Download or read book Rainbirds written by Clarissa Goenawan and published by Soho Press. This book was released on 2019-03-19 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set in an imagined town outside Tokyo, Clarissa Goenawan’s dark, spellbinding literary debut follows a young man’s path to self-discovery in the wake of his sister’s murder. Ren Ishida has nearly completed his graduate degree at Keio University when he receives news of his sister’s violent death. Keiko was stabbed one rainy night on her way home, and there are no leads. Ren heads to Akakawa to conclude his sister’s affairs, failing to understand why she chose to turn her back on the family and Tokyo for this desolate place years ago. But then Ren is offered Keiko’s newly vacant teaching position at a prestigious local cram school and her bizarre former arrangement of free lodging at a wealthy politician’s mansion in exchange for reading to the man’s ailing wife. He accepts both, abandoning Tokyo and his crumbling relationship there in order to better understand his sister’s life and what took place the night of her death. As Ren comes to know the eccentric local figures, from the enigmatic politician who’s boarding him to his fellow teachers and a rebellious, captivating young female student, he delves into his shared childhood with Keiko and what followed. Haunted in his dreams by a young girl who is desperately trying to tell him something, Ren realizes that Keiko Ishida kept many secrets, even from him.
Download or read book Season of the Rainbirds written by Nadeem Aslam and published by Anchor Canada. This book was released on 2013-03-26 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first novel by the author of Maps for Lost Lovers: a powerful and exquisitely written story set in a small town in Pakistan after the murder of a corrupt and prominent local judge. When a sack of letters that were thought to have disappeared in a train crash nineteen years earlier reappears under mysterious circumstances, the inhabitants of a secluded Pakistani village wait anxiously to see what secrets may come to light. Could the letters hold any information about Judge Anwar's murder? As Aslam traces the murder investigation over the next eleven days, he explores the impact that these two events have on a variety of people in the town--from the surviving family of the judge to a journalist reporting on the delivery of the mail packet. With great attention to detail and beautiful scenes that explore the daily rhythms of life in Pakistan, Aslam creates an exotic and timeless world whose traditional rituals are played out against an ominous backdrop of faraway civil wars, assassinations, changing regimes, and religious tensions.
Download or read book The Rainbirds written by David Metzenthen and published by Lothian Children's Books. This book was released on 2006 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A stunningly illustrated story about a city child s relationship with nature and the natural world, the trust that children can place in their parents, the responsibility adults have in looking after children and the environment they will inherit. Features collage based illustrations which will appeal to children and adults alike. Price: $28.95 each HB Ages: 4+
Download or read book Rain Birds written by Harriet McKnight and published by Black Incorporated. This book was released on 2018-05 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Arianna's personal demons start to overwhelm her and risk undoing everything, an unexpected connection changes the course of her life.
Download or read book The Perfect World of Miwako Sumida written by Clarissa Goenawan and published by Soho Press. This book was released on 2020 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "University sophomore Miwako Sumida has hanged herself, leaving those closest to her reeling. In the months before her suicide, she was hiding away in a remote mountainside village, but what, or whom, was she running from? To Ryusei, a fellow student at Waseda; Chie, Miwako's best friend; and Fumi, Ryusei's older sister, Miwako was more than the blunt, no-nonsense person she projected to the world. Heartbroken, Ryusei begs Chie to take him to the village where Miwako spent her final days. While he is away, Fumi receives an unexpected guest at their shared apartment in Tokyo, increasingly fearful that Miwako's death may ruin what is left of her brother's life. Expanding on the beautifully crafted world of Rainbirds, Clarissa Goenawan gradually pierces through a young woman's careful faðcade, unmasking her most painful secrets"--
Download or read book Maps for Lost Lovers written by Nadeem Aslam and published by Random House India. This book was released on 2012-09-25 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set in a nameless British town that its Pakistani-born immigrants have renamed Dasht-e-Tanhaii, the Desert of Solitude, Maps for Lost Lovers is an exploration of cultural tension and religious bigotry played out in the personal breakdown of a single family. As the book begins, Jugnu and Chanda, whose love is both passionate and illicit, have disappeared from their home. Rumours about their disappearance abound, but five months pass before anything certain is known. Finally, on a snow-covered January morning, Chanda’s brothers are arrested for the murder of their sister and Jugnu. Maps for Lost Lovers traces the year following Jugnu and Chanda’s disappearance. Seen principally through the eyes of Jugnu’s brother Shamas, the cultured, poetic director of the local Community Relations Council and Commission for Racial Equality, and his wife Kaukab, mother of three increasingly estranged children and devout daughter of a Muslim cleric, the event marks the beginning of the unravelling of all that is sacred to them. It fills Shamas’s own house and life with grief and, in exploring the lovers’ disappearance and its aftermath, Nadeem Aslam discloses a legacy of miscomprehension and regret not only for Shamas and Kaukab but for their children and neighbours as well. An intimate portrait of a community searingly damaged by traditions, this is a densely imagined, beautiful and deeply troubling book written in heightened prose saturated with imagery. It casts a deep gaze on themes as timeless as love, nationalism and religion, while meditating on how these forces drive us apart.
