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Epic fiction

  • Auteur:
    Dupont, Éric
    Sommaire:

    A big fat whopper of a tall tale that bounces around from provincial Rivière-du-Loup in 1919 to Nagasaki, 1990s Berlin, Rome, and beyond.

  • Auteur:
    Evison, Jonathan
    Sommaire:

    One of the LA Times's 10 Books to Add to Your Reading List This Month! One of Book Culture's Most Anticipated Reads of January 2021! "A bighearted, widescreen American tale." -Kirkus Reviews (starred) "Masterpiece…the quintessential Great American Novel."- Booklist (starred) "A vivid mosaic." - BookPage (starred) Jonathan Evison's Small World is an epic novel for now. Set against such iconic backdrops as the California gold rush, the development of the transcontinental railroad, and a speeding train of modern-day strangers forced together by fate, it is a grand entertainment that asks big questions.   The characters of Small World connect in the most intriguing and meaningful ways, winning, breaking, and winning our hearts again. In exploring the passengers' lives and those of their ancestors more than a century before, Small World chronicles 170 years of American nation-building from numerous points of view across place and time. And it does it with a fullhearted, full-throttle pace that asks on the most human, intimate scale whether it is truly possible to meet, and survive, the choices posed-and forced-by the age.   The result is a historical epic with a Dickensian flair, a grand entertainment that asks whether our nation has made good on its promises. It dazzles as its characters come to connect with one another through time. And it hits home as it probes at our country's injustices, big and small, straight through to its deeply satisfying final words.

  • Auteur:
    Bennett, Robert Jackson
    Sommaire:

    As a magical revolution remakes a city, an ancient evil is awakened in a brilliant novel from the Hugo-nominated author of Foundryside and the Divine Cities trilogy. A few years ago, Sancia Grado would've happily watched Tevanne burn. Now, she's hoping to transform her city into something new. Something better. Together with allies Orso, Gregor, and Berenice, she's about to strike a deadly blow against Tevanne's cruel robber-baron rulers and wrest power from their hands for the first time in decades. But then comes a terrifying warning: Crasedes Magnus himself, the first of the legendary hierophants, is about to be reborn. And if he returns, Tevanne will be just the first place to feel his wrath. Thousands of years ago, Crasedes was an ordinary man who did the impossible: Using the magic of scriving--the art of imbuing objects with sentience--he convinced reality that he was something more than human. Wielding powers beyond comprehension, he strode the world like a god for centuries, meting out justice and razing empires single-handedly, cleansing the world through fire and destruction--and even defeating death itself. Like it or not, it's up to Sancia to stop him. But to have a chance in the battle to come, she'll have to call upon a god of her own--and unlock the door to a scriving technology that could change what it means to be human. And no matter who wins, nothing will ever be the same. The awe-inspiring second installment of the Founders Trilogy, Shorefall returns us to the world Robert Jackson Bennett created in his acclaimed Foundryside . . . and forges it anew.

  • Auteur:
    Tchaikovsky, Adrian
    Sommaire:

    Hunted by gangsters, cults, and governments, Idris and his crew race across the galaxy hunting for answers. For they now possess something of incalculable value that many would kill to obtain.

  • Auteur:
    Herbert, Brian, Anderson Kevin J.
    Sommaire:

    Book Two in the stunning conclusion to Frank Herbert's worldwide bestselling Dune Chronicles At the end of Frank Herbert's final novel, Chapterhouse: Dune, a ship carrying a crew of refugees escapes into the uncharted galaxy, fleeing from a terrifying, mysterious Enemy. The fugitives used genetic technology to revive key figures from Dune's past—including Paul Muad'Dib and Lady Jessica—to use their special talents to meet the challenges thrown at them. Based directly on Frank Herbert's final outline, which lay hidden in two safe-deposit boxes for a decade, Sandworms of Dune will answer the urgent questions Dune fans have been debating for two decades: the origin of the Honored Matres, the tantalizing future of the planet Arrakis, the final revelation of the Kwisatz Haderach, and the resolution to the war between Man and Machine. This breathtaking new novel in Frank Herbert's Dune series has enough surprises and plot twists to please even the most demanding reader.

  • Auteur:
    Woodson, Jacqueline
    Sommaire:

    An extraordinary new novel about the influence of history on a contemporary African-American family, from the New York Times-bestselling and National Book Award-winning author of Another Brooklyn and Brown Girl Dreaming. Two families from different social classes are joined together by an unexpected pregnancy and the child that it produces. Moving forward and backward in time, with the power of poetry and the emotional richness of a narrative ten times its length, Jacqueline Woodson's extraordinary new novel uncovers the role that history and community have played in the experiences, decisions, and relationships of these families, and in the life of this child. As the book opens in 2001, it is the evening of sixteen-year-old Melody's birthday celebration in her grandparent's Brooklyn brownstone. Watched lovingly by her relatives and friends, escorted by her father to the soundtrack of Prince, she wears a special, custom-made dress. But the event is not without poignancy. Sixteen years earlier, that very dress was measured and sewn for a different wearer: Melody's mother, for her own sixteenth birthday party and a celebration which ultimately never took place. Unfurling the history of Melody's parents and grandparents to show how they all arrived at this moment, Woodson considers not just their ambitions and successes but also the costs, the tolls they've paid for striving to overcome expectations and escape the pull of history. As it explores sexual desire and identity, ambition, gentrification, education, class and status, and the life-altering facts of parenthood, Red at the Bone most strikingly looks at the ways in which young people must so often make long-lasting decisions about their lives-even before they have begun to figure out who they are and what they want to be.

