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The Chocolate Maker's Wife: A Novel
By Karen Brooks. 2019
Australian bestselling novelist Karen Brooks rewrites women back into history with this breathtaking novel set in 17th century London—a lush,…
fascinating story of the beautiful woman who is drawn into a world of riches, power, intrigue…and chocolate.Damnation has never been so sweet...Rosamund Tomkins, the illegitimate daughter of a nobleman, spends most of her young life in drudgery at a country inn. To her, the Restoration under Charles II, is but a distant threat as she works under the watchful eye of her brutal, abusive stepfather . . . until the day she is nearly run over by the coach of Sir Everard Blithman.Sir Everard, a canny merchant, offers Rosamund an “opportunity like no other,” allowing her to escape into a very different life, becoming the linchpin that will drive the success of his fledgling business: a luxurious London chocolate house where wealthy and well-connected men come to see and be seen, to gossip and plot, while indulging in the sweet and heady drink.Rosamund adapts and thrives in her new surroundings, quickly becoming the most talked-about woman in society, desired and respected in equal measure.But Sir Everard’s plans for Rosamund and the chocolate house involve family secrets that span the Atlantic Ocean, and which have already brought death and dishonor to the Blithman name. Rosamund knows nothing of the mortal peril that comes with her new title, nor of the forces spinning a web of conspiracy buried in the past, until she meets a man whose return tightens their grip upon her, threatening to destroy everything she loves and damn her to a dire fate.As she fights for her life and those she loves through the ravages of the Plague and London’s Great Fire, Rosamund’s breathtaking tale is one marked by cruelty and revenge; passion and redemption—and the sinfully sweet temptation of chocolate.The Long Song: Shortlisted for the Booker Prize (Nhb Modern Plays Ser.)
By Andrea Levy. 2010
Now a major BBC TV drama, starring Tamara Lawrance, Lenny Henry and Hayley Atwell.A Sunday Times bestseller (2011), shortlisted for…
the Man Booker Prize, The Long Song by Andrea Levy is a hauntingly beautiful, heartbreaking and unputdownable novel of the last days of slavery in Jamaica, for those who loved Homegoing, The Underground Railroad, or the film 12 Years a Slave.'A marvel of luminous storytelling' Financial TimesYou do not know me yet. My son Thomas, who is publishing this book, tells me, it is customary at this place in a novel to give the reader a little taste of the story that is held within these pages. As your storyteller, I am to convey that this tale is set in Jamaica during the last turbulent years of slavery and the early years of freedom that followed.July is a slave girl who lives upon a sugar plantation named Amity and it is her life that is the subject of this tale. She was there when the Baptist War raged in 1831, and she was present when slavery was declared no more. My son says I must convey how the story tells also of July's mama Kitty, of the negroes that worked the plantation land, of Caroline Mortimer the white woman who owned the plantation and many more persons besides - far too many for me to list here. But what befalls them all is carefully chronicled upon these pages for you to peruse.Perhaps, my son suggests, I might write that it is a thrilling journey through that time in the company of people who lived it. All this he wishes me to pen so the reader can decide if this is a novel they might care to consider. Cha, I tell my son, what fuss-fuss. Come, let them just read it for themselves.La historia de Ruby Bridges (The Story of Ruby Bridges)
By Robert Coles. 1995
The inspirational true story of Ruby Bridges.Es 1960 y Ruby Bridges, de seis años, se acaba de mudar con su…
familia de Misisipi a Nueva Orleans en busca de una vida mejor. Cuando un juez sentencia que Ruby debe asistir al primer grado de la Escuela Primaria William Frantz, en la que todos son blancos, la niña debe encarar las furiosas turbas de padres que no quieren que sus hijos vayan a la escuela con ella. Contada con el poderoso estilo narrativo de Robert Coles y dramáticamente ilustrada por George Ford, la historia de coraje, fe y esperanza de Ruby aún resuena más de 60 años después.The year is 1960, and six-year-old Ruby Bridges and her family have recently moved from Mississippi to New Orleans in search of a better life. When a judge orders Ruby to attend first grade at William Frantz Elementary, an all-white school, Ruby must face angry mobs of parents who refuse to send their children to school with her. Told with Robert Coles' powerful narrative and dramatically illustrated by George Ford, Ruby's story of courage, faith, and hope continues to resonate more than 60 years later.Reading Architecture: Literary Imagination and Architectural Experience
