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Tidemagic: The Many Faces of Ista Flit (Tidemagic #1)
by Clare HarlowMagic, mystery, and monsters abound in this series opener about a girl with the rare magical ability to look like anyone she's ever seen.In misty Shelwich, magic rises and falls with the tides, everyone is born with a magical gift, and people have started to . . . disappear.Rumor has it they are snatched by monsters, but Ista Flit doesn't want to believe it. Not when her own father is missing. As she scours the city, searching for clues, a notorious thief finds her. Ista has a rare talent: she's a face-changer, able to take on the appearance of anyone she's seen, and Alexo could use a girl with her skill. Ista could use Alexo's help in her search--if only she could trust him.As more people disappear from the city, Ista finds unexpected allies in Nat and Ruby, each searching for their own missing loved ones. These three determined kids will need to use all the Tidemagic they can summon, infiltrate the city's highest elite circles, and dive into its lowest caverns, in order to find how thieves, monsters, and the missing are all connected.
Brew It Yourself: Make Your Own Craft Drinks with Wild and Home-Grown Ingredients
by Richard Hood Nick MoyleAn updated edition of this popular home-brewing guide which prioritizes home-grown and wild ingredients and has a new section on low or no-alcohol drinks.The Two Thirsty Gardeners are leading a home-brewing revolution. Prioritizing wild and home-grown ingredients, but also providing shop-bought alternatives, Richard Hood and Nick Moyle prove that creating your own tasty craft drinks doesn&’t need to be complicated, costly or time-consuming.The book includes 80 unique recipes, including home brewed beers, wines, liqueurs and boozy sodas, all featuring adventurous natural ingredients like dandelions, nettles, lavender and blackberries. Try out fancy foraged cocktails such as Spruce Martini or Rosehip Lime Mocktail and discover how easy it is to make your own vermouth, cider and even absinthe! With a new section dedicated to low and no-alcohol brews, there is truly a recipe for every occasion.By outlining the basic approaches to each drink&’s method of production, debunking myths and celebrating experimentation, this book takes the fear out of the science of fermentation - so there really is no reason not to brew it yourself!
Cookie Craft: From Baking to Luster Dust, Designs and Techniques for Creative Cookie Occasions
by Valerie Peterson Janice FryerBeautifully decorated cookies are within reach for every home baker, thanks to the easy and practical methods developed by cookie-crafting enthusiasts Valerie Peterson and Janice Fryer. From rolling and cutting to flooding and piping, you&’ll find dozens of techniques to turn plain cookies into fun treats for your next special occasion. With instructions for making stand-up cookies, tips on creating icing color palettes, and advice on freezing and shipping, the cookie fun never stops!
Love in the Time of Hate: In the Mirror of Urdu
by Dr Rakhshanda JalilKabhi hum bhi tum bhi thhe aashna tumhein yaad ho ke na yaad ho Once you and I were friends, whether you remember it now or not--Momin Khan Momin This is a book about love—love for one&’s country and for all that goes to make it one we can be proud to belong to. Poetry, it has been said, flourishes when all else is uncertain. With that in mind, renowned literary historian and translator, Rakhshanda Jalil, uses Urdu poetry to look at how the social fabric of secular India is changing. Rakhshanda delves into the past, to the events that have threatened communal harmony, from the bloodletting of partition, or the politics of successive elections, to communal riots, Mumbai, Gujarat and so on, to the present moment, to recent events around Ayodhya, cow slaughter and &‘love jihad&’. The book is divided into four sections: politics, people, passions, places. Strewn with delightful, thoughtful Urdu couplets that bring depth, lyricism and gravitas to the narratives, the writer cautions us against current popular sentiments based on hating the &‘other&’. Living in an India that now requires us to be resolutely one or the &‘other&’, all of us are losing the wonderful capacity to contain within ourselves many seemingly diverse ideologies and beliefs which is a motif that is reiterated through the verses and words in this book. The section titled &‘People&’ has the most delightful, charming vignettes of popular icons, from Tipu Sultan and Rani Lakshmi Bai to Gandhi and Nehru, from Ghalib and Majaz to Dilip Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar, viewed through an Urdu lens that makes each person memorable, unique and an advocate of peace and unity. From essays doused in the language of secular patriotism like Har Dil Tiranga, to pieces redolent with nostalgia like Dopahar ki Dhoop Mein, Rakhshanda invokes the power of love, inclusivity and communal harmony that is the trademark of poetry and literature, and which must continue to permeate the way we live our lives if we want to bequeath a meaningful legacy to the generations to come in our country.
