Search:

Results 581 to 590 of 615 | « previous |

Lapvona / by Moshfegh, Ottessa,author.;
"In a village in a medieval fiefdom buffeted by natural disasters, a motherless shepherd boy finds himself the unlikely pivot of a power struggle that puts all manner of faith to a savage test, in a spellbinding novel that represents Ottessa Moshfegh's most exciting leap yet Little Marek, the abused and delusional son of the village shepherd, never knew his mother; his father told him she died in childbirth. One of life's few consolations for Marek is his enduring bond with the blind village midwife, Ina, who suckled him when he was a baby, as she did so many of the village's children. Ina's gifts extend beyond childcare: she possesses a unique ability to communicate with the natural world. Her gift often brings her the transmission of sacred knowledge on levels far beyond those available to other villagers, however religious they might be. For some people, Ina's home in the woods outside of the village is a place to fear and to avoid, a godless place. Among their number is Father Barnabas, the town priest and lackey for the depraved lord and governor, Villiam, whose hilltop manor contains a secret embarrassment of riches. The people's desperate need to believe that there are powers that be who have their best interests at heart is put to a cruel test by Villiam and the priest, especially in this year of record drought and famine. But when fate brings Marek into violent proximity to the lord's family, new and occult forces upset the old order. By year's end, the veil between blindness and sight, life and death, the natural world and the spirit world, will prove to be very thin indeed"--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Novels.; Fiefs; Middle Ages; Midwives; Shepherds;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Twilight at blueberry barrens / by Coble, Colleen,author.;
"Kate Mason has always found solace in her family's blueberry barrens. But are they giving her a false sense of security? Kate has devoted herself to keeping her family's blueberry barrens thriving. But when blossom blight devastates her blueberry fields, she's forced to come up with alternative ways to replace that income. Fixing up the small cottage on her property as a rental seems an obvious choice, but it won't be enough. When Drake Carver drives by with his two nieces in tow, looking not only for a place to rent for the summer but also for a nanny for the girls, it's almost too good to be true. Drake is a judge whose brother and sister-in-law died in an accident shortly after he received a threat that his family would suffer if he didn't drop a high profile case. Is there a connection? This remote area of Maine seems like the perfect place for him to keep his nieces safe until he determines if they're in danger. Drake and Kate constantly lock horns; having never been a parent before, he gives his nieces free reign. Kate won't stand for their disrespect and keeps challenging Drake to set a higher standard. Even though Kate has given up on having children because of the chemo she had to take, she finds herself oddly drawn to this improvised family. But Drake begins to fear that he's putting Kate in danger as well. Meanwhile, Kate learns that her uncle--in prison for murder--has escaped. Add to that a stalker whose sights are set on her, and Kate is looking over her shoulder at every turn. With danger swirling from multiple directions, it may be a question of who gets to her first"--
Subjects: Religious fiction.; Romance fiction.; Man-woman relationships; Single fathers; Nannies;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Tranquility Falls / by Bunn, T. Davis,1952-author.;
When the darkness seems too hard to bear, there's only one thing left to do. Six years ago, Daniel was a Los Angeles financial analyst who was too handsome for his own good. Too smart for his anchor job on the nightly news. And too enamored with the heady addictions of the high life. That man died in a tragic accident with his fiancée. With grief and guilt battling for control, Daniel moved to the quiet California seaside town of Miramar Bay with his best friend--a rescue Labradoodle who still sees him through rough times. Daniel's a different man now. Clean, sober, and taking things one day at a time with no commitments to anyone except himself. And just as his solitude begins to chafe, two souls in need of fresh starts unexpectedly enter Daniel's life. Daniel's self-centered sister has dissolved several longtime relationships. Theirs included. The latest? Her restless teenage daughter, Nicole, whom she's dropped off in Miramar Bay without a backward glance. For Nicole, who's never felt at home in the world, it only confirms the disconnect she's always had with her mother. Now, left with an uncle she barely knows, Nicole is more adrift than ever. Yet to Daniel's surprise, playing surrogate father is forging a bond that he needs, too. More difficult for Daniel is the possibility of romance with lovely and fragile Stella Dalley. Struggling with a trauma of her own, the single mother is as cautious about love as Daniel is--no matter how healing it could be. But for Daniel, Stella, and Nicole there's still hope for a tomorrow they can call their own. All they have do is to learn to trust in each other, and in themselves.
