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Eat the Buddha : life and death in a Tibetan town / by Demick, Barbara,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Set in Aba, a town perched at 12,000 feet on the Tibetan plateau in the far western reaches of China that has been the engine of Tibetan resistance for decades, Eat the Buddha tells the story of a nation through the lives of ordinary people living in the throes of this conflict. Award-winning journalist Barbara Demick illuminates a part of China and the aggressions of this superpower that have been largely off limits to Westerners who have long romanticized Tibetans as a deeply spiritual, peaceful people. She tells a sweeping story that spans decades through the lives of her subjects, among them a princess whose family lost everything in the Cultural Revolution; a young student from a nomadic family who becomes radicalized in the storied monastery of Kirta; an upwardly mobile shopkeeper who falls in love with a Chinese woman; a poet and intellectual who risks everything to voice his resistance. Demick paints a broad canvas through an intimate view of these lives, depicting the tradition of resistance that results in the shocking acts of self-immolation, the vibrant, enduring power of Tibetan Buddhism, and the clash of modernity with ancient ways of life. Her depiction is nuanced, unvarnished, and at times shocking"--
Subjects: Buddhism; Refugees, Tibetan.; Tibetans; Tibetans;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Death Valley : a novel / by Broder, Melissa,author.;
"The most profound book yet from the visionary author of Milk Fed and The Pisces, a darkly funny novel about grief that becomes a desert survival story. In Melissa Broder's astounding new novel, a woman arrives alone at a Best Western seeking respite from an emptiness that plagues her. She has fled to the California desert to escape a cloud of sorrow-both for her father in the ICU and a disabled husband whose illness is worsening. What the motel provides, however, is not peace but a path, thanks to a receptionist who recommends a nearby hike. Out on the sun-scorched trail, the woman encounters a towering cactus whose size and shape mean it should not exist in California. Yet the cactus is there, with a gash through its side that beckons like a familiar door. So she enters it. What this woman finds inside this mystical succulent sets her on a journey at once desolate and rich, hilarious and poignant. This is Melissa Broder at her most imaginative, most universal, and finest. This is Death Valley"--
Subjects: Magic realist fiction.; Novels.; Cactus; Fathers and daughters; Grief; Married people;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Wildcat : the untold story of Pearl Hart, the wild west's most notorious woman bandit / by Boessenecker, John,1953-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index.The little-known story of Pearl Hart, the most famous female bandit in the American West. On May 30, 1899, history was made when Canadian-born and raised Pearl Hart, disguised as a man, held up a stagecoach in Arizona and robbed the passengers at gunpoint. A manhunt ensued as word of her heist spread, and Pearl Hart went on to become a media sensation and the most notorious female outlaw on the Western frontier. Her early life, family and fate after her later release from prison have long remained a mystery to scholars and historians--until now. Drawing on groundbreaking research into territorial records and genealogical data, John Boessenecker's Wildcat is the first book to uncover the enigma of Pearl Hart. Hailed by many as "The Bandit Queen," her epic life of crime and legacy as a female trailblazer provide a crucial lens into the lives of the rare women who made their mark in the American West.
Subjects: Biographies.; Hart, Pearl.; Women outlaws; Women outlaws;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Endeavour : the ship that changed the world / by Moore, Peter,1983-author.;
Includes bibliographical references (pages 357-363) and index.An unprecedented history of the storied ship that Darwin said helped add a hemisphere to the civilized world. The Enlightenment was an age of endeavors, with Britain consumed by the impulse for grand projects undertaken at speed. Endeavour was also the name given to a collier bought by the Royal Navy in 1768. It was a commonplace coal-carrying vessel that no one could have guessed would go on to become the most significant ship in the chronicle of British exploration. The first history of its kind, Peter Moore's Endeavour: The Ship That Changed the World is a revealing and comprehensive account of the storied ship's role in shaping the Western world. Endeavour famously carried James Cook on his first major voyage, charting for the first time New Zealand and the eastern coast of Australia. Yet it was a ship with many lives: During the battles for control of New York in 1776, she witnessed the bloody birth of the republic. As well as carrying botanists, a Polynesian priest, and the remains of the first kangaroo to arrive in Britain, she transported Newcastle coal and Hessian soldiers. NASA ultimately named a space shuttle in her honor. But to others she would be a toxic symbol of imperialism. Through careful research, Moore tells the story of one of history's most important sailing ships, and in turn shines new light on the ambition and consequences of the Age of Enlightenment.
