Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. Sethe, its protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope, Beloved is a towering achievement. Views: 7 491
Ravishingly beautiful and emotionally incendiary, Tar Baby is Toni Morrison’s reinvention of the love story. Jadine Childs is a black fashion model with a white patron, a white boyfriend, and a coat made out of ninety perfect sealskins. Son is a black fugitive who embodies everything she loathes and desires. As Morrison follows their affair, which plays out from the Caribbean to Manhattan and the deep South, she charts all the nuances of obligation and betrayal between blacks and whites, masters and servants, and men and women.
From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 3 592
Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl, prays every day for beauty. Mocked by other children for the dark skin, curly hair, and brown eyes that set her apart, she yearns for normalcy, for the blond hair and blue eyes that she believes will allow her to finally fit in.Yet as her dream grows more fervent, her life slowly starts to disintegrate in the face of adversity and strife. A powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity, Toni Morrison’s virtuosic first novel asks powerful questions about race, class, and gender with the subtlety and grace that have always characterized her writing.
From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 2 588
In the winter of 1926, when everybody everywhere sees nothing but good things ahead, Joe Trace, middle-aged door-to-door salesman of Cleopatra beauty products, shoots his teenage lover to death. At the funeral, Joe’s wife, Violet, attacks the girl’s corpse. This passionate, profound story of love and obsession brings us back and forth in time, as a narrative is assembled from the emotions, hopes, fears, and deep realities of black urban life. Views: 2 546
The latest novel from Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison.
An angry and self-loathing veteran of the Korean War, Frank Money finds himself back in racist America after enduring trauma on the front lines that left him with more than just physical scars. His home--and himself in it--may no longer be as he remembers it, but Frank is shocked out of his crippling apathy by the need to rescue his medically abused younger sister and take her back to the small Georgia town they come from, which he's hated all his life. As Frank revisits the memories from childhood and the war that leave him questioning his sense of self, he discovers a profound courage he thought he could never possess again. A deeply moving novel about an apparently defeated man finding his manhood--and his home.
This eBook edition includes a Reading Group Guide. Views: 960
"Rumors had been whispered for more than a year. Outrages that had been accumulating all along took shape as evidence. A mother was knocked down the stairs by her cold-eyed daughter. Four damaged infants were born in one family. Daughters refused to get out of bed. Brides disappeared on their honeymoons. Two brothers shot each other on New Year's Day. Trips to Demby for VD shots common. And what went on at the Oven these days was not to be believed . . . The proof they had been collecting since the terrible discovery in the spring could not be denied: the one thing that connected all these catastrophes was in the Convent. And in the Convent were those women."
In Paradise--her first novel since she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature--Toni Morrison gives us a bravura performance. As the book begins deep in Oklahoma early one morning in 1976, nine men from Ruby (pop. 360), in defense of "the one all-black town worth the pain," assault the nearby Convent and the women in it. From the town's ancestral origins in 1890 to the fateful day of the assault, Paradise tells the story of a people ever mindful of the relationship between their spectacular history and a void "Out There . . . where random and organized evil erupted when and where it chose." Richly imagined and elegantly composed, Paradise weaves a powerful mystery. Views: 893
A short story about a young man sitting at home babysitting a little kid who is sick.A story told by Astor Court the building in New York City that Mia lives. Mia is an imaginative and grown-up fifth-grader. One snowy day she offered to help her neighbor, an old lady, Mrs. Goldenrod who was struggling, carry her shopping bags home. Mrs. Goldenrod invited Mia in for tea and they learned delightful things about one another. While Mia was there she became fascinated by a statue of a black dog. That statue was Mister Pepper and was given to Mrs. Goldenrod by an actress friend. Mister Pepper was to be given as a gift to the courtyard garden. Mia left to take her dog Bubbles for a walk. When Mia and Bubbles returned the found Angelina in the courtyard garden deciding the placement of Mister Pepper. Angelina, who was Mrs. Goldenrod's niece had taught Mia so much about animals. Angelina gave Mia a magic red collar and instructed Mia to place it around Mister Pepper's neck. Then Mister Pepper could tell Mia and Bubbles his secret.The day of the annual courtyard barbeque Mia did as Angelina had instructed. She and Bubbles learned why Mister Pepper was now of stone. He was happy in the garden where he "wants everyone to think of him as a friend - the friend who will be waiting for them no matter what. "The building, Astor Court ends the story saying that Mrs. Goldenrod was right in that if people would be polite to their friend as well as their enemies, the world would bea better place. And he would like to add - "polite to the things of the world that don't breathe or move. One never knows how a little polite attention can make all the difference to that brick, or furniture, or statue..." Views: 760
Nobel Prize laureate Toni Morrison’s spellbinding new novel is a Faulknerian symphony of passion and hatred, power and perversity, color and class that spans three generations of black women in a fading beach town.
In life, Bill Cosey enjoyed the affections of many women, who would do almost anything to gain his favor. In death his hold on them may be even stronger. Wife, daughter, granddaughter, employee, mistress: As Morrison’s protagonists stake their furious claim on Cosey’s memory and estate, using everything from intrigue to outright violence, she creates a work that is shrewd, funny, erotic, and heartwrenching.
