Download or read book The Ceaseless Chatter of Demons written by Ashok Ferrey and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2016-12-05 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘I was born ugly. That’s what my mother always said.’ So begins the story of young Sonny Mahadewala who lives a dual life: between his adoptive England where he lives in eccentric union with a privileged American, and the mixed bliss of the Mahadewala Walauwa, the big house on the mountain belonging to his father’s family in Kandy— the ancient capital of Sri Lanka—where he has both cachet and awful memories. For Sonny’s mother, a wonderfully maleficent anti-heroine, is convinced that demons possess this awfully ugly son of hers. Demons and the devil himself are the playing field of this book, whether seated in the draughty chapels of Oxford or roaming the Kandyan countryside and, through their clever interplay, they speak of larger horrors with able grace. Who is utterly good or utterly evil—and who, indeed, is the devil?

Download or read book Culture Religion and Home making in and Beyond South Asia written by James Ponniah and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Culture, Religion, and Home-making in and Beyond South Asia explores how the idea of the home is repurposed or re-envisioned in relation to experiences of modernity, urbanization, conflict, migration and displacement. It considers how these processes are reflected in rituals, beliefs and social practices. It explores the processes by which "home" may be constructed and how relocations often result in either the replication or rejection of traditional homes and identities. Ponniah examines the various contestations surrounding the categories of "home" and "religion," including interfaith families, urban spaces, and sacred places.

Download or read book Colpetty People written by Ashok Ferry and published by Random House India. This book was released on 2017-04-17 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this extraordinary debut, Ashok Ferry chronicles, in a gently probing voice, the journeys of characters seeking something beyond the barriers of nations and generations. His tales of social-climbing Sri Lankans, of the pathos of immigration, of rich people with poor taste, of ice-cream karma, of innocent love, eternity, and more take us to Colombo’s nouveau riche, hoity-toity returnees, ladies with buttery skin and square fingernails, old-fashioned aristocrats, and the poor mortals trapped between them. Ferry’s stories comprise characters that are ‘serious and fine and upstanding, and infinitely dull’, but also others like young John-John, who loses his childhood somewhere ‘high up in the air between Asmara and Rome’; the maid, Agnes of God, whose mango-sucking teeth ‘fly out at you like bats out of the mouth of a cave’; Ashoka, the immigrant who embodies his Sri Lankan identity only on the bus ride between home and work; and Professor Jayaweera who finds sterile freedoms caged in the ‘unbending, straight lines of Western Justice’. Absurd, sad, scathing and generous, but mostly wickedly funny, Colpetty People presents modern Sri Lankans as they navigate worlds between Ceylon and the West.

Download or read book The Good Little Ceylonese Girl written by Ashok Ferry and published by Random House India. This book was released on 2017-04-17 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our Sri Lankan narrator visits his friend Joe in Italy, where Joe attends a special course—in higher (or, shall we say, lower) studies in women. Italians—much like Sri Lankans—live at home through marriage, death, and sometimes even beyond the pale. An accompanying string of fake fiancés and phoney engagements are the backdrop to this delightful collection of darkly humorous tales about Sri Lankans at home and abroad. Long years and many miles away, Colombo’s Father Cruz attempts to rescue a church from parishioners who like to put their donations where others can see them—on large plaques; on the coast, a retired Admiral escapes the tsunami on an antique Dutch cabinet; two childhood sweethearts, in time-honoured Sri Lankan tradition, are married off to strangers. Ashok Ferrey writes about Sri Lanka and its people, wherever they roam, with remarkable acuity. He writes of the West’s effect on Sri Lankans, of its ‘turning them into caricatures, unmistakably genuine but not at all the real thing’. In The Good Little Ceylonese Girl, his second collection of stories, he shows us the reality beyond those feeble sketches, in its full glory.

