Download or read book Fasting Feasting written by Anita Desai and published by Random House. This book was released on 2012-10-31 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: SHORTLISTED FOR THE 1999 BOOKER PRIZE Uma, the plain, spinster daughter of a close-knit Indian family, is trapped at home, smothered by her overbearing parents and their traditions, unlike her ambitious younger sister Aruna, who brings off a 'good' marriage, and brother Arun, the disappointing son and heir who is studying in America. Across the world in Massachusetts, life with the Patton family is bewildering for Arun in the alien culture of freedom, freezers and paradoxically self-denying self-indulgence.

Download or read book The Artist of Disappearance written by Anita Desai and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2011 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Award-winning novelist Anita Desai explores time and transformation in these three artful novellas

Download or read book Out of Africa and Shadows on the Grass written by Isak Dinesen and published by G K Hall & Company. This book was released on 1986 with total page 566 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set in Africa, it is the story of Dinesen's years in Africa--together with Shadows on the Grass. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

Download or read book Journey to Ithaca written by Anita Desai and published by Random House India. This book was released on 2013-04-15 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sophie and Matteo are young and in love, sharing a dissatisfaction with their bourgeois Italian upbringing. Naturally, like so many other young Westerners in the sixties and seventies, they go to India. But the realities of life in an ashram ignite their differences; Sophie wants to be a tourist and go to Goa and eat shrimp, which Matteo scorns, seeking the ‘real’ India. Pragmatic Sophie is disillusioned by the hardships they encounter, while her husband, who yearns for spiritual fulfillment, sees only the purity of ascetic life, leading him to Mother, a charismatic guru. Trying to reclaim an ailing Matteo, Sophie embarks on a new journey in search for a different truth; that of Mother’s mysterious past. Soon, she finds that the immortal has a history of her own; born in Cairo, she was once Laila, a dancer who toured the world before coming to Bombay to search for ‘divine love’. What each of the three people discover, on their individual quests, is at its heart that ancient truth: that wisdom is found in the journey itself. A stirring, profound exploration of emotional exile, of sacred and profane loves, Journey to Ithaca is a masterful novel.

Download or read book In Custody written by Anita Desai and published by Random House India. This book was released on 2012-09-25 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this sensitive portrayal of human nature, Anita Desai, one of India’s foremost writers, paints an intimate portrait of lives impacted by the quest for identity and purpose. Deven, a Hindi lecturer in small-town Mirpore, lives a humdrum existence. A chance to interview Nur—India’s greatest living Urdu poet—offers him an escape from his dreary life. But the Nur he meets is an enfeebled man, surrounded by clashing wives and preying sycophants. Deven’s decision to be the custodian of Nur’s verse gives birth to an unusual alliance between the two. Stimulating and thought provoking, In Custody is a brilliant parable lamenting the gradual corrosion of culture and tradition in the face of modernity, and a dazzling study of the complexity of human relationships.

Download or read book The Zigzag Way written by Anita Desai and published by HMH. This book was released on 2014-03-04 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A young American in Mexico discovers his family’s past—and a present-day danger—in this “elegant, exquisite” novel of suspense (Elle). Eric is a newly minted historian just out of graduate school, plagued by self-doubt over both his past choices and his future options. With no clear direction, he follows his lover, Em, when she travels to the Yucatan for her scientific research, but ends up alone in this foreign place. And so he pursues his own private quest, tracing his family’s history to a Mexican ghost town, where, a hundred years earlier, young Cornish miners—among them Eric’s grandparents—toiled to the death. Now, in place of the Cornish workers, the native Huichol Indians suffer the cruelty of the mines. When he inquires into their lives, Eric provokes the ire of their self-appointed savior, Dona Vera. Known as the “Queen of the Sierra,” Dona Vera is the widow of a mining baron who has dedicated her fortune to preserving the Huichol culture. But her formidable presence belies a dubious past. The zigzag paths of these characters converge on the Day of the Dead, bringing together past and present in a moment of powerful epiphany. Haunting and atmospheric, with splashes of exuberant color and darker violence, The Zigzag Way is “a beautifully rendered combination of history, folklore, and modern fiction” (Entertainment Weekly), from a Booker Prize finalist. “Long before Jhumpa Lahiri . . . long before Monica Ali . . . another novelist was offering us exquisitely detailed portraits of bodies in transit [and] classes in the art of sly and sensuous fiction . . . Anita Desai was a global, migrant writer before such a thing was fashionable.” —Time “Almost unbearably suspenseful.” —The Boston Globe “A hypnotic journey.” —San Jose Mercury News

