The Saddest Place on Earth

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Author :
Publisher : Last Gasp
ISBN 13 : 0867196394
Total Pages : 152 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (671 download)

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Book Synopsis The Saddest Place on Earth by : Camille Rose Garcia

Download or read book The Saddest Place on Earth written by Camille Rose Garcia and published by Last Gasp. This book was released on 2005 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Camille Rose Garcia's world is a beautiful place. It is the ballroom of an Empire, a forest of aquamarine jewels, a place where cream-layered cakes, crystal castles and opiate abundance serve to sedate the masses. but as the telescope retracts, the glossy veneer of privelege falls away to reveal another reality. Machine guns and machetes decorate the landscape alongside exploding poppies. Deer and princesses hand suspensefully in a cloud of malaise and disbelief becomes the ether of the living.

Even Darkness Sings

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Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1681779250
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (817 download)

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Book Synopsis Even Darkness Sings by : Thomas H Cook

Download or read book Even Darkness Sings written by Thomas H Cook and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-10-02 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thomas Cook has always been drawn to dark places, for the powerful emotions they evoke and for what we can learn from them. These lessons are often unexpected and sometimes profoundly intimate, but they are never straightforward.With his wife and daughter, Cook travels across the globe in search of darkness—from Lourdes to Ghana, from San Francisco to Verdun, from the monumental, mechanized horror of Auschwitz to the intimate personal grief of a shrine to dead infants in Kamukura, Japan. Along the way he reflects on what these sites may teach us, not only about human history, but about our own personal histories.During the course of a lifetime of traveling to some of earth's most tragic locals, from the leper colony on Molokai to ground zero at Hiroshima, he finds not only darkness, but a light that can illuminate the darkness within each of us. Written in vivid prose, this is at once a personal memoir of exploration (both external and internal) and a strangely heartening look at the radiance and optimism that may be found at the very heart of darkness.

The Saddest Girl in the World

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Author :
Publisher : HarperCollins UK
ISBN 13 : 0007321570
Total Pages : 14 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (73 download)

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Book Synopsis The Saddest Girl in the World by : Cathy Glass

Download or read book The Saddest Girl in the World written by Cathy Glass and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 2009-03-20 with total page 14 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author of Damaged tells the true story of Donna, who came into foster care aged ten, having been abused, victimised and rejected by her family.

Falling to Earth

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Author :
Publisher : Europa Editions
ISBN 13 : 1609451104
Total Pages : 220 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (94 download)

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Book Synopsis Falling to Earth by : Kate Southwood

Download or read book Falling to Earth written by Kate Southwood and published by Europa Editions. This book was released on 2013-03-05 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “poignant [and] powerful” novel about a 1920s Midwestern community in the aftermath of a devastating tornado (The New Yorker). In March 1925, the worst tornado in the nation’s history will descend without warning on the small town of Marah, Illinois. By nightfall, hundreds will be homeless and hundreds more will lie in the streets, dead or grievously injured. Only one man, Paul Graves, will still have everything he started the day with—his family, his home, and his business, all miraculously intact. This “absolutely gorgeous” novel follows Paul Graves and his young family in the year after the storm as they struggle to comprehend their own fate and that of their devastated town (The New York Times). They watch helplessly as Marah tries to resurrect itself from the ruins and as their friends and neighbors begin to wonder how one family, and only one, could be exempt from terrible misfortune. As the town begins to recover, the family miscalculates the growing resentment and hostility around them with tragic results, in an “extraordinarily moving” portrayal of survivor’s guilt and the frenzy of bereavement following a disaster (Financial Times). “All the big themes are here—chance, fate, loyalty, revenge, guilt, jealousy . . . Inspired by actual events surrounding the 1925 Tri-State tornado, the worst in U.S. history, Southwood’s poignantly penetrating examination of the psychic cost of survival is breathtaking in its depth of understanding.” —Booklist (starred review) “What’s most exciting about Southwood’s debut is her prose, which is reminiscent of Willa Cather’s in its ability to condense the large, ineffable melancholy of the plains into razor-sharp images.” —The Daily Beast

The Saddest Place on Earth

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781897190326
Total Pages : 69 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (93 download)

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Book Synopsis The Saddest Place on Earth by : Kathryn Mockler

