EBookClubs

Read Books & Download eBooks Full Online

EBookClubs

Read Books & Download eBooks Full Online

Book The Book of Lost Names

    Book Details:
  • Author : Kristin Harmel
  • Publisher : Simon and Schuster
  • Release : 2021-05-25
  • ISBN : 198213190X
  • Pages : 416 pages

Download or read book The Book of Lost Names written by Kristin Harmel and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-05-25 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eva Traube Abrams, a semiretired librarian in Florida, is at the returns desk one morning when her eyes lock on to a photograph in a newspaper nearby. She freezes; it's an image of a book she hasn't seen in sixty-five years--a book she recognizes as the Book of Lost Names. The accompanying article describes the looting of libraries across Europe by the Nazis during World War II--an experience Eva remembers all too well. As a graduate student in 1942, Eva was forced to flee Paris after the arrest of her father, a Polish Jew. Finding refuge in a small mountain town in the Free Zone, she begins forging identity documents for Jewish children fleeing to neutral Switzerland. But erasing people comes with a price, and along with a mysterious, handsome forger named Rémy, Eva decides she must find a way to preserve the real names of the children who are too young to remember who they really are. The records they keep in the Book of Last Names will become even more vital when the Resistance cell they work with is betrayed and Rémy disappears. As the Germans close in, Eva records a last, vital message in the book. Decades later, does she have the strength to seek out its answer--and help reunite those lost during the war?

Book The Woman who Lost Her Names

Download or read book The Woman who Lost Her Names written by Julia Wolf Mazow and published by Harper San Francisco. This book was released on 1980 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book The Woman of a Thousand Names

Download or read book The Woman of a Thousand Names written by Alexandra Lapierre and published by Atria Books. This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page 640 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the internationally bestselling author of the “fascinating epic” (Associated Press) Between Love and Honor comes a rich, sweeping tale based on the captivating true story of the Mata Hari of Russia, featuring a beautiful aristocrat fighting for survival during the deadly upheaval of the Russian Revolution. Born into Russian aristocracy, wealth, and security, Moura never had any reason to worry. But in the upheaval of the Bolshevik Revolution, her entire world crumbles. As her family and friends are being persecuted by Vladimir Lenin’s ruthless police, she falls into a passionate affair with British secret agent Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart. But when he’s abruptly and mysteriously deported from Russia, Moura is left alone and vulnerable. Now, she must find new paths for her survival, even if it means shedding her past and taking on new identities. Some will praise her tenderness and undying loyalty. Others will denounce her lies. But all will agree on one point: Moura embodies Life. Life at all cost. Set against the volatile landscape of 20th-century Russia, The Woman of a Thousand Names brings history to vivid life in a captivating tale about an extraordinary woman caught in the waves of change—with only her wits to save her.

Book The Woman Who Lost Her Soul

    Book Details:
  • Author : Bob Shacochis
  • Publisher : Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
  • Release : 2013-09-03
  • ISBN : 0802193099
  • Pages : 773 pages

Download or read book The Woman Who Lost Her Soul written by Bob Shacochis and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2013-09-03 with total page 773 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pulitzer Prize finalist: “A soaring literary epic about the forces that have driven us to the 9/11 age . . . relentlessly captivating” (Ron Charles, The Washington Post). When humanitarian lawyer Tom Harrington travels to Haiti to investigate the murder of a beautiful photojournalist, he is confronted with a dangerous landscape riddled with poverty, corruption, and voodoo. It’s the late 1990s, a time of brutal guerrilla warfare and civilian kidnappings. The journalist, whom he knew years before as Jackie Scott, had a bigger investment in Haiti than it seemed. To make sense of her death, Tom must plunge back into his complicated ties to Jackie—and her mysterious past. Shacochis traces Jackie’s shadowy family history from the outlaw terrain of World War II Dubrovnik to 1980s Istanbul. Caught between her first love and her domineering father—an elite Cold War spy pressuring her to follow in his footsteps—seventeen-year-old Jackie hatches a desperate escape plan. But getting out also puts her on the path that turns her into the soulless woman Tom fears as much as desires. Set over fifty years and in four war-torn countries, The Woman Who Lost Her Soul is National Book Award winner Bob Shacochis’s masterpiece and a magnum opus. It brings to life an intricate portrait of catastrophic events that led up to the war on terror and the America we are today.

