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On trails / by Moor, Robert(Environmental journalist),author.;
"From a brilliant new literary voice comes a groundbreaking exploration of how trails help us understand the world--from tiny ant trails to hiking paths that span continents, from interstate highways to the Internet. In 2009, while thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail, Robert Moor began to wonder about the paths that lie beneath our feet: How do they form? Why do some improve over time while others devolve? What makes us follow or strike off on our own? Over the course of the next seven years, Moor traveled the globe, exploring trails of all kinds, from the miniscule to the massive. He learned the tricks of master trail-builders, hunted down long-lost Cherokee trails, and traced the origins of our road networks and the Internet. In each chapter, Moor interweaves his adventures with findings from science, history, philosophy, and nature writing--combining the nomadic joys of Peter Matthiessen with the eclectic wisdom of Lewis Hyde's The Gift. Throughout, Moor reveals how this single topic--the oft-overlooked trail--sheds new light on a wealth of age-old questions: How does order emerge out of chaos? How did animals first crawl forth from the seas and spread across continents? How has humanity's relationship with nature and technology shaped world around us? And, ultimately, how does each of us pick a path through life? Moor has the essayist's gift for making new connections, the adventurer's love for paths untaken, and the philosopher's knack for asking big questions. With a breathtaking arc that spans from the dawn of animal life to the digital era, On Trails is a book that makes us see our world, our history, our species, and our ways of life anew"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Moor, Robert (Environmental journalist); Hikers; Hiking; Trails;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The Wedding A Novel [electronic resource] : by Basran, Gurjinder.aut; cloudLibrary;
You’re invited to The Wedding, an electrifying novel about the joining of two South Asian families, and the secrets, resentments, and unspoken truths boiling just beneath the surface. Interweaving themes of identity, culture clashes, and the immigrant experience as found in The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri with the exuberance and sharp humour of Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians, Gurjinder Basran delivers a wide-ranging but intimate portrait of a vibrant, complex Sikh community. Set in Vancouver and Surrey, BC, The Wedding exposes the inner lives of the wedding party, guests and event staff, in the lead-up to a lavish wedding. This novel, centered around the impending marriage of Devi and Baby, illustrates the union of two people, two families and all the ways in which an entire community bears witness, ensnares and uplifts itself. Like all great Bollywood films, The Wedding is rife with family drama, steeped in tradition and an ode to love in all its forms. With humour, nuance and honesty, The Wedding spills the chai—exploring desire and expectation, suffering and judgment, class and race—all in search of a happy enough ever after.General adult.
Subjects: Electronic books.; Literary; Asian American;
© 2024., Douglas and McIntyre (2013) Ltd.,
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The Dream Hotel: A Read with Jenna Pick A Novel [electronic resource] : by Lalami, Laila.aut; CloudLibrary;
NATIONAL BESTSELLER ● READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY ● From Laila Lalami—the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist and a “maestra of literary fiction” (NPR)—comes a riveting and utterly original novel about one woman’s fight for freedom, set in a near future where even dreams are under surveillance. Sara has just landed at LAX, returning home from a conference abroad, when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside and inform her that she will soon commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, the RAA’s algorithm has determined that she is at imminent risk of harming the person she loves most: her husband. For his safety, she must be kept under observation for twenty-one days. The agents transfer Sara to a retention center, where she is held with other dreamers, all of them women trying to prove their innocence from different crimes. With every deviation from the strict and ever-shifting rules of the facility, their stay is extended. Months pass and Sara seems no closer to release. Then one day, a new resident arrives, disrupting the order of the facility and leading Sara on a collision course with the very companies that have deprived her of her freedom. Eerie, urgent, and ceaselessly clear-eyed, The Dream Hotel artfully explores the seductive nature of technology, which puts us in shackles even as it makes our lives easier. Lalami asks how much of ourselves must remain private if we are to remain free, and whether even the most invasive forms of surveillance can ever capture who we really are.