¿Dónde están los huevos? / Where Are the Eggs? (Storytelling Math)
by Grace Lin¡Libro de cartón grueso ahora disponible en español-inglés bilingüe! La ganadora del Honor de Caldecott, Grace Lin, celebra las matemáticas para todos los niños, ¡en todas partes!Now available in bilingual Spanish-English! Caldecott Honor winner Grace Lin's beloved board books celebrate math for every kid, everywhere!¡Las gallinas han puesto sus huevos por todo el patio! Mei busca los huevos, mirando junto a una regadera, detrás de una maceta de flores, dentro de una carretilla... ¡y debajo de una gallina! Únete a una búsqueda de huevos en primavera en esta historia juguetona sobre el sentido del espacio.Storytelling Math celebra a los niños usando las matemáticas en sus aventuras diarias mientras juegan, construyen y descubren el mundo que les rodea. Historias alegres y actividades manuales hacen que sea fácil para los niños y sus adultos explorar las matemáticas cotidianas juntos. Desarrollado en colaboración con expertos en matemáticas de TERC, una organización educativa con enfoque en ciencia, tecnología, ingeniería y matemáticas (STEM, por sus siglas en inglés), bajo una subvención de la Fundación Heising-Simons.The chickens have laid their eggs all over the yard! Mei looks for the eggs, searching next to a watering can, behind a flower pot, inside a wheelbarrow . . . and under a chicken! Go on a springtime egghunt in this playful story about spatial sense. Storytelling Math celebrates children using math in their daily adventures as they play, build, and discover the world around them. Joyful stories and hands-on activities make it easy for kids and their grown-ups to explore everyday math together. Developed in collaboration with math experts at STEM education nonprofit TERC, under a grant from the Heising-Simons Foundation.
Underbelly: Childhood Diarrhea and the Hidden Local Realities of Global Health
by Rachel Hall-CliffordAn unsettling exploration of the hidden power dynamics of global health, seen through the lens of childhood diarrhea and its treatment within the Guatemalan context.Deaths from childhood diarrhea seem preposterous in high-income countries. Yet, for children under five years old in the rest of the world, diarrhea is the third highest cause of mortality. Despite a glut of prevention and treatment programming spanning more than forty years, this least glamorous of global health ills remains a critical problem. In Underbelly, Rachel Hall-Clifford takes a hard look at the pathways of global health funding and development policies and the outcomes they deliver for recipient individuals and communities. Drawing on fifteen years of ethnographic research in highland Guatemala, Hall-Clifford focuses on the provision of primary health care services as a critical exemplar of how global health and development programs fall short.Guatemala has a fragmented health system, the author explains, that guarantees health as a human right but also suffers from systemic racism, inadequate health services and access to those services, community distrust from a legacy of harm and violence, and a demeaning paternalism. Bringing together the discourses of global health and medical anthropology, Underbelly explores the ways in which global health—its actors, structures, and systems—perpetuates the challenges it purports to fix: this is the underbelly. Hall-Clifford argues that global health programs, conceived in offices distant from the places in which they are delivered, often have unintended consequences and contribute to pluralistic and exclusionary health systems that mirror neoliberal economies. She argues that if we are to fix this entrenched crisis of health inequity, we must use the immense resources of global health to center local communities as drivers of change.With a foreword written by Waleska López Canu, an Indigenous Maya medical director, and an afterword by Arthur Kleinman, renowned expert in global health, this book underscores the importance of looking deeper into what seems on its surface incontrovertibly &“good&” to understand the more complex realities on the ground and in people&’s lives.