Book The Lost Apothecary

    Book Details:
  • Author : Sarah Penner
  • Publisher : Harlequin
  • Release : 2021-03-02
  • ISBN : 1488077495
  • Pages : 341 pages

Download or read book The Lost Apothecary written by Sarah Penner and published by Harlequin. This book was released on 2021-03-02 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Named Most Anticipated of 2021 by Newsweek, Good Housekeeping, Hello! magazine, Oprah.com, Bustle, Popsugar, Betches, Sweet July, and GoodReads! March 2021 Indie Next Pick and #1 LibraryReads Pick “A bold, edgy, accomplished debut!” —Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Alice Network A forgotten history. A secret network of women. A legacy of poison and revenge. Welcome to The Lost Apothecary… Hidden in the depths of eighteenth-century London, a secret apothecary shop caters to an unusual kind of clientele. Women across the city whisper of a mysterious figure named Nella who sells well-disguised poisons to use against the oppressive men in their lives. But the apothecary’s fate is jeopardized when her newest patron, a precocious twelve-year-old, makes a fatal mistake, sparking a string of consequences that echo through the centuries. Meanwhile in present-day London, aspiring historian Caroline Parcewell spends her tenth wedding anniversary alone, running from her own demons. When she stumbles upon a clue to the unsolved apothecary murders that haunted London two hundred years ago, her life collides with the apothecary’s in a stunning twist of fate—and not everyone will survive. With crackling suspense, unforgettable characters and searing insight, The Lost Apothecary is a subversive and intoxicating debut novel of secrets, vengeance and the remarkable ways women can save each other despite the barrier of time. Don’t miss THE LONDON SÉANCE SOCIETY! Sarah’s next spellbinding book about truth, illusion and the grave risks women will take to avenge the ones they love.

Book The Woman Who Lost Her Soul and Other Stories

Download or read book The Woman Who Lost Her Soul and Other Stories written by Jovita Gonzàlez Mireles and published by Arte Publico Press. This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The writer Jovita González was a long memeber- and ultimately seved as president- of Texas Folklore Society, which strve to preserve the oral traditions and customs of her native state. Many of the folklore-based stories in this volume were published by González in periodicals such as Southwest Review from the 1920s through the 1940s but have been gathered here for the first time. Sergio Reyna has brought together more than thirty narratives by González and arranged them into Animal Tales (such as "The Mescal-Drinking Horse"); Tales of Humans ("The Bullet-Swallower"); Tales of Popular Customs ("Shelling Corn by Moonlight); Religious Tales ("The Guadalupana Vine); Tales of Mexican Ancestrors ("Ambriosio the Indian); and Tales of Ghosts, Demons, and Buried Treasure ("The Woman Who Lost Her Soul"). Reyna also provides a helpful introduction that succinctly surveys the authors life and work, analyzing her writings within their historical and cultural contexts.

Book The Book of Lost Friends

    Book Details:
  • Author : Lisa Wingate
  • Publisher : Ballantine Books
  • Release : 2020-04-07
  • ISBN : 1984819895
  • Pages : 417 pages

