Download or read book The Spinning Heart written by Donal Ryan and published by Random House. This book was released on 2012-10-11 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Guardian First Book Award 2013 Shortlisted for the Dublin IMPAC Literary Award 2014 Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2013 Winner of Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards 2012 “My father still lives back the road past the weir in the cottage I was reared in. I go there every day to see is he dead and every day he lets me down. He hasn’t yet missed a day of letting me down.” In the aftermath of Ireland’s financial collapse, dangerous tensions surface in an Irish town. As violence flares, the characters face a battle between public persona and inner desires. Through a chorus of unique voices, each struggling to tell their own kind of truth, a single authentic tale unfolds. The Spinning Heart speaks for contemporary Ireland like no other novel. Wry, vulnerable, all-too human, it captures the language and spirit of rural Ireland and with uncanny perception articulates the words and thoughts of a generation. Technically daring and evocative of Patrick McCabe and J.M. Synge, this novel of small-town life is witty, dark and sweetly poignant. Donal Ryan’s brilliantly realized debut announces a stunning new voice in literary fiction.

Download or read book Strange Flowers written by Donal Ryan and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-06-15 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: AN POST IRISH BOOK AWARD NOVEL OF THE YEAR Longlisted for the Dublin Literary Awards “Mr. Ryan writes conspicuously beautiful prose… The fleeting happiness and abiding melancholy of the asymmetry, heightened by the intimately rendered surroundings, brings out Mr. Ryan’s most sensuous and emotive writing.” –The Wall Street Journal From the Booker nominated author of The Queen of Dirt Island, Donal Ryan's new novel follows the Gladney family across three generations seeking the true meaning of what it is to find home and love. In 1973, twenty-year-old Moll Gladney takes a morning bus from her rural home in Ireland and disappears. Bewildered and distraught, Paddy and Kit must confront an unbearable prospect: that they will never see their daughter again. Five years later, Moll returns from London. What - and who - she brings with her will change the course of her family's life forever. Beautiful and devastating, this exploration of loss, alienation and the redemptive power of love reaffirms Donal Ryan as one of the most talented and empathetic writers at work today.

Download or read book From a Low and Quiet Sea written by Donal Ryan and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-07-17 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA BOOK AWARD LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE A moving novel of three men, each searching for something they have lost, from the award-winning and Man Booker nominated author Donal Ryan. For Farouk, family is all. He has protected his wife and daughter as best he can from the war and hatred that has torn Syria apart. If they stay, they will lose their freedom, will become lesser persons. If they flee, they will lose all they have known of home, for some intangible dream of refuge in some faraway land across the merciless sea. Lampy is distracted; he has too much going on in his small town life in Ireland. He has the city girl for a bit of fun, but she's not Chloe, and Chloe took his heart away when she left him. There's the secret his mother will never tell him. His granddad's little sniping jokes are getting on his wick. And on top of all that, he has a bus to drive; those old folks from the home can't wait all day. The game was always the lifeblood coursing through John's veins: manipulating people for his enjoyment, or his enrichment, or his spite. But it was never enough. The ghost of his beloved brother, and the bitter disappointment of his father, have shadowed him all his life. But now that lifeblood is slowing down, and he's not sure if God will listen to his pleas for forgiveness. Three men, searching for some version of home, their lives moving inexorably towards a reckoning that will draw them all together.

Download or read book All We Shall Know written by Donal Ryan and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-07-04 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A breathtaking and redemptive novel from the award-winning and Man Booker nominated author Donal Ryan Melody Shee is alone and in trouble. At 33 years-old, she finds herself pregnant with the child of a 17 year-old Traveller boy, Martin Toppy, and not by her husband Pat. Melody was teaching Martin to read, but now he’s gone, and Pat leaves too, full of rage. She’s trying to stay in the moment, but the future is looming, while the past won’t let her go. It’s a good thing that she meets Mary Crothery when she does. Mary is a bold young Traveller woman, and she knows more about Melody than she lets on. She might just save Melody’s life. Following the nine months of her pregnancy, All We Shall Know unfolds with emotional immediacy in Melody’s fierce, funny, and unforgettable voice, as she contends with her choices, past and present.

