Inner World

La nostalgie de l'ange

d' Alice Sebold

Quatrième de couverture
Nom de famille : Salmon, saumon comme le poisson ; prénom : Susie.Assassinée à l'âge de quatorze ans, le 6 décembre 1973. « Mon prof préféré était celui de sciences naturelles, Mr. Botte, qui aimait faire danser les grenouilles et les écrevisses à disséquer dans leur bocal paraffiné, comme pour leur rendre vie. Ce n'est pas Mr. Botte qui m'a tuée, au fait. Et ne vous imaginez pas que tous ceux que vous allez croiser ici sont suspects. C'est bien ça le problème. On n'est jamais sûr de rien... C'est un voisin qui m'a tuée. »

Susie est au Ciel, et pourtant son aventure ne fait que commencer...

« Un roman sans limites : on le commence, on oublie tout, et c'est encore mieux qu'au cinéma... » Yann Queffelec

« Un roman fantastique... Un chef-d'oeuvre insolite et poignant. » Gilles Martin-Chauffier, rédacteur en chef de Paris-Match

« La Nostalgie de l'Ange est une des expériences de lecture les plus étranges que j'ai faite depuis longtemps, et aussi des plus mémorables... Un chef-d'oeuvre d'imagination et un hommage au pouvoir apaisant de la douleur. » Michael Chabou

Un Nuage dans le Placard

d' Amanda Filipacchi

Présentation de l'éditeur
Anna Graham n’a qu’un désir: devenir actrice. Malheureusement, elle n’a aucun talent. Son professeur d’art théâtral, sans y croire vraiment, lui a conseillé de pratiquer l’auto-effacement mais, malgré tous ses efforts, Anna est impuissante à mettre en veilleuse sa vibrante personnalité. Son destin bascule une nuit, dans le métro new-yorkais: au cours d’un de ces exercices de changement de personnalité qu’elle s’impose régulièrement, elle sauve la vie d’un inconnu.Ce bref moment de courage, Anna va le payer cher, pour le meilleur… et pour le pire. Comment aurait-elle pu prévoir que cet inconnu, Damon Wetly, allait lui prouver sa reconnaissance de la manière la plus extravagante?

Le Pouvoir des Ténèbres

de John Connolly

Présentation de l'éditeur
Grâce Peltier, étudiante en histoire, ne s'est pas suicidée. On l'a " aidée ". Charlie Parker en est convaincu : quelques années mouvementées dans la police, suivies d'un reclassement volontaire en qualité de détective privé, ont affiné son flair naturel. Et la mort de la jeune femme pourrait même être liée aux sinistres " baptistes d'Aroostock ". Cette secte, sujet de thèse de Grâce, fait la une des journaux depuis que l'on a retrouvé un charnier dans le nord du Maine. Le rapport de police a conclu au suicide collectif. Pas un des membres de la société secrète n'aurait survécu à ce massacre datant de plusieurs dizaines d'années. Et pourtant, le chemin qui conduit peu à peu Parker à enquêter sur les baptistes est jonché de cadavres : quarante ans après le drame, l'un d'eux serait toujours en vie, semant la mort sans retenue...

Magasin zinzin, pour fêtes et anniversaires : Aux merveilles d'Alys

de Frédéric Clément

Un étrange inventaire d’objets rares et précieux. Entre conte et fantastique, le lecteur entre dans l’univers si particulier du magasin de Frédéric Tic Tic. Là on pourra certainement trouver un cadeau d’anniversaire pour Alys, la petite marchande de merveilleuses merveilles. Truffés de références littéraires et graphiques, cet ouvrage est tout à la fois une boîte à secrets, un cahier d’écolier, un inventaire de taxidermiste et une liste d’objets merveilleux. D’une exceptionnelle virtuosité, Frédéric Clément nous offre ici un album extraordinaire. A lire et à relire.