Download or read book The Book of Lost Friends written by Lisa Wingate and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the bestselling author of Before We Were Yours comes a dramatic historical novel of three young women searching for family amid the destruction of the post–Civil War South, and of a modern-day teacher who learns of their story and its vital connection to her students’ lives. “An absorbing historical . . . enthralling.”—Library Journal Bestselling author Lisa Wingate brings to life startling stories from actual “Lost Friends” advertisements that appeared in Southern newspapers after the Civil War, as newly freed slaves desperately searched for loved ones who had been sold away. Louisiana, 1875: In the tumultuous era of Reconstruction, three young women set off as unwilling companions on a perilous quest: Hannie, a freed slave; Lavinia, the pampered heir to a now destitute plantation; and Juneau Jane, Lavinia’s Creole half sister. Each carries private wounds and powerful secrets as they head for Texas, following roads rife with vigilantes and soldiers still fighting a war lost a decade before. For Lavinia and Juneau Jane, the journey is one of stolen inheritance and financial desperation, but for Hannie, torn from her mother and siblings before slavery’s end, the pilgrimage west reignites an agonizing question: Could her long-lost family still be out there? Beyond the swamps lie the limitless frontiers of Texas and, improbably, hope. Louisiana, 1987: For first-year teacher Benedetta Silva, a subsidized job at a poor rural school seems like the ticket to canceling her hefty student debt—until she lands in a tiny, out-of-step Mississippi River town. Augustine, Louisiana, is suspicious of new ideas and new people, and Benny can scarcely comprehend the lives of her poverty-stricken students. But amid the gnarled live oaks and run-down plantation homes lie the century-old history of three young women, a long-ago journey, and a hidden book that could change everything.

Book The Names of All the Flowers

Download or read book The Names of All the Flowers written by Melissa Valentine and published by The Feminist Press at CUNY. This book was released on 2020-07-14 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “poignant, painful, and gorgeous” memoir that explores siblinghood, adolescence, and grief for a family shattered by loss (Alicia Garza, cocreator, Black Lives Matter). Melissa and her older brother Junior grow up running around the disparate neighborhoods of 1990s Oakland, two of six children to a white Quaker father and a black Southern mother. But as Junior approaches adolescence, a bullying incident and later a violent attack in school leave him searching for power and a sense of self in all the wrong places; he develops a hard front and falls into drug dealing. Right before Junior’s twentieth birthday, the family is torn apart when he is murdered as a result of gun violence. The Names of All the Flowers connects one tragic death to a collective grief for all black people who die too young. A lyrical recounting of a life lost, Melissa Valentine’s debut memoir is an intimate portrait of a family fractured by the school-to-prison pipeline and an enduring love letter to an adored older brother. It is a call for justice amid endless cycles of violence, grief, and trauma, declaring: “We are all witness and therefore no one is spared from this loss.” “A portrait of a place, a person who died too young, the systems that led to that death, and the keen insights of the author herself. Lyrical and smart, with appropriate undercurrents of rage.” —Emily Raboteau, author of Searching for Zion “Eloquently poignant.” —Kirkus Reviews

Book The Girl with 35 Names

    Book Details:
  • Author : D. J. COLBERT
  • Publisher : Bookbaby
  • Release : 2020-02-04
  • ISBN : 9781734066807
  • Pages : 0 pages

