbr"A journalistic coup... remarkably evocative photographs and authoritative text."brbrSports Illustratedbrbr"Truly incomparable is Galen Rowell's Mountains of the Middle Kingdom. I found it almost impossible to simply read this book. I consumed it, gasping in the thin air at the sights and stories of lands and peoples and adventures and tragedies -- the stuff of dreams."brbrLos Angeles Timesbrbr"The perfect gift for those obsessed by 'the private joy of high places.'"brbrSignaturebrbrbriFrom the Trade Paperback edition./i  (less)