Download or read book Smile as they Bow written by Nu Nu Yi and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2008-09-16 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the weeklong Taungbyon Festival draws near, thousands of villagers from all regions of Burma descend upon a tiny hamlet near Mandalay to pay respect to the spirits, known as nats, which are central to Burmese tradition. At the heart of these festivities is Daisy Bond, a gay, transvestite spiritual medium in his fifties. With his sharp tongue and vivid performances, he has long been revered as one of the festival's most illustrious natkadaws. At his side is Min Min, his young assistant and lover, who endures unyielding taunts and abuse from his fiery boss. But when a young beggar girl named Pan Nyo threatens to steal Min Min's heart, the outrageous Daisy finds himself face-to-face with his worst fears. Written in lyrical, intoxicating prose, Smile as They Bow is, like the works of Arundhati Roy and Ha Jin, an unexpectedly whimsical, illuminating, and above all revealing portrayal of a culture few Westerners have ever witnessed. Over the past twenty years, Nu Nu Yi has become one of Burma's most acclaimed authors -- and in 2007, she became the first person living in Burma to be nominated for an international literary award. Smile as They Bow was censored for more than twelve years by the Burmese government. It is fitting, then, that this is her American debut.
Download or read book I Know This Much Is True written by Wally Lamb and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1998-06-03 with total page 884 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With his stunning debut novel, She's Come Undone, Wally Lamb won the adulation of critics and readers with his mesmerizing tale of one woman's painful yet triumphant journey of self-discovery. Now, this brilliantly talented writer returns with I Know This Much Is True, a heartbreaking and poignant multigenerational saga of the reproductive bonds of destruction and the powerful force of forgiveness. A masterpiece that breathtakingly tells a story of alienation and connection, power and abuse, devastation and renewal--this novel is a contemporary retelling of an ancient Hindu myth. A proud king must confront his demons to achieve salvation. Change yourself, the myth instructs, and you will inhabit a renovated world. When you're the same brother of a schizophrenic identical twin, the tricky thing about saving yourself is the blood it leaves on your bands--the little inconvenience of the look-alike corpse at your feet. And if you're into both survival of the fittest and being your brother's keeper--if you've promised your dying mother--then say so long to sleep and hello to the middle of the night. Grab a book or a beer. Get used to Letterman's gap-toothed smile of the absurd, or the view of the bedroom ceiling, or the influence of random selection. Take it from a godless insomniac. Take it from the uncrazy twin--the guy who beat the biochemical rap. Dominick Birdsey's entire life has been compromised and constricted by anger and fear, by the paranoid schizophrenic twin brother he both deeply loves and resents, and by the past they shared with their adoptive father, Ray, a spit-and-polish ex-Navy man (the five-foot-six-inch sleeping giant who snoozed upstairs weekdays in the spare room and built submarines at night), and their long-suffering mother, Concettina, a timid woman with a harelip that made her shy and self-conscious: She holds a loose fist to her face to cover her defective mouth--her perpetual apology to the world for a birth defect over which she'd had no control. Born in the waning moments of 1949 and the opening minutes of 1950, the twins are physical mirror images who grow into separate yet connected entities: the seemingly strong and protective yet fearful Dominick, his mother's watchful "monkey"; and the seemingly weak and sweet yet noble Thomas, his mother's gentle "bunny." From childhood, Dominick fights for both separation and wholeness--and ultimately self-protection--in a house of fear dominated by Ray, a bully who abuses his power over these stepsons whose biological father is a mystery. I was still afraid of his anger but saw how he punished weakness--pounced on it. Out of self-preservation I hid my fear, Dominick confesses. As for Thomas, he just never knew how to play defense. He just didn't get it. But Dominick's talent for survival comes at an enormous cost, including the breakup of his marriage to the warm, beautiful Dessa, whom he still loves. And it will be put to the ultimate test when Thomas, a Bible-spouting zealot, commits an unthinkable act that threatens the tenuous balance of both his and Dominick's lives. To save himself, Dominick must confront not only the pain of his past but the dark secrets he has locked deep within himself, and the sins of his ancestors--a quest that will lead him beyond the confines of his blue-collar New England town to the volcanic foothills of Sicily 's Mount Etna, where his ambitious and vengefully proud grandfather and a namesake Domenico Tempesta, the sostegno del famiglia, was born. Each of the stories Ma told us about Papa reinforced the message that he was the boss, that he ruled the roost, that what he said went. Searching for answers, Dominick turns to the whispers of the dead, to the pages of his grandfather's handwritten memoir, The History of Domenico Onofrio Tempesta, a Great Man from Humble Beginnings. Rendered with touches of magic realism, Domenico's fablelike tale--in which monkeys enchant and religious statues weep--becomes the old man's confession--an unwitting legacy of contrition that reveals the truth's of Domenico's life, Dominick learns that power, wrongly used, defeats the oppressor as well as the oppressed, and now, picking through the humble shards of his deconstructed life, he will search for the courage and love to forgive, to expiate his and his ancestors' transgressions, and finally to rebuild himself beyond the haunted shadow of his twin. Set against the vivid panoply of twentieth-century America and filled with richly drawn, memorable characters, this deeply moving and thoroughly satisfying novel brings to light humanity's deepest needs and fears, our aloneness, our desire for love and acceptance, our struggle to survive at all costs. Joyous, mystical, and exquisitely written, I Know This Much Is True is an extraordinary reading experience that will leave no reader untouched.
