Altri libri che potrebbero interessarti

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  Far Creek Road - A Novel

  Lesley Krueger

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  “With the charming and very funny Tink, Krueger has created an unforgettable character whose innocent curiosity busts through the societal conventions of early 1960s Canada. This is a masterful depiction of an atmosphere tense with fear and fuelled by grownup transgressions, where adult morality is contaminated by politics that tear communities apart.” — Sheila Murray, author of Finding Edward
  		 
  It’s 1961, and Mary Alice (Tink) Parker lives with her parents in a Vancouver suburb where many fathers are traumatized veterans of the Second World War and almost all the mothers are housewives. They believe they’ve earned secure and prosperous lives after the sacrifices they made during the war. But under the conformist veneer seethe conflicts and secrets that make the serenity of Grouse Valley precarious.
  		 
  This is the story of the unravelling of a neighbourhood. It’s told by Tink, an eccentric child who is funny, observant, and impossibly nosy, who has an unnerving tendency to blurt whatever’s on her mind. Bucolic at first, the story darkens as McCarthy-era paranoia infects the adults and spills over into the lives of the children. The parents of Tink’s best friend Norman are schoolteachers with leftist beliefs. When the Cuban Missile Crisis threatens, Norman’s parents face a witch hunt while the boy becomes a target of bullies. Tink does her best to defend Norman. But as she looks for help, she stumbles on a web of secrets that triggers events beyond anyone’s control. Gripping and perceptive, the novel portrays a divided era with eerie similarities to our own.

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  The Short Stories of Kenneth...

  Kenneth Grahame

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  Kenneth Grahame was born on 8th March 1859 in Edinburgh. 
   
  At age 5 his mother succumbed to puerperal fever.  His father, who had a drinking problem, now sent his 4 children to live with their grandmother at her large house in Cookham, Berkshire. Here the children lived in large open grounds next to the river.  These early experiences would in later years, be retold in his writing through a myriad of characters. 
   
  Grahame loved being a pupil at St Edward's School, Oxford and wanted to enroll at the university there but his guardian demurred on account of the cost. 
   
  Instead, a banking career was chosen for him, starting in 1879 at the Bank of England, where he rose steadily to the rank of its Secretary until retiring, with a pension, in 1908 due to ill health. 
   
  Alongside his commercial career Grahame had written and published various stories and essays in several periodicals. Some were anthologized as ‘Pagan Papers’ in 1893, and two years later ‘The Golden Age’ and later still ‘Dream Days’ and its masterpiece ‘The Reluctant Dragon’ became part of many home libraries.  His ability to view life through the lens of a young and curious child was superb, enabling the reader to easily identify with the character.   
   
  Grahame married Elspeth Thomson in 1899 and they had one child; Alastair, born semi-blind and plagued by health problems.  In a heart-rending tragedy he would later take his own life whilst attending Oxford University in 1920.   
   
  In 1908 Grahame reworked many of the bedtime stories he had fashioned for his son into the enduring favourite; ‘The Wind in the Willows’, describing the heart-warming adventures of Mr Toad and his friends.   
   
  Kenneth Grahame died in Pangbourne, Berkshire, on 6th July 1932. 
  01 - Kenneth Grahame - A Short Story Collection - An Introduction 
  02 - A Saga of the Seas by Kenneth Grahame 
  03 - Dies Irae by Kenneth Grahame 
  04 - The Magic Ring by Kenneth Grahame 
  05 - Mutabile Semper by Kenneth Grahame 
  06 - The Inquity of Oblivion by Kenneth Grahame

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  The Heiress

  Evelyn Anthony

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  Charles Macdonald and his parents, exiled Scots, take refuge at the splendid and decadent eighteenth-century Versailles court of Louis XV. Charles, a ruthless and degenerate young man, is soon forced by his gambling debts into an arranged marriage with his cousin, Anne. Anne is beautiful and wealthy—and in love with Charles. But none of this prevents him from carrying on with his mistress, the Baroness de Vitale, who in turn inflicts cruelties and humiliations upon Anne.   When Anne finds that her life is in danger, Charles must decide what sort of man he wants to be, and which woman he truly cares for.

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  Stealing - A Novel

  Margaret Verble

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  “This powerful novel should join classics like Ernest J. Gaines’s The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, Helena Maria Viramontes’s Under the Feet of Jesus, and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird.”—New York Times Book Review 
  A gripping, gut-punch of a novel about a Cherokee child removed from her family and sent to a Christian boarding school in the 1950s—an ambitious, eye-opening reckoning of history and small-town prejudices from Pulitzer Prize finalist Margaret Verble.  
  Kit Crockett lives on a farm with her grief-stricken, widowed father, tending the garden, fishing in a local stream, and reading Nancy Drew mysteries from the library bookmobile. One day, Kit discovers a mysterious and beautiful woman has moved in just down the road.  
  Kit and the newcomer, Bella, become friends, and the lonely Kit draws comfort from her. But when a malicious neighbor finds out, Kit suddenly finds herself at the center of a tragic, fatal crime and becomes a ward of the court. Her Cherokee family wants to raise her, but the righteous Christians in town instead send her to a religious boarding school. Kit’s heritage is attacked, and she’s subjected to religious indoctrination and other forms of abuse. But Kit secretly keeps a journal recounting what she remembers—and revealing just what she has forgotten. Over the course of Stealing, she unravels the truth of how she ended up at the school and plots a way out. If only she can make her plan work in time. 
  In swift, sharp, and stunning prose, Margaret Verble spins a powerful coming-of-age tale and reaffirms her place as an indelible storyteller and chronicler of history.

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  Yoruba Boy Running - A Novel

  Biyi Bandele

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  “A true artist. A brilliant writer. An original thinker.”—Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 
  A captivating, fictionalized retelling of African linguist and clergyman Samuel Ajayi Crowther's miraculous journey from slave to liberator. 
  “Run, Àjàyí, run!” 
  When Malian slave traders invaded the Nigerian town of Òsogùn, thirteen-year-old Àjàyí's life is split in two. 
  Before, there was his childhood, surrounded by friends and family, watched over by the ancient Yorùbá gods of forest and water, earth and sky. 
  After, there was capture, slavery—and eventually release—with Àjàyí, left transfigured, unrecognizable, and now, inthe service of a new god, with a new name and a culture different from the one left far behind. Àjàyí becomes Samuel Crowther—missionary, linguist, minister, and eventually abolitionist, driven to negotiate against his own people to end the evil trade in human beings which destroyed his family and transformed his own life. 
  Drawing on the prolific writings of Samuel Ajayi Crowther, novelist and filmmaker Biyi Bándélé creates a many-voiced, kaleidoscopic portrait of an extraordinary man. From the heart-stopping drama of Àjàyí's last day of freedom to the farcical intrigue of the Òsogùn court; from a meeting with Queen Victoria to consecration as the first African Bishop of the Anglican Church, Samuel Ajayi Crowther’s journey, like all great odysseys, circles back to where he began. By turns witty, moving and revolutionary, Biyi Bándélé's reimagining of Crowther's life is a brilliant tour de force. 
  Cover artwork Chris Ofili, Blind Leading Blind, 2005 © The artist.

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  Hostage to Death

  L. Ron Hubbard

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  For Lieutenant Bill Reilly, a Westerner at war in the desert, the dream of joining the Foreign Legion has turned into a nightmare. It all starts with a severed hand. In it is a message from a Berber chief: Save the American woman he holds captive or she's next up for dismemberment. But it's a trick, leading to a terrorist attack. But who set the trap? Caught in a triangle of treachery between the French, Spanish and native Berbers, Reilly's only hope is to uncover the truth in a desert of deception. The bugles blow, the rifles crack, and the sandstorms swirl as the audio version of Hostage to Death carries you off to an exotic land of surprising romance and sudden terror.

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