By Angeliki Sioli, Yoonchun Jung. 2018
Why write instead of draw when it comes to architecture? Why rely on literary pieces instead of architectural treatises and…
writings when it comes to the of study buildings and urban environments? Why rely on literary techniques and accounts instead of architectural practices and analysis when it comes to academic research and educational projects? Why trust authors and writers instead of sociologists or scientists when it comes to planning for the future of cities? This book builds on the existing interdisciplinary bibliography on architecture and literature, but prioritizes literature’s capacity to talk about the lived experience of place and the premise that literary language can often express the inexpressible. It sheds light on the importance of a literary instead of a pictorial imagination for architects and it looks into four contemporary architectural subjects through a wide variety of literary works. Drawing on novels that engage cities from around the world, the book reveals aspects of urban space to which other means of architectural representation are blind. Whether through novels that employ historical buildings or sites interpreted through specific literary methods, it suggests a range of methodologies for contemporary architectural academic research. By exploring the power of narrative language in conveying the experience of lived space, it discusses its potential for architectural design and pedagogy. Questioning the massive architectural production of today’s globalized capital-driven world, it turns to literature for ways to understand, resist or suggest alternative paths for architectural practice. Despite literature’s fictional character, the essays of this volume reveal true dimensions of and for places beyond their historical, social and political reality; dimensions of utmost importance for architects, urban planners, historians and theoreticians nowadays.Song for Night
By Chris Abani. 2007
Part Inferno, part Paradise Lost, and part Sunjiata epic, Song for Night is the story of a West African boy…
soldier’s lyrical, terrifying, yet beautiful journey through the nightmare landscape of a brutal war in search of his lost platoon. The reader is led by the voiceless protagonist who, as part of a land mine-clearing platoon, had his vocal chords cut, a move to keep these children from screaming when blown up, and thereby distracting the other minesweepers. The book is written in a ghostly voice, with each chapter headed by a line of the unique sign language these children invented. This book is unlike anything else ever written about an African war.The Lunatic
By Anthony C. Winkler. 2007
In this outrageously out-of-order, hilarious novel, the reader discovers that lunacy is by no means restricted to the village madman,…
and that goodness and forgiveness may be rarer qualities, found in unexpected places.Aloysius is tolerated by neighbors but forced to eke out a living by doing odd jobs, using the hospitable woodlands for shelter. He is starved of human companionship; instead he has running conversations with trees and plants. Then love, or a peculiar version of it, comes to Aloysius in the form of a solidly built German lady, Inga Schmidt, who has come to Jamaica to photograph the flora and fauna.The Night of the Rambler: A Novel
By Montague Kobbé. 2013
"Colorful detours into native lore, such as a rich Dutchman's fabled courtship of a local beauty, strike grace notes that…
echo Marquez...readers...will be rewarded with the little-known tale of how the underdog country demanded its own place in the 20th century."--Publishers WeeklyBest Book of 2013 Selection, The Airship/Black Balloon Publishing"With tremendous humanity and humor, the novel articulates these themes through the power of the relationships and the urgency each character demonstrates in this quest for self-determination."--The Caribbean Writer"This is a book about revolution and the underdog, about a small, isolated island fighting for recognition, opportunity and justice; it is a compelling tale about a curious historical episode, but also a vital look at priorities, perspective and the right to live in dignity, issues that, much like Anguilla's rebellion of 1967, are all too easily forgotten."--The Island Review"[Readers] will be rewarded with deeper insight into the political and economic turmoil engulfing that region."