Download or read book Hum If You Don t Know the Words written by Bianca Marais and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-03-06 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Perfect for readers of The Secret Life of Bees and The Help, a perceptive and searing look at Apartheid-era South Africa, told through one unique family brought together by tragedy. Life under Apartheid has created a secure future for Robin Conrad, a ten-year-old white girl living with her parents in 1970s Johannesburg. In the same nation but worlds apart, Beauty Mbali, a Xhosa woman in a rural village in the Bantu homeland of the Transkei, struggles to raise her children alone after her husband's death. Both lives have been built upon the division of race, and their meeting should never have occurred...until the Soweto Uprising, in which a protest by black students ignites racial conflict, alters the fault lines on which their society is built, and shatters their worlds when Robin’s parents are left dead and Beauty’s daughter goes missing. After Robin is sent to live with her loving but irresponsible aunt, Beauty is hired to care for Robin while continuing the search for her daughter. In Beauty, Robin finds the security and family that she craves, and the two forge an inextricable bond through their deep personal losses. But Robin knows that if Beauty finds her daughter, Robin could lose her new caretaker forever, so she makes a desperate decision with devastating consequences. Her quest to make amends and find redemption is a journey of self-discovery in which she learns the harsh truths of the society that once promised her protection. Told through Beauty and Robin's alternating perspectives, the interwoven narratives create a rich and complex tapestry of the emotions and tensions at the heart of Apartheid-era South Africa. Hum If You Don’t Know the Words is a beautifully rendered look at loss, racism, and the creation of family.

Download or read book If You Want to Make God Laugh written by Bianca Marais and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-07-07 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A rich, unforgettable story of three unique women in post-Apartheid South Africa who are brought together in their darkest time and discover the ways that love can transcend the strictest of boundaries. In a squatter camp on the outskirts of Johannesburg, seventeen-year-old Zodwa lives in desperate poverty, under the shadowy threat of a civil war and a growing AIDS epidemic. Eight months pregnant, Zodwa carefully guards secrets that jeopardize her life. Across the country, wealthy socialite Ruth appears to have everything her heart desires, but it's what she can't have that leads to her breakdown. Meanwhile, in Zaire, a disgraced former nun, Delilah, grapples with a past that refuses to stay buried. When these personal crises send both middle-aged women back to their rural hometown to heal, the discovery of an abandoned newborn baby upends everything, challenging their lifelong beliefs about race, motherhood, and the power of the past. As the mystery surrounding the infant grows, the complicated lives of Zodwa, Ruth, and Delilah become inextricably linked. What follows is a mesmerizing look at family and identity that asks: How far will the human heart go to protect itself and the ones it loves?

Download or read book You Gotta Want It written by Jake Paul and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-10-11 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this extremely positive, motivational, and often laugh-out-loud memoir, Jake Paul pauses long enough from his supercharged day-to-day as a nineteen year old social media heartthrob and costar on the Disney Channel series Bizaardvark to share his takes on life, love, fame, and shooting for the moon. Growing up as a regular kid in Ohio, Jake Paul always knew he wanted to do something big, but he wasn’t sure what that thing was—that is, until he found his calling as one of Vine’s most famous comedians. As a high school sophomore, Jake began making comedy videos with his older brother, Logan, and posting them online. With every carefully staged prank, Jake and Logan’s following grew—and after a few stumbling blocks, Jake finally forged his own way. Eventually, he traded his childhood home in Cleveland for sunny, sparkling Hollywood. In You Gotta Want It, Jake reflects on the path that led him to stardom. From learning the value of a disciplined work ethic, to achieving his goals and aspirations along the way to digital celebrity, to the crazy behind-the-scenes details of his journey as a creator and actor, Jake relates the most hysterical and intimate details of his life thus far—all with the signature humor, honesty, and unstoppable attitude that have won him millions of devoted followers.

Download or read book You Don t Know Me written by Susan May Warren and published by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.. This book was released on 2012-09-21 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2013 Christy Award winner! 2013 Carol Award finalist (ACFW) To everyone who knows her, Annalise Decker is a model wife and mother. She’s a permanent member of the PTA, never misses her kids’ sporting events, and is constantly campaigning for her husband’s mayoral race. No one knows that Annalise was once Deidre O’Reilly, a troubled young woman whose testimony put a dangerous criminal behind bars. Relocated through the Witness Security Program to the sleepy town of Deep Haven, Deidre got a new identity and a fresh start, which began when she fell in love with local real estate agent Nathan Decker. Twenty years later, Annalise couldn’t be more unprepared for her past to catch up with her. When Agent Frank Harrison arrives with news that the man she testified against is out on bail and out for revenge, Annalise is forced to face the consequences of her secrets. Will she run again, or will she finally find the grace to trust those she loves most with both her past and her future?