Critical Role: The Mighty Nein Origins--Beauregard Lionett
by Mae Catt Matthew Mercer Marisha RayDESPITE HER ORIGINS WITH A &“GOOD FAMILY,&” BEAUREGARD LIONETT&’S PENCHANT FOR TROUBLEMAKING WAS LEGENDARY.Frustrated with her father&’s superstitious and controlling manner, Beau begins secretly selling the family vineyard&’s wine to buyers around Wildemount. When her father discovers her criminal pastimes, his rage turns him against his own daughter—and turns her towards a life with the Mighty Nein!Join Critical Role cast members Marisha Ray and Matthew Mercer as they come together with writer Mae Catt, artist Guilherme Balbi, and colorist Diana Sousa to illuminate Beauregard Lionett&’s tumultuous beginnings.
Let's Make Bread!: A Comic Book Cookbook (Let's Make)
by Ken Forkish Sarah BecanAn accessible and easy-to-follow comic book cookbook for baking delicious breads, featuring a basic universal method, guidelines for maintaining a sourdough starter, and recipes for classic loaves and fun new riffs, from the beloved author of Flour Water Salt Yeast &“A fun and refreshing addition to every baker&’s library.&”—Ciril Hitz, certified artisan break baker, author, and educatorNew York Times bestselling and award-winning author Ken Forkish adapts his expert bread baking tips and recipes from Evolutions in Bread and Flour Water Salt Yeast for the fun, beginner-friendly comic book cookbook format. With comics artist Sarah Becan&’s lively and colorful illustrations, Let&’s Make Bread! invites readers to embark on the journey of making bread with this new visual twist. Forkish and Becan provide valuable tips for the first-time breadmaker, from the necessary equipment and ingredients to the basic eight-step bread method. They explain how to start, feed, maintain, and share a sourdough starter and include valuable troubleshooting tips for temperature, dough texture, proofing, and more. They also present seventeen gold-standard recipes for both traditional and customizable loaves, including The Saturday Bread, The Standard, Corn Kernel Bread, and Raisin-Pecan Bread, and more! Pairing foolproof techniques and recipes with an exciting and inviting comic format, Let&’s Make Bread! is an enjoyable guide to making your own perfect loaf at home.
Reclaim Your Nervous System: A Guide to Positive Change, Mental Wellness, and Post-Traumatic Growth
by Mastin KippAn empowering guide to healing from trauma by understanding its root causes and how it affects our nervous system, featuring proven methods and a personalized recovery plan.In this book, author, speaker, and life interventionist Mastin Kipp guides readers through a personalized plan for working through trauma in order to unlock their full potential. Readers will learn what trauma is and what it isn&’t, how trauma denial is fueling so many problems, the basics of his highly effective Functional Life CoachingTM model, the healing power of attachment theory, the neuroscience behind this protocol, and a vision for a trauma-informed world. Kipp explains why trauma is so misunderstood by the world right now. He also shares compelling personal stories and client stories to demonstrate the proven methods to effectively heal trauma, including attachment theory, Polyvagal theory, internal family systems, functional medicine, and the author&’s signature process, Functional Life CoachingTM. Through healing your trauma, you&’ll jump-start manifesting, goal-setting, and biohacking. Readers will come away with a clear understanding of the role that trauma plays in their own lives and others&’, and will learn how to apply the best practices and information to fully heal and thrive.Foreword by Dr. Helen Messier, Ph.D., M.D.
Dear You, Dream Big!
by Baptiste PaulA new classic for Black and Brown children.ANYTHING and EVERYTHING is possible!Perhaps you want to become an artist, or a scientist, or maybe even president. Even when--especially when--the path is hard, Dear YOU: Dream BIG.A personal, poetic, and uplifting affirmation from Caribbean-born author Baptiste Paul encouraging today's Black youth to reject those who wish to silence them, exclude them, and reject their talents with one powerful refrain.A powerful, lyrical anthem of Black pride celebrating Black creativity, leadership, and innovation that's perfect for fans of All Because You Matter, I Am Every Good Thing, and I Am Enough.
Ideology: An Introduction
by Terry EagletonIdeology has never before been so much in evidence as a fact, and so little understood as a concept, as it is today. In this now classic work, originally written for both students and for those already familiar with the debates around the concept, the celebrated literary theorist Terry Eagleton unravels its many definitions, exploring its tortuous history from the Enlightenment to the present.A limpid account of the thought of key Marxist thinkers, as well as that of philosophers from Schopenhauer and Nietzsche to Freud and the post-structuralists, and a political reformulation of a vital set of ideas, Ideology: An Introduction is an essential text by one of our most important contemporary critics.