--Historical Novel Society"Revolution and historic change--words that can remain detached concepts unless we can somehow connect them with their human face and the lives behind them. This is what first-time novelist Montague Kobbé achieves in marvelous style and depth in The Night of the Rambler--weaving a Caribbean tapestry of places, wider events, the individuals shaped by them, and how they ultimately come together to shape events themselves in the times leading to a revolution on Anguilla in 1967."--Maco Magazine"Vivid...funny, and thoughtful. Much like the revolution it covers, it's compelling."--Columbia College Chicago/The Review Lab"However unusual this revolution is, it is a prelude to Anguilla's eventual divorce from St. Kitts and Nevis, before becoming a separate British territory; its unconventional LOL factor could diversify an elective college course on revolutions with something bloody peaceful."--New PagesOn June 9, 1967, sixteen men from Anguilla, a forgotten island in the Caribbean, set sail aboard a thirty-five-foot sloop, the Rambler, to make the night-time journey to St. Kitts, where they intended to carry out a coup d'état and install a new government sympathetic to their separatist cause. Set against the turbulent background of world politics in the sixties, The Night of the Rambler tells the story of a misinformed and misconceived plan, carried out incompetently by a group of scarcely trained and ill-equipped amateurs who escape calamity by mere coincidence. And yet, somehow, the main purpose of their mission, the furtherance of Anguilla's struggle to dissociate itself from the newly formed state of St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla and to return to the British colonial fold, is significantly strengthened by this, quite possibly the most outrageous episode in the history of revolutions.Loosely based on the historical facts surrounding the Anguilla Revolution of 1967, The Night of the Rambler unfolds across the fifteen hours that lapse between the moment when the "rebels" board the motorboat that will take them across the strait to St. Kitts, and the break of dawn the following day, when it becomes obvious that the unaccomplished mission will have to be aborted. The novel consciously moves away from the "historical" category, purposely altering at will the sequence of "facts" narrated, collating fully fictional episodes with vaguely accurate anecdotes and replacing the protagonists with fictional characters. At turns highly dramatic and hilarious, Kobbé brings deep honesty to the often-unexamined righteousness of revolution.With echoes of Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and Mario Vargas Llosa's Conversation in the Cathedral, The Night of the Rambler touches upon the universal topics of freedom and self-determination with humor and sensibility, creating an alternative reality that is informed by real lifYam uas zoo nkauj tshaj plaws
By Kao Kalia Yang, Khoa Le. 2021
Zaj dab neeg sov siab thiab hmov tshua uas muaj tseeb hais txog ib tug ntxhais hluas uas pom qhov…
kev zoo nkauj los ntawm qhov uas nws ib txwm xav tias yuav ntsia. Muab los ntawm tus neeg sau Kao Kalia Yang lub keeb neej me nyuam yaus tam li yog ib tug neeg Hmoob tawg rog, phau ntawv muaj duab no piav qhia txog ib tsev neeg uas tsis muaj nyiaj ntau thiab muaj txoj kev hlub loj heev. Kev muab Kalia zaj dab neeg hais txog ntawm nws pog tus nws hmov tshua los sib sau ua ke, phau ntawv no pib hais txij ntua thaum tseem nyob rau hav zoov hav tsuag tim Nplog Teb los mus txog rau lub neej thaum tsev neeg nyuam qhuav tuaj txog hauv Teb Chaws Meskas no. Thaum Kalia rais los mus tsis muaj kev zoo siab txog qhov yuav tsum tau ua yam tsis muaj thiab txiav txim siab tias nws xav zawm kaus hniav los pab kho kom nws luag zoo nkauj, uas yog nws pog uas tau pab ua kom nws pom tias qhov kev zoo nkauj tiag-tiag yuav pom tau ntawm cov uas peb hlub tshaj plaws. For grades K-3. UnratedA Shtetl and Other Yiddish Novellas
By Ruth Wisse. 1986
The five short novellas which comprise this anthology were written between 1890 and World War I. All share a common…
setting--the Eastern European Jewish town or shtetl, and all deal in different ways with a single topic--the Jewish confrontation with modernity. The authors of these novellas are among the greatest masters of Yiddish prose. In their work, today's reader will discover a literary tradition of considerable scope, energy, and variety and will come face to face with an exceptionally memorable cast of characters and with a human community now irrevocably lost. In her general introduction, Professor Wisse traces the development of modern Yiddish literature in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and describes the many shifts that took place between the Yiddish writers and the world about which they wrote. She also furnishes a brief introduction for each novella, giving the historical and biographical background and offering a critical interpretation of the work.Tales in Context: Sefer ha-ma'asim in Medieval Northern France (Raphael Patai Series in Jewish Folklore and Anthropology)