Download or read book The Saddest Place on Earth written by Kathryn Mockler and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 69 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Donald Rumsfeld briefed his press secretary on how to deal with the media, he said: Begin with an illogical premise and proceed perfectly logically to an illogical conclusion They [the media] do it all the time. Kathryn Mocklers new collection of poems applies Rumsfelds advice to powerful poetic ends. Deeply interested in American politics and the absurdity of our mediated relation to the political sphere, the beautiful and entertaining narrative poems in The Saddest Place on Earth follow absurd premises to their most logical conclusions. Here, God appears on Oprah, Hurt Feelings and Anger rent a cottage together on Lake Huron for a week in August, and the saddest place on earth is discovered in a Chinese restaurant at the end of a strip-mall. Kathryn Mocklers approach to language and the world results in an extremely engaging, moving and often hilarious poetics of deep disorientation.

Sad Topographies

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Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1471169308
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (711 download)

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Book Synopsis Sad Topographies by : Damien Rudd

Download or read book Sad Topographies written by Damien Rudd and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-11-09 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sad Topographies is an illustrated guide for the melancholic among us. Dispirited travellers rejoice as Damien Rudd journeys across continents in search of the world’s most joyless place names and their fascinating etymologies. Behind each lugubrious place name exists a story, a richly interwoven narrative of mythology, history, landscape, misadventure and tragedy. From Disappointment Island in the Southern Ocean to Misery in Germany, across to Lonely Island in Russia, or, if you’re feeling more intrepid, pay a visit to Mount Hopeless in Australia – all from the comfort of your armchair. With hand drawn maps by illustrator Kateryna Didyk, Sad Topographies will steer you along paths that lead to strange and obscure places, navigating the terrains of historical fact and imaginative fiction. At turns poetic and dark-humoured, this is a travel guide quite like no other. Damien Rudd is the founder of the hugely popular Instagram account @sadtopographies.

The Blue Zones of Happiness

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Publisher : National Geographic Books
ISBN 13 : 1426218494
Total Pages : 289 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (262 download)

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Book Synopsis The Blue Zones of Happiness by : Dan Buettner

Download or read book The Blue Zones of Happiness written by Dan Buettner and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2017-10-03 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times best-selling author Dan Buettner reveals the surprising secrets of what makes the world's happiest places—and shows you how to apply these lessons to your own life. In this inspiring guide, you’ll find game-changing tools drawn from global research and expert insights for achieving maximum fulfillment. Along the way, you'll: • Discover the three strands of happiness—pleasure, purpose, and pride—that feature prominently in the world's happiest places. • Take the specially designed Blue Zones Happiness Test to pinpoint areas in your life where you could cultivate greater joy, deeper meaning, and increased satisfaction. • Meet the world's Happiness All-Stars: inspiring individuals from Denmark to the United States who reveal dynamic, practical ways to improve day-to-day living. • Discover specific, science-based strategies for setting up a “life radius” of community, work, home, and self to create healthier, happiness-boosting habits for the long-term.

Checkpoint Charlie

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Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1982100052
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (821 download)

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Book Synopsis Checkpoint Charlie by : Iain MacGregor

Download or read book Checkpoint Charlie written by Iain MacGregor and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-11-05 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “constantly captivating…well-researched and often moving” (The Wall Street Journal) history of Checkpoint Charlie, the famous military gate on the border of East and West Berlin where the United States confronted the USSR during the Cold War. In the early 1960s, East Germany committed a billion dollars to the creation of the Berlin Wall, an eleven-foot-high barrier that consisted of seventy-nine miles of fencing, 300 watchtowers, 250 guard dog runs, twenty bunkers, and was operated around the clock by guards who shot to kill. Over the next twenty-eight years, at least five thousand people attempt to smash through it, swim across it, tunnel under it, or fly over it. In 1989, the East German leadership buckled in the face of a civil revolt that culminated in half a million East Berliners demanding an end to the ban on free movement. The world’s media flocked to capture the moment which, perhaps more than any other, signaled the end of the Cold War. Checkpoint Charlie had been the epicenter of global conflict for nearly three decades. Now, “in capturing the essence of the old Cold War [MacGregor] may just have helped us to understand a bit more about the new one” (The Times, London)—the mistrust, oppression, paranoia, and fear that gripped the world throughout this period. Checkpoint Charlie is about the nerve-wracking confrontation between the West and USSR, highlighting such important global figures as Eisenhower, Stalin, JFK, Nikita Khrushchev, Mao Zedung, Nixon, Reagan, and other politicians of the period. He also includes never-before-heard interviews with the men who built and dismantled the Wall; children who crossed it; relatives and friends who lost loved ones trying to escape over it; military policemen and soldiers who guarded the checkpoints; CIA, MI6, and Stasi operatives who oversaw operations across its borders; politicians whose ambitions shaped it; journalists who recorded its story; and many more whose living memories contributed to the full story of Checkpoint Charlie.