Download or read book Year of Yes written by Shonda Rhimes and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-11-10 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The creator of "Grey's Anatomy" and "Scandal" details the one-year experiment with saying "yes" that transformed her life, revealing how accepting unexpected invitations she would have otherwise declined enabled powerful benefits.

Download or read book Any Way the Wind Blows written by Rainbow Rowell and published by Wednesday Books. This book was released on 2021-07-06 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times bestselling author Rainbow Rowell's epic fantasy, the Simon Snow trilogy, concludes with Any Way the Wind Blows. In Carry On, Simon Snow and his friends realized that everything they thought they understood about the world might be wrong. And in Wayward Son, they wondered whether everything they understood about themselves might be wrong. Now, Simon and Baz and Penelope and Agatha must decide how to move forward. For Simon, that means choosing whether he still wants to be part of the World of Mages — and if he doesn't, what does that mean for his relationship with Baz? Meanwhile Baz is bouncing between two family crises and not finding any time to talk to anyone about his newfound vampire knowledge. Penelope would love to help, but she's smuggled an American Normal into London, and now she isn't sure what to do with him. And Agatha? Well, Agatha Wellbelove has had enough. Any Way the Wind Blows takes the gang back to England, back to Watford, and back to their families for their longest and most emotionally wrenching adventure yet. This book is a finale. It tells secrets and answers questions and lays ghosts to rest. The Simon Snow Trilogy was conceived as a book about Chosen One stories; Any Way the Wind Blows is an ending about endings—about catharsis and closure, and how we choose to move on from the traumas and triumphs that try to define us.

Download or read book Pie in the Sky written by Remy Lai and published by . This book was released on 2019-06 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: El Deafo meets Inside Out and Back Again in this funny, emotional illustrated middle-grade debut about immigrating to Australia, being upstaged by an annoying little brother, baking cakes and overcoming loss. When Jingwen moves to Australia, he feels like he's landed on Mars. Making friends is impossible, since he doesn't speak English, and he's stuck looking after his little brother Yanghao. But Jingwen knows how to make everything better. If he can just make all of the cakes on the menu of the bakery his father had planned to open-and complete the dream he didn't have time to finish-then everything will be okay. Sure, he'll have to break his mother's most important rule about not using the oven when she's at work, keep his little brother from spilling his secret, and brush up on his baking skills, but some things are worth the risk. In her debut novel, Remy Lai captures with humour and heart, what it means to want desperately to belong and just how powerful one wish can be.

Download or read book We re Different We re the Same Sesame Street written by Bobbi Kates and published by Random House Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2021-03-16 with total page 33 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who better than Elmo and his Sesame Street friends to teach us that though we may all look different on the outside—deep down, we are all very much alike? Elmo and his Sesame Street friends help teach toddlers and the adults in their lives that everyone is the same on the inside, and it's our differences that make this wonderful world, which is home to us all, an interesting—and special—place. This enduring, colorful, and charmingly illustrated book offers an easy, enjoyable way to learn about differences—and what truly matters. We’re Different, We’re the Same is an engaging read for toddlers and adults alike that reinforces how we all have the same needs, desires, and feelings.

Download or read book Out of the Dust Scholastic Gold written by Karen Hesse and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 2012-09-01 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Acclaimed author Karen Hesse's Newbery Medal-winning novel-in-verse explores the life of fourteen-year-old Billie Jo growing up in the dust bowls of Oklahoma. Out of the Dust joins the Scholastic Gold line, which features award-winning and beloved novels. Includes exclusive bonus content!"Dust piles up like snow across the prairie. . . ."A terrible accident has transformed Billie Jo's life, scarring her inside and out. Her mother is gone. Her father can't talk about it. And the one thing that might make her feel better -- playing the piano -- is impossible with her wounded hands.To make matters worse, dust storms are devastating the family farm and all the farms nearby. While others flee from the dust bowl, Billie Jo is left to find peace in the bleak landscape of Oklahoma -- and in the surprising landscape of her own heart.

Download or read book Everything I Never Told You written by Celeste Ng and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-05-12 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year • A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice • Winner of the Alex Award and the Massachusetts Book Award • Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, San Francisco Chronicle, Entertainment Weekly, The Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, Grantland Booklist, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Shelf Awareness, Book Riot, School Library Journal, Bustle, and Time Our New York The acclaimed debut novel by the author of Little Fires Everywhere and Our Missing Hearts “A taut tale of ever deepening and quickening suspense.” —O, the Oprah Magazine “Explosive . . . Both a propulsive mystery and a profound examination of a mixed-race family.” —Entertainment Weekly “Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet.” So begins this exquisite novel about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee, and her parents are determined that she will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue. But when Lydia’s body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together is destroyed, tumbling them into chaos. A profoundly moving story of family, secrets, and longing, Everything I Never Told You is both a gripping page-turner and a sensitive family portrait, uncovering the ways in which mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives struggle, all their lives, to understand one another.