By Elisheva Baumgarten, Rella Kushelevsky. 2017
In the thirteenth century, an anonymous scribe compiled sixty-nine tales that became Sefer ha-ma’asim, the earliest compilation of Hebrew tales…
known to us in Western Europe. The author writes that the stories encompass “descriptions of herbs that cure leprosy, a fairy princess with golden tresses using magic charms to heal her lover’s wounds and restore him to life; a fire-breathing dragon . . . a two-headed creature and a giant’s daughter for whom the rind of a watermelon containing twelve spies is no more than a speck of dust.” In Tales in Context: Sefer ha-ma’asim in Medieval Northern France, Rella Kushelevsky enlightens the stories’ meanings and reflects the circumstances and environment for Jewish lives in medieval France. Although a selection of tales was previously published, this is the first publication of a Hebrew-English annotated edition in its entirety, revealing fresh insight. The first part of Kushelevsky’s work, “Cultural, Literary and Comparative Perspectives,” presents the thesis that Sefer ha-ma’asim is a product of its time and place, and should therefore be studied within its literary and cultural surroundings, Jewish and vernacular, in northern France. An investigation of the scribe's techniques in reworking his Jewish and non-Jewish sources into a medieval discourse supports this claim. The second part of the manuscript consists of the tales themselves, in Hebrew and English translation, including brief comparative comments or citations. The third part, “An Analytical and Comparative Overview,” offers an analysis of each tale as an individual unit, contextualized within its medieval framework and against the background of its parallels. Elisheva Baumgarten's epilogue adds social and historical background to Sefer ha-ma’asim and discusses new ways in which it and other story compilations may be used by historians for an inquiry into the everyday life of medieval Jews. The tales in Sefer ha-ma’asim will be of special value to scholars of folklore and medieval European history and literature, as well as those looking to enrich their studies and shelves.The Twilight Zone: A Novel
By Nona Fernández. 2016
* Finalist for the National Book Award for Translated Literature *An engrossing, incantatory novel about the legacy of historical crimes…
by the author of Space InvadersIt is 1984 in Chile, in the middle of the Pinochet dictatorship. A member of the secret police walks into the office of a dissident magazine and finds a reporter, who records his testimony. The narrator of Nona Fernández’s mesmerizing and terrifying novel The Twilight Zone is a child when she first sees this man’s face on the magazine’s cover with the words “I Tortured People.” His complicity in the worst crimes of the regime and his commitment to speaking about them haunt the narrator into her adulthood and career as a writer and documentarian. Like a secret service agent from the future, through extraordinary feats of the imagination, Fernández follows the “man who tortured people” to places that archives can’t reach, into the sinister twilight zone of history where morning routines, a game of chess, Yuri Gagarin, and the eponymous TV show of the novel’s title coexist with the brutal yet commonplace machinations of the regime.How do crimes vanish in plain sight? How does one resist a repressive regime? And who gets to shape the truths we live by and take for granted? The Twilight Zone pulls us into the dark portals of the past, reminding us that the work of the writer in the face of historical erasure is to imagine so deeply that these absences can be, for a time, spectacularly illuminated.1967 (Exploring Civil Rights)
By Jay Leslie. 2023
Learn about the key events of the civil rights movement in the latest installment of this exciting and informative series.The…
