Madras on Rainy Days

Madras on Rainy Days PDF Author: Samina Ali
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312423308
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Clashing identities - Muslim and American.

Madras on Rainy Days

Madras on Rainy Days PDF Author: Samina Ali
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312423308
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Clashing identities - Muslim and American.

Madras on Rainy Days

Madras on Rainy Days PDF Author: Samina Ali
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1429930799
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 358

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Book Description
Set against the backdrop of the ancient walled city of Hyderabad and mounting Hindu-Muslim tensions, Madras on Rainy Days lyrically evokes the complexities of life behind the chador. A gorgeously written novel by an original new voice in international fiction. Layla is torn among clashing identities--dutiful Muslim daughter and free, independent American woman. When she is nineteen, her parents inform Layla that a marriage has been arranged for her to an Indian man she doesn't know. A stunned Layla submits reluctantly but not before she commits a dangerous, final act of defiance. In the heat and noise of Hyderabad, as her wedding looms, her behavior becomes more and more erratic. Her mother, fearing demonic possession, takes Layla to a Muslim faith-healer, an alim, hoping to exorcise all traces of rebellion. To Layla's surprise, the ancient and elaborate wedding rituals, her groom's physical beauty, and the unexpectedly warm welcome of her new family fill her with a sense of belonging she has never known before. But her honeymoon in Madras soon reveals the full horror of the devil's bargain she has struck.

The Beach at Galle Road

The Beach at Galle Road PDF Author: Joanna Luloff
Publisher: Algonquin Books
ISBN: 1616201827
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
When rumors of civil war between the ruling Sinhalese and the Tamils in the northern sector of Sri Lanka reach those who live in the south, somehow it seems not to be happening in their own country. At least not until Janaki’s sister, Lakshmi—now a refugee whose husband, a Tamil, has disappeared—comes back to live with her family. And when Sam, an American Peace Corps worker who boards with Janaki’s family, falls in love with one of his students, a young girl from the north, he, too, becomes acutely aware of the dangers that exist for any- one who gets drawn into the conflict, however marginally. Skillfully weaving together the stories of these and other intersecting lives, The Beach at Galle Road explores themes of memory and identity amid the consequences of the Sri Lankan civil war. From different points of view, across generations and geographies, it pits the destructive power of war against the resilient power of family, individual will, and the act of storytelling itself.

The Guru of Love

The Guru of Love PDF Author: Samrat Upadhyay
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 0544200330
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
A New York Times Notable Book: “A ravishingly seductive novel . . . set in contemporary Kathmandu” (Elle). Ramchandra is a math teacher earning a low wage and living in a small apartment with his wife and two children. Moonlighting as a tutor, he engages in an illicit affair with one of his tutees, Malati, a beautiful, impoverished teenager, who is also a new mother. She provides for him what his wife, who comes from a privileged background, does not: desire, mystery, and a simpler life. Just as this Nepalese city struggles with the conflicts of change, Ramchandra must also learn to accommodate both tradition and his very modern desires, in this “gripping” novel by the Whiting Award–winning author of Buddha’s Orphans (The New York Times Book Review). “Utterly absorbing . . . Upadhyay’s lucent and tender storytelling gently unveils the strange interplay between self and family, the private and the political, and most mysteriously, the erotic and the spiritual.” —Booklist “Poignant . . . The Guru of Love effectively weaves together the complicated dichotomies of man and mistress, love and lust, tradition and modernity.” —USA Today “Reads like a graceful, page-turning mixture of stirring romance and social commentary.” —Entertainment Weekly

India

India PDF Author: Patrick French
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141041579
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 588

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Book Description
Patrick French brings one of the globe's most dynamic nations springing to life. He has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the country, sensitivity to its subtler nuances and a wealth of research.

Jana Bibi's Excellent Fortunes

Jana Bibi's Excellent Fortunes PDF Author: Betsy Woodman
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 0805095314
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
Meet Jana Bibi, a Scottish woman helping to save the small town in India she has grown to call home and the oddball characters she considers family Janet Laird's life changed the day she inherited her grandfather's house in a faraway Indian hill station. Ignoring her son's arguments to come grow old in their family castle in Scotland, she moves with her chatty parrot, Mr. Ganguly and her loyal housekeeper, Mary, to Hamara Nagar, where local merchants are philosophers, the chief of police is a tyrant, and a bagpipe-playing Gurkha keeps the wild monkeys at bay. Settling in, Jana Bibi (as she comes to be known) meets her colorful local neighbors—Feroze Ali Khan of Royal Tailors, who struggles with his business and family, V.K. Ramachandran, whose Treasure Emporium is bursting at the seams with objects of unknown provenance, and Rambir, editor of the local newspaper, who burns the midnight oil at his printing press. When word gets out that the town is in danger of being drowned by a government dam, Jana is enlisted to help put it on the map. Hoping to attract tourists with promises of good things to come, she stacks her deck of cards, readies her fine-feathered assistant—and Jana Bibi's Excellent Fortunes is born.