Download or read book How to Write One Song written by Jeff Tweedy and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-10-13 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are few creative acts more mysterious and magical than writing a song. But what if the goal wasn't so mysterious and was actually achievable for anyone who wants to experience more magic and creativity in their life? That's something that anyone will be inspired to do after reading Jeff Tweedy's How to Write One Song. Why one song? Because the difference between one song and many songs isn't a cute semantic trick—it's an important distinction that can simplify a notoriously confusing art form. The idea of becoming a capital-S songwriter can seem daunting, but approached as a focused, self-contained event, the mystery and fear subsides, and songwriting becomes an exciting pursuit. And then there is the energizing, nourishing creativity that can open up. How to Write One Song brings readers into the intimate process of writing one song—lyrics, music, and putting it all together—and accesses the deep sense of wonder that remains at the heart of this curious, yet incredibly fulfilling, artistic act. But it’s equally about the importance of making creativity part of your life every day, and of experiencing the hope, inspiration, and joy available to anyone who’s willing to get started.

Download or read book The Big Book of Exit Strategies written by Jamaal May and published by Alice James Books. This book was released on 2016-04-18 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Praise for Jamaal May: "Linguistically acrobatic [and] beautifully crafted. . . . [Jamaal May's] poems, exquisitely balanced by a sharp intelligence mixed with earnestness, makes his debut a marvel."—Publishers Weekly Following Jamaal May's award-winning debut collection, Hum (2013), these new poems explore parallel landscapes of the poet's interior and an insidious American condition. Using dark humor that helps illuminate the pains of maturity and loss of imagination, May uncovers language like a skilled architect—digging up bones of the past to expose what lies beneath the surface of the fragile human condition. From: "Ask Where I've Been": Ask about the tornado of fists. The blows landed. If you can watch it all—the spit and blood frozen against snow, you can probably tell I am the too-narrow road winding out of a crooked city built of laughter, abandon, feathers and drums. Ask only if you can watch streetlights bow, bridges arc, and power lines sag, and still believe what matters most is not where I bend but where I am growing. Jamaal May is a poet, editor, and filmmaker from Detroit, Michigan, where he taught poetry in public schools and worked as a freelance audio engineer and touring performer. His poetry won the 2013 Indiana Review Poetry Prize and appears in journals such as Poetry, Ploughshares, the Believer, NER, and the Kenyon Review. May has earned an MFA from Warren Wilson College as well as fellowships from Cave Canem and The Stadler Center for Poetry at Bucknell University. He founded the Organic Weapon Arts Chapbook Press.

Download or read book When Things Are Alive They Hum written by Hannah Bent and published by Hardie Grant Publishing. This book was released on 2021-07-28 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Australian Women’s Weekly Great Read Shortlisted Indie Book Awards for Debut Fiction Shortlisted MUD Literary Prize​ Shortlisted ABIA Award for General Fiction Shortlisted ABIA Matt Richell Award New Writer of the Year ‘Hannah Bent’s outstanding debut is a wise, wondrous celebration of life.’ – The Australian ‘Hannah Bent has created a literary heroine of such pure beauty she takes your breath away.’ – Australian Women’s Weekly ‘Read it if you like: Your sister, anything by Trent Dalton, having a good cry, and My Sister’s Keeper.’ – Mamamia Marlowe and Harper share a bond deeper than most sisters, shaped by the loss of their mother in childhood. For Harper, living with what she calls the Up syndrome and gifted with an endless capacity for wonder, Marlowe and she are connected by an invisible thread, like the hum that connects all things. For Marlowe, they are bound by her fierce determination to keep Harper, born with a congenital heart disorder, alive. Now twenty-five, Marlowe is living abroad when she receives the devastating call that Harper’s heart is failing and she is being denied a transplant by the medical establishment. Marlowe rushes to her childhood home in Hong Kong to be by Harper’s side and soon has to answer the question – what lengths would you go to save your sister? When Things are Alive They Hum poses profound questions about the nature of love and existence, the ways grief changes us, and how we confront the hand fate has dealt us. Intensely moving, exquisitely written and literally humming with wonder, it is a novel that celebrates life in all its guises, and what comes after. PRAISE FOR WHEN THINGS ARE ALIVE THEY HUM ‘When literature is alive it hums, and rattles and warms and hurts and heals. Hannah Bent and her wondrous Harper and Marlowe have changed the way I’ve been going about my days. What a gift.’ – Trent Dalton, author of Boy Swallows Universe and All Our Shimmering Skies ‘A simply beautiful novel.’ – Good Reading ‘...what stayed with me was the achingly beautiful portrayal of the love between the two sisters. If I had a sister, that is how I would like to feel.’ – Nicole Abadee, Sydney Morning Herald ‘heartbreakingly beautiful’ – Family Circle

Download or read book On What We Know We Don t Know written by Sylvain Bromberger and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this collection of essays, Bromberger explores the centrality of questions and predicaments they create in scientific research. He discusses the nature of explanation, theory, and the foundations of linguistics.