Subjects: Electronic books.; Literary; Dystopian; Political;
© 2025., Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group,
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The committed / by Nguyen, Viet Thanh,1971-author.;
"The astonishing sequel to The Sympathizer, winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, The Committed follows the "man of two minds" as he comes to Paris as a refugee. There he and his blood brother Bon try to escape their pasts and prepare for their futures by turning their hands to capitalism in one of its purest forms: drug dealing. No longer in physical danger, but still inwardly tortured by his reeducation at the hands of his former best friend, and struggling to assimilate into a dominant culture, the Sympathizer is both charmed and disturbed by Paris. As he falls in with a group of left-wing intellectuals and politicians who frequent dinner parties given by his French Vietnamese "aunt," he finds not just stimulation for his mind but also customers for his merchandise-but the new life he is making has dangers he has not foreseen. Both literary thriller and brilliant novel of ideas, The Committed is a blistering portrayal of commitment and betrayal that will cement Viet Thanh Nguyen's position in the firmament of American letters"--
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Psychological fiction.; Boat people; Refugees; Drug traffic; Racism; Intellectuals;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Whereabouts / by Lahiri, Jhumpa,author,translator.; translation of:Lahiri, Jhumpa.Dove mi trovo.English.;
"A marvelous new novel from the Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Lowland and Interpreter of Maladies--her first in nearly a decade. Exuberance and dread, attachment and estrangement: in this novel, Jhumpa Lahiri stretches her themes to the limit. The woman at the center wavers between stasis and movement, between the need to belong and the refusal to form lasting ties. The city she calls home, an engaging backdrop to her days, acts as a confidant: the sidewalks around her house, parks, bridges, piazzas, streets, stores, coffee bars. We follow her to the pool she frequents and to the train station that sometimes leads her to her mother, mired in a desperate solitude after her father's untimely death. In addition to colleagues at work, where she never quite feels at ease, she has girl friends, guy friends, and "him," a shadow who both consoles and unsettles her. But in the arc of a year, as one season gives way to the next, transformation awaits. One day at the sea, both overwhelmed and replenished by the sun's vital heat, her perspective will change. This is Jhumpa Lahiri's first novel she wrote in Italian and translated into English. It brims with the impulse to cross barriers. By grafting herself onto a new literary language, Lahiri has pushed herself to a new level of artistic achievement"--
Subjects: Change; City and town life; Perspective; Women;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The bloodless boy / by Lloyd, Robert J.,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."Part Wolf Hall, part The Name of the Rose, a riveting new literary thriller set in Restoration London, with a cast of real historic figures, set against the actual historic events and intrigues of the returned king and his court ... The City of London, 1678. New Year's Day. Twelve years have passed since the Great Fire ripped through the City. Eighteen since the fall of Oliver Cromwell and the restoration of a King. London is gripped by hysteria, and rumors of Catholic plots and sinister foreign assassins abound. When the body of a young boy drained of his blood is discovered on the snowy bank of the Fleet River, Robert Hooke, the Curator of Experiments at the just-formed Royal Society for Improving Natural Knowledge, and his assistant Harry Hunt, are called in to explain such a ghastly finding-and whether it's part of a plot against the king. They soon learn it is not the first bloodless boy to have been discovered. Meanwhile, that same morning Henry Oldenburg, the Secretary of the Royal Society, blows his brains out, and a disgraced Earl is released from the Tower of London, bent on revenge against the King, Charles II. Wary of the political hornet's nest they are walking into - and using scientific evidence rather than paranoia in their pursuit of truth - Hooke and Hunt must discover why the boy was murdered, and why his blood was taken. The Bloodless Boy is aa absorbing literary thriller that introduces two new indelible heroes to historical crime fiction. It is also a powerfully atmospheric recreation of the darkest corners of Restoration London, where the Court and the underworld seem to merge, even as the light of scientific inquiry is starting to emerge ..."--
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Historical fiction.; Boys; Murder;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The Emperor of Gladness A Novel [electronic resource] : by Vuong, Ocean.aut; CloudLibrary;
“The Emperor of Gladness is a poetic, dramatic and vivid story. Epic in its sweep, the novel also handles intimacy and love with delicacy and deep originality. Hai and Grazina are taken from the margins of American life by Ocean Vuong and, by dint of great sympathy and imaginative genius, placed at the very center of our world.” —Colm Tóibín, author of Long Island and Brooklyn “A masterwork.” —Bryan Washington, author of Palaver and Family Meal Ocean Vuong returns with a bighearted novel about chosen family, unexpected friendship, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to transform Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community on the brink. Following the cycles of history, memory, and time, The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. At its heart is a brave epic about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and to reckon with the wounds that haunt our collective soul. Hallmarks of Ocean Vuong’s writing—formal innovation, syntactic dexterity, and the ability to twin grit with grace through tenderness—are on full display in this story of loss, hope, and how far we would go to possess one of life’s most fleeting mercies: a second chance.