year 1967 was pivotal to the civil rights movement. In April, Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered a speech to thousands inside a New York church condemning the Vietnam War and asking for a peaceful end. In June, the Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia would determine whether interracial couples could legally marry in the United States. The five-day long Detroit Riot against the Black community in July would end up being one of the most violent in our country’s history. And in October, Thurgood Marshall would become the first African American justice appointed to the Supreme Court, securing his place as one of the most influential figures in the fight for civil rights.This detailed account explains why 1967 was such a critical year in the civil rights movement.ABOUT THE SERIES:The years from 1967 to 1978 were critical to the civil rights movement. Resistance was often met with violence against Black Americans struggling to end discrimination and segregation. Yet the courage of those yearning for equal opportunities under the law continued to persevere and set the stage for even more progress in the coming decades. Discover how this specific time period brought about change and how it still affects us as a society today.With stunning photographs throughout and rich back matter, each book focuses on a specific year and chronologically follows the detailed events that occurred and the changes that took place.Beni's War
By Tammar Stein. 2020
It's Yom Kippur Eve in 1973, and twelve-year-old Beni thinks his biggest problem is settling in at his new school…
in the Golan, where his family moved at the end of the Six-Day War. But on Yom Kippur, shocking news comes over the radio: a stunning strike on Israel has begun, led by a coalition of Arab states. In the blink of an eye, Beni's older brother Motti is off to war, leaving Beni behind with his mother and father. As bombs drop around Beni and his family, they flee to safety, every day hoping for news of Motti and the developments of the war. Beni must find a way to aid the war effort in his own way, proving that he too can be a hero, even as he learns along the way that there is dignity in every person, including the people he considers the enemy.In This World of Ultraviolet Light: Stories
By Raul Palma. 2023
"These are new Cubans. Twenty-first-century Marielitos. Balseros, as the bartender had referred to them. I know, because my mom tells…
me that these are the kinds of Cubans I need to stay away from."In eight captivating stories, In This World of Ultraviolet Light—winner of the 2021 Don Belton Prize—navigates tensions between Cubans, Cuban Americans, and the larger Latinx community. Though these stories span many locations—from a mulch manufacturing facility on the edge of Big Cypress National Preserve to the borderlands between Georgia and the Carolinas—they are overshadowed by an obsession with Miami as a place that exists in the popular imagination. Beyond beaches and palm trees, Raul Palma goes off the beaten path to portray everyday people clinging to their city and struggling to find cultural grounding. As Anjali Sachdeva writes, "This is fiction to steal the breath of any reader, from any background."Boldly interrogating identity, the discomfort of connection, and the entanglement of love and cruelty, In This World of Ultraviolet Light is a nuanced collection of stories that won't let you go.Catching the moon: the story of a young girl's baseball dream
By Crystal Hubbard. 2005
A picture-book biography highlighting a pivotal event in the childhood of African American baseball player Marcenia "Toni Stone" Lyle Alberga,…
the woman who broke baseball's gender barrier by becoming the first female roster member of a professional Negro League team. 2005. For grades 2-4Cómo cambiar tu vida con Sorolla
By César Suárez. 2023
2023: AÑO SOROLLA Una biografía única. Una mirada audaz sobre uno de los más grandes pintores españoles y su tiempo…
«Quien busque una biografía de Sorolla y de su época encontrará en este libro una novela apasionante y magníficamente escrita. Y quien busque una novela apasionante encontrará al mismo tiempo una biografía tan rigurosa como amena».Luis Landero, Premio Nacional de las Letras Españolas La obra de Joaquín Sorolla es una de las más populares de la historia del arte español. Paradójicamente, su apasionante vida es poco conocida. Requerido por las élites sociales e intelectuales de Europa y América, fue uno de los grandes artistas de su época, que triunfó en los salones de París y en la emergente Nueva York. Habitó el fascinante mundo de finales del siglo xix e inicios del XX, con el desarrollo de la modernidad y la llegada de los grandes inventos. Vivió el desenfreno de la Belle Époque, el Madrid de las tertulias y zarzuelas, y las tribulaciones de la generación del 98, que criticó la «alegría de vivir» de sus cuadros. Trabajador incansable, discreto, ambicioso y exigente consigo mismo, sus mayores deseos eran pintar a todas horas y estar con su familia. Su historia es la de un hombre de éxito que hubiera preferido una existencia anodina. Una vida extraordinaria con un final desgraciado. ¿Cómo se forjó su carácter? ¿De dónde provenía su don? ¿Cómo era la España que vio y plasmó en sus cuadros? ¿Cómo logró mantener vivo el amor por su mujer desde la adolescencia? César Suárez combina biografía, ensayo y