Other books that might interest you

• 

  The Astor Orphan - A Memoir

  Anonymous

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Alexandra Aldrich, a direct descendant of the famous Astor dynasty, grew up in the servants' quarters of Rokeby, the forty-three-room Hudson Valley mansion built by her ancestors. Her childhood was one of bohemian neglect and real privation. But it was fairly stable until the summer of her tenth year, when her father took up with an alluring interloper, Giselle. 
  Alexandra idolized her father, Rokeby's charismatic lord of misrule, who had attended elite private schools as a child but inherited only landed property, not money. To him, she says, "poverty was amusing, a delightful challenge." All of the family's resources—emotional and financial—went to the maintenance of the Astor house and legacy. If the family had sold the house and its 450 acres, they all would have been able to live comfortably. Instead, Alexandra and her parents lived precariously in the grand house, scavenging for the next meal. Her mother, an icy Polish artist, disguised her maternal indifference by extolling the virtues of independence. Relatives preyed on Alexandra's low status in the household. Once her father got involved with Giselle, Alexandra's only stalwart was her affectionate grandmother (whose great-great-grandfather, Nicholas Fish, was a close friend of Alexander Hamilton's and an executor of his estate). Grandma Claire held Alexandra's life together with family dinner parties, rides to violin lessons, and snacks after school. But as she grew progressively more debilitated by alcohol, she soon became too frail to provide a safe haven for her granddaughter. 
  Determined to impose order on her anarchic world and prove her worth, Alexandra awoke promptly at six thirty each morning, adhering to a strict personal regimen of exercise, grooming, and intensive violin practice. With money borrowed from the owner of the local gas station, she did the grocery shopping, occasionally setting aside four dollars to buy herself clean white socks. The betrayal of her father's flagrant affair, however, ignited a series of familial feuds that shook her hard-won stability and set her on a path toward escaping the Astor legacy. 
  Reaching back to the Gilded Age, when that legacy first began to come undone, Alexandra has written an unflinching, mordantly funny account of neglect and class anxiety amid the ruins of a once prominent family. More than an insider's look at a decaying American institution, The Astor Orphan is the debut of a thrilling new voice able to render the secret pains and glories of childhood afresh.

  Show book

• 

  Seven Year Summer

  Anna Byrne

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Finalist for the Whistler Independent Book Awards. While in her early-thirties, Anna Byrne was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of lymphoma. Over the next seven years, she endured four relapses, two stem cell transplants, and spent over 2,000 hours in Canadian hospitals. In 2014, she was given two years to live. Despite the odds, Anna left treatment cancer-free. She became a hospice volunteer and met Eleanor, a woman in her seventies whose death was imminent, and the two formed an unlikely friendship. Part memoir, medical guide, and spiritual text, Seven Year Summer explores the nuances of healing and hope amidst the struggle to survive. 
  Jacqueline Kim is a multi-award-winning artist, filmmaker, and composer. Moved by this meaningful work, Kim returned to acting to narrate and to create a sound score under special moments in the book. 
   “…appealing, poetic, and moving.” Whistler Independent Book Award judges panel, Canadian Authors Association 
  “…an intimate, vulnerable, deep spiritual journey.” “Many people will be inspired by this work.” Sue Oakey-Baker, Author of Finding Jim

  Show book

• 

  Top 10 Short Stories The - Men...

  James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Arnold...

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart.  A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. 
   
  In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author?  
   
  The theme itself will form the boundaries for our stories which range from well-known classics, newly told, to stories that modern times have overlooked but perfectly exemplify the theme.  Throughout the volume our authors whether of instant recognition or new to you are all leviathans of literature. 
   
  Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made.  If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something. 
   
  A decade of catastrophic worldwide war.  Empires in tectonic collision, a society heaving under the yoke, tired of sacrifice, ready for revolution.  In literature ideas were explored and detailed revealing a world and people that seem so long ago but also very near. 
   
  1 - The Top 10 - The 1910's - The Men - An Introduction 
  2 - The Dead - Part 1 by James Joyce 
  3 - The Dead - Part 2 by James Joyce 
  4 - In the Penal Colony by Franz Kafka 
  5 - The Interlopers by Saki the pseudonym for H H Munro 
  6 - Odour of Chrysanthemums by D H Lawrence 
  7 - The Revolutionist by Mikhail Petrovich Artzybashev 
  8 - Casting the Runes by M R James 
  9 - Carnacki, The Ghost Finder - No 1 - The Gateway of the Monster by William Hope Hodgson 
  10 - Hands by Sherwood Anderson 
  11 - The Matador of the Five Towns by Arnold Bennett 
  12 - August Heat by W F Harvey

  Show book

• 

  From Ear to Ear - A Pianist's...

  Steven Blier, Adam Gopnik

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  While other kids were enjoying the head-bashing pleasures of tackle football, a freshly bar mitzvahed Steven Blier was inhaling operas and getting his first taste of accompanying professional singers. Beginning with impromptu piano gigs in the 1960s, Blier ascended to a dazzling career as an accompanist, teacher, and producer that has taken him to the highest reaches of artistic achievement. Today, Blier has partnered many of the brightest stars in music and thousands have fallen in love with his work via his acclaimed New York Festival of Song. 
  From Ear to Ear recounts his picaresque and unfailingly entertaining road to a successful career as a collaborative pianist, bringing to life his partnerships with iconic performers like Renée Fleming, Susan Graham, Jessye Norman, Cecilia Bartoli, and Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, and beloved mentors, including Alvin Epstein and Martha Schlamme. Drawing on his innovative work as a vocal coach and concert producer, Blier takes listeners deep into his artistic process, revealing the intricacies of song interpretation, what makes certain songs tick, and what music has meant in his life and what it can mean in anyone's. But Blier also tells a parallel story: his lifelong battle with a rare form of muscular dystrophy. Aided by his intense determination, as well as his wry sense of humor, Blier continues his life at the piano.

  Show book

• 

  Nine Lives and Counting - A...

  Duane Chapman

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Includes an audiobook-exclusive introduction from the author. 
  Go behind-the-scenes with Duane "Dog" Chapman, star of the hit reality show Dog the Bounty Hunter and two-time New York Times bestselling author, as he shares new stories about his faith in Jesus, family, and the discovery of God's grace at work throughout his life. 
  From being in a motorcycle gang, to being incarcerated, and then becoming a widely-know TV personality, Duane's life has been anything but ordinary. But, through every success and failure, the one constant has been his faith in God. For the first time, Daune is sharing how his faith has brought him through life's greatest difficulties, giving him renewed purpose and meaning. 
  In Nine Lives and Counting Duane offers fresh insight into some of his well-known life events, and he also gives you access to previously untold stories. You will hear about:memories of the painful events that shaped Duane's childhood,the impact of his relationship with his praying mother,the surprising hope he found in prison,triumphs and failures from his days as a single dad,new previously untold stories of bounty hunting,the tragic loss of his beloved wife Beth to cancer,the unexpected blessing of finding his new wife Francie,the work he and Francie are doing to preach and share about Jesus,his relationship with his kids and family,and much more. 
    
  With all the plot twists of a page-turning novel, Nine Lives and Counting is a real-life chronicle of God's amazing grace and restoration that have marked Duane's journey of faith. You will be inspired. 
   

  Show book

• 

  Veiled Threat - On being visibly...

  Nadeine Asbali

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Nadeine Asbali would be the first to say that a scarf on a woman's head doesn't define her, but in her case, that's a lie.
  Nadeine's life changed overnight. As a mixed-race teenager, she had unknowingly been passing as white her entire life: until she decided to wear the hijab. Then, in an instant, she went from being an unassuming white(ish) child to something sinister and threatening, perverse and foreign.
  Veiled Threat is a sharp and illuminating examination of what it is to be a visibly Muslim woman in modern Britain, a nation intent on forced assimilation and integration and one that views covered bodies as primitive and dangerous. From being bombarded by racist stereotypes to being subjected to structural inequalities on every level, Nadeine asks why Muslim women are forced to contend with the twin oppressions of state-sanctioned Islamophobia and the unrelenting misogyny that fuels our world, all whilst being told by white feminists that they need saving.
  Combining a passionate argument with personal experience, Veiled Threat is an indictment of a divided Britain that dominates and systematically others Muslim women at every opportunity.

  Show book