Subjects: Cook, James, 1728-1779.; Great Britain. Royal Navy; Endeavour (Ship); Navigation;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Patton's prayer : a true story of courage, faith, and victory in World War II / by Kershaw, Alex,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."From Alex Kershaw, author of the New York Times bestseller Against All Odds, comes an epic story of courage, resilience, and faith during the Second World War. General George Patton needed a miracle. In December 1944, the Allies found themselves stuck. Rain had plagued the troops daily since September, turning roads into rivers of muck, slowing trucks and tanks to a crawl. A thick ceiling of clouds had grounded American warplanes, allowing the Germans to reinforce. The sprint to Berlin had become a muddy, bloody stalemate, costing thousands of American lives. Patton seethed, desperate for some change, any change, in the weather. A devout Christian, he telephoned his head chaplain. "Do you have a good prayer for the weather?" he asked. The resulting prayer was soon printed and distributed to the 250,000 men under Patton's command. "Pray when driving," the men were told. "Pray when fighting. Pray alone. Pray with others. Pray by night and pray by day. Pray for the cessation of immoderate rains, for good weather for Battle ... Pray for victory ... Pray for Peace." Then came the Battle of the Bulge. Amid frigid temperatures and heavy snow, 200,000 German troops overwhelmed the meager American lines in Belgium's Ardennes Forest, massacring thousands of soldiers as the attack converged on a vital crossroads town called Bastogne. There, the 101st Airborne was dug in, but the enemy were lurking, hidden in the thick blanket of fog that seemed to never dissipate. A hundred miles of frozen roads to the south, Patton needed an answer to his prayer, fast, before it was too late"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Patton, George S. (George Smith), 1885-1945; Patton, George S. (George Smith), 1885-1945; United States. Army. Airborne Division, 101st; Ardennes, Battle of the, 1944-1945.; Generals; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Laughing with the Trickster : on sex, death, and accordions / by Highway, Tomson,1951-author.;
Includes bibliographical references."Brilliant, jubilant insights into the glory and anguish of life from one of the world's most treasured Indigenous creators. Trickster is zany, ridiculous. The ultimate, over-the-top, madcap lunatic. Here to remind us that the reason for existence is to have one blast of a time, to laugh ourselves to death. Ever the trickster, Tomson Highway brings his signature irreverence to an exploration of five themes central to the human condition: language, creation, sex and gender, humour, and death. A comparative analysis of Christian, Classical, and Cree mythologies reveals how they have given form and substance to Western thought, life, and culture. Yet Indigenous mythologies provide unique, timeless solutions to our modern problems. Tomson Highway offers generous personal anecdotes, including of his beloved accordion-playing father, and plentiful Trickster stories as guides through such crises as climate change, economic disparity, racial intolerance, and all-out unhappiness. Laughter is medicine. Within the endless circle of life in Indigenous mythologies, the Earth is a garden of joy unlimited. A world we must protect as the birthright of future generations. Laugh with the legendary Tomson Highway as he illuminates a healing, hilarious way forward."--
Subjects: Humor.; Mythology.; Tricksters.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Flight 149 : a hostage crisis, a secret special forces unit, and the origins of the Gulf War / by Davis, Stephen(Journalist),author.;
"On Wednesday August 1st, 1990, British Airways flight 149 was on a seemingly routine journey that turned into a month-long international hostage crisis in a war-torn country. As soon as it set down on the Kuwaiti tarmac just as Saddam Hussein and his Iraqi forces invaded, BA149 became an unexpected casualty of a desert war. Or that's how the story went, until now. In Flight 149 award-winning investigative journalist Stephen Davis tells a revelatory story, the product of thirty years of dogged investigation that was finally confirmed by a conscience-stricken former MI6 officer. The British and American governments gambled with the lives of passengers on board, in what marked the beginning of a new era of Western entanglement in the Middle East, one that would ensnare the UK and US to this day. As Davis reveals, BA149 was used to smuggle in a covert special operatives unit tasked with gathering intelligence. But once Iraqi forces intercepted the plane on the tarmac and took passengers hostage, their lives were upended forever. Paced like a true thriller, Flight 149 revisits the First Gulf War and pivotal event of Western hubris. With first-hand testimony from passengers, new insights from covert sources and confessions from secret soldiers, Davis unravels the web of lies and deceit put forth by the US and British government while portraying the lasting consequences of the ill-fated flight"--
