Download or read book The Flitting A Memoir of Fathers Sons and Butterflies written by Ben Masters and published by Tin House Books. This book was released on 2024-10-01 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A book with wings."—Ali Smith A deeply felt and moving memoir about how butterflies become a vital connection between a son and his dying father. The Flitting: A Memoir of Fathers, Sons, and Butterflies is a masterful and touching memoir blending natural history, pop culture, and literary biography—delivering a richly layered and nuanced portrait of a son’s attempt, after years of stubborn resistance, to take on his dying father’s love of the natural world. With his father unable to leave the house and follow the butterfly cycle for the first time since he was a child, Masters endeavors to become his connection to the outdoors and his treasured butterflies, reporting back with stories of beloved species—Purple Emperors, Lulworth Skippers, Wood Whites and Silver-studded Blues—and with stories of the woods and meadows that are their habitats and once were his. Structured around a series of exchanges and remembrances, butterflies become a way of talking about masculinity, memory, generational differences, and ultimately loss and continuation. Masters takes readers on an unlikely journey where Luther Vandross and The Sopranos rub shoulders with the likes of Angela Carter and Virginia Woolf on butterflies and gender; the metamorphoses of Prince; Zadie Smith on Joni Mitchell and how sensibilities evolve; and the lives and works of Vladimir Nabokov and other literary lepidopterists. In this beautiful debut memoir, Ben Masters offers an intensely authentic, unforgettable portrait of a father and son sharing passions, lessons, and regrets before they run out of time.
Download or read book Before and After the Book Deal written by Courtney Maum and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2020-01-07 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about publishing but were too afraid to ask is right here in this funny, candid guide written by an acclaimed author. There are countless books on the market about how to write better but very few books on how to break into the marketplace with your first book. Cutting through the noise (and very mixed advice) online, while both dispelling rumors and remaining positive, Courtney Maum's Before and After the Book Deal is a one–of–a–kind resource that can help you get your book published. Before and After the Book Deal: A Writer's Guide to Finishing, Publishing, Promoting, and Surviving Your First Book has over 150 contributors from all walks of the industry, including international bestselling authors Anthony Doerr, Roxane Gay, Garth Greenwell, Lisa Ko, R. O. Kwon, Rebecca Makkai, and Ottessa Moshfegh, alongside cult favorites Sarah Gerard, Melissa Febos, Mitchell S. Jackson, and Mira Jacob. Agents, film scouts, film producers, translators, disability and minority activists, and power agents and editors also weigh in, offering advice and sharing intimate anecdotes about even the most taboo topics in the industry. Their wisdom will help aspiring authors find a foothold in the publishing world and navigate the challenges of life before and after publication with sanity and grace. Are MFA programs worth the time and money? How do people actually sit down and finish a novel? Did you get a good advance? What do you do when you feel envious of other writers? And why the heck aren’t your friends saying anything about your book? Covering questions ranging from the logistical to the existential (and everything in between), Before and After the Book Deal is the definitive guide for anyone who has ever wanted to know what it’s really like to be an author.
