Yuko Akita had two passions. Haiku.
 And snow.
 An international bestseller,Snow is "a novel that reads like a poem. Limpid, delicate, and pure like its title."* In nineteenth-century Japan, a young haiku poet named Yuko journeys through snow-covered mountains on a quest for art and finds love instead. Maxence Fermine's prose is hypnotic, and his sensuous love story envelops you as if you¹re wrapped in one of his dreams with your eyes wide open. 
 Yuko has all the makings of greatness, but must learn to reach beyond the silent starkness of snow, his ultimate inspiration, to find the color pulsing through life. Color enhanced by love, without which he will remain invisible to the world. On his journey to enlightenment he learns how fragile the balance of life can be through the tragic story of his blind master, Soseki, and the love of his life, a French tightrope walker named Snow. Love and art finally converge in a most startling and exquisite way when a special young woman opens Yuko's heart to the purest of color and light. 
 *Gala (Italy)

Snow: A Novel

Literature & Fiction

Fermine, Maxence

Literary

Atria Books

Wounded while fighting with Napoleon's army in the Italian campaign, violin prodigy Johannes Karelsky arrives in Venice, where he is rescued by a mysterious woman and boards with Erasmus, an aged violin maker who has created the legendary "Black Violin," an instrument with which Johannes becomes obsessed as he searches for his enigmatic rescuer.

The Black Violin: A Novel

Atria

Yuko Akita had two passions. Haiku and snow. It is April 1884 and Yuko Akita has reached his seventeenth birthday on the Island of Hokkaid in the North of Japan. The time has come to choose his vocation, warrior or monk, but against the wishes of his father, Yuko settles on a third option: he will be a poet. Yuko begins to write the seventeen-syllable poems we know as haiku-all celebrating the beauty of snow, his one great subject. One day, the Imperial Poet arrives from the Emperor's court. He has heard about the beauty of Yuko's poems and has come to meet the young poet himself. While agreeing the poems have a music all their own, the Imperial Poet notes that lacking color, Yuko's poems are destined to remain invisible to the world. If the young poet is to learn color, he must study with the great artist Soseki in the south of Japan. Yuko sets off on a treacherous journey across the whole of Japan. Cold, hungry, and exhausted, he encounters a vision that will forever change his life. It is a woman, frozen in the ice. With pale gold hair, ice blue eyes and a face as white as snow, the dead beauty will obsess Yuko. Who was she? How did she come to meet her death in the depths of his beloved snow? Arriving at Soseki's door, Yuko is shocked to discover that the great master of color is blind. He will gradullay come to learn that color is not something outside of us, but within us. He will also learn about his master's Samurai past . . . and Soseki's link to the woman in the snow. It is a beautiful love story which will have its echo in Yuko's own as he finds his own, living, daughter of snow . . . With stunning visual images created out of minimalist prose, Snow is as delicate and inspiring as the haiku poetry it celebrates and emulates. A swift and refreshing read, the novel treats readers to a gorgeous love story while gently floating ideas such as what is the nature of art and perception?

Contemporary

Le Violon noir

Genre Fiction

POINTS

" Alors il comprit que l'homme s'était éloigné petit à petit un peu plus du paradis. Et il se prit à rêver de devenir une abeille. "

L'Apiculteur

ALBIN MICHEL

Voici une quarantaine d'histoires brèves mettant en scène le sage chinois Confucius, personnage vieux de plus de 2 500 ans dont la parole lumineuse ne s'est jamais démentie. Sept disciples imaginaires dialoguent ici avec lui de la vie des hommes comme de celle des bêtes, de rêve, de mort, de bonheur, de stupidité, de juste chemin, de mensonge, de beauté. Car Confucius nous apprend à observer la sagesse partout où elle se trouve, même dans les battements d'ailes du papillon.

Sagesses et malices de Confucius, le roi sans royaume

Children's Books

Classics

C'est une route aux mille parfums, aux mille périls aussi : celle qui, partant de Londres, suit la voie des Indes pour se perdre irrémédiablement dans l'Empire de la Chine. Un périple que l'on nomme la route du thé. Pour la première fois, en 1838, un homme va s'y aventurer, décidé à percer le secret des thés vert, bleu et blanc, inconnus en Angleterre. Au fil de son voyage, il va rencontrer Pearle, un riche négociant irlandais, Wang, le gardien de la vallée sacrée, Lu Chen, l'invisible empereur du thé et Loan, une chinoise aux yeux verts qui porte, tatouée sur son épaule, une fleur de pavot. Au terme de sa quête, l'opium. Un amour que l'on ne choisit pas.

Opium

Le syndrome du papillon

Teen & Young Adult

MICHEL LAFON

Neige

Arléa

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