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Showing 1 - 20 of 29 items
By Peter Johnstone, Peter E. Palmquist. 2001
Literary anthology of stories, poems, natural history compositions, and articles selected from three hundred years of writing about the California…
redwoods. Authors Walt Whitman, John Muir, Jack London, Tom Wolfe, Armistead Maupin, and others who visited the groves felt inspired to write about their experiences and feelingsBy Ferdinand Ossendowski. 2000
"Un livre-culte de la littérature d'aventure vécue. Krasnoïarsk (Sibérie centrale), hiver 1920. L'homme vient d'apprendre qu'on l'a dénoncé aux Rouges,…
et que le peloton d'exécution l'attend. Il prend son fusil, fourre quelques cartouches dans la poche de sa pelisse, sort dans le froid glacial - et gagne la forêt. Commence alors une course-poursuite dont il ne sortira vivant, il le sait, que s'il ose l'impossible : gagner à pied l'Inde anglaise à travers l'immensité sibérienne, puis les passes de Mongolie, puis le désert de Gobi, puis le plateau tibétain, puis l'Himalaya... L'itinéraire qu'il suivra sera quelque peu différent, et si possible plus sidérant encore. Mais ce que le livre révèle - et que le lecteur n'attend pas - c'est, parallèle au voyage réel, une étrange odyssée intérieure qui nous introduit au cœur des mystères de l'Asie millénaire. Car Ossendowski, géologue de son état, n'est pas qu'un savant doublé d'un aventurier. C'est un esprit exalté et curieux qui vit sa marche folle à la manière d'une initiation... [...]" -- 4e de couvBy Maximilian Werner. 2011
2012 Eric Hoffer Book Awards for General Fiction Honorable Mention2011 Utah Book Award FinalistCrooked Creek takes place during the latter…
part of westward expansion and chronicles the lives (and deaths) of the Wood family. The Woods-Preston and Sara-must flee Arizona when they, along with Sara's parents and little brother Jasper, unwittingly get caught up in the plunder and sale of American Indian corpses and funerary objects. Preston, Sara, and Jasper end up in the Heber Valley of Utah, where they seek the support of Sara's Uncle Neff until they can be reunited with Sara's mother and father. But from the moment they ride into Heber, Preston and Sara learn that life in the valley is not as it appears, and that no matter how far we run, we cannot escape the past. Maximilian Werner is the author of Black River Dreams, a collection of literary fly fishing essays that won the 2008 Utah Arts Council's Original Writing Competition for Nonfiction: Book. Mr. Werner's poems, fiction, creative nonfiction, and essays have appeared in several journals and magazines, including Matter Journal: Edward Abbey Edition, Bright Lights Film Journal, The North American Review, ISLE, Weber Studies, Fly Rod and Reel, and Columbia. He lives in Salt Lake City with his wife and two children and teaches writing at the University of Utah."Maximilian Werner is a fresh and grounded writer, a welcome and original new voice." -Thomas McGuane, author of Driving on the Rim"Here in the deep measured prose of Max Werner is a western story, harsh and lush as the old world it depicts. Crooked Creek shows again that one of the natural laws of the wilderness--along with wind and stone and animals and family--is violence. Just as wind and water shaped the stone, trouble shaped these men. With its compelling, layered story, this rich book is a reader's pleasure." -Ron Carlson, author of The Signal"Max Werner's Crooked Creek offers a haunting voyage into the past and into living landscapes sharpened by western light, resonating with the work of such authors as Cormac McCarthy and Wallace Stegner. A narrative of the vitality of family bonds, it is also a tale of the heroic struggle to carry the burden of memory and to transform history's nightmares into visions of possibility, as Octavio Paz once argued was the high calling of literature. Crooked Creek reminds us of the tough aesthetic that is required to sustain hope in family, in community, and in the staggering and heartbreaking beauty of nature that Werner's prose powerfully illuminates, while also reckoning with the dark sins of betrayal and violence that are the legacies of the American West. Werner convinces us that no meaningful sense of place is possible otherwise."-George Handley, author of Home Waters: A Year of Recompenses on the Provo RiverBy Rafael T llez Romero. 2016