Download or read book Spinning written by Tillie Walden and published by First Second. This book was released on 2017-09-12 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tillie Walden's Eisner Award winning graphic memoir Spinning captures what it’s like to come of age, come out, and come to terms with leaving behind everything you used to know. It was the same every morning. Wake up, grab the ice skates, and head to the rink while the world was still dark. Weekends were spent in glitter and tights at competitions. Perform. Smile. And do it again. She was good. She won. And she hated it. For ten years, figure skating was Tillie Walden’s life. She woke before dawn for morning lessons, went straight to group practice after school, and spent weekends competing at ice rinks across the state. Skating was a central piece of her identity, her safe haven from the stress of school, bullies, and family. But as she switched schools, got into art, and fell in love with her first girlfriend, she began to question how the close-minded world of figure skating fit in with the rest of her life, and whether all the work was worth it given the reality: that she, and her friends on the team, were nowhere close to Olympic hopefuls. The more Tillie thought about it, the more Tillie realized she’d outgrown her passion—and she finally needed to find her own voice. This title has Common Core connections. A New York City Public Library Notable Best Book for Teens A Chicago Public Library Best Book of 2017 A 2018 YALSA Great Graphic Novel A 2017 Booklist Youth Editors' Choice

Download or read book The Thing About December written by Donal Ryan and published by Random House. This book was released on 2013-10-24 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the twice Man Booker longlisted author of From a Low and Quiet Sea 'A force of nature ... a life-enhancing talent' SEBASTIAN BARRY While the Celtic Tiger rages, and greed becomes the norm, Johnsey Cunliffe desperately tries to hold on to the familiar, even as he loses those who all his life have protected him from a harsh world. Village bullies and scheming land-grabbers stand in his way, no matter where he turns. Set over the course of one year of Johnsey's life, The Thing About December breathes with his grief, bewilderment, humour and agonizing self-doubt. This is a heart-twisting tale of a lonely man struggling to make sense of a world moving faster than he is. Donal Ryan's award-winning debut, The Spinning Heart, garnered unprecedented acclaim, and The Thing About December confirms his status as one of the best writers of his generation. _________ 'His paragraphs are unnoticeably beautiful, his heart always on show, and he writes with a social accuracy that is devastating' ANNE ENRIGHT 'Compelling and heartbreaking . . beautiful, yet simple and utterly convincing' SUNDAY TIMES 'Painfully moving ... Ryan's work has set a benchmark to which other writers will aspire' JOHN BOYNE, IRISH TIMES 'Cements Ryan as the sharpest chronicler of modern Irish life' ESQUIRE

Download or read book The Blindness of the Heart written by Julia Franck and published by Grove/Atlantic, Inc.. This book was released on 2010-10-05 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The international phenomenon and winner of the German Book Prize. “A devastating novel about war, love, and the art of survival” (Marie Claire). Julia Franck’s unforgettable English-language debut, The Blindness of the Heart is a dark marvel of a novel by one of Europe’s freshest young voices—a family story spanning two world wars and several generations in a German family. In the devastating opening scene, a woman named Helene stands with her seven-year-old son in a provincial German railway station in 1945 amid the chaos of civilians fleeing west. Having survived with him through the horror and deprivation of the war years, she abandons him on the station platform and never returns. The story quickly circles back to Helene’s childhood with her sister Martha in rural Germany, which came to an abrupt end with the outbreak of the First World War. Their father is sent to the eastern front, and their Jewish mother withdraws from the hostility of her surroundings into a state of mental confusion. As we follow Helene into adulthood, we watch riveted as the costs of survival and ill-fated love turn her into a woman capable of the unforgiveable. “Enthralling, richly imagined and remorseless.” —The New York Times Book Review “Spellbinding . . . The young woman at the center of Julia Franck’s acclaimed novel The Blindness of the Heart ranks among the most haunting characters to be found in European fiction about twentieth-century horrors . . . At times, the novel feels more like an eyewitness account than historical fiction.” —Vogue “Disturbing, original, and brilliant.” —Guardian (Best Books of 2009)

Download or read book Pieces of the Heart written by Karen White and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006-04-04 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In lyrical and evocative prose, the New York Times bestselling author of the Tradd Street novels takes the scattered pieces of a life and weaves them into a tale of hope... Caroline Collier is a woman bogged down in the harsh realities of a life barely lived. Stress from her all-consuming job as an accountant has given her panic attacks, forcing her to take a leave of absence from work. And though her chances of relaxing in the presence of her overbearing, perfect mother are slim, she joins her at the family’s vacation home in the mountains of North Carolina. Though Caroline loves the serene beauty of Lake Ophelia, peace of mind is not to be found. Memories of her beloved younger brother, who died when she was seventeen, continue to haunt her, while the tension between her mother and her still simmers. Only their neighbors, the husband and daughter of one of Caroline’s childhood friends, seem able to penetrate her cool reserve, giving Caroline the courage to face her biggest fears—and dive headfirst into life...

