The Shadow Girls

The Shadow Girls PDF Author: Henning Mankell
Publisher: The New Press
ISBN: 1595581928
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 338

Get Book Here

Book Description
Jesper Humlin is a poet of middling acclaim who is saddled by his underwhelming book sales, an exasperated girlfriend, a demanding mother, and a rapidly fading tan. His boy-wonder stockbroker has squandered Humlin's investments, and his editor, who says he must write a crime novel to survive, begins to pitch and promote the nonexistent book despite Humlin's emphatic refusals. Then, when he travels to Gothenburg to give a reading, he finds himself thrust into an entirely different world, where names shift, stories overlap, and histories are both deeply secret and in profound need of retelling. Leyla from Iran, Tanya from Russia, and Tea-Bag, who is from Africa but claims to be from Kurdistan (because Kurds might receive preferential treatment as refugees)--these are the shadow girls who become Humlin's unlikely pupils in impromptu writing workshops. Though he had imagined their stories as fodder for his own book, soon their intertwining lives require him to play a much different role. Offering both surprising humor and heartbreaking moments, The Shadow Girls is a triumph that will please longtime fans of Mankell as well as readers new to his work.

The Shadow Girls

The Shadow Girls PDF Author: Henning Mankell
Publisher: The New Press
ISBN: 1595581928
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 338

Get Book Here

Book Description
Jesper Humlin is a poet of middling acclaim who is saddled by his underwhelming book sales, an exasperated girlfriend, a demanding mother, and a rapidly fading tan. His boy-wonder stockbroker has squandered Humlin's investments, and his editor, who says he must write a crime novel to survive, begins to pitch and promote the nonexistent book despite Humlin's emphatic refusals. Then, when he travels to Gothenburg to give a reading, he finds himself thrust into an entirely different world, where names shift, stories overlap, and histories are both deeply secret and in profound need of retelling. Leyla from Iran, Tanya from Russia, and Tea-Bag, who is from Africa but claims to be from Kurdistan (because Kurds might receive preferential treatment as refugees)--these are the shadow girls who become Humlin's unlikely pupils in impromptu writing workshops. Though he had imagined their stories as fodder for his own book, soon their intertwining lives require him to play a much different role. Offering both surprising humor and heartbreaking moments, The Shadow Girls is a triumph that will please longtime fans of Mankell as well as readers new to his work.

The Name of the Wind

The Name of the Wind PDF Author: Patrick Rothfuss
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0756405890
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 674

Get Book Here

Book Description
In these pages you will come to know Kvothe the notorious magician, the accomplished thief, the masterful musician, the dragon-slayer, the legend-hunter, the lover, the thief and the infamous assassin.

A Treacherous Paradise

A Treacherous Paradise PDF Author: Henning Mankell
Publisher: Knopf Canada
ISBN: 0307362450
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 363

Get Book Here

Book Description
From the internationally acclaimed author of the Wallander crime series, a dramatic new standalone novel set in turn-of-the-century Sweden and Mozambique, whose indomitable female protagonist is awoken from naiveté by her exposure to racism, and by her own unexpected inner strengths. Cold and poverty define Hanna Renström's childhood in remote northern Sweden, and in 1905, at 19, she boards a ship for Australia in hope of a better life. But none of her hopes--or fears--prepares her for the life she will lead. After 2 brief marriages, she finds herself a widow twice over, and the owner of a bordello in Portuguese East Africa, a world where colonialism and white supremacy rule, where she is isolated within society by her profession and her sex, and, among the bordello's black prostitutes, by her colour. As Hanna's story unfurls over the next several years, we watch her in this "treacherous paradise," as she wrestles with a constant, wrenching loneliness and with the racism she's meant to unthinkingly adopt. And as her life becomes increasingly intertwined with the prostitutes, she moves inexorably toward the moment when she will make a decision that defies every expectation society has of her, and, more importantly, those she has of herself.

