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Misfit: autistic. gay. immigrant. changemaker.
By Andreas Souvaliotis. 2019
Updated and expanded: A new edition of the inspiring memoir by one of Canada's most unusual, successful and socially conscious…
businesspeople."I am different. I have always been different. I grew up scared of being found out, scared of my natural inability to fit in, to conform, to look and sound and dress and behave 'normal.' I was always drawn to the different ones and I observed them with fascination--but the thought of being even a little bit like them mortified me. I was desperate to fit in. . . ." --From MisfitAndreas Souvaliotis was raised at a time when being on the autism spectrum wasn't easily diagnosed or even discussed. Minds like his were simply considered odd. He also knew from an early age he was gay, and it terrified him as he was growing up with openly homophobic parents in one of Europe's least tolerant societies.Andreas's differences made him an outsider, right through to his mid-forties. And then suddenly, everything changed. Misfit is the extraordinary memoir of a man who realized there was strength in his strangeness, that it could be used as a force for good. "It all happened in a flash. On a beautiful spring morning in 2007, sitting in my backyard and licking my wounds from a spectacular career derailment, I came up with a big idea--and I found myself contemplating the most daring and unconventional pursuit of my life." The weird kid from Greece was on his way to making his world, and everyone's world, a better place.Andreas Souvaliotis's inspiring story shows us that everyone has what it takes to trigger positive change, and that none of us should see our differences and quirks as handicaps.• The author is donating all of his proceeds from this book to 6 Degrees, a global charitable initiative that promotes inclusion, diversity, belonging and citizenhip. 6degreesto.comThe music of silence: New Edition (Amadeus Ser.)
By Andrea Bocelli. 2011
Using a third-person narrative, opera singer Bocelli, who as a young boy lost his vision to congenital bilateral glaucoma, describes…
his childhood in Italy and his interest, education, and career in music. Relates challenges he faced and overcame. Originally published in Italian. 2011Conspirata: a novel of ancient Rome
By Robert Harris. 2010
Slave Tiro, secretary to the statesman/philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero, from Imperium (RC 63427), continues to chronicle his master's rise to…
fame and power. Cicero bribes his way to becoming a consul but is despised by his fellow politicians, including Gaius Julius Caesar, who conspire to assassinate him. Some strong language. 2010Piano starts here: the young Art Tatum
By Robert Andrew Parker, Robert A. Parker. 2008
Todo está iluminado (21 Ser.)
By Jonathan Safran Foer, Jonathan Saffran Foer. 2005
Esta historia cuenta el viaje de un joven norteamericano a Ucrania en busca de los origenes de su familia, una…
inquietante y divertida odisea a traves de los claroscuros de la memoria en la que poco a poco se iran iluminando los desertados escenarios de un pasado turbador: la Segunda Guerra Mundial, el holocausto o la fundacion, en el siglo XVIII, de Trachimbrod, el pueblo del que es originaria la familia del protagonistaThe invisible wall: a love story that broke barriers
By Harry Bernstein. 2008
In a small English town on the eve of WWI, Harry's family struggles to make ends meet. His father spends…
his low wages on drinking on gambling. His mother, devoted to her children survives on her dreams. His older sister does the unthinkable; she falls in love with a Christian. They are separated by an "invisible wall". When Harry discovers the affair, he must choose what he knows to be true in his heartRamsés II (Grandes biografías Series #1)
By Isabel Prieto Gonzalez, Isabel Prieto González. 2005
Factual life and times of the great nineteenth-dynasty Egyptian pharaoh, couched in the form of a fictional autobiography. Thus Ramses…
himself recounts his birth and pedigree, childhood and family, succession to the throne, military and political conquests, construction projects, and death. Spanish language. 2004Lady of the reeds
By Pauline Gedge. 1995
Thu, a beautiful, ambitious village girl, meets Hui, a court official, who teaches her skills above her station. Becoming a…
favorite concubine of the Pharaoh Ramses only makes her aspire to more. But Egyptian court intrigue is a dangerous game. Some descriptions of sex and some violenceDeux sœurs nées à huit ans d'écart dans un petit village de la Gaspésie se retrouvent à Montréal au tournant…
des années 1970 : l'aînée, pionnière du journalisme moderne et future conseillère politique du premier ministre René Lévesque, vit les années d'or d'une brillante carrière, tandis que la cadette met résolument le pied dans l'autonomie. Ni l'une ni l'autre ne se doute qu'au fil de leur engagement respectif dans la société en marche, leurs destins seront soudés par la maladie mentale durant les quarante prochaines annéesMammoths on the move
By Lisa Wheeler, Kurt Cyrus. 2006
Join a pack of woolly mammoths as they trek south for the winter, braving fierce storms, deadly predators, and raging…
rivers while making their slow journey across the gorgeous unspoiled lands of this continent until finally they reach their goal. The author draws readers into the mystery of prehistory and of one of the most awesome beasts to ever walk the earth. For grades K-3Global bestselling author of River God and The New Kingdom , Wilbur Smith, returns with the next epic book in…
