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  La maison dans laquelle (2009)
Posted by: Simon - 12-14-2025, 07:40 PM - Replies (1)

   


Dans la Maison, vous allez perdre vos repères, votre nom et votre vie d'avant. Dans la Maison, vous vous ferez des amis, vous vous ferez des ennemis. Dans la Maison, vous mènerez des combats, vous perdrez des guerres. Dans la Maison, vous connaîtrez l'amour, vous connaîtrez la peur, vous découvrirez des endroits dont vous ne soupçonniez pas l'existence, et même quand vous serez seul, ça ne sera jamais vraiment le cas. Dans la Maison, aucun mur ne peut vous arrêter, le temps ne s'écoule pas toujours comme il le devrait, et la Loi y est impitoyable. Dans la Maison, vous atteindrez vos dix-huit ans transformé à jamais et effrayé à l'idée de devoir la quitter.

Ensorcelante évocation de l'adolescence, La Maison dans laquelle est un chant d'amour à cet âge ingrat et bienheureux, à ses exaltations et ses tragédies, au sentiment de frustration et de toute-puissance qui le traverse. Mariam Petrosyan a réussi à créer un univers bariolé, vivant et réaliste, pétri de cette nostalgie et de cet émerveillement que nous avons tous au fond de nous et qui fait que, parfois, nous refusons de grandir et d'affronter la brutalité du monde qu'on appelle la réalité. 

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In the House, you will lose your bearings, your name, and your former life. In the House, you will make friends, you will make enemies. In the House, you will fight battles, you will lose wars. In the House, you will know love, you will know fear, you will discover places you never knew existed, and even when you are alone, it will never truly be alone. In the House, no wall can stop you, time does not always flow as it should, and the Law is merciless. In the House, you will reach your eighteenth birthday forever changed and terrified at the thought of having to leave it.

A bewitching evocation of adolescence, The House in Which is a love song to this awkward yet blissful age, to its exaltations and tragedies, to the feelings of frustration and omnipotence that permeate it. Mariam Petrosyan has succeeded in creating a colorful, vibrant and realistic universe, imbued with that nostalgia and wonder that we all have deep inside and that sometimes makes us refuse to grow up and face the brutality of the world we call reality.

Quote: “We think of a sort of great Russian novel revised and corrected by a melancholic Stephen King or a surly Lewis Carroll.”

— Lire

“What charm distills these few thousand enchanted and very dark, hypnotic pages!”

— Télérama

La Maison dans laquelle is one of those book-worlds where we sink, where we get lost, but it is precisely by letting marginal adolescents live and wander, mistreated by fate, that Mariam Petrosyan succeeds in capturing the essence of this intense, furious age, conducive to excessive feelings and dreams, perfect for literature.”

— Le Monde

In the House, you will lose your bearings, your name and your previous life. In the House, you will make friends, you will make enemies. In the House you will fight battles, you will lose wars. In the House, you will know love, you will know fear, you will discover places you never knew existed, and even when you are alone, it will never really be. In the House, no wall can stop you, time does not always flow as it should, and the Law is merciless. In the House, you will turn eighteen forever changed and afraid of having to leave it.

The House, this building lost in the middle of vacant lots and blocks of buildings, with its three floors and its white paint which has turned to a dirty gray, is a sort of boarding school for different children: dilapidated and dented of all kinds, whether they are in wheelchairs or crawling, the House is what brings them together. It becomes their world. The presence of adults — teachers, educators and parents — is discreet and even undesirable, and their world, the Outside, a place without precise contours, is feared. Every seven years, the oldest children will have to join this Outside, not without apprehension. But in the meantime, the House is their home, their playground and their battlefield. Within its walls, each resident is given a new name and assigned to a group. The children then create their own laws, transgress them, structure or destructure time, invent and transmit their own traditions and customs, fabricate legends, decide on their founding myths, and in the meantime, eat, drink and smoke in their dormitories more or less less filthy. The House is this microcosm as codified as it is phantasmagorical, between an obligatory passage and an eternally suspended moment.

A bewitching evocation of childhood and adolescence, La Maison dans laquelle is a fantastic love song to this thankless and blissful age, to its exaltations and its tragedies, to the feeling of frustration and omnipotence that runs through it. Mariam Petrosyan has succeeded in creating a colorful, lively and poetic universe, steeped in this nostalgia and this wonder that we all have deep within us and which means that, sometimes, we refuse to grow up and face the brutality of the world that we call reality.