Depths

Depths PDF Author: Henning Mankell
Publisher: Vintage Canada
ISBN: 0307370291
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 418

Get Book Here

Book Description
Internationally acclaimed and bestselling author Henning Mankell will be published for the first time in Canada by Knopf Canada with Depths. October 1914: the destroyer Svea emerged from the Stockholm archipelago bearing south-southeast. On board was Lars Tobiasson-Svartman, a naval engineer charged with making depth soundings to find a navigable channel for the Swedish navy. As a child Tobiasson-Svartman was fascinated by measurement; nothing is as magical as exact knowledge. His instinct for his profession is reflected in the comfortable domesticity he enjoys with his wife – herself meticulous in every detail. Close to the waters where soundings are taken Tobiasson-Svartman alights on a barren skerry, presumed uninhabited, and is surprised to discover there a young woman, Sara Fredrika. Despite her almost feral appearance, something about her strikes him to the core. The mission is a success and the Svea returns to Gothenburg. Tobiasson-Svartman, however, remains haunted by this chance encounter; his equilibrium has been disturbed, and he is now compelled to find any pretence to return to the remote islet. In Depths Mankell confirms his status as a writer deserving acclaim beyond the crime genre. By delving deep into the male psyche, he has produced a novel as tense and compelling in every way as the Wallander series, but also powerful, moving and ultimately tragic.

Other People's Houses

Other People's Houses PDF Author: Lore Segal
Publisher: Sort of Books
ISBN: 1908745762
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 233

Get Book Here

Book Description
'First published 54 years ago and yet feels as timely as any book I've read this year' Observer Nine months after the Nazi occupation of Austria, 600 Jewish Children assembled at Vienna station to board the first of the Kindertransports bound for Britain. Among them was 10 year old Lore Segal. For the next seven years, she lived as a refugee in other people's houses, moving from the Orthodox Levines in Liverpool, to the staunchly working class Hoopers in Kent, to the genteel Miss Douglas and her sister in Guildford. Few understood the terrors she had fled, or the crushing responsibility of trying to help her parents gain a visa. Amazingly she succeeds and two years later her parents arrive; their visa allows them to work as domestic servants - a humiliation for which they must be grateful. In Other People's Houses Segal evokes with deep compassion, clarity and calm the experience of a child uprooted from a loving home to become stranded among strangers.

Another City, Not My Own

Another City, Not My Own PDF Author: Dominick Dunne
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0307815099
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 418

Get Book Here

Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “thoroughly absorbing” (Time) novel of love, rage, and ruin amidst the chaos in Los Angeles during the O.J. Simpson trial “Compulsively readable . . . deliciously wicked.”—Vogue Gus Bailey, journalist to high society, knows the sordid secrets of the very rich. Now he turns his penetrating gaze to a courtroom in Los Angeles, witnessing the trial of the century unfold before his startled eyes. By day, Gus is at the courthouse, the confidant of the Goldman and Simpson families, the lawyers, the journalists, the hangers-on, even the judge; at night he is the honored guest at the most dazzling gatherings in town as the movers and shakers of Los Angeles—from Kirk Douglas to Heidi Fleiss, from Elizabeth Taylor to Nancy Reagan—delight in the latest news from the corridors of the courthouse. As they share their own theories of the crime, Bailey bears witness to the ultimate perversion of principle and the most amazing gossip machine in Hollywood. A vivid, revealing achievement, Another City, Not My Own illuminates the meaning of guilt and innocence in America today.

The Eye of the Leopard

The Eye of the Leopard PDF Author: Henning Mankell
Publisher: New Press/ORIM
ISBN: 1595585680
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Get Book Here

