Клэр Вайе Уоткинс5.0 The stories in Battleborn all unfold in Watkins's home state of Nevada, from down south in Nye County and Las Vegas, to Reno, Lake Tahoe, and the Blackrock Desert, the site of Burning Man. We are introduced to a very specific small town America, to those homes and lives off the highway - the ones travellers and writers usually drive past on their way to somewhere else. While the locations are ordinary, the characters and Watkins' telling of their lives are anything but. There is the man who finds a cache of letters, pills and a photograph abandoned by the side of the road and as he writes to the man he imagines left them behind, reveals moving truths about himself ('The Last Thing We Need'); the man in late middle age who finds a troubled, pregnant teen dying in the desert and, through her, begins to dream of regaining the family he lost ('Man-O-War'); the brothers caught in the early days of the gold rush ('The Diggings'); and the sisters unable to comfort each other following their mother's suicide ('Graceland'). And there is the first story ('Ghosts, Cowboys'), a semi-autobiographical account of a troubled - and famous - family history.
Тим Лич0.0 A defeated king stands on top of a pyre. His conqueror, the Persian ruler Cyrus, signals to his guards; they step forward and touch flaming torches to the dry wood. Croesus, once the wealthiest man of the ancient world, is to be burned alive. As he watches the flames catch, Croesus thinks back over his life. He remembers the time he asked the old Athenian philosopher, Solon, who was the happiest man in the world. Croesus used to think it was him. But then all his riches could not remove the spear from his dying elder son's chest, could not bring his mute younger son to speak, could not make him as wise as his own chief slave, could not bring his wife's love back, could not prevent his army from being torn apart and his kingdom lost. As the old philosopher had replied, a man's happiness can only be measured when he is dead. The first coils of smoke wrap around Croesus' neck like a noose. This deeply wise novel of what it means to be human is perfect for readers of Mary Renault and David Malouf.
Марли Руд0.0 Jo returns to South Africa after ten years in the UK to cover the riots sweeping the Jo'burg township of Alex. Nico, her estranged Afrikaner father, reappears and asks her to help prove his innocence in the murder of a black man, abducted by the security forces decades earlier. As they set off on a road trip through South Africa's now-unfamiliar landscape, it becomes clear that Nico knows more about the murder than he is letting on, and Jo begins to wonder whether she is his accomplice, or his captive.
Set against the backdrop of a country struggling to absorb its bloody history and forge a new democracy, Call It Dog asks whether justice and truth are more important than the bonds of loyalty and love, and explores what is it like to feel you no longer belong in the land of your birth - or to your own family.
Майок Тульба0.0 On the day that Obinna’s village is savagely attacked by the rebel army and his father murdered, he witnesses violence beyond his imagination. Along with his older brother he finds himself thrown into a truck when the soldiers leave, to be shaped into an agent of horror – a child soldier. Marched through minefields and forced into battle, enduring a brutal daily existence, Obinna slowly works out which parts of himself to save and which to sacrifice in this world turned upside down.
Beneath the Darkening Sky is a terrifyingly powerful, brilliantly insightful portrait of how a human being copes when forced to become inhuman. Like all great fiction, it imagines the unimaginable, and announces the arrival of a searing new voice from the heart of Africa.
Джеймс Брукс0.0 Shortlisted for the Michael Murphy Memorial Prize This remarkable debut sees tales of treachery, guilt and love play out against the whole canvas of history. Empires rise and fall; the beasts of Britain stalk from the age of Rome to the new age of austerity; heroes and villains take their stands on the Sussex Downs and on the Pennines, from the Death Star to Dancing on Ice. A courageous study of the violence and beauty of belonging, this book also celebrates what really endures: the lure of power, the pain of betrayal, the solace of family and home. Vividly imagined and critically acclaimed, this is poetry for now and for years to come.
Джемма Л. Кинг0.0 These poems of desire, loss, and revenge explore lives caught in the gravity of their own orbit. Haunting, distinctive, and sensual, The Shape of a Forest has unblinking scope. This sophisticated debut collection moves from the historical to the contemporary: Genghis Khan surveys his territory while Amelia Earhart disappears to myth. The Belvedere Apollo is dug up heralding the onset of the Renaissance as a tiger meets a foe in a Siberian forest, the Pendle witches are hung in Lancashire, and in tsunami-struck Japanese gardens, South Sea islands, and New York hotel rooms, lives are loosened like milk teeth. The Shape of a Forest is a powerful survey of life and of human experience that spans centuries and the continents.
Праджвал Параджули0.0 To commemorate Chitralekha Nepauney’s Chaurasi – her landmark 84th birthday – Chitralekha’s grandchildren are travelling to Gangtok to pay their respects.
Agastaya is flying in from New York. Although a successful oncologist at only thirty-three he is dreading his family’s inquisition into why he is not married, and terrified that the reason for his bachelordom will be discovered.
Joining him are Manasa and Bhagwati, coming from London and Colorado respectively. One the Oxford-educated achiever; the other the disgraced eloper – one moneyed but miserable; the other ostracized but optimistic.
All three harbour the same dual objective: to emerge from the celebrations with their grandmother’s blessing and their nerves intact: a goal that will become increasingly impossible thanks to a mischievous maid and a fourth, uninvited guest.
Prajwal Parajuly - the son of an Indian father and a Nepalese mother - divides his time between New York and Oxford, but disappears to Gangtok, his hometown in the Indian Himalayas, at every opportunity. Land Where I Flee is his first novel.