Ella l'ensorcelée

de Gail Carson Levine

Quatrième de couverture
" Lucinda, cette idiote de fée, n'avait pas l'intention de me jeter un sort. Elle voulait me faire un cadeau. Comme j'avais pleuré désespérément pendant toute la première heure de mon existence, ce furent mes larmes qui lui donnèrent une idée. Hochant la tête et regardant ma mère d'un air compatissant, la fée me toucha le nez. - Mon cadeau sera l'obéissance. Elle sera toujours obéissante. Et maintenant, arrête de pleurer, mon enfant. Je m'arrêtai. " Le sort de la fée Lucinda est si puissant qu'Ella est obligée d'exécuter tous les ordres qu'on lui donne, quels qu'ils soient, même si elle s'y refuse de toutes ses forces. En grandissant, elle a appris à mettre toute son intelligence au service d'une lutte de chaque instant pour dissimuler sa vulnérabilité. Mais à présent que sa mère est morte, que son père a décidé de se remarier, la voilà plus fragile que jamais. Car certaines personnes malveillantes ont tôt fait de percer son secret et de s'en servir. Les pouvoirs de sa marraine et l'amour du prince Charm l'aideront-ils à échapper aux personnes qui la haïssent et à vaincre la malédiction ?

Le magicien d'Oz (Album)

de Robert Sabuda

Présentation de l'éditeur
Partez pour le Pays d'Oz et aventurez-vous avec Dorothy et ses trois compères - l'Épouvantail, le Bûcheron en Fer-Blanc et le Lion Poltron - sur les traces du Magicien. Un époustouflant pop-up d'où surgissent une tornade dévastatrice, le somptueux Palais de la Cité d'Émeraude (n'oubliez pas de chausser vos lunettes magiques pour ne pas être ébloui !) ou même un ballon dirigeable !

Chroniques de l'oiseau à ressort

de Haruki Murakami

Présentation de l'éditeur
Un chat égaré, une inconnue jouant de ses charmes au téléphone, des événements anodins suffisent à faire basculer la vie d'un jeune chômeur, Toru Okada, dans un tourbillon d'aventures. L'espace limité de son quotidien devient le théâtre d'une quête sans cesse renouvelée où rêves, réminiscences et réalités se confondent. Aucune frontière, physique ou symbolique, ne résiste à l'effervescence des questionnements qui s'enchaînent au rythme de rencontres déroutantes, chacune porteuse d'un secret, d'une fragilité propre. Haruki Murakami (La Course au mouton sauvage, La Ballade de l'impossible) tente de nous donner à voir la part d'ombre des choses et des êtres. Replaçant la méditation bouddhique dans la violence contemporaine du japon ou d'ailleurs, il se propose d'explorer nos ténèbres intérieures. Sans se départir d'un humour où perce la détresse, il emmène le lecteur dans un monde fantastique où, toujours plus fuyante, la réalité n'en devient que plus envoûtante.

L'Histoire de Pi

de Yann Martel

Présentation de l'éditeur
Le directeur du zoo de Pondichéry avait bien prévenu son fils Piscine dit Pi : il ne faut jamais s'approcher des fauves ! Mais il n'avait pas prévu que le cargo conduisant la famille et la ménagerie au Canada sombrerait, laissant Pi seul sur un canot de sauvetage. Enfin, presque seul : un tigre du Bengale est caché dans la chaloupe ! Durant 227 jours, le jeune garçon va tenter d'oublier sa faim, sa peur, et les requins pour apprivoiser le fauve...

Stargirl

de Jerry Spinelli

Stargirl a non seulement un prénom bizarre, mais elle ne fait rien comme les autres. Au lycée, ses fantaisies ne passent pas inaperçues. Très vite, les avis sont extrêmes : soit on l'aime, soit on la déteste. Léo, lui, aimerait bien la comprendre...

Encyclopedia of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, & Other Supernatural Creatures

by Katharine Briggs

Amazon.com
Perhaps she should have called it "Everything You Wanted to Know about Fairies, but Were Afraid to Ask." This book covers every type of "little people" from abbey lubbers to Young Tam Lin. Not just the tiny, translucent winged pixies of popular art, but brownies, goblins and bogies, even larger creatures like dragons and mermaids. Exhaustive in its coverage, while still entertaining.