Download or read book Late Migrations written by Margaret Renkl and published by Milkweed Editions. This book was released on 2019-07-09 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the New York Times columnist, a portrait of a family and the cycles of joy and grief that mark the natural world: “Has the makings of an American classic.” —Ann Patchett Growing up in Alabama, Margaret Renkl was a devoted reader, an explorer of riverbeds and red-dirt roads, and a fiercely loved daughter. Here, in brief essays, she traces a tender and honest portrait of her complicated parents—her exuberant, creative mother; her steady, supportive father—and of the bittersweet moments that accompany a child’s transition to caregiver. And here, braided into the overall narrative, Renkl offers observations on the world surrounding her suburban Nashville home. Ringing with rapture and heartache, these essays convey the dignity of bluebirds and rat snakes, monarch butterflies and native bees. As these two threads haunt and harmonize with each other, Renkl suggests that there is astonishment to be found in common things: in what seems ordinary, in what we all share. For in both worlds—the natural one and our own—“the shadow side of love is always loss, and grief is only love’s own twin.” Gorgeously illustrated by the author’s brother, Billy Renkl, Late Migrations is an assured and memorable debut. “Magnificent . . . Readers will savor each page and the many gems of wisdom they contain.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Download or read book How To Judge A Book By Its Lover written by Jessica Jiji and published by . This book was released on 2020-09-07 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: HOW TO TELL A BOOK BY ITS LOVER, by Jessica Jiji, is a fast-paced, funny and endearing rom-com treat. Long Island-born Laurel Linden, who fancies herself a writer, craves a publishing contract for her 600-page historical novel about Napoleon Bonaparte's hairdresser. Despite mounting evidence that her book is a mess, Laurel holds out hope it will be a bestseller, biding her time until she's fabulously famous by earning cash as a New York City dog walker. Meanwhile, she has to steel herself against everyone urging her to quit writing fiction and get a real job, especially sister Jenna, the drama-queen-turned-perfect-housewife who always thinks she knows best. Laurel wants to date a sexy and sophisticated New Yorker but her only offer is from Irwin, a suburban pediatric dentist. With no hope of success in her career or her love life, she decides to accept a job at a girdle-industry trade magazine and give Irwin a shot at her heart. That's when she lands her newest dog-walking client - Anderson Gallant, the son of one of the most powerful men in publishing - and meets a handsome Belgian art critic named Lucien. Her best friend Vanessa encourages Laurel to find the guts to manipulate Anderson into giving her a huge book deal, nab Lucien as her boyfriend and stand up to Jenna. But, slowly and dreadfully, Laurel comes to realize that her epic "Napoleon's Hairdresser" is hilariously bad, Lucien is a pretentious jerk, and, worst of all, Vanessa is a frenemy. In a bold move, Laurel gives up her book contract, her boyfriend and the toxic BFF. And that's when she discovers that life's scariest risk leads to its sweetest happily ever after."A delightfully funny and witty urban tale of a compelling young woman's search for romance and career success that finds a fabulous finale when high dreams and ambitions are adjusted to sweeter, closer-to-home choices." -- Susana Aikin, author of THE WEIGHT OF THE HEART."I loved it. Funny and soulful with lots of jokes. A cross between Seinfeld and Bridget Jones." - Nick Griffin, late night comic.
Download or read book An Everyday Cult written by Gerette Buglion and published by . This book was released on 2021-08-25 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A personal memoir and a wake-up call for society to recognize and reject the erosion of critical thinking, An Everyday Cult is an essential read for understanding how people fall prey to mind control and cultic manipulation. Buglion's true-life story follows her through eighteen years under a trusted teacher's unethical tutelage and shows how her innocent quest for meaning was answered by a man who ultimately eroded her capacity for critical thinking. Through a treacherous narrative, she lays bare the hallmarks of cultic manipulation-mind control that flies under the radar of human awareness-and implores society to wake up to its ever-present abuses of power. It is a redemptive book of self-awareness and self-discovery. An Everyday Cult imparts a universal story, demonstrating how recognition of cultic membership-largely riddled with preconceived notions-may be an essential key to human evolution.
Download or read book Wolf Girl written by Doniga Markegard and published by Uphill Books. This book was released on 2020-03-20 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through the Pacific Northwest forests and along the rugged coastal shores of California, a young environmentalist’s coming-of-age story about learning, discovery, and survival Wolf Girl takes readers on Doniga’s journey: from the wilderness immersion school where she was taught by Indigenous elders and wildlife trackers, to hitchhiking across the Pacific Northwest, to Alaska, where she fell in love with tracking wolves. These experiences shaped and inspired Doniga to become the leader in the regenerative agricultural movement that she is today. Today’s youth are at the forefront of climate change activism, and will see themselves in Doniga’s story, in the message that you can find yourself by finding—and fighting for—your place within the world at large. Youth aren’t just the activists of tomorrow—they’re the activists of today. Wolf Girl is an inspiring memoir of a young girl’s quest to save the planet. —-Michelle Roehm McCann, author of Enough is Enough: How Students Can Join the Fight for Gun Safety and the Girls Who Rocked the World series Wolf Girl makes a great gift for any young person wanting to make a difference. Publisher’s note: This is a young adult adaptation of Doniga Markegard’s Dawn Again.