Download or read book Sorrow s Knot written by Erin Bow and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 2013-10-29 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2014 Monica Hughes Award for Science Fiction and Fantasy, from the author of Plain Kate. At the very edge of the world live the Shadowed People. And with them live the dead.There, in the village of Westmost, Otter is born to power. She is the proud daughter of Willow, the greatest binder of the dead in generations. It will be Otter's job someday to tie the knots of the ward, the only thing that keeps the living safe.Kestrel is training to be a ranger, one of the brave women who venture into the forest to gather whatever the Shadowed People can't live without and to fight off whatever dark threat might slip through the ward's defenses.And Cricket wants to be a storyteller -- already he shows the knack, the ear -- and already he knows dangerous secrets. But something is very wrong at the edge of the world. Willow's power seems to be turning inside out. The ward is in danger of falling. And lurking in the shadows, hungry, is a White Hand, the most dangerous of the dead, whose very touch means madness, and worse.Suspenseful, eerie, and beautifully imagined.
Download or read book Plain Kate written by Erin Bow and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 2010-09-01 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A debut novel that's as sharp as a knife's point. Plain Kate lives in a world of superstitions and curses, where a song can heal a wound and a shadow can work deep magic. As the wood-carver's daughter, Kate held a carving knife before a spoon, and her wooden charms are so fine that some even call her "witch-blade" -- a dangerous nickname in a town where witches are hunted and burned in the square.
Download or read book One Smile One Arm written by Becky Alexander and published by WestBow Press. This book was released on 2013-06 with total page 115 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experience life with one arm through twenty-five heartwarming stories. Laugh, gasp, contemplate, and be inspired. - In "Dumbest Question," Becky is asked if she's right-handed or left-handed. - In "Crushed," a stranger says Becky's family must have done something bad for her to have been born with one arm. - In "JFK," Becky's mom writes a letter to the president of the United States and gets a response. - In "Friday Night Lights," Becky's dad manufactures a prosthetic hand using the mechanism from an ice-cream scooper. - In "Bionic Woman," the Six Million-Dollar Man comes to Becky's rescue. - In "Capitol Hill," a United States Congressman helps Becky when her arm activates security alarms in Washington, D.C. One Smile, One Arm-You may never look at a normal day the same again!
Download or read book Stand on the Sky written by Erin Bow and published by HMH Books For Young Readers. This book was released on 2019 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exquisitely written, uplifting middle grade debut by acclaimed author, Erin Bow, about a young girl who defies her family's expectations in order to save her brother and become an eagle hunter, perfect for fans of PAX. It goes against all tradition for Aisulu to train an eagle, for among the Kazakh nomads, only men can fly them. But everything changes when Aisulu discovers that her brother, Serik, has been concealing a bad limp that risks not just his future as the family's leader, but his life too. When her parents leave to seek a cure for Serik in a distant hospital, Aisulu finds herself living with her intimidating uncle and strange auntie--and secretly caring for an orphaned baby eagle. To save her brother and keep her family from having to leave their nomadic life behind forever, Aisulu must earn her eagle's trust and fight for her right to soar. Along the way, she discovers that family are people who choose each other, home is a place you build, and hope is a thing with feathers. Erin Bow's lyrical middle grade debut is perfect for fans of original animal-friendship stories like Pax and Because of Winn Dixie.
Download or read book Smile as they Bow written by Nu Nu Yi and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2008-09-16 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the weeklong Taungbyon Festival draws near, thousands of villagers from all regions of Burma descend upon a tiny hamlet near Mandalay to pay respect to the spirits, known as nats, which are central to Burmese tradition. At the heart of these festivities is Daisy Bond, a gay, transvestite spiritual medium in his fifties. With his sharp tongue and vivid performances, he has long been revered as one of the festival's most illustrious natkadaws. At his side is Min Min, his young assistant and lover, who endures unyielding taunts and abuse from his fiery boss. But when a young beggar girl named Pan Nyo threatens to steal Min Min's heart, the outrageous Daisy finds himself face-to-face with his worst fears. Written in lyrical, intoxicating prose, Smile as They Bow is, like the works of Arundhati Roy and Ha Jin, an unexpectedly whimsical, illuminating, and above all revealing portrayal of a culture few Westerners have ever witnessed. Over the past twenty years, Nu Nu Yi has become one of Burma's most acclaimed authors -- and in 2007, she became the first person living in Burma to be nominated for an international literary award. Smile as They Bow was censored for more than twelve years by the Burmese government. It is fitting, then, that this is her American debut.
