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One pleasant morning in the autumn, when Rollo was about five years old, he was sitting on the platform, behind his father\'s house, playing. He had a hammer and nails, and some small pieces of board. He was trying to make a box. He hammered and hammered, and presently he dropped his work down and said, fretfully, "O dear me!" "What is the matter, Rollo?" said Jonas,—for it happened that Jonas was going by just then, with a wheelbarrow. "I wish these little boards would not split so. I cannot make my box." "You drive the nails wrong; you put the wedge sides with the grain." "The wedge sides!" said Rollo; "what are the wedge sides,—and the grain? I do not know what you mean." But Jonas went on, trundling his wheelbarrow; though he looked round and told Rollo that he could not stop to explain it to him then. Rollo was discouraged about his box. He thought he would look and see what Jonas was going to do. Jonas trundled the wheelbarrow along, until he came opposite the barn-door, and there he put it down. He went into the barn, and presently came out with an axe. Then he took the sides of the wheelbarrow off, and placed them up against the barn. Views: 264
Originally written in Bahasa, The Rainbow Troops was first published in 2005 and sold a record-breaking five million copies in Indonesia. The novel tells the inspiring and closely autobiographical tale of the trials and tribulations that the ten motley students (nicknamed the Rainbow Troops) and two teachers from Muhammadiyah Elementary School on Belitong Island, Indonesia, undergo to ensure the continuation of the children’ s education. The poverty-stricken school suffers the constant threat of closure by government officials, greedy corporations, natural disasters and the students’ own lack of self-confidence. The story is written from the perspective of Ikal, who is six years old when the novel opens. Just as the author himself did as a young man, Ikal goes to college and eventually wins a scholarship to go abroad, beating incredible odds to become a writer.
This delightful, inspiring book has a fable-like quality that reminds us why we love stories— heartwarming stories, funny stories, stories that remind us of the precious things in life. Ikal and his band of plucky cohorts face obstacles large and small, and the reader can’t help but root for them to beat the odds and get the education— and life— they deserve. The setting is as compelling and memorable as the characters, and a rare window into a world we know little about.
The Rainbow Troops is the first of a tetralogy of novels that have all become bestsellers in Indonesia. It was adapted for the screen and shown at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2009. Views: 263
Inner Lives of Cultures, The“These days, we do not lack information about other societies and countries” writes Eva Hoffman, in her introduction to this illuminating collection of essays. But why, we must ask, does this unprececedented level of knowledge not translate into greater understanding?Spurning the sound byte, glossy guide or shallow schematic, an international group of thinkers and writers set out on a much more vital journey leading us through the Innner Lives of Cultures. In these 10 revealing essays about Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, Romania, Russia and Uzbekistan, we enter, through empathy and imagination ‘into the subjective life of another culture – its symbolic codes, its overt beliefs and implicit assumptions’. Often, they suggest, it is the experience of emmigration or displacment which is the key: it reveals most sharply to us not only how culture shapes our human enviroment but also the inner landscapes of the self which perceives it. In an opening essay, ‘Barbarism, Civilisation, Cultures’, Tzvetan Todorov, argues forcefully that without this much-prized knowledge of what ‘culture’ is, we may increasingly fail to become what he calls “a civilised person: one who is able, at all times and in all places, to recognise the humanity of others fully”. This is an urgent and indispensible book for our world now. Views: 263
A moving testament to one of the literary world's most celebrated marriages: that of the greatest playwright of our age, Harold Pinter, and the beautiful and famous prize-winning biographer Antonia Fraser.
In this exquisite memoir, Antonia Fraser recounts the life she shared with the internationally renowned dramatist. In essence, it is a love story and a marvelously insightful account of their years together, beginning with their initial meeting when Fraser was the wife of a member of Parliament and mother of six, and Pinter was married to a distinguished actress. Over the years, they experienced much joy, a shared devotion to their work, crises and laughter, and, in the end, great courage and love as Pinter battled the illness to which he eventually succumbed on Christmas Eve 2008.
Must You Go? is based on Fraser’s recollections and on the diaries she has kept since October 1968. She shares Pinter’s own revelations about his past, as well as observations by his friends. Fraser’s diaries—written by a biographer living with a creative artist and observing the process firsthand—also provide a unique insight into his writing.
