"In me, there is the red of miry clay, the brown of spring floods, the gold of ripening tobacco. All of these hues are me; I am, in the deepest sense, colored." From these fertile soils of love, land, identity, family, and race emerges <i>The Home Place</i>, a big-hearted, unforgettable memoir by ornithologist and professor of ecology J. Drew Lanham. <br />Dating back to slavery, Edgefield County, South Carolina--a place "easy to pass by on the way somewhere else"--has been home to generations of Lanhams. In <i>The Home Place</i>, readers meet these extraordinary people, including Drew himself, who over the course of the 1970s falls in love with the natural world around him. As his passion takes flight, however, he begins to ask what it means to be "the rare bird, the oddity." <br />By turns angry, funny, elegiac, and heartbreaking, <i>The Home Place</i> is a remarkable meditation on nature and belonging, at once a deeply moving memoir and riveting exploration of the contradictions of black identity in the rural South--and in America today.
<b>Fierce, searing, and darkly comical, Garriga's debut collection of short-short fiction depicts historical and imagined duels, re-envisioning in a flash the competing points of motivation--courage and cowardice, honor and vengeance--that lead individuals to risk it all.</b> <p></p>In this compact collection, "settling the score" provides a fascinating apparatus for exploring foundational civilizing ideas. Notions of courage, cowardice, and revenge course through Michael Garriga's flash fiction pieces, each one of which captures a duel's decisive moment from three distinct perspectives: opposing accounts from the individual duelists, followed by the third account of a witness. In razor-honed language, the voices of the duelists take center stage, training a spotlight on the litany of misguided beliefs and perceptions that lead individuals into such conflicts. <p></p>From Cain and Abel to Andrew Jackson and Charles Dickenson; from John Henry and the steam drill to an alcoholic fighting the bottle: the cumulative effect of these powerful pieces is a probing and disconcerting look at humankind's long-held notions of pride, honor, vengeance, and satisfaction. Meticulously crafted by Garriga, and with stunning illustrations by Tynan Kerr, <i>The Book of Duels</i> is a unique and remarkable debut.
<i>Tula</i> a ruined Toltec capital; a Russian city known for its accordions; Tagalog for "poem." <p></p>Prismatic, startling, rich with meaning yet sparely composed, Chris Santiago's debut collection of poems begins with one word and transforms it, in a dazzling sleight of hand, into a multivalent symbol for the immigrant experience. <i>Tula</i> Santiago reveals to readers a distant land devastated by war. <i>Tula</i> its music beckons in rhythms, time signatures, and lullabies. <i>Tula</i> can the poem, he seems to ask, build an imaginative bridge back to a family lost to geography, history, and a forgotten language? <p></p>Inspired by the experiences of the "blood stranger"--the second-generation immigrant who does not fully acquire the language of his parents-- <i>Tula</i> paints the portrait of a mythic homeland that is part ghostly underworld, part unknowable paradise. Language splinters. Impossible islands form an archipelago across its landscape. A mother sings lullabies and a father works the graveyard shift in St. Paul--while in the Philippines, two dissident uncles and a grandfather send messages and telegrams from the afterlife. <p></p>Deeply ambitious, a collection that examines the shortcomings and possibilities of both language and poetry themselves, <i>Tula</i> announces the arrival of a major new literary talent. <br />
A surprising friendship develops between Eugenie, an escapee from the French Revolution, and Hannah, a Quaker girl, when they unite in the cause against slavery in this adventuresome tale of true nobility set amidst the rugged, eighteenth-century, Pennsylvania wilderness. <p></p>Fifteen-year-old Eugenie de La Roque and her family barely escape the French Revolution with their lives. Along with several other noble families, they sail to America, where French Azilium, as the area came to be known, is being carved out of the rugged wilderness of Pennsylvania. Hannah Kimbrell is a young Quaker who has been chosen to help prepare French Azilum for the arrival of the aristocrats. In this wild place away from home and the memories they hold dear, Eugenie and Hannah find more in common than they first realize. With much to learn from each other, the girls unite to help free several slaves from their tyrannical French owner, a dangerous scheme that requires personal sacrifice in exchange for the slaves' freedom. <p></p>A story of friendship against all odds, <i>Waiting for the Queen</i> is a loving portrait of the values of a young America, and a reminder that true nobility is more than a royal title. <br />
As a youth, Qasim leaves his tribal village in the remote Himalayas for the plains. Caught up in the strife surrounding the creation of Pakistan, he takes an orphaned girl for his daughter and brings her to the bustling, decadent city of Lahore. Amid the pungent bazaars and crowded streets, Qasim makes his fortune and a home for the two of them. As the years pass, Qasim grows nostalgic about his life in the mountains while his hopelessly romantic teenage daughter, Zaitoon, imagines Qasim's homeland as a region of tall, kindly men who roam the Himalayas like gods. Impulsively, Qasim promises his daughter in marriage to a tribesman, but Zaitoon's fantasy soon becomes a grim reality of unquestioning obedience and unending labor. Bapsi Sidhwa's acclaimed first novel is a robust, richly plotted story of colliding worlds straddled by a spirited girl for whom escape may not be an option.
