Nostalgia Has Ruined My Life

Nostalgia Has Ruined My Life PDF Author: Zarah Butcher-McGunnigle
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781925818772
Category : Chronically ill
Languages : en
Pages : 63

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Book Description
From the discomfort of my own home I buy dresses, look up recipes, do online surveys. In Nostalgia Has Ruined My Life, an unnamed young woman in her late twenties navigates unemployment, boredom, chronic illness and online dating. Her activities are banal -- applying for jobs, looking up horoscopes, managing depression, going on Tinder dates. 'I want to tell someone I love them but there is no one to tell,' she says. 'Except my sister maybe. I want to pick blackberries on a farm and then die.' She observes the ambiguities of social interactions, the absurd intimacies of sex and the indignity of everyday events, with a skepticism about the possibility of genuine emotion, or enlightenment. Like life, things are just unfolding, and sometimes, like life, they don't actually get better. Zarah Butcher-McGunnigle's novella-in-fragments blends artifice with sincerity, is darkly funny, and alive to the incongruous performance that constitutes getting by. 'Written in a fragmentary form reminiscent of Renata Adler, Nostalgia Has Ruined My Life, Zarah Butcher-McCunningle's deadpan fiction debut, documents an unnamed young protagonist's listless existence in an unnamed city. The book's droll dispatches from daily life under late capitalism recall the writing of the author's New Zealand contemporaries Hera Lindsay Bird and Eamonn Marra, but Butcher-McCunnigle's distinctive voice is her own... Nostalgia Has Ruined My Life is a grimly funny rendering of the absurdity of life in the 2020s--an era in which, with nowhere to turn, the hopeless millennial turns in on herself.' -- Kelsey Oldham, Books+Publishing Praise for Autobiography of a Marguerite: 'Workbook for surviving illness, guide to familial dysfunction and an intersection between fact and fiction...one of the most innovative New Zealand books published in recent years.' -- Booknotes 'Books of the Year' 'The writing goes to the aching heart of disconnection and of longing for repair...Butcher-McGunnigle has created a crooked beauty out of shards.' -- takahē magazine

Nostalgia Has Ruined My Life

Nostalgia Has Ruined My Life PDF Author: Zarah Butcher-McGunnigle
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781925818772
Category : Chronically ill
Languages : en
Pages : 63

Get Book Here

Book Description
From the discomfort of my own home I buy dresses, look up recipes, do online surveys. In Nostalgia Has Ruined My Life, an unnamed young woman in her late twenties navigates unemployment, boredom, chronic illness and online dating. Her activities are banal -- applying for jobs, looking up horoscopes, managing depression, going on Tinder dates. 'I want to tell someone I love them but there is no one to tell,' she says. 'Except my sister maybe. I want to pick blackberries on a farm and then die.' She observes the ambiguities of social interactions, the absurd intimacies of sex and the indignity of everyday events, with a skepticism about the possibility of genuine emotion, or enlightenment. Like life, things are just unfolding, and sometimes, like life, they don't actually get better. Zarah Butcher-McGunnigle's novella-in-fragments blends artifice with sincerity, is darkly funny, and alive to the incongruous performance that constitutes getting by. 'Written in a fragmentary form reminiscent of Renata Adler, Nostalgia Has Ruined My Life, Zarah Butcher-McCunningle's deadpan fiction debut, documents an unnamed young protagonist's listless existence in an unnamed city. The book's droll dispatches from daily life under late capitalism recall the writing of the author's New Zealand contemporaries Hera Lindsay Bird and Eamonn Marra, but Butcher-McCunnigle's distinctive voice is her own... Nostalgia Has Ruined My Life is a grimly funny rendering of the absurdity of life in the 2020s--an era in which, with nowhere to turn, the hopeless millennial turns in on herself.' -- Kelsey Oldham, Books+Publishing Praise for Autobiography of a Marguerite: 'Workbook for surviving illness, guide to familial dysfunction and an intersection between fact and fiction...one of the most innovative New Zealand books published in recent years.' -- Booknotes 'Books of the Year' 'The writing goes to the aching heart of disconnection and of longing for repair...Butcher-McGunnigle has created a crooked beauty out of shards.' -- takahē magazine

Gentle and Fierce

Gentle and Fierce PDF Author: Vanessa Berry
Publisher: Giramondo Publishing
ISBN: 1925818802
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 182

