“Everybody is smart in different ways. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its life believing it is stupid.”
Ally has been smart enough to fool a lot of smart people. Every time she lands in a new school, she is able to hide her inability to read by creating clever yet disruptive distractions. She is afraid to ask for help; after all, how can you cure dumb? However, her newest teacher Mr. Daniels sees the bright, creative kid underneath the trouble maker. With his help, Ally learns not to be so hard on herself and that dyslexia is nothing to be ashamed of. As her confidence grows, Ally feels free to be herself and the world starts opening up with possibilities. She discovers that there’s a lot more to her—and to everyone—than a label, and that great minds don’t always think alike. Views: 1 012
From the author of The Indian in the Cupboard and The L-Shaped Room comes a fascinating story of a wartime childhood, heavily influenced by her own experience.
In 1940 as war rages across Europe, ten-year-old Lindy waves goodbye to England and makes the long journey to Saskatoon, Canada, along with her mother and her cousin Cameron. They may be far from the war but they are also far from home and everyone they know and love. Life in Canada is very different but it is also full of exciting new adventures
This captivating story is inspired by Lynne Reid Banks own childhood experience and her time in Canada." Views: 1 012
"Finding Ourselves is Like Flying An Ancient Biplane Coast To Coast: There Are Storms Ahead, But Oonce We've Started, It's Too Late To turn Back." To discover that time is not a straight line aimed toward infinity, Richard Bach undertook a magnificent journey. "Biplane" is the story of that solo flight into the American skies -- a flight that became a personal quest to discover everything that lies beyond the ordinary. Views: 1 012
Meredith Stratton worked hard to become a successful businesswoman—and now she owns six elegant inns all over the world. But on a trip abroad she is struck by a strange illness, one that seems to have no physical cause. Meredith has always played by her own rules—and won—and now she must uncover the roots of this mystery ailment that threatens her future happiness. The answers lie buried somewhere in her forgotten past. And with the help of a caring psychiatrist, Meredith will have to peel back the layers of her most carefully designed and constructed creation: herself. Views: 1 012
In 1632, the Emperor of Hindustan, Shah Jahan, overwhelmed with grief over the death of his beloved wife, Mumatz Mahal, commissioned the building of a grand mausoleum to symbolize the greatness of their love. The story surrounding the construction of the Taj Mahal occurs, however, against a scrim of fratricidal war, murderous rebellion, unimaginable wealth, and, not least of all, religious fundamentalism ruthlessly opposing tolerance and coexistence between the disparate peoples in the empire.
At that time, Hindustan comprised all of modern Pakistan and Kashmir, most of eastern Afghanistan, and two-thirds of the Indian subcontinent (roughly north of Bombay to the Himalayas).
"Beneath a Marble Sky," narrated by Princess Jahanara, eldest daughter of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal, recounts their story, and her own as well, a parallel tale of forbidden love enduring censure and extreme deprivations. "Beneath a Marble Sky" brims with action and intrigue befitting an epic era when, alongside continuous war, architecture and its attendant arts reached a pinnacle of perfection.
In a splendid debut, John Shors has crafted an immensely readable and well-researched historical novel of surprisingly contemporary relevance.
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"I suppose I ought to warn you at the outset that my present circumstances are puzzling, even to me. Nevertheless, I am sure of this much: My little story has become your history. You won't really understand your times until you understand mine."
So begins the account of Agnes Shanklin, the charmingly diffident narrator of Mary Doria Russell’s compelling new novel, Dreamers of the Day. And what is Miss Shanklin's "little story?" Nothing less than the creation of the modern Middle East at the 1921 Cairo Peace Conference, where Winston Churchill, T. E. Lawrence, and Lady Gertrude Bell met to decide the fate of the Arab world-and of our own.
A forty-year-old schoolteacher from Ohio still reeling from the tragedies of the Great War and the influenza epidemic, Agnes has come into a modest inheritance that allows her to take the trip of a lifetime to Egypt and the Holy Land. Arriving at the Semiramis Hotel just as the Peace Conference convenes, Agnes, with her plainspoken American opinions - and a small, noisy dachshund named Rosie – enters into the company of the historic luminaries who will, in the space of a few days at a hotel in Cairo, invent the nations of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan.
Neither a pawn nor a participant at the conference, Agnes is ostensibly insignificant, and that makes her a welcome sounding board for Churchill, Lawrence, and Bell. It also makes her unexpectedly attractive to the charismatic German spy Karl Weilbacher. As Agnes observes the tumultuous inner workings of nation-building, she is drawn more and more deeply into geopolitical intrigue and toward a personal awakening.
With prose as graceful and effortless as a seductive float down the Nile, Mary Doria Russell illuminates the long, rich history of the Middle East with a story that brilliantly elucidates today's headlines. As enlightening as it is entertaining, Dreamers of the Day is a memorable, passionate, gorgeously written novel. Views: 1 011
A captivating, often hilarious novel of family, loss, wilderness, and the curse of a violent America, Dave Eggers's Heroes of the Frontier is a powerful examination of our contemporary life and a rousing story of adventure.
Josie and her children's father have split up, she's been sued by a former patient and lost her dental practice, and she's grieving the death of a young man senselessly killed. When her ex asks to take the children to meet his new fiancee's family, Josie makes a run for it, figuring Alaska is about as far as she can get without a passport. Josie and her kids, Paul and Ana, rent a rattling old RV named the Chateau, and at first their trip feels like a vacation: They see bears and bison, they eat hot dogs cooked on a bonfire, and they spend nights parked along icy cold rivers in dark forests. But as they drive, pushed north by the ubiquitous wildfires, Josie is chased by enemies both real and imagined, past mistakes pursuing her tiny family, even to the very edge of civilization.
A tremendous new novel from the best-selling author of The Circle, Heroes of the Frontier is the darkly comic story of a mother and her two young children on a journey through an Alaskan wilderness plagued by wildfires and a uniquely American madness. Views: 1 011
From the New York Times best-selling author of The Dovekeepers, Alice Hoffman is at her haunting, thought-provoking best with these interconnected stories about a Long Island family, the Samuelsons, and the lessons in survival and transformation that life brings to every family...
"Pulls the reader in effortlessly...Hoffman has the power to make you really laugh and really cry." --USA Today
"Moving and deadpan funny...Epiphanies about passion, pain, and resiliency induce smiles and shivers in equal measure." --Entertainment Weekly Views: 1 011
Tensions run high in the explosive 8th book of 39 Clues, the #1 New York Times bestselling series.
IT'S NEVER TOO LATE TO JOIN THE HUNT!
As the race to find the 39 Clues builds to its explosive finish, Amy and Dan must explore an ancient culture and steal a Clue guarded by thousands of the world's best-trained soldiers. It's the most dangerous Clue search yet. As their enemies crowd in, Amy and Dan find themselves separated for the first time ever. The choice lies before them - find the next Clue, or find their way back to each other. Views: 1 011
"Too funny for words." -All About Romance
They share love, laughter, and a passion that burns up the night.
But can he share the secrets that threaten their marriage?
Nick and Paula DeCello are getting divorced in seven days, even though they love each other dearly. His overprotectiveness has finally become too much for her, and there's something painful locked deep inside him. Desperate, Nick takes the advice of a quirky, old fortune teller to find his wife's "heart craving." To Nick, that means sexual fantasies.
Armed with a hilarious collection of advice books, he embarks on a wild, funny seduction of Paula that proves there's nothing wrong with their relationship in the bedroom. When it comes to giving her what her heart really craves-soul-sharing communication-he'll have to take a big step outside his comfort zone. Views: 1 011
Robert Graves, classicist, poet and unorthodox critic, retells the Greek legends of gods and heroes for a modern audience.He demonstrates with a dazzling display of relevant knowledge that Greek mythology is 'no more mysterious in content than are modern election cartoons'.All the scattered elements of each myth are assembled into a harmonious narrative, and many variants are recorded which may help to determine its ritual or historical meaning. Full indexes and references to the classical sources make the book as valuable to the scholar as the general reader. And a full commentary on each myth interprets the classical version in the light of contemporary archaeological and anthropological knowledge. Views: 1 010
A man alone in the sky has a chance to touch the stars. But as Richard Bach, flying a lone jet across Europe, reaches for the eternal, he must also confront the fear and danger that shadow the unknown. "Compellingly beautiful and masterfully told."-- "The New York Times Book Review."
"A classic of the character of a man whose great compulsion to measure himself against storm and night and fear."--Gill Rob Wilson Views: 1 010
Ein großes Haus, einen reichen Mann und viele Kinder hatte sich Alison für ihr Leben gewünscht. Und das Leben, so scheint es auf den ersten Blick, hat es gut mit ihr gemeint. Während ihr Mann Charles seine Bücher schreibt, ziehen Alison und Ingrid, das Au-Pair, eine Kinderschar groß. Es ist das alltägliche Familienchaos: kleine Grausamkeiten und große Gefühle. Und ein Geheimnis, das unter dem brüchigen Siegel der Verschwiegenheit gehalten wird.
Booker-Preisträgerin Penelope Lively eröffnet uns die Welt einer Familie, die Träume, Wünsche und Erinnerungen, die Siege, Niederlagen und unsichtbaren Narben, die von Weihnachts- und Geburtstagsfeiern oder Strandurlauben zurückbleiben. Ein hintersinniger Roman, der zeigt, was Familie ausmacht. Views: 1 010
Here, in this compelling assembly of writings, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard explores the world of natural facts and human meanings. Views: 1 010