Thomas, un giovane uomo che ha perso tutto, inizia un viaggio in India per cercare di reindirizzare il corso della…
sua vita. Presto troverà compagni interessanti con i quali condividerà momenti indimenticabili, conoscerà scuole di saggezza e imparerà gli insegnamenti fondamentali. Tutto questo in un viaggio zaino in spalla, dove il caso e il karma sembrano giocare un'epica partita di scacchi, avendo come scacchiera, posti sia sacri che emblematici per il ricercatore spirituale. Un viaggio ricco di esperienze, pieno di incontri con personaggi saggi e pittoreschi, che poco a poco riveleranno piccole "perle di saggezza" per aiutare il protagonista a trovare la sua strada. Il protagonista e il lettore quindi, potranno trovare le chiavi spirituali che permetteranno loro di andare avanti. D'altra parte, il viaggiatore vivrà altri incontri più banali, facendo posto all'amore, alla delusione e al dolore. Incontri che poco a poco, si trasformeranno in un "romanzo mandala" che ci lascerà a bocca aperta.By Tiffany McDaniel. 2020
'Breahtaking'Vogue'So engrossing! Betty is a page-turning Appalachian coming-of-age story steeped in Cherokee history, told in undulating prose that settles right…
into you'Naoise Dolan, Sunday Times bestselling author of Exciting Times 'I felt consumed by this book. I loved it, you will love it' Daisy Johnson, Booker Prize shortlisted author of Everthing Under'I loved Betty: I fell for its strong characters and was moved by the story it portrayed' Fiona Mozley, Booker Prize shortlisted author of Elmet 'A girl comes of age against the knife.' So begins the story of Betty Carpenter. Born in a bathtub in 1954 to a Cherokee father and white mother, Betty is the sixth of eight siblings. The world they inhabit is one of poverty and violence - both from outside the family and also, devastatingly, from within. When her family's darkest secrets are brought to light, Betty has no choice but to reckon with the brutal history hiding in the hills, as well as the heart-wrenching cruelties and incredible characters she encounters in her rural town of Breathed, Ohio.Despite the hardship she faces, Betty is resilient. Her curiosity about the natural world, her fierce love for her sisters and her father's brilliant stories are kindling for the fire of her own imagination, and in the face of all she bears witness to, Betty discovers an escape: she begins to write.A heartbreaking yet magical story, Betty is a punch-in-the-gut of a novel - full of the crushing cruelty of human nature and the redemptive power of words. 'Not a story you will soon forget' Karen Joy Fowler, Booker Prize shortlisted author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves 'Shot through with moonshine, Bible verses, and folklore, Betty is about the cruelty we inflict on one another, the beauty we still manage to find, and the stories we tell in order to survive' Eowyn Ivey, author of The Snow ChildBy Sally Carrighar. 1953
By Einar Karason. 2018
"This gripping novel is as good at describing the magnificent seascapes and the unforgiving elements as it is at examining…
the inner lives of the besieged crew, toiling ceaselessly against implacable nature" -Financial Times BOOKS OF THE YEAR"Gripping and Exciting" The Sunday Times BOOKS OF THE YEARIn February 1959, several Icelandic trawlers were caught in a storm off Newfoundland's Grand Banks. What happened there is the inspiration for this novel. Not since The Perfect Storm has there been a book which captures the sheer drama and terror of a crisis at sea. Karason is an exceptional storyteller, an Icelandic Erskine Caldwell or William Faulkner.The side trawler Mafurinn is hit by a major storm just as they prepare to turn for home. Thirty-two men aboard, and a hold full of redfish. The sea is cold enough to kill a man in minutes, and the trawler quickly ices up in the biting frost and violent tempest. The heavy icing weighs down the already fully laden craft, which is pummelled by one breaker after another - and here, out on the open sea, there is no exit route. Distress signals from other ships in the same circumstance and be heard from the fishing grounds around them. It is a battle of life and death.Translated from the Icelandic by Quentin BatesBy Anuradha Roy. 2012
In a remote town in the Himalaya, Maya tries to put behind her a time of great sorrow. By day…