Book Description
From the creator of the acclaimed Kurt Wallander series: A thrilling story set in Sweden and Zambia told with “heart-stopping tension” (Entertainment Weekly). Interweaving past and present, The Eye of the Leopard draws on bestselling author Henning Mankell’s deep understanding of both Scandinavia and post-colonial Africa. Hans Olofson arrives in Zambia in the 1970s, at the start of its independence. There, he hopes to fulfill the missionary dream of a boyhood friend who was unable to make the journey. But he is also there to flee the traumas of his motherless childhood in provincial Sweden: his father’s alcoholism, his best friend’s terrible accident, his fear of an ordinary and stifled fate. Africa is a terrible shock, yet he stays and makes it his home. In all his years as a mzungu, a wealthy white man among native blacks, he never comes to fully understand his adoptive home, or his precarious place in it. Rumors of an underground army of revolutionaries wearing leopard skins warn him that the fragile truce between blacks and whites is in danger of rupturing. Alternating between Hans’s years in Africa and those of his youth in Sweden, The Eye of the Leopard is a bravura achievement and a study in contrasts—black and white, poor and wealthy, Africa and Europe—both sinister and elegiac. “Mankell’s novels are a joy.” —USA Today “A fascinating novel . . . [the] prose is powerful, and the narrative of The Eye of the Leopard is profound.” —Bookreporter.com “A thought-provoking, multilayered novel whose themes will challenge and linger.” —The Courier Mail “Mankell is a master of atmosphere and suspense.” —Los Angeles Times “Mankell’s novels are the best Swedish export since flatpack furniture.” —The Guardian “Beautiful, heartbreaking, yet ultimately hopeful . . . A powerful exploration of the stresses and challenges of freedom.” —Booklist, starred review

The Wise Man's Fear

The Wise Man's Fear PDF Author: Patrick Rothfuss
Publisher: Astra Publishing House
ISBN: 1101486406
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 1010

Get Book Here

Book Description
Discover book two of Patrick Rothfuss’ #1 New York Times-bestselling epic fantasy series, The Kingkiller Chronicle. “I just love the world of Patrick Rothfuss.” —Lin-Manuel Miranda DAY TWO: THE WISE MAN’S FEAR “There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.” My name is Kvothe. You may have heard of me. So begins a tale told from his own point of view—a story unequaled in fantasy literature. Now in The Wise Man’s Fear, Day Two of The Kingkiller Chronicle, an escalating rivalry with a powerful member of the nobility forces Kvothe to leave the University and seek his fortune abroad. Adrift, penniless, and alone, he travels to Vintas, where he quickly becomes entangled in the politics of courtly society. While attempting to curry favor with a powerful noble, Kvothe uncovers an assassination attempt, comes into conflict with a rival arcanist, and leads a group of mercenaries into the wild, in an attempt to solve the mystery of who (or what) is waylaying travelers on the King's Road. All the while, Kvothe searches for answers, attempting to uncover the truth about the mysterious Amyr, the Chandrian, and the death of his parents. In The Wise Man's Fear, Kvothe takes his first steps on the path of the hero and learns how difficult life can be when a man becomes a legend in his own time.

All Our Worldly Goods

All Our Worldly Goods PDF Author: Irene Nemirovsky
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307949850
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Get Book Here

Book Description
In haunting ways, this gorgeous novel prefigures Irène Némirovsky’s masterpieceSuite Française. Set in France between 1910 and 1940 and first published in France in 1947, five years after the author’s death, All Our Worldly Goods is a gripping story of war, family life and star-crossed lovers. Pierre and Agnes marry for love against the wishes of his parents and his grandfather, the tyrannical family patriarch. Their marriage provokes a family feud that cascades down the generations. This brilliant novel is full of drama, heartbreak, and the telling observations that have made Némirovsky’s work so beloved and admired.

I Die, but My Memory Lives On

I Die, but My Memory Lives On PDF Author: Henning Mankell
Publisher: New Press/ORIM
ISBN: 159558577X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 79

Get Book Here

Book Description
“A deeply moving account of Henning Mankell’s personal responses to AIDS and its victims, both parents and children left behind far too soon.” —Archbishop Desmond Tutu The internationally famous creator of the bestselling Kurt Wallander mysteries tells the true story of a heartrending tradition spawned by a major health crisis: the invaluable Memory Book Project, which gives those dying of AIDS an opportunity to record their lives in words and pictures for the children they leave behind. In Uganda, Mankell finds village after village populated only by children and the elderly—those left behind after AIDS swept away an entire generation. These slim, intensely personal volumes can contain words, pictures, a pressed butterfly, or even grains of sand as ways to represent the lives lost to this devastating plague. Excerpts from Ugandan memory books appear throughout I Die, but My Memory Lives On and, together with Mankell’s narrative, they tell the stories of individual lives while sounding a powerful warning about the threat of AIDS. Featuring a foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the book includes an appendix listing AIDS organizations and resources. A portion of the book’s proceeds will be donated to AIDS charities in Africa.