Download or read book ANGELS OR DEMONS 50 Feminist Classics in One Volume written by Louisa May Alcott and published by e-artnow. This book was released on 2020-09-26 with total page 13177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: e-artnow presents to you this meticulously edited collection of world's greatest classics with the most influential female protagonists in literature:_x000D_ Camilla (Fanny Burney)_x000D_ Maria; Or, The Wrongs of Woman (Mary Wollstonecraft)_x000D_ Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)_x000D_ Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë)_x000D_ The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne)_x000D_ Lady Macbeth of the Mzinsk District (Nikolai Leskov)_x000D_ Hester (Margaret Oliphant)_x000D_ Life in the Iron Mills (Rebecca Harding Davis)_x000D_ Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)_x000D_ Behind a Mask (Louisa May Alcott)_x000D_ The Portrait of a Lady (Henry James)_x000D_ Daisy Miller (Henry James)_x000D_ The Bostonians (Henry James)_x000D_ Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy)_x000D_ Tess of the d'Urbervilles (Thomas Hardy)_x000D_ North and South (Elizabeth Gaskell)_x000D_ Wives and Daughter (Elizabeth Gaskell)_x000D_ The Yellow Wallpaper (Charlotte Perkins Gilman)_x000D_ Herland (Charlotte Perkins Gilman)_x000D_ A Doll's House (Henrik Ibsen)_x000D_ Hedda Gabler (Henrik Ibsen)_x000D_ The Awakening (Kate Chopin)_x000D_ The Woman Who Did (Grant Allen)_x000D_ Miss Cayley's Adventures (Grant Allen)_x000D_ The Story of a Baby (Ethel Sybil Turner)_x000D_ New Amazonia (Elizabeth Burgoyne Corbett)_x000D_ Ann Veronica (H. G. Wells)_x000D_ A Girl of the Limberlost (Gene Stratton-Porter)_x000D_ A Daughter of the Land (Gene Stratton-Porter)_x000D_ The Iron Woman (Margaret Deland)_x000D_ O Pioneers! (Willa Cather)_x000D_ My Ántonia (Willa Cather)_x000D_ The Song of the Lark (Willa Cather)_x000D_ The House of Mirth (Edith Wharton)_x000D_ Summer (Edith Wharton)_x000D_ Sister Carrie (Theodore Dreiser)_x000D_ Jennie Gerhardt (Theodore Dreiser)_x000D_ Sisters (Ada Cambridge)_x000D_ Hagar (Mary Johnston)_x000D_ Samantha on the Woman Question (Marietta Holley)_x000D_ The Precipice (Elia Wilkinson Peattie)_x000D_ Voyage Out (Virginia Woolf)_x000D_ Parnassus on Wheels (Christopher Morley)_x000D_ The Job (Sinclair Lewis)_x000D_ Miss Lulu Bett (Zona Gale)_x000D_ The Rainbow (D. H. Lawrence)_x000D_ The Lost Girl (D. H. Lawrence) _x000D_ The Enchanted April (Elizabeth von Arnim)_x000D_ Fanny Herself (Edna Ferber)_x000D_ So Big (Edna Ferber)

Download or read book Love in the Tsunami written by Ashok Ferrey and published by Penguin Books India. This book was released on 2012 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Unmarriageable Man written by Ashok Ferrey and published by Penguin Random House India Private Limited. This book was released on 2021-03-15 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sanjay de Silva lives in Colombo, under the thumb of a controlling Sri Lankan father, having lost his English mother at an early age. When his father is diagnosed with cancer, he feels the ground shifting under his feet, the balance of power realigning. Though it is something he has dreamed of all his life, he is uneasy when it happens. Learning that he is entitled to live in England-thanks to his half-English parentage-he arrives in south London. It is 1980, the start of the glorious blue-rinsed Thatcher years, when every girl looks like Princess Diana but not every boy looks like Prince Charles. He meets and falls in love with a fellow Sri Lankan, Janine, who is old enough to be his mother and famous within the acid-tongued Sri Lankan community as 'a hooker of the very highest class, with royal connections'. Sanjay manages to buy an old wreck of a house in Brixton and succeeds, against all odds, in converting it into two flats. But all is not well with that house. At night there are voices . . . This is the story of south London's first Asian builder who in eight years developed and sold eighty-four flats, cashing in his winnings just before the crash of 1988. But at its heart it is about grief: how each of us copes in our inimitable way with the hidden mysteries of family and the loss of loved ones. Because, as Sanjay is about to find out, grief is only the transmutation of love, of the very same chemical composition-liquid, undistilled-the one inevitably turning to the other like ice to water.

