The Lightness Of Hands

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The Lightness of Hands

Author : Jeff Garvin
Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 0062382918
Total Pages : 331 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (623 download)

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Book Synopsis The Lightness of Hands by : Jeff Garvin

Download or read book The Lightness of Hands written by Jeff Garvin and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-04-14 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A quirky and heartfelt coming-of-age story about a teen girl with bipolar II who signs her failed magician father up to perform his legendary but failed illusion on live TV in order to make enough money to pay for the medications they need—from the author of Symptoms of Being Human. Perfect for fans of Adi Alsaid, David Arnold, and Arvin Ahmadi. Sixteen-year-old Ellie Dante is desperate for something in her life to finally go right. Her father was a famous stage magician until he attempted an epic illusion on live TV—and failed. Now Ellie lives with her dad in a beat-up RV, attending high school online and performing with him at birthday parties and bars across the Midwest to make ends meet. But when the gigs dry up, their insurance lapses, leaving Dad’s heart condition unchecked and forcing Ellie to battle her bipolar II disorder without medication. Then Ellie receives a call from a famous magic duo, who offer fifteen thousand dollars and a shot at redemption: they want her father to perform the illusion that wrecked his career—on their live TV special, which shoots in Los Angeles in ten days. Ellie knows her dad will refuse—but she takes the deal anyway, then lies to persuade him to head west. With the help of her online-only best friend and an unusual guy she teams up with along the way, Ellie makes a plan to stage his comeback. But when her lie is exposed, she’ll have to confront her illness and her choices head-on to save her father—and herself.

Symptoms of Being Human

Author : Jeff Garvin
Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 0062382888
Total Pages : 217 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (623 download)

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Book Synopsis Symptoms of Being Human by : Jeff Garvin

Download or read book Symptoms of Being Human written by Jeff Garvin and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2016-02-02 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist * YALSA Top Ten Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers * ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults List * 2017 Rainbow A sharply honest and moving debut perfect for fans of The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Ask the Passengers. Riley Cavanaugh is many things: Punk rock. Snarky. Rebellious. And gender fluid. Some days Riley identifies as a boy, and others as a girl. But Riley isn't exactly out yet. And between starting a new school and having a congressman father running for reelection in über-conservative Orange County, the pressure—media and otherwise—is building up in Riley's life. On the advice of a therapist, Riley starts an anonymous blog to vent those pent-up feelings and tell the truth of what it's really like to be a gender fluid teenager. But just as Riley's starting to settle in at school—even developing feelings for a mysterious outcast—the blog goes viral, and an unnamed commenter discovers Riley's real identity, threatening exposure. And Riley must make a choice: walk away from what the blog has created—a lifeline, new friends, a cause to believe in—or stand up, come out, and risk everything. From debut author Jeff Garvin comes a powerful and uplifting portrait of a modern teen struggling with high school, relationships, and what it means to be a person.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Author : Milan Kundera
Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 0063290642
Total Pages : 311 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (632 download)

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Book Synopsis The Unbearable Lightness of Being by : Milan Kundera

Download or read book The Unbearable Lightness of Being written by Milan Kundera and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2023-03-28 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Far more than a conventional novel. It is a meditation on life, on the erotic, on the nature of men and women and love . . . full of telling details, truths large and small, to which just about every reader will respond.” — People In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera tells the story of two couples, a young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing, and one of his mistresses and her humbly faithful lover. In a world in which lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and by fortuitous events, a world in which everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. Hence, we feel "the unbearable lightness of being" not only as the consequence of our pristine actions but also in the public sphere, and the two inevitably intertwine. This magnificent novel is a story of passion and politics, infidelity and ideas, and encompasses the extremes of comedy and tragedy, illuminating all aspects of human existence.

Unbearable Lightness

Author : Portia de Rossi
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1849835276
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (498 download)

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Book Synopsis Unbearable Lightness by : Portia de Rossi

Download or read book Unbearable Lightness written by Portia de Rossi and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-03-03 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "I didn't decide to become anorexic. It snuck up on me disguised as a healthy diet, a professional attitude. Although there was a certain glamour to anorexics, I didn't want to be one. I just wanted to excel in dieting. And weighing in at 80 pounds on 300 calories a day, I was the best little dieter there ever was." In scalding prose, Portia de Rossi reveals the pain and illness that haunted her for decades. She alternately starved herself and binged, putting her life in danger and lying to herself and everyone around her about the depth of her illness. From her lowest point, Portia began the painful climb back to health and happiness, ultimately falling head over heels in love with Ellen DeGeneres. In this remarkable and landmark book, she tells a story that inspires hope and nourishes the spirit.

