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Night of power / by Ali, Anar,author.;
Inlcudes bibliographical references.A portrait of a Muslim family--from the heady days in Uganda to hard times in a new country, and the tragic accident that forces them to confront the ghosts of the past. It's 1998. And Mansoor Visram has lived in Canada for 25 years, ever since dictator Idi Amin expelled South Asians from Uganda. As a refugee with a wife and child, Mansoor has tried his best to recreate the life they once had, but starting over in Canada has been much harder than he expected. He's worked as a used car salesman, as a gas station attendant, and now he runs a small dry cleaner in suburban Calgary. But he's hatching plans for a father and son empire that will bring back the wealth and status the Visrams enjoyed in Uganda. The problem is, his son Ashif does not share his dreams, and he's moved across the country to get away from his father. He's a rising star at a multi-national corporation in Toronto, on the cusp of a life-changing promotion, but he can't seem to forget his girlfriend from long ago. Mansoor's wife, Layla, has spent the past decade running her own home cooking business and trying to hold her family together. But Ashif rarely comes home to visit and Mansoor's pride has almost ruined their marriage. As the fissures that began generations ago--and continents away--reappear, Mansoor, Ashif, and Layla drift further and further apart. On the Night of Power, a night during Ramadan when fates are decided for the next year, a terrible accident occurs. Will the Visrams survive this latest tragedy?
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; Refugees; Refugees; Ugandans; Life change events; Families; Muslims;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Cold warriors : writers who waged the literary Cold War / by White, Duncan,1979-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index.A brilliant, invigorating account of the great writers on both sides of the Iron Curtain who played the dangerous games of espionage, dissidence and subversion that changed the course of the Cold War. During the Cold War, literature was both sword and noose. Novels, essays and poems could win the hearts and minds of those caught between the competing creeds of capitalism and communism. They could also lead to exile, imprisonment or execution if they offended those in power. The clandestine intelligence services of the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union had secret agents and vast propaganda networks devoted to literary warfare. But the battles were personal, too: friends turning on each other, lovers cleaved by political fissures, artists undermined by inadvertent complicities. In Cold Warriors, Harvard University's Duncan White vividly chronicles how this ferocious intellectual struggle was waged on both sides of the Iron Curtain. The book has at its heart five major writers--George Orwell, Stephen Spender, Mary McCarthy, Graham Greene and Andrei Sinyavsky--but the full cast includes a dazzling array of giants, among them Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, John le Carr, Richard Wright, Ernest Hemingway, Boris Pasternak, Gioconda Belli, Arthur Koestler, Vaclav Havel, Joan Didion, Isaac Babel, Howard Fast, Lillian Hellman, Mikhail Sholokhov--and scores more. Spanning decades and continents and spectacularly meshing gripping narrative with perceptive literary detective work, Cold Warriors is a welcome reminder that, at a moment when ignorance is celebrated and reading seen as increasingly irrelevant, writers and books can change the world.