Download or read book The Devil s Engine Hellfighters written by Alexander Gordon Smith and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2016-11 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Alexander Gordon Smith, "the Stephen King of YA horror" (The Book Zone), the explosive second book in the Devil's Engine trilogy.

Download or read book The Mandaean Book of John written by Charles G. Häberl and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2019-11-18 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Given the degree of popular fascination with Gnostic religions, it is surprising how few pay attention to the one such religion that has survived from antiquity until the present day: Mandaism. Mandaeans, who esteem John the Baptist as the most famous adherent to their religion, have in our time found themselves driven from their historic homelands by war and oppression. Today, they are a community in crisis, but they provide us with unparalleled access to a library of ancient Gnostic scriptures, as part of the living tradition that has sustained them across the centuries. Gnostic texts such as these have caught popular interest in recent times, as traditional assumptions about the original forms and cultural contexts of related religious traditions, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, have been called into question. However, we can learn only so much from texts in isolation from their own contexts. Mandaean literature uniquely allows us not only to increase our knowledge about Gnosticism, and by extension all these other religions, but also to observe the relationship between Gnostic texts, rituals, beliefs, and living practices, both historically and in the present day.

Download or read book Dreams of Joy written by Lisa See and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-05-31 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Astonishing . . . one of those hard-to-put-down-until-four-in-the morning books . . . a story with characters who enter a reader’s life, take up residence, and illuminate the myriad decisions and stories that make up human history.”—Los Angeles Times In her most powerful novel yet, acclaimed author Lisa See returns to the story of sisters Pearl and May from Shanghai Girls, and Pearl’s strong-willed nineteen-year-old daughter, Joy. Reeling from newly uncovered family secrets, Joy runs away to Shanghai in early 1957 to find her birth father—the artist Z.G. Li, with whom both May and Pearl were once in love. Dazzled by him, and blinded by idealism and defiance, Joy throws herself into the New Society of Red China, heedless of the dangers in the Communist regime. Devastated by Joy’s flight and terrified for her safety, Pearl is determined to save her daughter, no matter the personal cost. From the crowded city to remote villages, Pearl confronts old demons and almost insurmountable challenges as she follows Joy, hoping for reconciliation. Yet even as Joy’s and Pearl’s separate journeys converge, one of the most tragic episodes in China’s history threatens their very lives. BONUS: This edition contains a Dreams of Joy discussion guide. Praise for Dreams of Joy “[Lisa] See is a gifted historical novelist. . . . The real love story, the one that’s artfully shown, is between mother and daughter, and aunt and daughter, as both of the women who had a part in making Joy return to China come to her rescue. . . . [In Dreams of Joy,] there are no clear heroes or villains, just people who often take wrong turns to their own detriment but for the good of the story, leading to greater strength of character and more durable relationships.”—San Francisco Chronicle “A heartwarming story of heroic love between a mother and daughter . . . No writer has better captured the voice and heart of Chinese culture.”—Bookreporter “Once again, See’s research feels impeccable, and she has created an authentic, visually arresting world.”—The Washington Post