Born the year World War I began, acclaimed poet William Stafford (1914-1993) spent World War II in a camp for conscientious objectors. Throughout a century of conflict he remained convinced that wars simply don't work. In his writings, Stafford showed it is possible--and crucial--to think independently when fanatics act, and to speak for reconciliation when nations take sides. He believed it was a failure of imagination to only see two options: to fight or to run away. <p></p>This book gathers the evidence of a lifetime's commitment to nonviolence, including an account of Stafford's near-hanging at the hands of American patriots. In excerpts from his daily journal from 1951-1991, Stafford uses questions, alternative views of history, lyric invitations, and direct assessments of our political habits to suggest another way than war. Many of these statements are published here for the first time, together with a generous selection of Stafford's pacifist poems and interviews from elusive sources. <p></p>Stafford provides an alternative approach to a nation's military habit, our current administration's aggressive instincts, and our legacy of armed ventures in Europe, the Pacific, Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and beyond.
MILKWEED NATIONAL FICTION PRIZE WINNER <br />INDIE HEARTLAND BESTSELLER <br />ONE BOOK SOUTH DAKOTA SELECTION <br />MINNESOTA BOOK AWARD FINALIST <br />MIDWEST BOOKSELLERS BOOK AWARD FINALIST <p></p> <i>The Long-Shining Waters</i> is the story of three women, separated by years and circumstance but connected across time by a shared geography: the inland sea of Lake Superior. Rich with historical detail, each character comes vividly to life in this luminous debut novel. <p></p>Grey Rabbit, an Ojibwe woman living by the lake in 1622, is a mother and wife whose dream-life has taken on fearful dimensions. As she struggles to understand "what she is shown at night," her psyche and her world edge toward irreversible change. In 1902, Berit and Gunnar, a Norwegian fishing couple, also live on the lake. Berit is unable to conceive, and the lake anchors her isolated life and tests the limits of her endurance and spirit. And in 2000, when Nora, a seasoned bar owner, loses her job and is faced with an open-ended future, she is drawn reluctantly into a road trip around the great lake.
Publishers Weekly,At the outset of this quiet, quirky book, O'Reilley (The Barn at the End of the World) declares that she has written neither a memoir nor a collection of essays: rather, she has collected ephemera. In vignettes that recall Barbara Holland's work, O'Reilley discusses the meaning of vocation-her job as a college English professor, she says, would not begin to capture her passion for pottery or her call to the ministry of spiritual direction. Her mother, recently dead, casts a long shadow; some of O'Reilley's strongest prose is about grief. She also pays good attention to nature and animals: dogs, goldfinches, elk and deer meander through her reflections. And this is a deeply spiritual book. O'Reilley equivocates about her belief in God, but she wakes up every morning praying and practices walking meditation. She lambastes the kind of Christians who have tamed and domesticated Jesus. The genre of occasional prose invites annoying, if forgivable, repetition-too many uses of the same Sufi phrase "The soul flies in circles," for instance. A Catholic turned Quaker, O'Reilley rebels against tidy religious language. "I want every spiritual word to be new, minted that second. Or else I want silence." Her language is not grandly new every second, but it certainly is lovely. (May 25) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved,Publishers Weekly,Publishers Weekly,At the outset of this quiet, quirky book, O'Reilley (The Barn at the End of the World) declares that she has written neither a memoir nor a collection of essays: rather, she has collected ephemera. In vignettes that recall Barbara Holland's work, O'Reilley discusses the meaning of vocation-her job as a college English professor, she says, would not begin to capture her passion for pottery or her call to the ministry of spiritual direction. Her mother, recently dead, casts a long shadow; some of O'Reilley's strongest prose is about grief. She also pays good attention to nature and animals: dogs, goldfinches, elk and deer meander through her reflections. And this is a deeply spiritual book. O'Reilley equivocates about her belief in God, but she wakes up every morning praying and practices walking meditation. She lambastes the kind of Christians who have tamed and domesticated Jesus. The genre of occasional prose invites annoying, if forgivable, repetition-too many uses of the same Sufi phrase "The soul flies in circles," for instance. A Catholic turned Quaker, O'Reilley rebels against tidy religious language. "I want every spiritual word to be new, minted that second. Or else I want silence." Her language is not grandly new every second, but it certainly is lovely. (May 25) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Publishers Weekly,Caldwell (The Ocean Within) introduces 12-year-old Robert Remick (nicknamed Runt by his long-dead father), an orphan trying to negotiate poverty and neglect. Upon his mother's death, Runt's family breaks up: three sisters are taken in by various aunts (two younger sisters are dead), and Runt goes to live in a trailer with his 19-year-old sister, Helen, and her boyfriend, Cole, a cartoonish, tyrannical figure. Some of the story centers on Runt's piecing together of what it is Cole actually does, and some on neighbor Mitch, a wheelchair-bound prankster who's fighting cancer. Mitch breaks through Runt's reticence, helping him cope with his past while inspiring him to reach out to others, through the Web and otherwise. Aside from Cole, the characterizations are strong, with Runt's inarticulate numbness early in the book coming through most clearly. Ages 9-12. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved,Publishers Weekly,Publishers Weekly,Caldwell (The Ocean Within) introduces 12-year-old Robert Remick (nicknamed Runt by his long-dead father), an orphan trying to negotiate poverty and neglect. Upon his mother's death, Runt's family breaks up: three sisters are taken in by various aunts (two younger sisters are dead), and Runt goes to live in a trailer with his 19-year-old sister, Helen, and her boyfriend, Cole, a cartoonish, tyrannical figure. Some of the story centers on Runt's piecing together of what it is Cole actually does, and some on neighbor Mitch, a wheelchair-bound prankster who's fighting cancer. Mitch breaks through Runt's reticence, helping him cope with his past while inspiring him to reach out to others, through the Web and otherwise. Aside from Cole, the characterizations are strong, with Runt's inarticulate numbness early in the book coming through most clearly. Ages 9-12. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Stretching from the Oregon border to the Baja peninsula, the California Coast ecoregion (ecoregions are geographical areas that share similar natural features and cultural history) is known for mild, Mediterranean-like weather. This book gathers stories, poems, and essays chosen because they feature the natural heritage of the region and because kids often are the protagonists. A book in the acclaimed Stories from Where We Live series, "The California Coast" includes pieces both historical and contemporary and many contributions from ethnic groups. Individual pieces tell of gold rush fortunes, Wells Fargo stagecoach "whips," and surfers who brave the sharks in the "Red Triangle." They recall a Native American woman who survived for eighteen years alone on an island and the "Pigeon Express" that carried mail to the Channel Islands in the days before radio. There are pieces about seals and sea otters, foxes amidst the dry chaparral, redwoods and the La Brea tar pits. The book includes information about the region's habitats and a list of natural areas to visit. Divided into four sections--Adventures, Great Places, Reapers and Sowers, and Wild Lives--this book is a wonderfully imaginative way to get to know the natural life of the California Coast.
The renowned author Bapsi Sidhwa and the equally renowned filmmaker Deepa Mehta share a unique artistic relationship: Mehta adapted Sidhwa's novel "Cracking India" for her brilliant film "Earth, " and here, Sidhwa adapts Mehta's controversial film "Water" to the printed page. <br />Set in 1938, against the backdrop of Gandhi's rise to power, "Water" follows the life of eight-year-old Chuyia, abandoned at a widow's ashram after the death of her elderly husband. There, she must live in penitence until her death. Unwilling to accept her fate, she becomes a catalyst for change in the widows's lives. When her friend Kalyani, a beautiful widow-prostitute, falls in love with a young, upper-class Gandhian idealist, the forbidden affair boldly defies Hindu tradition and threatens to undermine the ashram's delicate balance of power. This riveting look at the lives of widows in colonial India is ultimately a haunting and lyrical story of love, faith, and redemption.