The Witch's Workshop: A Guide to Crafting Your Own Magical Tools
by Melissa MadaraFrom the author of The Witch's Feast, this is the first fully illustrated, comprehensive introduction to the handicrafts of witchcraft. Through over 60 craft projects, learn all the techniques you need to create your personalized magical toolkit.Empower yourself as a self-sufficient witch, and become a master of the natural arts!This in-depth guide, accompanied by step-by-step images, will show you all the craft and design skills you need to make your own, personalized and fully adaptable magical toolkit.Melissa Madara, magical expert, herbalist and witch, shares 60+ unique projects and techniques, many of which revive spells from the history of witches past. Approachable for beginners and stimulating for established practitioners, the crafts are clearly explained through luscious photographs, detailed research, useful charts, and easy-to-follow instructions. Once you are directly in touch with the power of these crafts, understanding deeply the processes and the associations of magical ingredients, you can be inspired to create all your own unique formulations. Chapters include:Incense, including kyphi temple incense, which once billowed from the temples of ancient Egypt, to house blessing incense for cleansing any new home.Inks, including dragon's blood ink and botanical drawing charcoals.Oils, such as flying ointment or the world's first known chemist Tapputi's royal salve.Natural dyes for creating stunning eco-printed ritual gowns or a spring equinox altar tablecloth.Papers, like Japanese knotweed paper or autumn equinox corn husk paper.Powders essential for rituals and spells such as scrying powder and banishing salt.Candles of all shapes and types, including poured, dipped and molded.With all of this knowledge, you can create altars, rituals and spells that are highly specific, personal and in touch with your natural environment.
The Cognitive Life of Maps
by Roberto CasatiThe &“mapness of maps&”—how maps live in interaction with their users, and what this tells us about what they are and how they work.In a sense, maps are temporarily alive for those who design, draw, and use them. They have, for the moment, a cognitive life. To grapple with what this means—to ask how maps can be alive, and what kind of life they have—is to explore the core question of what maps are. And this is what Roberto Casati does in The Cognitive Life of Maps, in the process assembling the conceptual tools for understanding why maps have the power they have, why they are so widely used, and how we use (and misuse) them.Drawing on insights from cognitive science and philosophy of mind, Casati considers the main claims around what maps are and how they work—their specific syntax, peculiar semantics, and pragmatics. He proposes a series of steps that can lead to a precise theory of maps, one that reveals what maps have in common with diagrams, pictures, and texts, and what makes them different. This minimal theory of maps helps us to see maps nested in many cognitive artifacts—clock faces, musical notation, writing, calendars, and numerical series, for instance. It also allows us to tackle the issue of the territorialization of maps—to show how maps can be used to draw specific spatial inferences about territories. From the mechanics of maps used for navigation to the differences and similarities between maps and pictures and models, Casati's ambitious work is a cognitive map in its own right, charting the way to a new understanding of what maps mean.
My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Lv999 Volume 1 (My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Lv999 #1)
by MashiroThe award-winning manga that inspired the anime My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Lv999Sometimes love is like an endgame boss.College student Akane has just been dumped by her boyfriend. Heartbroken, she decides to quit the online RPG they used to play together—but instead of deleting her account, she logs in and battles low-level enemies to relieve her stress and hurt feelings. There she meets Yamada, an elite pro gamer so reclusive that Akane can&’t decide if he&’s awkward or alluring. When Akane encounters her ex at a gaming convention, she makes the snap decision to pretend Yamada is her boyfriend, and soon the two of them are spending time together both in the game and in real life. The problem is, Yamada is only interested in the game. As Akane&’s feelings grow, will Yamada&’s focus shift?Volume 1 includes Chapters 1-9.