Download or read book The Village by the Sea written by Anita Desai and published by Allied Publishers. This book was released on 2012 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Clear Light of Day written by Penelope Wilcock and published by David C Cook. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recently ordained and more recently divorced, Reverend Esme Browne finds herself at an uncomfortable crossroads when stationed at the Portland Road Chapel. In addition to the seaside town, she also now bears the spiritual responsibility for two country chapels, which should be exciting, invigorating, and even hopeful. Esme, however, has forgotten how to pray and, she fears, how to feel. A chance encounter with an eccentric pair of country gnostics may change all that, but she'll have to be willing to juggle the demands of the church, her parishes, and a bevy of well-intended but nosy neighbors.

Download or read book Clear Light of Bliss written by Kelsang Gyatso and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Within all of us lies a source of infinite bliss, clarity of wisdom, and compassion for others. In this unique and highly praised book, based on Buddhaʹs Tantric teachings, the contemporary Buddhist Master, Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, presents authentic methods for discovering this inner wealth for ourselves. In a clear and precise way, he explains step-by-step how we can generate a deeply peaceful and concentrated mind by harnessing the subtle energy system within our body. With this blissful awareness we can uncover our true nature, destroy ignorance and suffering at its root, and swiftly become a source of inspiration and benefit for others. -- Publisher description.

Download or read book Mistress written by Anita Nair and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2006-08-08 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When travel writer Christopher Stewart arrives at a riverside resort in Kerala, India to meet Koman, Radha's uncle and a famous dancer, he enters a world of masks and repressed emotions. From their first meeting, both Radha and her uncle are drawn to the enigmatic young man with his cello and his incessant questions about the past. The triangle quickly excludes Shyam, Radha's husband, who can only watch helplessly as she embraces Chris with a passion that he has never been able to draw from her. Also playing the role of observer-participant is Koman; his life story, as it unfolds, captures all the nuances and contradictions of the relationships being made—and unmade—in front of his eyes. Booklist calls Mistress "Tempestuously exotic, Nair's intricately woven multicultural and multigenerational saga pulsates with passion and desire."

Download or read book Fire on the Mountain written by Anita Desai and published by Random House India. This book was released on 2012-09-25 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gone are the days when Nanda Kaul watched over her family and played the part of Vice-Chancellor’s wife. Leaving her children behind in the real world, the busier world, she has chosen to spend her last years alone in the mountains in Kasauli, in a secluded bungalow called Carignano. Until one summer her great-granddaughter Raka is dispatched to Kasauli – and everything changes. Nanda is at first dismayed at this break in her preciously acquired solitude. Fiercely taciturn, Raka is, like her, quite untamed. The girl prefers the company of apricot trees and animals to her great-grandmother’s, and spends her afternoons rambling over the mountainside. But the two are more alike than they know. Throughout the hot, long summer, Nanda’s old, hidden dependencies and wounds come to the surface, ending, inevitably, in tragedy. Marvellous yet restrained, Fire on the Mountain speaks of the past and its unshakable hold over the present.

Download or read book The Clear Light written by Steve Taylor and published by New World Library. This book was released on 2020-09-29 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As Eckhart Tolle has written, poetry "has been recognized since ancient times as a highly appropriate medium for the expression and transmission of spiritual truth." The Clear Light is Steve Taylor's latest contribution to this poetic tradition, offering short and powerful reflections as a guide to spiritual awakening and as experiential glimpses of the state of enlightenment itself. Taylor ranges widely, through subjects including "Making the Human Race Whole," "Freedom from the Past," and "The Reality of Connection," always in clear and simple language. Best of all, he reminds us of the choices we always have when life feels chaotic and overwhelming: empathy, acceptance, and love. Soothing but also challenging, Taylor's words continually affirm the profound bedrock of peace and even joy in the present that is always available. The book's eponymous reflection says it best: There is nothing that can't be undone no past injury that can't be healed no past mistake that can't be corrected in the clear light of the present. Reading this book is a transformational spiritual experience in itself.