  • Auteur:
    Rushdie, Salman
    Sommaire:

    Booker Prize-winning, internationally bestselling author Salman Rushdie delivers an utterly modern remake of Don Quixote with an epic love story set in the Age of Anything Can Happen.

  • Auteur:
    Eddings, David
    Sommaire:

    The Belgariad is an epic fantasy of immense scope, telling the tale of struggles between ancient Gods and mighty Kings, and of men in strange lands facing fated events, all bound by a prophecy that must be fulfilled. Legends tell of the evil God Torak coveting the power of the Orb of Aldur, until he was defeated in a final battle. Prophecy also speaks of a time when he will again awaken to seek dominance over all the world. Now the Orb has been stolen by a priest of Torak, & that time is at hand. Belgarath the Sorcerer & his daughter Polgara the arch-Sorceress are on the trail of the Orb, seeking to regain it before the final disaster. With them goes Garion, a simple farm boy only months before, but now the focus of the struggle. He had never believed in sorcery, wanting no part of it. Yet with every league they travel, the power is growing within him, forcing him into acts of wizardry that he can't accept.

  • Auteur:
    Duncan, Dave
    Sommaire:

    The looming threat of a once-in-a-millennium magical event sends nineteenth-century China into violent chaos in this epic alternate-history fantasy. Author of the Seventh Sword series Dave Duncan transports us to Imperial China in an alternate nineteenth century'an Asian epoch not unlike the Boxer Rebellion era'with a spellbinding tale of rebellion, political intrigue, larceny, seduction, shape-shifting, dark magic, and murder. These are troubled years in the Good Land. Ten centuries have passed since the last time the Portal of a Thousand Worlds opened, bringing chaos, upheaval, and radical change to the then-ruling dynasty, and now the mystical gateway is rumored to be on the verge of opening once more. Only the Firstborn'he who has been reincarnated through countless generations and remembers all he has ever learned'knows what the future holds, but he has been imprisoned for refusing to comply with a repressive imperial government"s wishes. Now, those hoping to seize the opportunity for wealth and position are hatching sinister plots. And as the cold-hearted dowager empress closely guards a fateful secret, and a rebel army led by a fanatical zealot gathers strength under the Bamboo Banner, the cataclysm approaches...' The recipient of two Aurora Awards and numerous Locus and Endeavour Award nominations, Dave Duncan is an acknowledged master of sword-and-sorcery adventure on par with George R.R. Martin of Game of Thrones fame. A sprawling epic with a colorful cast of royals, thieves, prostitutes, gods, warriors, dragons, assassins, merchants, and mages set against the backdrop of a volatile alternate Asia, Portal of a Thousand Worlds is a magnificent work of invention from one of the premier fantasists of our day.

  • Auteur:
    Eddings, David
    Sommaire:

    The Belgariad is an epic fantasy of immense scope, telling the tale of struggles between ancient Gods and mighty Kings, and of men in strange lands facing fated events, all bound by a prophecy that must be fulfilled. Long ago, so the Storyteller claimed, the evil God Torak sought dominion and drove men and Gods to war. But Belgrath the Sorcerer led men to reclaim the Orb that protected the West. So long as it lay at Riva, the prophecy went, men would be safe. That was only a story, and Garion did not believe in magic dooms, even though the man without a shadow had haunted him for years. Brought up on a quiet farm by his Aunt Pol, how could he know that the Apostate planned to wake dread Torak, or that he would be led on a quest of unparalleled magic and danger by those he loved, but did not truly know. For yet a little while and his dreams of innocence remained safe, untroubled by knowledge of his strange heritage. For a little while...thus begins The Belgariad, an epic fantasy.

  • Auteur:
    Weiner, Jennifer
    Sommaire:

    From Jennifer Weiner, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Who Do You Love and In Her Shoes comes a smart, thoughtful, and timely exploration of two sisters' lives from the 1950s to the present as they struggle to find their places, and be true to themselves, in a rapidly evolving world. Mrs. Everything is an ambitious, richly textured journey through history, and herstory, as these two sisters navigate a changing America over the course of their lives.

  • Auteur:
    Morgan-Cole, Trudy
    Sommaire:

    For decades, the Holloways have operated a convenience store in the working-class neighborhood of Rabbittown in St. John's, and every customer has a story. In a vibrant, contemporary family saga, filled with idiosyncratic characters, Trudy Morgan-Cole tells the tale of three generations of Holloway women--Ellen, Audrey, and Rachel--their loves and their livelihood in times of great change. Most Anything You Please captures the spirit of a community and the women who hold it together, revealing the bonds that break and the ties that bind.

