Join us on a literary world trip!
Add this book to bookshelf
Grey
Write a new comment Default profile 50px
Grey
Subscribe to read the full book or read the first pages for free!
All characters reduced
The Lives of Things - cover

Sorry, the publisher does not allow users to read this book from the country from which you are connecting.

The Lives of Things

José Saramago

Publisher: Verso

  • 6
  • 22
  • 0

Summary

A surreal short story collection from the master of what-ifs. 
The Lives of Things collects José Saramago’s early experiments with the short story form, attesting to the young novelist’s imaginative power and incomparable skill in elaborating the most extravagant fantasies. Combining bitter satire, outrageous parody and Kafkaesque hallucinations, these stories explore the horror and repression that paralyzed Portugal under the Salazar regime and pay tribute to human resilience in the face of injustice and institutionalized tyranny. 
Beautifully written and deeply unsettling, The Lives of Things illuminates the development of Saramago’s prose and records the genesis of themes that resound throughout his novels.
Available since: 04/25/2012.

Other books that might interest you

  • Sam Hain: A Halloween Story - cover

    Sam Hain: A Halloween Story

    Spooky Shack

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Sam Hain is a fictional tale about the origins of Halloween. This audiobook takes you through the life of a powerful young witch who finds herself alone in a now barren and poisoned ancient forest that used to be home to her happiest memories. Sam eventually becomes flooded with dark energy from the human world and we listen as her magic becomes contaminated. Is the Harvest Moon on All Hallows Eve enough to preserve her soul, or has she lost herself inside the ancient forest forever? Listen closely as we share the journey of Sam Hain in the first volume of the new short story series: A Halloween Story.
    Show book
  • The One-Star Jew - Stories - cover

    The One-Star Jew - Stories

    David Evanier

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Signature David Evanier—a story collection so wickedly funny and painfully honest you won’t know whether to laugh, cry, or curl up in a ball and moan with delightNew York writer Bruce Orav is crumbling. Every time his father speaks—“I thought there was a chance you’d have a bestseller sometime. I guess that’s dead, huh?”—Bruce loses another piece of himself. The same thing happens at the Jewish philanthropic organization where he earns a steady, if not exactly generous, paycheck and is regularly subjected to the musings of Luther, his cynical coworker: “My experience has always been that kids are cannibals and killers.” Not even the weekly volunteer visits he and his wife, Susan, make to an elderly Jewish woman’s home give Bruce the chance to stitch himself back together again—every trip is marred by another wildly inappropriate and combative scene between the quarrelsome eighty-four-year-old and her African American caretakers.With nowhere safe to turn, what is Bruce to do? His therapist wants him to join a dating club, but there is only one real answer: Keep living, because the future—fingers crossed—is almost guaranteed to be better than the past. And, just as important, keep laughing. Thankfully, David Evanier is here to make the laughter part as easy as reading The One-Star Jew.
    Show book
  • The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall - A Victorian Christmas Spirit Story - cover

    The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall...

    J.K. Bangs

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    A lighter tale of a soggy ghost doomed to appear to her ancestors for an hour every Christmas Eve.The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall is taken from the Victorian Anthologies series featuring short stories by classic writers of the spooky, the scary and the supernatural. Guaranteed to give you the shivers, each collection includes familiar and loved creepy tales as well as those less well-known.
    Show book
  • My Adventure on Dartmoor - cover

    My Adventure on Dartmoor

    A. J. Alan

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    A. J. Alan was the pseudonym of Leslie Harrison Lambert (1883-1941), an English magician, intelligence officer, short story writer, and radio broadcaster. He was hugely popular in the '20s and '30s for his radio broadcasts, when he performed his own humorous and often macabre short stories, which he always delivered wearing full evening dress.My Adventure on Dartmoor is typical of A. J. Alan's amusing narratives, describing an eventful night in a remote cottage in the wilds of Dartmoor when he has to wrestle with an unruly cow and a stray actress, whom he inadvertently gets drunk on some very fine old brandy.
    Show book
  • La Belle Dame Sans Merci - cover

    La Belle Dame Sans Merci

    John Keats

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    John Keats (1795-1821) was one of the great English Romantic poets. 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' is a haunting ballad describing a young knight whose very lifeblood and vitality have been drained by a beautiful but parasitic, fairylike vampire. This knight has now been left as an undead shell of his former self, alone on a barren hillside.
    Show book
  • Damaged - Three Cursed Stories of Paranormal Horror - cover

    Damaged - Three Cursed Stories...

    Gail Smith, Linda Mooney

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Stories Included are: 
    CANCELLATION - A young woman discovers there's a penalty for having excessive non-payments to her credit card company. 
    THE DEVIL'S BREW - Vicky thinks her sister is unintentionally summoning the dark forces. Susan thinks Vicky's beliefs are sheer nonsense. One of them is wrong. 
    THE DRAIN - It was meant to be a long weekend, semi-vacation at their favorite tourist trap, New York City. You've heard the old wives' tales of alligators in the sewers? What the Duchins discovered was much, much worse.
    Show book