Trowbridge Road

Author : Marcella Pixley
Publisher : Candlewick Press
ISBN 13 : 1536211923
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (362 download)

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Book Synopsis Trowbridge Road by : Marcella Pixley

Download or read book Trowbridge Road written by Marcella Pixley and published by Candlewick Press. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a stunning novel set in the 1980s, a girl with heavy secrets awakens her sleepy street to the complexities of love and courage. It’s the summer of ’83 on Trowbridge Road, and June Bug Jordan is hungry. Months after her father’s death from complications from AIDS, her mother has stopped cooking and refuses to leave the house, instead locking herself away to scour at the germs she believes are everywhere. June Bug threatens this precarious existence by going out into the neighborhood, gradually befriending an imaginative boy who is living with his Nana Jean after experiencing troubles of his own. But as June Bug’s connection to the world grows stronger, her mother’s grows more distant — even dangerous — pushing June Bug to choose between truth and healing and the only home she has ever known. Trowbridge Road paints an unwavering portrait of a girl and her family touched by mental illness and grief. Set in the Boston suburbs during the first years of the AIDS epidemic, the novel explores how a seemingly perfect neighborhood can contain restless ghosts and unspoken secrets. Written with deep insight and subtle lyricism by acclaimed author Marcella Pixley, Trowbridge Road demonstrates our power to rescue one another even when our hearts are broken.

Camerado, I Give You My Hand

Author : Maura Poston Zagrans
Publisher : Image
ISBN 13 : 0385348002
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (853 download)

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Book Synopsis Camerado, I Give You My Hand by : Maura Poston Zagrans

Download or read book Camerado, I Give You My Hand written by Maura Poston Zagrans and published by Image. This book was released on 2013 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At a time in his life when most people retire, Link felt called to serve the Church and to aid the men that his profession normally put behind bars, ministering healing and forgiveness to murderers, thieves, and what many would call the least of society. This is a book about the value of human life, and about the transformative power of friendship and compassion. He makes the case for adding our own unique gifts to help the least of these, our brothers and sisters from all walks of life.

Between the Bliss and Me

Author : Lizzy Mason
Publisher : Soho Press
ISBN 13 : 164129115X
Total Pages : 337 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (412 download)

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Book Synopsis Between the Bliss and Me by : Lizzy Mason

Download or read book Between the Bliss and Me written by Lizzy Mason and published by Soho Press. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Acclaimed author Lizzy Mason delivers a moving contemporary YA novel about mental illness, young romance, and the impact of family history on one teen’s future, perfect for fans of Jandy Nelson, Robin Benway, and Kathleen Glasgow. When eighteen-year-old Sydney Holman announces that she has decided to attend NYU, her overprotective mom is devastated. Her decision means she will be living in the Big City instead of commuting to nearby Rutgers like her mom had hoped. It also means she’ll be close to off-limits but dreamy Grayson—a guitar prodigy who is going to Juilliard in the fall and very much isn’t single. But while she dreams of her new life, Sydney discovers a world-changing truth about her father. She knew he left when she was little due to a drug addiction. But no one told her he had schizophrenia or that he was currently living on the streets of New York City. She seizes the opportunity to get to know him, to understand who he is and learn what may lie in store for her if she, too, is diagnosed. Even as she continues to fall for Grayson, Sydney is faced with a difficult decision: Stay close to home so her mom can watch over her, or follow her dreams despite the risks?

The Hand of Destiny

Author : Srividya Srinivasan
Publisher : One Point Six Technologies Pvt Ltd
ISBN 13 : 9390040841
Total Pages : 187 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (9 download)

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Book Synopsis The Hand of Destiny by : Srividya Srinivasan

