"A time being is someone who lives in time, and that means you, and me, and every one of us who is, or was, or ever will be." In Tokyo, sixteen-year-old Nao has decided there's only one escape from her aching loneliness and her classmates' bullying. But before she ends it all, Nao first plans to document the life of her great grandmother, a Buddhist nun who's lived more than a century. A diary is Nao's only solace – and will touch lives in ways she can scarcely imagine. Across the Pacific, we meet Ruth, a novelist living on a remote island who discovers a collection of artifacts washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox – possibly debris from the devastating 2011 tsunami. As the mystery of its contents unfolds, Ruth is pulled into the past, into Nao's drama and her unknown fate, and forward into her own future.
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Moby Dick is perhaps the greatest of the Great American Novels, yet its length and esoteric subject matter create an aura of difficulty that too often keeps readers at bay. Fortunately, one unabashed fan wants passionately to give Melville's masterpiece the broad contemporary audience it deserves. Philbrick skillfully navigates Melville's world and illuminates the book's humor and unforgettable characters – finding the thread that binds Ishmael and Ahab to our own time and, indeed, to all times. A perfect match between author and subject, Why Read Moby-Dick? gives us a renewed appreciation of both Melville and the proud seaman's town of Nantucket that Philbrick himself calls home.
Twenty-eight-year-old Ruth Gilmartin returns to Oxford after learning that someone is trying to kill her mother, Sally, who is actually Eva Delectorskaya, a Russian émigré who was recruited for the British Secret Service in 1939.
Two centuries ago, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published the first volume of Children's and Household Tales. Now Philip Pullman, one of the most accomplished authors of our time, makes us fall in love all over again with the immortal tales of the Brothers Grimm.
In this collection of interconnected short stories, Jennifer Haigh returns to the vividly imagined world of Bakerton, Pennsylvania, a coal-mining town rocked by decades of painful transition. From its heyday during two world wars through its slow decline, Bakerton is a town that refuses to give up gracefully, binding – sometimes cruelly – succeeding generations to the place that made them. A young woman glimpses a world both strange and familiar when she becomes a live-in maid for a Jewish family in New York City. A long-absent brother makes a sudden and tragic homecoming. A solitary middle-aged woman tastes unexpected love when a young man returns to town. With a revolving cast of characters – many familiar to fans of Baker Towers – these stories explore how our roots, the families and places in which we are raised, shape the people we eventually become.
We all know there's no such thing as monsters, but our imaginations tell us otherwise. From the mythical beasts of ancient Greece to the hormonal vampires of the Twilight saga, monsters have captivated us for millennia. Matt Kaplan, a noted science journalist and monster-myth enthusiast, employs an entertaining mix of cutting-edge research and a love of lore to explore the history behind these fantastical fictions and our hardwired obsession with things that go bump in the night.
Imagine a not too distant future, where the world is predominately steeped in poverty and dissolution, and the only reprieve from a grim existence is a globally-networked virtual reality called "The Oasis." Imagine also that this virtual reality was created by a now-deceased billionaire inventor, James Halliday, who was so obsessed with 1980's video games and culture he placed within the Oasis a mischievous scavenger hunt before he died – and whoever cracks his series of ‘80's-themed, geek-steeped, riddles, clues, and challenges, wins Halliday's entire fortune. Ready Player One is about high-school student Wade Watt's energetic, rollicking hunt through the Oasis for Halliday's "Easter Egg," making friends and enemies along the way. It's a must-read for any video game or 80's pop culture enthusiast. This book is also available as an audiobook at BPL, with Wil Wheaton narrating.
Extra Lives is an impassioned defense of the assailed and misunderstood art form of video games. Bissell argues that we are in a golden age of gaming – but he also believes games could be even better. He offers a fascinating and often hilarious critique of the ways video games dazzle and, just as often, frustrate. Along the way, we get firsthand portraits of some of the best minds (Jonathan Blow, Clint Hocking, Cliff Bleszinski, Peter Molyneux) at work in video game design today, as well as a shattering and deeply moving final chapter that describes, in searing detail, Bissell’s descent into the world of Grand Theft Auto IV, a game whose themes mirror his own increasingly self-destructive compulsions.
A young woman in turn-of-the-century England finds love and independence at a seashore resort. As Betsy and Mr. Jones grow closer, she begins to dream that she might finally have found her place in the world – but when her past returns to haunt her, she must fight for everything she's worked for.
Feminism was a religion in Alisa Valdes’s childhood home. Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem took the place of Barbies and left Valdes impressed with a feminist ideology that guided a prolific writing career. Despite her professional success, Valdes hit forty-two a single mom and a serial dater of inadequate men in tweed jackets – until she met the Cowboy. A conservative rancher, the Cowboy held the traditional views on gender roles that Valdes was raised to reject. Yet as she falls head-over-spurs for him and their relationship finds harmony, she finds the strength, peace, and happiness that comes from embracing her femininity.
1920. The Great War has been over for two years and the body of the Unknown Warrior has been brought back for burial in Westminster Abbey. This is a very different time from the Edwardian certainties of 1914. While some are caught up in the changing politics, art and ideas of the young decade, for others, the aftermath of the conflict continues to cast a pall over peacetime England. Following the death of his wife and baby and his experiences on the Western Front, Laurence Bartram has become something of a recluse, until a young woman he once knew persuades him back into the world. She wants him to look into events that apparently led her brother, John Emmett, to kill himself, and so Laurence is forced to revisit the darkest parts of the war.
