The Locust and the Bird

The Locust and the Bird PDF Author: Hanan Al-Shaykh
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408810875
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
A richly woven and breathtaking memoir from the perspective of the author's own mother: a Radio 4 Book of the Week 'It is an extraordinarily brave act for a writer to undertake to inhabit, fully and sympathetically, the life her mother lived before she was born, particularly when her mother was no jewel of wifely virtue' J.M. Coetzee 'This is a book that wears its heart firmly on its sleeve, offering an insight into an unfamiliar culture and a cinematic love story' The Times Kamila is nine years old when she is taken from the poverty of her childhood village in southern Lebanon to Beirut. She has never learned to read or write, though she longs to go to school. Stories, poetry and film are her passion - and a beautiful boy called Muhammad. They fall in love before Kamila is forced into an arranged marriage, despite her tears and screams. She is only fourteen years old. On her wedding night her first daughter is conceived; four years later, Hanan is born. Kamila and Muhammad continue to see each other in secret, risking their lives. It is eight years before Kamila can bring herself to divorce her husband, as to do so means leaving her daughters behind. Beautifully evoking the dusty streets of Beirut and life in Lebanon, this is a heartbreaking memoir of an extraordinary woman.

The Locust and the Bird

The Locust and the Bird PDF Author: Hanan Al-Shaykh
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408810875
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Get Book Here

Book Description
A richly woven and breathtaking memoir from the perspective of the author's own mother: a Radio 4 Book of the Week 'It is an extraordinarily brave act for a writer to undertake to inhabit, fully and sympathetically, the life her mother lived before she was born, particularly when her mother was no jewel of wifely virtue' J.M. Coetzee 'This is a book that wears its heart firmly on its sleeve, offering an insight into an unfamiliar culture and a cinematic love story' The Times Kamila is nine years old when she is taken from the poverty of her childhood village in southern Lebanon to Beirut. She has never learned to read or write, though she longs to go to school. Stories, poetry and film are her passion - and a beautiful boy called Muhammad. They fall in love before Kamila is forced into an arranged marriage, despite her tears and screams. She is only fourteen years old. On her wedding night her first daughter is conceived; four years later, Hanan is born. Kamila and Muhammad continue to see each other in secret, risking their lives. It is eight years before Kamila can bring herself to divorce her husband, as to do so means leaving her daughters behind. Beautifully evoking the dusty streets of Beirut and life in Lebanon, this is a heartbreaking memoir of an extraordinary woman.

Bird Cottage

Bird Cottage PDF Author: Eva Meijer
Publisher: Pushkin Press
ISBN: 1782273964
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
A novel based on the true story of a remarkable woman, her lifelong relationship with birds and the joy she drew from it Len Howard was forty years old when she decided to leave her London life and loves behind, retire to the English countryside and devote the rest of her days to her one true passion: birds. Moving to a small cottage in Sussex, she wrote two bestselling books, astonishing the world with her observations on the tits, robins, sparrows and other birds that lived nearby, flew freely in and out of her windows, and would even perch on her shoulder as she typed. This moving novel imagines the story of this remarkable woman's decision to defy society's expectations, and the joy she drew from her extraordinary relationship with the natural world.

Home Bird

Home Bird PDF Author: Laura Wainwright
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780982714683
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 120

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Book Description
Home bird: A person who likes to stay at home.For Laura Wainwright that home is Martha's Vineyard. Her essays celebrate the simple but profound pleasures that can be found by listening carefully to the voices of the natural world and the rhythms of each season. Walk with her to find lady's slippers or painted turtles in springtime. Join her in the barn across the road on a cold afternoon. Follow her as she cuts watercress, gathers scallops, casts for striped bass — and then prepares some of her favorite recipes.With nuanced observations of everyday details, Wain- wright shows how connecting to the complexity and beauty of the natural world can ground us and help us uncover deeper meaning in our lives.— Includes Eight Recipes —

Endangered and Disappearing Birds of the Midwest

Endangered and Disappearing Birds of the Midwest PDF Author: Matt Williams
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253036097
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 333

