Sacred Hunger

Sacred Hunger PDF Author: Barry Unsworth
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0307948447
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 647

Get Book Here

Book Description
Winner of the Booker Prize A historical novel set in the eighteenth century, Sacred Hunger is a stunning, engrossing exploration of power, domination, and greed in the British Empire as it entered fully into the slave trade and spread it throughout its colonies. Barry Unsworth follows the failing fortunes of William Kemp, a merchant pinning his last chance to a slave ship; his son who needs a fortune because he is in love with an upper-class woman; and his nephew who sails on the ship as its doctor because he has lost all he has loved. The voyage meets its demise when disease spreads among the slaves and the captain's drastic response provokes a mutiny. Joining together, the sailors and the slaves set up a secret, utopian society in the wilderness of Florida, only to await the vengeance of the single-minded, young Kemp.

Sacred Hunger

Sacred Hunger PDF Author: Barry Unsworth
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0307948447
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 647

Get Book Here

Book Description
Winner of the Booker Prize A historical novel set in the eighteenth century, Sacred Hunger is a stunning, engrossing exploration of power, domination, and greed in the British Empire as it entered fully into the slave trade and spread it throughout its colonies. Barry Unsworth follows the failing fortunes of William Kemp, a merchant pinning his last chance to a slave ship; his son who needs a fortune because he is in love with an upper-class woman; and his nephew who sails on the ship as its doctor because he has lost all he has loved. The voyage meets its demise when disease spreads among the slaves and the captain's drastic response provokes a mutiny. Joining together, the sailors and the slaves set up a secret, utopian society in the wilderness of Florida, only to await the vengeance of the single-minded, young Kemp.

The Quality of Mercy

The Quality of Mercy PDF Author: Barry Unsworth
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0385534787
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 313

Get Book Here

Book Description
Barry Unsworth returns to the terrain of his Booker Prize-winning novel Sacred Hunger, this time following Sullivan, the Irish fiddler, and Erasmus Kemp, son of a Liverpool slave ship owner who hanged himself. It is the spring of 1767, and to avenge his father's death, Erasmus Kemp has had the rebellious sailors of his father's ship, including Sullivan, brought back to London to stand trial on charges of mutiny and piracy. But as the novel opens, a blithe Sullivan has escaped and is making his way on foot to the north of England, stealing as he goes and sleeping where he can. His destination is Thorpe in the East Durham coalfields, where his dead shipmate, Billy Blair, lived: he has pledged to tell the family how Billy met his end. In this village, Billy's sister, Nan, and her miner husband, James Bordon, live with their three sons, all destined to follow their father down the pit. The youngest, only seven, is enjoying his last summer aboveground. Meanwhile, in London, a passionate anti-slavery campaigner, Frederick Ashton, gets involved in a second case relating to the lost ship. Erasmus Kemp wants compensation for the cargo of sick slaves who were thrown overboard to drown, and Ashton is representing the insurers who dispute his claim. Despite their polarized views on slavery, Ashton's beautiful sister, Jane, encounters Erasmus Kemp and finds herself powerfully attracted to him. Lord Spenton, who owns coal mines in East-Durham, has extravagant habits and is pressed for money. When he applies to the Kemp merchant bank for a loan, Erasmus sees a business opportunity of the kind he has long been hoping for, a way of gaining entry into Britain's rapidly developing and highly profitable coal and steel industries. Thus he too makes his way north, to the very same village that Sullivan is heading for . . . With historical sweep and deep pathos, Unsworth explores the struggles of the powerless and the captive against the rich and the powerful, and what weight mercy may throw on the scales of justice.

Morality Play

Morality Play PDF Author: Barry Unsworth
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0525434097
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 210

Get Book Here

Book Description
A New York Times Notable Book In medieval England, a runaway scholar-priest named Nicholas Barber has joined a traveling theater troupe as they make their way toward their liege lord’s castle. In need of money, they decide to perform at a village en route. When their traditional morality plays fail to garner them an audience, they begin to stage the “the play of Thomas Wells”—their own depiction of the real-life drama unfolding within the village around the murder of a young boy. The villagers believe they have already identified the killer, and the troupe believes their play will be a straightforward depiction of justice served. But soon the players soon learn that the details of the crime are elusive, and the lines between performance and reality become blurred as they discover, scene by scene, line by line, what really happened. Thought-provoking and unforgettable, Morality Play is at once a masterful work of historical fiction, a gripping murder mystery, and a literary work of the first order.

Holy Hunger

Holy Hunger PDF Author: Margaret Bullitt-Jonas
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0375700870
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 274

Get Book Here

Book Description
A wrenchingly honest, eloquent memoir “about true nourishment that comes not from [eating] but from engaging on a spiritual path."—Los Angeles Times In this brave and perceptive account of compulsion and the healing process, Bullitt-Jonas describes a childhood darkened by the repressive shadows of her alcoholic father and her emotionally reclusive mother, whose demands for excellence, poise, and self-control drove Bullitt-Jonas to develop an insatiable hunger. What began with pilfering extra slices of bread at her parents' dinner table turned into binges with cream pies and pancakes, sometimes gaining as much as eleven pounds in four days. When the family urged her father into treatment, the author recognized her own addiction and embarked on the path to recovery by discovering the spiritual hunger beneath her craving for food.

Skin Hunger

Skin Hunger PDF Author: Kathleen Duey
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0689840942
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 372

Get Book Here

Book Description
Living in a world where magic is outlawed, Sadima's special gift to speak to the animals binds her to two young men who are determined to restore magic to their poor village in order to save the people they love. Reprint.