All the subtitles I've worked on are in my opensubtitles account:

.en/search/...9/a-mysqld

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  The Brothers Bishop (2005)
Posted by: Simon - 12-14-2025, 07:35 PM - Replies (1)

   


Tommy and Nathan Bishop are as different as two brothers can be. Carefree and careless, Tommy is the golden boy who takes men into his bed with a seductive smile and turns them out just as quickly. No one can resist him - and no one can control him, either. That salient point certainly isn't lost on his brother. Nathan is all about control. At thirty-one, he is as dark and complicated as Tommy is light and easy, and he is bitter beyond his years. While Tommy left for the excitement of New York City, Nathan has stayed behind, teaching high school English in their provincial hometown, surrounded by the reminders of their ruined family history and the legacy of anger that runs through him like a scar. Now, Tommy has come home to the family cottage by the sea for the summer, bringing his unstable, sexual powder keg of an entourage - and the distant echoes of his family's tumultuous past - with him.

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  Malcolm - Ordinary Magic (1981)
Posted by: Simon - 12-14-2025, 07:31 PM - Replies (1)

   


As a general rule, we don't present or archive PDF format. When someone posts a book that's available only in this format, then obviously we're happy and grateful for it, but because converting to ebook formats is time-consuming, and because I for one have many other calls on my time, we rarely do this. In addition, many books are simply not suitable for conversion, either because they have many high-quality images that would make the ebook too large, or because the structure and formatting of a book are crucial to its acceptable presentation, and these cannot be reproduced (what I mean is that I can't do it!) as an ebook. .pdf files also tend to be much larger than regular ebook files.

Of course, as with all else on the Ebooks forum, is a member has a particular wish to have something as a .pdf, then we'll do our best to accommodate this, but be warned that it might take some time and the result will not be archived if the book already exists in the other formats. Clearly, where no other formats are available, the .pdf will be in the archive.

As far as Ordinary Magic is concerned, a glance at the book when replacing the link suggested it would be worth converting. I enjoyed reading it - inevitably, you read as you edit - and found it moving and satisfying. Its premise seemed to me implausible, but that was only a device to tell the main story, which was of fitting in, earning friendship and overcoming injustice.

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  A Canticle for Leibowitz (1960)
Posted by: Simon - 12-14-2025, 07:25 PM - Replies (1)

   


Odd as it sounds, this is hot toddy, warm blanket comfort food for me. Admittedly, that’s not the typical description of this cynical, bleak-themed, post-apocalyptic SF classic. However, the easy, breezy style with which Miller explores his melancholy material manages to pluck smiles from me whenever I pick it up. This go around, I listened to the audio version which was recently released it was as mood brightening an experience as my previous read through.


Despite dealing with dark, somber subject matter and ultimately ending on a tragic crescendo of “humanity is stupid, savage and screwed,” the journey of the novel is so filled with engaging characters and genuine humor that the surrounding depression and moroseness of the narrative theme just can’t seem to grab hold of you. At least, it never laid an accusing finger on me.

Canticle is broken up into 3 Sections, each taking place approximately 6 centuries apart. Beginning in the 26th century, 600 years after the Flame Deluge when nuclear buffoonery laid waste to civilization, the central focus of the story is a Roman Catholic monastery founded by a Jewish weapons engineer for the purpose of safeguarding and preserving human knowledge.

Shortly after the geniuses of the 20th Century decided to light up the globe like Hell's own 4th of July, the surviving residents of Planet “radiation burn” decided that brains and books were overrated and followed up the Flame Deluge with the Simplification, whereby they roasted all of the books (along with any person smart enough to read or write one).

Isaac Leibowitz, after being part of the military machinery that microwaved the planet, made it his mission in life to try and preserve knowledge for the future. Thus the Albertian Order of Leibowitz was founded.

The first third of the book introduces us to the post apocalyptic world and gives a back-story on the Flame Deluge and the mission of the Order of Leibowitz. Located in what was the Southwestern United States, the Order tracks down and smuggles 20th century “memorabilia” into the abbey (a process known as “booklegging”) while trying to avoid being killed (and possibly eaten) by the self-described “Simpletons” roaming the wastelands.