Download or read book Someday the Plan of a Town Poems written by Todd Boss and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2022-02-15 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Poems of wayfaring and wayfinding, recovery and discovery, from “one of the best poets of his generation” (Elizabeth Lund, Washington Post). In 2018, reeling from marital, parental, and societal losses, acclaimed poet Todd Boss risked everything to be at one with the world. Boss sold his belongings and began to circle the globe in a series of consecutive housesits. He alternately inhabited thatched-roof farmhouses, hillside estates, urban apartments, and lush gardens in Berlin, Barcelona, Austin, Austria, Marrakesh, Singapore, Baltimore, Auckland, and more. The poems in Someday the Plan of a Town are his only souvenirs. Written under the influence of long walks along the Thames and the Pacific, of mornings at farmers’ markets, train stations, and mountaintop basilicas, Someday the Plan of a Town conjures Spanish dust, English rain, French moss, Arizona cliffs, and Hungarian light, ringing all the while with timeless humor and wisdom. At the same time, these poems concern the most domestic of matters—personal grief and familial estrangement, reflections on a changing nation, and a journey of self-discovery that offers a new meaning of home. As much a commentary on modern-day America as a personal history replete with grief, Someday the Plan of a Town is a sensual, intellectual, and arrestingly musical map of one nomadic troubadour’s journey to self.

Download or read book Under the Wide and Starry Sky written by Nancy Horan and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2014-01-21 with total page 594 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • TODAY SHOW BOOK CLUB PICK • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH From the New York Times bestselling author of Loving Frank comes a much-anticipated second novel, which tells the improbable love story of Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson and his tempestuous American wife, Fanny. At the age of thirty-five, Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne has left her philandering husband in San Francisco to set sail for Belgium—with her three children and nanny in tow—to study art. It is a chance for this adventurous woman to start over, to make a better life for all of them, and to pursue her own desires. Not long after her arrival, however, tragedy strikes, and Fanny and her children repair to a quiet artists’ colony in France where she can recuperate. Emerging from a deep sorrow, she meets a lively Scot, Robert Louis Stevenson, ten years her junior, who falls instantly in love with the earthy, independent, and opinionated “belle Americaine.” Fanny does not immediately take to the slender young lawyer who longs to devote his life to writing—and who would eventually pen such classics as Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In time, though, she succumbs to Stevenson’s charms, and the two begin a fierce love affair—marked by intense joy and harrowing darkness—that spans the decades and the globe. The shared life of these two strong-willed individuals unfolds into an adventure as impassioned and unpredictable as any of Stevenson’s own unforgettable tales. Praise for Under the Wide and Starry Sky “A richly imagined [novel] of love, laughter, pain and sacrifice . . . Under the Wide and Starry Sky is a dual portrait, with Louis and Fanny sharing the limelight in the best spirit of teamwork—a romantic partnership.”—USA Today “Powerful . . . flawless . . . a perfect example of what a man and a woman will do for love, and what they can accomplish when it’s meant to be.”—Fort Worth Star-Telegram “Horan’s prose is gorgeous enough to keep a reader transfixed, even if the story itself weren’t so compelling. I kept re-reading passages just to savor the exquisite wordplay. . . . Few writers are as masterful as she is at blending carefully researched history with the novelist’s art.”—The Dallas Morning News “A classic artistic bildungsroman and a retort to the genre, a novel that shows how love and marriage can simultaneously offer inspiration and encumbrance.”—The New York Times Book Review

Download or read book Crying in H Mart written by Michelle Zauner and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2021-04-20 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the indie rock sensation known as Japanese Breakfast, an unforgettable memoir about family, food, grief, love, and growing up Korean American—“in losing her mother and cooking to bring her back to life, Zauner became herself” (NPR). • CELEBRATING OVER ONE YEAR ON THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LIST In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up one of the few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother's particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother's tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food. As she grew up, moving to the East Coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, and performing gigs with her fledgling band--and meeting the man who would become her husband--her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live. It was her mother's diagnosis of terminal cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her. Vivacious and plainspoken, lyrical and honest, Zauner's voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes that will resonate widely, and complete with family photos, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread.