Download or read book A Sky So Close to Us written by Shahla Ujayli and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-10-19 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A multigenerational tale of love, loss, exile, and rebirth, shortlisted for the 2016 International Prize for Arabic Fiction. As children sleeping on the rooftop of their ancestral family home in Raqqa on warm summer nights, Joumane and her sisters imagine the sky is so close they can almost touch it. Years later, Joumane lives as an expatriate in Jordan, working for a humanitarian agency, while her sisters remain trapped in war-torn Syria. Living alone as she fights her own battle with cancer, she contemplates the closeness of the same sky, despite the sharply delineated borders that now separate her from her family. Her only close confidant is another exile, a charming, divorced Palestinian man with whom she develops a warm relationship—later discovering that their relatives were neighbors in Syria. As Joumane undergoes painful chemotherapy treatments, Nasser slides into the role of her caretaker and partner. She comes to depend on him utterly, at the same time fearing that her vulnerability and need will ultimately drive him away. Interspersed with Joumane’s story is a sweeping historical narrative that moves from nineteenth-century Aleppo, Raqqa, and Damascus, to Palestine before and after the 1948 Nakba, to Iraq before and after the American occupation, and beyond to the United States, Serbia, and Vietnam. Each character in the book is revealed, and linked, through the stories of their ancestors, showing the intergenerational inheritance of trauma and identity. Ujayli’s attention to detail and evocative prose brings to life worlds forgotten and ignored, reminding us of the devastation of war and the beauty that people create wherever they go. As children sleeping on the rooftop of their ancestral family home in Raqqa on warm summer nights, Joumane and her sisters imagine the sky is so close they can almost touch it. Years later, Joumane lives as an expatriate in Jordan, working for a humanitarian agency, while her sisters remain trapped in war-torn Syria. Living alone as she fights her own battle with cancer, she contemplates the closeness of the same sky, despite the sharply delineated borders that now separate her from her family. Her only close confidant is another exile, a charming, divorced Palestinian man with whom she develops a warm relationship—later discovering that their relatives were neighbors in Syria. As Joumane undergoes painful chemotherapy treatments, Nasser slides into the role of her caretaker and partner. She comes to depend on him utterly, at the same time fearing that her vulnerability and need will ultimately drive him away. Interspersed with Joumane’s story is a sweeping historical narrative that moves from nineteenth-century Aleppo, Raqqa, and Damascus, to Palestine before and after the 1948 Nakba, to Iraq before and after the American occupation, and beyond to the United States, Serbia, and Vietnam. Each character in the book is revealed, and linked, through the stories of their ancestors, showing the intergenerational inheritance of trauma and identity. Ujayli’s attention to detail and evocative prose brings to life worlds forgotten and ignored, reminding us of the devastation of war and the beauty that people create wherever they go.
Download or read book The Sky So Big and Black written by John Barnes and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2003-10-19 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Accompanying her eco-prospector father on a tour through the Martian wilderness, Terry finds herself having to guide the trip's young survivors back home after a terrible accident.
Download or read book A Sky So Close written by Betool Khedairi and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2010-12-15 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This haunting coming-of-age story about a girl growing up in wartime Iraq was the subject of heated controversy when it was published in the Middle East; now in English, it offers American readers a rare chance to experience an Iraqi childhood. The frank, determined narrator is a schoolgirl living in a small town in the Iraqi countryside when the book opens. Torn between the cultures of her parents, she loves the simple pleasures of provincial life in her father’s native land but, at the urging of her English mother, she is thrown into the study of Western music and ballet and becomes a devoted dancer by the time the family relocates to Baghdad. Even as the city around her is transformed by the blackouts and deprivations of the war between Iran and Iraq, she propels herself passionately through the full range of teenage discovery. The death of her father, her first love affair, and her mother’s unexpected illness carry her into adulthood and ultimately to London, where she confronts, with surprising results, the other half of her East–West legacy. A Sky So Close is a captivating look at contemporary Iraq from the inside out—a stunning re-creation of the surreality of life during wartime, and the story of a young woman coming to terms with the seemingly unbridgeable cultures from which she is formed. From the Hardcover edition.
Download or read book The Sky Above Us written by Natalie Lund and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-04-13 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A compelling, well-voiced look at how teenagers deal with tragedy." -- School Library Journal "Powerfully crafted and captivating." --Midwest Book Review From the author of We Speak in Storms comes a compelling mystery about three friends searching for the truth in the aftermath of a plane crash. The morning after their senior year beach party, Izzy, Cass, and Janie are woken by a thundering overhead. Then they and their classmates watch in shock as a plane crashes into the water. When the passengers are finally recovered, they are identified as Izzy's twin brother, Israel, Cass's ex-boyfriend, Shane, and Janie's best friend, Nate. But Izzy can feel when her brother is in pain, and she knows he's not really dead. So she, Cass, and Janie set out to discover what actually happened that day--and why the boys were on the plane. Told in alternating timelines and points of view, this powerful and captivating novel follows the three boys in the weeks leading up to that fateful flight, and the girls they left behind as they try to piece together the truth about the boys they loved and thought they knew. A spellbinding story about the ripple effects of tragedy, the questions we leave unanswered, and the enduring power of friendship. Praise for The Sky Above Us: "Achingly human with hints of magic, this tale of loss in its many forms builds a compelling mystery." --Booklist "Lund proves adept at smoothly navigating a complicated plot, building and holding suspense, and creating easily relatable, multidimensional characters." --Publishers Weekly "A bruising look at loss from many angles." --BCCB "A deftly written and simply spellbinding story about the ripple effects of tragedy, the questions we leave unanswered, and the enduring power of friendship." --Midwest Book Review
Download or read book Under the Sky We Make written by Kimberly Nicholas PhD and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-03-23 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ** Los Angeles Times bestseller ** It's warming. It's us. We're sure. It's bad. But we can fix it. After speaking to the international public for close to fifteen years about sustainability, climate scientist Dr. Nicholas realized that concerned people were getting the wrong message about the climate crisis. Yes, companies and governments are hugely responsible for the mess we're in. But individuals CAN effect real, significant, and lasting change to solve this problem. Nicholas explores finding purpose in a warming world, combining her scientific expertise and her lived, personal experience in a way that seems fresh and deeply urgent: Agonizing over the climate costs of visiting loved ones overseas, how to find low-carbon love on Tinder, and even exploring her complicated family legacy involving supermarket turkeys. In her astonishing, bestselling book Under the Sky We Make, Nicholas does for climate science what Michael Pollan did more than a decade ago for the food on our plate: offering a hopeful, clear-eyed, and somehow also hilarious guide to effecting real change, starting in our own lives. Saving ourselves from climate apocalypse will require radical shifts within each of us, to effect real change in our society and culture. But it can be done. It requires, Dr. Nicholas argues, belief in our own agency and value, alongside a deep understanding that no one will ever hand us power--we're going to have to seize it for ourselves.
Download or read book Tallgrass written by Sandra Dallas and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2007-04-03 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An essential American novel from Sandra Dallas, an unparalleled writer of our history, and our deepest emotions... During World War II, a family finds life turned upside down when the government opens a Japanese internment camp in their small Colorado town. After a young girl is murdered, all eyes (and suspicions) turn to the newcomers, the interlopers, the strangers. This is Tallgrass as Rennie Stroud has never seen it before. She has just turned thirteen and, until this time, life has pretty much been what her father told her it should be: predictable and fair. But now the winds of change are coming and, with them, a shift in her perspective. And Rennie will discover secrets that can destroy even the most sacred things. Part thriller, part historical novel, Tallgrass is a riveting exploration of the darkest--and best--parts of the human heart.
Download or read book The Sky Above Us Sunrise at Normandy Book 2 written by Sarah Sundin and published by Revell. This book was released on 2019-02-05 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Numbed by grief and harboring shameful secrets, Lt. Adler Paxton ships to England with the US 357th Fighter Group in 1943. Determined to become an ace pilot, Adler battles the German Luftwaffe in treacherous dogfights in the skies over France as the Allies struggle for control of the air before the D-day invasion. Violet Lindstrom wanted to be a missionary, but for now she serves in the American Red Cross, where she arranges entertainment for the men of the 357th in the Aeroclub on base and sets up programs for local children. Drawn to the mysterious Adler, she enlists his help with her work and urges him to reconnect with his family after a long estrangement. Despite himself, Adler finds his defenses crumbling when it comes to Violet. But D-day draws near. And secrets can't stay buried forever. Bestselling author Sarah Sundin returns readers to the shores of Normandy, this time in the air, as the second Paxton brother prepares to face the past--and the most fearsome battle of his life.
Download or read book A Ladder to the Sky written by John Boyne and published by Hogarth. This book was released on 2018-11-13 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A satire of writerly ambition wrapped in a psychological thriller . . . An homage to Patricia Highsmith, Oscar Wilde and Edgar Allan Poe, but its execution is entirely Boyne’s own.”—Ron Charles, The Washington Post NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE Maurice Swift is handsome, charming, and hungry for fame. The one thing he doesn’t have is talent—but he’s not about to let a detail like that stand in his way. After all, a would-be writer can find stories anywhere. They don’t need to be his own. Working as a waiter in a West Berlin hotel in 1988, Maurice engineers the perfect opportunity: a chance encounter with celebrated novelist Erich Ackermann. He quickly ingratiates himself with the powerful – but desperately lonely – older man, teasing out of Erich a terrible, long-held secret about his activities during the war. Perfect material for Maurice’s first novel. Once Maurice has had a taste of literary fame, he knows he can stop at nothing in pursuit of that high. Moving from the Amalfi Coast, where he matches wits with Gore Vidal, to Manhattan and London, Maurice hones his talent for deceit and manipulation, preying on the talented and vulnerable in his cold-blooded climb to the top. But the higher he climbs, the further he has to fall. . . . Sweeping across the late twentieth century, A Ladder to the Sky is a fascinating portrait of a relentlessly immoral man, a tour de force of storytelling, and the next great novel from an acclaimed literary virtuoso. Praise for A Ladder to the Sky “Boyne's mastery of perspective, last seen in The Heart's Invisible Furies, works beautifully here. . . . Boyne understands that it's far more interesting and satisfying for a reader to see that narcissist in action than to be told a catchall phrase. Each step Maurice Swift takes skyward reveals a new layer of calumny he's willing to engage in, and the desperation behind it . . . so dark it seems almost impossible to enjoy reading A Ladder to the Sky as much as you definitely will enjoy reading it.”—NPR “Delicious . . . spins out over several decades with thrilling unpredictability, following Maurice as he masters the art of co-opting the stories of others in increasingly dubious ways. And while the book reads as a thriller with a body count that would make Highsmith proud, it is also an exploration of morality and art: Where is the line between inspiration and thievery? To whom does a story belong?”—Vanity Fair
Download or read book The Sky People written by S.M. Stirling and published by Tor Books. This book was released on 2010-04-27 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marc Vitrac was born in Louisiana in the early 1960's, about the time the first interplanetary probes delivered the news that Mars and Venus were teeming with life—even human life. At that point, the "Space Race" became the central preoccupation of the great powers of the world. Now, in 1988, Marc has been assigned to Jamestown, the US-Commonwealth base on Venus, near the great Venusian city of Kartahown. Set in a countryside swarming with sabertooths and dinosaurs, Jamestown is home to a small band of American and allied scientist-adventurers. But there are flies in this ointment – and not only the Venusian dragonflies, with their yard-wide wings. The biologists studying Venus's life are puzzled by the way it not only resembles that on Earth, but is virtually identical to it. The EastBloc has its own base at Cosmograd, in the highlands to the south, and relations are frosty. And attractive young geologist Cynthia Whitlock seems impervious to Marc's Cajun charm. Meanwhile, at the western end of the continent, Teesa of the Cloud Mountain People leads her tribe in a conflict with the Neanderthal-like beastmen who have seized her folk's sacred caves. Then an EastBloc shuttle crashes nearby, and the beastmen acquire new knowledge... and AK47's. Jamestown sends its long-range blimp to rescue the downed EastBloc cosmonauts, little suspecting that the answer to the jungle planet's mysteries may lie there, among tribal conflicts and traces of a power that made Earth's vaunted science seem as primitive as the tribesfolk's blowguns. As if that weren't enough, there's an enemy agent on board the airship... Extravagant and effervescent, The Sky People is alternate-history SF adventure at its best. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Download or read book Bright of the Sky written by Kay Kenyon and published by Winterset Books. This book was released on 2024-11-15 with total page 30 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The complete four-book series! Enter the world of the Entire in this first book of the celebrated four-volume epic. In a land-locked galaxy that tunnels through our own, the Entire gathers both human and alien beings under a sky of fire, called the bright. A land of wonders, the Entire is sustained by monumental storm walls and a never-ending river. Over all, the elegant and cruel Tarig rule supreme. Into this rich milieu is thrust Titus Quinn, former star pilot, bereft of his beloved wife and daughter who are assumed dead by everyone on earth except Quinn. Believing them trapped in a parallel universe—one where he himself may have been imprisoned—he returns to the Entire to free them. Thus begins a tale of high adventure and vast concept, replete with alien cultures, an exotic bureaucracy, and a man with nothing left to lose. He may not find what he seeks, but he’ll be offered a view of the multiverse, the power of princes, an unthinkable revenge—and unexpectedly, love. "A riveting launch." ––Publisher's Weekly starred review [A] fascinating and gratifying feat of world building. . . . promises to be a grand epic, indeed.”—Booklist “[A] star-maker, a magnificent book that should establish its author's reputation as among the very best in the field today.”—SFSite.com
Download or read book The Sky So Heavy written by Claire Zorn and published by Univ. of Queensland Press. This book was released on 2013-08-01 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This haunting dystopian novel thrillingly and realistically looks at a nuclear winter from an Australian perspective.For Fin it's just like any other day—racing for the school bus, bluffing his way through class, and trying to remain cool in front of the most sophisticated girl in his universe. Only it's not like any other day because, on the other side of the world, nuclear missiles are being detonated. When Fin wakes up the next morning, it's dark, bitterly cold, and snow is falling. There's no internet, no phone, no TV, no power, and no parents. Nothing Fin's learned in school could have prepared him for this. With his parents missing and dwindling food and water supplies, Fin and his younger brother Max must find a way to survive all on their own. When things are at their most desperate, where can you go for help?
Download or read book The Sky between You and Me written by Catherine Alene and published by Sourcebooks, Inc.. This book was released on 2017-02-07 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An emotional and heart wrenching novel about grief and striving for perfection. Lighter. Leaner. Faster. Raesha will to do whatever it takes to win Nationals. For her, competing isn't just about the speed of her horse or the thrill of the win. It's about honoring her mother's memory and holding onto a dream they once shared. Lighter. Leaner. Faster. For an athlete, every second counts. Raesha knows minus five on the scale will let her sit deeper in her saddle, make her horse lighter on his feet. And lighter, leaner, faster gives her the edge she needs over the new girl on the team, a girl who keeps flirting with Raesha's boyfriend and making plans with her best friend. So she focuses on minus five. But if she isn't careful, she's going to lose more than just the people she loves, she's going to lose herself to lighter, leaner, faster... "Sit quietly with this book. Feel the wind, the dusty air. Taste the sorrow and the wonder. Listen to the heart that is beating on every page. Then be grateful that Catherine Alene gave us this stunning story. It's a thing of beauty." —Kathi Appelt, Newbery Honor and National Book Award Finalist
Download or read book Above Us Only Sky written by Michele Young-Stone and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-03-03 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seeking her place in the world, fifteen-year-old Prudence Eleanor Vilkas, who was born with a pair of wings molded to her back, which were surgically removed, discovers a miraculous lineage of women who were all connected by the gift of wings.
Download or read book The Sky Is Everywhere Movie Tie In written by Jandy Nelson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-03-15 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jandy Nelson's beloved, critically adored debut is now an Apple TV+ and A24 original film starring Jason Segel, Cherry Jones, Grace Kaufman, and Jacques Colimon. “Both a profound meditation on loss and grieving and an exhilarating and very sexy romance." —NPR Adrift after her sister Bailey’s sudden death, Lennie finds herself torn between quiet, seductive Toby—Bailey’s boyfriend who shares Lennie's grief—and Joe, the new boy in town who bursts with life and musical genius. Each offers Lennie something she desperately needs. One boy helps her remember. The other lets her forget. And she knows if the two of them collide, her whole world will explode. As much a laugh-out-loud celebration of love as a nuanced and poignant portrait of loss, Lennie's struggle to sort her own melody out of the noise around her makes for an always honest, often uproarious, and absolutely unforgettable read.
Download or read book Life as We Knew it written by Susan Beth Pfeffer and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2008 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I guess I always felt even if the world came to an end, McDonald's still would be open. High school sophomore Miranda's disbelief turns to fear in a split second when an asteroid knocks the moon closer to Earth, like "one marble hits another." The result is catastrophic. How can her family prepare for the future when worldwide tsunamis are wiping out the coasts, earthquakes are rocking the continents, and volcanic ash is blocking out the sun? As August turns dark and wintery in northeastern Pennsylvania, Miranda, her two brothers, and their mother retreat to the unexpected safe haven of their sunroom, where they subsist on stockpiled food and limited water in the warmth of a wood-burning stove. Told in a year's worth of journal entries, this heart-pounding story chronicles Miranda's struggle to hold on to the most important resource of all--hope--in an increasingly desperate and unfamiliar world. An extraordinary series debut Susan Beth Pfeffer has written several companion novels to Life As We Knew It, including The Dead and the Gone, This World We Live In, and The Shade of the Moon.
Download or read book They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky written by Benjamin Ajak and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2015-08-11 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The inspiring story of three young Sudanese boys who were driven from their homes by civil war and began an epic odyssey of survival, facing life-threatening perils, ultimately finding their way to a new life in America. Between 1987 and 1989, Alepho, Benjamin, and Benson, like tens of thousands of young boys, took flight from the massacres of Sudan's civil war. They became known as the Lost Boys. With little more than the clothes on their backs, sometimes not even that, they streamed out over Sudan in search of refuge. Their journey led them first to Ethiopia and then, driven back into Sudan, toward Kenya. They walked nearly one thousand miles, sustained only by the sheer will to live. They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky is the three boys' account of that unimaginable journey. With the candor and the purity of their child's-eye-vision, Alephonsian, Benjamin, and Benson recall by turns: how they endured the hunger and strength-sapping illnesses-dysentery, malaria, and yellow fever; how they dodged the life-threatening predators-lions, snakes, crocodiles and soldiers alike-that dogged their footsteps; and how they grappled with a war that threatened continually to overwhelm them. Their story is a lyrical, captivating, timeless portrait of a childhood hurled into wartime and how they had the good fortune and belief in themselves to survive.
Download or read book So Close to Heaven written by Barbara Crossette and published by Vintage. This book was released on 1996-06-25 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A travelogue of Bhutan and its neighbors in the Himalayas that introduces readers to a world that has emerged from the middle ages only to find itself peering into the abyss of modernity. "For anyone with a serious interest in Buddhism, it's essential reading" (Washington Post Book World). For more than a thousand years Tibet, Sikkim, Ladakh, and Bhutan were the santuaries of Tantric Buddhism. But in the last half of this century, geopolitics has scoured the landscape of the Himalayas, and only the reclusive kingdom of Bhutan remains true to Tantric Buddhism.