The Lovely Bones

by Alice Sebold

Book Description
When we first meet Susie Salmon, she is already in heaven. As she looks down from this strange new place, she tells us, in the fresh and spirited voice of a fourteen-year-old girl, a tale that is both haunting and full of hope. In the weeks following her death, Susie watches life on Earth continuing without her-her school friends trading rumors about her disappearance, her family holding out hope that she'll be found, her killer trying to cover his tracks. As months pass without leads, Susie sees her parents' marriage being contorted by loss, her sister hardening herself in an effort to stay strong, and her little brother trying to grasp the meaning of the word gone. And she explores the place called heaven. It looks a lot like her school playground, with the good kind of swing sets. There are counselors to help newcomers adjust and friends to room with. Everything she ever wanted appears as soon as she thinks of it-except the thing she most wants: to be back with the people she loved on Earth. With compassion, longing, and a growing understanding, Susie sees her loved ones pass through grief and begin to mend. Her father embarks on a risky quest to ensnare her killer. Her sister undertakes a feat of remarkable daring. And the boy Susie cared for moves on, only to find himself at the center of a miraculous event. The Lovely Bones is luminous and astonishing, a novel that builds out of grief the most hopeful of stories. In the hands of a brilliant new writer, this story of the worst thing a family can face is transformed into a suspenseful and even funny novel about love, memory, joy, heaven, and healing.

Vapor: A Novel

by Amanda Filipacchi

Book Description
Nude Men, the author's first novel, was described by Louis Malle as "hilarious, full of plot surprises, and completely original." Double that and you have Amanda Filipacchi's droll, fantastical, and much-awaited second novel. No one could anticipate Damon's illegal act of generosity -- encaging Anna Graham for nine months in an extraordinary vapor-filled house as repayment for saving his life. Through bizarre methods of discipline that only a madcap scientist such as Damon could concoct, he intends to fulfill her wish to become the best actress of our day. From this surreally screwball setup, Filipacchi spins an extravagant and zany parable of love and self-awareness, beginning with Amanda's escape from this torturous improvement program.

The Killing Kind

by John Connolly

His two previous novels, Every Dead Thing and Dark Hollow, were international bestsellers. Now the "compulsively readable" (Publishers Weekly) John Connolly confirms his position as one of our leading crime novelists with a story of superb menace and style. The body of Grace Peltier, a brilliant Ph.D. candidate, is found in the front seat of her car on a back road in northern Maine. No one wants to believe it was suicide - not her father, not former U.S. senator Jack Mercier, and not private detective Charlie Parker, who has been hired to investigate the young woman's untimely death. But when a mass grave is accidentally discovered nearby, revealing the grim truth behind the disappearance of a religious community known as the Aroostook Baptists, Parker realizes that their deaths and the violent passing of Grace Peltier are part of the same mystery, one that has its roots in her family history and in the origins of the shadowy organization known as the Fellowship. Soon Parker is drawn into the dark world of this zealous religious group that has already consumed every person who has dared confront it. When a relic is discovered, one capable of linking the Fellowship to the slaughter of the Aroostook Baptists, Parker is forced into violent conflict with the Fellowship and its enigmatic leader. Haunted by the ghost of a small boy and tormented by the demonic killer known as Mr. Pudd, Parker is forced to fight for his lover, his friends...and his very soul. "This is a honeycomb world. It hides a hollow heart," writes John Connolly. In The Killing Kind, he has once again created a world of love and hate, of tenderness and violence. Hailed by critics as "one of the best of the genre" (Toronto Sun), his intense, poetic prose and his terrifying clan of characters are sure to thrill even the most discerning suspense reader. "

The People of the Sea: A Journey in Search of the Seal Legend

by David Thomson

A classic, originally published in 1954. Thomson sets out in search of Celtic seal legends among the people of Shetland, Orkney, the Hebrides and Western Ireland in this marvelous, unclassifiable book. Not exactly folklore nor a travel book, it mixes a collection of Thomson's stories, observations and encounters with a meditation on the myth and meaning of the selkie.