Subjects: Biographies.; Cold War in literature.; Politics and literature.; Authors; Literature, Modern;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Growing up Getty : the story of America's most unconventional dynasty / by Reginato, James,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Oil magnate J. Paul Getty, once the richest man in the world, is the patriarch of an extraordinary cast of sons, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. While some have been brought low by mental illness, drug addiction, and one of the most sensational kidnapping cases of the 20th century, many of Getty's heirs have achieved great success. In addition to Mark Getty, a cofounder of Getty Images, and Anne G. Earhart, an award-winning environmentalist, others have made significant marks in a variety of fields, from music and viniculture to politics and LGBTQ rights. Now, across four continents, a new generation of lively, unique, and even outrageous Gettys are emerging, and not coasting on the dynasty's still-immense wealth. August Getty designs extravagant gowns worn by Katy Perry, Cher, and other stars; his sibling, Nats-a fellow LGBTQ rights activist who announced his gender transition following his wedding to transgender icon Gigi Gorgeous-produces a line of exclusive streetwear. Their fascinating cousins include Balthazar, a multi-hyphenate actor-director-DJ-designer, and Isabel, a singer-songwriter-MBA candidate. A far-flung yet surprisingly close-knit group, the ascendant Gettys are bringing this iconic family onto the global stage in the 21st century. Through extensive research, including access to J. Paul Getty's diaries and love letters, and fresh interviews with family members and friends, Growing Up Getty offers an inside look into the benefits and burdens of being part of today's world of the ultra-wealthy"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Getty family.; Children of the rich; Millionaires;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Every man for himself and God against all : a memoir / by Herzog, Werner,1942-author.; Hofmann, Michael,1970-translator.; translation of:Herzog, Werner,1942-Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle.English.;
"Legendary filmmaker and celebrated author Werner Herzog tells in his inimitable voice the story of his epic artistic career in a long-awaited memoir that is as inventive and daring as anything he has done before. Werner Herzog was born in September 1942 in Munich, Germany, at a turning point in the Second World War. Soon Germany would be defeated and a new world would have to be made out the rubble and horrors of the war. Fleeing the Allied bombing raids, Herzog's mother took him and his older brother to a remote, rustic part of Bavaria where he would spend much of his childhood hungry, without running water, in deep poverty. It was there, as the new postwar order was emerging, that one of the most visionary filmmakers of the next seven decades was formed. Herzog made his first film in 1961 at age 19, and the wildly productive working life that followed--spanning the seven continents and encompassing both documentary and fiction--was an adventure as grand and otherworldly as any depicted in his many classic films, from early features Aguirre and Nosferatu, to Fitzcarraldo and later documentaries such as Grizzly Man and Cave of Forgotten Dreams. Every Man for Himself and God Against All is at once a firsthand personal record of one of the great and self-invented lives of our time, and a singular literary masterpiece that will enthrall fans old and new alike. In a hypnotic swirl of memory, Herzog untangles and relives his most important experiences and inspirations, telling the full story of his life for the first and only time"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Herzog, Werner, 1942-; Motion picture producers and directors;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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Better to have gone : love, death, and the quest for utopia in Auroville / by Kapur, Akash,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."A spellbinding story about love, faith, the search for utopia-and the often devastating cost of idealism. It's the late 1960s, and two lovers converge on an arid patch of earth in South India. John Walker is the handsome scion of a powerful East Coast American family. Diane Maes is a beautiful hippie from Belgium. They have come to build a new world-Auroville, an international utopian community for thousands of people. Their faith is strong, the future bright. So how do John and Diane end up dying two decades later, on the same day, on a cracked concrete floor in a thatch hut by a remote canyon? This is the mystery Akash Kapur sets out to solve in Better to Have Gone, and it carries deep personal resonance: Diane and John were the parents of Akash's wife, Auralice. Akash and Auralice grew up in Auroville; like the rest of their community, they never really understood those deaths. In 2004, Akash and Auralice return to Auroville from New York, where they have been living with John's family. As they reestablish themselves, along with their two sons, in the community, they must confront the ghosts of those distant deaths. Slowly, they come to understand how the tragic individual fates of John and Diane intersected with the collective history of their town. Better to Have Gone is a book about the human cost of our age-old quest for a more perfect world. It probes the underexplored yet universal idea of utopia, and it portrays in vivid detail the daily life of one utopian community. Richly atmospheric and filled with remarkable characters, spread across time and continents, this is narrative writing of the highest order-a heartbreaking, unforgettable story"--