From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 760
Lawrence Foster Brickem finds himself standing on a cliff with no memories of how he got there. He dives into the water below and starts a journey through a strange land that changes all the time. He must remember his past and uncover the secrets of this new land in order to find a way home. Lawrence soon realizes that he is different than others, but he has no idea how different he really is.In the 1800s, a young man escapes a former gang by robbing them and running west to start a new life. Under an assumed alias, he poses as the town doctor and tries to fit in to the wild frontier. Soon enough, his old life catches up to him and he's forced to defend the towns folk who have taken him in as family against the old gang who wants to kill him and get their money back. Views: 721
A man has a recurring dream where he is going through a tunnel. Every night it gets worse but he can't figure out its meaning. He hopes its innocent, but the world is a dangerous place, and it becomes more dangerous everyday.Once upon a time I was fishing away when a man appeared across the creek from me. He sat down on a large rock holding an acoustic guitar. Yes sir! Yes sir! He was wearing all black with a fedora, silver chains around his wrists, his mouth was stretched in a large wide smile that went from ear to ear. A white tie hung down to his waist with gold buttons in the middle. Not a single word was spoken between us and we did not even acknowledged that the other person was there. Something was odd about this man. Yes sir! Yes sir! Butterflies seem to be flying around his head as if they were being pulled in by his gravity. He was an eerie man. I do not even think my twisted mind could make him up. His presence wasn't erotic, but it was a sick pleasure. Views: 703
Two girls who grow up to become women. Two friends who become something worse than enemies. In this brilliantly imagined novel, Toni Morrison tells the story of Nel Wright and Sula Peace, who meet as children in the small town of Medallion, Ohio. Their devotion is fierce enough to withstand bullies and the burden of a dreadful secret. It endures even after Nel has grown up to be a pillar of the black community and Sula has become a pariah. But their friendship ends in an unforgivable betrayal—or does it end? Terrifying, comic, ribald and tragic, Sula is a work that overflows with life. Views: 678
Mith and Ludus leave their secluded town for the first time as part of a coming of age ceremony. Upon leaving they come across a guide who helps them on their way. Once at their destination they find that everything and everyone is frozen in time. Mith and Ludus learn that the world around them is much stranger than they ever thought, and it is up to them to solve the mystery and save their home.Mith and Ludus are about to leave their secluded town for the first time as part of a coming of age ceremony that all fourteen year olds must complete. Having never been out on their own before, they are frightened and excited. Just a day out they realize that it is going to be harder than they ever imagined. Lucky for them they happen upon a guide, Mitchum. He tells Mith and Ludus that there is so much more to the world than what they know. This becomes ominously clear when they arrive at their destination and find that everyone there is frozen in time. Mith and Ludus must grow up fast as they discover the secrets of their home and the golden roses, which are magic objects that control the life force of every living creature. It is now up to them to travel across their large island to stop those responsible and protect the last golden rose. Views: 661
Hazel Winbolt is a ten year old girl with a very sick mother. Her father sends her to live with her grandmother so she is out of the way. Hazel finds herself in a very old and mysterious house with a grandmother she has never met. Strange things begin to happen to Hazel when little animals start coming out of the little brown box she has from home. Are they good or bad? Only time will tell.Hazel Winbolt is a ten year old girl with a very sick mother. Her father sends her to live with her grandmother so she is out of the way. Hazel finds herself in a very old and mysterious house with a grandmother she has never met. As the days progress she is certain that something strange is going to happen. Floors creak and shadows travel up walls when there is nobody there. This is nothing compared to when small animals start appearing out of a little brown box she has. What do they want? It is up to Hazel to find out in the short time she has before returning home. Views: 636
Bessie does not know what to do when she gets abducted by aliens. The beings tell her that she has to stop an invasion because they think that every human has super powers. Bessie tries to tell them that she doesn't but they do not want to listen. She then sets out to find the person responsible for her being there, hoping that he can get her home before she has to actually stop an invasion.The author's mother has always been present in her daughter's consciousness, manifesting in front of her eyes at times. In this second story in the series mom tells her own story, luring her daughter into a world created to the daughter's liking, made of childhood fairytales, memories, and dreams. Mom tries to encourage her daughter, disheartened by the harsh realities of her surrounding life, to adapt a different point of view towards life, one in which the future is more bright and colorful. Will the mother succeed? Views: 620
The sequel to Hardin's War. Hardin's life has changed dramatically, and now he finally knows who is behind the killings of the Humurom hunters. As time passes in Azureland Hardin is certain that things are only getting worse in Humurom. He must decide if he wants to risk his life and the lives of others to save the stubborn Humurom's, or let them go as he enjoys his new life in a new world.In een dystopische toekomst neemt Het David Effect ons mee naar Holland-onder-de-zee waar geavanceerde computer- en biotechnologie strijden met de gevestigde orde om voor eens en altijd uit te maken wie een bepalende stem krijgt in het lot van de mensheid.Mike Jansen schrijft voor de Engelse en Nederlandse markt en publiceert verhalen en boeken op de Engelse en Nederlandse markten. Dit verhaal is eerder verschenen in de Vierde Ragnarok bundel van Babel Publications. Views: 604