Download or read book Clear Light of Day written by Anita Desai and published by HMH. This book was released on 2014-05-13 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize: A “rich, Chekhovian novel” about family and forgiveness from the acclaimed author of Fire on the Mountain (The New Yorker). At the heart of this “wonderful” novel are the moving relationships between the estranged members of the Das family (The Washington Post Book World). Bimla is a dissatisfied but ambitious teacher at a women’s college who lives in her childhood home, where she cares for her mentally challenged brother, Baba. Tara is her younger, unambitious sister, married and with children of her own. Raja is their popular, brilliant, and successful brother. When Tara returns for a visit with Bimla and Baba, old memories and tensions resurface, blending into a domestic drama that leads to beautiful and profound moments of self-understanding. Set in the vividly portrayed environs of Old Delhi, “Clear Light of Day does what only the very best novels can do: it totally submerges us. It also takes us so deeply into another world that we almost fear we won’t be able to climb out again” (The New York Times Book Review). “Passages must be read and reread so that you savor their imagery, their language, and their wisdom.” —The Washington Post Book World “[A] thoroughly universal tale of unhealable family hurts . . . Distinctively shaded with enticing glimpses of India’s Hindu middle-class in shabby decline.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Download or read book Tara written by Mahesh Dattani and published by Orient Blackswan. This book was released on 1995 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Drover s Wife written by Leah Purcell and published by Penguin Group Australia. This book was released on 2019-12-03 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deep in the heart of Australia’s high country, along an ancient, hidden track, lives Molly Johnson and her four surviving children, another on the way. Husband Joe is away months at a time droving livestock up north, leaving his family in the bush to fend for itself. Molly’s children are her world, and life is hard and precarious with only their dog, Alligator, and a shotgun for protection – but it can be harder when Joe’s around. At just twelve years of age Molly’s eldest son Danny is the true man of the house, determined to see his mother and siblings safe – from raging floodwaters, hunger and intruders, man and reptile. Danny is mature beyond his years, but there are some things no child should see. He knows more than most just what it takes to be a drover’s wife. One night under the moon’s watch, Molly has a visitor of a different kind – a black ‘story keeper’, Yadaka. He’s on the run from authorities in the nearby town, and exchanges kindness for shelter. Both know that justice in this nation caught between two worlds can be as brutal as its landscape. But in their short time together, Yadaka shows Molly a secret truth, and the strength to imagine a different path. Full of fury and power, Leah Purcell’s The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson is a brave reimagining of the Henry Lawson short story that has become an Australian classic. Brilliantly plotted, it is a compelling thriller of our pioneering past that confronts head-on issues of today: race, gender, violence and inheritance.

Download or read book Essence of Clear Light written by 'Jam-Mgon 'Ju Mi-Pham-Rgya-Mtsho and published by Snow Lion Publications, Incorporated. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Color of Our Sky written by Amita Trasi and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-04-18 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the spirit of Khaled Hosseini, Nadia Hashimi and Shilpi Somaya Gowda comes this powerful debut from a talented new voice—a sweeping, emotional journey of two childhood friends in Mumbai, India, whose lives converge only to change forever one fateful night. India, 1986: Mukta, a ten-year-old village girl from the lower caste Yellama cult has come of age and must fulfill her destiny of becoming a temple prostitute, as her mother and grandmother did before her. In an attempt to escape her fate, Mukta is sent to be a house girl for an upper-middle class family in Mumbai. There she discovers a friend in the daughter of the family, high spirited eight-year-old Tara, who helps her recover from the wounds of her past. Tara introduces Mukta to an entirely different world—one of ice cream, reading, and a friendship that soon becomes a sisterhood. But one night in 1993, Mukta is kidnapped from Tara’s family home and disappears. Shortly thereafter, Tara and her father move to America. A new life in Los Angeles awaits them but Tara never recovers from the loss of her best friend, or stops wondering if she was somehow responsible for Mukta's abduction. Eleven years later, Tara, now an adult, returns to India determined to find Mukta. As her search takes her into the brutal underground world of human trafficking, Tara begins to uncover long-buried secrets in her own family that might explain what happened to Mukta—and why she came to live with Tara’s family in the first place. Moving from a traditional Indian village to the bustling modern metropolis of Mumbai, to Los Angeles and back again, this is a heartbreaking and beautiful portrait of an unlikely friendship—a story of love, betrayal, and, ultimately, redemption.