Download or read book The Bond written by A M Grotticelli and published by . This book was released on 2020-12 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Bond" is a powerful memoir that chronicles the strength of the relationships formed among a collection of unrelated siblings who forged a remarkable, separate, and permanent family within a foster home. Kirkus.com calls it: "A poignant, infuriating, informative, and ultimately triumphant account of an unusual clan." BookLife.com wrote: "Grotticelli's unsparing honesty about his birth and foster families will make readers wince and keep them marveling at the indomitability of these children. That the foster siblings were able to forge familial bonds with each other is extraordinary." OnlineBookClub.com said: "This is a book about real people, real lives and real feelings. It is the story of their triumph over adversity and their struggle to find the kind of family love that many of us take for granted." Angelo M. Grotticelli is a veteran technology journalist. This is his first book.
Download or read book The Jesus Nut written by John Prather and published by . This book was released on 2021-07-16 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Jesus Nut tells the parallel stories of three unlikely pilgrims-a reviled professor, a delusional homeless veteran, and a priest who loves strip clubs-searching for the greatest religious relic of the 21st century. Thrown together after a raucous showdown with evangelists, they decide to ignore their differences and work as a team in pursuit of their holy purpose. Their journey to New York City leads to a fateful encounter with a former advertising executive, whose mad ramblings suggest he might be the very oracle to help them fulfill their destiny. A quirky, subversive novel that addresses timely issues and lampoons evangelical hypocrisy, The Jesus Nut ultimately reveals itself to be a story of second chances and agape love. Along the way, you'll meet self-righteous academics, a curious and ambitious stripper, a farmer with a remarkable peanut, a trucker fascinated by the constellations, a profane church maintenance crew, and more. Prepare for an irreverent quest which will remind you of the value of friends and the miraculous power of faith.
Download or read book Knightmare Arcanist written by Shami Stovall and published by . This book was released on 2019-06-18 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gravedigger Volke Savan, desperate to leave his tiny home island and impress the most beautiful girl he's ever known, breaks every tradition of the bonding ceremony just to become an arcanist. But when he's tasked with killing a hero, he's uncertain.
Download or read book Hard Mother Spider Mother Soft Mother written by Hal Y. Zhang and published by . This book was released on 2019-07-31 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hard Mother, Spider Mother, Soft Mother is a story about the imprecise nature of memories and how they can affect our relationships.
Download or read book The Dark Heart of Every Wild Thing written by Joseph Fasano and published by . This book was released on 2020-09 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fiction. Deep in the mountains of British Columbia, across an unforgiving landscape, one man's pursuit of a fabled mountain lion leads him into the furthest reaches of himself. As he struggles to confront the wilderness surrounding him--from the baying hounds to the relentless northern snows--he journeys into his own haunted memories: a life of wild horses and ballet, fishing skiffs and blizzards, tropical seas and dolphins. Through wind, snow, and the depths of grief, he asks what price he is willing to exact on a world that ravages what we love, and whether redemption awaits those who learn to forgive. A tender story of love and a modern-day parable, The Dark Heart of Every Wild Thing, the debut novel from acclaimed poet Joseph Fasano, guides us into the deepest territories of the human heart. "Joseph Fasano has the heart and the ear and he puts them to magnificent use in THE DARK HEART OF EVERY WILD THING. By turns mournful and thrilling, this story, told in precise and glorious prose, traverses the wild heights of grief, vengeance, tenderness, and love. It pierces."--Sam Lipsyte "A father, a boy, and a mountain lion. If it sounds like the start of a parable, that's because THE DARK HEART OF EVERY WILD THING has wisdom to share. But that wisdom is complicated, surprising, and at times even vicious. What seems at first like a quiet book is actually quite fierce, not unlike the big cat at the center of its story. This elegiac novel is a moving meditation on grief, love, and obsession."--Erica Wright "Joseph Fasano is a wonderfully gifted writer. He writes evocatively, lyrically, and never fails to surprise us with his revelations and illuminations. His insights are deep, his delineation of character and place immensely satisfying. He gives us a story that keeps resonating long after we have finished reading."--Nicholas Christopher
Download or read book Your Power to Change written by Kyle C. Becker and published by . This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is there something in your life that just doesn't feel right to you? Maybe it's your relationship (or lack thereof), your physical health, a lack of confidence, or perhaps you're experiencing career or financial struggles. Whatever the cause, that feeling of being stuck in a life is not bringing you any happiness or joy. Your Power to Change will help you find your path to becoming the person you want to become and live the life that you want to live. In this book you will learn: ?techniques to gain conscious and deliberate control over your fears, beliefs, thoughts, emotions, habits, behaviors, and responses to life. ?how to acknowledge your fears and limiting beliefs, and how to create a burning desire to overcome them.?how to free yourself from spiritual, mental, emotional, or physical entanglements that are holding you in your past and preventing you from focusing all your power on achieving your dreams.?who you want to be and how you want to present yourself to the world around you. ?how to design your ideal self and create a plan so you can begin to embody that ideal now. Your Power to Change is the distillation of the wisdom collected from the books, seminars, podcasts, meetings, and personal experiences that helped the author in his own life as well as the lives of countless individuals all over the world.