Will Storr vs. The Supernatural

by Will Storr

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Accompanying a self-described demonologist in Philadelphia for a magazine story, London journalist and self-described skeptic Storr quickly came face to face with evidence he couldn't dismiss-a close encounter with a poltergeist ("something had touched me, hard enough to launch me to my feet") and a divination aficionado who may very well have been possessed. In the account that follows, Storr takes readers into some of the more disturbing and disturbed corners of modern ghost-hunting, whipping up a chilling, funny, thought-provoking page-turner. With great care and greater humor, Storr accompanies paranormal investigators famous and obscure, ghost hunting clubs and perplexed homeowners, taking time to research famous cases and discuss his findings with the experts, as well as the witnesses and victims of hauntings. The evidence he finds-from orbs of light that dance on-camera to spectral voices recorded on tape to seemingly possessed individuals-proves only slightly more fascinating than the folks who pursue it, a grand collection of kooks, swindlers, skeptics and true believers. Storr grapples mightily with the unknown, and though his consideration of the slippery nature of reality and the mystery of death is fascinating, it never overwhelms the narrative; indeed, Storr wisely gives the best lines to his subjects, recording them faithfully at their most profound (quoth one famous, long-practicing investigator, "I'm not sure what reality is anymore") as well as their most nonsensical (a haunted house-sitter spends his time performing "experiments where I pretend I'm slapping someone," in the hopes he'll one day do the haunting). Covering an impressive range of modern ghostly phenomenon-including a hilarious visit to the popular British TV show Most Haunted-this is a fun, fascinating and at times frightening read for anyone with an interest in the supernatural.

The Griffin & Sabine Trilogy Boxed Set: Griffin & Sabine/Sabine's Notebook/The Golden Mean

by Nick Bantock

Amazon.com
Few books are more romantic than this trilogy, nor more surreal. Griffin Moss is a rather doleful, lonesome, gaunt, and haunted postcard designer in London. Sabine Strohem is an illustrator of stamps living on an island in the South Pacific. One day Griffin gets an extraordinary letter from Sabine revealing that she knows all kinds of things about his life and work--somehow, she can share his soul from afar. They start exchanging love letters, yet it remains an open question whether Griffin and Sabine are two hearts that mystically beat as one, or simply illusory. "You're a figment of my imagination," Griffin accuses Sabine. "You cannot turn me into a phantom because you are frightened," Sabine replies. Phantom or soul mate, Sabine is pursued across the globe by Griffin in an increasingly impassioned fashion, and the mysteries deepen.

The legendarily popular trilogy of books containing the Griffin-Sabine correspondence literally contains the correspondence: postcards, front and back, and letters in envelopes pasted into the book, which the reader must open and read--a temptation few can resist. Nick Bantock's story was way ahead of the computer game Myst, with which it shares a moody allure. Bantock designed hundreds of book covers (for Philip Roth, John Updike, and others) before he fled London for a lovely island off the west coast of Canada with his rather Sabine-like artist wife and became improbably famous by dreaming up this trilogy. His artwork is gorgeous, and countless romances have been intensified by exposure to that of Griffin and Sabine.

http://www.griffinandsabine.com/Gallery/gallery.html

The Merchant of Marvels and the Peddler of Dreams

by Frederic Clement and Emma Cole

Book Description
What to give the person who has everything? This is the dilemma of Frederick Knick-Knack, who surely must have, somewhere in his bags and boxes, his chests and cases, his collection of collections, the ideal gift for his friend Alice. Published in France to considerable acclaim in 1997, and translated into English with more than 30,000 copies sold, The Merchant of Marvels is now available in a new format for readers to rediscover this world of wonders. How will Frederick convey his most perfect love with just one gift? A ticket for a thousand and one flights on a thousand and one nights? Perhaps a marble made by Merlin the Enchanter? Somehow, somewhere he will find the gift like no other, the perfect present. The Merchant of Marvels is an exuberant marriage of word and illustration, its pages rich with finely crafted objets d'art, line drawings, and breathtaking watercolors. Imbued with magic, mystery, and enchant ment, this emerging classic is the quintessential gift book a wonderful story filled with unimaginably beautiful allegory, and a true expression of love and friendship.

