Download or read book Desert Flower written by Waris Dirie and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-06-06 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An “outstandingly dramatic and moving” memoir of fleeing a brutal girlhood in Somalia—and becoming a supermodel and UN special ambassador (Kirkus Reviews). To escape an arranged marriage to a sixty-year-old man, Waris Dirie ran away from her oppressive life in the African desert when she was barely in her teens, illiterate and impoverished, with nothing to her name but a tattered shawl. She traveled alone across the dangerous Somali desert to Mogadishu—the first leg of a remarkable journey that would take her to London, where she worked as a house servant; then to nearly every corner of the globe as an internationally renowned fashion model; and ultimately to New York City, where she became a human rights ambassador for the U.N. Poignant and powerfully told, Desert Flower is Waris’s extraordinary story. “Affecting and at times very entertaining . . . it is Dirie’s remarkable lack of narcissism or entitlement that makes her so captivating a raconteur.” —Publishers Weekly “Written with innocence and warmth, this book shows how one woman’s tragedy can help others.” —The New York Times Book Review “Waris’s story is one of remarkable courage. From the deserts of Somalia to the world of high fashion, she battles against oppression and emerges a real champion. She is the most beautiful inspiration to anyone.” —Elton John

Download or read book Desert Children written by Waris Dirie and published by Virago. This book was released on 2014-11-20 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fashion model, UN ambassador and courageous spirit, Waris Dirie was born into a family of tribal desert nomads in Somalia. She told her story - enduring female circumcision at five years old; running away through the desert; being discovered by Terence Donovan and becoming a top fashion model - in her book, the worldwide bestseller, DESERT FLOWER. In DESERT DAWN she wrote about becoming a UN Special Ambassador against FGM (female genital mutilation) and returning to her family in Somalia. DESERT CHILDREN tells us how she and the journalist Corinna Milborn have investigated the practice of FGM in Europe - they estimate that up to 500,000 women and girls have undergone or are at risk of FGM. At the moment, France is the only European country in which offenders are convicted and no European country officially recognises the threat of genital mutilation as a reason for asylum. Here are the voices of women who have felt encouraged and emboldened by Waris Dirie's courage. They speak out for the first time and move us to action.

Download or read book The Arizona Low Desert Flower Garden written by Kirti Mathura and published by Gibbs Smith. This book was released on 2007 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deserts pose a particularly difficult challenge to gardeners. Surprising toany desert newcomers, it is possible to have a beautifully invitingandscape in the desert and minimize the use of precious water resources. TheArizona Flowerscaper" offers the key to successful desert gardening and is aeneral understanding of the extreme climate, seasons, and soil conditions.hrough wise plant choices, gardens emerge that intrigue and delight, oftenith little maintenance involved. The illustrated plants can be viewedogether through a unique tri-cut format, showing the plant at maturity andith appropriate details of foliage or flora. Offering plant selections fromround the world, the "Arizona Flowerscaper" is an essential resource foresert gardeners everywhere.

Download or read book Desert Flower and Desert Dawn Omnibus written by Waris Dirie and published by Virago Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: * Inspirational, dramatic and extraordinary - the autobiography of a Somalian nomad circumcised at 5, sold in marriage at 13, who became an American model and is now at the young age of 30, the UN spokeswoman against circumcision

Download or read book The Night Flower The Blooming of the Saguaro Cactus written by Lara Hawthorne and published by Candlewick Press. This book was released on 2024-01-09 with total page 33 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hawthorne delivers an exquisitely illustrated picture book about the Saguaro cactus which grows in the Sonoran desert in Arizona and its flower, which blooms only one night a year. Full color.

Download or read book Desert Dawn written by Waris Dirie and published by Virago Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fashion model, UN ambassador and courageous spirit, Waris Dirie is a remarkable woman, born into a traditional family of tribal desert nomads in Somalia. She told her story - enduring, at five years old, the ancient and savage custom of female circumcision; running away at twelve on foot through the desert in order to escape an arranged marriage; being discovered by Terence Donovan as she worked as a cleaner in London; and becoming a top fashion model - in her book, the worldwide bestseller, Desert Flower. Although Waris Dirie fled her homeland, she never forgot the country and culture that moulded her. The world of famine and violence, where women have no voice and no place - the very world that nearly destroyed her also gave her the tools to survive. She traces the roots of her courage, resilience and humour back to her motherland, and most particularly to her mother. Desert Dawn is the story of that return and a testimony to the stubborn fact that you can love something dearly and yet not love all that it represents. Desert Dawn is about coming home.