Download or read book Spinning Forward written by Terri DuLong and published by Kensington Books. This book was released on 2009-10-27 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When life suddenly comes apart, a widow finds a new path forward with the help of a close-knit island community in this heartwarming novel. As a native New Englander, Sydney Webster is surprised to find herself starting over on an island off the coast of Florida. Yet here she is in Cedar Key, trying to pull herself together after her husband's untimely death—and the even more untimely revelation of his gambling addiction. Bereft of her comfortable suburban life, Syd takes shelter at a college pal’s bed and breakfast. Amidst the bougainvillea blossoms and the island's gentle rhythms, she begins to plan her next chapter . . . Syd never considered the possibility of turning her passion for spinning and knitting into something more than a hobby, but when the unique composition of her wool draws attention, a new door opens. Yet even as she ventures out of her comfort zone, Syd finds herself stepping into the embrace of a community rich with love, laughter, friendship . . . and secrets. And as long-hidden truths are revealed, Syd faces a choice: spin herself a safety net--or spin decidedly forward . . .

Download or read book Spinning Out written by Lexi Ryan and published by Lexi Ryan. This book was released on 2016-05-03 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A STANDALONE sexy, emotional sports romance from #1 New York Times bestselling author Lexi Ryan. "Sexy and twisty, Spinning Out will hook you fast and keep you flipping pages until the very end." -New York Times bestselling author Meghan March ~ ~ ~ Once, the only thing that mattered to me was football—training, playing, and earning my place on the best team at every level. I had it all, and I threw it away with a semester of drugs, alcohol, and pissing off anyone who tried to stop me. Now I’m suspended from the team, on house arrest, and forced to spend six months at home to get my shit together. The cherry on top of my fuckup sundae? Sleeping in the room next to mine is my best friend’s girl, Mia Mendez—the only woman I’ve ever loved and a reminder of everything I regret. I’m not sure if having Mia so close will be heaven or hell. She’s off-limits—and not just because she’s working for my dad. Her heart belongs to someone else. But since the accident that killed her brother and changed everything, she walks around like a zombie, shutting out her friends and ignoring her dreams. We’re both broken, numb, and stuck in limbo. Until I break my own rules and touch her. Until she saves me from my nightmares by climbing into my bed. Until the only thing I want more than having Mia for myself is to protect her from the truth. I can’t rewrite the past, but I refuse to leave her heart in the hands of fate. For this girl, I’d climb into the sky and rearrange the stars. Series information: THE BLACKHAWK BOYS, an edgy, sexy sports romance series from #1 New York Times bestselling author Lexi Ryan. Football. Secrets. Lies. Passion. These boys don’t play fair. Which Blackhawk Boy will steal your heart? Book 1 - SPINNING OUT (Arrow's story) Book 2 - RUSHING IN (Christopher's story) Book 3 - GOING UNDER (Sebastian's story) Book 4 – FALLING HARD (Keegan’s story) Book 5 – IN TOO DEEP (Mason’s story)

Download or read book A Slanting of the Sun Stories written by Donal Ryan and published by Random House. This book was released on 2015-09-24 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An old man looks into the fearful eyes of a burglar left to guard him while his brother is beaten; an Irish priest in a war-torn Syrian town teaches its young men the art of hurling; the driver of a car which crashed, killing a teenage girl, forges a connection with the girl’s mother; a squad of broken friends assemble to take revenge on a rapist; a young man sets off on his morning run, reflecting on the ruins of his relationship, but all is not as it seems. Donal Ryan’s short stories pick up where his acclaimed novels The Spinning Heart and The Thing About December left off, dealing with the human cost of loneliness, isolation and displacement. Sometimes this is present in the ordinary, the mundane; sometimes it is triggered by a fateful encounter or a tragic decision. At the heart of these stories, crucially, is how people are drawn to each other and cling on to love, often in desperate circumstances. In haunting and often startling prose, Donal Ryan has captured the brutal beauty of the human heart in all its hopes and failings.

