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An anthology of the works of American expatriate author Paul Bowles (1910-1999). Includes The Delicate Prey and Other Stories (1950),…
A Hundred Camels in the Courtyard (1962), Things Gone and Things Still Here (1977), Midnight Mass (1981), and more. Edited by Daniel Halpern. Some strong language. 2002The Hatbox Letters
By Beth Powning. 2021
In this beautiful and deeply moving novel, a young widow struggles to come to terms with her solitary life in…
the rambling Victorian house she shared until recently with her husband and children in semi-rural New Brunswick.It is in this house, surrounded by heirloom gardens and the gentle sounds of a river, that Kate Harding, 52, faces her second winter since the untimely death of her husband. Her children, now grown, are living away, and Kate is truly on her own. In her living room are several hatboxes filled with letters and other ghostly ephemera, recently brought by her sister from the attic of their grandparents’ 18th-century Connecticut house. Their sweet mustiness tinges the air and makes Kate dream of her childhood and of her beloved grandparents. She remembers the sense of permanence and refuge that she felt in their apple-scented world, as well as, more recently, with her husband. As she begins to read the hatbox letters, she discovers that what to a child seemed a serene and blissful marriage was in fact founded on a tragic event. As Kate’s eyes clear to the truth of the past, a new tragedy unfolds, and her own house, filled with the shared detritus of marriage and motherhood, becomes the refuge where Kate can connect the strands of her unravelled life.In The Hatbox Letters — which is both sad and exhilarating, touching and illuminating — Beth Powning offers readers an unforgettable story of love, grief and renewal, both past and present, as well as her extraordinary perceptions of the natural world.Excerpt from The Hatbox LettersThe birds rise with a muted thunder, their wings serrate the light. For an instant, a peregrine falcon zigzags through the flock. Then it drops from the belly of the rising bird-cloud. In its talons is a sandpiper, crumpled like a ball of paper. It is hard to decide which drama to observe, the escape of the falcon with its prey or the flock’s display as the birds rush seaward like a single entity, a ballooning flame that rises and falls, expands and implodes, one instant silver and the next black. The flock speeds back towards the beach, passes close to the watchers, makes a dazzling turn, fast as thought. Then, with a diminishing roar, the birds waver, their legs drop, stretch. They touch down. They fluff their feathers, Kate observes, the way humans pull coats up around necks after a shock. Trying to put ourselves back as we were.Falling out of time
By David Grossman. 2014
Walking Man announces to his wife that he is setting out in search of their son, who has died. As…
Walking Man travels, other townspeople join him in search of their own loved ones. They all question whether death is truly the end of a person. Translated from Hebrew. 2014How they croaked: the awful ends of the awfully famous
By Georgia Bragg, Kevin O'Malley. 2011
Guide to the deaths of nineteen notable people begins with King Tut, who died of malaria. Also covers King Henry…
VIII, whose corpse exploded; George Washington; Marie Curie, who literally worked to death; and Albert Einstein. Includes facts, oddities, and resources. Some violence. For grades 5-8 and older readers. 2011Not without laughter
By Langston Hughes. 1995
Steel city love song: extraordinary moments in ordinary lives
By Ann McKenna Fromm. 2007
Honors the author's city Pittsburgh and her family in dramatic stories about family members, doctors, paramedics, and ordinary Pittsburghers. Demonstrating…
insight and compassion, these articles are a "moving tribute to the human spirit."Waiting for the owl's call (Tales of the world : Afghanistan)
By Gloria Whelan, Pascal Milelli. 2009
A young Turkoman girl spends her days hand-making rugs while wishing she could attend school. Includes author's note about exploitation…
of children in the carpet-making industry in Middle Eastern countries. For grades 4-7. 2009Blueberry summers: growing up at the lake
By Curtiss Anderson. 2008
In this classic story of a midwestern boyhood, Curtiss Anderson takes readers into the colorful lives of his robust Norwegian…
family and their wonderfully familiar summerscape in northern Minnesota: the lake place. Sweet childhood reminiscences comprise this coming-of-age memoir set in the poignant summers of the 1930s and '40sDirt road: A Novel