Download or read book The Pigeon Whisperer written by Motaz H Matar and published by Motaz H Matar. This book was released on 2020-09 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Meet Dabbour, a 25-year-old Syrian refuge and introvert and a pigeon herder. He fled with to Berlin with Yasser, his childhood friend and the two have succeeded in finding a new home using fake passports. Dabbour is trying to learn the ropes in this new country; while trying to learn German he's fallen for his German teacher, Zara. One day, Dabbour jumps on the railway tracks to save an injured pigeon and almost gets himself killed. For this, he gets arrested by the police - and realizes how much he misses home and the birds. Yasser asks Dabbour to use his talents as a "pigeon whisperer" and steal stray pigeons to transport drugs. Dabbour agrees, then realizes it was a big mistake. Dabbour's endless struggles with authority are threatening to jeopardize his residency status in Germany. Will the young man be sent back to Syria? Or will he be allowed to remain in Germany after everything he has done? Will love be his ultimate salvation? Dabbour is forced to choose between his loyalty to his friend and the promise of a new "family" and doing the right thing. Dabbour sinks further and further into the world of crime and drug smuggling.
Download or read book Fathers and Sons written by Alexander Waugh and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2008-12-10 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If there is a literary gene, then the Waugh family most certainly has it—and it clearly seems to be passed down from father to son. The first of the literary Waughs was Arthur, who, when he won the Newdigate Prize for poetry at Oxford in 1888, broke with the family tradition of medicine. He went on to become a distinguished publisher and an immensely influential book columnist. He fathered two sons, Alec and Evelyn, both of whom were to become novelists of note (and whom Arthur, somewhat uneasily, would himself publish); both of whom were to rebel in their own ways against his bedrock Victorianism; and one of whom, Evelyn, was to write a series of immortal novels that will be prized as long as elegance and lethal wit are admired. Evelyn begat, among seven others, Auberon Waugh, who would carry on in the family tradition of literary skill and eccentricity, becoming one of England’s most incorrigibly cantankerous and provocative newspaper columnists, loved and loathed in equal measure. And Auberon begat Alexander, yet another writer in the family, to whom it has fallen to tell this extraordinary tale of four generations of scribbling male Waughs. The result of his labors is Fathers and Sons, one of the most unusual works of biographical memoir ever written. In this remarkable history of father-son relationships in his family, Alexander Waugh exposes the fraught dynamics of love and strife that has produced a succession of successful authors. Based on the recollections of his father and on a mine of hitherto unseen documents relating to his grandfather, Evelyn, the book skillfully traces the threads that have linked father to son across a century of war, conflict, turmoil and change. It is at once very, very funny, fearlessly candid and exceptionally moving—a supremely entertaining book that will speak to all fathers and sons, as well as the women who love them.