Download or read book Troy Lord of the Silver Bow written by David Gemmell and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2005-09-27 with total page 551 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With this first masterly volume in an epic reimagining of the Trojan War, David Gemmell has written an ageless drama of brave deeds and fierce battles, of honor and treachery, of love won and lost. He is a man of many names. Some call him the Golden One; others, the Lord of the Silver Bow. To the Dardanians, he is Prince Aeneas. But to his friends, he is Helikaon. Strong, fast, quick of mind, he is a bold warrior, hated by his enemies, feared even by his Trojan allies. For there is a darkness at the heart of the Golden One, a savagery that, once awakened, can be appeased only with blood. Argurios the Mykene is a peerless fighter, a man of unbending principles and unbreakable will. Like all of the Mykene warriors, he lives to conquer and to kill. Dispatched by King Agamemnon to scout the defenses of the golden city of Troy, he is Helikaon’s sworn enemy. Andromache is a priestess of Thera betrothed against her will to Hektor, prince of Troy. Scornful of tradition, skilled in the arts of war, and passionate in the ways of her order, Andromache vows to love whom she pleases and to live as she desires. Now fate is about to thrust these three together–and, from the sparks of passionate love and hate, ignite a fire that will engulf the world.
Download or read book Rover written by Andrew Grant and published by Firefly Books. This book was released on 2017-10-01 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2009, Andrew Grant began photographing dogs, starting with two French bulldogs at an unrelated commercial -shoot-. Then he discovered the sad fact that millions of lost or abandoned dogs enter animal shelters every year. And only a few leave, through rescue and adoption. The rest are euthanized or live out a lonely, caged life. Andrew Grant began to photograph dogs that should be rescued, and dogs that have been rescued. Over 6 years he raised nearly $2 million for shelter dogs through his photographic project. He did this with the sale of four limited-edition books of dog portraits, each called Rover. Each was bigger than the previous, and helped by hundreds of sponsoring dog owners. Those editions are all sold out, and fetch up to $400 on the rare book market -- when available. Most, though, are as treasured as their canine subjects. Now, Firefly Books is publishing a popularly-priced trade edition of Rover: Wagmore Edition. It contains 360 of Andrew Grant's most appealing photographs of dogs. Some are the best friends of lucky owners, and some, sadly, are homeless. All are splendidly realized in sharp, large and very lifelike color portraits. All were captured by state-of-the-art equipment and are truly the most beautiful dog pictures you have ever seen. They feature purebreds of almost every kind, and mixed breeds, too. Each dog's name is on its page. Each is looking intently at the reader. Firefly Books pledges a portion of the revenue from sales of Rover: Wagmore Edition to dog rescue.
Download or read book What If You Re Wrong written by Wendy Cunningham and published by WestBow Press. This book was released on 2021-03-25 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Why don’t you believe in God?” A simple question, but one for which I didn’t have a good answer. I was confident in what I believed; I just didn’t know how I’d arrived at that conclusion. Turns out the “how” is what led me off track. I’ve had hundreds of conversations with people just like me who are on a journey to find the truth. Most people have the same fundamental questions that keep them from faith: Why do bad things happen to good people? How accurate is the Bible? What about evolution? This book tackles those questions and poses new ones, starting with the title: What if you’re wrong? Get ready to laugh as we walk through what it looks like to go from a non-believer to a devout follower of Christ.
Download or read book The Shadow of Your Smile written by Mary Higgins Clark and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-04-29 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At age eighty-three and in failing health, Olivia Morrow knows she has little time left. The last of her line, she faces a momentous choice: expose a long-held family secret, or take it with her to her grave. Olivia has in her possession letters from her deceased cousin Catherine, a nun, now being considered for beatification by the Catholic Church. These letters reveal that, at the age of seventeen, Catherine gave birth to a son and gave him up for adoption and they identify the father as Alex Gannon, a world-famous doctor, scientist and inventor of medical patents. Now, two generations later, thirty-one year old paediatrician, Dr. Monica Farrell, Catherine's granddaughter, stands as the rightful heir to what remains of the Gannon family fortune. But in telling Monica who she really is and getting what is lawfully hers, Olivia would have to betray Catherine's wishes and reveal the story behind Monica's ancestry. But as the pressure of Olivia's impending choice weighs down on her, little does she realize that Alex Gannon's grand-nephews - who are currently exploiting the Gannon inheritance to fund their profligate lifestyles - will stop at nothing to silence Olivia and prevent Monica from learning the secret, even murder.
