The Veins of the Ocean

The Veins of the Ocean
Author: Patricia Engel
Publisher: Atlantic Books
Total Pages: 454
Release: 2017-02-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1611859581

WINNER OF THE DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE 2017 Reina Castillo's beloved brother is serving a death sentence for a crime that shocked the community - a crime for which Reina secretly blames herself. When she is at last released from her seven-year prison vigil, Reina moves to a sleepy town in the Florida Keys seeking anonymity. There, she meets Nesto, a recently exiled Cuban awaiting with hope the arrival of the children he left behind in Havana. Through Nesto's love of the sea and capacity for faith, Reina comes to understand her own connections to the life-giving and destructive forces of the ocean that surrounds her as well as its role in her family's troubled history. Set in the vibrant coastal and Caribbean communities of Miami; the Florida Keys; Havana, Cuba; and Cartagena, Colombia, The Veins of the Ocean is a wrenching exploration of what happens when life tests the limits of compassion, and a stunning and unforgettable portrait of fractured lives finding solace in the beauty and power of the natural world, and in one another.

Vida

Vida
Author: Patricia Engel
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2010-09-07
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0802196187

A New York Times Notable Book, an NPR Best Debut of the Year, and a PEN/Hemingway finalist. These linked stories follow Sabina as she navigates her shifting identity as a daughter of the Colombian diaspora, and struggles to find her place within and beyond the net of her strong, protective, but embattled family. In “Lucho,” Sabina’s family—already “foreigners in a town of blancos”—is shunned by the community when a relative commits an unspeakable act of violence, but she is in turn befriended by the town bad boy, who has a secret of his own. In “Desaliento,” Sabina surrounds herself with other young drifters who spend their time looking for love and then fleeing from it—until reality catches up with one of them. And in “Vida,” the urgency of Sabina’s self-imposed exile in Miami fades when she meets an enigmatic Colombian woman with a tragic past. “Vida calls to mind some of the best fiction from recent years. Like Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge, Engel uses stories about connected characters to illuminate her main subject, in this case Sabina, who moves with her family from Bogotá, Colombia, to New Jersey. Engel brings Sabina’s family and culture to life with a narrative style reminiscent of Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao . . . Vivid, memorable . . . An exceptionally promising debut.” —The Plain Dealer

It's Not Love, It's Just Paris

It's Not Love, It's Just Paris
Author: Patricia Engel
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
Total Pages: 178
Release: 2013-08-06
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0802193277

A spellbinding story of a young American abroad and a star-crossed relationship: “This is a novel to get lost in.” —The Miami Herald Lita del Cielo is the daughter of two Colombian immigrants who arrived in America with nothing and made a fortune with their Latin food empire. Now Lita has been granted one year to pursue her studies in Paris before returning to work in the family business. She moves into a crumbling Left Bank mansion known as “The House of Stars,” where the spirited but bedridden Countess Séraphine rents out rooms to young women visiting Paris to work, to study, and, unofficially, to find love. Cautious and guarded, Lita keeps a cool distance from the other girls, who seem at once boldly adult and impulsively naïve, who both intimidate and fascinate her. Then Lita meets Cato, and the contours of her world shift. Charming, enigmatic, and weak with illness, Cato is the son of a notorious right-wing politician. As Cato and Lita retreat to their own world, they soon find it difficult to keep the outside world from closing in on theirs. Ultimately Lita must decide whether to stay in France with Cato or return home to fulfill her family’s dreams for her future. From the author of Vida, a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award, It’s Not Love, It’s Just Paris is a love story, a portrait of a Paris caught between the old world and the new, and an exploration of one woman’s journey to lay claim to her own life. “Wise and accomplished . . . Beautifully written.” —The New York Times Book Review

Infinite Country

Infinite Country
Author: Patricia Engel
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2021-03-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1982159480

A REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK and INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE 2021 NEW AMERICAN VOICES AWARD, LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL, A 2022 DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE FINALIST, AND A NATIONAL ENDOWMENT OF THE ARTS “BIG READS” SELECTION “A profound, beautiful novel.” —People * “Poignant.” —BuzzFeed * “A breathtaking story of the unimaginable prices paid for a better life.” —Esquire This “heartbreaking portrait of a family dealing with the realities of migration and separation” (Time) is “a sweeping love story and tragic drama [and] an authentic vision of what the American Dream looks like in a nationalistic country” (Elle). I often wonder if we are living the wrong life in the wrong country. Talia is being held at a correctional facility for adolescent girls in the forested mountains of Colombia after committing an impulsive act of violence that may or may not have been warranted. She urgently needs to get out and get back home to Bogotá, where her father and a plane ticket to the United States are waiting for her. If she misses her flight, she might also miss her chance to finally be reunited with her family. How this family came to occupy two different countries, two different worlds, comes into focus like twists of a kaleidoscope. We see Talia’s parents, Mauro and Elena, fall in love in a market stall as teenagers against a backdrop of civil war and social unrest. We see them leave Bogotá with their firstborn, Karina, in pursuit of safety and opportunity in the United States on a temporary visa, and we see the births of two more children, Nando and Talia, on American soil. We witness the decisions and indecisions that lead to Mauro’s deportation and the family’s splintering—the costs they’ve all been living with ever since. Award-winning, internationally acclaimed author Patricia Engel, herself a dual citizen and the daughter of Colombian immigrants, gives voice to all five family members as they navigate the particulars of their respective circumstances. Rich with Bogotá urban life, steeped in Andean myth, and tense with the daily reality of the undocumented in America, Infinite Country “is as much an all-American story as it is a global one” (Booklist, starred review).