Download or read book Through His Eyes written by Emma Dibdin and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-08-09 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dark, unsettling thriller about a young female journalist drawn into the life of a troubled Hollywood A-lister. The perfect read for fans of Sabine Durrant, Erin Kelly and Louise Doughty. 'Convincing and creepy' DAILY MAIL. You have to know when to say no. That's one of the first things they tell you. But from the day I arrived in Los Angeles, I've said yes. Jessica is a struggling young Hollywood reporter, so when she's asked to profile movie star Clark Conrad, she's thrilled. But as she inserts herself deep into Clark's inner circle, events start to spiral out of her control. Gripping, insightful and unsettling, Through His Eyes drops you into the mind of a young woman with everything to play for – and everything to lose... Reviews for Emma Dibdin: 'Intelligently written, shocking and sinister' BOOKISH JOTTINGS. 'Compelling writing' CRIME REVIEW. 'A brilliant psychological drama' ALWAYS TRUST IN BOOKS. What readers are saying: 'Delightfully salacious and saturated with genuine insider knowledge' 5 Star Amazon Review. 'I was gripped and couldn't put It down, I finished it in one sitting!' 5 Star Amazon Review.
Download or read book The Flitting written by Ben Masters and published by Granta Books. This book was released on 2024-07-04 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Ben Masters' father, a dedicated naturalist, is confined to the house with inoperable cancer, he is unable to follow the butterfly season for the first time since his childhood. His son must become his connection to the outdoors, reporting back on his beloved Purple Emperors, Lulworth Skippers, Wood Whites and Silver-studded Blues. The problem is, his son knows practically nothing about the natural world. Blending natural history, pop culture, and literary biography, this unforgettable memoir charts a terminal summer when butterflies become a way for father and son to talk about masculinity, memory, identity, generational differences, and, ultimately, loss and continuation. The Flitting takes readers on an unlikely journey, flitting between the lives and works of Vladimir Nabokov and other literary lepidopterists; the artistic metamorphoses of Prince and Joni Mitchell; butterflies and gender in Virginia Woolf, Angela Carter and The Sopranos; the voices of John Clare and Luther Vandross. These diverse subjects come together in an intensely authentic portrait of a father and son sharing passions, lessons and regrets as they run out of time.
Download or read book Chasing Hepburn written by Gus Lee and published by Crown Archetype. This book was released on 2011-07-27 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chasing Hepburn is the story of the Lee family—a saga spanning four generations, two continents, and a century and a half of Chinese history. In the masterful hands of acclaimed author Gus Lee, his ancestors’ stories spring vividly to life in a memoir with all the richness of great fiction. From the time of her birth in 1906 it was expected that Gus Lee’s mother, Tzu Da-tsien, would become an elegant bride for a wealthy provincial man. But she was shunted onto a less certain path by age three, when her warmhearted father rescued her from her foot-binding ceremony in response to her terrified screams. This dramatic rejection of tradition was the first of many clashes that would lock the family in a constant struggle between Chinese customs and modern ways. Later, with the Chinese countryside in the grip of civil war, the Tzu family moved to Shanghai, seeking financial stability. There Da-tsien met Lee Zee Zee, the dashing son of the Tzus’ landlord, who lived across the street. With their patriarch succumbing to opium addiction, Zee Zee’s family was on the brink of ruin, and Da-tsien’s mother was working hard to secure her big-footed daughter’s marriage to a wealthy older man. But not even the protests of both families could keep the lovers apart, and these two socially displaced clans were reluctantly united. Over the course of their courtship and marriage, Zee Zee and Da-tsien would encounter the most important movements and figures of the times, including underworld gangsters, Communist students and workers, revolutionary armies, Christian missionaries, and legions of invading Japanese soldiers. Zee Zee became an ardent anti-Maoist and an ally of the highest-ranking leaders in the Chinese Nationalist movement. But his flights from tradition took him away from his young family—first into Chiang Kai-shek’s air force and later to America in search of his idol, Katharine Hepburn. Faced with this abandonment and with the chaos of the Japanese occupation, Da-tsien would rely on all of her resources, traditional and modern—faith, superstition, tremendous courage, and her strong feet—in an attempt to preserve her family. Gus Lee takes us straight into the heart of twentieth-century Chinese society, offering a clear-eyed yet compassionate view of the forces that repeatedly tore apart and reconfigured the lives of his parents and their contemporaries. He moves deftly from recounting intimate household conversations to discussing major historical events, and the resulting story is by turns comic, harrowing, heroic, and tragic. For most of her life, Da-tsien prayed for a son who would honor his family and respect his Chinese heritage. In this enthralling tribute, Gus Lee lovingly accomplishes both.