Una hermosa casa para pájaros / A Beautiful House for Birds (Storytelling Math)
by Grace Lin¡Libro de cartón grueso ahora disponible en español-inglés bilingüe! La ganadora del Honor de Caldecott, Grace Lin, celebra las matemáticas para todos los niños, ¡en todas partes!Board book now available in bilingual Spanish-English! Caldecott Honor winner Grace Lin celebrates math for every kid, everywhere!Olivia quiere hacer una colorida casa para pájaros para el verano. Ella comienza a pintar un patrón de rayas en el techo, pero ¡uy!—comete un error. ¿Y ahora qué? Explora los patrones en esta historia juguetona sobre la resolución creativa de problemas.Storytelling Math celebra a los niños usando las matemáticas en sus aventuras diarias mientras juegan, construyen y descubren el mundo que les rodea. Historias alegres y actividades manuales hacen que sea fácil para los niños y sus adultos explorar las matemáticas cotidianas juntos. Desarrollado en colaboración con expertos en matemáticas de TERC, una organización educativa con enfoque en ciencia, tecnología, ingeniería y matemáticas (STEM, por sus siglas en inglés), bajo una subvención de la Fundación Heising-Simons.Olivia wants to make a colorful birdhouse for summer. She starts painting a pattern of stripes on the roof but then oops!—messes up. Now what? Explore patterns in this playful story about creative problem-solving. Storytelling Math celebrates children using math in their daily adventures as they play, build, and discover the world around them. Joyful stories and hands-on activities make it easy for kids and their grown-ups to explore everyday math together. Developed in collaboration with math experts at STEM education nonprofit TERC, under a grant from the Heising-Simons Foundation.
¿Quién salta más? / Who Jumps More? (Storytelling Math)
by Grace Lin¡Libro de cartón grueso ahora disponible en español-inglés bilingüe! La ganadora del Honor de Caldecott, Grace Lin, celebra las matemáticas para todos los niños, ¡en todas partes!Board book now available in bilingual Spanish-English! Caldecott Honor winner Grace Lin celebrates math for every kid, everywhere!Olivia y Mei saltan en la nieve hasta llegar al árbol alto. Mei da unos saltos grandes como un reno. Olivia da muchos saltitos más pequeños como un conejo. Cada una salta "más" de manera diferente. Una exploración juguetona de la medición, la proporción y la amistad.Storytelling Math celebra a los niños usando las matemáticas en sus aventuras diarias mientras juegan, construyen y descubren el mundo que les rodea. Historias alegres y actividades manuales hacen que sea fácil para los niños y sus adultos explorar las matemáticas cotidianas juntos. Desarrollado en colaboración con expertos en matemáticas de TERC, una organización educativa con enfoque en ciencia, tecnología, ingeniería y matemáticas (STEM, por sus siglas en inglés), bajo una subvención de la Fundación Heising-Simons.Olivia and Mei jump in the snow all the way to the tall tree. Mei takes a few big leaps like a deer. Olivia makes lots of smaller hops like a bunny. Each jumps &“more&” in a different way. A playful exploration of measurement, proportion, and friendship.Storytelling Math celebrates children using math in their daily adventures as they play, build, and discover the world around them. Joyful stories and hands-on activities make it easy for kids and their grown-ups to explore everyday math together. Developed in collaboration with math experts at STEM education nonprofit TERC, under a grant from the Heising-Simons Foundation.
Virgin Love 3 (Virgin Love #3)
by Tina Yamashina&“Looking for love, but afraid you&’ll never find it?&” Come Live at the Love House!Let the Shoko Tug of War BeginStill reeling from her failed Christmas Eve date with Kei and an unexpectedly heart-pounding moment with Tanaka, Shoko agrees to join her housemates on their very first group trip to a hot springs resort. But what should be the perfect moment to relax and reset very quickly becomes another source of intoxicating, mixed signals that leave Shoko more rattled than ever. And the snapshot of in-house situationships soon gets even more complicated by the revelation that the usually cool and composed Rio has also started to fall for someone in the Love House…
Nick and Tesla and the Super-Cyborg Gadget Glove: A Mystery with Gadgets You Can Build Yourself (Nick and Tesla #4)
by Bob Pflugfelder Steve HockensmithBuild a super-cyborg gadget glove and save the science museum with twin sleuths Nick and Tesla in this zany, action-packed middle grade adventure by &“Science Bob&” Pflugfelder!Just like their eccentric genius Uncle Newt, 11-year-old twins Nick and Tesla love science—and they can't wait for the grand reopening of the science museum in Half Moon Bay. But when someone sabotages the new Hall of Genius exhibit, the animatronic replicas of history's greatest scientists go haywire. The two young sleuths must engineer their very own DIY super-cyborg gadget glove—complete with a false-alarm alarm, a UV-light secret message reader, and more—to catch the culprit and save the museum. Now in paperback, this fourth book in the popular Nick and Tesla series features laugh-out-loud jokes, fun illustrations, and four DIY science projects with step-by-step instructions for readers to try at home.