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Book Description
From the birds who wake us in the morning with their cheerful chorus to those who flock to our feeders and brighten a gloomy winter day, birds fascinate us with their lively and interesting behavior and provide essential services from controlling pest populations to pollinating crops. And yet for all the benefits they provide, many species across Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio are in danger of extinction due to loss of habitat, agricultural expansion, changing forest conditions, and interactions with humans. In Endangered and Disappearing Birds of the Midwest, Matt Williams profiles forty of the most beautiful and interesting birds who winter, breed, or migrate through the Midwest and whose populations are most in danger of disappearing from the region. Each profile includes the current endangered status of the species, a description of the bird's vocal and nesting patterns, and tips to help readers identify them, along with stunning color images and detailed migration maps. An exquisite and timely examination of our feathered friends, Endangered and Disappearing Birds of the Midwest is a call to action to protect these vulnerable and gorgeous creatures that enliven our world.

I Sweep the Sun Off Rooftops

I Sweep the Sun Off Rooftops PDF Author: Hanan al-Shaykh
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0307766624
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Since the U.S. publication of Women of Sand and Myrrh--which has now sold more than 35,000 copies and was selected as one of the Fifty Best Books of 1992 by Publishers Weekly--Hanan al-Shaykh has attracted an ever larger following for her dazzling tales of contemporary Arab women. In these seventeen short stories--eleven of which are appearing in English for the first time--al-Shaykh expands her horizons beyond the boundaries of Lebanon, taking us throughout the Middle East, to Africa, and finally to London. Stylistically diverse, her stories are often about the shifting and ambiguous power relationships between different cultures--as well as between men and women. Often compared to both Margaret Atwood and Margaret Drabble, Hanan al-Shaykh is "a gifted and courageous writer" (Middle Eastern International).

The Barley Bird

The Barley Bird PDF Author: Richard Mabey
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780956186911
Category : Nightingale
Languages : en
Pages : 77

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Book Description
Mabey explores the nightingale's link with Suffolk culture and landscape and traces the bird's course through myth, lore and tradition. He plumbs his subject for its fascinating literary and historical references and opens the readers ears to the bird itself and its extraordinary song.

Women of Sand and Myrrh

Women of Sand and Myrrh PDF Author: Hanan al-Shaykh
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0307831124
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
A powerful and moving novel, by the Arab world's leading woman novelist, about four women coping with the insular, oppressive society of an unnamed desert state.

Locust

Locust PDF Author: Jeffrey A. Lockwood
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0786738871
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
Throughout the nineteenth century, swarms of locusts regularly swept across the continent, turning noon into dusk, demolishing farm communities, and bringing trains to a halt as the crushed bodies of insects greased the rails. In 1876, the U.S. Congress declared the locust "the single greatest impediment to the settlement of the country." From the Dakotas to Texas, from California to Iowa, the swarms pushed thousands of settlers to the brink of starvation, prompting the federal government to enlist some of the greatest scientific minds of the day and thereby jumpstarting the fledgling science of entomology. Over the next few decades, the Rocky Mountain locust suddenly -- and mysteriously -- vanished. A century later, Jeffrey Lockwood set out to discover why. Unconvinced by the reigning theories, he searched for new evidence in musty books, crumbling maps, and crevassed glaciers, eventually piecing together the elusive answer: A group of early settlers unwittingly destroyed the locust's sanctuaries just as the insect was experiencing a natural population crash. Drawing on historical accounts and modern science, Locust brings to life the cultural, economic, and political forces at work in America in the late-nineteenth century, even as it solves one of the greatest ecological mysteries of our time.

Locusts and Wild Honey

Locusts and Wild Honey PDF Author: John Burroughs
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Natural history
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description


Only in London

Only in London PDF Author: Hanan al-Shaykh
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0307427137
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
Four strangers meet on a turbulent flight from Dubai to London: Amira, a canny Moroccan prostitute; Lamis, a 30-year old Iraqi divorcee; Nicholas, an English expert on Islamic art; and Samir, a Lebanese man who is delivering a monkey on a mission he doesn’t fully understand. Once safely on British soil, Lamis and Nicholas fall in love, Samir chases after blond British youths, and Amira reinvents herself as a princess, the better to lure clients at the best London hotels. Through the city and across cultural borders, Only in London wittily portrays the smells, sounds, and sights of London’s lively Arab neighorhoods, as well as the freedoms the city both offers and withholds from its immigrants.