On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
Author: Ocean Vuong
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2021-06-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0525562044

The instant New York Times Bestseller • Nominated for the 2019 National Book Award for Fiction “A lyrical work of self-discovery that’s shockingly intimate and insistently universal…Not so much briefly gorgeous as permanently stunning.” —Ron Charles, The Washington Post Ocean Vuong’s debut novel is a shattering portrait of a family, a first love, and the redemptive power of storytelling On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born — a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam — and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one’s own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard. With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years. Named a Best Book of the Year by: GQ, Kirkus Reviews, Booklist, Library Journal, TIME, Esquire, The Washington Post, Apple, Good Housekeeping, The New Yorker, The New York Public Library, Elle.com, The Guardian, The A.V. Club, NPR, Lithub, Entertainment Weekly, Vogue.com, The San Francisco Chronicle, Mother Jones, Vanity Fair, The Wall Street Journal Magazine and more!

Ecstasies

Ecstasies
Author: Carlo Ginzburg
Publisher: Penguin Mass Market
Total Pages: 339
Release: 1991
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780140158588

Weaving early accounts of witchcraft-trial records, ecclesiastical tracts, folklore, and popular iconography-into new and startling patterns, Carlo Ginzburg presents in Ecstasies compelling evidence of a hidden shamanistic culture that flourished across Europe and in England for thousands of years.

The Art of Description

The Art of Description
Author: Mark Doty
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Total Pages: 119
Release: 2014-12-02
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1555979181

"It sounds like a simple thing, to say what you see," Mark Doty begins. "But try to find words for the shades of a mottled sassafras leaf, or the reflectivity of a bay on an August morning, or the very beginnings of desire stirring in the gaze of someone looking right into your eyes . . ." Doty finds refuge in the sensory experience found in poems by Blake, Whitman, Bishop, and others. The Art of Description is an invaluable book by one of America's most revered writers and teachers.

In the Presence of Absence

In the Presence of Absence
Author: Mahmoud Darwish
Publisher: Archipelago
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2012-02-29
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 1935744658

Winner of the 2012 National Translation Award “What Sinan [Antoon] has done with In the Presence of Absence is a kind of miraculous work of dedication and love. Reading this volume is sheer enjoyment and sublimity.” —Saadi Yousef “There are two maps of Palestine that politicians will never manage to forfeit: the one kept in the memories of Palestinian refugees, and that which is drawn by Darwish’s poetry.” —Anton Shammas One of the most transcendent poets of his generation, Darwish composed this remarkable elegy at the apex of his creativity, but with the full knowledge that his death was imminent. Thinking it might be his final work, he summoned all his poetic genius to create a luminous work that defies categorization. In stunning language, Darwish’s self-elegy inhabits a rare space where opposites bleed and blend into each other. Prose and poetry, life and death, home and exile are all sung by the poet and his other. On the threshold of im/mortality, the poet looks back at his own existence, intertwined with that of his people. Through these lyrical meditations on love, longing, Palestine, history, friendship, family, and the ongoing conversation between life and death, the poet bids himself and his readers a poignant farewell.

The Salt Cellars

The Salt Cellars
Author: Spurgeon, Charles H.
Publisher: Delmarva Publications, Inc.
Total Pages: 894
Release: 2015-08-11
Genre: History
ISBN:

The salt of proverbs is of great service if discreetly used in sermons and addresses; and I have hope that these SALT-CELLARS of mine may be resorted to by teachers and speakers, and that they may find them helpful. There are many proverb books, but none exactly like these. I have not followed any one of the other collections, although, of necessity, the most of the quaint sayings are the same as will be found in them. Some of my sentences are quite new, and more are put into a fresh form. The careful omission of all that are questionable as to purity has been my aim; but should any one of them, unknown to me, have another meaning than I have seen in it, I cannot help it, and must trust the reader to accept the best and purest sense which it bears; for that is what it meant to me. It is a pity that the sale of a proverb should ever be unsavory; but, beyond doubt, in several of the best collections, there are very questionable ones, which ought to be forgotten. It is better to select than indiscriminately to collect. An old saying which is not clean ought not to be preserved because of its age; but it should, for that reason, be the more readily dropped, since it must have done harm enough already, and the sooner the old, rottenness is buried the better. My homely notes are made up, as a rule, of other proverbial expressions. They are intended to give hints as to how the proverbs may be used by those who are willing to flavor their speech with them. I may not, in every case, have hit upon the first meaning of the maxims: possibly, in some instances, the sense which I have put upon them may not be the general one; but the meanings given are such as they may bear without a twist, and such as commended themselves to me for general usefulness. The antiquary has not been the guide in this case; but the moralist and the Christian. From what sources I have gleaned these proverbs it is impossible for me to tell. They have been jotted down as they were met with. Having become common property, it is not easy to find out their original proprietors. If I knew where I found a pithy sentence, I would acknowledge the source most freely; but the gleanings of years, in innumerable fields, cannot now be traced to this literary estate or to that. In the mass, I confess that almost everything in these books is borrowed — from cyclopedia’s of proverbs, “garlands,” almanacs, books, newspapers, magazines — from anywhere and everywhere. A few proverbs I may myself have made, though even this is difficult; but, from the necessity of the case, sentences which have become proverbs are things to be quoted, and not to be invented.

