New Directions: 473 books

"Long ago in 1945 all the nice people in England were poor, allowing for exceptions," begins The Girls of Slender Means, Dame Muriel Spark's tragic and rapier-witted portrait of a London ladies' hostel just emerging from the shadow of World War II. Like the May of Teck Club itself—"three...

A novella—half joke and half nightmare— by "Spain's most significant contemporary literary figure" (The New Yorker) *Because She Never Asked *is a story reminiscent of that reached by the travelers in Patricia Highsmith's Stranger on a Train. The author first writes a piece for...

Collected here are eight particularly enjoyable Dylan Thomas stories, stories hailed by The New Statesman as "the unself-conscious classics, compassionate, fresh, and very funny... radiating enthusiasm and delight in the telling." This story collection includes The End of The River,...

These two long stories by modernist master H.D. paint the wreckage of post-World War I Europe—both human and civilizational—in bright, vivid detail. Written by H. D. in 1930 and only published in a 100-copy edition for friends in 1934, Kora and Ka marked a new level of intensity in the...

Da Vinci’s Bicycle, Guy Davenport’s second collection of stories, was first published in 1979, and contains some of his most important fiction. Written with tremendous wit, intelligence, and verve, the stories are based on historical figures whose endeavors were too early, too late, or went against...

Joseph Roth’s final novella, The Leviathan, concerns a shtetl’s finest coral merchant and how his dream of seeing the sea for the first time materializes at a terrible cost. In the small town of Progrody, Nissen Piczenik makes his living as the most respected coral merchant of the region....

Gary Snyder's second collection, Myths & Texts, was originally published in 1960 by Totem Press. It is now reissued by New Directions in this completely revised format, with an introduction by the author. Gary Snyder's second collection, Myths & Texts, was originally published in 1960...

“A perfect expression of Miller’s moral perspective as well as one of his outstanding demonstrations of narrative skill. It provides a wonderful cinematic view of two indomitable egotists in deadly conflict.” —The Nation The devil in Henry Miller’s Big Sur paradise is Conrad Moricand:...

A gem of a Marías story: Elvis and his entourage abandon their translator in a seedy cantina full of enraged criminals. “It all happened because of Elvis Presley.” Elvis, down south of the border to film a movie, has insisted his producers hire a proper Spaniard so that he can pronounce...

New Directions celebrates the Pablo Neruda Centennial. In celebration of the 100th anniversary of Pablo Neruda's birth, New Directions is pleased to announce the reissue of a classic work in a timeless translation by Donald D. Walsh and fully bilingual. Residence on Earth is perhaps Neruda's...

**An ecumenical anthology, Thoughts on the East gathers Merton’s essential definitions of the religions that so much interested him—Taoism, Buddhism (in many forms, but especially Zen), Sufism, and Hinduism. ** Unified by Merton’s belief that East and West share “a unity of outlook...

**Diptych Rome-London presents the two undisputed masterpieces of Pound's pre-Cantos work––the long poems "Homage to Sextus Propertius" and "Hugh Selwyn Mauberley." Created in the aftermath of World War I, the poems ironically consider the place of the artist in "a...

Inspired by the great tradition of French love poetry, New Directions presents a beautiful, small gift edition, dedicated to what makes the world go round. Filled with devotion and lust, sensuality and eroticism, fevers and overtures, these poems showcase some of the most passionate verses...

**Black Mesa Poems is rooted in the American Southwest, the setting of Jimmy Santiago Baca's highly acclaimed long narrative poem, Martin & Meditations on the South Valley (New Directions, 1987). ** Black Mesa Poems is rooted in the American Southwest, the setting of Jimmy Santiago...