A searing novel about the obstacles facing women in Zimbabwe, by one of the country's most notable authorsAnxious about her prospects after leaving a stagnant job, Tambudzai finds herself living in a run-down youth hostel in downtown Harare. For reasons that include her grim financial prospects and her age, she moves to a widow's boarding house and eventually finds work as a biology teacher. But at every turn in her attempt to make a life for herself, she is faced with a fresh humiliation, until the painful contrast between the future she imagined and her daily reality ultimately drives her to a breaking point.In This Mournable Body, Tsitsi Dangarembga returns to the protagonist of her acclaimed first novel, Nervous Conditions, to examine how the hope and potential of a young girl and a fledgling nation can sour over time and become a bitter and floundering struggle for survival. As a last resort, Tambudzai takes an ecotourism job that forces... Views: 101
The Selector of Souls begins with a scene that is terrifying, harrowing and yet strangely tender: we're in the mid ranges of the Himalayas as a young woman gives birth to her third child with the help of her mother, Damini. The birth brings no joy, just a horrible accounting, and the act that follows--the huge sacrifice made by Damini out of love of her daughter--haunts the novel.In Shauna Singh Baldwin's enthralling novel, two fascinating, strong-willed women must deal with the relentless logic forced upon them by survival: Damini, a Hindu midwife, and Anu, who flees an abusive marriage for the sanctuary of the Catholic church. When Sister Anu comes to Damini's home village to open a clinic, their paths cross, and each are certain they are doing what's best for women. What do health, justice, education and equality mean for women when India is marching toward prosperity, growth and becoming a nuclear power? If the baby girls and women around them are to survive, Damini and Anu must find creative ways to break with tradition and help this community change from within.Review“The Selector of Souls is a bold and vivid dramatization of the charged choices shaping women’s lives in 1990s India. Shauna Singh Baldwin has a gift for warm-hearted and incisive storytelling. This is a novel expansive in its vision and defiantly human in its embrace of the contradictions that animate us all.” —Catherine Bush, author of The Rules of Engagement and Claire’s Head“From its opening lines, in which a mundane scene of domestic life is slowly transformed into horror, The Selector of Souls catapults the reader into a finely imagined space. Shauna Singh Baldwin writes compellingly of the conventions that curtail and threaten the lives of Indian women. Her polished language and original imagery consistently stir and surprise.” —Erna Paris, author of Long Shadows: Truth, Lies, and History“A canvas of rich images, a cast of memorable characters with all of their strengths and flaws, important moral questions, gripping stories intertwined. Shauna Singh Baldwin has the skill to mix these ingredients, add her humanist touch and come up with a superb novel.” —Frances Itani, author of Deafening and Requiem“The Selector of Souls is a mesmerizing novel, bravely revealing the harsh realities of an entrenched patriarchy bound by the forces of history. Baldwin’s lush details are vivid and luminous, drawing us into the multitude of cultures and religions, the richly textured worlds of India at the end of the last century. Sweeping and evocative, but most of all: illuminating.” —Sandra Gulland, author of the Josephine B. trilogy and Mistress of the Sun“In this tender twister of a tale, Shauna Singh Baldwin takes us inside a world where women murder or abort their daughters to help us understand how gender-loathing and its attendant horrors can be transformed by sympathy and love.” —Susan Swan, author of The Wives of Bath and The Western LightAbout the AuthorSHAUNA SINGH BALDWIN was born in Montreal and grew up in India. The Tiger Claw, her second novel, was a finalist for the Giller Prize in 2004 and is forthcoming as a film. Her first, What the Body Remembers, published in 1999, was longlisted for the Orange Prize and was awarded the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book in the Canada/Caribbean region. It has been translated into 14 languages. She is the author of English Lessons and Other Stories, the collection We Are Not in Pakistan, and co-author of A Foreign Visitor’s Survival Guide to America. Her short stories have won literary awards in the United States, Canada and India. She holds an MFA from the University of British Columbia and an MBA from Marquette University in Milwaukee, where she currently lives with her husband. Views: 101