she teaches in a school and at night she types up drafts of a magnum opus by her landlord, a relic of princely India known to all as Diwan Sahib. Her bond with this eccentric, and her friendship with a peasant girl, Charu, give her the sense that she might be able to forge a new existence away from the devastation of her past. As Maya finds out, no place is remote enough or small enough. The world she has come to love, where people are connected with nature, is endangered by the town's new administration. The impending elections are hijacked by powerful outsiders who divide people and threaten the future of her school. Charu begins to behave strangely, and soon Maya understands that a new boy in the neighbourhood may be responsible. When Diwan Sahib's nephew arrives to set up his trekking company on their estate, she is drawn to him despite herself, and finally she is forced to confront bitter and terrible truths. A many-layered and powerful narrative, by turns poetic, elegiac and comic, by the author of An Atlas of Impossible Longing.By Anuradha Roy. 2010
On the outskirts of a small town in Bengal, a family live in solitude in their vast new house. Here,…
swathed in silence, a widower struggles with feelings for an unmarried cousin while his motherless daughter Bakul runs wild with Mukunda, an orphan of unknown caste adopted by the family. Confined at the top of the house, the matriarch goes slowly mad, while her husband shapes and reshapes his glorious garden. As Mukunda and Bakul grow, their intense closeness matures into something else and Mukunda is banished to Calcutta. Although he prospers in the turbulent years after Partition, his thoughts are all of what was once his home - and he knows that he must return. This is a love story, as intricate as it is enchanting, about two people who find each other when abandoned by everyone else.'If you're not a fan yet, why not?' VAL MCDERMID'A superb storyteller' PETER MAYA BIZARRE DISCOVERYAn unidentified corpse is found…
in a freezer in the garage of an unoccupied house. DS Alexandra Cupidi is handed a case that is made even colder by no-one seeming to know or care whose body it is.A HISTORIC CRIMEIt becomes clear there is a connection between the crime and a skeleton uncovered underneath a housing development of Trevor Grey, a boy who went missing twenty five years earlier.A BURIED LIFEDigging deep into secrets that have long been concealed brings Cupidi to face a deadly conspiracy to hide these crimes. Her investigation is complicated by a secret liaison, a political cover-up and the underground life of Trevor Grey's only friend.With meticulously realised characters and a brooding setting, Grave's End confronts the crisis in housing, environmentalism, historic cases of abuse and the protection given to badgers by the law. The third book in the DS Alexandra Cupidi series confirms William Shaw as one of our finest writers of crime fiction.By Stephanie Scott. 2020
A BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR THE DAILY MAIL AND WOMAN AND HOMEA New York Times 'Editor's Pick'One of the…
Observer's Ten Best Debut Novelists of 2020Shortlisted for the Author's Club First Novel AwardLonglisted for the Jhalak PrizeLonglisted for the CWA John Creasy New Blood Dagger'Enrapturing... This richly imagined novel considers the many permutations of love and what we are capable of doing in its name' New York Times'A brilliant debut' Louise Doughty, author of Apple Tree Yard'You'll have the heart rate of an Olympic hurdler' Sunday Express'I read it with my heart in my throat' Sara Collins, author of The Confessions of Frannie Langton 'An exquisitely crafted masterpiece you'll be pressing into the hands of others' Woman & Home 'An intoxicatingly atmospheric mystery' Daily Mail'Dark, addictive and eye-opening, this is a brilliant debut' StylistA gripping debut set in modern-day Tokyo and inspired by a true crime, What's Left of Me Is Yours follows a young woman's search for the truth about her mother's life - and her murder.In Japan, a covert industry has grown up around the wakaresaseya (literally "breaker-upper"), a person hired by one spouse to seduce the other in order to gain the advantage in divorce proceedings.When Sato hires Kaitaro, a wakaresaseya agent, to have an affair with his wife, Rina, he assumes it will be an easy case. But Sato has never truly understood Rina or her desires and Kaitaro's job is to do exactly that - until he does it too well.While Rina remains ignorant of the circumstances that brought them together, she and Kaitaro fall in a desperate, singular love, setting in motion a series of violent acts that will forever haunt her daughter Sumiko's life.Told from alternating points of view and across the breathtaking landscapes of Japan, What's Left of Me Is Yours explores the thorny psychological and moral grounds of the actions we take in the name of love, asking where we draw the line between passion and possession.By Einar Karason. 2018