The Bridge of Beyond

The Bridge of Beyond
Author: Simone Schwarz-Bart
Publisher: New York Review of Books
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2013-08-20
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1590176804

This is an intoxicating tale of love and wonder, mothers and daughters, spiritual values and the grim legacy of slavery on the French Antillean island of Guadeloupe. Here long-suffering Telumee tells her life story and tells us about the proud line of Lougandor women she continues to draw strength from. Time flows unevenly during the long hot blue days as the madness of the island swirls around the villages, and Telumee, raised in the shelter of wide skirts, must learn how to navigate the adversities of a peasant community, the ecstasies of love, and domestic realities while arriving at her own precious happiness. In the words of Toussine, the wise, tender grandmother who raises her, “Behind one pain there is another. Sorrow is a wave without end. But the horse mustn’t ride you, you must ride it.” A masterpiece of Caribbean literature, The Bridge of Beyond relates the triumph of a generous and hopeful spirit, while offering a gorgeously lush, imaginative depiction of the flora, landscape, and customs of Gua­deloupe. Simone Schwarz-Bart’s incantatory prose, interwoven with Creole proverbs and lore, appears here in a remarkable translation by Barbara Bray.

Chosen Prey

Chosen Prey
Author: John Sandford
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2001-05-07
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1101146354

He seems like such a nice man. You’d never guess what was going on in his mind… Art history professor James Qatar has a hobby: he takes secret photographs of women to fuel more elaborate fantasies. When he’s alone. Behind locked doors. Then one day, he goes a step further and... well, one thing leads to another. Qatar has no choice. He has to kill her. And you know something? He likes it. When Deputy Chief Lucas Davenport takes the case, he assumes it’ll be straightforward police work. He couldn’t be more wrong. As the investigation trail takes some unexpected turns, it becomes clear that nothing is straightforward about this killer, his victims, or his motives. And to stop him Lucas has no choice but to walk right into his lair. WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY JOHN SANDFORD

The Electric Woman

The Electric Woman
Author: Tessa Fontaine
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2018-05-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0374717028

A New York Times Editors' Choice; A Southern Living Best Book of 2018; An Amazon Editors' Best Book of 2018; A Refinery29 Best Book of 2018; A New York Post Most Unforgettable Book of 2018 "Fascinating." —Vogue “This is the story of a daughter and her mother. It’s also a memoir, a love story, and a tale of high-flying stunts . . . An adventure toward and through fear.” —Southern Living Tessa Fontaine’s astonishing memoir of pushing past fear, The Electric Woman, follows the author on a life-affirming journey of loss and self-discovery—through her time on the road with the last traveling American sideshow and her relationship with an adventurous, spirited mother. Turns out, one lesson applies to living through illness, keeping the show on the road, letting go of the person you love most, and eating fire: The trick is there is no trick. You eat fire by eating fire. Two journeys—a daughter’s and a mother’s—bear witness to this lesson in The Electric Woman. For three years Tessa Fontaine lived in a constant state of emergency as her mother battled stroke after stroke. But hospitals, wheelchairs, and loss of language couldn’t hold back such a woman; she and her husband would see Italy together, come what may. Thus Fontaine became free to follow her own piper, a literal giant inviting her to “come play” in the World of Wonders, America’s last traveling sideshow. How could she resist? Transformed into an escape artist, a snake charmer, and a high-voltage Electra, Fontaine witnessed the marvels of carnival life: intense camaraderie and heartbreak, the guilty thrill of hard-earned cash exchanged for a peek into the impossible, and, most marvelous of all, the stories carnival folks tell about themselves. Through these, Fontaine trained her body to ignore fear and learned how to keep her heart open in the face of loss. A story for anyone who has ever imagined running away with the circus, wanted to be someone else, or wanted a loved one to live forever, The Electric Woman is ultimately about death-defying acts of all kinds, especially that ever constant: good old-fashioned unconditional love.