Download or read book The Hand of Destiny written by Srividya Srinivasan and published by One Point Six Technologies Pvt Ltd. This book was released on 2020-12-10 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rajalakshmi Meenakshisundaram, a traditional, god-fearing wife and mother, has led a sheltered life in India. Her happy world in Chennai is shattered when her only child, Venkat, dies on his birthday, the victim of a terrorist attack in France. She must now travel to Paris with her husband to claim Venkat’s body. Katherine Mary Flannigan, a mother of three, is a loving wife and staunch church goer. The Irish Flannigans have lived in the little town of Blue Hampton, outside London, for generations. Jonas, her eldest son has been missing for a week when she learns that he has blown himself to bits in France, having secretly converted to Islam just a year before. The village is split on accepting his body for burial in the church cemetery. Katherine and her husband James must now travel to France to claim Jonas’ body. What happens when the two women meet? How do the men in their lives battle their own vulnerabilities and inabilities as they come to terms with their loss? How do those around them deal with the tragedy? This is the gripping and poignant tale of going past the biases we all carry, the assumptions we make, and the guilt within when we have failed those we love. What links us? What separates us? What is identity after all? What remains of faith when it is put to test? What is destiny? Is there hope at the end of the maelstrom?

Stay the Hand of Vengeance

Author : Gary Jonathan Bass
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 1400851718
Total Pages : 435 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (8 download)

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Book Synopsis Stay the Hand of Vengeance by : Gary Jonathan Bass

Download or read book Stay the Hand of Vengeance written by Gary Jonathan Bass and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-04-28 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: International justice has become a crucial part of the ongoing political debates about the future of shattered societies like Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, Cambodia, and Chile. Why do our governments sometimes display such striking idealism in the face of war crimes and atrocities abroad, and at other times cynically abandon the pursuit of international justice altogether? Why today does justice seem so slow to come for war crimes victims in the Balkans? In this book, Gary Bass offers an unprecedented look at the politics behind international war crimes tribunals, combining analysis with investigative reporting and a broad historical perspective. The Nuremberg trials powerfully demonstrated how effective war crimes tribunals can be. But there have been many other important tribunals that have not been as successful, and which have been largely left out of today's debates about international justice. This timely book brings them in, using primary documents to examine the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, World War I, the Armenian genocide, World War II, and the recent wars in the former Yugoslavia. Bass explains that bringing war criminals to justice can be a military ordeal, a source of endless legal frustration, as well as a diplomatic nightmare. The book takes readers behind the scenes to see vividly how leaders like David Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, and Bill Clinton have wrestled with these agonizing moral dilemmas. The book asks how law and international politics interact, and how power can be made to serve the cause of justice. Bass brings new archival research to bear on such events as the prosecution of the Armenian genocide, presenting surprising episodes that add to the historical record. His sections on the former Yugoslavia tell--with important new discoveries--the secret story of the politicking behind the prosecution of war crimes in Bosnia, drawing on interviews with senior White House officials, key diplomats, and chief prosecutors at the war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Bass concludes that despite the obstacles, legalistic justice for war criminals is nonetheless worth pursuing. His arguments will interest anyone concerned about human rights and the pursuit of idealism in international politics.

The Alchemy of Lightness

Author : Dominique Barbier
Publisher : Trafalgar Square Books
ISBN 13 : 1570768943
Total Pages : 328 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (77 download)

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Book Synopsis The Alchemy of Lightness by : Dominique Barbier

Download or read book The Alchemy of Lightness written by Dominique Barbier and published by Trafalgar Square Books. This book was released on 2018-02-01 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Within these pages lies an ambitious study of the interplay of mechanisms put in motion when man and horse meet, communicate, and ultimately become one. Dominique Barbier and Dr. Maria Katsamanis examine how “lightness” is generated, using the simple and elegant basics of the universe—atoms and molecules—which exist all around us. Scientific findings and theoretical underpinnings allow us to better understand how lightness with a horse occurs—and how to harness it. Discover practical guideposts for the mechanics of “riding in lightness,” including: • Five common misconceptions about riding and horses • Seven keys to meeting the challenges we so often face when working with horses • Four elements necessary to ensuring the horse’s comfort and willingness to join us in “the dance”

Every Body Shines

Author : Cassandra Newbould
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 1547606088
Total Pages : 417 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (476 download)

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Book Synopsis Every Body Shines by : Cassandra Newbould