"This gripping novel is as good at describing the magnificent seascapes and the unforgiving elements as it is at examining…
the inner lives of the besieged crew, toiling ceaselessly against implacable nature" -Financial Times BOOKS OF THE YEAR"Gripping and Exciting" The Sunday Times BOOKS OF THE YEARIn February 1959, several Icelandic trawlers were caught in a storm off Newfoundland's Grand Banks. What happened there is the inspiration for this novel. Not since The Perfect Storm has there been a book which captures the sheer drama and terror of a crisis at sea. Karason is an exceptional storyteller, an Icelandic Erskine Caldwell or William Faulkner.The side trawler Mafurinn is hit by a major storm just as they prepare to turn for home. Thirty-two men aboard, and a hold full of redfish. The sea is cold enough to kill a man in minutes, and the trawler quickly ices up in the biting frost and violent tempest. The heavy icing weighs down the already fully laden craft, which is pummelled by one breaker after another - and here, out on the open sea, there is no exit route. Distress signals from other ships in the same circumstance and be heard from the fishing grounds around them. It is a battle of life and death.Translated from the Icelandic by Quentin BatesBy Sandro Veronesi. 2019
'MAGNIFICENT' GUARDIAN'A TOWERING ACHIEVEMENT' FINANCIAL TIMES'INVENTIVE, BOLD, UNEXPECTED' THE SUNDAY TIMES'Everything that makes the novel worthwhile and engaging is here:…
warmth, wit, intelligence, love, death, high seriousness, low comedy, philosophy, subtle personal relationships and the complex interior life of human beings'Guardian'Not since William Boyd's Any Human Heart has a novel captured the feast and famine nature of a single life with such invention and tenderness'Financial Times'There is a pleasing sense of having grappled with the real stuff of life: loss, grief, love, desire, pain, uncertainty, confusion, joy, despair - all while having fun'The Sunday Times'The kind of novel summer is made for: instantly immersive, playfully inventive, effortlessly wise'Observer'Masterly: a cabinet of curiosities and delights, packed with small wonders'Ian McEwan'A real masterpiece. A funny, touching, profound book that made me cry like a little girl on the last page'Leïla Slimani'A remarkable accomplishment, a true gift to the world'Michael Cunningham'Ardent, gripping, and inventive to the core'Jhumpa LahiriMarco Carrera is 'the hummingbird,' a man with the almost supernatural ability to stay still as the world around him continues to change.As he navigates the challenges of life - confronting the death of his sister and the absence of his brother; taking care of his parents as they approach the end of their lives; raising his granddaughter when her mother, Marco's own child, can no longer be there for her; coming to terms with his love for the enigmatic Luisa - Marco Carrera comes to represent the quiet heroism that pervades so much of our everyday existence.A thrilling novel about the need to look to the future with hope and live with intensity to the very end.THE NO. 1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLEROver 300,000 copies soldSoon to be a major motion pictureWinner of the Premio StregaWinner of the Prix du Livre EtrangerBook of the Year for the Corriere della SeraBy Emily Itami. 2021
'A brilliant modern love story. I found it atmospheric and transporting but also wise, clever and universal in its exploration…