The Physics of Sorrow: A Novel

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Publisher : Liveright Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1324094907
Total Pages : 231 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (24 download)

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Book Synopsis The Physics of Sorrow: A Novel by : Georgi Gospodinov

Download or read book The Physics of Sorrow: A Novel written by Georgi Gospodinov and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2024-05-07 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A radical reimagining of the minotaur myth, from an essential voice in world literature. Winner of the Jan Michalski Prize for Literature • Finalist for the PEN Literary Award for Translation and the Strega Europeo Published a decade before his International Booker Prize–winning Time Shelter, Georgi Gospodinov’s The Physics of Sorrow has become an underground cult classic. Finding strange solace in the myth of the Minotaur, a man named Georgi reconstructs the story of his life like a labyrinth, meandering through the past to find the melancholy child at the center of it all. With profound wit and empathy, he catalogues curious instances of abandonment, spanning from antiquity to the Anthropocene; recounts scenes of a turbulent boyhood in 1970s Bulgaria, spent mostly in a basement; and charts a bizarre run-in with an eccentric flaneur named Gaustine. Exquisitely translated by Angela Rodel, and exhibiting his signature audacious style, this expansive work affirms Gospodinov as “one of Europe’s most fascinating and irreplaceable novelists” (Dave Eggers).

The Geography of Bliss

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Author :
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 1448168481
Total Pages : 416 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (481 download)

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Book Synopsis The Geography of Bliss by : Eric Weiner

Download or read book The Geography of Bliss written by Eric Weiner and published by Random House. This book was released on 2014-10-30 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What makes a nation happy? Is one country's sense of happiness the same as another's? In the last two decades, psychologists and economists have learned a lot about who's happy and who isn't. The Dutch are, the Romanians aren't, and Americans are somewhere in between... After years of going to the world's least happy countries, Eric Weiner, a veteran foreign correspondent, decided to travel and evaluate each country's different sense of happiness and discover the nation that seemed happiest of all. ·He discovers the relationship between money and happiness in tiny and extremely wealthy Qatar (and it's not a good one) ·He goes to Thailand, and finds that not thinking is a contented way of life. ·He goes to the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, and discovers they have an official policy of Gross National Happiness! ·He asks himself why the British don't do happiness? In Weiner's quest to find the world's happiest places, he eats rotten Icelandic shark, meditates in Bangalore, visits strip clubs in Bangkok and drinks himself into a stupor in Reykjavik. Full of inspired moments, The Geography of Bliss accomplishes a feat few travel books dare and even fewer achieve: to make you happier.

The London

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 778 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (334 download)

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Book Synopsis The London by :

Download or read book The London written by and published by . This book was released on 1910 with total page 778 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Firefly Lane

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Publisher : St. Martin's Press
ISBN 13 : 1429927844
Total Pages : 532 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (299 download)

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Book Synopsis Firefly Lane by : Kristin Hannah