Download or read book Every Body Shines written by Cassandra Newbould and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An intersectional, feminist YA anthology from some of today's most exciting voices across a span of genres, all celebrating body diversity and fat acceptance through short stories. A Junior Library Guild Selection Fat girls and boys and nonbinary teens are: friends who lift each other up, heroes who rescue themselves, big bodies in space, intellects taking up space, and bodies looking and feeling beautiful. They express themselves through fashion, sports and other physical pursuits, through food, and music, and art. They are flirting and falling in love. They are loving to themselves and one another. With stories that feature fat main characters starring in a multitude of settings, and written by authors who live these lives too, this is truly a unique collection that shows fat young people the representation they deserve. With a foreword by Aubrey Gordon, creator of Your Fat Friend, and with stories by: Nafiza Azad, Chris Baron, Sheena Boekweg, Linda Camacho, Kelly deVos, Alex Gino, Claire Kann, amanda lovelace, Hillary Monahan, Cassandra Newbould, Francina Simone, Rebecca Sky, Monique Gray Smith, Renée Watson, Catherine Adel West, Jennifer Yen

Dear Evan Hansen

Author : Val Emmich
Publisher : Poppy
ISBN 13 : 0316420220
Total Pages : 282 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (164 download)

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Book Synopsis Dear Evan Hansen by : Val Emmich

Download or read book Dear Evan Hansen written by Val Emmich and published by Poppy. This book was released on 2018-10-09 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the show's creators comes the groundbreaking, bestselling novel inspired by the hit Broadway show Dear Evan Hansen. Dear Evan Hansen, Today's going to be an amazing day and here's why... When a letter that was never meant to be seen by anyone draws high school senior Evan Hansen into a family's griefover the loss of their son, he is given the chance of a lifetime: to belong. He just has to stick to a lie he never meant to tell, that the notoriously troubled Connor Murphy was his secret best friend. Suddenly, Evan isn't invisible anymore--even to the girl of his dreams. And Connor Murphy's parents, with their beautiful home on the other side of town, have taken him in like he was their own, desperate to know more about their enigmatic son from his closest friend.As Evan gets pulled deeper into their swirl of anger, regret, and confusion, he knows that what he's doing can't be right, but if he's helping people, how wrong can it be? No longer tangled in his once-incapacitating anxiety, this new Evan has a purpose. And a website. He's confident. He's a viral phenomenon. Every day is amazing. Until everything is in danger of unraveling and he comes face to face with his greatest obstacle: himself. A simple lie leads to complicated truths in this big-hearted coming-of-age story of grief, authenticity and the struggle to belong in an age of instant connectivity and profound isolation.

Inappropriate

Author : Vi Keeland
Publisher : C. Scott Publishing
ISBN 13 : 195104505X
Total Pages : 322 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (51 download)

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Book Synopsis Inappropriate by : Vi Keeland

Download or read book Inappropriate written by Vi Keeland and published by C. Scott Publishing. This book was released on 2020-01-20 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new, sexy standalone novel from #1 New York Times Bestseller, Vi Keeland. Terminated for inappropriate behavior. I couldn’t believe the letter in my hands. Nine years. Nine damn years I’d worked my butt off for one of the largest companies in America, and I was fired with a form letter when I returned home from a week in Aruba. All because of a video taken when I was on vacation with my friends—a private video made on my private time. Or so I thought… Pissed off, I cracked open a bottle of wine and wrote my own letter to the gazillionaire CEO telling him what I thought of his company and its practices. I didn’t think he’d actually respond. I certainly never thought I’d suddenly become pen pals with the rich jerk. Eventually, he realized I’d been wronged and made sure I got my job back. Only…it wasn’t the only thing Grant Lexington wanted to do for me. But there was no way I was getting involved with my boss’s boss’s boss. Even if he was ridiculously gorgeous, confident, and charming. It would be completely wrong, inappropriate even. Sort of like the video that got me into trouble to begin with. Two wrongs don’t make a right. But sometimes it’s twice as fun.

Memories of Our Lost Hands

Author : Sonoko Toyoda
Publisher : Carolyn and Ernest Fay Series
ISBN 13 : 9781585444359
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (443 download)

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Book Synopsis Memories of Our Lost Hands by : Sonoko Toyoda

Download or read book Memories of Our Lost Hands written by Sonoko Toyoda and published by Carolyn and Ernest Fay Series. This book was released on 2006 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Hands are our creative contact point with the world. To Jungian analyst Sonoko Toyoda, they represent feminine spirituality and offer a way to achieve wholeness, in women and men alike. But in the contemporary world, many women have lost the wisdom their hands represent and now must recover the memory of them. Through a traditional story told by the Grimm brothers and similar folk tales from around the world, Toyoda explores the ancient meaning of a woman's hands and the wound of losing them. In the details of these stories she finds common threats to feminine independence and creativity and hopeful clues for how these qualities can be regained. She considers, as well, cultural variations in the tales and how the tasks of spiritual wholeness differ for women in Japan and the West. Turning to the biographies of two prominent women artists - Frida Kahlo and Camille Claudel - she discovers similar themes played out in two historical lives. In these women's relationships with their fathers, brothers, and lovers, she considers further the sources of spiritual wounding. In both paintings and sculptures, Toyoda examines what feminine creativity is."--BOOK JACKET.