Pamela Mountbatten was born at the end of the Twenties into one of Britain's grandest families. The daughter of Lord Louis Mountbatten and his glamorous wife Edwina Ashley, she was bought up by nannies and governesses as she was often parted from her parents as they dutifully carried out their public roles. A picture of a very unconventional marriage.
This is a novel of obsession and divided loyalties, which brilliantly weaves together the harrowing story of George Mallory's ill-fated 1924 attempt to be the first man to conquer Mount Everest, with that of a single day in the life of his wife as she waits at home in England for news of his return. In a captivating blend of historical fact and imaginative fiction, it moves seamlessly back and forth between the epic story of Mallory's legendary final expedition and a heartbreaking account of a day in the life of Ruth Mallory. Through Ruth's eyes a complex portrait of a marriage emerges, one forged on the eve of the First World War, shadowed by its losses, and haunted by the ever-present possibility that George might not come home.
As a newspaper editor in the ’80s, Luisita Torregrosa lived her career. Enter Elizabeth, a striking, reserved, and elusive writer with whom Torregrosa falls deeply in love. Their story – irresistible romance, overlapping ambitions, and fragile union – unfolds as the narrative shifts to the Philippines and the fall of Ferdinand Marcos. There, on that beautiful, troubled island, the couple creates a world of their own, while covering political chaos and bloody upheavals. What was effortless abroad becomes less idyllic when they return to the United States, and their ending becomes as surprising and revealing as their beginning. Torregrosa captures the way love transforms those who experience it for an unforgettable, but often too brief, time.
A thriller that revolves around "ratlines" the network of routes out, set up by Nazi war criminals after WW II, to places of asylum, in this case Ireland.
A life well told – the rich and varied years of a brilliant woman and an enlightened monarch. Sumptuous.
In an isolated village in the Icelandic Westfjords, three friends set to work renovating a derelict house. But soon they realise they are not alone there – something wants them to leave, and it's making its presence felt. Meanwhile, in a town across the fjord, a young doctor investigating the suicide of an elderly woman discovers that she was obsessed with his vanished son. When the two stories collide the terrifying truth is uncovered.
A heartfelt memoir by the father of a gay teen, and an eye-opening guide for families who hope to bring up well-adjusted gay adults. Three years ago, John Schwartz, a national correspondent at The New York Times, got the call that every parent hopes never to receive: his thirteen-year-old son, Joe, was in the hospital following a suicide attempt. Mustering the courage to come out to his classmates, Joe's disclosure – delivered in a tirade about homophobic attitudes – was greeted with unease and confusion by his fellow students. Hours later, he took an overdose of pills. In the aftermath, John and his wife, Jeanne, determined to help Joe feel more comfortable in his own skin, launched a search for services and groups that could help Joe understand that he wasn't alone. This book is Schwartz's very personal attempt to address his family's struggles within a culture that is changing fast, but not fast enough to help gay kids like Joe.
In this new historical fiction set in 1850 America, Chevalier takes you alongside the journey of Honor Bright and her sister Grace, both modest Quaker women who decide to immigrate to the New World from England. When Grace succumbs to yellow fever, Honor forges ahead in this wild, precarious land. Settling down in Faithwell, Ohio, she befriends a milliner, gets married and learns of the Underground Railway. She finds herself aiding and hiding slaves on the run even as her deep-seated principles are tested by members of her new family and her heart pulled by Donovan, a rough hillbilly bent on catching slaves for his living.
Food52 is an online food community that is more than just a collection of recipes. Started by the New York Times food writer, Amanda Hesser and Le Cordon Bleu-trained Merril Stubbs, this cookbook is a wonderful testament to the ingenuity and inventiveness of home cooks like you and me. This first collection of tried and true recipes follows the four seasons of the year. From your best green salad to your best cocktail, you will surely not run short of food for thought in the kitchen and ideas for meals to share with your family and friends.
Living with a weird brother in a small town can be tough enough. Having a spectacular fall through the ice at a skating party and nearly drowning are grounds for embarrassment. But having a vision and narrating it to the assembled crowd solidifies your status as an outcast. What Ruby Carson saw during that fateful day was her entire town – buildings and people – floating underwater. The residents of Haverton soon discover that a massive dam is being constructed and that most of their homes will be swallowed by the rising water. Suspicions mount, tempers flare, and secrets are revealed. As the town prepares for its own demise, 14-year-old Ruby Carson sees it all from a front-row seat.
Through the use of lush, light-filled landscapes, intimate and intriguing portraits, and delicately detailed stories, this riveting and visually stunning work carries us across continents and around the globe to understand and comprehend the complexities of the human journey that encompasses fair trade. A captivating storyteller with a deft eye for detail, author-photographer Éric St-Pierre has crafted a book that makes the story of fair trade, its implications and its limitations, clear to us.
From the New Testament to The Diary of Anne Frank to the Harry Potter series, the tradition of banning, censoring and challenging books has been remarkably enduring. Forbidden Fruit calls on all of us to examine the long history of censoring ideas and reminds us that the impetus to ban books is still very much alive.
In celebration of the upcoming Freedom To Read Week in Canada, this book presents a collection of essays from a variety of authors, including John Updike, Russell Banks, and Salman Rushdie, on censorship and the power of literature on society.
A quartier of Paris becomes a microcosm of pre-Revolutionary France, (its mores, its prejudices, its politics) when a young engineer undertakes the demolition of a cemetery.