The Fifth Sacred Thing

The Fifth Sacred Thing PDF Author: Starhawk
Publisher: Bantam
ISBN: 0553373803
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 496

Get Book Here

Book Description
An epic tale of freedom and slavery, love and war, and the potential futures of humankind tells of a twenty-first century California clan caught between two clashing worlds, one based on tolerance, the other on repression. Declaration of the Four Sacred Things The earth is a living, conscious being. In company with cultures of many different times and places, we name these things as sacred: air, fire, water, and earth. Whether we see them as the breath, energy, blood, and body of the Mother, or as the blessed gifts of a Creator, or as symbols of the interconnected systems that sustain life, we know that nothing can live without them. To call these things sacred is to say that they have a value beyond their usefulness for human ends, that they themselves became the standards by which our acts, our economics, our laws, and our purposes must be judged. no one has the right to appropriate them or profit from them at the expense of others. Any government that fails to protect them forfeits its legitimacy. All people, all living things, are part of the earth life, and so are sacred. No one of us stands higher or lower than any other. Only justice can assure balance: only ecological balance can sustain freedom. Only in freedom can that fifth sacred thing we call spirit flourish in its full diversity. To honor the sacred is to create conditions in which nourishment, sustenance, habitat, knowledge, freedom, and beauty can thrive. To honor the sacred is to make love possible. To this we dedicate our curiosity, our will, our courage, our silences, and our voices. To this we dedicate our lives. Praise for The Fifth Sacred Thing “This is wisdom wrapped in drama.”—Tom Hayden, California state senator “Starhawk makes the jump to fiction quite smoothly with this memorable first novel.”—Locus “Totally captivating . . . a vision of the paradigm shift that is essential for our very survival as a species on this planet.”—Elinor Gadon, author of The Once and Future Goddess “This strong debut fits well against feminist futuristic, utopic, and dystopic works by the likes of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Ursula LeGuin, and Margaret Atwood.”—Library Journal

The Secret Book of Sacred Things

The Secret Book of Sacred Things PDF Author: Torsten Krol
Publisher: Atlantic Books
ISBN: 0857896601
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 296

Get Book Here

Book Description
A fantastic journey into a postapocalyptic world, seen through the eyes of a 12-year-old girl, told by a master storyteller. For fans of China Mieville and the sci-fi of Margaret Atwood and Doris Lessing. The coming of the Great Stone destroyed almost everything that used to be. But high in one remote valley, the Church of Selene has found its way back from ruin. Sister Luka and her female converts offer sacrifices to the scarred (and very close) moon that hangs over their convent. It has been this way since the Stone hit. Among the Little Sisters of Selene is 12-year-old Aurora, respected Scribe of the church. She endlessly writes down the name of the moon to keep her in the sky where she belongs. But Aurora has a secret book she keeps hidden in her Scribe's chamber and into this diary she pours out her hopes and desires. Upsetting this fragile equilibrium is Willa, a young tomboy whose flamboyant arrival threatens the hard-won status quo of the sisters' community. As Aurora and Willa inch toward friendship, insurrection grows. But when an unexpected marvel occurs in the sky, it is clear that Aurora's work as the Scribe has failed. The moon is threatening to remake the world all over again. This is the Secret Book of Sacred Things, this is Aurora's story.

Stone Virgin

Stone Virgin PDF Author: Barry Unsworth
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393313093
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 324

Get Book Here

Book Description
As Simon Raikes restores a fifteenth-century Venetian masterpiece, he becomes obsessed with the sculpture, becoming involved in a crime as he reconstructs the past and is drawn into the mysteries of love, betrayal, and violence.

Sacred Scars

Sacred Scars PDF Author: Kathleen Duey
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 9781847382443
Category : Magic
Languages : en
Pages : 554

Get Book Here

Book Description
Having been driven out of their home by fire, Sadima, Franklin and Somiss escape and seek refuge in the secret cave hidden in the rocks. Somiss, now exiled and desperate, continues to hoard the magic he is recovering from the ancient documents, while Sadima and Franklin struggle to contain his egomaniacal ambitions. In Haph and Gerrard's world, forced to continually endure the painful ordeals used to 'teach' magic, the boys come to an uneasy and fragile truce as they vow to work together to stop the evils of the academy. But their tenuous pact falters as they plot to destroy Somiss and the dark academy and set the magic free…

After Hannibal

After Hannibal PDF Author: Barry Unsworth
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0307948420
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 245

Get Book Here

Book Description
Golden Umbria is home to breathtaking scenery and great art; it is also where Hannibal and his invading band of Carthaginians ambushed and slaughtered a Roman legion, and where the local place-names still speak of that bloodshed. Unsworth's contemporary invaders include the Greens, a retired American couple seeking serenity among the Umbrian hills, who are bilked out of their savings by the corrupt English "building expert" Stan Blemish; the Chapmans, a British property speculator and his wife, whose dispute with their neighbors over a wall escalates into a feud of nearly medieval proportions; Anders Ritter, a German haunted by the part his father played in a mass killing of Italian hostages in Rome during the Second World War; and Fabio and Arturo, a gay couple who, searching for peace and self-sufficiency, find treachery instead. And at the center of all these webs of deceit and greed is the cunning lawyer Mancini, happy to aid the disputants--and to exploit to the fullest the faith that these "innocents abroad" have placed in him.