Dark Star Safari is Paul Theroux's now classic account of a journey from Cairo to Cape Town.Travelling across bush and desert, down rivers and across lakes, and through country after country, Theroux visits some of the most beautiful landscapes on earth, and some of the most dangerous. It is a journey of discovery and of rediscovery — of the unknown and the unexpected, but also of people and places he knew as a young and optimistic teacher forty years before.Safari in Swahili simply means "journey", and this is the ultimate safari. It is Theroux in his element — a trip where chance encounter is everything, where departure and arrival times are an irrelevance, and where contentment can be found balancing on the top of a truck in the middle of nowhere.Praise for Paul Theroux:'Theroux's work remains the standard by which other travel writing must be judged' Observer'One... Views: 101
Having turned phone sex into the subject of an astonishing national bestseller in Vox, Baker now outdoes himself with an outrageously arousing, acrobatically stylish "X-rated sci-fi fantasy that leaves Vox seeming more like mere fiber-optic foreplay" (Seattle Times). "Sparkling."--San Francisco Chronicle. Views: 101
A Newfoundland and Labrador Crime Thriller An elderly man is carried into the emergency department of the Health Sciences Centre in St. John's, setting off a chain of events that leaves doctors mystified. He is the first of many victims suffering from severe nosebleeds and excruciating pain. Dr. Luke Gillespie and Nurse Agatha Catania investigate their symptoms but are unable to diagnose them. The only thing they have in common is Sgt. Nicholas Myra, an investigator with the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary. Dr. Gillespie and Sgt. Myra join forces to solve this twisted mystery. But the story takes a critical turn when Sister Pius, a nun from Mercy Convent, informs them about Wormwood: a disease she believes is created by God to kill perpetrators of the most heinous crimes. Wormwood becomes an international media storm when parish priest Father Peter Cooke holds a news conference on the steps of the Basilica of St. John the Baptist and announces that God has unleashed a plague upon... Views: 101
Molly and Miri Gill are twins. They look the same, act the same, sometimes even think the same. But they weren't always twins...Molly used to live in 1935, until Miri traveled back in time to save her from the clutches of Molly's evil adoptive family. Only they know about the magic, and its power to set things right. So when home repairs unleash more unexpected magic from their very special...very magical old house, the girls set off on another time-traveling adventure to the Civil War where they race against the clock to save two unusual soldiers and come to terms with the truth about Molly's real past.Brimming with lovable characters and spine-tingling magic, this long-awaited sequel will bring a whole new batch of readers to Annie Barrows' highly acclaimed, wonderfully popular world of twin-inspired magic. Views: 101
In this exciting prequel to The Splitting Storm, we meet Mick Kline at a time when his life is spiraling out of control. Mick finds himself accused of the kidnapping of a woman he hardly knows, and he refuses to turn to his estranged brother for help.About the AuthorRene Gutteridge is the author of 'Ghost Writer', 'Troubled Waters' and 'Boo'. She has also been published over thirty times as a playwright, and studied screenwriting under a Mass Communications degree, graduating Magna Cum Laude from Oklahoma City University, and earning the Excellence in Mass Communication award. She served as the full-time Director of Drama for First United Methodist Church for 5 years before leaving to stay home with her first child and to write. She enjoys instructing at writers conferences and in college classrooms. She lives with her husband, Sean, a musician, and their children in Oklahoma City. Views: 101
www.DebbieMacomber.comCan they get it right the second time? Single mom Joanna Parsons insists that marriage is an experience she doesn't plan to repeat, no matter what her eleven-year-old daughter, Kristen, thinks. Tanner Lund feels the same way. Like Joanna, he got divorced after a short, disastrous marriage. And like her, he's raising his eleven-year-old daughter, Nicole, alone. But Kristen and Nicole have other plans in mind--and it involves the best friends becoming sisters. Both Tanner and Joanna are determined to resist marriage, but have they underestimated their daughters? Views: 101
