|
|
|
 |
Bel canto : a novel
Patchett, Ann.
Check Availability
2001; 318 p. ; 24 cm.
Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of Mr. Hosokawa, a powerful Japanese businessman. Roxanne Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening -- until a band of gun-wielding terrorists breaks in through the air-conditioning vents and takes the entire party hostage. But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds and people from different countries and continents become compatriots. Without the demands of the world to shape their days, life on the inside becomes more beautiful than anything they had ever known before. At once riveting and impassioned, the narrative becomes a moving exploration of how people communicate when music is the only common language. Friendship, compassion, and the chance for great love lead the characters to forget the real danger that has been set in motion and cannot be stopped. Ann Patchett has written a novel that is as lyrical and profound as it is unforgettable. Bel Canto engenders in the reader the very passion for art and the language of music that its characters discover. As a reader, you find yourself fervently wanting this captivity to continue forever, even though you know that real life waits on the other side of the garden wall. Bel Canto is a virtuoso performance by one of our bestand most important writers. It is a no novel to be cherished.
-- summary distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc. (Terms of Use)
More Information |
|
 |
Beyond Hitler's grasp : the heroic rescue of Bulgaria's Jews
Bar-Zohar, Michael, 1938-
Check Availability
1998; xiii, 298 p. : ill., 1 map ; 25 cm.
In the tradition of "Schindler's List, Beyond Hitler's Grasp" tells the dramatic true account of the Bulgarian conspiracy to outwit the Germans and keep every one of Bulgaria's Jews from ever being deported. Photos.
-- summary distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc. (Terms of Use)
More Information |
|
 |
The birth of Venus : a novel
Dunant, Sarah.
Check Availability
2003; 397 p. ; 24 cm.
"Alessandra Cecchi is not quite fifteen when her father, a prosperous cloth merchant, brings a young painter back from northern Europe to decorate the chapel walls in the family's Florentine palazzo. A child of the Renaissance, with a precocious mind and a talent for drawing, Alessandra is intoxicated by the painter's abilities." "But their burgeoning relationship is interrupted when Alessandra's parents arrange her marriage to a wealthy, much older man. Meanwhile, Florence is changing, increasingly subject to the growing suppression imposed by the fundamentalist monk Savonarola, who is seizing religious and political control. Alessandra and her native city are caught between the Medici state, with its love of luxury, learning, and dazzling art, and the hellfire preaching and increasing violence of Savonarola's reactionary followers. Played out against this turbulent backdrop, Alessandra's married life is a misery, except for the surprising freedom it allows her to pursue her powerful attraction to the young painter and his art."--BOOK JACKET.
-- summary Produced by Blackwell's Book Services; distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc. (Terms of Use)
More Information |
|
| |
Le bizarre incident du chien pendant la nuit : roman
Haddon, Mark.
Check Availability
2004; 291 p. ; 23 cm.
|
|
 |
The bookseller of Kabul
Seierstad, Ĺsne, 1970-
Check Availability
2003; xv, 287 p. : 19 cm.
In Afghanistan, just after the fall of the Taliban, a bookseller named Sultan Khan allowed a Western journalist to move into his home and experience firsthand his family's life in the newly liberated capital city of Kabul. From that act of openness emerges this remarkable book, already an international best-seller -- the most intimate look yet at ordinary life for those who have weathered Afghanistan's extraordinary upheavals. One husband, two wives, five children, and many other relatives sharing four small rooms opened up their lives, unforgettably. First is Sultan himself, a man whose love of books has exposed him to great risks over his thirty years in the trade. He has seen his volumes censored, ripped apart, even burned in the street by the Communists and the Taliban. Each time, he rebuilt his business, hiding the most controversial texts, surviving prison, traveling treacherous back roads to Pakistan to order much-needed schoolbooks. He takes joy in selling books of history, science, art, religion, and poetry, and defends his business with a primal ferocity against competitors and theft.But Sultan is also a committed Muslim with strict views on filial respect and the role of women. We meet his wife, Sharifa, when she learns that Sultan is taking a new bride, as his status in the community dictates. Despite custom, it is agonizing for the mother of Sultan's children to see her place usurped. We follow their teenage son, Mansur, as he embarks on his first religious pilgrimage, which embodies all the excitement of youth's first rebellion. And we see Sultan's younger sisters, as one prepares for her wedding while another seeks a job to escape her family's tight grip. Stepping back from the page, award-winning journalist Asne Seierstad allows the Khans to speak for themselves about their joys, sorrows, rivalries, loves, dreams, and temptations. Through this close-knit household, we gain an intimate view -- as few outsiders have seen it -- of life in an Islamic country just beginning to find its way between the forces of modernity and tradition. Book jacket.
-- summary distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc. (Terms of Use)
More Information |
|
 |
The book borrower : a novel
Mattison, Alice.
Check Availability
1999; 278 p. ; 21 cm.
On the first page of The Book Borrower, Toby Ruben and Deborah Laidlaw meet in 1975 in a New York City playground, where the two women are looking after their babies. Deborah lends Toby a book, Trolley Girl,--a memoir about a long ago trolley strike and three Jewish sisters, one a fiery revolutionary--that will disappear and reappear throughout the twenty-two years these women are friends. Through two decades Deborah and Toby raise their children, embark on teaching careers, and argue about politics, education, and their own lives. One day during a hike, they have an argument that cannot be resolved--and the two women take different, permanent paths--but it is ultimately the borrowed book that will bring them back together. With sensitivity and grace, Alice Mattison shows how books can rescue us from our deepest sorrows; how the events of the outside world play into our private lives; and how the bonds between women are enduring, mysterious, and laced with surprise.
-- summary distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc. (Terms of Use)
More Information |
|
 |
The brave new world of health care
Lamm, Richard D.
Check Availability
2003; xiii, 130 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.
Speaker's Corner Books is a provocative new series designed to stimulate, educate, and foster discussion on significant public policy topics. Written by experts in a variety of fields, these brief and engaging books should be read by anyone interested in the trends and issues that shape our society. Long target of policymakers and reformers, the current American healthcare system is, in the words of Richard D. Lamm, "unsustainable, unaffordable, and inequitable, and needs to be substantially amended and revised." In this informed and erudite look at the current state of the American healthcare system, Lamm exposes the problems existing not only in policy and professional circles, but also in public attitudes and expectations. In so doing, Lamm provides a framework for reform, seeking to rebuild the "house of healthcare" that has into disrepair.
-- summary distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc. (Terms of Use)
More Information |
|
 |
Call it sleep
Roth, Henry.
Check Availability
2005; xx, 462 p. ; 21 cm.
When Henry Roth published his debut novel Call It Sleep in 1934, it was greeted with considerable critical acclaim, though, in those troubled times, lackluster sales. Only with its paperback publication thirty years later did this novel receive the recognition it deserves-and still enjoys. Having sold to date millions of copies worldwide, Call It Sleep is the magnificent story of David Schearl, the "dangerously imaginative" child coming of age in the slums of New York. Book jacket.
-- summary distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc. (Terms of Use)
More Information |
|
 |
Castles burning : a child's life in war
Denes, Magda, 1934-
Check Availability
1997; 384 p. : ill. ; 22 cm.
This unsparing portrait of a childhood in 1939 Hungary--told in the voice of a brave and unforgettable nine-year-old Jewish girl--is "the best sort of memoir, revealing not only a compelling story, but also the bruised yet still bold self which bears the weight of its story in memory" ("The New York Times Book Review").
-- summary distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc. (Terms of Use)
More Information |
|
 |
The color of water : a Black man's tribute to his white mother
McBride, James, 1957-
Check Availability
1996; xiii, 228 p.
Coming February 2001: Miracle at St. Anna, a gripping, page-turning, highly original first novel about black servicemen in Italy in World War II by James McBride, the bestselling, acclaimed, and beloved author of the huge New York Times bestseller The Color of Water. Who is Ruth McBride Jordan? A self-declared "light-skinned" woman evasive about her ethnicity, yet steadfast in her love for her twelve black children. James McBride, journalist, musician and son, explores his mother's past, as well as his own upbringing and heritage, in a poignant and powerful debut, The Color Of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother. The son of a black minister and a woman who would not admit she was white, James McBride grew up in "orchestrated chaos" with his eleven siblings in the poor, all-black projects of Red Hook, Brooklyn. "Mommy," a fiercely protective woman with "dark eyes full of pep and fire," herded her brood to Manhattan's free cultural events, sent them off on buses to the best (and mainly Jewish) schools, demanded good grades and commanded respect. As a young man, McBride saw his mother as a source of embarrassment, worry, and confusion--and reached thirty before he began to discover the truth about her early life and long-buried pain. In The Color of Water, McBride retraces his mother's footsteps and, through her searing and spirited voice, recreates her remarkable story. The daughter of a failed itinerant Orthodox rabbi, she was born Rachel Shilsky (actually Ruchel Dwara Zylska) in Poland on April 1, 1921. Fleeing pogroms, her family emigrated to America and ultimately settled in Suffolk, Virginia, a small town where anti-Semitism and racial tensions ran high. With candor and immediacy, Ruth describes her parents' loveless marriage; her fragile, handicapped mother; her cruel, sexually-abusive father; and the rest of the family and life she abandoned. At seventeen, after fleeing Virginia and settling in New York City, Ruth married a black minister and founded the all-black New Brown Memorial Baptist Church in her Red Hook living room. "God is the color of water," Ruth McBride taught her children, firmly convinced that life's blessings and life's values transcend race. Twice widowed, and continually confronting overwhelming adversity and racism, Ruth's determination, drive and discipline saw her dozen children through college--and most through graduate school. At age 65, she herself received a degree in social work from Temple University. Interspersed throughout his mother's compelling narrative, McBride shares candid recollections of his own experiences as a mixed-race child of poverty, his flirtations with drugs and violence, and his eventual self-realization and professional success. The Color of Water touches readers of all colors as a vivid portrait of growing up, a haunting meditation on race and identity, and a lyrical valentine to a mother from her son.
-- summary distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc. (Terms of Use)
More Information |
|
| |
Comédia infantil : roman
Mankell, Henning, 1948-
Check Availability
2003; 232 p. ; 21 cm.
|
|
 |
A cup of light
Mones, Nicole.
Check Availability
2003; 296 p. ; 21 cm.
For expert American appraiser Lia Frank, the assignment is a dream come true: Fly to Beijing and appraise a stunning cache of rare imperial porcelain. Adored by emperors, these masterpieces are living embodiments of the past, with an irresistible pull on collectors, tycoons, master forgers, and, above all, the smugglers who risk capture and instant execution in the hopes of unimaginable wealth. All of them yearn for what the art can bring--wealth, power, a place in the world. Lia's whole life has been shaped by her passion for this art. Knowledge of her own life, however, is more elusive. As she treads dangerously in a culture that looks at foreigners with wary eyes, she moves slowly toward a very different kind of desire--and toward a life of her own.
-- summary distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc. (Terms of Use)
More Information |
|
|
|
|