Download or read book Flight of the Phoenix written by James M. Bertram and published by Victoria University Press. This book was released on 1985 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Rainbird s Revenge written by M. C. Beaton and published by Rosetta Books. This book was released on 2011-10-31 with total page 143 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The conclusion to the delightful series set in a London townhouse, from the New York Times–bestselling author! The house at 67 Clarges Street in fashionable Mayfair has seen many guests, all looked after by the quirky staff of servants. When the house’s owner, the Duke of Pelham, finally returns, he is grimly determined to find a suitable wife—but completely unprepared for what the season has to offer. The duke’s title alone has always brought him more than his share of feminine attention, and while he claims to not believe in love, he has never been spurned by a lady. The duke’s self-imposed search is soon disrupted by the arrival in London of Miss Jenny Sutherland, a spoiled but beautiful country girl whose vanity is her tragic flaw. According to her guardian Aunt Letitia, lack of competition has made Jenny put on airs; in London, she will get the set-down she sorely deserves. Indeed, at her first important London party, Jenny’s blatant disdain for the duke leads to disaster. But no one has counted on the intervention of John Rainbird, the house’s shrewd and resourceful butler. The result is a mischievous scheme that will insure Jenny’s social success and determine the fate of the close-knit family of servants at 67 Clarges Street . . .
Download or read book Frameworks written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2009-01-01 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Janet Frame’s work is notorious for the demands it makes on reader and critic. This collection of nine new essays by international Frame specialists draws on a range of critical frameworks to explore fresh ways of looking at Frame’s fiction, poetry, and autobiography. At the same time, the essays plug into the energy of Frame’s work to challenge our thinking within and beyond these frameworks. Frameworks offers a unique perspective on Frame studies today, showcasing its major concerns as well as heralding new Frame narratives for the decade ahead. Mindful of preceding Frame criticism, these essays use their contemporary vantage-point to recast seminal questions about the relationship between Janet Frame’s work and its critical contexts. Each of the essays makes a case for framing her work in a particular way, but all are characterized by self-reflexivity regarding their own critical practice and the relationship they assume between exegetical framework and Frame’s work. Underlying this practice, and contained within the pun of the title, are the elementary-sounding yet fundamental questions of Frame studies: How does Frame’s work work? And how do we work with her work?
Download or read book The Birds and the Beasts Were There The Joys of Birdwatching and Wildlife Observation in California s Richest Habitat written by Margaret Millar and published by Soho Press. This book was released on 2018-07-03 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Santa Barbara in the 1960s was home to two of the 20th century’s most important mystery writers, Margaret Millar and her husband, Ken (Ross Macdonald). It was also home to nearly 400 species of bird. This is the charming story of Ken and Maggie’s quest to see them all. The addiction that is birdwatching comes to vivid life in Margaret Millar’s delightful memoir of her early days as a naturalist. Part autobiography and part birdwatcher’s journal, it is a moving elegy to a bygone place and time. Millar brings her meticulous plotting and no small amount of suspense to these charming stories of a belligerent brown towhee named Houdunit, a larcenous raven called Melanie, and a rat who carefully ferments his grapes before eating them, to name only a few. Ornithology was a passion for both Ken and Maggie and they devoted their lives to it with the same keen sense of detail and, in the case of Margaret, storytelling vigor as they brought to their writing. In this book, the only memoir she wrote, Millar takes us on her journey from curious amateur to obsessive completionist. It is a phenomenon nearly any birding enthusiast will recognize. Ken and Margaret Millar were founding members of the Santa Barbara Audubon Society.
Download or read book Play For Today written by Irene Shubik and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Writing from first-hand experience, the author describes the role of the producer in the making of an original television play, from the initial discussions with writers to the transmission. Irene Shubik worked on "Play for Today" for the BBC and was also a drama producer for ITV.
Download or read book Countdown written by and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Blueprint written by Robert Plomin and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2019-07-16 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A top behavioral geneticist argues DNA inherited from our parents at conception can predict our psychological strengths and weaknesses. This “modern classic” on genetics and nature vs. nurture is “one of the most direct and unapologetic takes on the topic ever written” (Boston Review). In Blueprint, behavioral geneticist Robert Plomin describes how the DNA revolution has made DNA personal by giving us the power to predict our psychological strengths and weaknesses from birth. A century of genetic research shows that DNA differences inherited from our parents are the consistent lifelong sources of our psychological individuality—the blueprint that makes us who we are. Plomin reports that genetics explains more about the psychological differences among people than all other factors combined. Nature, not nurture, is what makes us who we are. Plomin explores the implications of these findings, drawing some provocative conclusions—among them that parenting styles don't really affect children's outcomes once genetics is taken into effect. This book offers readers a unique insider’s view of the exciting synergies that came from combining genetics and psychology.