Download or read book The Book of Demons written by A J Dalton and published by . This book was released on 2021-08-16 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Contains secret lore, forbidden magicks and exquisite seductions. At last!" - Kate Sultrow What if I offered you the words to conjure a demon? And what if that demon could provide you with everything you'd ever wanted? Shall I whisper the words now? Come on. What harm can it do? This new collection brings together the writing talents of prize-winning fantasy author A J Dalton, Nadine Dalton-West (friend to gods and demons), Isabella Hunter (champion of the unchampioned), Michael Conroy (scion of the Ninth House), Matt Beeson (right hand of the Guardian of Mizeroth), Nozomi Okumura (disembodied dramaturge), Gabriel Wisdom (High Lord of the Lower Realm), JES Simpson (eldritch scribbler), Elyn Joy (First Handmaiden of the Proto-cosmos) and J.McDonald (Canadian). "Dangerous, delicious and delightful devilry!" - Carl Rhinebeck

Download or read book The Taming of the Demons written by and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2021-08-03 with total page 538 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A newly translated volume of the centuries-old spiritual epic of King Gesar. For centuries, the epic tale of Gesar of Ling has been told across Asia. This epic is a living oral tradition, performed widely by singers and bards and beloved especially in Tibet. Considered the longest single piece of literature in the world canon, the epic of Gesar chronicles the legend of King Gesar of Ling, a heroic figure known for his fearless leadership. The epic encompasses some 120 volumes and nearly 20 million words, and there are numerous versions across cultures. This book is the first English translation of the fourth volume of this sweeping literary work, with stories from after Gesar's coronation to the throne of Ling. This volume focuses on battles won and strategies applied, as the warrior-king Gesar fended off demons and liberated his foes. Though largely a violent account focused on his superhuman prowess in battle, this volume is rich with ethical proverbs that inform Tibetan culture to this day. A significant work of legend, the epic of Gesar is also a vital part of Tibetan Buddhism, as Gesar is said to have been chosen by celestial beings to restore order and destroy anti-Buddhist forces. The epic of Gesar is the cultural touchstone of Tibet, analogous to the Iliad or the Odyssey. While Book One covers Gesar's birth, youth, and rise to power, this volume recounts the martial victories and magical feats that made him a legendary figure to so many.

Download or read book NANA written by Acharya Shri Nana Lalji Maharaj Sa and published by Penguin Random House India Private Limited. This book was released on 2021-05-28 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NANA involves the thoughts of a yogi who practiced the most primitive form of sainthood that existed in India. Wandering in jungles, villages, and cities of the country barefoot with absolute exclusion from electricity of all sorts meant that Nana would not use cell phones, no mediums of travel other than the feet, and no lights or fans. Fortunate are we that he had a habit of penning down thoughts in his diary each day owed to which we have him showing us light even long after his departure. Nana is raw spirituality as it does not involve the preaching but rather the experience of this great yogi. A tabletop book that demands to be read just one page at a time; Nana strives to change lives rather than just adding to spiritual knowledge of individuals.

Download or read book The Steel Seraglio written by Mike Carey and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2021-03-02 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A confident One Thousand and One Nights for our present . . . Furious pop entertainment—full of sex, passion, violence, and magic.” —Slant magazine This is the story of the legendary City of Women, told through the tales of those who founded it, championed it, and made it flourish. When the city of Bessa undergoes a violent coup, its lazy, laissez-faire ruler, Bokhari Al-Bokhari, is replaced by the religious zealot Hakkim Mehdad. With little use for the pleasures of the flesh, Hakkim sends his predecessor’s 365 concubines to a neighboring sultan as a gift. But when the new sultan discovers the concubines are harboring Al-Bokhari’s youngest son—a child who might grow up to challenge his rule—he repents of his mercy and sends his soldiers to slaughter the seraglio down to the last woman and child. What he doesn’t count on is a concubine trained in the art of murder—or the courage and fortitude of the women who will rise up with her to forge their own city out of the unforgiving desert. It’s an undertaking beset with challenges: hunger and thirst, Hakkim’s relentless hate, and the struggle to make a place for themselves in a world determined to underestimate and undermine them. Through a mosaic of voices and tales, we learn of the women’s miraculous rise, their time of prosperity—and how they carried with them the seed of their own destruction. “A thrilling tale.” —Publishers Weekly “A masterful, engaging and utterly fascinating story by three wonderful writers.” —SFRevu.com “The Steel Seraglio brings its alternate world of struggle, politics and magic very much to life.” —Locus

