Orwell's Roses

Orwell's Roses
Author: Rebecca Solnit
Publisher: Granta Books
Total Pages:
Release: 2021-10-21
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1783785535

Roses, pleasure and politics: a fresh take on Orwell as an avid gardener, whose political writing was grounded in his passion for the natural world. 'I loved this book... An exhilarating romp through Orwell's life and times' Margaret Atwood 'Expansive and thought-provoking' Independent Outside my work the thing I care most about is gardening - George Orwell Inspired by her encounter with the surviving roses that Orwell is said to have planted in his cottage in Hertfordshire, Rebecca Solnit explores how his involvement with plants, particularly flowers, illuminates his other commitments as a writer and antifascist, and the intertwined politics of nature and power. Following his journey from the coal mines of England to taking up arms in the Spanish Civil War; from his prescient critique of Stalin to his analysis of the relationship between lies and authoritarianism, Solnit finds a more hopeful Orwell, whose love of nature pulses through his work and actions. And in her dialogue with the author, she makes fascinating forays into colonial legacies in the flower garden, discovers photographer Tina Modotti's roses, reveals Stalin's obsession with growing lemons in impossibly cold conditions, and exposes the brutal rose industry in Colombia. A fresh reading of a towering figure of the 20th century which finds solace and solutions for the political and environmental challenges we face today, Orwell's Roses is a remarkable reflection on pleasure, beauty, and joy as acts of resistance. 'Luminous...It is efflorescent, a study that seeds and blooms, propagates thoughts, and tends to historical associations' New Statesman 'A genuinely extraordinary mind, whose curiosity, intelligence and willingness to learn seem unbounded' Irish Times

The Rose Guardian

The Rose Guardian
Author: Lorina Stephens
Publisher: Five Rivers Publishing
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2019-08-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1988274613

Consummate storyteller, Lorina Stephens, returns with a novel of grief and the power of forgiveness There is a conversation that should have happened between Vi Cotter and her mother. Now it’s too late. But sometimes the dead speak through the legacy they leave, and in this case Vi’s mother bequeaths her, among other things, her journals. Do we sometimes seek absolution from the grave? Do we seek reconciliation between the child, the woman, the crone? In a story of unspoken truths and hidden fears, The Rose Guardian explores the cages we make when we fail to unlock our secrets. This is a quiet, thoughtful book that will appeal to anyone working through the loss of a parent—or their own midlife crisis. Lorina Stephens paints a multi-layered canvas of loss and release, of denial and self-examination, of blame and understanding. The portraiture that emerges as each layer is laid down is a complex and nuanced examination of three generations of women, each the product of their era.... Robert Runte, Essential Edits ...[a] richly detailed novel. Stephens is definitely going on my list of authors to watch and I hope she will go on your list too. Goodreads This is both a powerful and moving story that is told with sensitivity and heart. Masterfully crafted, this book is well worth reading. Highly recommended. LibrayThing

Rose Under Fire

Rose Under Fire
Author: Elizabeth Wein
Publisher: Hachette UK
Total Pages: 377
Release: 2013-09-10
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 1423198697

Don’t miss Elizabeth Wein’s stunning new novel, Stateless While flying an Allied fighter plane from Paris to England, American ATA pilot and amateur poet, Rose Justice, is captured by the Nazis and sent to Ravensbrück, the notorious women's concentration camp. Trapped in horrific circumstances, Rose finds hope in the impossible through the loyalty, bravery, and friendship of her fellow prisoners. But will that be enough to endure the fate that’s in store for her? Elizabeth Wein, author of the critically-acclaimed and best-selling Code Name Verity, delivers another stunning WWII thriller. The unforgettable story of Rose Justice is forged from heart-wrenching courage, resolve, and the slim, bright chance of survival. Praise for Rose Under Fire * “Wein masterfully sets up a stark contrast between the innocent American teen’s view of an untarnished world and the realities of the Holocaust. [A]lthough the story’s action follows [Code Name Verity]’s, it has its own, equally incandescent integrity. Rich in detail, from the small kindnesses of fellow prisoners to harrowing scenes of escape and the Nazi Doctors’ Trial in Nuremburg, at the core of this novel is the resilience of human nature and the power of friendship and hope.” —Kirkus, starred review * “Wein excels at weaving research seamlessly into narrative and has crafted another indelible story about friendship borne out of unimaginable adversity.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