Download or read book Sibanda and the Rainbird written by C M Elliott and published by Constable. This book was released on 2019-05-02 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Fans of Alexander McCall Smith will love Scotty Elliott's Sibanda series. . . Sunday Times When a gruesomely vulture-mutilated corpse is found in the Park near Thunduluka Lodge, DI Jabulani Sibanda - a hard-boiled, bush-loving, instinctive crime fighter - is on the case. With Sibanda are his sidekicks: Sergeant Ncube, an overweight, digestively challenged, severally married angler and mechanical genius, and Miss Daisy, an ancient, truculent and eccentric Land Rover that is the bane of Sibanda's life and the love of Ncube's. Sibanda and Ncube pursue the investigation in the African bush following the mysterious clues they found at the crime scene: tyre tracks, a knife inscribed with the letter 'B', and a sliver of blue metallic car paint... Praise for Sibanda and the Rainbird: 'Fans of Alexander McCall Smith will love Scotty Elliott's Sibanda series . . . They have the same dry humour and warmth as the No1 Ladies' Detective Agency stories, the same palpable affection for the people and the landscape, and detectives who solve crimes more by hunch and legwork than with forensics and technology' Sunday Times (SA) 'Her plot keeps readers guessing right to the end, when the monster meets a truly satisfying fate . . . Elliott's skill as a writer lies in her ability to create and flesh out characters that are so lifelike, they thrum in your head for days after finishing her books' Business Live 'Will have you hooked' The Gremlin
Download or read book Luka and the Fire of Life written by Salman Rushdie and published by Knopf Canada. This book was released on 2010-11-16 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On a beautiful starry night in the city of Kahani in the land of Alifbay a terrible thing happened: twelve-year-old Luka's storyteller father, Rashid, fell suddenly and inexplicably into a sleep so deep that nothing and no one could rouse him. To save him from slipping away entirely, Luka must embark on a journey through the Magic World, encountering a slew of phantasmagorical obstacles along the way, to steal the Fire of Life, a seemingly impossible and exceedingly dangerous task. Weaving together bits of mythology, fairy tales, children’s puns, metaphysics and echoes from well-known tales as different as The Matrix and The Wizard of Oz, Luka and the Fire of Life becomes a story about things as intimate as a boy’s love for his family, and as sprawling as the meaning of life itself. With Haroun and the Sea of Stories Salman Rushdie proved that he is one of the best contemporary writers of fables, and it proved to be one of his most popular books with readers of all ages. While Haroun was written as a gift for his first son, Luka and the Fire of Life, the story of Haroun's younger brother, is a gift for his second son on his twelfth birthday. Lyrical, rich with word-play, and with the narrative tension of the classic quest stories, this is Salman Rushdie at his very best.
Download or read book Manifold Utopia written by Marc Delrez and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-10-01 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study of Janet Frame's fiction addresses with unusual directness the Utopian momentum that underpins her concern with fundamental social issues, traditionally highlighted in existing criticism of her work. The idea behind this book is that Frame's critique of society, while it is offered for its own sake on one level, should not lead us to neglect the author's more speculative interest in an alternative conception of the human person. Her engagement in a species of experimental portraiture proves elusive, though, owing to an indirectness of approach that usually takes the form of thematic circumscription, rather than explicit representation. For example, the figure of the mute child, recurrent in her work, may well testify to a concern with the plight of the mentally ill; but on another level it also points to an envelope of intractable experience which it is the artist’s task to penetrate and explain. Such aspiration is inseparable from the search for a new medium of expression, felt to be necessary if one is to meet the challenge of apprehending the scope of pioneering knowledge. This close reading of the novels reveals that the alternative dimension of experience to be found in Frame’s novels is characterized by an intact capacity for remembering, or for imaginatively re-creating, eclipsed aspects of the present. Frame's view of Utopia thus turns out to be manifold: it is existential and ontological, linguistic and epistemological, but also historical and political. An unravelling of these intertwined strains then serves to clarify the complex question of Frame's post-colonial sensibility, which cannot be said to rely on a sense of rigid identity, whether national or otherwise.
Download or read book Lost and Wanted written by Nell Freudenberger and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: VOGUE • FRESH AIR As a professor of physics at MIT, Helen Clapp disdains notions of the supernatural in favor of rational thought and proven ideas. So it’s perhaps especially vexing when, on an otherwise unremarkable Wednesday in June, she gets a phone call from a friend who has just died. That friend was Charlotte Boyce, Helen’s roommate at Harvard. The two women once confided in each other about everything: Helen’s struggles as a young woman in science, Charlie’s as a black screenwriter in Hollywood, their shared challenges as parents. But as the years passed, they gradually grew apart. And now Charlie is permanently, tragically gone. Drawn back into her friend’s orbit, Helen is forced to question the laws of the universe that have always steadied her mind and heart. Suspenseful, perceptive, deeply affecting, Lost and Wanted is a story of friends and lovers, lost and found, at the most defining moments of their lives.