Download or read book Lights of Liverpool written by Ruth Hamilton and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2012-05-24 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The O'Neils, who have lost brothers and sons into the bowels of London's East End, keep watch over their one remaining young male, a boy named Seamus. Hardworking and good-hearted, they cling together and help each other, and a whole community. Meanwhile, Rosh Allen mourns the loss of Phil, her dearly-beloved husband. Aided and impeded by her mother, Anna, she struggles to raise three fatherless children. With the help of a kind-hearted neighbour, her wounds begin to heal, and she begins to take the first faltering steps into 'normality'. Tess and Don Compton are on the verge of separation. An apparently greedy and selfish woman, Tess wants a semi-detached house, and all her own way. But what really lies behind her desire to live on the posh side of the street. Behind the three families, two men are at work. One will do serious damage; the other will reunite a clan that goes all the way back to Ireland and to ancestors thrown ashore from the ships of the Spanish Armada. Brilliant storytelling that is perfect for fans of Nadine Dorries' The Four Streets or Maureen Lee.

Download or read book Heir of Fire written by Sarah J. Maas and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2014-09-02 with total page 596 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The heir of ash and fire bows to no one. A new threat rises in the third book in the #1 bestselling Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas. Celaena Sardothien has survived deadly contests and shattering heartbreak, but now she must travel to a new land to confront her darkest truth. That truth could change her life-and her future-forever. Meanwhile, monstrous forces are gathering on the horizon, intent on enslaving her world. To defeat them, Celaena will need the strength not only to fight the evil that is about to be unleashed but also to harness her inner demons. If she is to win this battle, she must find the courage to face her destiny-and burn brighter than ever before. The third book in the #1 New York Times bestselling Throne of Glass series continues Celaena's epic journey from woman to warrior.

Download or read book Wicked written by Gregory Maguire and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestseller and basis for the Tony-winning hit musical, soon to be a major motion picture starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande With millions of copies in print around the world, Gregory Maguire’s Wicked is established not only as a commentary on our time but as a novel to revisit for years to come. Wicked relishes the inspired inventions of L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, while playing sleight of hand with our collective memories of the 1939 MGM film starring Margaret Hamilton (and Judy Garland). In this fast-paced, fantastically real, and supremely entertaining novel, Maguire has populated the largely unknown world of Oz with the power of his own imagination. Years before Dorothy and her dog crash-land, another little girl makes her presence known in Oz. This girl, Elphaba, is born with emerald-green skin—no easy burden in a land as mean and poor as Oz, where superstition and magic are not strong enough to explain or overcome the natural disasters of flood and famine. Still, Elphaba is smart, and by the time she enters Shiz University, she becomes a member of a charmed circle of Oz’s most promising young citizens. But Elphaba’s Oz is no utopia. The Wizard’s secret police are everywhere. Animals—those creatures with voices, souls, and minds—are threatened with exile. Young Elphaba, green and wild and misunderstood, is determined to protect the Animals—even if it means combating the mysterious Wizard, even if it means risking her single chance at romance. Ever wiser in guilt and sorrow, she can find herself grateful when the world declares her a witch. And she can even make herself glad for that young girl from Kansas. Recognized as an iconoclastic tour de force on its initial publication, the novel has inspired the blockbuster musical of the same name—one of the longest-running plays in Broadway history. Popular, indeed. But while the novel’s distant cousins hail from the traditions of magical realism, mythopoeic fantasy, and sprawling nineteenth-century sagas of moral urgency, Maguire’s Wicked is as unique as its green-skinned witch.