The next section of the book takes place in the 32nd Century and shows humanity finally emerging out of the dark ages of the Simplification and beginning to once again embrace the knowledge. This section focuses primarily on the growing feud between the resurgent secular scientists and the Church over the control and distribution of technology. Similar to our own renaissance period, the story describes science and natural law going toe-to-toe with the info hoarding monks as powerful city-states run by warlords play both sides for advantage.

Finally, in the 38th Century, the last section of the book shows humanity once again in the full flower of its technological brilliance and historical stupidity ready to give the Earth another nuclear facial (Note:I was going to use "atomic facial," but the Urban Dictionary makes that term very inappropriate here). War is coming and the forces of history are once again driving humanity like cattle towards the abattoir.

Thus we see the overarching theme of Miller’s masterpiece; the cyclical nature of history. Miller’s moral : as a species we are too stupid not to truly learn from our past blunders and are doomed to continue to screw the pooch and the planet with our giant, atomic phalluses. I know, not exactly a cheery, pump it up pep talk. However, the tone and the narrative style are anything but dreary.

Miller does a wonderful job creating a world that is large and mysterious and yet instantly recognizable and relatable. His characters are flawed, genuine and mostly decent and live through their times with a sense of purpose and optimism that belies the smothering embrace of history as it squeezes events into an all too familiar pattern.

Miller’s ability to write brightly of such bleakness is truly extraordinary. The story is dark, fatalistic and filled with pessimism yet the prose is light, hopeful and filled with optimism. The word bitter never comes to mind.

In addition to the overriding theme of history’s wheel-like pattern, Miller touches on other serious issues such as euthanasia and the right to life, the place of art in society and the nature of war itself. This is a towering science fiction work, but Miller’s messages are deftly delivered behind a humorous, engaging future history.

In sum, this book is a light touch of morale outrage. It’s a cozy warning of man’s stupidity. It’s a warm, comforting “blankie” for our inner cynic to snuggle with while we wait for the shoe/anvil to drop.

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  Jaap - Summer Brother (2018)
Posted by: Simon - 12-14-2025, 06:51 PM - Replies (1)

   



Summer Brother is an honest, tender account of brotherly love between a disabled boy and his abled brother, which will resonate with readers of Rain Man.

Thirteen-year-old Brian lives in a trailer on a forgotten patch of land with his uncaring father. His older brother Lucien, physically and mentally disabled, has been institutionalised for years. Lucien is sent back to live with his family for the summer. Their disinterested father leaves Brian to care for Lucien’s special needs. But how do you look after someone when you don’t know what they need? How do you make the right choices when you still have so much to discover? 

Quote: A boy becomes an unwitting caregiver as he navigates puberty in Jaap Robben’s coming-of-age novel Summer Brother.

When Brian is thirteen, his disabled older brother, Lucien, comes to live with him and their uncaring, impoverished father, Maurice, who works odd jobs to pay their rent. While Lucien’s assisted living residence is under construction, he needs constant care and attention, which Maurice is unwilling to provide; with Brian’s mother off on her honeymoon with a new husband, Brian is left to do the brunt of the work. Thrust into a world that’s more adult than he’s prepared for, Brian learns what is and isn’t normal and healthy in childhood, and that he deserves a better life.

Having lived alone with his father for two years, Brian has picked up on mannerisms and behaviors that he needs to survive in their unsafe neighborhood. He tells Emile, the potential new tenant next door, that he’s sixteen; he puts on a questioning front to clinch a deal for higher rent. His assertive guise is not true to his nature, though; in reality, he is unsure of himself, overly curious, and doesn’t want to wind up like his father, even if it feels inevitable. Secret meetings with Emile and a girl who lives with Lucien help Brian to realize that Maurice’s parenting methods are unsuitable, and that being a caregiver requires sacrifice and compassion.

The book’s language is precise and forthright as Brian observes, and portrays in stark terms, the intense, awkward, and lovely actions of those around him. Sharp exchanges reveal characters who are witty and earnest in equal measure.

Summer Brother is a harrowing novel about dysfunctional family dynamics and the universal awkwardness of being a teenager.

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