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The white tiger of this novel is Balram Halwai, a poor Indian villager whose great ambition leads him to the zenith of Indian business culture, the world of the Bangalore entrepreneur. On the occasion of the president of China’s impending trip to Bangalore, Balram writes a letter to him describing his transformation and his experience as driver and servant to a wealthy Indian family, which he thinks exemplifies the contradictions and complications of Indian society.

Rev. ed. of: The wines of the Rhône Valley and Provence. 1987. Includes index.

New York city is a city of streets.

Presents an illustrated tour of 175 of the author's favorite wine estates, discussing such topics as vineyard ownership history, plantation densities, visitor information, and annual production figures by label.

Several days before Christmas 2003, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their only daughter, Quintana Roo, fall ill with septic shock. She was put into an induced coma and placed on life support. Days later, the Dunnes were sitting down to dinner after visiting their daughter in the hospital when John suffered a fatal heart attack. In that one moment, their partnership of forty years came to an end.

For forty years, David Sedaris has kept a diary in which he records everything that captures his attention-overheard comments, salacious gossip, soap opera plot twists, secrets confided by total strangers. These observations are the source code for his finest work, and through them he has honed his cunning, surprising sentences.

Only once did David Foster Wallace give a public talk on his views on life, during a commencement address given in 2005 at Kenyon College. The speech is reprinted for the first time in book form in This is Water. How does one keep from going through their comfortable, prosperous adult life unconsciously? How do we get ourselves out of the foreground of our thoughts and achieve compassion? The speech captures Wallace's electric intellect as well as his grace in attention to others. After his death, it became a treasured piece of writing reprinted in The Wall Street Journal and the London Times, commented on endlessly in blogs, and emailed from friend to friend.

In an apricot-colored building in Zurich, surrounded by curiously planted forget-me-nots, Gaustine has opened the first “clinic for the past,” an institution that offers an inspired treatment for Alzheimer’s sufferers: each floor reproduces a past decade in minute detail, allowing patients to transport themselves back in time to unlock what is left of their fading memories. Serving as Gaustine’s assistant, the narrator is tasked with collecting the flotsam and jetsam of the past, from 1960s furniture and 1940s shirt buttons to nostalgic scents and even wisps of afternoon light. But as the charade becomes more convincing, an increasing number of healthy people seek out the clinic to escape from the dead-end of their daily lives―a development that results in an unexpected conundrum when the past begins to invade the present. Through sharply satirical, labyrinth-like vignettes reminiscent of Italo Calvino and Franz Kafka, the narrator recounts in breathtaking prose just how he became entrenched in a plot to stop time itself.

Source title: Toilet-bound Hanako-kun, Vol. 1 (Toilet-bound Hanako-kun (1))

Fuyunosuke Tanaka is a perfectly ordinary college student, except for one thing—he’s secretly an alien. He and his brother Natsutaro have traveled across the galaxy to study the people of Earth and evaluate the planet’s resources, but adapting to life on this new world may prove a bit harder than they thought.

After a series of unfortunate mishaps, Fuyunosuke and Natsutaro are on the brink of being discovered. Now the two need to learn how to act as human as possible, and fast! Thankfully, Fuyunosuke has a plan. He’s going to teach his bro how to hold down a normal job and go on a normal date. But the clock is ticking. If he fails, their entire plan for Earth colonization could go up in smoke!

As hard as Fuyunosuke and Natsutaro worked to succeed in their mission, their efforts seem all for naught. With no word from Central Command, the two are faced with a difficult decision—should they finally return to their own people or remain on Earth?

Set in some kind of post-apocalypse western future, Trigun continues to knit a goofy yet mysterious story about a nice-guy gunslinger with a dangerous past and a huge bounty on his head. Everyone is after Vash the Stampede, but no one can put a bullet in him. Adding to the comedy is the pair of ladies working for an insurance company who must put a stop to Vash's destruction, though they certainly don't believe this amiable prankster is the vicious destroyer. It's a fun read, and super thick, packed full of silliness and action.

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Thirty-two-year-old scriptwriter Sakuma Ellie and twenty-two-year-old rookie voice actress Inuzuka Wako are roommates with a strictly professional relationship. Or at least, that’s what they tell everyone. In fact, they’ve been living as a couple in Ellie’s apartment for the past year, spending delightful, tranquil days together.

Rookie voice actress Wako and scriptwriter Ellie have been living together for a year and a half now. The discovery that a neighbor is a passionate fan of Ellie’s writing, and Wako’s growing career–including her fellow voice actresses who are pretending to be a couple–make things more complicated, but they still share special times together.

Ellie wants to take on a big job, but trying to pen a script for an original project has her racking her brain every day. Meanwhile, Wanko is going to audition for an anime written by Ellie. What will happen?! The two spend carefree days together and try to move forward in life at the same time.

Saloon-keepers and street preachers, gypsies and steel-walking Mohawks, a bearded lady and a 93-year-old “seafoodetarian” who believes his specialized diet will keep him alive for another two decades. These are among the people that Joseph Mitchell immortalized in his reportage for The New Yorker and in four books—McSorley's Wonderful Saloon, Old Mr. Flood, The Bottom of the Harbor, and Joe Gould's Secret—that are still renowned for their precise, respectful observation, their graveyard humor, and their offhand perfection of style.

Middle School. The threshold to puberty, and the beginning of the end of childhood innocence. Shuichi Nitori and his new friend Yoshino Takatsuki have happy homes, loving families, and are well liked by their classmates. But they share a secret that further complicates a time of life that is awkward for anyone: Shuichi is a boy who wants to be a girl, and Yoshino is a girl who wants to be a boy. Celebrated manga artist Shimura Takako (Even Though We’re Adults) portrays Shuishi and Yoshino’s journey with affection, sensitivity, and gentle humor as they figure out their gender identity and take tentative, age-appropriate steps toward transitioning.

One winter morning in Seoul, Kyungha receives an urgent message from her friend Inseon to visit her at the hospital. Inseon has injured herself in an accident, and she begs Kyungha to return to Jeju Island, where she lives, to save her beloved pet—a white bird called Ama. A snowstorm hits the island when Kyungha arrives. She must reach Inseon’s house at all costs, but the icy wind and squalls slow her down as night begins to fall. She wonders if she will arrive in time to save the animal—or even survive the terrible cold that envelops her with every step. Lost in a world of snow, she doesn’t yet suspect the vertiginous plunge into darkness that awaits her at her friend’s house.