Download or read book The Girl with 35 Names written by D. J. COLBERT and published by Bookbaby. This book was released on 2020-02-04 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: www.girlwith35names.com Each of us has the ability to make a difference through the gifts we give. The mission of The Girl with 35 Names is all about giving back. To fulfill that promise our gift is to donate 100% of profits raised from the sale of the book to charity. Ever since that snowy Russian winter's night when she was born, Molly has longed to know the secret behind each of her 35 names. When Molly unearths a pair of time-worn spectacles in her garden, she is drawn into a mysterious realm of vivid, magical discoveries. Who are these women she is named for and what have they gifted her? What are those fantastic colors swirling around the people she sees and the young man she meets on her wedding day? Will she have enough time to learn all she is meant to before the soldiers of the Red Army invade her small village, exploding her world into chaos and war? Fearing for her safety, Molly must flee her family home and travel across the Atlantic to the strange and frozen New England town of Peabody. The power of the spectacles becomes Molly's connection and her hope in her new home, as they weave her once again into a world of wonder and tiny miracles that will change her life and the lives of her community forever. Dear Reader, Molly is the girl with 35 names, each one of them special and not one the same... but this book is not only about Molly, it is about you too. Before you begin reading Molly's story, take a moment to think about your name. Why was it chosen for you and what does it mean? Take a moment to think about where your family came from, and take another moment to consider your roots as far back as they might go. Think about how an ancestor's decision to immigrate has made a difference in the life you now lead. Think about the talents, values, and desires you have; might these have come from someone before your time? How have you been touched by someone you may never meet? When you do, you will discover how very special and unique each one of us is. We each have a story to tell. I have made this journey of discovery and that is how I came to write The Girl with 35 Names. The character of Molly is based on the life of my Grandmother Malkah who grew up in a small village in Russia. She was married to a man she first met on her wedding day and because of the war that came to her country, she was forced to emigrate and build a new life in America. Her strength and courage, her adaptability and endless optimism, her joy of giving to others as well as her deep and tender love of family, inspired me to write this narrative of her life. It is my hope that readers today will discover through Molly's experiences the joy of giving to others, and the importance of learning who we really are and where we come from. Together, let's make connections to our past and understand the impact these connections may have on our future. Molly's journey of self-discovery and sometimes magical experiences is one that mothers and daughters of all ages can relate to today. Her story celebrates women and the individuality of spirit that binds us all together.

Book When We Meet Again

    Book Details:
  • Author : Kristin Harmel
  • Publisher : Simon and Schuster
  • Release : 2016-06-07
  • ISBN : 1476754160
  • Pages : 384 pages

Download or read book When We Meet Again written by Kristin Harmel and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-06-07 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Emily thinks she's lost everything...until a mysterious painting leads her to what she wants most in the world. The new novel from the author of international bestsellers The Sweetness of Forgetting and The Life Intended shows why her books are hailed as "engaging" (People), "absorbing" (Kirkus Reviews) and "enthralling" (Fresh Fiction). Emily Emerson is used to being alone; her dad ran out on the family when she was a just a kid, her mom died when she was seventeen, and her beloved grandmother has just passed away as well. But when she's laid off from her reporting job, she finds herself completely at sea...until the day she receives a beautiful, haunting painting of a young woman standing at the edge of a sugarcane field under a violet sky. That woman is recognizable as her grandmother--and the painting arrived with no identification other than a handwritten note saying, "He always loved her." Emily is hungry for roots and family, so she begins to dig. And as she does, she uncovers a fascinating era in American history. Her trail leads her to the POW internment camps of Florida, where German prisoners worked for American farmers...and sometimes fell in love with American women. But how does this all connect to the painting? The answer to that question will take Emily on a road that leads from the sweltering Everglades to Munich, Germany and back to the Atlanta art scene before she's done. Along the way, she finds herself tempted to tear down her carefully tended walls at last; she's seeing another side of her father, and a new angle on her painful family history. But she still has secrets, ones she's been keeping locked inside for years. Will this journey bring her the strength to confront them at last?

Book The Thousand Names

    Book Details:
  • Author : Django Wexler
  • Publisher : Penguin
  • Release : 2013-07-02
  • ISBN : 1101609516
  • Pages : 541 pages

Download or read book The Thousand Names written by Django Wexler and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-07-02 with total page 541 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set in an alternate nineteenth century, muskets and magic are weapons to be feared in the first “spectacular epic” (Fantasy Book Critic) in Django Wexler’s Shadow Campaigns series. Captain Marcus d’Ivoire, commander of one of the Vordanai empire’s colonial garrisons, was serving out his days in a sleepy, remote outpost—until a rebellion left him in charge of a demoralized force clinging to a small fortress at the edge of the desert. To flee from her past, Winter Ihernglass masqueraded as a man and enlisted as a ranker in the Vordanai Colonials, hoping only to avoid notice. But when chance sees her promoted to command, she must lead her men into battle against impossible odds. Their fate depends on Colonel Janus bet Vhalnich. Under his command, Marcus and Winter feel the tide turning and their allegiance being tested. For Janus’s ambitions extend beyond the battlefield and into the realm of the supernatural—a realm with the power to reshape the known world and change the lives of everyone in its path.