The Vanishing Half

Author : Brit Bennett
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0525536965
Total Pages : 401 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (255 download)

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Book Synopsis The Vanishing Half by : Brit Bennett

Download or read book The Vanishing Half written by Brit Bennett and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-02-01 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2020 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES * THE WASHINGTON POST * NPR * PEOPLE * TIME MAGAZINE* VANITY FAIR * GLAMOUR 2021 WOMEN'S PRIZE FINALIST “Bennett’s tone and style recalls James Baldwin and Jacqueline Woodson, but it’s especially reminiscent of Toni Morrison’s 1970 debut novel, The Bluest Eye.” —Kiley Reid, Wall Street Journal “A story of absolute, universal timelessness …For any era, it's an accomplished, affecting novel. For this moment, it's piercing, subtly wending its way toward questions about who we are and who we want to be….” – Entertainment Weekly From The New York Times-bestselling author of The Mothers, a stunning new novel about twin sisters, inseparable as children, who ultimately choose to live in two very different worlds, one black and one white. The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters' storylines intersect? Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins. As with her New York Times-bestselling debut The Mothers, Brit Bennett offers an engrossing page-turner about family and relationships that is immersive and provocative, compassionate and wise.

The Secret History

Author : Donna Tartt
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0307765695
Total Pages : 537 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (77 download)

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Book Synopsis The Secret History by : Donna Tartt

Download or read book The Secret History written by Donna Tartt and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-10-19 with total page 537 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK • INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • A contemporary literary classic and "an accomplished psychological thriller ... absolutely chilling" (Village Voice), from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Goldfinch. Under the influence of a charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at a New England college discover a way of thought and life a world away from their banal contemporaries. But their search for the transcendent leads them down a dangerous path, beyond human constructs of morality. “A remarkably powerful novel [and] a ferociously well-paced entertainment.... Forceful, cerebral, and impeccably controlled.” —The New York Times

Birds of America

Author : Lorrie Moore
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0307816885
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (78 download)

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Book Synopsis Birds of America by : Lorrie Moore

Download or read book Birds of America written by Lorrie Moore and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-03-07 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR • From the bestselling author of A Gate at the Stairs: A collection of twelve stories that’s “one of our funniest, most telling anatomies of human love and vulnerability" (The New York Times Book Review). A volume by one of the most exciting writers at work today, the acclaimed author of Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? and Self-Help. Stories remarkable in their range, emotional force, and dark laughter, and in the sheer beauty and power of their language. From the opening story, "Willing"—about a second-rate movie actress in her thirties who has moved back to Chicago, where she makes a seedy motel room her home and becomes involved with a mechanic who has not the least idea of who she is as a human being—Birds of America unfolds a startlingly brilliant series of portraits of the unhinged, the lost, the unsettled of our America. In the story "Which Is More Than I Can Say About Some People" ("There is nothing as complex in the world—no flower or stone—as a single hello from a human being"), a woman newly separated from her husband is on a long-planned trip through Ireland with her mother. When they set out on an expedition to kiss the Blarney Stone, the image of wisdom and success that her mother has always put forth slips away to reveal the panicky woman she really is. In "Charades," a family game at Christmas is transformed into a hilarious and insightful (and fundamentally upsetting) revelation of crumbling family ties. In "Community Life,"a shy, almost reclusive, librarian, Transylvania-born and Vermont-bred, moves in with her boyfriend, the local anarchist in a small university town, and all hell breaks loose. And in "Four Calling Birds, Three French Hens," a woman who goes through the stages of grief as she mourns the death of her cat (Anger, Denial, Bargaining, Häagen Dazs, Rage) is seen by her friends as really mourning other issues: the impending death of her parents, the son she never had, Bosnia.