of love, family and identity. I loved it' Cathy RentzenbrinkMizuki is a Japanese housewife. She has a hardworking husband, two adorable children and a beautiful Tokyo apartment. It's everything a woman could want, yet sometimes she wonders whether it would be more fun to throw herself off the high-rise balcony than spend another evening not talking to her husband or hanging up laundry. Then, one rainy night, she meets Kiyoshi, a successful restaurateur. In him, she rediscovers freedom, friendship, a voice, and the neon, electric pulse of the city she has always loved. But the further she falls into their relationship, the clearer it becomes that she is living two lives - and in the end, we can choose only one. Alluring, compelling, startlingly honest and darkly funny, Fault Lines is a bittersweet love story and a daring exploration of modern relationships from a writer to watch.By Yangsze Choo. 2019
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER'The two main characters will captivate you as their paths are destined to cross... you won't…
be able to put this one down!'Reese Witherspoon'I was willingly propelled into a fascinating and exotic world'Daily MailThey say a tiger that devours too many humans can take the form of a man and walk among us... In 1930s colonial Malaya, a dissolute British doctor receives a surprise gift of an eleven-year-old Chinese houseboy. Sent as a bequest from an old friend, young Ren has a mission: to find his dead master's severed finger and reunite it with his body. Ren has forty-nine days, or else his master's soul will roam the earth forever. Ji Lin, an apprentice dressmaker, moonlights as a dancehall girl to pay her mother's debts. One night, Ji Lin's dance partner leaves her with a gruesome souvenir that leads her on a crooked, dark trail. As time runs out for Ren's mission, a series of unexplained deaths occur amid rumours of tigers who turn into men. In their journey to keep a promise and discover the truth, Ren and Ji Lin's paths will cross in ways they will never forget.Captivating and lushly written, The Night Tiger explores the rich world of servants and masters, ancient superstition and modern ambition, sibling rivalry and unexpected love. Woven through with Chinese folklore and a tantalizing mystery, this novel is a page-turner of the highest order.'An exuberant medley of magic, romance and weirdness'The Times'[A] highly imaginative and a spellbinding read'Woman's Weekly'If you're not a fan yet, why not?' VAL MCDERMID'A superb storyteller' PETER MAYA BIZARRE DISCOVERYAn unidentified cadaver is found…
in a freezer in an unoccupied luxury house. No-one seems to know or care who it is or who placed it there. When DS Alexandra Cupidi is handed the case, she can have no idea it will lead her to a series of murderous cover-ups and buried secrets. Namely the discovery of the skeleton of public-school boy, Trevor Wood, beneath a housing development.A HISTORIC CRIMEHis disappearance twenty five years earlier had almost passed unnoticed. But as evidence surfaces that his fate was linked to long suppressed rumours of sexual abuse, Cupidi, her teenage daughter Zoe and her friend Bill South find themselves up against powerful forces who will try to silence them. A BURIED LIFEDigging deep into the secrets that are held underground leads to Cupidi's realisation that crime and power are seldom far apart. There are dangerous connections between the two cases, which are complicated by Constable Jill Ferriter's dating habits, a secret liaison and the underground life of Trevor Grey's only friend.The most riveting and atmospheric DS Alexandra Cupidi novel so far, Grave's End confronts the crisis in housing, environmental politics, the protection given to badgers by the law. With meticulously mastered characters and a brooding setting, this third book in the series confirms William Shaw as one of the finest crime writers. (P)2020 Quercus Editions LimitedBy Anuradha Roy. 2016
LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2015A stark and unflinching novel by a spellbinding storyteller, about religion, love and violence…
in the modern world.A train stops at a railway station. A young woman jumps off. She has wild hair, sloppy clothes, a distracted air. She looks Indian, yet she is somehow not. The sudden violence of what happens next leaves the other passengers gasping.The train terminates at Jarmuli, a temple town by the sea. Here, among pilgrims, priests and ashrams, three old women disembark only to encounter the girl once again. What is someone like her doing in this remote corner, which attracts only worshippers?Over the next five days, the old women live out their long-planned dream of a holiday together; their temple guide finds ecstasy in forbidden love; and the girl is joined by a photographer battling his own demons.The full force of the evil and violence beneath the serene surface of the town becomes evident when their lives overlap and collide. Unexpected connections are revealed between devotion and violence, friendship and fear, as Jarmuli is revealed as a place with a long, dark past that transforms all who encounter it.By Ray Nayler. 2022