his brand-new Ancient Egyptian series. FROM THE RUINS OF BATTLE A HERO MUST RISE FOR THE GLORY OF EGYPT Years of Hyksos rule have seen the plunder of once-mighty Egypt. Though the two kingdoms have now been reunited by the armies of the true Pharaoh, his position is perilous, his rule under threat from those who seek to take advantage of the turmoil created by the overthrow of the Hyksos. Desperate to keep Egypt united, Taita the Magus summons his protégé, Piay, to solve a millennia-old riddle which has the power to secure Egypt's future forever. But in the tumult of war, an evil has thrived. Malevolent followers of Seth, the god of chaos, are determined to claim this power and usher in a new age of darkness. The fate of Egypt is at stake. Can Piay prevent their land falling into the hands of those who would see its ruin?The Snows of Yesteryear: Portraits For An Autobiography
By Gregor Von Rezzori, H. F. Broch De Rothermann. 1989
Gregor von Rezzori was born in Czernowitz, a onetime provincial capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that was later to be…
absorbed successively into Romania, the USSR, and the Ukraine--a town that was everywhere and nowhere, with a population of astonishing diversity. Growing up after World War I and the collapse of the empire, Rezzori lived in a twilit world suspended between the formalities of the old nineteenth-century order which had shaped his aristocratic parents and the innovations, uncertainties, and raw terror of the new century. The haunted atmosphere of this dying world is beautifully rendered in the pages of The Snows of Yesteryear.The book is a series of portraits--amused, fond, sometimes appalling--of Rezzori's family: his hysterical and histrionic mother, disappointed by marriage, destructively obsessed with her children's health and breeding; his father, a flinty reactionary, whose only real love was hunting; his haughty older sister, fated to die before thirty; his earthy nursemaid, who introduced Rezzori to the power of storytelling and the inevitability of death; and a beloved governess, Bunchy. Telling their stories, Rezzori tells his own, holding his early life to the light like a crystal until it shines for us with a prismatic brilliance.The Violet Hour
By James Womack, Sergio Del Molino. 2013
Winner of the Premio Ojo Crítico and Premio Tigre Juan, The Violet Hour is the celebration of a life cut…
short. A deeply moving memoir that shows us the inner life of a man confronted with his own limitations.Children who lose their parents are orphans, and those who have to close their spouse's dead eyes are widows and widowers. But we, the parents who sign the documents authorizing our children's funerals, we have no name, no civil status. We remain parents forever.Sergio del Molino is a Spanish writer and journalist who lives in Zaragoza. He has worked for almost ten years as a reporter in the Heraldo de Aragón, where he writes a Sunday column.France, Story of a Childhood
By Lara Vergnaud, Zahia Rahmani. 2016
This moving tale of imprisonment and escape, persecution and loss, is narrated by the daughter of an alleged Harki, an…
Algerian soldier who fought for the French during the Algerian War for Independence. It was the fate of such men to be twice exiled, first in their homeland after the war, and later in France, where fleeing Harki families sought refuge but instead faced contempt, discrimination, and exclusion. Zahia Rahmani blends reality and imagination in her writing, offering a fictionalized version of her own family's struggle. Lara Vergnaud's beautiful translation from the French perfectly captures the voices and emotions of Rahmani's childhood in a foreign land. While the author delves deeply into the past, she also indicts present-day France and Algeria. From the unique perspective of the daughter of an accused Harki, she examines France's complex and controversial history with its former colony and offers new insight into the French civil riots of 2005. She makes a stirring plea for understanding between generations and cultures, and especially for an end to the destructive practice of condemning children for their fathers' actions and beliefs.A Canadian Bankclerk
By Douglas Lochhead, John Preston Buschlen. 1973
The story herein told is true to life; true, the greater part of it, to my own life. Also, I…
am convinced that my experience in A Canadian Bank was but mildly exciting as compared with that of many others. My object in publishing "Evan Nelson's" history is to enlighten the public concerning life behind the wicket and thus pave the way for the legitimate organization of bankclerks into a fraternal association, for their financial and social (including moral) betterment. Bank officials, I trust, will see to it that my misrepresentations are exposed. To mothers of bankclerks who attach overmuch importance to the gentility of their Boy's avocation; to fathers who think that because the bank is rich its employees must necessarily become so in time; to friends who criticize the bankclerks of their acquaintance for not settling down--this story is addressed. To the men of our banks who are dissatisfied with the business they have chosen, or someone else has chosen for them; to Old Country clerks who come out to Canada under the impression that Five Dollars is as good as One Pound; to bank employees in the United States, and to office men everywhere--I am telling my tale. Finally, I appeal to "the girls we have known." Be sure you study the subject thoroughly before accusing that inscrutable, proud and procrastinating clerk of yours of inconstancy. (From the Prologue)The Winged Seed
By Li-Young Lee. 2013
"It has true spiritual importance for contemporary American literature."-Edward HirschUpon its initial publication, acclaimed poet Li-Young Lee's memoir The Winged…
