The Torchlight List

The Torchlight List
Author: Jim Flynn
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 123
Release: 2013-11-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 162873552X

In today’s world it seems that everywhere we turn we are saturated with book recommendations from talk shows, magazines, radio shows, friends, and top ten lists. But which books are really the best, and what effects do the books we read have on our intelligence? The Torchlight List has the answers. A professor for over forty years, Jim Flynn was concerned when he saw that his students were reading less and less. He decided to compile a list of recommendations for them, which expanded to include two hundred titles that transport the reader into a magic realm of knowledge and imagination. The books must also shed light on human psychology, history, science, or philosophy: the concepts needed to comprehend the complexities of the modern world. The list, named in honor of Flynn’s uncle who read by torchlight onboard a ship during WWI, is divided by geographical area. Flynn offers a brief explanation on the history each book deals with and comments on the plots with humor and wit. He bets each reader that at least one of the five first titles will change his or her life. This is a book that will inspire you to reread books you love, and to discover and relish many new ones.

The New Torchlight List

The New Torchlight List
Author: James Robert Flynn
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2016
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781927249444

Writers' festivals, TV book shows, radio interviews, book clubs, TED Talks-today's novelists are a travelling roadshow. New books and their authors are thrown to the wolves, aka reviewers, to be savaged, praised to the skies, or sadly just ignored. In the midst of all this, how can the bewildered booklover decide what to read? Jim Flynn tackles the question head-on in this racy, funny, no-holds-barred book, the sequel to his bestseller The Torchlight List. Flynn spent 6 years reading nearly 400 books by modern authors, including many new works in translation. Are the authors who receive all the hype really the best? Who's worth reading and who's not? Readers will be shocked, surprised and sometimes enraged by Flynn's audacious opinions. Above all they will be inspired, as we have been at Awa Press, to try many new authors and read new work by authors we have loved in the past.

The Story of Light

The Story of Light
Author: Ben Bova
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Total Pages: 482
Release: 2002-10
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9781402200090

From the origins of the earth to the exploration of the heavens, Ben Bova, a multiple winner of science fiction's Hugo Award, unveils the beauty and science of light. In accessible prose, he explains new discoveries in areas ranging from relativity and quantum physics to perspective and the Renaissance painters' use of light.

In Borrowed Light

In Borrowed Light
Author: Barbara Keating
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 611
Release: 2011-06-27
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1446485722

Fourteen years after independence, the enduring childhood friendship of three women has carried them through times of violence and loss in Kenya, their chosen homeland. Hannah Olsen and her husband Lars own Langani Farm and Safari Lodge where they struggle to protect their wildlife and land from poachers and corrupt officials. But the developing relationship between their daughter and a young African boy with a terrifying legacy tests the strength of their family. Sarah Singh, wildlife researcher and renowned photographer, is married to an Indian journalist. However, their inability to have children puts Sarah's relationship with her husband and his family under increasing pressure. And Camilla Broughton Smith, international model and fashion designer, has given up a sparkling career to work with the charismatic safari guide Anthony Chapman, who has been injured in a tragic accident. Yet his bitterness and fear of commitment threaten to shatter her dreams. The final part of the Langani trilogy is an unforgettable story of courage and fortitude, of loyalty and murderous deceit, of friendship and betrayal, set against the backdrop of the beauty and wilderness of Kenya.

Daughter of the Salt King

Daughter of the Salt King
Author: A. S. Thornton
Publisher: CamCat Publishing, LLC
Total Pages: 462
Release: 2021-02-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0744300509

A 2021 Foreword INDIES Award Winner in Romance and Finalist in Fantasy A 2022 Benjamin Franklin Award Runner-Up in Best New Voice: Fiction “The heat and romance of the desert, the push and the pull of Emel’s desperation, and the magic and humanity of a caustic jinni make Daughter of the Salt King an irresistible ride.” —Amy Harmon, New York Times bestselling author “This riveting debut novel will leave readers eagerly awaiting Thornton’s future works.” —Booklist A girl of the desert and a jinni born long ago by the sea, both enslaved to the Salt King—but with this capricious magic, only one can be set free. As a daughter of the Salt King, Emel ought to be among the most powerful women in the desert. Instead, she and her sisters have less freedom than even her father's slaves . . . for the Salt King uses his own daughters to seduce visiting noblemen into becoming powerful allies by marriage. Escape from her father’s court seems impossible, and Emel dreams of a life where she can choose her fate. When members of a secret rebellion attack, Emel stumbles upon an alluring escape route: her father’s best-kept secret—a wish-granting jinni, Saalim. But in the land of the Salt King, wishes are never what they seem. Saalim’s magic is volatile. Emel could lose everything with a wish for her freedom as the rebellion intensifies around her. She soon finds herself playing a dangerous game that pits dreams against responsibility and love against the promise of freedom. As she finds herself drawn to the jinni for more than his magic, captivated by both him and the world he shows her outside her desert village, she has to decide if freedom is worth the loss of her family, her home and Saalim, the only man she’s ever loved. For readers who enjoy epic desert fantasies and forbidden romance like The Forbidden Wish by Jessica Khoury, The Wrath & the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh, and Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri.