Subjects: Maes, Diane.; Walker, John.; Utopias;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The blood gift / by Davenport, N. E.,author.;
"In this stunning conclusion to N. E. Davenport's fast-paced, action-packed sci-fantasy duology, elite warrior Ikenna and her rogue cohort must outrun bounty hunters, their former comrades, and a megalomaniacal demi-god, all in the hopes of saving their friends and enemies from the racist and misogynistic oppression that threatens the continents from all sides. After discovering the depth of betrayal, treachery, and violence perpetrated against her by Mareen's Tribunal Council and exposing her illegal blood-gift to save her Praetorian squad, Ikenna becomes a fugitive with a colossal bounty on her head. Yet, somehow, that's the least of her worries. Her grandfather's longtime allies refuse to offer help, and the Blood Emperor's Warlord is tracking her. She's also struggling to control the enormous power she was granted by the Goddess of Blood Rites ... and come to terms with the promises she made to get such power. Amidst all of this, the Blood Emperor wages a full-scale invasion against Mareen and leaves a trail of decimated cities, war crimes, and untold death in his wake. As the horrors increase, Ikenna and her team realize they must assassinate the Blood Emperor and quickly end the war. But the price to do so is steep and has planet-shattering consequences. The price to do nothing, though, is annihilation. War has erupted. Alliances are fracturing. And Ikenna is torn between her loyalties, her desires for revenge, and the power threatening to consume her. With the world aflame, only one thing is certain: blood will be spilled."--
Subjects: Science fiction.; Young adult fiction.; Novels.; Ability; Fugitives from justice; Good and evil; Imaginary places; Imaginary wars and battles; Misogyny; Psychic ability; Racially mixed people; Racism; Revenge; Soldiers; Survival; Technology; Teenage girls; Women soldiers; Young women; Ability; Fugitives from justice; Good and evil; Imaginary places; Imaginary wars and battles; Misogyny; Psychic ability; Racially mixed people; Racism; Revenge; Soldiers; Survival; Technology; Teenage girls; Women soldiers; Young women;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Butter honey pig bread / by Ekwuyasi, Francesca,1990-author.;
"An intergenerational saga about three Nigerian women: a novel about food, family, and forgiveness. Spanning three continents, Butter Honey Pig Bread tells the interconnected stories of three Nigerian women: Kambirinachi and her twin daughters, Kehinde and Taiye. Kambirinachi believes that she is an Ogbanje, or an Abiku, a non-human spirit that plagues a family with misfortune by being born and then dying in childhood to cause a human mother misery. She has made the unnatural choice of staying alive to love her human family but lives in fear of the consequences of her decision. Kambirinachi and her daughters become estranged from one another because of a trauma that Kehinde experiences in childhood, which leads her to move away and cut off all contact. She ultimately finds her path as an artist and seeks to raise a family of her own, despite her fear that she won't be a good mother. Meanwhile, Taiye is plagued by guilt for what her sister suffered and also runs away, attempting to fill the void of that lost relationship with casual flings with women. She eventually discovers a way out of her stifling loneliness through a passion for food and cooking. But now, after more than a decade of living apart, Taiye and Kehinde have returned home to Lagos. It is here that the three women must face each other and address the wounds of the past if they are to reconcile and move forward. For readers of African diasporic authors such as Teju Cole and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Butter Honey Pig Bread is a story of choices and their consequences, of motherhood, of the malleable line between the spirit and the mind, of finding new homes and mending old ones, of voracious appetites, of queer love, of friendship, faith, and above all, family."--Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; Families; Mothers and daughters;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 2
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Alien earths : the new science of planet hunting in the cosmos / by Kaltenegger, Lisa,1977-author.;