Harold Pinter and Antonia Fraser lived together from August 1975 until his death thirty-three years later. “O! call back yesterday, bid time return,” cries one of the courtiers to Richard II. This is Antonia Fraser’s uniquely compelling way of doing so.
From the Hardcover edition. Views: 263
Grace, dignity, and eloquence have long been hallmarks of Maya Angelou’s poetry. Her measured verses have stirred our souls, energized our minds, and healed our hearts. Whether offering hope in the darkest of nights or expressing sincere joy at the extraordinariness of the everyday, Maya Angelou has served as our common voice.
Celebrations is a collection of timely and timeless poems that are an integral part of the global fabric. Several works have become nearly as iconic as Angelou herself: the inspiring “On the Pulse of Morning,” read at President William Jefferson Clinton’s 1993 inauguration; the heartening “Amazing Peace,” presented at the 2005 lighting of the National Christmas Tree at the White House; “A Brave and Startling Truth,” which marked the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations; and “Mother,” which beautifully honors the first woman in our lives. Angelou writes of celebrations public and private, a bar mitzvah wish to her nephew, a birthday greeting to Oprah Winfrey, and a memorial tribute to the late Luther Vandross and Barry White.
More than a writer, Angelou is a chronicler of history, an advocate for peace, and a champion for the planet, as well as a patriot, a mentor, and a friend. To be shared and cherished, the wisdom and poetry of Maya Angelou proves there is always cause for celebration.
From the Hardcover edition. Views: 261
On this speck of volcanic soil in the middle of a vast sea, a complete, unique and peaceful world was created slowly and carefully. It waited there for hundreds of thousands of years for an annihilating invasion of voracious animals for which it was totally unprepared, a cohort of rapacious beasts led by the worst predator in the world, Homo sapiens . . . In an incredibly short space of time, a number of unique species had vanished . . . ' Mauritius, the green and mountainous island in the Indian Ocean, was once the home of the ill-fated dodo, and by the 1970s it still had many unique but endangered species, hanging onto their existence by their fingernails.When Gerald Durrell went to rescue some of these creatures from extinction, he experienced danger and discomfort, but enjoyed the adventures greatly. He spent nights in the jungle looking for bats and pink pigeons, and climbed near-vertical rock faces to find Telfair's skinks and Gunther's geckos, spending his spare time exploring the enchanted worlds of the coral reefs with their many species of multicoloured fish. By the end of his trip, he had an extraordinary collection of animals to take to his Jersey sanctuary from where the progeny could, in time, be restored to Mauritius. Views: 260
Oscar Devereaux Micheaux (1884 – 1951) was an African American author, film director and independent producer of more than 44 films. Micheaux decided to concentrate on writing and, eventually, filmmaking, a new industry. He wrote seven novels. In 1913, 1,000 copies of his first book, The Conquest: The Story of a Negro Homesteader, were printed. He published the book anonymously, for unknown reasons. Based on his experiences as a homesteader and the failure of his first marriage, it was largely autobiographical. Although character names have been changed, the protagonist is named Oscar Devereaux. His theme was about African Americans realizing their potential and succeeding in areas where they had not felt they could. The book outlines the difference between city lifestyles of Negroes and the life he decided to lead as a lone negro out on the far West as a pioneer. He discusses the culture of doers who want to accomplish and those who see themselves as victims of injustice and hopelessness and who do not want to try to succeed, but instead like to pretend to be successful while living the city lifestyle in poverty. He had become frustrated with getting members of his race to populate the frontier and make something of themselves, with real work and property investment. He wrote over 100 letters to fellow Negroes in the East beckoning them to come West, and only his older brother eventually came West. One of Micheaux\'s fundamental beliefs is that hard work and enterprise will make any person rise to respect and prominence no matter his or her race. Views: 260
