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The life of the Qurʼan : from eternal roots to enduring legacy / by Jebara, Mohamad,author.;
Based on extensive scholarship, an innovative biography of the central text of Islam Over a billion copies of the Qur`an exist, yet it remains an enigma. Its classical Arabic language resists simple translation, and its non-linear style of abstract musings defies categorization. Moreover, those who champion its sanctity and compete to claim its mantle offer widely diverging interpretations of its core message at times with explosive results. Building on his intimate portrait of the Qur`an's prophet in Muhammad the World-Changer, Mohamad Jebara returns with a vivid profile of the book itself. While viewed in retrospect as the grand scripture of triumphant empires, Jebara reveals how the Qur`an unfolded over 22 years amidst intense persecution, suffering, and loneliness. The Life of the Qur`an recounts this vivid drama as a biography examining the book's obscured heritage, complex revelation, and contested legacy. The Qur`an re-emerges with clarity as a dynamic life force that seeks to inspire human beings to unleash their dormant potential despite often-overwhelming odds, in order to transform themselves and the world.
Subjects: Qurʼan; Healing; Islam;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The flag, the cross, and the station wagon : a graying American looks back at his suburban boyhood and wonders what the hell happened / by McKibben, Bill,author.;
Includes bibliographical references.Like so many of us, McKibben grew up believing-knowing-that the United States was the greatest country on earth. As a teenager, he cheerfully led American Revolution tours in Lexington, Massachusetts. He sang "Kumbaya" at church. And with the remarkable rise of suburbia, he assumed that all Americans would share in the wealth. But fifty years later, he finds himself in an increasingly doubtful nation strained by bleak racial and economic inequality, on a planet whose future is in peril. And he is curious: What the hell happened? In this revelatory cri de coeur, McKibben digs deep into our history (and his own well-meaning but not all-seeing past) and into the latest scholarship on race and inequality in America, on the rise of the religious right, and on our environmental crisis to explain how we got to this point. He finds that he is not without hope. And he wonders if any of that trinity of his youth-The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon-could, or should, be reclaimed in the fight for a fairer future.
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; McKibben, Bill.; Christianity and culture; Climatic changes.; Equality; Equality.; Middle class; Patriotism; Race relations; Racism.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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I see London / by Cleeton, Chanel,author.;
"Maggie Carpenter is a small-town Southern girl who's never been kissed. She's ready for a change--and to leave her ordinary life and a failed attempt to get into Harvard behind. She accepts a scholarship to the International School in London, where she's suddenly mingling with the privileged offspring of diplomats and world leaders. When Maggie meets Hugh, a twentysomething British guy, she finds herself living the life she has always wanted. Suddenly she's riding around the city in a Ferrari, wearing borrowed designer clothes and going to the hottest clubs. The only problem? There's someone else, someone she can't seem to keep her hands off of. Half French, half Lebanese and impossibly rich, Samir Khouri has made it clear to Maggie that despite their intense attraction, he doesn't do relationships. He's the opposite of everything she thought she wanted--a player with no interest in commitments--but she just can't keep away. Torn between her dream guy and the one haunting her thoughts, Maggie must fight for her own happy ending. But in a city like London, you never know where you stand, and everything can change in the blink of an eye."--Back cover.
