The House on Mango Street

The House on Mango Street
Author: Sandra Cisneros
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 130
Release: 2013-04-30
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0345807197

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A coming-of-age classic about a young girl growing up in Chicago • Acclaimed by critics, beloved by readers of all ages, taught in schools and universities alike, and translated around the world—from the winner of the 2019 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature. “Cisneros draws on her rich [Latino] heritage...and seduces with precise, spare prose, creat[ing] unforgettable characters we want to lift off the page. She is not only a gifted writer, but an absolutely essential one.” —The New York Times Book Review The House on Mango Street is one of the most cherished novels of the last fifty years. Readers from all walks of life have fallen for the voice of Esperanza Cordero, growing up in Chicago and inventing for herself who and what she will become. “In English my name means hope,” she says. “In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting." Told in a series of vignettes—sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes joyous—Cisneros’s masterpiece is a classic story of childhood and self-discovery and one of the greatest neighborhood novels of all time. Like Sinclair Lewis’s Main Street or Toni Morrison’s Sula, it makes a world through people and their voices, and it does so in language that is poetic and direct. This gorgeous coming-of-age novel is a celebration of the power of telling one’s story and of being proud of where you're from.

Woman Hollering Creek

Woman Hollering Creek
Author: Sandra Cisneros
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2013-04-30
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0804150885

A collection of stories by Sandra Cisneros, the celebrated bestselling author of The House on Mango Street and the winner of the 2019 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature. The lovingly drawn characters of these stories give voice to the vibrant and varied life on both sides of the Mexican border with tales of pure discovery, filled with moments of infinite and intimate wisdom.

Cricket in the Road

Cricket in the Road
Author: Michael Anthony
Publisher: Hodder Education
Total Pages: 134
Release: 2021-06-28
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1398342505

There have been many great and enduring works of literature by Caribbean authors over the last century. The Caribbean Contemporary Classics collection celebrates these deep and vibrant stories, overflowing with life and acute observations about society. A sparkling collection of short stories set in Trinidad. Anthony takes our hand and walks us from the valley of the lush, green cocoa trees, to taste the sweet rivers flowing nearby. We pluck fruit from the sapodilla tree and feel the crisp, brown guava leaved carpet crunch under our feet. We see Mayaro and Port of the Spain through the eyes of childish innocence and grown-up ignorance. Beautiful, evocative and poignant, the stories are sprinkled with themes of yearning for home, sad realisations and a longing for a pre-modern totality.

A House of My Own

A House of My Own
Author: Sandra Cisneros
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 421
Release: 2015-10-06
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0385351348

Winner of the PEN Center USA Literary Award for Creative Nonfiction • From the celebrated bestselling author of The House on Mango Street: "This memoir has the transcendent sweep of a full life.” —Houston Chronicle From Chicago to Mexico, the places Sandra Cisneros has lived have provided inspiration for her now-classic works of fiction and poetry. But a house of her own, a place where she could truly take root, has eluded her. In this jigsaw autobiography, made up of essays and images spanning three decades—and including never-before-published work—Cisneros has come home at last. Written with her trademark lyricism, in these signature pieces the acclaimed author of The House on Mango Street and winner of the 2019 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature shares her transformative memories and reveals her artistic and intellectual influences. Poignant, honest, and deeply moving, A House of My Own is an exuberant celebration of a life lived to the fullest, from one of our most beloved writers.

Playing for the Devil's Fire

Playing for the Devil's Fire
Author: Phillippe Diederich
Publisher: Cinco Puntos Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2016-02-29
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1941026311

Thirteen-year-old Boli and his friends are deep in the middle of a game of marbles. An older boy named Mosca has won the prized Devil's Fire marble. His pals are jealous and want to win it away from him. This is Izayoc, the place of tears, a small pueblo in a tiny valley west of Mexico City where nothing much happens. It's a typical hot Sunday morning except that on the way to church someone discovers the severed head of Enrique Quintanilla propped on the ledge of one of the cement planters in the plaza and everything changes. Not apocalyptic changes, like phalanxes of men riding on horses with stingers for tails, but subtle ones: poor neighbors turning up with brand-new SUVs, pimpled teens with fancy girls hanging off them. Boli's parents leave for Toluca and don't arrive at their destination. No one will talk about it. A washed out masked wrestler turns up one day, a man only interested in finding his next meal. Boli hopes to inspire the luchador to set out with him to find his parents. Phillippe Diederich was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in Mexico City and Miami. His parents were forced out of Haiti by the dictatorship of Papa Doc Duvalier in 1963. As a photojournalist, Diederich has traveled extensively through Mexico and witnessed the terrible tragedies of the Drug Wars.

Have You Seen Marie?

Have You Seen Marie?
Author: Sandra Cisneros
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 152
Release: 2012-10-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307960862

The internationally acclaimed author of The House on Mango Street and winner of the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature gives us a deeply moving tale of loss, grief, and healing: a lyrically told, richly illustrated fable for grown-ups about a woman’s search for a cat who goes missing in the wake of her mother’s death. The word “orphan” might not seem to apply to a fifty-three-year-old woman. Yet this is exactly how Sandra feels as she finds herself motherless, alone like “a glove left behind at the bus station.” What just might save her is her search for someone else gone missing: Marie, the black-and-white cat of her friend, Roz, who ran off the day they arrived from Tacoma. As Sandra and Roz scour the streets of San Antonio, posting flyers and asking everywhere, “Have you seen Marie?” the pursuit of this one small creature takes on unexpected urgency and meaning. With full-color illustrations that bring this transformative quest to vivid life, Have You Seen Marie? showcases a beloved author’s storytelling magic, in a tale that reminds us how love, even when it goes astray, does not stay lost forever.

Prayers for Sale

Prayers for Sale
Author: Sandra Dallas
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2010-04-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1429962372

Hennie Comfort is eighty-six and has lived in the mountains of Middle Swan, Colorado since before it was Colorado. Nit Spindle is just seventeen and newly married. She and her husband have just moved to the high country in search of work. It's 1936 and the depression has ravaged the country and Nit and her husband have suffered greatly. Hennie notices the young woman loitering near the old sign outside of her house that promises "Prayers For Sale". Hennie doesn't sell prayers, never has, but there's something about the young woman that she's drawn to. The harsh conditions of life that each have endured create an instant bond and an unlikely friendship is formed, one in which the deepest of hardships are shared and the darkest of secrets are confessed. Sandra Dallas has created an unforgettable tale of a friendship between two women, one with surprising twists and turns, and one that is ultimately a revelation of the finest parts of the human spirit.

Tough Customer

Tough Customer
Author: Sandra Brown
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 512
Release: 2021-12-28
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1982177128

Originally published: New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010.