**Shortlisted for the 2012 The Word Guild Awards, Novel-Futuristic Category** -- An entity from nothing space and time violently invades a young Toronto songwriter. He consumes her. He changes her into his image. She battles back to resist him, to expel him, to regain herself. And in doing so discovers where evil really resides.**Shortlisted for the 2012 The Word Guild Awards, Novel-Futuristic Category**An entity from nothing space and time, Akaesman lurks in his dominion, waiting, watching through his peephole into our world for the right prey. And when he spots a good one, he forces himself into our space and time, evading the Akaesman patrol, invading his chosen one. He spreads his evil to everyone, one by one, male and female, changing them forever into his image.But the young songwriter and her fiancé, enjoying the end of their road trip, have never heard of Akaesman. On the eve of the summer solstice, they fly home to Toronto down a local highway past slumbering fields, toward a thick starlight-sucking forest, oblivious of their destination: Akaesman. He comes out of a green neon wind. He smacks their car; he cracks the window; he's in her. Her songwriting career is dead. Her name is gone.When she learns of his presence, she resists him; she wrestles with him; she seeks help in her battle. Yet she loses ground. She's ready to quit. And that's when she discovers that there is more than one kind of evil..."Shireen’s pen has all the force of a great storyteller and the artistic skills of reviving a past scene in its most original form." Ernest Dempsey on Shireen Jeejeebhoy's award-winning biography Lifeliner: The Judy Taylor Story"If you want a book you can't put down, get Lifeliner into your hands..." Gloria Oren on Shireen Jeejeebhoy's award-winning biography Lifeliner: The Judy Taylor Story Views: 260
"Rowe is one of those writers who can swing from the eloquent prose of a Peter Straub to the brutality of a Richard Laymon" (Monster Librarian). Everyone knows that sixteen-year-old Mikey Childress is "different." A target for bullies since he was a small boy, everything Mikey does attracts abuse: the way he walks, the way he talks, the way he looks. Everyone knows he's not like the other boys in the rural town of Auburn—the boys who play hockey, who fight, who pursue girls. Only his friend Wroxy, a girl almost as isolated as he is, can even guess at the edges of his pain, or the depths of his yearning for love. But even the people who hate Mikey couldn't dream of how many secrets he has, or how badly he could hurt them if he wanted to. Until the night Mikey is pushed beyond endurance by his abusers. The night he makes a pact with dark forces older than time to have terrible vengeance on his enemies. The night he... Views: 259
The Argentine pampas and the Chaco territory of Paraguay provide the setting for The Drunken Forest. With Durrell for interpreter, an orange armadillo, or a horned toad, or a crab-eating raccoon, or a baby giant anteater suddenly discovers the ability not merely to set you laughing but actually to endear itself to you.
Contents
Explanation
Saludos
Oven-birds and burrowing owls
Eggbert and the Terrible Twins
Interlude
Fields of flying flowers
The orange armadillos
Bevy of bichos
Fawns, frogs, and fer-de-lance
Terrible toads and a bushel of birds
The four-eyed bird and the anaconda
Sarah Huggersack
Rattlesnakes and revolution
Interlude
The Rhea Hunt
Adios!
Acknowledgements Views: 258
The classic memoir of the Nobel Prize–winning poet, now expanded with newly discovered material ... Views: 258
CJ wrote up this adventure for her journal, though the M girls only come in at the end. It begins with two kids from Earth who discover a boy from another world being kept hostage. When they rescue him, they end up having to cross the USA before being blasted by magic to Mearsies Heili, where they meet a sailor girl who's been stuck in charge of a Mysterious Magical Object.
CJ and the gang try to come to the rescue, discovering that being on the edge of big events can lead to bigger questions . . . leading straight to the troubles chronicled in Fleeing Peace.
First written when Sherwood Smith was a teen. Views: 256
New Directions celebrates the Pablo Neruda Centennial. In celebration of the 100th anniversary of Pablo Neruda's birth, New Directions is pleased to announce the reissue of a classic work in a timeless translation by Donald D. Walsh and fully bilingual.
The Captain's Verses was first published anonymously in 1952, some years before Neruda married Matilde Urrutia - the one with "the fire / of an unchained meteor" - to whom he had addressed these poems of love, ecstasy, devotion, and fury. Our bilingual edition is seen by many as the most intimate and passionate volume of Neruda's love poetry, capturing all the erotic energy of a new love. Views: 255
Louis XIV, the highly-feted “Sun King”, was renowned for his political and cultural influence and for raising France to a new level of prominence in seventeenth-century Europe. And yet, as Antonia Fraser keenly describes, he was equally legendary in the domestic sphere. Indeed, a panoply of women—his mother, Anne; mistresses such as Louise de la Vallière, Athénaïs de Montespan, and the puritanical Madame de Maintenon; and an array of courtesans—moved in and out of the court. The highly visible presence of these women raises many questions about their position in both Louis XIV’s life and in France at large. With careful research and vivid, engaging prose, Fraser makes the multifaceted life of one of the most famous European monarchs accessible and vibrantly current. Views: 254