Download or read book Firefly Lane written by Kristin Hannah and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2008-02-05 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the New York Times bestselling author Kristin Hannah comes a powerful novel of love, loss, and the magic of friendship. . . . now a #1 Netflix series! In the turbulent summer of 1974, Kate Mularkey has accepted her place at the bottom of the eighth-grade social food chain. Then, to her amazement, the "coolest girl in the world" moves in across the street and wants to be her friend. Tully Hart seems to have it all---beauty, brains, ambition. On the surface they are as opposite as two people can be: Kate, doomed to be forever uncool, with a loving family who mortifies her at every turn. Tully, steeped in glamour and mystery, but with a secret that is destroying her. They make a pact to be best friends forever; by summer's end they've become TullyandKate. Inseparable. So begins Kristin Hannah's magnificent new novel. Spanning more than three decades and playing out across the ever-changing face of the Pacific Northwest, Firefly Lane is the poignant, powerful story of two women and the friendship that becomes the bulkhead of their lives. From the beginning, Tully is desperate to prove her worth to the world. Abandoned by her mother at an early age, she longs to be loved unconditionally. In the glittering, big-hair era of the eighties, she looks to men to fill the void in her soul. But in the buttoned-down nineties, it is television news that captivates her. She will follow her own blind ambition to New York and around the globe, finding fame and success . . . and loneliness. Kate knows early on that her life will be nothing special. Throughout college, she pretends to be driven by a need for success, but all she really wants is to fall in love and have children and live an ordinary life. In her own quiet way, Kate is as driven as Tully. What she doesn't know is how being a wife and mother will change her . . . how she'll lose sight of who she once was, and what she once wanted. And how much she'll envy her famous best friend. . . . For thirty years, Tully and Kate buoy each other through life, weathering the storms of friendship---jealousy, anger, hurt, resentment. They think they've survived it all until a single act of betrayal tears them apart . . . and puts their courage and friendship to the ultimate test. Firefly Lane is for anyone who ever drank Boone's Farm apple wine while listening to Abba or Fleetwood Mac. More than a coming-of-age novel, it's the story of a generation of women who were both blessed and cursed by choices. It's about promises and secrets and betrayals. And ultimately, about the one person who really, truly knows you---and knows what has the power to hurt you . . . and heal you. Firefly Lane is a story you'll never forget . . . one you'll want to pass on to your best friend.

Welcome to My World

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Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1501119710
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (11 download)

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Book Synopsis Welcome to My World by : Curtis Bunn

Download or read book Welcome to My World written by Curtis Bunn and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-10-10 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Essence bestselling author Curtis Bunn comes a moving novel about a down and out corporate executive whose unexpected encounter with a stranger inspires her to reinvent her life. Brenda Harris, a former corporate executive in Atlanta, has endured two years of personal tragedies and professional disappointments, and believes the world owes her a break. One day, she encounters a homeless man who encourages her to look at life differently. She regularly sees this man at one of her daily stops. But she does not realize that he has been closely observing her and, despite his mental illness, is able to forge a deep connection with her in ways that both surprise and inspire her. She realizes there is a whole world out there for her to experience, and Rodney Bridges, the homeless man, helps her begin her journey of self-discovery by challenging her on their daily walks. The path is difficult, but her time with Rodney opens her up to a new world, a world she had dismissed when she lost her job, her husband left her, and her dear sister died. Part of her journey moves her to help Rodney. Through meaningful conversation and dedication, she is able to penetrate the emotional wall Rodney built after his own tragic circumstances sent him onto the streets. They become an unlikely duo—encouraging each other to overcome each of their own obstacles...and slowly a new world emerges. A moving and powerful story about how inspiration can be found in the unlikeliest places, Welcome to My World also reaffirms that the simplest things in life—a conversation with a stranger—can lead to life-changing results.

Sad Janet

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Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0593086538
Total Pages : 289 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (93 download)

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Book Synopsis Sad Janet by : Lucie Britsch

Download or read book Sad Janet written by Lucie Britsch and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-06-15 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Named one of the Best Books of the Summer by Lit Hub, The Millions, Refinery29, and Hey Alma. “Hilarious, wise, wicked, and tender.” —Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, The New York Times–bestselling author of The Nest Janet works at a rundown dog shelter in the woods. She wears black, loves The Smiths, and can’t wait to get rid of her passive-aggressive boyfriend. Her brain is full of anxiety, like “one of those closets you never want to open because everything will fall out and crush you.” She has a meddlesome family, eccentric coworkers, one old friend who’s left her for Ibiza, and one new friend who’s really just a neighbor she sees in the hallway. Most of all, Janet has her sadness—a comfortable cloak she uses to insulate herself from the oppressions of the wider world. That is, until one fateful summer when word spreads about a new pill that offers even cynics like her a short-term taste of happiness . . . .just long enough to make it through the holidays without wanting to stab someone with a candy cane. When her family stages an intervention, her boyfriend leaves, and the prospect of making it through Christmas alone seems like too much, Janet decides to give them what they want. What follows is life-changing for all concerned—in ways no one quite expects. Hilarious, bitterly wise, and surprisingly warm, Sad Janet is the depression comedy you never knew you needed.