Torches of Light

Torches of Light
Author: Ann Short Chirhart
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Total Pages: 356
Release: 2005
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9780820324463

As turbulent social and economic changes swept the South in the first half of the twentieth century, education became the flashpoint. Ann Short Chirhart's study is the first to analyze such modernizing events in Georgia. She shows how these changes affected the creation of the state's public school system and cast its teachers in a crucial role as mediators between transformation and tradition. Depicting Georgia's steps toward modernity through teachers' professional and cultural work and the educational reforms they advocated, Chirhart presents a unique perspective on the convergence of voices across the state calling for reform or continuity, secularism or theology, equality or enforced norms, consumption or self-reliance. Although most teachers, black and white, shared backgrounds rooted in localism and evangelical Protestantism, attitudes about race and gender kept them apart. African American teachers, individually and collectively, redefined traditional beliefs to buttress ideals of racial uplift and to press for equal access to public services. White women adapted similar beliefs in different ways to enhance their efforts to train greater numbers of white students for professional and wage labor. Torches of Light is based on such sources as government archives, manuscript collections, and interviews with teachers. As Chirhart examines the ideas over which Georgians clashed, she also shows how those ideas were embodied in New Deal and U.S. Department of Agriculture programs, the political activities of the black Georgia Teachers and Educators Association, and the Georgia legislature's 1949 Minimum Foundation Act. Through two world wars and the Great Depression, teachers sought to reconcile clashing beliefs not only to renegotiate class, race, and gender roles but also to enhance their own professionalism and authority.

It's Not Easy Being Mean

It's Not Easy Being Mean
Author: Lisi Harrison
Publisher: Poppy
Total Pages: 188
Release: 2008-08-01
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 0316041726

Massie Block: Getting back into Octavian Country Day was a piece of sugar-free cake, compared to Massie's next goal-finding the key that unlocks an ah-mazing legendary secret room at OCD! Alpha eighth grader Skye Hamilton and her clique have stashed the key in the bedroom of one mystery Briarwood boy, but who? Whoever finds the key gets access to the secret room for an entire year and the prestige that comes along with it. But what happens when LBR Layne seems to be getting closer? This is way more than a matter of life or death, it's a matter of in or out! Kristen Gregory: Always been a star on the soccer field, but her style gets majorly cramped when her friends are forced to join the team. They better start kicking those soccer balls or Kristen's going to start kicking some . . . ! Alicia Rivera: Uses her skills as a gossip reporter to scheme her way into the rooms of all the Briarwood hotties! Dylan Marvil: Heard depression makes people lose weight. Is hoping for some sad news soon because she's popping donut holes the way some people pop Tic-Tacs. Claire Lyons: Being famous isn't all it's cracked up to be! Her agent confiscates her gummies, and forces her to do some very bad things to make her more "edgy." Worst of all, her constant meetings with lawyers and movie execs are eating into her time with the P.C. and with Cam! Is being a Hollywood starlet worth the Gucci-high price tag?

Goodnight Lion

Goodnight Lion
Author: Joshua George
Publisher: Magic Flashlight Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2018-09
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 9781787006126

A magical bedtime story book for children. Lion is ready for bed, but first he wants to say good night to all his animal friends. Insert the magic flashlight between the pages to find Lion's friends in each night-time scene and watch children glow with delight! Repetitive, rhyming text to help young children learn rhythm and tone. Clever windows throughout reveal hidden animals when the flashlight is inserted. Includes a handy ribbon to keep the magic flashlight attached to the book. "This is a lovely read. As well as the cheery illustrations by Zhanna Ovocheva and the interactive element, the rhythmic text makes for a fun read aloud. It highlights how different the sky and surroundings are when it is night time." - Mamma Filz (Book blogger) "If you are after bedtime stories with the 'WOW factor' these are for you. Inside the books are cardboard 'torches' that help your child see extra things in the pictures. So clever and so exciting." - The SEN Resources Blog

A Book Too Risky to Publish

A Book Too Risky to Publish
Author: James R. Flynn
Publisher:
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2019-12-20
Genre: Academic freedom
ISBN: 9781680532043

"Freedom to debate is essential to the development of critical thought, but on university campuses today free speech is restricted for fear of causing offense. This book surveys the underlying factors that circumscribe the ideas tolerated in our institutions of learning"--

Secrets of the Apple Tree

Secrets of the Apple Tree
Author: Carron Brown
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2015-07
Genre: Apples
ISBN: 9781782402862

This beautifully illustrated book will introduce children to the joys of nature, and show them what wonderful secrets are revealed if you just look a little closer. By holding a light behind each page, children can see the creatures who make a tree their home, from the worms who live among the roots to the birds who nest high up in the branches. The clever see-through reading technique creates an experience of interactive learning, showing both the surface and what is hidden underneath at the same time.