Download or read book Spin the Dawn written by Elizabeth Lim and published by Ember. This book was released on 2020-06-02 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Project Runway meets Mulan in this sweeping fantasy about a teenage girl who poses as a boy to compete for the role of imperial tailor and embarks on an impossible journey to sew three magic dresses, from the sun, the moon, and the stars. And don’t miss Elizabeth Lim’s new novel, the instant New York Times bestseller, Six Crimson Cranes! “All the cutthroat competition of a runway fashion reality show and the thrilling exploits of an epic quest." —The Washington Post Maia Tamarin dreams of becoming the greatest tailor in the land, but as a girl, the best she can hope for is to marry well. When a royal messenger summons her ailing father, once a tailor of renown, to court, Maia makes the ultimate sacrifice and poses as a boy to take his place. She knows her life is forfeit if her secret is discovered, but she'll take that risk to achieve her dream and save her family from ruin. There's just one catch: Maia is one of twelve tailors in a cutthroat competition for the job. Backstabbing and lies run rampant as the tailors compete in challenges to prove their artistry and skill. Maia's task is further complicated when she draws the attention of the court magician, Edan, whose piercing eyes seem to see straight through her disguise. And nothing could have prepared her for the unthinkable final challenge: to sew three magic gowns for the emperor's reluctant bride-to-be, from the sun, the moon, and the stars. With this impossible task before her, she embarks on a journey to the far reaches of the kingdom, seeking the sun, the moon, and the stars, and finding more than she ever could have imagined. Steeped in Chinese culture, sizzling with forbidden romance, and shimmering with magic, this fantasy novel is not to be missed. "This is a white-knuckle read." —Tamora Pierce, #1 New York Times Bestselling author of Tempests and Slaughter

Download or read book The Weight of a Human Heart written by Ryan O'Neill and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2013-07-16 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'The Weight of a Human Heart' turns the rules of storytelling on their head. A series of graphs illustrates the disintegration of a marriage, step by excruciating step. A literary feud, and an affair, play out in the book review section of a national newspaper. A young girl learns her mother's disturbing secrets.

Download or read book Lightning Flowers written by Katherine E. Standefer and published by Little, Brown Spark. This book was released on 2020-11-10 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This "utterly spectacular" book weighs the impact modern medical technology has had on the author's life against the social and environmental costs inevitably incurred by the mining that makes such innovation possible (Rachel Louise Snyder, author of No Visible Bruises). What if a lifesaving medical device causes loss of life along its supply chain? That's the question Katherine E. Standefer finds herself asking one night after being suddenly shocked by her implanted cardiac defibrillator. In this gripping, intimate memoir about health, illness, and the invisible reverberating effects of our medical system, Standefer recounts the astonishing true story of the rare diagnosis that upended her rugged life in the mountains of Wyoming and sent her tumbling into a fraught maze of cardiology units, dramatic surgeries, and slow, painful recoveries. As her life increasingly comes to revolve around the internal defibrillator freshly wired into her heart, she becomes consumed with questions about the supply chain that allows such an ostensibly miraculous device to exist. So she sets out to trace its materials back to their roots. From the sterile labs of a medical device manufacturer in southern California to the tantalum and tin mines seized by armed groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to a nickel and cobalt mine carved out of endemic Madagascar jungle, Lightning Flowers takes us on a global reckoning with the social and environmental costs of a technology that promises to be lifesaving but is, in fact, much more complicated. Deeply personal and sharply reported, Lightning Flowers takes a hard look at technological mythos, healthcare, and our cultural relationship to medical technology, raising important questions about our obligations to one another, and the cost of saving one life.