Ella Enchanted

by Gail Carson Levine

Amazon.com
At birth, Ella is inadvertently cursed by an imprudent fairy named Lucinda, who bestows on her the "gift" of obedience. Anything anyone tells her to do, Ella must obey. Another girl might have been cowed by this affliction, but not feisty Ella: "Instead of making me docile, Lucinda's curse made a rebel of me. Or perhaps I was that way naturally." When her beloved mother dies, leaving her in the care of a mostly absent and avaricious father, and later, a loathsome stepmother and two treacherous stepsisters, Ella's life and well-being seem in grave peril. But her intelligence and saucy nature keep her in good stead as she sets out on a quest for freedom and self-discovery, trying to track down Lucinda to undo the curse, fending off ogres, befriending elves, and falling in love with a prince along the way. Yes, there is a pumpkin coach, a glass slipper, and a happily ever after, but this is the most remarkable, delightful, and profound version of Cinderella you've ever read.

Gail Carson Levine's examination of traditional female roles in fairy tales takes some satisfying twists and deviations from the original. Ella is bound by obedience against her will, and takes matters in her own hands with ambition and verve. Her relationship with the prince is balanced and based on humor and mutual respect; in fact, it is she who ultimately rescues him.

The Sight

by David Clement-Davies

From Publishers Weekly
As in his Fire Bringer, Clement-Davies's new fantasy novel features talking animals (Vargs, or wolves, instead of deer), a militant pack with a power-hungry leader, a prophecy involving a newborn that proves gifted (a white wolf who has the Sight, which can be used to see the future, heal and even control others) and the author creates imaginative mythologies (here drawing on everything from Christianity to Little Red Riding Hood). Also, both prophecies speak of a marked one (this time it turns out to be a stolen human child) and the revelation of a secret. But readers may find the creative plotting here even more compelling than in the author's first novel and the cryptic prophecy's meaning will keep them guessing. Larka, a white wolf, and her family are hunted, initially by Morgra, who strives to become the powerful Man Varg (also foretold in the prophecy); a rebel pack also hunts them (Slavka, its leader, seeks to destroy all that claim to have the Sight). After Larka loses members of her pack, she embarks on a solo journey and finds teachers who help her master the Sight, using it to heal the "human cub" and to prepare to face Morgra. Despite sophisticated language and some complex concepts, such as the origins of evil, the author's clever plot twists (such as which wolf eventually claims to be Wolfbane) make the thick novel well worth the commitment. Strong female characters also provide a refreshing change to the often male-dominated science-fiction/fantasy field.

The Hollow Kingdom

by Clare B. Dunkle

From School Library Journal
Grade 6-9-Kate and her younger sister, Emily, are orphans, sent to live with great aunts at remote and mysterious Hallow Hill. Hugh Roberts, their guardian, is a surly and somewhat sinister cousin. One afternoon, the girls come upon some strange people and an abnormally huge cat in a clearing. One of these folk, Marak, is a goblin king. He needs Kate to be his human bride, for goblins may not marry their own kind. When Emily disappears, Kate assumes that he is responsible and agrees to marry him in exchange for her sister's freedom. Once in the goblins' vast underground kingdom, Kate is sure she will die from not being able to see the stars. But she does marry Marak and assumes her life as a queen. At this point the plot takes an unexpected turn. A sorcerer attacks Marak, and Kate discovers some surprising things about herself and her relationship with her husband. This is an interesting fantasy world with well-realized characters. Hugh Roberts is a true villain and Kate is a feisty heroine. Marak is frequently described as an ugly monster, and he definitely comes across as something other than human. However, he has a good nature and a sense of humor as well as a great love for his chosen wife. The goblin kingdom itself is beautifully described, as are the strange creatures that inhabit it. The story moves a bit slowly in places, but overall it should attract readers who like magic and adventure. Kate is surely a heroine to be reckoned with, and girls will relate to her predicament.