Subjects: Electronic books.; Literary; Asian American;
© 2025., Penguin Publishing Group,
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A mystery of mysteries : the death and life of Edgar Allan Poe / by Dawidziak, Mark,1956-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."A Mystery of Mysteries is a brilliant biography of Edgar Allan Poe that examines the renowned author's life through the prism of his mysterious death and its many possible causes. It is a moment shrouded in horror and mystery. Edgar Allan Poe died on October 7, 1849, at just forty, in a painful, utterly bizarre manner that would not have been out of place in one of his own tales of terror. What was the cause of his untimely death, and what happened to him during the three missing days before he was found, delirious and "in great distress" on the streets of Baltimore, wearing ill-fitting clothes that were not his own? Mystery and horror. Poe, who remains one of the most iconic of American writers, died under haunting circumstances that reflect the two literary genres he took to new heights. Over the years, there has been a staggering amount of speculation about the cause of death, from rabies and syphilis to suicide, alcoholism, and even murder. But many of these theories are formed on the basis of the caricature we have come to associate with Poe: the gloomy-eyed grandfather of Goth, hunched over a writing desk with a raven perched on one shoulder, drunkenly scribbling his chilling masterpieces. By debunking the myths of how he lived, we come closer to understanding the real Poe-and uncovering the truth behind his mysterious death, as a new theory emerges that could prove the cause of Poe's death was haunting him all his life. In a compelling dual-timeline narrative alternating between Poe's increasingly desperate last months and his brief but impactful life, Mark Dawidziak sheds new light on the enigmatic master of macabre"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849; Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849.; Authors, American;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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May it have a happy ending : a memoir of finding my voice as my mother lost hers / by Mahtani, Minelle,1971-author.;
"For readers of Crying in H Mart and In the Dream House, a searing, intimate memoir about mothers and daughters, grief and healing, and finding your voice when you thought it lost. Keep quiet when you experience racism -- to protect yourself, and the people you love. This was the very first lesson Minelle Mahtani learned about staying silent. She was six years old. Other lessons would come in time: Take up less space. Ask fewer questions. Try harder to fit in. And from her Hindu, Indian father and Muslim, Iranian mother: Be excellent. Strive for greatness. In her forties, Minelle's left hand began to shake. Then, her left leg went numb. Her body was trying to tell her something -- screaming what she could not say. And then, in the midst of this crisis, a lifeline in the form of a job offer: the chance to speak, to develop her voice, as a radio host. If she only had the courage to try. But as Minelle took tentative steps toward finding herself, she received devastating news: her beloved mother had tongue cancer. Just as Minelle was finding her voice, her mother was losing hers. This is a story about what it means to mourn and heal. It is about the tender yet fragile relationships between mothers and daughters -- relationships weighed down by histories more complex than we can ever know. It is about the myriad ways our voices take flight as people of colour, and about how our ancestors speak to us through the intimate moments in our lives. In exquisite, lyrical prose, May It Have a Happy Ending meditates on the ways grief, race, love and self-expression intersect, and introduces an important new literary voice."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Mahtani, Minelle, 1971-; Mahtani, Minelle, 1971-; Mahtani, Minelle, 1971-; Mothers and daughters;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The Flight Portfolio A novel [electronic resource] : by Orringer, Julie.aut; cloudLibrary;
From the bestselling, award-winning author of The Invisible Bridge comes a gripping tale of forbidden love, high-stakes adventure, and unimaginable courage filled with "suspense and tragedy, unexpected twists and deliverance” (The Seattle Times). • THE INSPIRATION FOR THE NETFLIX SERIES TRANSATLANTIC  MARSEILLE, 1940. Varian Fry, a Harvard-educated journalist and editor, arrives in France. Recognizing the darkness descending over Europe, he and a group of like-minded New Yorkers formed the Emergency Rescue Committee, helping artists and writers escape from the Nazis and immigrate to the United States.  Amid the chaos of World War II, and in defiance of restrictive U.S. immigration policies, Fry must procure false passports, secure visas, seek out escape routes through the Pyrenees and by sea, and make impossible decisions about who should be saved, all while under profound pressure—and in a state of irrevocable personal change. In this dazzling work of historical fiction—one that illuminates previously unexplored elements of Fry’s story, and has, since its publication, brought us new insight into his life.
Subjects: Electronic books.; Literary; Historical;
© 2019., Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group,
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