Book The Girls with No Names

    Book Details:
  • Author : Serena Burdick
  • Publisher : Harlequin
  • Release : 2020-01-07
  • ISBN : 1488050996
  • Pages : 383 pages

Download or read book The Girls with No Names written by Serena Burdick and published by Harlequin. This book was released on 2020-01-07 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: INSTANT INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER A beautiful tale of hope, courage, and sisterhood—inspired by the real House of Mercy and the girls confined there for daring to break the rules. Growing up in New York City in the 1910s, Luella and Effie Tildon realize that even as wealthy young women, their freedoms come with limits. But when the sisters discover a shocking secret about their father, Luella, the brazen elder sister, becomes emboldened to do as she pleases. Her rebellion comes with consequences, and one morning Luella is mysteriously gone. Effie suspects her father has sent Luella to the House of Mercy and hatches a plan to get herself committed to save her sister. But she made a miscalculation, and with no one to believe her story, Effie’s own escape seems impossible—unless she can trust an enigmatic girl named Mable. As their fates entwine, Mable and Effie must rely on their tenuous friendship to survive. Home for Unwanted Girls meets The Dollhouse in this atmospheric, heartwarming story that explores not only the historical House of Mercy, but the lives—and secrets—of the girls who stayed there. “Burdick has spun a cautionary tale of struggle and survival, love and family — and above all, the strength of the heart, no matter how broken.” — New York Times Book Review “Burdick reveals the perils of being a woman in 1913 and exposes the truths of their varying social circles.” — Chicago Tribune

Book The Winemaker s Wife

    Book Details:
  • Author : Kristin Harmel
  • Publisher : Gallery Books
  • Release : 2020-03-17
  • ISBN : 1982112301
  • Pages : 432 pages

Download or read book The Winemaker s Wife written by Kristin Harmel and published by Gallery Books. This book was released on 2020-03-17 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of the “engrossing” (People) international bestseller The Room on Rue Amélie returns with a moving story set amid the champagne vineyards of France during the darkest days of World War II, perfect for fans of Heather Morris’s The Tattooist of Auschwitz. Champagne, 1940: Inès has just married Michel, the owner of storied champagne house Maison Chauveau, when the Germans invade. As the danger mounts, Michel turns his back on his marriage to begin hiding munitions for the Résistance. Inès fears they’ll be exposed, but for Céline, the French-Jewish wife of Chauveau’s chef de cave, the risk is even greater—rumors abound of Jews being shipped east to an unspeakable fate. When Céline recklessly follows her heart in one desperate bid for happiness, and Inès makes a dangerous mistake with a Nazi collaborator, they risk the lives of those they love—and the vineyard that ties them together. New York, 2019: Recently divorced, Liv Kent is at rock bottom when her feisty, eccentric French grandmother shows up unannounced, insisting on a trip to France. But the older woman has an ulterior motive—and a tragic, decades-old story to share. When past and present finally collide, Liv finds herself on a road to salvation that leads right to the caves of the Maison Chauveau.

Book The Girl with Seven Names  A North Korean Defector   s Story

Download or read book The Girl with Seven Names A North Korean Defector s Story written by Hyeonseo Lee and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 2015-07-02 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An extraordinary insight into life under one of the world’s most ruthless and secretive dictatorships – and the story of one woman’s terrifying struggle to avoid capture/repatriation and guide her family to freedom.