  • Auteur:
    Russo, Richard
    Sommaire:

    Originally published in 1986 in the Vintage Contemporaries paperback series and reissued now in hardcover alongside his masterful new novel, Empire Falls - Richard Russo's Mohawk remains today as it was described then: A first novel with all the assurance of a mature writer at the peak of form and ambition, Mohawk is set in upstate New York and chronicles over a dozen lives in a leather town, long after the tanneries have started closing down. Ranging over three generations and clustered mainly in two clans, the Grouses and the Gaffneys - these remarkably various lives share only the common human dilemmas and the awesome physical and emotional presence of Mohawk itself. For this is a town like Winesburg, Ohio or Our Town, in our time, that encompasses a plethora of characters, events and mysteries. At once honestly tragic and sharply, genuinely funny, Mohawk captures life, then affirms it.

  • Auteur:
    Melville, Herman
    Sommaire:

    One of the funniest and strangest narrators in literature goes to sea with a maniacal captain on a doomed whaling voyage. Ishmael’s rollicking digressions on everything from whaling to philosophy may have put you off in high school, but they also happen to be some of the liveliest and most bizarre passages you’ll ever read.

  • Auteur:
    Rushdie, Salman
    Sommaire:

    The life of a man born at the moment of India's independence becomes inextricably linked to that of his nation and is a whirlwind of disasters and triumphs that mirror modern India's course. Saleem Sinai is born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the very moment of India's independence. Greeted by fireworks displays, cheering crowds, and Prime Minister Nehru himself, Saleem grows up to learn the ominous consequences of this coincidence. His every act is mirrored and magnified in events that sway the course of national affairs; his health and well-being are inextricably bound to those of his nation; his life is inseparable, at times indistinguishable, from the history of his country. Perhaps most remarkable are the telepathic powers linking him with India's 1,000 other "midnight's children," all born in that initial hour and endowed with magical gifts.

  • Auteur:
    Michener, James A.
    Sommaire:

    When an American journalist travels to report on the upcoming duel between two great matadors, he is ultimately swept up in the dramatic story of his own Mexican ancestry-from the brilliance and brutality of the ancients, to the iron fist of the invading Spaniards, to modern Mexico, fighting through dust and bloodshed to build a nation upon the ashes of revolution. Architectural splendors, frenzied bullfights, horrific human sacrifice: Michener weaves them all into an epic human story that ranks with the best of his beloved bestselling novels.

  • Auteur:
    Straight, Susan
    Sommaire:

    A California epic following several native, diverse Californians grasping for air in a world that continues to marginalize them.

  • Auteur:
    Graziano, Anthony M.
    Sommaire:

    McKinley's Ghost & the Little Tin Truck tells the story of the Millers, a fictional family struggling among the real events of the early 20th century: the end of the Progressive Era, The Great War and influenza pandemic, prohibition, voting rights for women, the conservative take-over, the Red Scare, xenophobic hatred of immigrants and other “inferiors,” lynching and race riots, union-busting, the elevation of “business” in government and the resulting unparalleled corruption, a wild stock market, spiraling income disparity, the Great Depression, national despair and the seeds of the next world war.

  • Auteur:
    Eddings, David
    Sommaire:

    The Belgariad is an epic fantasy of immense scope, telling the tale of struggles between ancient Gods and mighty Kings, and of men in strange lands facing fated events, all bound by a prophecy that must be fulfilled. Ce'Nedra, Imperial Princess of Tolnedra, was confused. Everyone knows the tales of the Orb protecting the West from the evil God Torak are just silly legends. But here she is, forced to join a dangerous quest to recover that stolen Orb. No one believes in sorcery, but Garion's aunt & grandfather seem to be the fabled sorcerers Polgara & Belgarath, who would have to be thousands of years old. Even young Garion is learning to do sorcery. Garion, is just a farm boy, totally unsuitable for an Imperial Princess. Yet, for some reason she has the urge to teach him, brush back his tangled hair, & comfort him. Now he is going to a strange tower in the center of all he believes evil, to face some horrible, powerful magician, & she can't be there to watch over him.

  • Auteur:
    Leconte de Lisle
    Sommaire:

    Les aventures que rencontre Ulysse, l'un des principaux stratèges du siège de Troie, lors de son retour dans sa patrie portent son nom : Odysseus (soit Ulysse en grec) ou Odyssée en français. Des 24 chapitres qui composent l'Odyssée nous n'avons conservé que les plus célèbres, le texte étant une adaptation de la traduction de Leconte de LIsle publiée dans les années 1870. On y a apporté quelques amendements en préservant sa valeur littéraire et tout en lui rendant, quand c'était possible, la vigueur de la parole. Michel Chaigneau met ses talents d'acteur et son sens du récit au service de la célèbre épopée. Metteur en scène et acteur, Michel Chaigneau s'est illustré dans de nombreuses pièces classiques et contemporaines. Il prête régulièrement sa voix à des émissions de radio pour des lectures et des fictions dramatiques. Texte mis en son par le Studio 43.

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