Conan: The Heroic Legends Series (The Heroic Legends Series #9)
by Henry HerzCapturing the electric short fiction energy that led Robert E. Howard to be one of the top fantasy writers of the century, with exclusive serialized eBook stories starring Conan, Solomon Kane, and more by many of today&’s top writers in fantasy and sword-and-sorcery.Sailing together on the Tigress, Conan and Bêlit hijack and plunder a ship. Victorious but with a damaged ship to show for it, the pirates return to their secret island haven. They arrive to find their village under attack, not by men, but hideous things—part men, part aquatic creatures.Powerful but ungainly, these bloodthirsty frog-men are faster and even more formidable in the water. Conan, Bêlit and her crew watch helplessly as the abominations abscond with the women of their village. Unable to give chase due to their damaged ship, Conan and Bêlit swear vengeance on these monstrosities.
Chasing Hope: A Reporter's Life
by Nicholas D. KristofFrom New York Times columnist, Pulitzer Prize winner, and best-selling author Nicholas D. Kristof, an intimate and gripping memoir about a life in journalism&“Nick Kristof takes us behind the scenes as he risks his life to shine a light on the world&’s most pressing problems and blaze a trail to a better future. In a time when trust in journalism is in jeopardy, his honesty, humility, and humanity are rays of hope.&”—Adam Grant, author of Hidden PotentialSince 1984, Nicholas Kristof has worked almost continuously for The New York Times as a reporter, foreign correspondent, bureau chief, and now columnist, becoming one of the foremost reporters of his generation. Here, he recounts his event-filled path from a small-town farm in Oregon to every corner of the world.Reporting from Hong Kong, Beijing, and Tokyo, while traveling far afield to India, Africa, and Europe, Kristof witnessed and wrote about century-defining events: the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, the Yemeni civil war, the Darfur genocide in Sudan, and the wave of addiction and despair that swept through his hometown and a broad swath of working-class America. Fully aware that coverage of atrocities generates considerably fewer page views than the coverage of politics, he nevertheless continued to weaponize his pen against regimes and groups violating basic human rights, raising the cost of oppression and torture. Some of the risks he took while doing so make for hair-raising reading.Kristof writes about some of the great members of his profession and introduces us to extraordinary people he has met, such as the dissident whom he helped escape from China and a Catholic nun who browbeat a warlord into releasing schoolgirls he had kidnapped. These are the people, the heroes, who have allowed Kristof to remain optimistic. Side by side with the worst of humanity, you always see the best.This is a candid memoir of vulnerability and courage, humility and purpose, mistakes and learning—a singular tale of the trials, tribulations, and hope to be found in a life dedicated to the pursuit of truth.
A Strange and Sublime Address
by Amit ChaudhuriWriter and musician Amit Chaudhuri&’s elegant debut novel, in which an Indian ten-year-old experiences the entirely distinct experiences of life in Bombay, where his family lives, and Calcutta, where he visits relatives during his summer vacation.Ten-year-old Sandeep lives in a high-rise in Bombay, where his father has an important job that keeps him busy all the time. Come summer, Sandeep and his mother travel to Calcutta to spend time with his aunt, his self-absorbed and improvident uncle, and Abhi, his favorite cousin. His relatives&’ house is shadowy and rambling; the vast city around it ramshackle and alluring. They fascinate curious, observant Sandeep. Days pass; the heat grows; the rains come; the visit ends. In the winter, Sandeep and his family return to Calcutta—and encounter an unexpected turn of events. But Sandeep has arrived at a new sense of things, an understanding of how the marvelous inheres in the mundane, that will be his, we feel, for good. At once delicate and incisive, A Strange and Sublime Address succeeds in both immersing us in a boy&’s inner world and depicting that boy and his world from outside. It was Amit Chaudhuri&’s first book, the work of a novelist whose striking originality of conception would subsequently become ever more clear. The three decades since the publication of A Strange and Sublime Address have only confirmed its appeal and poetry.
Freedom Song
by Amit ChaudhuriWinner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction, a graceful depiction of middle-class Calcutta, seen through the lives of two interlinked families living in the city during the 1990s.Freedom Song is a novel about family life and city life at an uneasy moment in time. Set in Calcutta in 1993, the book begins by introducing us to Khuku, whose husband Shib is a retired executive and whose son has gone to live in America. Khuku&’s old friend Mini, a teacher suffering from a bad case of arthritis, is paying a visit, which gives the two women a chance to gossip and reminisce and see the town. Khuku&’s brother, Bhola, lives nearby with his wife and two grown children. Everyone is concerned about his son, Bhaskar, who has recently joined the Communist Party. He sells the party newspaper on the streets. He engages in street theater, and while no longer in his first youth, he remains unmarried.Freedom Song circles around this small upper-middle-class world, with its customs, memories, pleasures, and worries, but also ventures out into the wider world, in which the destruction of the venerable Babri Masjid by Hindu fundamentalists has started a cycle of sectarian violence. A novel of ordinary life, of work and love, shadowed by larger uncertainty, Freedom Song is a transfixing performance, deeply humane and winningly humorous, by one of the subtlest and sharpest writers of our time. A world of insight and feeling emerges from Amit Chaudhuri&’s wonderfully expansive sentences, and style is revealed as nothing less than a form of knowledge.
Butterfly of Dinard
by Eugenio MontaleThe great poet Eugenio Montale was also a remarkable writer of prose whose stories appeared regularly in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. Butterfly of Dinard is a collection of fifty of those stories, pieces about &“silly and trivial things which are at the same time important,&” whose sprightliness, subtle irony, and conversational ease defy the limits of traditional fiction. Taken together, they form a sort of autobiographical novel, evoking people, objects, and animals dear to the poet, while simultaneously shedding light on the social, cultural, and political events of the day. The book begins with Montale&’s childhood in Liguria and goes on to explore his adult life in pre-Fascist Florence and the onset of Fascism. The last part of the book, focusing on his final years in Milan, forms what Jonathan Galassi in his introduction calls &“a mosaic self-portrait of the writer himself, a bumbling yet proud, memory-obsessed Chaplinesque antihero, who sees himself as the only surviving, if unwilling, witness to a disappearing world.&” The stories were first published in book form in 1956; Montale added further stories to subsequent editions, culminating in the final 1973 edition. Butterfly of Dinard is the first complete translation of this edition and includes five stories never before translated into English.
Late Montale
by Eugenio MontaleLate Montale is a generous selection of the poems that the Nobel laureate Eugenio Montale wrote in the last decade of his life, including many drawn from notebooks he entrusted to his housekeeper, which appear here in English for the first time. In new translations by the American poet George Bradley that carry over all the wit and lucidity of the originals, each poem takes on a fresh immediacy. Together, they form an ideal introduction for readers unfamiliar with these late works, and for readers who have long admired them, a sparkling reminder of their subtle art of disillusion and surprise.
Afternoon Raag
by Amit ChaudhuriWinner of the UK&’s Encore Award for best second novel, a lyrical story of a Bengali student at Oxford University who is caught in the complications of a love triangle.Afternoon Raag is a book of branching and overlapping stories, a book that like memory moves unpredictably in time. In it, a nameless first-person narrator looks back at his student days in Oxford, a period of loneliness and discovery when his affections were torn between two women, and to the summer vacations that took him from England to Bombay, where his parents lived, and later to Calcutta, where he was born.Descriptions of Oxford&’s green lawns and drab dorms, of friends and classes and the relentless drizzle, sit beside Bombay street scenes and recollections of the teacher, now dead, from whom the narrator and his mother learned music.Afternoon Raag is a book about the uncertainty of youth and the strange inevitability of growing up. Its images are wonderfully vivid; its rhythms elastic and entrancing. Throughout it is haunted by the spirit of the music teacher, the master singer who gives shape to the elusive and annihilating passage of time.