"Riveting and timely, a look at the research that is transforming our understanding of the cosmos in the quest to discover whether we are alone. For thousands of years, humans have wondered whether we're alone in the cosmos. Now, for the first time, we have the technology to investigate. But once you look for life elsewhere, you realize it is not so simple. How do you find it over cosmic distances? What actually is life? As founding director of Cornell University's Carl Sagan Institute, astrophysicist Lisa Kaltenegger has built a team of tenacious scientists from many disciplines to create a specialized toolkit to find life on faraway worlds. In Alien Earths, she demonstrates how we can use our homeworld as a Rosetta Stone, creatively analyzing Earth's history and its astonishing biosphere to inform this search. With infectious enthusiasm, she takes us on an eye-opening journey to the most unusual exoplanets that have shaken our worldview-planets covered in oceans of lava, lonely wanderers lost in space, and others with more than one sun in their sky! And the best contenders for Alien Earths. We also see the imagined worlds of science fiction and how close they come to reality. With the James Webb Space Telescope and Dr. Kaltenegger's pioneering work, she shows that we live in an incredible new epoch of exploration. As our witty and knowledgeable tour guide, Dr. Kaltenegger shows how we discover not merely new continents, like the explorers of old, but whole new worlds circling other stars and how we could spot life there. Worlds from where aliens may even be gazing back at us. What if we're not alone?"--
Subjects: Extrasolar planets.; Life on other planets.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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How high we go in the dark : a novel / by Nagamatsu, Sequoia,author.;
"For fans of Cloud Atlas and Station Eleven, a spellbinding and profoundly prescient debut that follows a cast of intricately linked characters over hundreds of years as humanity struggles to rebuild itself in the aftermath of a climate plague-a daring and deeply heartfelt work of mind-bending imagination from a singular new voice. Beginning in 2030, a grieving archeologist arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue the work of his recently deceased daughter at the Batagaika crater, where researchers are studying long-buried secrets now revealed in melting permafrost, including the perfectly preserved remains of a girl who appears to have died of an ancient virus. Once unleashed, the Arctic Plague will reshape life on earth for generations to come, quickly traversing the globe, forcing humanity to devise a myriad of moving and inventive ways to embrace possibility in the face of tragedy. In a theme park designed for terminally ill children, a cynical employee falls in love with a mother desperate to hold on to her infected son. A heartbroken scientist searching for a cure finds a second chance at fatherhood when one of his test subjects-a pig-develops the capacity for human speech. A widowed painter and her teenaged granddaughter embark on a cosmic quest to locate a new home planet. From funerary skyscrapers to hotels for the dead to interstellar starships, Sequoia Nagamatsu takes readers on a wildly original and compassionate journey, spanning continents, centuries, and even celestial bodies to tell a story about the resiliency of the human spirit, our infinite capacity to dream, and the connective threads that tie us all together in the universe"--
Subjects: Science fiction.; Epidemics; Interpersonal relations; Regression (Civilization); Resilience (Personality trait); Virus diseases;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Spies : the epic intelligence war between East and West / by Walton, Calder,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."The riveting, secret story of the hundred-year intelligence war between Russia and the West with lessons for our new superpower conflict with China. Spies is the history of the secret war that Russia and the West have been waging for a century. Espionage, sabotage, and subversion were the Kremlin's means to equalize the imbalance of resources between the East and West before, during, and after the Cold War. There was nothing "unprecedented" about Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. It was simply business as usual, new means used for old ends. The Cold War started long before 1945. But the West fought back after World War II, mounting its own shadow war, using disinformation, vast intelligence networks, and new technologies against the Soviet Union. Spies is an inspiring, engrossing story of the best and worst of mankind: bravery and honor, treachery and betrayal. The narrative shifts across continents and decades, from the freezing streets of St. Petersburg in 1917 to the bloody beaches of Normandy; from coups in faraway lands to present-day Moscow where troll farms, synthetic bots, and weaponized cyber-attacks being launched on the woefully unprepared West. It is about the rise and fall of eastern superpowers: Russia's past and present and the global ascendance of China. Mining hitherto secret archives in multiple languages, Calder Walton shows that the Cold War started earlier than commonly assumed, that it continued even after the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, and that Britain and America's clandestine struggle with the Soviet government provides key lessons for countering China today. This fresh reading of history, combined with practical takeaways for our current great power struggles, make Spies a unique and essential addition to the history of the Cold War and the unrolling conflict between the United States and China that will dominate the 21st century"--
Subjects: Cold War.; East and West.; Espionage; Espionage; Intelligence service; Intelligence service; Intelligence service; Intelligence service; World politics;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Results 201 to 210 of 218 | « previous |