Subjects: Religious fiction.; Domestic fiction.; Dysfunctional families; Brothers and sisters; Man-woman relationships;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Two weeks : a novel / by Kingsbury, Karen,author.;
"From #1 New York Times bestselling author Karen Kingsbury comes a heart-wrenching and redemptive new story in the Baxter Family series about a couple desperately waiting to bring their adopted child home and a young mother about to make the biggest decision of her life. Cole Blake, son of Landon and Ashley Baxter Blake, is months away from going off to college and taking the first steps towards his dream--a career in medicine. But as he starts his final semester of high school he meets Elise, a mysterious new girl who captures his attention--and heart--from day one. Elise has her heart set on mending her wild ways and rediscovering the good girl she used to be. But not long after the semester starts, she discovers she's pregnant. Eighteen and alone, she shares her secret with Cole. Undaunted by the news, and in love for the first time in his life, Cole is determined to support Elise--even if it means skipping college, marrying her, and raising another man's baby. When Elise decides to place her baby up for adoption, she is matched with Aaron and Lucy Williams, who moved to Bloomington, Indiana to escape seven painful years of infertility. But as Elise's due date draws near, she becomes focused on one truth: she has two weeks to change her mind about the adoption. With Cole keeping vigil and Lucy and Aaron waiting to welcome their new baby, Elise makes an unexpected decision--one that changes everyone's plans. Tender and deeply moving, Two Weeks is a story about love, faith, and what it really means to be a family"--
Subjects: Religious fiction.; Domestic fiction.; Man-woman relationships; Pregnant teenagers; Adoption; Life change events; Infertility; Families;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

The new India : the unmaking of the world's largest democracy / by Bhatia, Rahul,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index.The New India is the unforgettable account of the struggle between modern forces and ancient ideas to shape the young country's destiny. It reveals a picture of a nation on the precipice of dramatic change. Based on six years of detailed research and on-the-ground reporting, the book builds -- authoritatively, vividly, indelibly -- to become the story of post-colonial India. Using hundreds of interviews, and letters, diary entries, Partition-era police reports, and an astonishing range of sources, Bhatia shows how history plays a recurring role in the present: in politics, in the minds of citizens, in notions of justice and corruption. Bhatia examines the connections between the Delhi riots of 2020 and the emergence of nineteenth-century revolutionary secret societies, the rise of Hindu nationalism, whose early advocates drew lessons from Hitler and Mussolini, the political use of misinformation and religious targeting, and the Hindu fundamentalist ideology that sparked the creation of the world's largest biometric project. As Bhatia shows, the evolution of this citizen database, in the hands of the BJP, now threatens to deny vast numbers of India's 200 million Muslims their Indian citizenship. Electorates in democracies used to choose their government. Now, in India, the government is choosing its electorate. India has rarely been seen as in The New India, a monumental work of narrative reportage that illuminates the ways in which a supremacist ideology remade the country over decades, resulting in the prodigious rise of Narendra Modi, and forcing many to ask what they truly understood about their neighbours and themselves.
Subjects: Modī, Narendra, 1950-; Democracy; Hindutva; Ideology; Muslims; Secret societies;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Kin : a memoir / by Rodenberg, Shawna Kay,author.;
"A heart stopping memoir of a wrenching Appalachian girlhood and a multilayered portrait of a misrepresented people, from Rona Jaffe Writer's Award winner Shawna Kay Rodenberg. When Shawna Kay Rodenberg was four, her father, fresh from a ruinous tour in Vietnam, spirited her family from their home in the hills of Eastern Kentucky to Minnesota, renouncing all of their earthly possessions to live in the Body, an off-the-grid End Times religious community. Her father was seeking a better, safer life for his family, but the austere communal living of prayer, bible study and strict regimentation was a bad fit for the precocious Shawna. Disciplined harshly for her many infractions, she was sexually abused by a predatory adult member of the community. Soon after the leader of the Body died and revelations of the sexual abuse came to light, her family returned to the same Kentucky mountains that their ancestors have called home for three hundred years. It is a community ravaged by the coal industry, but for all that, rich in humanity, beauty, and the complex knots of family love. Curious, resourceful, rebellious, Shawna will ultimately leave her mountain home but only as she masters a perilous balancing act between who she has been and who she will become. Kin is a mesmerizing memoir of survival that seeks to understand and make peace with the people and places that were survived. It is above all about family-about the forgiveness and love within its bounds-and generations of Appalachians who have endured, harmed, and held each other through countless lifetimes of personal and regional tragedy"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Rodenberg, Shawna Kay.; Move (Christian sect); Appalachians (People); Ex-cultists; Women authors, American; Women;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Aria / by Hozar, Nazanine,author.;
It is the mid-1950s in a democratic but restless Iran, a country newly powerful with oil wealth but unsettled by class and religious divides and by the politics of a larger world hungry (especially the West) for its resources. One night, a humble driver in the Iranian army is walking through a rough area of Tehran when he hears a small, pitiful cry. Curious, he searches for the source, and to his horror, comes upon a newborn baby abandoned by the side of the road and encircled by ravenous dogs. He snatches up the child-- and forever alters his own destiny and that of the little girl, whom he names Aria. Thus begins a stunning and revelatory debut that takes us inside the Iranian revolution-- but as seen like never before, through the eyes of an orphan girl. The novel is structured around each of the three very different women who find themselves fated to mother the lost child: first, the working-class, reckless and self-involved Zahra, married to the kind-hearted soldier; then the wealthy, careful and compassionate Fereshteh, who invites Aria into her compound and adopts her as an heir; and finally, Aria's biological mother, Mehri, whose new family Aria discovers in adolescence. A final section, "Aria," takes us through the brutal coup d'etat that installs the Shah as Iran's supreme leader, even as Aria falls in love with a revolutionary and becomes a young mother herself. Here is a sweeping, unforgettable, timely saga that brilliantly humanizes people trapped and left powerless and voiceless by an unjust world-- people no different from those in the west, wanting love, kindness, belonging and freedom of thought.