Subjects: Romance fiction.; Novels.; College students; Man-woman relationships; Rich people;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Fen, bog, & swamp : a short history of peatland destruction and its role in the climate crisis / by Proulx, Annie,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."A lifelong environmentalist, Annie Proulx brings her wide-ranging research and scholarship to the subject of wetlands and the vitally important yet little understood role they play in preserving the environment--by storing the carbon emissions that greatly contribute to climate change. Fens, bogs, swamps, and marine estuaries are the earth's most desirable and dependable resources, and in four stunning parts, Proulx documents the long-misunderstood role of these wetlands in saving the planet. Taking us on a fascinating journey through history, Proulx shows us the fens of 16th-century England to Canada's Hudson Bay lowlands, Russia's Great Vasyugan Mire, America's Okeefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, and the 19th-century explorers who began the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. Along the way, she writes of the diseases spawned in the wetlands--the Ague, malaria, Marsh Fever--and the surprisingly significant role of peat in industrialization. A sobering look at the degradation of wetlands over centuries and the serious ecological consequences, this is a stunningly important work and a rousing call to action by a writer whose passionate devotion to understanding and preserving the environment is on full and glorious display"--
Subjects: Bog ecology.; Climatic changes.; Fen ecology.; Peatland ecology.; Peatlands.; Swamps.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Now that you mention it / by Higgins, Kristan,author.;
"One step forward. Two steps back. The Tufts scholarship that put Nora Stuart on the path to becoming a Boston medical specialist was a step forward. Being hit by a car and then overhearing her boyfriend hit on another doctor when she thought she was dying? Two major steps back. Injured in more ways than one, Nora feels her carefully built life cracking at the edges. There's only one place to land: home. But the tiny Maine community she left fifteen years ago doesn't necessarily want her. At every turn, someone holds the prodigal daughter of Scupper Island responsible for small-town drama and big-time disappointments. With a tough islander mother who's always been distant and a wild-child sister in jail, unable to raise her daughter--a withdrawn teen as eager to ditch the island as Nora once was--Nora has her work cut out for her if she's going to take what might be her last chance to mend the family. But as some relationships crumble around her, others unexpectedly strengthen. Balancing loss and opportunity, a dark event from her past with hope for the future, Nora will discover that tackling old pain makes room for promise ... and the chance to begin again."--Publisher's description.
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; Families;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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The better sister : a novel / by Burke, Alafair,author.;
"Though Chloe was the younger of the two Taylor sisters, she always seemed to be in charge. She was the honor roll student with big dreams and an even bigger work ethic. Nicky was always restless ... and more than a little reckless--the opposite of her ambitious little sister. She floated from job to job and man to man, and stayed close to home in Cleveland. For a while, it seemed like both sisters had found happiness. Chloe earned a scholarship to an Ivy League school and moved to New York City, where she landed a coveted publishing job. Nicky married promising young attorney Adam Macintosh, and gave birth to a baby boy they named Ethan. The Taylor sisters became virtual strangers. Now, more than fifteen years later, their lives are drastically different--and Chloe is married to Adam. When he's murdered by an intruder at the couple's East Hampton beach house, Chloe reluctantly allows her teenaged stepson's biological mother--her estranged sister, Nicky--back into her life. But when the police begin to treat Ethan as a suspect in his father's death, the two sisters are forced to unite ... and to confront the truth behind family secrets they have tried to bury in the past"--
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Psychological fiction.; Domestic fiction.; Sisters; Murder; Family secrets; Man-woman relationships; False arrest; Criminal defense lawyers;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 2
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Summer darlings / by Foster, Brooke Lea,author.;
Set during the splendid summer days of 1960s Martha's Vineyard, this page-turning debut novel pulls back the curtain on one mysterious and wealthy family as seen through the eyes of their nanny--a college student who, while falling in love on the elegant island, is also forced to reckon with the dark underbelly of privilege. In 1962, coed Heddy Winsome leaves her hardscrabble Irish Brooklyn neighborhood behind and ferries to glamorous Martha's Vineyard to nanny for one of the wealthiest families on the island. But as she grows enamored with the alluring and seemingly perfect young couple and chases after their two mischievous children, Heddy discovers that her academic scholarship at Wellesley has been revoked, putting her entire future at risk. Determined to find her place in the couple's wealthy social circles, Heddy nurtures a romance with the hip surfer down the beach while wondering if the better man for her might be a quiet, studious college boy instead. But no one she meets on the summer island--socialite, starlet, or housekeeper--is as picture-perfect as they seem, and she quickly learns that the right last name and a house in a tony zip-code may guarantee privilege, but that rarely equals happiness.