Seed: A Remembrance (1995), received an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. In lyrical prose, Lee's extraordinary story begins in the 1950s when his parents fled China's political turmoil for Indonesia. Along with many other Chinese members of the population, his family was persecuted under President Sukarno. Falsely accused and charged for crimes against the state, his father spent a year and a half in jail as a political prisoner, half of that time in a leper colony. While his entire family was being transported to a prison colony, they escaped and fled to Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, and back to Hong Kong where his father rose to prominence as an evangelical preacher. Eventually, the family sought asylum in the United States in 1962. When the author was six, they emigrated to a small town in western Pennsylvania where his father became a Presbyterian minister. This reissued edition contains a new foreword by the author and never-before-seen photos of the family from different stages of their journey.Li-Young Lee is the author of four critically acclaimed books of poetry that have garnered such awards as the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award from New York University; the 1990 Lamont Poetry Selection; the Writer's Award from the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation; and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Lannan Foundation, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.The Violet Hour
By James Womack, Sergio Molino. 2013
Winner of the Premio Ojo Crítico and Premio Tigre Juan, The Violet Hour is the celebration of a life cut…
short. A deeply moving memoir that shows us the inner life of a man confronted with his own limitations.Children who lose their parents are orphans, and those who have to close their spouse's dead eyes are widows and widowers. But we, the parents who sign the documents authorizing our children's funerals, we have no name, no civil status. We remain parents forever.Sergio del Molino is a Spanish writer and journalist who lives in Zaragoza. He has worked for almost ten years as a reporter in the Heraldo de Aragón, where he writes a Sunday column.France, Story of a Childhood
By Lara Vergnaud, Zahia Rahmani. 2016
This moving tale of imprisonment and escape, persecution and loss, is narrated by the daughter of an alleged Harki, an…
Algerian soldier who fought for the French during the Algerian War for Independence. It was the fate of such men to be twice exiled, first in their homeland after the war, and later in France, where fleeing Harki families sought refuge but instead faced contempt, discrimination, and exclusion. Zahia Rahmani blends reality and imagination in her writing, offering a fictionalized version of her own family's struggle. Lara Vergnaud's beautiful translation from the French perfectly captures the voices and emotions of Rahmani's childhood in a foreign land. While the author delves deeply into the past, she also indicts present-day France and Algeria. From the unique perspective of the daughter of an accused Harki, she examines France's complex and controversial history with its former colony and offers new insight into the French civil riots of 2005. She makes a stirring plea for understanding between generations and cultures, and especially for an end to the destructive practice of condemning children for their fathers' actions and beliefs.Early Man: The Junior Novelization
By Aardman Animation Ltd. 2018
The official novelization of the major stop-motion children's movie!Based on the hotly anticipated new stop-motion feature film Early Man, from…
director Nick Park (Shaun the Sheep, Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run) and Aardman Animation, coming to U.S. theaters this February.Meet Dug, a scrawny but cheerful caveman who loves his valley and just wants the best for his tribe of misfits. Accompanied by his faithful pig sidekick Hognob, Dug is a dreamer—why settle for hunting rabbits when you can hunt a mammoth?! Then there’s Dug’s tribe, led by the cautious Chief Bobnar. Bobnar wants the best for the tribe, too, but he sees things a little differently from Dug.Then Dug meets the evil Lord Nooth. He’s the leader of the Bronze Age City. When the Bronze Age City invades the valley and the cavemen have to fight to save their home, Dug strikes a deal with Lord Nooth. The tribe can keep their valley if they beat the Bronze Agers at their own game: soccer!Can Dug and Hognob really unite a motley tribe of rabbit-hunters into a serious team? It’s the Stone Age versus the Bronze Age in the match of the millennium!Easy to read and side-splittingly funny, this story about cavemen with heart will appeal to young readers and their parents.Trepanation of the Skull (NIU Series in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies)
By Sergey Gandlevsky. 2014
Sergey Gandlevsky is widely recognized as one of the leading living Russian poets and prose writers. His autobiographical novella Trepanation…
of the Skull is a portrait of the artist as a young late-Soviet man. At the center of the narrative are Gandlevsky's brain tumor, surgery, and recovery in the early 1990s. The story radiates out, relaying the poet's personal history through 1994, including his unique perspective on the 1991 coup by Communist hardliners resisted by Boris Yeltsin. Gandlevsky tells wonderfully strange but true episodes from the bohemian life he and his literary companions led. He also frankly describes his epic alcoholism and his ambivalent adjustment to marriage and fatherhood. Aside from its documentary interest, the book's appeal derives from its self-critical and shockingly honest narrator, who expresses himself in the densely stylized version of Moscow slang that was characteristic of the nonconformist intelligentsia of the 1970s and 1980s. Gandlevsky is a true artist of language who incorporates into his style the cadences of Pushkin and Tiutchev, the folk wisdom of proverbs, and slang in all its varieties. Susanne Fusso's excellent translation marks the first volume in English of Sergey Gandlevsky's prose, and it will interest scholars, students, and general readers of Russian literature and culture of the late Soviet and post-Soviet periods.