Subjects: Feminist fiction.; Historical fiction.; Orphans; Women; Mothers; Families; Social classes; Coming of age;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Nights of plague / by Pamuk, Orhan,1952-author.; Oklap, Ekin,translator.; translation of:Pamuk, Orhan,1952-Veba geceleri.English.;
"A new book by the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Part detective story, part historical epic-a bold and brilliant novel that imagines a plague taking over a fictional island in the Ottoman Empire. It is April 1900, in the Levant, on the imaginary island of Mingeria-the 29th state of the Ottoman Empire-located in the eastern Mediterranean between Crete and Cyprus. Half the population is Muslim, the other half are Orthodox Greeks, and tension is high between the two. When a plague arrives-brought either by Muslim pilgrims returning from the Mecca, or by merchant vessels coming from Alexandria-the island revolts. To stop the epidemic, the Ottoman sultan Abdul Hamid II sends his most accomplished quarantine expert to the island-an Orthodox Christian. Some of the Muslims, including followers of a popular religious sect and its leader Sheikh H, refuse to take precautions or respect the quarantine. And the sultan's expert is murdered. As the plague continues its rapid spread, the sultan sends a second doctor to the island, this time a Muslim, and strict quarantine measures are declared. But the incompetence of the island's governor and local administration and the people's refusal to respect the bans dooms the quarantine to failure, and the death count continues to rise. Faced with the danger that the plague might spread to the West and to Istanbul, the sultan bows to international pressure and allows foreign and Ottoman warships to blockade the island. Now the people of Mingeria are on their own, andthey must find a way to defeat the plague themselves. Steeped in history and rife with suspense, Nights of Plague is an epic story set more than one hundred years ago with themes that feel remarkably contemporary"--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Novels.; Epidemics;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Into the gray zone : a neuroscientist explores the border between life and death / by Owen, Adrian M.,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index.In this startling and thought-provoking book, which will remind readers of works by Oliver Sacks and Atul Gawande, a world-renowned neuroscientist reveals his controversial, groundbreaking work with patients whose brains were previously thought vegetative or non-responsive but turn out--in up to 20 percent of cases--to be vibrantly alive, existing in the "Gray Zone." Into the Gray Zone takes readers to the edge of a dazzling, humbling frontier in our understanding of the brain: the so-called "gray zone" between full consciousness and brain death. People in this middle place have sustained traumatic brain injuries or are the victims of stroke or degenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Many are oblivious to the outside world, and their doctors believe they are incapable of thought. But a sizeable number are experiencing something different: intact minds adrift deep within damaged brains and bodies. An expert in the field, Adrian Owen led a team that, in 2006, discovered this lost population and made medical history. Scientists, physicians, and philosophers have only just begun to grapple with the implications. Following Owen's journey of exciting medical discovery, Into the Gray Zone asks some tough and terrifying questions, such as: What is life like for these patients? What can their families and friends do to help them? What are the ethical implications for religious organizations, politicians, the Right to Die movement, and even insurers? And perhaps most intriguing of all: in defining what a life worth living is, are we too concerned with the physical and not giving enough emphasis to the power of thought? What, truly, defines a satisfying life?
Subjects: Brain damage.; Persistent vegetative state.; Persistent vegetative state; Brain; Neurosciences.; Coma.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Ghosts of the orphanage : a story of mysterious deaths, a conspiracy of silence, and a search for justice / by Kenneally, Christine,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."A shocking expose of the dark, secret history of Catholic orphanages--the violence, abuse, and even murder that took place within their walls--and a call to hold the powerful to account. More than 5 million Americans passed through orphanages in the 20th century alone. At its peak in the 1930s, the American orphanage system included more than 1,600 institutions, partly supported with public funding but usually run by religious orders, including the Catholic Church. Ghosts of the Orphanage is the result of seven years of investigation, and what Christine Keneally found was shocking, yet hiding in plain sight. Terrible things, abuse, both physical and psychological, and even deaths have happened in orphanages for many years. The survivors have been telling their stories for a long time, but no one has been listening. People are too often unwilling to accept their stories. And their options for recourse have been limited by the years it has taken many survivors to process their trauma, tell their stories, and pursue legal action. Centering her story on St. Joseph's, a Catholic orphanage in Vermont, Keneally investigates and shares the stories of survivors. She has fought to expose the truth and hold the powerful--many of them Catholic priests and nuns--to account. And it is working. As these stories have come to light, the laws in Vermont have been forced to change, including the statute of limitations on prosecuting them. Told with human compassion, novelistic detail, and a powerful sense of purpose, Ghosts of the Orphanage is not only a gripping story but a reckoning. It is proof that real evil lurks at the edges of our society, and that, if we have the courage, we can bring it into the light and defeat it"--
Subjects: True crime stories.; Catholic Church; Child abuse; Orphanages;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Results 581 to 590 of 615 | « previous |