Subjects: Iraq-Kuwait Crisis, 1990-1991.; Operation Desert Shield, 1990-1991.; Persian Gulf War, 1991.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Inland : a novel / by Obreht, Téa,author.;
"In the lawless, drought-ridden lands of the Arizona Territory in 1893, two extraordinary lives collide. Nora is an unflinching frontierswoman, alone in a house abandoned by the men in her life--her husband, who has gone in search of water for the parched household, and her two older sons, who have gone in search of their father after his return is delayed. Nora is biding her time with her youngest son, a boy with a bad eye who is convinced that a mysterious beast is stalking the land around their home, and a seventeen year old maid named Josie, her husband's cousin who communes with spirits. Lurie is the son of a dead dockworker, a former outlaw, and a man haunted by ghosts--he sees lost souls who want something from him, and he finds reprieve from their longing in an unexpected relationship that inspires an epic journey across the West. The way in which Nora and Lurie's stories intertwine is the surprise and suspense of this brilliant novel. Mythical, lyrical, and sweeping in scope, Inland showcases all of Téa Obreht's talents as a writer, as she subverts and reimagines the classical American genre of the Western, making it entirely--and unforgettably--her own" --
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Ghost stories.; Women; Outlaws; Frontier and pioneer life;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 2
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Against all odds : a true story of ultimate courage and survival in World War II / by Kershaw, Alex,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."The national bestselling author of The First Wave tells the untold story of four of the most decorated soldiers of World War II-all Medal of Honor recipients-from the beaches of French Morocco to Hitler's own mountaintop fortress. As the Allies raced to defeat Hitler, four men, all in the same unit, earned medal after medal for battlefield heroism. Maurice "Footsie" Britt, a former professional football player, became the very first American to receive every award for valor in a single war. Michael Daly was a West Point dropout who risked his neck over and over to keep his men alive. Keith Ware would one day become the first and only draftee in history to attain the rank of general before serving in Vietnam. In WWII, Ware owed his life to the finest soldier he ever commanded, a baby-faced Texan named Audie Murphy. In the campaign to liberate Europe, each would gain the ultimate accolade, the Congressional Medal of Honor. Tapping into personal interviews and a wealth of primary source material, Alex Kershaw has delivered his most gripping account yet of American courage, spanning more than six hundred days of increasingly merciless combat, from the deserts of North Africa to the dark heart of Nazi Germany. Once the guns fell silent, these four exceptional warriors would discover just how heavy the Medal of Honor could be-and how great the expectations associated with it. Having survived against all odds, who among them would finally find peace?"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; United States. Army. Infantry Regiment, 30th (1901-1957); Medal of Honor; Soldiers; World War, 1939-1945; World War, 1939-1945; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Ice ghosts : the epic hunt for the lost Franklin Expedition / by Watson, Paul,1959-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."The true story of the greatest mystery of Arctic exploration and the rare mix of marine science and Inuit knowledge that led to the shipwreck's recent discovery. Ice Ghosts weaves together the epic story of the Franklin Expedition--whose two ships and crew of 129 were lost to the Arctic ice--with the modern tale of the scientists, divers, and local Inuit behind the incredible discovery of the flagship's wreck in 2014. Paul Watson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who was on the icebreaker that led the discovery expedition, tells a fast-paced historical adventure story: Sir John Franklin and the crew of the HMS Erebus and Terror setting off in search of the fabled Northwest Passage, the hazards they encountered and the reasons they were forced to abandon ship hundreds of miles from the nearest outpost of Western civilization, and the decades of searching that turned up only rumours of cannibalism and a few scattered papers and bones until a combination of faith in Inuit lore and the latest science yielded a discovery for the ages."--Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Franklin, John, Sir, 1786-1847.; Erebus (Ship); Terror (Ship); Inuit;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Results 191 to 200 of 305 | « previous |