Download or read book Flower of the Desert written by Antonio Negri and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2015-10-26 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Antonio Negri, one of Italy's most influential and controversial contemporary philosophers, offers in this book a radical new interpretation of the nineteenth-century Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi. For Negri, Leopardi is not the bitter, idealistic individualist of conventional literary history, but rather a profoundly materialist thinker who sees human solidarity as the only possible solution to the catastrophes of history and politics. Negri traces Leopardi's resistance to the transcendental idealism of Kant and Hegel, with its emphasis on reason's power to resolve real antagonisms into abstract syntheses, and his gradual development of a sophisticated poetic materialism focused on the constructive power of the imagination and its "true illusions." Like Nietzsche (who admired him), Leopardi provides an alternative to modernity within modernity, expressing a force of rupture and recomposition—a uniquely Italian one—that is as relevant now as it was in the nineteenth century, and which connects to the theory of Empire as the political constitution of the present that Negri has elaborated in collaboration with Michael Hardt.

Download or read book Cactus and Flower written by Sarah Williamson and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This bright, gentle, thoughtful picture book explores friendship and natural life cycles for readers young and old Cactus and Flower spend their days in the desert, side by side. They watch the sun come up; they watch the sun go down. They play with their animal friends. And they grow, slowly but surely. Then one day, Flower loses a petal. Cactus and Flower know what this means. But they know, too, that this is the way life goes: Slowly but surely, petals will fall, and new buds will bloom.

Download or read book Saving Safa written by Waris Dirie and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2015-07-02 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Waris Dirie, the Somalia nomad who became a supermodel, and an anti-FGM activist, first came to the world's attention with the publication of her autobiography, Desert Flower. The book was subsequently made into a film and little Safa Nour, from one of the slums of Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, was chosen to play the young Waris. The book and the film record many extraordinary things - from facing down a tiger, to being discovered by a famous photographer in London - but it also tells the grim story of female circumcision, an ordeal that the young Waris had to endure. Saving Safa opens with a letter from Safa, now aged seven, who explains that she is worried that she will undergo FGM in spite of the contract her parents have signed with Dirie's Desert Flower Foundation stating that they will never have their daughter cut. Waris drops everything and flies to Djibouti where she meets Safa's father and mother who thinks her daughter should be cut to stop the community ostracising them. As Safa was saved from FGM through a contract with her parents, the Foundation believes a thousand other girls can be saved through providing their families with aid in return for a promise not to mutilate their daughters

Download or read book A Flower in the Desert written by David Lang and published by New Harbinger Publications. This book was released on 2012-08-31 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At seventeen, following the directions of the philosopher and mystic Douglas Harding, David Lang pointed his finger at his own face and discovered he didn't have one. Instead, he found himself staring at nothing. But it was a very special nothing-a nothing filled with everything. Taking this revelation as his starting point, Lang shows how the vision of nothingness—the Desert—turned his life upside down. In image-rich language, he draws the reader into the Alice-in-Wonderland world of “the given.” You will see buildings and trees that move, a man who expands and shrinks like a balloon, and a room built around a black hole. You will witness scenes of joy, wonder, confusion, and despair. And you will find the Flower, that mysterious and profound destination which adds everything—and nothing—to the vision of the Desert. In the appendix, Lang gives explicit directions so that you can experience the book's key insights yourself.

Download or read book Africa written by Richard Dowden and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2008-12-16 with total page 593 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After a lifetime's close observation of the continent, one of the world's finest Africa correspondents has penned a landmark book on life and death in modern Africa. It takes a guide as observant, experienced, and patient as Richard Dowden to reveal its truths. Dowden combines a novelist's gift for atmosphere with the scholar's grasp of historical change as he spins tales of cults and commerce in Senegal and traditional spirituality in Sierra Leone; analyzes the impact of oil and the internet on Nigeria and aid on Sudan; and examines what has gone so badly wrong in Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Congo. Dowden's master work is an attempt to explain why Africa is the way it is, and enables its readers to see and understand this miraculous continent as a place of inspiration and tremendous humanity.