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Book Description
New collection of essays on the relationships between humans and animals, by Vanessa Berry, author of Mirror Sydney, and the memoir of adolescence Ninety9. Gentle and Fierce focuses on the world of animals, and the way their presence has shaped the author’s attitudes and her sense of self. Having spent her life in city environments, Vanessa Berry’s experiences with animals have largely been through encounters with urban creatures, representations of animals in art and the media, and as decorative ornaments or kitsch. The essays suggest that these mediated encounters, rather than being mundane or removed from nature, provide meaningful connections with the animal world, at a time in which it is threatened by climate change and environmental destruction. The subjects of Berry’s singular bestiary include butterflies, a glass fish, a stuffed Kodiak bear, the rabbits on a Japanese island, the sinking horse from The NeverEnding Story, snails and flies, a porcelain otter, Lassie, dream spiders and cats, and wallabies on the Isle of Man. Berry responds to each with the attentiveness and empathy that is the hallmark of her writing. The essays are accompanied by illustrations that testify to her background as an artist and zine maker. 'Sydney writer and artist Vanessa Berry recalls the cinematic moment that imprinted itself on the collective memory of her generation in Gentle and Fierce, a meditative book of essays — also illustrated by Berry — that explores the many ways animals have shaped the author’s identity and the course of her life...Gentle and Fierce is an unusual and empathetic book that should appeal to fans of personal essayists such as Fiona Wright and Jessica Friedmann.' — Carody Culver, Books+Publishing

Manchester United Ruined My Life

Manchester United Ruined My Life PDF Author: Colin Shindler
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0755363922
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
Colin Shindler was dealt a cruel hand by Fate when he became a passionate Manchester City supporter. In this brilliant sporting autobiography he recalls the great characters of his youth, like his eccentric Uncle Laurence, as well as his professional heroes. Threaded through these sporting events is the author's own story, which touches on a universal nerve, growing up in a Jewish family, his childhodd destroyed by the sudden death of his mother and his slow emotional recovery through his love for Manchester City. It is a tale that reveals what it is like to be on the outside looking in, with his nose pressed up against the sweet shop window watching the United supporters take all the wine gums.

Cold Enough for Snow

Cold Enough for Snow PDF Author: Jessica Au
Publisher: Giramondo Publishing
ISBN: 1922725188
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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Book Description
The inaugural winner of The Novel Prize, an international biennial award established by Giramondo (Australia), Fitzcarraldo Editions (UK) and New Directions (USA). Cold Enough for Snow was unanimously chosen from over 1500 entries. A novel about the relationship between life and art, and between language and the inner world – how difficult it is to speak truly, to know and be known by another, and how much power and friction lies in the unsaid, especially between a mother and daughter. A young woman has arranged a holiday with her mother in Japan. They travel by train, visit galleries and churches chosen for their art and architecture, eat together in small cafés and restaurants and walk along the canals at night, on guard against the autumn rain and the prospect of snow. All the while, they talk, or seem to talk: about the weather, horoscopes, clothes and objects; about the mother’s family in Hong Kong, and the daughter’s own formative experiences. But uncertainties abound. How much is spoken between them, how much is thought but unspoken? Cold Enough for Snow is a reckoning and an elegy: with extraordinary skill, Au creates an enveloping atmosphere that expresses both the tenderness between mother and daughter, and the distance between them. 'So calm and clear and deep, I wished it would flow on forever.' — Helen Garner 'Rarely have I been so moved, reading a book: I love the quiet beauty of Cold Enough for Snow and how, within its calm simplicity, Jessica Au camouflages incredible power.' — Edouard Louis 'Au’s prose is elegant and measured. In descriptions of bracing clarity she evokes ‘shaking delicate impressions’ of worlds within worlds that are symbolic of the parts of ourselves we keep hidden and those we choose to lay bare. Put simply, this novel is an intricate and multi-layered work of art — a complex and profound meditation on identity, familial bonds and our inability to fully understand ourselves, those we love and the world around us.' — Jacqui Davies, Books+Publishing

Bright Ruined Things

Bright Ruined Things PDF Author: Samantha Cohoe
Publisher: Wednesday Books
ISBN: 1250768853
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
"A deftly-plotted tale about ambition and belonging, Bright Ruined Things takes Shakespeare’s The Tempest and brilliantly reimagines its themes of family and love. Cohoe writes with a magic that dazzles and cuts right to the core." - Chloe Gong, New York Times bestselling author of These Violent Delights Forbidden magic, a family secret, and a night to reveal it all... The only life Mae has ever known is on the island, living on the charity of the wealthy Prosper family who control the island’s magic and its spirits. Mae longs for magic of her own and to have a place among the Prosper family, where her best friend, Coco, will see her as an equal, and her crush, Miles, will finally see her. But tonight is First Night, when the Prospers and their high-society friends celebrate the night Lord Prosper first harnessed the island’s magic and started producing aether – a magical fuel source that has revolutionized the world. With everyone returning to the island, Mae finally has the chance to go after what she’s always wanted. When the spirits start inexplicably dying, Mae realizes that things aren’t what they seem. And Ivo, the reclusive, mysterious heir to the Prosper magic, may hold all the answers – including a secret about Mae’s past. As Mae and her friends unravel the mysteries of the island, and the Prospers’ magic, Mae starts to question the truth of what her world was built on. In this YA fantasy, Samantha Cohoe wonderfully mixes magic and an atmospheric setting into a fantastically immersive world, with characters you won’t be able to forget.