Book The Thirty Names of Night

Download or read book The Thirty Names of Night written by Zeyn Joukhadar and published by Atria Books. This book was released on 2020-11-24 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the ALA Stonewall Book Award—Barbara Gittings Literature Award Named Best Book of the Year by Bustle Named Most Anticipated Book of the Year by The Millions, Electric Literature, and HuffPost ​The author of the “vivid and urgent…important and timely” (The New York Times Book Review) debut The Map of Salt and Stars returns with this remarkably moving and lyrical novel following three generations of Syrian Americans who are linked by a mysterious species of bird and the truths they carry close to their hearts. Five years after a suspicious fire killed his ornithologist mother, a closeted Syrian American trans boy sheds his birth name and searches for a new one. He has been unable to paint since his mother’s ghost has begun to visit him each evening. As his grandmother’s sole caretaker, he spends his days cooped up in their apartment, avoiding his neighborhood masjid, his estranged sister, and even his best friend (who also happens to be his longtime crush). The only time he feels truly free is when he slips out at night to paint murals on buildings in the once-thriving Manhattan neighborhood known as Little Syria. One night, he enters the abandoned community house and finds the tattered journal of a Syrian American artist named Laila Z, who dedicated her career to painting the birds of North America. She famously and mysteriously disappeared more than sixty years before, but her journal contains proof that both his mother and Laila Z encountered the same rare bird before their deaths. In fact, Laila Z’s past is intimately tied to his mother’s—and his grandmother’s—in ways he never could have expected. Even more surprising, Laila Z’s story reveals the histories of queer and transgender people within his own community that he never knew. Realizing that he isn’t and has never been alone, he has the courage to officially claim a new name: Nadir, an Arabic name meaning rare. As unprecedented numbers of birds are mysteriously drawn to the New York City skies, Nadir enlists the help of his family and friends to unravel what happened to Laila Z and the rare bird his mother died trying to save. Following his mother’s ghost, he uncovers the silences kept in the name of survival by his own community, his own family, and within himself, and discovers the family that was there all along. Featuring Zeyn Joukhadar’s signature “magical and heart-wrenching” (The Christian Science Monitor) storytelling, The Thirty Names of Night is a timely exploration of how we all search for and ultimately embrace who we are.

Book The Girl Without a Name

    Book Details:
  • Author : Sandra Block
  • Publisher : Hachette+ORM
  • Release : 2015-08-25
  • ISBN : 1455583782
  • Pages : 275 pages

Download or read book The Girl Without a Name written by Sandra Block and published by Hachette+ORM. This book was released on 2015-08-25 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this gripping thriller, psychiatrist Zoe Goldman, a "smart, heartbreakingly vulnerable, and laugh-out-loud funny" heroine, rushes to uncover the dark and twisted past of a mysterious young patient who can't even remember her own name (Lisa Scottoline, New York Times bestselling author). In what passes for an ordinary day in a psych ward, Dr. Zoe Goldman is stumped when a highly unusual case arrives. A young African American girl, found wandering the streets of Buffalo in a catatonic state, is brought in by police. No one has come forward to claim her, and all leads have been exhausted, so Zoe's treatment is the last hope to discover the girl's identity. When drugs prove ineffective and medical science seems to be failing, Zoe takes matters into her own hands to track down Jane Doe's family and piece together their checkered history. As she unearths their secrets, she finds that monsters hide where they are least expected. And now she must solve the mystery before it is too late. Because someone wants to make sure this young girl never remembers. The Girl Without a Name is a powerful novel of memory and forgetting, of unexpected friendship and understanding...and of the secrets we protect no matter the consequences./DIV

Book The Girls Who Went Away

Download or read book The Girls Who Went Away written by Ann Fessler and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2007-06-26 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The astonishing untold history of the million and a half women who surrendered children for adoption due to enormous family and social pressure in the decades before Roe v. Wade. “It would take a heart of stone not to be moved by the oral histories of these women and by the courage and candor with which they express themselves.” —The Washington Post “A remarkably well-researched and accomplished book.” —The New York Times Book Review “A wrenching, riveting book.” —Chicago Tribune In this deeply moving and myth-shattering work, Ann Fessler brings out into the open for the first time the hidden social history of adoption before Roe v. Wade - and its lasting legacy. An adoptee who was herself surrendered during those years and recently made contact with her mother, Ann Fessler brilliantly brings to life the voices of more than a hundred women, as well as the spirit of those times, allowing the women to tell their stories in gripping and intimate detail.