Download or read book Music of the Heart written by Roberta Guaspari-Tzavaras and published by Miramax Books. This book was released on 1999-10-27 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Arriving in East Harlem, New York City h 1980 with her two young sons, soon after a painful divorce, Roberta Guaspari doesn't know what she will do to support her family and move forward with her life. All she does know is that she has managed to hold on to the 50 violins she bought with her family's savings as part of her dream to be a music teacher. But as the future will prove, these 50 violins, along with Guaspari's unrelenting passion for music and teaching, are the basis for what will become her triumphantly successful program to teach the children of her community the power of music and put hundreds of them on the pith toward personal success. In The Music of My Heart, Roberta Guaspari tells the story of how her ultimate success and that of the children she taught does not come without years of hard work to overcome personal and community adversity. In 1993, Guaspari and her students hold a concert at Carnegie Hall and are accompanied by the world famous violinists Itzhak Perlman and Isaac Stern. East Harlem is only three miles form Carnegie Hall, but the work required to make this journey takes years. In The Music of My Heart, Guaspari takes the reader back to relive her own personal journey, how it becomes entwined with the lives of many of her students, and how together they fight for a future full of hope end music.

Download or read book By the Light of the Moon written by Dean Koontz and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2012-05-29 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dean Koontz has surpassed his longtime reputation as “America’s most popular suspense novelist”(Rolling Stone) to become one of the most celebrated and successful writers of our time. Reviewers hail his boundless originality, his art, his unparalleled ability to create highly textured, riveting drama, at once viscerally familiar and utterly unique. Author of one #1 New York Times bestseller after another, Koontz is at the pinnacle of his powers, spinning mysteries and miracles, enthralling tales that speak directly to today’s readers, balm for the heart and fire for the mind. In this stunning new novel, he delivers a tour de force of dark suspense and brilliant revelation that has all the Koontz trademarks: adventure, chills, riddles, humor, heartbreak, an unforgettable cast of characters, and a climax that will leave you clamoring for more. Dylan O’Connor is a gifted young artist just trying to do the right thing in life. He’s on his way to an arts festival in Santa Fe when he stops to get a room for himself and his twenty-year-old autistic brother, Shep. But in a nightmarish instant, Dylan is attacked by a mysterious “doctor,” injected with a strange substance, and told that he is now a carrier of something that will either kill him...or transform his life in the most remarkable way. Then he is told that he must flee--before the doctor’s enemies hunt him down for the secret circulating through his body. No one can help him, the doctor says, not even the police. Stunned, disbelieving, Dylan is turned loose to run for his life...and straight into an adventure that will turn the next twenty-four hours into an odyssey of terror, mystery--and wondrous discovery. It is a journey that begins when Dylan and Shep’s path intersects with that of Jillian Jackson. Before that evening Jilly was a beautiful comedian whose biggest worry was whether she would ever find a decent man. Now she too is a carrier. And even as Dylan tries to convince her that they’ll be safer sticking together, cold-eyed men in a threatening pack of black Suburbans approach, only seconds before Jilly’s classic Coupe DeVille explodes into thin air. Now the three are on the run together, but with no idea whom they’re running from--or why. Meanwhile Shep has begun exhibiting increasingly disturbing behavior. And whatever it is that’s coursing through their bodies seems to have plunged them into one waking nightmare after another. Seized by sinister premonitions, they find themselves inexplicably drawn to crime scenes--just minutes before the crimes take place. What this unfathomable power is, how they can use it to stop the evil erupting all around them, and why they have been chosen are only parts of a puzzle that reaches back into the tragic past and the dark secrets they all share: secrets of madness, pain, and untimely death. Perhaps the answer lies in the eerie, enigmatic messages that Shep, with precious time running out, begins to repeat, about an entity who does his work “by the light of the moon.” By the Light of the Moon is a novel of heart-stopping suspense and transcendent beauty, of how evil can destroy us and love can redeem us--a masterwork of the imagination in which the surprises come page after page and the spell of sublime storytelling triumphs throughout. BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Dean Koontz's The City.

Download or read book Spinning on the Wind A Gyronaut s Tale written by Shirley Jennings and published by Silverwood Books. This book was released on 2019-02-15 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The arrival of the 1960s saw the dawn of the homebuilt gyroplane. A new genre of aviation like nothing seen before: a wing that lives and breathes, driven purely by the wind. Deceptive in its simplicity, addictive in its freedom and deadly to the unwary. It's a powerful enchantment. In domestic garages and garden sheds, ordinary people built tiny rotorcraft - then taught themselves to fly by reading the instructions. Two pioneers were smitten by this exciting new form of flight and set out on an identical path, weaving a circle of coincidence that spanned five decades and encompassed a nation. It's a fine line between rapture and tragedy. One flight is all it takes...