ficción en este libro que muestra una visión audaz de Joaquín Sorolla y de su tiempo. Un recorrido por escenas de la vida del artista que, tal vez, podrían servirnos de inspiración para la nuestra. La crítica ha dicho:«Con solvencia documental y una dinámica prosa, César Suárez narra la vida de Joaquín Sorolla, un artista que disfrutó de un éxito descomunal al tiempo que padeció el desdén de algunos de sus contemporáneos. Un retrato fascinante».Elvira Lindo «Este libro original y atrevido consigue el milagro de aparecerse ante nosotros como un cuadro propio de Sorolla. En él hay dicha, sol y ganas de seguir viviendo».Manuel Jabois «El Sorolla familiar, el del éxito internacional, el conquistador de la luz mediterránea, el de la mano prodigiosa que sabía que lo más profundo del cuerpo es la piel. Toda esa sabiduría está en este libro de César Suárez».Manuel Vicent «De Sorolla creíamos saber todo hasta que César Suárez ha revelado lo mucho que quedaba por conocer de este pintor inagotable».Antonio Lucas «Mezcla biografía, ensayo y ficción y se lee como una novela. Cuenta la parte más emocional de la historia de un artista extraordinario en una época fascinante».Isabela Muñoz, Telva «Una nueva, cálida y valiente forma de ver a Joaquín Sorolla a través de sus emociones. Un canto a su vida y a su obra».Blanca Pons-SorollaMama Africa!: How Miriam Makeba Spread Hope with Her Song
By Kathryn Erskine. 2017
An inspiring picture-book biography of iconic singer and activist Miriam Makeba by National Book Award winner Kathryn Erskine.Miriam Makeba, a…
Grammy Award–winning South African singer, rose to fame in the hearts of her people at the pinnacle of apartheid—a brutal system of segregation similar to American Jim Crow laws. Mama Africa, as they called her, raised her voice to help combat these injustices at jazz clubs in Johannesburg; in exile, at a rally beside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; and before the United Nations. Set defiantly in the present tense, this biography offers readers an intimate view of Makeba’s fight for equality. Kathryn Erskine’s call-and-response style text and Charly Palmer’s bold illustrations come together in a raw, riveting duet of protest song and praise poem. A testament to how a single voice helped to shake up the world—and can continue to do so.Fruit of the Lemon
By Andrea Levy. 1999
The third and most ambitious novel from this unique and acclaimed writer, FRUIT OF THE LEMON establishes Andrea Levy alongside…
Arundhati Roy and Meera Syal in the first rank of British fiction.Faith Jackson fixes herself up with a great job in TV and the perfect flatshare. But neither is that perfect - and nor are her relations with her overbearing, though always loving family. Furious and perplexed when her parents announce their intention to retire back home to Jamaica, Faith makes her own journey there, where she is immediately welcomed by her Aunt Coral, keeper of a rich cargo of family history. Through the weave of her aunt's storytelling a cast of characters unfolds stretching back to Cuba and Panama, Harlem and Scotland, a story that passes through London and sweeps through continents.(P) 2022 Headline Publishing Group LtdSer María: Amor y caos en el Bronx
By Sonia Manzano. 2015
Set in the 1950s in the Bronx, this is the story of a girl with a dream. Emmy award-winning actress…
and writer Sonia Manzano plunges us into the daily lives of a Latino family that is loving--and troubled. She is a child living amidst the squalor of a boisterous home that is filled with noisy relatives and neighbors. Each day she is glued to the TV screen that blots out the painful realities of her existence and also illuminates the possibilities that lie ahead. But--click!--when the TV goes off, Sonia is taken back to real-life--the cramped, colorful world of her neighborhood and an alcoholic father. This memoir paints a lasting portrait of a girl's resilience as she grows up to become an inspiration to millions. Ambientada en la década de 1950 en el Bronx, esta es la historia de una niña con un sueño. Sonia Manzano, actriz ganadora del premio Emmy, nos sumerge en la vida cotidiana de una familia latina que es amorosa, pero que está llena de problemas.Hear o Israel: a story of the Warsaw Ghetto
By Lloyd Bloom, Terry W Treseder, Terry W. Treseder. 1990
Isaac, a twelve-year-old boy in the Warsaw ghetto, tells this gripping, troubling story. It begins at his brother Simon's bar…
mitzvah soon after the Nazis invade Poland. Isaac describes his father's unwavering faith in God; Simon's disaffection from his faith; the deaths of most of the family from starvation; and the final moments before Isaac's death at Treblinka. Violence. For junior and senior high and older readers