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Daunt Books Children's Short Story Competition 2013

Southern & Mediterranean Europe

• Italy
• Spain
• Portugal
• Greece
• Balkans

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  Illyrian Spring by Ann Bridge

  Price: £9.99    Add to Basket

  Grace Kilmichael, the well-known painter, is running away. She's escaping her husband, and his wandering eye, her bullying grown-up children, and the tiresomeness of being herself. En route to Split and Dubrovnik, Grace travels through Paris and Venice, and to the glories of Torcello. Here she meets Nicholas – fascinating, rebellious, completely unsuitable (and half her age). Thrown into turmoil by their relationship, it is not until Grace arrives in the remote, unspoilt beauty of the Illyrian coast, among the wildflowers and peaceful villages, that she can truly begin to find enlightenment. Both farcically funny and full of wisdom, this is a classic novel of escape and rediscovery, set against the glorious Illyrian spring.

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  The Marriage of Cadmus & Harmony by Robert Calasso

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  Calasso's magisterial pseudo-novel seeks to synthesise the varied strands of Greek mythology into a coherent narrative that entertains as powerfully as it reinterprets. Against all odds, it succeeds. Not for everyone, this ferociously intelligent piece of writing will dazzle those who rise to its challenge.

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  Italian Folktales by Italo Calvino

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  A definitive collection both chronologically and geographically, Calvino has retold over 200 stories from Italian peasant folklore.

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  The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino

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  More accessible and charming than 'Winter's Night', though no less bizarre, this is the story of Cosimo, a young Italian nobleman of the 18th century who rejects the authority and values of his parents, opting instead to dwell up in the trees for the rest of his life. A delicious fantasy rich in the wonders of nature and the charm of a life lived beyond the confines of polite society.

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  Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

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  An astonishing novel structured as a poetic conversation between Kubla Khan and Marco Polo as he describes to the aging Emperor, fifty-five cities of the Mongol empire.

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  If On a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino

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  By some distance Calvino's most popular work, this is an highly cerebral work of metafiction that seems to fold in on itself so often that the reader must cling on for dear life. Thankfully the remarkably inventive exercise is founded on a great sense of absurd humour, and is shot through with enough warmth and humanity to justify its twists and turns. Unique and worthy of investigation.

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  The Shape of Water by Andrea Camilleri

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  One of our favourite series, Andrea Camilleri's tremendously entertaining Sicilian detective novels evoke all the colour, vigour and culinary brilliance of island life. In this first volume, Inspector Montalbano must investigate the suspicious death of an aspiring aristocratic politician.

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  The Wings of the Sphinx by Andrea Camilleri

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  A tired Inspector Montalbano is faced with the murder of a Russian girl, a victim of mafia involvement in the illegal sex trafficking.

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  August Heat by Andrea Camilleri

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  The 10th publication in Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano series. In the sweltering Sicilian sunshine Montalbano must try to solve the murder of a young girl who he finds wrapped in plastic, her throat slit, in the basement of a rented villa. Perfect summer reading.

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  The Wedding Officer by Anthony Capella

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  A light, sunny romance set in Occupied Naples in 1943, in which a young British soldier arrives charged with the duty of persuading his comrades not to marry their Italian girlfriends, only to be seduced himself.

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  The Goodbye Kiss by Massimo Carlotto

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  Enormously popular on home soil, Carlotto is at last attracting worldwide attention for his scathing, unflinching noirish thrillers. Here protagonist Giorgio Pellegrini comes out of hiding to face the music of his numerous crimes, willing to do almost anything to avoid the prison sentence he so roundly deserves.

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  Involuntary Witness by Gianrico Carofiglio

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  From the excellent Bitter Lemon Press comes another piece of gritty, stylish Eurocrime. When a young boy is found murdered near a beach resort, defense lawyer Guido Guerrieri must fight the corner of a Senegalese peddler accused of the crime amidst a vicious wave of small-town racism. A brilliant legal thriller.

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  Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

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  Like reading Homer in Ithaka or Hugo in Paris, a trip to Spain is the ideal opportunity to tackle this most wonderful of classics. Grossman's masterly translation transforms a potentially-daunting tome into a rollicking read that rewards tenfold what it demands.

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  South Wind by Norman Douglas

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  Douglas's charming, sprawling novel of Capri purports to follow an Anglican bishop, on leave from his African diocese, who soon deviates from his moral code under the debauched influence of locals and visitors alike. A witty picaresque, there is little plot here, but enough character to fill a dozen thrillers.

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  The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

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  Eco's masterpiece is a labyrinthine historical murder story in which a 14th century monk turns detective. A remarkable illumination of the Middle Ages as well as a cracking mystery.

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  The Anarchist Banker and Other Stories by Eugenio Lisboa, Ed.

  Price: £14.99    Add to Basket

  A splendid collection of short Portuguese fiction, dating from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, comprising seven stories and novellas from the likes of de Queiros, de Almeida and Pessoa.

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  Venice by Eland

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  From the wonderful Eland comes this worthy addition to their Poetry of Place series. Editor Hughes has selected from across the ages, bringing together poets as diverse as Ruskin, Pound, Wilde and Nietzsche, all united by their common fascination for the city of canals. Perfect to flick through as one roams.

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  The Food Taster by Peter Elbling

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  A deliciously frothy Renaissance romp narrated by Ugo DiFonte, the duke's food taster, who must use every ounce of his cunning to prevent the attentions directed at his flowering daughter turning sour. Most entertaining.

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  The Small Boat of Great Sorrows by Dan Fesperman

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  Fesperman's intelligent and gritty thriller follows Vlado Petric, a former detective in war-torn Sarajevo, as he learns the hard way that the past is never quite cut and dried. Excellent.

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  A Room With a View by E.M. Forster

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  A penetrating social comedy following young Lucy Honeychurch on a trip to Florence. There she awakens unexpected passions that will haunt her throughout her life. Perhaps Forster's finest achievement, displaying a lightness of touch that so many have tried in vain to emulate.

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  Where Angels Fear to Tread by E.M. Forster

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  English widow Lilia Herriton outrages her dead husband's family when, upon travelling to Tuscany, she becomes engaged to a much younger local man. Tragic events however soon cast things in a new light. Forster's slender novel of 1905 is an electrifying and deeply moving exploration of virtue and vice.

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  The Magus by John Fowles

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  Englishman Nicholas Urfe seeks refuge from a difficult London relationship on a remote Peloponnesian island. Once there however he finds himself falling under the spell of a master trickster and being drawn into psychological games over which he has no control. Lush in its imagery, dazzling in its invention and disorientating in its psychoanalytical complexity, Fowles's novel is demanding but brilliant.

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  That Awful Mess on the Via Merulana by Carlo Emilio Gadda

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  A sublimely unusual detective story that presents a scathing picture of fascist Italy, Gadda's much-loved classic is also a rich baroque social novel. Wonderful.

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  In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut

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  A young drifter embarks on a series of disastrous journeys through Greece, India and Africa in this brief and beguiling novel. Each represents a voyage of discovery for the South African narrator, whose encounters with other travellers force him into confrontation with his own feelings of inertia, compassion and thwarted desire.

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  The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway

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  Set in Sarajevo during the siege of the 1990s, a cellist and a sniper battle to hold onto their humanity amidst the horror of war. Based on true stories, this is a moving, subtle and sophisticated piece of fiction.