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Domestic fiction.; Nannies; Women college students; Rich people; Privilege (Social psychology); Classism;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Cover story : a novel / by Rigetti, Susan,author.;
After a rough year at NYU, aspiring writer Lora Ricci is thrilled to land a summer internship at ELLE magazine where she meets Cat Wolff, contributing editor and enigmatic daughter of a clean-energy mogul. Cat takes Lora under her wing, soliciting her help with side projects and encouraging her writing. As a friendship emerges between the two women, Lora opens up to Cat about her desperate struggles and lost scholarship. Cat's solution: Drop out of NYU and become her ghostwriter. Lora agrees and, when the internship ends, she moves into Cat's suite at the opulent Plaza Hotel. Writing during the day and accompanying Cat to extravagant parties at night, Lora's life quickly shifts from looming nightmare to dream-come-true. But as Lora is drawn into Cat's glamorous lifestyle, Cat's perfect exterior cracks, exposing an illicit, shady world. A whip-smart and delightfully inventive writer, Susan Rigetti brilliantly pieces together a perceptive, humorous caper full of sharp observations about scam culture. Composed of diary entries, emails, FBI correspondence, and more, Cover Story is a fresh, fun, and wholly original novel that takes readers deep into the codependency and deceit found in a relationship built on power imbalance and lies.
Subjects: Epistolary fiction.; Psychological fiction.; Novels.; Female friendship; Swindlers and swindling; Women ghostwriters; Young women;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Looking for Miss America : a pageant's 100-year quest to define womanhood / by Mifflin, Margot,1960-author.;
Includes bibliographical references."Looking for Miss America is a fast-paced narrative history of the Miss America pageant from its start as a shocking east coast bathing-beauty revue in 1921 to its recent rebirth as a swimsuit-free "scholarship competition." It introduces the dreamers and dissidents, hustlers and heroines who won; the celebrities, including Norman Rockwell, Joan Crawford, and Rod McKuen, who judged; and the masterminds behind it, like director Lenora Slaughter, who "picked the pageant up by its bathing suit straps and put it down in an evening gown" in the 1930s, transforming it from a seaside skin show into a national institution. Approaching its 100th anniversary, the pageant has survived scandal, protests, mockery, and the mutiny of a queen who got cold feet and skipped town the night she won. One winner called Miss America "the kind of girl who would go into a bar and order orange juice in a loud voice"; another claimed "she's not a real person. She's something that happens every year." Looking for Miss America breaks down the blend of capitalism, patriotism, class anxiety and cultural mythology that has fueled the pageant, the racial biases it has perpetuated, and the social mobility it has enabled"--
Subjects: Miss America Pageant; Beauty contests;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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How we named the stars : a novel / by Ordorica, Andrés N.(Andrés Nicolás),author.;
"When Daniel de La Luna arrives as a scholarship student at an elite East Coast university, he bears the weight of his family's hopes and dreams, and the burden of sharing his late uncle's name. Daniel flounders at first--but then Sam, his roommate, changes everything. As their relationship evolves from brotherly banter to something more intimate, Daniel soon finds himself in love with a man who helps him see himself in a new light. But just as their relationship takes flight, Daniel is pulled away, first by Sam's hesitation and then by a brutal turn of events that changes Daniel's life forever. As he grapples with profound loss, Daniel finds himself in his family's ancestral homeland in México for the summer, facing a host of new questions: What will Ithaca mean without Sam? How does the person he is connect with this place his family comes from? And how might he reconcile the many parts of himself as he learns to move forward? Equal parts tender and triumphant, Andrés N. Ordorica's How We Named the Stars is a debut novel of love, heartache, redemption, and learning to honor the dead; a story of finding the strength to figure out who you are--and who you could be--if only the world would let you"--
Subjects: Bildungsromans.; Queer fiction.; Novels.; Gay men; Life change events; Male college students;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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