"The Idiot" is a novel by American humorist John Kendrick Bangs. The story revolves around the character of Smith, an ordinary man who suddenly becomes a genius after being struck by lightning. The book satirizes the obsession with intelligence and the notion that being a genius automatically leads to success and happiness.

As Smith navigates his newfound genius, he realizes that it is not all it's cracked up to be. His intelligence becomes a burden, alienating him from his friends and family...

"Bat Wing" is a mystery-adventure novel written by Sax Rohmer, first published in 1921. Set in London and Egypt, the story revolves around Paul Harley, a private detective, who is drawn into a series of perplexing events involving a valuable blue diamond known as the "Blue Water." The diamond has a curse associated with it, and its possession is believed to bring bad luck and tragedy.

Harley's investigation takes him into a world of international intrigue, ancient curses, and dangerous crimin...

A humorous feel-good novel about big loves, family, the art of self-discovery, and finding your destiny in life.

After three years in Colombia working as a humanitarian aid worker for the United Nations, Pelle Jellema leaves for the French Pyrenees, tired and disillusioned. At the French-Spanish border, his 500-mile journey on foot on the ancient Camino [The Way] to Santiago de Compostela begins. He hopes to get answers to the question of what he should do now that he is going to leave Colomb...

All the sawmill’s forest is lost in devastating fires. After years of drought, a period of torrential rain breaks out. The barren slopes no longer hold water, and a black tidal wave rages through the river valley.

Eleven-year-old Mindra and her invalid grandmother are the last inhabitants of a village near the abandoned sawmill, high on the mountainside.

She rescues some survivors, who become her new family.

The world is tipping and they must make it on their own.

A child runs away from the funeral of her mother. A father she does not know.

A lonely man brings her food and they become friends.

She personifies an inheritance more fatal than the incriminating information her late mother hid somewhere. A foreign secret service is on her trail.

What do you do with sudden, uncontrollable outbursts of energy? Theo went cycling.

Just as lonely as working from home, but at least while cycling there was a landscape passing by.

A near collision earned him a cycling buddy. This will be something...

In pursuit of color, fire, and the unknown.

Ophelia abandons her home in Amsterdam and embarks on a journey of self-discovery that takes her across the globe. Led by strange connections and coincidences, she sets out on a solo trip to Lanzarote, travels to Arizona and California, and finally settles on the island of Bali, where she grapples with heartbreak and rebels against life. Ophelia senses that life could easily flip upside down. Where is the edge of it? How far is she allowed to go? V...

This eclectic, moving and wonderfully enjoyable collection is the essential introduction to Korean literature. Journeying through Korea's dramatic twentieth century, from the Japanese occupation and colonial era to the devastating war between North and South and the rapid, disorienting urbanization of later decades, The Penguin Book of Korean Short Stories captures a hundred years of Korea's vibrant short-story tradition.

Here are peddlers and donkeys travelling across moonlit fields; artists...