Autobiography of a Marguerite

Autobiography of a Marguerite PDF Author: Zarah Butcher-McGunnigle
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780473284121
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 92

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Book Description


Such a Fun Age

Such a Fun Age PDF Author: Kiley Reid
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525541926
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
A Best Book of the Year: The Washington Post • Chicago Tribune • NPR • Vogue • Elle • Real Simple • InStyle • Good Housekeeping • Parade • Slate • Vox • Kirkus Reviews • Library Journal • BookPage Longlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize An Instant New York Times Bestseller A Reese's Book Club Pick "The most provocative page-turner of the year." --Entertainment Weekly "I urge you to read Such a Fun Age." --NPR A striking and surprising debut novel from an exhilarating new voice, Such a Fun Age is a page-turning and big-hearted story about race and privilege, set around a young black babysitter, her well-intentioned employer, and a surprising connection that threatens to undo them both. Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living, with her confidence-driven brand, showing other women how to do the same. So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains' toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high-end supermarket. The store's security guard, seeing a young black woman out late with a white child, accuses Emira of kidnapping two-year-old Briar. A small crowd gathers, a bystander films everything, and Emira is furious and humiliated. Alix resolves to make things right. But Emira herself is aimless, broke, and wary of Alix's desire to help. At twenty-five, she is about to lose her health insurance and has no idea what to do with her life. When the video of Emira unearths someone from Alix's past, both women find themselves on a crash course that will upend everything they think they know about themselves, and each other. With empathy and piercing social commentary, Such a Fun Age explores the stickiness of transactional relationships, what it means to make someone "family," and the complicated reality of being a grown up. It is a searing debut for our times.

Wait Till Helen Comes

Wait Till Helen Comes PDF Author: Mary Downing Hahn
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0547346034
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
Twelve-year-old Molly and her ten-year-old brother, Michael, have never liked their seven-year-old stepsister, Heather. Ever since their parents got married, she's made Molly and Michael's life miserable. Now their parents have moved them all to the country to live in a house that used to be a church, with a cemetery in the backyard. If that's not bad enough, Heather starts talking to a ghost named Helen and warning Molly and Michael that Helen is coming for them. Molly feels certain Heather is in some kind of danger, but every time she tries to help, Heather twists things around to get her into trouble. It seems as if things can't get any worse. But they do—when Helen comes.

Ignorance

Ignorance PDF Author: Milan Kundera
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0063290685
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
“Kundera once more delivers a seductive, intelligent entertainment … [with] elegance and grace.” — Washington Post Book World “Nothing short of masterful.” — Newsweek A brilliant novel set in contemporary Prague, by one of the most distinguished writers of our time. A man and a woman meet by chance while returning to their homeland, which they had abandoned 20 years earlier when they chose to become exiles. Will they manage to pick up the thread of their strange love story, interrupted almost as soon as it began and then lost in the tides of history? The truth is that after such a long absence “their memories no longer match.” We always believe that our memories coincide with those of the person we loved, that we experienced the same thing. But this is just an illusion. Only those who return after 20 years, like Ulysses returning to his native Ithaca, can be dazzled and astounded by observing the goddess of ignorance first-hand. Kundera is the only author today who can take dizzying concepts such as absence, memory, forgetting, and ignorance, and transform them into material for a novel, masterfully orchestrating them into a polyphonic and moving work.

The Book of My Lives

The Book of My Lives PDF Author: Aleksandar Hemon
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 0374708886
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
A Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award For fans of Aleksandar Hemon's fiction, The Book of My Lives is simply indispensable; for the uninitiated, it is the perfect introduction to one of the great writers of our time. Aleksandar Hemon's lives begin in Sarajevo, a small, blissful city where a young boy's life is consumed with street soccer with the neighborhood kids, resentment of his younger sister, and trips abroad with his engineer-cum-beekeeper father. Here, a young man's life is about poking at the pretensions of the city's elders with American music, bad poetry, and slightly better journalism. And then, his life in Chicago: watching from afar as war breaks out in Sarajevo and the city comes under siege, no way to return home; his parents and sister fleeing Sarajevo with the family dog, leaving behind all else they had ever known; and Hemon himself starting a new life, his own family, in this new city. And yet this is not really a memoir. The Bookof My Lives, Hemon's first book of nonfiction, defies convention and expectation. It is a love song to two different cities; it is a heartbreaking paean to the bonds of family; it is a stirring exhortation to go out and play soccer—and not for the exercise. It is a book driven by passions but built on fierce intelligence, devastating experience, and sharp insight. And like the best narratives, it is a book that will leave you a different reader—a different person, with a new way of looking at the world—when you've finished. A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2013