'I loved this novel's brain and heart'DAVID MITCHELL, AUTHOR OF CLOUD ATLAS'A first-rate speculative thriller, by turns fascinating, brutal, powerful,…
and redemptive'JEFF VANDERMEER, AUTHOR OF ANNIHILATIONThere are creatures in the water of Con Dao. To the locals, they're monsters. To the corporate owners of the island, an opportunity. To the team of three sent to study them, a revelation. Their minds are unlike ours. Their bodies are malleable, transformable, shifting. They can communicate. And they want us to leave.When pioneering marine biologist Dr. Ha Nguyen is offered the chance to travel to the remote Con Dao Archipelago to investigate a highly intelligent, dangerous octopus species, she doesn't pause long enough to look at the fine print. DIANIMA- a transnational tech corporation best known for its groundbreaking work in artificial intelligence - has purchased the islands, evacuated their population and sealed the archipelago off from the world so that Nguyen can focus on her research.But the stakes are high: the octopuses hold the key to unprecedented breakthroughs in extrahuman intelligence and there are vast fortunes to be made by whoever can take advantage of their advancements. And no one has yet asked the octopuses what they think. And what they might do about it.By Didier Decoin. 2017
A mesmerising fable with a difference, set in Japan over 1000 years agoFor readers of Alessandro Baricco's Silk, Patrick Süskind's…
Perfume and Takashi Hiraide's The Guest Cat.The village of Shimae is thrown into turmoil when master carp-catcher Katsuro suddenly drowns in the murky waters of the Kusagawa river. Who now will carry the precious cargo of carp to the Imperial Palace and preserve the crucial patronage that everyone in the village depends upon?Step forward Miyuki, Katsuro's grief-struck widow and the only remaining person in the village who knows anything about carp. She alone can undertake the long, perilous journey to the Imperial Palace, balancing the heavy baskets of fish on a pole across her shoulders, and ensure her village's future.So Miyuki sets off. Along her way she will encounter a host of remarkable characters, from prostitutes and innkeepers, to warlords and priests with evil in mind. She will endure ambushes and disaster, for the villagers are not the only people fixated on the fate of the eight magnificent carp. But when she reaches the Office of Gardens and Ponds, Miyuki discovers that the trials of her journey are far from over. For in the Imperial City, nothing is quite as it seems, and beneath a veneer of refinement and ritual, there is an impenetrable barrier of politics and snobbery that Miyuki must overcome if she is to return to Shimae.By Tiffany McDaniel.
'NOT A STORY YOU WILL SOON FORGET' Karen Joy Fowler, author of Man Booker Prize finalist We Are All Completely…
Beside Ourselves'A girl comes of age against the knife.' So begins the story of Betty Carpenter. Born in a bathtub in 1954 to a Cherokee father and white mother, Betty is the sixth of eight siblings. The world they inhabit is one of poverty and violence - both from outside the family and also, devastatingly, from within. When her family's darkest secrets are brought to light, Betty has no choice but to reckon with the brutal history hiding in the hills, as well as the heart-wrenching cruelties and incredible characters she encounters in her rural town of Breathed, Ohio.Despite the hardship she faces, Betty is resilient. Her curiosity about the natural world, her fierce love for her sisters and her father's brilliant stories are kindling for the fire of her own imagination, and in the face of all she bears witness to, Betty discovers an escape: she begins to write.A heartbreaking yet magical story, Betty is a punch-in-the-gut of a novel - full of the crushing cruelty of human nature and the redemptive power of words.