By James Kelman. 2016
The story of a teenage boy, who travels with his father from Scotland to Alabama to visit with relatives after…
the death of his mother and sister, and becomes swept up into the world of zydeco and bluesThe skin you live in
By Michael Tyler, David Lee Csicsko. 2005
Teens in Japan (Global Connection)
By Sandy Donovan, Sandra Donovan, Compass Point Books. 2007
Examines the centuries-old customs still influencing Japanese daily life in 2007. Discusses the pressure on teens to excel at school,…
as well as teenagers' familiarity with cutting-edge technology and their interests in music, baseball, and electronic devices. For grades 6-9. 2007Teens in Mexico (Global Connection)
By Brian Baumgart, Compass Point Books, Compass Point Books Staff. 2007
Discusses the differences between teenagers who live in the city and those from rural areas who leave school early to…
work full-time and help support their families. Covers celebrations, religion, poverty, job opportunities, and the lure of crossing the border into the United States. For grades 6-9. 2007Mummies: the newest, coolest, and creepiest from around the world
By Shelley Tanaka. 2005
Discusses the ways cultures in various climates and time periods have preserved the dead. Describes the process of mummification in…
the Andes mountains and dry deserts of South America, the Egyptian desert, glaciers of Canada and Italy, European peat bogs, Siberian ice, and Chinese sand dunes. For grades 3-6. 2005The polished hoe: a novel
By Austin Clarke. 2003
Award-winning novel set on a small Caribbean island, mid-twentieth century. Mary-Mathilda, servant and mistress of the village's plantation owner, summons…
detective Percy Stuart to confess to murder. Her nightlong statement, complicated by Percy's romantic feelings, reveals a sordid history. Explicit descriptions of sex, strong language, and some violence. 2003Tell my horse: voodoo and life in Haiti and Jamaica
By Zora Neale Hurston. 1990
Travelog and description of Neo-African religious practices based on the author's personal experiences in 1930s Haiti and Jamaica. Covers anthropology,…
natural history, and politics of these countries. Discusses the main Voodoo deities, ceremonies, and the strange phenomenon of possession. 1938. 1938Family
By Ian Frazier. 1994
While going through his parents' belongings after their deaths, Frazier found letters dating back to the time of the Civil…
War. Realizing he knew very little about his family's history, Frazier began research that took him back through two hundred years of middle-class life in small-town America and revealed how his forebears were affected by the social, economic, and domestic events in historyAnna and the King of Siam: Commemorative Edition
By Margaret Landon. 1997
Anna Leonowens, a Welsh widow hired in 1862 to be governess to the children and concubines of the king of…
Siam, found the contrasts between the exotic Orient and Victorian Great Britain striking. Landon recounts Leonowen's five years of adventures and confrontations. This book inspired the Broadway musical The King and IWhere the flame trees bloom
By Alma Flor Ada. 1994
Children's book author tells of growing up in Cuba with her extended family. She has picked stories from those "hanging…
in the branches of the trees of (her) childhood." Alma's blind great-grandmother Mina, who sold or gave handmade dolls to neighbors and gave gifts to her relatives according to their wealth and needs, managed to keep things in balance even though she never learned mathematics. For grades 3-6Spanish pioneers of the Southwest (Adventures in Time & Place Series)
By Joan Anderson, George Ancona. 1989
The first settlement of Europeans in the New World was not that of the Pilgrims, nor was it in the…
East. Twenty years before the Pilgrims, Spanish settlers established the colony of New Spain (which is now New Mexico) in the North American Southwest. The author vividly recreates life in the mid-1700s in one early Spanish settlement--El Rancho de las Golondrinas.For grades 5-8 and older readers. 1989The narrowing stream
By John Mortimer. 1989
Swinton is off to work leaving his wife, Julia, to get on with her care of the house and their…
three children. Suddenly little Sam reveals that there is a strange man in the boathouse. And soon Julia learns that this appealing person is the brother of Molly Paneth, a well-known actress who has just been found dead on a houseboat. When Swinton's cigarette case is found in Molly's bedroom, the situation becomes even more disturbing