Briar Rose

Briar Rose
Author: Jana Oliver
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Total Pages: 482
Release: 2013-09-12
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 1447241363

Briar Rose believes in fairy tales . . . And now, because of a family curse, she’s living one. Doomed to fall asleep for one hundred years on her sixteenth birthday, Briar has woken up in the darkest, most twisted fairy tale she could ever have dreamed of – miles away from the safe, boring small-town life that she has left behind. Briar must fight her way out of the story, but she can’t do it alone. She always believed in handsome princes, and now she’s met one her only chance is to put her life in his hands, or there will be no happy ever after and no waking up . . .

BRAVE

BRAVE
Author: Rose McGowan
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 154
Release: 2018-01-30
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 006265599X

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A revealing memoir and empowering manifesto - As featured in Ronan Farrow's CATCH AND KILL and Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey's SHE SAID "BRAVE works beautifully as a manifesto. It’s a call to arms—not just against the specific men who mistreated McGowan and the men and women who enabled that mistreatment, but against an industry."—The Boston Globe Rose McGowan was born in one cult and came of age in another, more visible cult: Hollywood. In a strange world where she was continually on display, stardom soon became a personal nightmare of constant exposure and sexualization. Rose escaped into the world of her mind, something she had done as a child, and into high-profile relationships. Every detail of her personal life became public, and the realities of an inherently sexist industry emerged with every script, role, public appearance, and magazine cover. The Hollywood machine packaged her as a sexualized bombshell, hijacking her image and identity and marketing them for profit. Hollywood expected Rose to be silent and cooperative and to stay the path. Instead, she rebelled and asserted her true identity and voice. She reemerged unscripted, courageous, victorious, angry, smart, fierce, unapologetic, controversial, and real as f*ck. BRAVEis her raw, honest, and poignant memoir/manifesto—a no-holds-barred, pull-no-punches account of the rise of a millennial icon, fearless activist, and unstoppable force for change who is determined to expose the truth about the entertainment industry, dismantle the concept of fame, shine a light on a multibillion-dollar business built on systemic misogyny, and empower people everywhere to wake up and be BRAVE. "My life, as you will read, has taken me from one cult to another. BRAVE is the story of how I fought my way out of these cults and reclaimed my life. I want to help you do the same." -Rose McGowan

Mothers

Mothers
Author: Jacqueline Rose
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 162
Release: 2018-05-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0374715831

A simple argument guides this book: motherhood is the place in our culture where we lodge, or rather bury, the reality of our own conflicts. By making mothers the objects of both licensed idealization and cruelty, we blind ourselves to the world’s iniquities and shut down the portals of the heart. Mothers are the ultimate scapegoat for our personal and political failings, for everything that is wrong with the world, which becomes their task (unrealizable, of course) to repair. Moving commandingly between pop cultural references such as Roald Dahl’s Matilda to insights on motherhood in the ancient world and the contemporary stigmatization of single mothers, Jacqueline Rose delivers a groundbreaking report into something so prevalent we hardly notice. Mothers is an incisive, rousing call to action from one of our most important contemporary thinkers.