Download or read book She Takes a Stand written by Michael Elsohn Ross and published by Chicago Review Press. This book was released on 2015-08-01 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2016 VOYA Non-Fiction Honor List In an age of "slacktivism" and fleeting social media fame, She Takes a Stand offers a realistic look at the game-changing decisions, high stakes, and bold actions of women and girls around the world working to improve their personal situations and the lives of others. This inspiring collection of short biographies features the stories of extraordinary figures past and present who have dedicated their lives to fighting for human rights, civil rights, workers' rights, reproductive rights, and world peace. Budding activists will be inspired by antilynching crusader and writer Ida B. Wells, birth control educator and activist Margaret Sanger, girls-education activist Malala Yousafzai, Gulabi Gang founder Sampat Pal Devi, who fights violence against Indian women, Dana Edell, who works against the sexualization of women and girls in the media, and many others. Including related sidebars, a bibliography, source notes, and a list of activist organizations readers can explore in person or online, She Takes a Stand is an essential resource for classroom reports or for any young person passionate about making a difference.

Download or read book Clementina s Cactus written by Ezra Jack Keats and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1999-06-01 with total page 21 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Keats departs from his traditional style for his one and only wordless picture book, Clementina's Cactus. Clementina and her father are out for a walk in the desert when Clementina discovers a lone cactus, all shriveled and prickly. But Clementina discovers there is something beautiful hiding inside that thick skin.

Download or read book The Flower in the Desert written by Neil Del Strother and published by Neil del Strother. This book was released on 2009-10-01 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In just under three hours this short allegorical novel will take you from the busy-ness of your mind into the peace of your heart. It is a deeply healing book, full of tenderness and love, about listening to and following your heart. Brandon Bays, International Bestselling Author of The Journey, says: Neil guides us on a trip through life's emotions and illustrates the gift of love available to each of us when we open and surrender in our worst fears and realise the gift therein. Read this and be inspired. This book compares to the work of Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Khalil Gibran, Paulo Coelho, Marilynne Robinson and Richard Bach. It echoes the essential nature of the journey we all share - a journey with no beginning and no end; a journey that is, in truth, not a journey at all. Jonathan Horwitz, co-director of the Scandinavian Centre for Shamanic Studies, says the book is: A beautiful allegory for our times of the seasons of our lives, of re-empowerment, and what it really means to be alive. This is a story to share with those you love. This book is appropriate for all ages - adults, young people and children. Mainly through word of mouth it's selling very well in the UK, mainland Europe and the US. It is also a school reader in northern Italy. For further details and to buy a hardcopy version of the book see: www.theflowerinthedesert.com

Download or read book Desert Flowers written by Paul Pen and published by AmazonCrossing. This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rose and Elmer have created an idyllic sanctuary for themselves and their five daughters in Mexico's Baja California desert. Out there in the middle of nowhere, blissfully cut off from the burdens of modern society, they're free to raise their beautiful family...and preserve its secret. And they're never giving it up. Then a young hiker named Rick comes looking for a place to stay. It's just for the night, he says--but long enough for Rose and Elmer to fear they've made a horrible mistake. As the stranger grows more intrusive and more suspicious, the couple know they must do what they can to protect themselves. What they don't know is that Rick has a secret, too. Soon, home and family will prove to be as cold and dark as the desert nights. And even with so many places to run, there's still no escape from the past that binds them.

Download or read book Shore Wildflowers of California Oregon and Washington written by Philip A. Munz and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-12-22 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1964.

Download or read book Georgia O Keeffe 1887 1986 written by Britta Benke and published by Taschen. This book was released on 2000 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: About the idiosyncratic of O'Keeffe's career The art of American painter Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) is splendid with color and laden with hidden sensuality. O'Keeffe's name rests mainly on the large-format flower pictures that have assured her an unusual place in the annals of art, between realist and abstract. >Our Basic Art Series study traces the idiosyncratic of O'Keeffe's career, and numerous illustrations document the most important periods in her lengthy life in art. About the series: Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Art series features: a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance a concise biography approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions