A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants

A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants PDF Author: Jaed Coffin
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 0306817314
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
Six years ago at the age of twenty-one, Jaed Muncharoen Coffin, a half-Thai American man, left New England's privileged Middlebury College to be ordained as a Buddhist monk in his mother's native village of Panomsarakram--thus fulfilling a familial obligation. While addressing the notions of displacement, ethnic identity, and cultural belonging, A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants chronicles his time at the temple that rain season--receiving alms in the streets in saffron robes; bathing in the canals; learning to meditate in a mountaintop hut; and falling in love with Lek, a beautiful Thai woman who comes to represent the life he can have if he stays. Part armchair travel, part coming-of-age story, this debut work transcends the memoir genre and ushers in a brave new voice in American nonfiction.

A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants

A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants PDF Author: Jaed Coffin
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 0306817314
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 226

Get Book Here

Book Description
Six years ago at the age of twenty-one, Jaed Muncharoen Coffin, a half-Thai American man, left New England's privileged Middlebury College to be ordained as a Buddhist monk in his mother's native village of Panomsarakram--thus fulfilling a familial obligation. While addressing the notions of displacement, ethnic identity, and cultural belonging, A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants chronicles his time at the temple that rain season--receiving alms in the streets in saffron robes; bathing in the canals; learning to meditate in a mountaintop hut; and falling in love with Lek, a beautiful Thai woman who comes to represent the life he can have if he stays. Part armchair travel, part coming-of-age story, this debut work transcends the memoir genre and ushers in a brave new voice in American nonfiction.

A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants

A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants PDF Author: Jaed Coffin
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 0306815265
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
A memoir describing the life of Jaed Coffin and his experiences growing up in New England, discussing how he left Middlebury College at the age of twenty-one to be ordained as a Buddhist monk in his mother's native village of Panomsarakram.

Roughhouse Friday

Roughhouse Friday PDF Author: Jaed Coffin
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 0374720398
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
A beautifully crafted memoir about fathers and sons, masculinity, and the lengths we sometimes go to in order to confront our past "[A] lucidly written memoir . . . Coffin’s triumph lies in ridding the language of his father, a language that compelled him to dwell in a house he did not recognize." —Matthew Janney, The Los Angeles Review of Books While lifting weights in the Seldon Jackson College gymnasium on a rainy autumn night, Jaed Coffin heard the distinctive whacking sound of sparring boxers down the hall. A year out of college, he had been biding his time as a tutor at a local high school in Sitka, Alaska, without any particular life plan. That evening, Coffin joined a ragtag boxing club. For the first time, he felt like he fit in. Coffin washed up in Alaska after a forty-day solo kayaking journey. Born to an American father and a Thai mother who had met during the Vietnam War, Coffin never felt particularly comfortable growing up in his rural Vermont town. Following his parents’ prickly divorce and a childhood spent drifting between his father’s new white family and his mother’s Thai roots, Coffin didn’t know who he was, much less what path his life should follow. His father’s notions about what it meant to be a man—formed by King Arthur legends and calcified in the military—did nothing to help. After college, he took to the road, working odd jobs and sleeping in his car before heading north. Despite feeling initially terrified, Coffin learns to fight. His coach, Victor “the Savage,” invites him to participate in the monthly Roughhouse Friday competition, where men contend for the title of best boxer in southeast Alaska. With every successive match, Coffin realizes that he isn’t just fighting for the championship belt; he is also learning to confront the anger he feels about a past he never knew how to make sense of. Deeply honest and vulnerable, Roughhouse Friday is a meditation on violence and abandonment, masculinity, and our inescapable longing for love. It suggests that sometimes the truth of what’s inside you comes only if you push yourself to the extreme.

Implosion

Implosion PDF Author: Elizabeth W. Garber
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 163152352X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
What could be cooler, thinks teen Elizabeth Garber in 1965, than to live in a glass house designed by her architect dad? Ever since childhood, she’s adored everything he loves—his XKE Jaguar, modern art, and his Eames black leather chair—and she’s been inspired by his passionate intensity as he teaches her about modern architecture. When Woodie receives a commission to design a high-rise dormitory—a tower of glass—for the University of Cincinnati, Elizabeth, her mother and brothers celebrate with him. But less than twenty years later, Sander Hall, the mirror-glass dormitory, will be dynamited into rubble. Implosion: Memoir of an Architect’s Daughter delves into the life of visionary architect Woodie Garber and the collision of forces in the turbulent 1970s that caused his family to collapse. Soon after the family’s move into Woodie’s glass house, his need to control begins to strain normal bonds; and Elizabeth’s first love, a young black man, triggers his until-then hidden racism. This haunting memoir describes his descent into madness and follows Elizabeth’s inspiring journey to emerge from her abuse, gain understanding and freedom from her father’s control, and go on to become a loving mother and a healer who helps others.

Buzz Books 2019: Spring/Summer

Buzz Books 2019: Spring/Summer PDF Author:
Publisher: Publishers Lunch
ISBN: 1948586177
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 872

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Book Description
Start off a new year of reading discoveries with substantial excerpts from 44 Buzz Books due to be published in the months ahead. Be among the first to get a taste of new fiction from bestselling authors including Cecelia Ahern, with a feminist story collection; Liv Constantine, the pen name of sisters Lynne Constantine and Valerie Constantine; Costa Award-winner Sadie Jones, who has written a psychological thriller; and J. Ryan Stradal’s follow up to his popular Kitchens of the Great Midwest. Karl Marlantes, author of bestselling nonfiction is represented by a novel about the Vietnam War, while Sarah Blake, Lauren Denton, Tracey Garvis Graves, and Katherine Reay will make their fans happy with new titles. Literary buffs will be delighted to read new work by T.C. Boyle, Madeline ffitch, and Nell Zink. The new Buzz Books includes a record number of exciting debuts. Critically acclaimed poet Ocean Vuong’s first novel bridges Vietnam and America. Melanie Golding’s mystery, Little Darlings, already has been optioned for film, while Kira Jane Buxton’s Hollow Kingdom, has been sold to AMC for its first animated TV series. Our always fascinating nonfiction section is memoir heavy this time around. Obama insider Valerie Jarrett shares her experience in the White House, while musician Moby has written a second autobiographical volume. For still more great previews, check out our separate Buzz Books 2019: Young Adult Spring/Summer. For complete download links, lists and more, visit buzz.publishersmarketplace.com.

The Field House

The Field House PDF Author: Robin Clifford Wood
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1647420466
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
Born of illustrious New England stock, Rachel Field was a National Book Award–winning novelist, a Newbery Medal–winning children’s writer, a poet, playwright, and rising Hollywood success in the early twentieth century. Her light was abruptly extinguished at the age of forty-seven, when she died at the pinnacle of her personal happiness and professional acclaim. Fifty years later, Robin Clifford Wood stepped onto the sagging floorboards of Rachel’s long-neglected home on the rugged shores of an island in Maine and began dredging up Rachel’s history. She was determined to answer the questions that filled the house’s every crevice: Who was this vibrant, talented artist whose very name entrances those who still remember her work? Why is that work—so richly remunerated and widely celebrated in her lifetime—so largely forgotten today? The journey into Rachel’s world took Wood further than she ever dreamed possible, unveiling a life fraught with challenge, and buried by tragedy, and yet incandescent with joy. The Field House is a book about beauty—beauty in Maine island landscapes, in friendship, love, and heartbreak; beauty hidden beneath a woman’s woefully unbeautiful exterior; beauty in a rare, delightful spirit that still whispers from the past. Just listen.

The Story I Want To Tell

The Story I Want To Tell PDF Author: The Telling Room
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1684751608
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
THE STORY I WANT TO TELL pairs the work of 20 aspiring young writers—including immigrants from war-ravaged countries—with original stories, essays, and poems from Richard Blanco, Richard Russo, Elizabeth Gilbert, Dave Eggers, Lily King, Jonathan Lethem, Bill Roorbach, Monica Wood, and other top writers in a call-and-response anthology.The book's supplemental materials make it a perfect tool for writers' groups and writing teachers.

Tricycle

Tricycle PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Buddhism
Languages : en
Pages : 542

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Book Description


Without a Map

Without a Map PDF Author: Meredith Hall
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 0807016314
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
The national best-selling memoir about banishment, reconciliation, and the meaning of family “This sobering portrayal of a pregnant teen exiled from her small New Hampshire community is a testament to the importance of understanding and even forgiving the people who . . . have made us who we are.”—O, The Oprah Magazine A New York Times Bestseller, now with a new epilogue from the author Meredith Hall’s moving but unsentimental memoir begins in 1965, when she becomes pregnant at 16. Shunned by her insular New Hampshire community, she is then kicked out of the house by her mother. Her father and stepmother reluctantly take her in, hiding her before they finally banish her altogether. After giving her baby up for adoption, Hall wanders recklessly through the Middle East, where she survives by selling her possessions and finally her blood. She returns to New England and stitches together a life that encircles her silenced and invisible grief. Her lost son tracks her down when he turns 21, and Hall learns that he grew up in gritty poverty with an abusive father in her own father’s hometown. Their reunion is tender, turbulent, and ultimately redemptive. Hall’s parents never ask for her forgiveness, yet as they age, she offers them her love. Here, loss and betrayal evolve into compassion, and compassion into wisdom.

Middlebury Magazine

Middlebury Magazine PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description