Richard Matthews

A New York Times Notable Book
A San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, and Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year
“A gripping and resonant novel. . . . It immerses the reader in a distant world with startling immediacy and ardor. . . . Riveting.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
In 1886 a shy, middle-aged piano tuner...

All animals are equals but some animals are more equal than others. George Orwell's classic satire of the Russian Revolution is the account of the bold struggle, initiated by the animals, that transforms Mr. Jones's Manor Farm into Animal Farm, a wholly democratic society built on the credo that all animals are created equal. Out of their cleverness, the pigs Napoleon, Squealer, and Snowball emerge as leaders of the new community in a subtle evolution...

Young Jim Hawkins has no reason to suspect that Billy Bones, the pensioner who has taken up residence in his father's inn, is anything other than an aging former mariner. But when violent altercations with visitors to the inn leave Billy on death's doorstep, Jim discovers that they all are members of the crew of the notorious pirate, Captain Flint, and that Billy has a map that shows the whereabouts of Flint's buried treasure--a map that Jim inadvertently...

In the city of Florence, Italy, in 1418, a competition was announced to design the dome for the Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral, a proposed dome which was considered all but impossible to build. Of the many plans submitted, the one offered by goldsmith and clock maker Filippo Brunelleschi stood out, and he then spent the next twehty-eight years solving the puzzle of the dome's construction and in the process reinvented the field of architecture.

From the author of EMBERS comes another masterpiece: an erotically charged novel about Casanova and the woman who finally defeated him. Sandor Marai, one of the leading Hungarian novelists, begins his story in 1756 when Giacomo Casanova, after having escaped from one of Venice's infamous jails, stops at the Italian village of Bolzano to rest, secure a loan to rebuild his life, and resume his art of seduction. But he's come to this village remembering...

A sweeping panorama steeped in the tragedy and glory that is Ireland, epitomizes the power and richness of Rutherford's storytelling magic. The saga begins in tribal, pre-Christian Ireland during the reign of the fierce and mighty High kings at Tara, with the fate of two lovers, the princely Conall and the ravishing Deirdre, whose travails cleverly echo the ancient Celtic legend of Cuchulainn.