The Art of Racing in the Rain

The Art of Racing in the Rain PDF Author: Garth Stein
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061738093
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FROM FOX 2000 STARRING MILO VENTIMIGLIA, AMANDA SEYFRIED, AND KEVIN COSTNER MEET THE DOG WHO WILL SHOW THE WORLD HOW TO BE HUMAN The New York Times bestselling novel from Garth Stein—a heart-wrenching but deeply funny and ultimately uplifting story of family, love, loyalty, and hope—a captivating look at the wonders and absurdities of human life . . . as only a dog could tell it. “Splendid.” —People “The perfect book for anyone who knows that compassion isn’t only for humans, and that the relationship between two souls who are meant for each other never really comes to an end. Every now and then I’m lucky enough to read a novel I can’t stop thinking about: this is one of them.” —Jodi Picoult “It’s impossible not to love Enzo.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune “This old soul of a dog has much to teach us about being human. I loved this book.” —Sara Gruen

Dragon Songs

Dragon Songs PDF Author: Vladimir Dinets
Publisher: Skyhorse
ISBN: 1628722983
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
A born naturalist and a fearless traveler, Vladimir Dinets wrote travel guides, conducted field research, and lived a couple of lives before he was accepted into the PhD program in zoology at the University of Miami. He thought crocodiles were a dead-end research topic—survivors from the age of the dinosaurs but not much else—until he witnessed groups of up to seventy alligators performing mating choruses that included infrasound vibrations—a form of communication extremely rare in nature—and a “dance” unknown in the scientific literature but that resembled a scene from Jurassic Park. To prove his thesis about the language of crocodiles, he spent the next six years traveling around the world on shoestring budgets and in extreme circumstances, studying almost every living species. At the same time, as a man desiring companionship in life, he sought love. With adventures on five continents, Dragon Songs is his account of this quest. It includes an escape from a boiling lava lake in the Afar Desert, being chased up a tree by a tiger in India, hitching a ride with a cocaine smuggler in Bolivia, and diving with giant Greenland sharks—all in the name of studying crocodiles, among which he routinely paddled in his inflatable kayak. Of course, not everything went according to plan. But, in the end, his ground-breaking research helped change the field. And during the course of his adventures, he met and courted his future wife.

A Book for a Rainy Day Or Recollections of the Events of the Years 1766-1833

A Book for a Rainy Day Or Recollections of the Events of the Years 1766-1833 PDF Author: John Thomas Smith
Publisher: Legare Street Press
ISBN: 9781017313291
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

FM

FM PDF Author: Richard Neer
Publisher: Villard
ISBN: 1588360733
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 357

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Book Description
"It was all so honest, before the end of our collective innocence. Top Forty jocks screamed and yelled and sounded mightier than God on millions of transistor radios. But on FM radio it was all spun out for only you. On a golden web by a master weaver driven by fifty thousand magical watts of crystal clear power . . . before the days of trashy, hedonistic dumbspeak and disposable three-minute ditties . . . in the days where rock lived at many addresses in many cities." –from FM As a young man, Richard Neer dreamed of landing a job at WNEW in New York–one of the revolutionary FM stations across the country that were changing the face of radio by rejecting strict formatting and letting disc jockeys play whatever they wanted. He felt that when he got there, he’d have made the big time. Little did he know he’d have shaped rock history as well. FM: The Rise and Fall of Rock Radio chronicles the birth, growth, and death of free-form rock-and-roll radio through the stories of the movement’s flagship stations. In the late sixties and early seventies–at stations like KSAN in San Francisco, WBCN in Boston, WMMR in Philadelphia, KMET in Los Angeles, WNEW, and others–disc jockeys became the gatekeepers, critics, and gurus of new music. Jocks like Scott Muni, Vin Scelsa, Jonathan Schwartz, and Neer developed loyal followings and had incredible influence on their listeners and on the early careers of artists such as Bruce Springsteen, Genesis, the Cars, and many others. Full of fascinating firsthand stories, FM documents the commodification of an iconoclastic phenomenon, revealing how counterculture was coopted and consumed by the mainstream. Richard Neer was an eyewitness to, and participant in, this history. FM is the tale of his exhilarating ride.