The Maccabæan

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 426 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (243 download)

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Book Synopsis The Maccabæan by :

Download or read book The Maccabæan written by and published by . This book was released on 1914 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

The Saddest Words: William Faulkner's Civil War

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Author :
Publisher : Liveright Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1631491717
Total Pages : 418 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (314 download)

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Book Synopsis The Saddest Words: William Faulkner's Civil War by : Michael Gorra

Download or read book The Saddest Words: William Faulkner's Civil War written by Michael Gorra and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2020-08-25 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Notable Book of 2020 How do we read William Faulkner in the twenty-first century? asks Michael Gorra, in this reconsideration of Faulkner's life and legacy. William Faulkner, one of America’s most iconic writers, is an author who defies easy interpretation. Born in 1897 in Mississippi, Faulkner wrote such classic novels as Absolom, Absolom! and The Sound and The Fury, creating in Yoknapatawpha county one of the most memorable gallery of characters ever assembled in American literature. Yet, as acclaimed literary critic Michael Gorra explains, Faulkner has sustained justified criticism for his failures of racial nuance—his ventriloquism of black characters and his rendering of race relations in a largely unreconstructed South—demanding that we reevaluate the Nobel laureate’s life and legacy in the twenty-first century, as we reexamine the junctures of race and literature in works that once rested firmly in the American canon. Interweaving biography, literary criticism, and rich travelogue, The Saddest Words argues that even despite these contradictions—and perhaps because of them—William Faulkner still needs to be read, and even more, remains central to understanding the contradictions inherent in the American experience itself. Evoking Faulkner’s biography and his literary characters, Gorra illuminates what Faulkner maintained was “the South’s curse and its separate destiny,” a class and racial system built on slavery that was devastated during the Civil War and was reimagined thereafter through the South’s revanchism. Driven by currents of violence, a “Lost Cause” romanticism not only defined Faulkner’s twentieth century but now even our own age. Through Gorra’s critical lens, Faulkner’s mythic Yoknapatawpha County comes alive as his imagined land finds itself entwined in America’s history, the characters wrestling with the ghosts of a past that refuses to stay buried, stuck in an unending cycle between those two saddest words, “was” and “again.” Upending previous critical traditions, The Saddest Words returns Faulkner to his sociopolitical context, revealing the civil war within him and proving that “the real war lies not only in the physical combat, but also in the war after the war, the war over its memory and meaning.” Filled with vignettes of Civil War battles and generals, vivid scenes from Gorra’s travels through the South—including Faulkner’s Oxford, Mississippi—and commentaries on Faulkner’s fiction, The Saddest Words is a mesmerizing work of literary thought that recontextualizes Faulkner in light of the most plangent cultural issues facing America today.

My Holiday in North Korea

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Author :
Publisher : Rosetta Books
ISBN 13 : 0795347227
Total Pages : 245 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (953 download)

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Book Synopsis My Holiday in North Korea by : Wendy E. Simmons

Download or read book My Holiday in North Korea written by Wendy E. Simmons and published by Rosetta Books. This book was released on 2016-05-03 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “You remember Eat, Pray, Love and Under the Tuscan Sun? Yeah, this really isn’t like those. It’s better” (San Francisco Chronicle). Most people want out of North Korea. Wendy Simmons wanted in. In My Holiday in North Korea: The Funniest/Worst Place on Earth, Wendy shares a glimpse of North Korea as it’s never been seen before. Even though it’s the scariest place on Earth, somehow Wendy forgot to check her sense of humor at the border. But Wendy’s initial amusement and bewilderment soon turned to frustration and growing paranoia. Before long, she learned the essential conundrum of “tourism” in North Korea: Travel is truly a love affair. But, just like love, it’s a two-way street. And North Korea deprives you of all this. They want you to fall in love with the singular vision of the country they’re willing to show you and nothing more. Through poignant, laugh-out-loud essays and ninety-two never-before-published color photographs of North Korea, Wendy chronicles one of the strangest vacations ever. Along the way, she bares all while undergoing an inner journey as convoluted as the country itself. “Much of the humor and poignancy comes from the absurdity of a fun-loving free spirit taking a vacation that’s more rigidly scripted and controlled than a presidential motorcade . . . Simmons’ photos—including an eerie image of a classroom full of schoolgirls playing accordions—further illustrate the bizarre nature of a country that, whether for good or bad, has been carefully controlled for generations.” —San Francisco Chronicle “An irresistible read . . . A rare and fascinating look at the tourist’s North Korea in a work that is humorous, appalling, and very sad. A highly recommended and revealing glimpse into a secretive land.” —Library Journal