Love's Work

Love's Work
Author: Gillian Rose
Publisher: New York Review of Books
Total Pages: 31
Release: 2011-05-31
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1590173651

Love’s Work is at once a memoir and a work of philosophy. Written by the English philosopher Gillian Rose as she was dying of cancer, it is a book about both the fallibility and the endurance of love, love that becomes real and lasting through an ongoing reckoning with its own limitations. Rose looks back on her childhood, the complications of her parents’ divorce and her dyslexia, and her deep and divided feelings about what it means to be Jewish. She tells the stories of several friends also laboring under the sentence of death. From the sometimes conflicting vantage points of her own and her friends’ tales, she seeks to work out (seeks, because the work can never be complete—to be alive means to be incomplete) a distinctive outlook on life, one that will do justice to our yearning both for autonomy and for connection to others. With droll self-knowledge (“I am highly qualified in unhappy love affairs,” Rose writes, “My earliest unhappy love affair was with Roy Rogers”) and with unsettling wisdom (“To live, to love, is to be failed”), Rose has written a beautiful, tender, tough, and intricately wrought survival kit packed with necessary but unanswerable questions.

The Gustav Sonata: A Novel

The Gustav Sonata: A Novel
Author: Rose Tremain
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2016-09-27
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0393246701

Winner of the 2016 National Jewish Book Award for Fiction A poignant tale about the enduring friendship between two men under the shadow of the Second World War. Gustav Perle grows up in a small town in Switzerland, where the horrors of the Second World War seem only a distant echo. An only child, he lives alone with Emilie, the mother he adores but who treats him with bitter severity. He begins an intense friendship with a Jewish boy his age, talented and mercurial Anton Zweibel, a budding concert pianist. The novel follows Gustav’s family, tracing the roots of his mother’s anti-Semitism and its impact on her son and his beloved friend. Moving backward to the war years and the painful repercussions of an act of conscience, and forward through the lives and careers of the two men, one who becomes a hotel owner, the other a concert pianist, The Gustav Sonata explores the passionate love of childhood friendship as it is lost, transformed, and regained over a lifetime. It is a powerful and deeply moving addition to the beloved oeuvre of one of our greatest contemporary novelists.

Merivel: A Man of His Time

Merivel: A Man of His Time
Author: Rose Tremain
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2013-04-15
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0393079570

Court physician Robert Merivel has a middle age crisis and sets off for Versailles where he meets Madame de Flamanville, a Swiss botanist, and rescues a captive bear to take back to Bidnold Manor.

Nine Pints

Nine Pints
Author: Rose George
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2018-10-23
Genre: Science
ISBN: 162779638X

Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist: A “compelling chronicle” of the science, politics, and business of blood (The Wall Street Journal). Blood carries life, yet the sight of it makes people faint. It is a waste product and a commodity pricier than oil. It can save lives and transmit deadly infections. Each one of us has roughly nine pints of it, yet many don’t even know their own blood type. And for all its ubiquitousness, the few tablespoons of blood discharged by 800 million women are still regarded as taboo: menstruation is perhaps the single most demonized biological event. Rose George, author of The Big Necessity, takes us from ancient practices of bloodletting to the breakthrough of the “liquid biopsy,” which promises to diagnose cancer and other diseases with a simple blood test. She introduces Janet Vaughan, who set up the world’s first system of mass blood donation during the Blitz, and Arunachalam Muruganantham, known as “Menstrual Man” for his work on sanitary pads for developing countries. She probes the lucrative business of plasma transfusions, in which the US is known as the “OPEC of plasma.” And she looks to the future, as researchers seek to bring synthetic blood to a hospital near you. Spanning science and politics, individual’s stories and global epidemics, Nine Pints reveals our life’s blood in an entirely new light. One of Bill Gates’ Recommended Summer Reading Titles “Stellar . . . An informative, elegant, and provocative exploration of the life-giving substance . . . A wondrously well-written work.” —Booklist (starred review) Both fascinating and informative . . . George packs her book with the kinds of provocative, witty, and rigorously reported facts and stories sure to make readers view the integral fluid coursing through our veins in a whole new way.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “George charges down wholly unexpected avenues of medical history and global injustice, leaving the reader by turns giddy and appalled. And always, always in awe of the writing.” —Mary Roach, author of Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War “A very good book.” —The New York Times