Download or read book Three Bells Two Bows and One Brother s Best Friend written by Willa Nash and published by Devney Perry. This book was released on 2021-10-20 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I pride myself in being grounded. Sure, I've had my share of childhood fantasies. Winning an Oscar. Winning the lottery. Winning an Olympic medal for an athletic talent I have yet to discover. But the only fantasy I ever thought might actually happen was winning my brother's best friend. Heath Holiday. My crush on him has ebbed and flowed over the years, but the day I started working for his construction company was the day I smothered it for good. Sort of. Mostly. It was on my to-do list. Making it a priority would have been easier had he not arrived at his family's annual Christmas party looking ridiculously handsome in a suit. Then he kissed me. We stepped into an alternate universe and he kissed me. I assumed the next day I'd just be Guy's little sister again. The office newbie. Our kiss forgotten. Except he keeps showing up at my house. With gifts. A gold bracelet carrying three jingling bells. Two dainty jeweled earrings, each shaped as a bow. And finally, he brought himself. One brother's best friend, asking if I can keep a secret.
Download or read book Apocalypse Bow Wow written by James Proimos and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-01-15 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The end is nigh. Apocalypse has dawned. Everyone has gone ... everyone, that is, except for two dogs. Unbeknownst to Brownie and Apollo the world has turned to utter chaos. It is only when dinner time comes and goes, that the pair slowly begin to realise that their owners might be Gone For Good. There's only one option - leave the comfort of their sofa and head into what's left of the world. With only their wits about them, Brownie and Apollo must find a way to survive. It's a dog-eat-dog world now! This hilarious spin on dystopia is perfect for middle graders, dog lovers and those who want to be thoroughly entertained. Perfect for fans of Wimpy Kid and graphic novels, this has been illustrated by the same illustrator of Suzanne Collins' picture book, Year of the Jungle, which was a New York Times Editors' Choice.
Download or read book S is for Silence written by Sue Grafton and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2009-09-18 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: S is for Silence is the nineteenth in the Kinsey Millhone mystery series by Sue Grafton. Just after Independence Day in July 1953 Violet Sullivan, a local good time girl living in Serena Station Southern California, drives off in her brand new Chevy and is never seen again. Left behind is her young daughter, Daisy, and Violet's impetuous husband, Foley, who had been persuaded to buy his errant wife the car only days before . . . Now, thirty-five years later, Daisy wants closure. Reluctant to open such an old cold case Kinsey Millhone agrees to spend five days investigating, believing at first that Violet simply moved on to pastures new. But very soon it becomes clear that a lot of people shared a past with Violet, a past that some are still desperate to keep hidden. And in a town as close-knit as Serena there aren't many places to hide when things turn vicious . . .
Download or read book Soul Brigade 2 written by Guy Dance and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2013 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the second book in the 'Soul Brigade' series, and is the continuing mission, of Michelle, Steve and his daughter Stacey on behalf of The Source. It is a mission, to rid the Earth of negativity, corruption and greed, and to encourage dramatic changes of attitude to benefit all creatures of the Earth. The first part of their mission took them to Mexico, and after a relaxing overnight flight from there they arrive at Ben-Gurion airport Tel Aviv, in Israel, to begin the next phase of their mission. They soon become embroiled in a hotbed of conflicting beliefs and interests, in an area of the planet that has little history of peaceful coexistence. Based in Tel Aviv, where they make surprising new friends, they will venture out to ancient and biblical sites. They will have to push the boundaries of their powers, and themselves, to the absolute limit to continue with their mission to clear away deep-rooted negativity and raise the positive energy of the planet. Their short time in Israel will prove to be, both challenging and enlightening. After completing their tasks in Israel they will travel to the Nile delta, where they will board a private boat to visit more ancient energy sites. They will discover many surprising things about themselves and struggle to overcome mind boggling mystical ancient energies. They are pursued by, and will have to face and do battle with the ultimate embodiment of evil energy. Their adventure culminates in the most conceptually challenging, incredible, and unexpected finale to their mission for The Source. Although a work of fiction it is based on many true and astonishing events experienced by my wife, daughter and I during holistic trips to ancient energy sites around the world.
Download or read book Tom Chips written by I. E. Diekenga and published by . This book was released on 1871 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The King s Jewry written by Halcott Glover and published by . This book was released on 1921 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