White Oleander

White Oleander
Author: Janet Fitch
Publisher: Little, Brown
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2006-09-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0759568170

The unforgettable story of a young woman's odyssey through a series of Los Angeles foster homes on her journey to redemption. Astrid is the only child of a single mother, Ingrid, a brilliant, obsessed poet who wields her luminous beauty to intimidate and manipulate men. Astrid worships her mother and cherishes their private world full of ritual and mystery - but their idyll is shattered when Astrid's mother falls apart over a lover. Deranged by rejection, Ingrid murders the man, and is sentenced to life in prison. White Oleander is the unforgettable story of Astrid's journey through a series of foster homes and her efforts to find a place for herself in impossible circumstances. Each home is its own universe, with a new set of laws and lessons to be learned. With determination and humor, Astrid confronts the challenges of loneliness and poverty, and strives to learn who a motherless child in an indifferent world can become. Oprah Winfrey enjoyed this gripping first novel so much that she not only made it her book club pick, she asked if she could narrate the audio release.

Open Veins of Latin America

Open Veins of Latin America
Author: Eduardo Galeano
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 333
Release: 1997-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0853459916

Since its U.S. debut a quarter-century ago, this brilliant text has set a new standard for historical scholarship of Latin America. It is also an outstanding political economy, a social and cultural narrative of the highest quality, and perhaps the finest description of primitive capital accumulation since Marx. Rather than chronology, geography, or political successions, Eduardo Galeano has organized the various facets of Latin American history according to the patterns of five centuries of exploitation. Thus he is concerned with gold and silver, cacao and cotton, rubber and coffee, fruit, hides and wool, petroleum, iron, nickel, manganese, copper, aluminum ore, nitrates, and tin. These are the veins which he traces through the body of the entire continent, up to the Rio Grande and throughout the Caribbean, and all the way to their open ends where they empty into the coffers of wealth in the United States and Europe. Weaving fact and imagery into a rich tapestry, Galeano fuses scientific analysis with the passions of a plundered and suffering people. An immense gathering of materials is framed with a vigorous style that never falters in its command of themes. All readers interested in great historical, economic, political, and social writing will find a singular analytical achievement, and an overwhelming narrative that makes history speak, unforgettably. This classic is now further honored by Isabel Allende's inspiring introduction. Universally recognized as one of the most important writers of our time, Allende once again contributes her talents to literature, to political principles, and to enlightenment.

Salt in Their Veins

Salt in Their Veins
Author: Charlie Wing
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 471
Release: 2023-06-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1684750822

According to acclaimed writer Isak Dinesen, "the cure for anything is salt water," and most coastal Mainers would likely agree. The distinct sense of place one gets in Maine is instilled at early age and living along Maine's rugged coast requires a combination of industriousness, flexibility, and self-sufficiency, all coupled with a profound sense of community. Like barnacles on a tidal ledge, these close-knit communities cling to the edge of the sea. They have salt in their veins, and the Maine coast is their ecosystem. In this book about people, Charlie Wing talks with some of the hardy folk who call this place home. Here are stories of lobstermen, boatbuilders, artists, writers, and teachers who opened up to Charlie and share their feelings on world events, government, the weather, and people from away.

A Place Where the Sea Remembers

A Place Where the Sea Remembers
Author: Sandra Benitez
Publisher: Coffee House Press
Total Pages: 115
Release: 2013-04-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1566892848

Winner, Discover Great New Writers Award. Winner, Minnesota Book Award for Fiction. "Profound.... a quietly stunning work that leaves soft tracks in the heart."--The Washington Post BookWorld "Merits placement beside some of the mesmerizing new literature with its roots in Latin America."--The New York Times Book Review

The Crossing (Daughters of the Sea #4)

The Crossing (Daughters of the Sea #4)
Author: Kathryn Lasky
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Total Pages: 195
Release: 2015-04-28
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 0545634040

Three sisters bound by something more powerful than blood---a secret as deep as the ocean. Once a maid, Hannah is now engaged to a talented painter. But although both were born mer, Stannish has severed ties to the sea and insists that Hannah do the same. Torn between love and the Laws of Salt, Hannah must make a choice that can only lead to heartbreak. Lucy grew up longing to swim, but her mother believed that girls belonged in the drawing room, not the ocean, and took drastic measures to keep Lucy's identity a secret. Now it's up to Lucy's sisters to save her, before she succumbs to landsickness . . . or the executioner's noose. After a lonely childhood, May suddenly found everything she'd ever wanted. But now with Hannah pulling away and Lucy sentenced to die, May's world is falling apart. Is she destined to lose her sisters all over again? This conclusion is as beautiful and dangerous as the sea itself. Fans of Downton Abbey will delight in the Edwardian splendor, and all readers will be swept away by a tide of magic and romance.

I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl

I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl
Author: Kelle Groom
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2012-04-03
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1451616694

A memoir of addiction and grief, forgiveness, and survival from a poet who recovers from alcoholism only after she sees her child die of leukemia.