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Author: JJ Bola
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982175583
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 272
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Book Description
A Black teacher searches for himself across the United States in this “emotive, brave” (Daily Mail, London) story for all of us who have fantasized about escaping our daily lives and starting over. Michael Kabongo is a British Congolese teacher living in London and living the dream: he’s beloved by his students, popular with his coworkers, and adored by his proud mother who emigrated from the Congo to the UK in search of a better life. But when he suffers a devastating loss, his life is thrown into a tailspin. As he struggles to find a way forward, memories of his fathers’ violent death, the weight of refugeehood, and an increasing sense of dread threaten everything he’s worked so hard to achieve. Longing to start over, Michael decides to spontaneously pack up and go to America, the mythical “land of the free,” where he imagines everything will be better and easier. On this transformative journey, Michael travels everywhere from New York City to San Francisco, partying with new friends, sparking fleeting romances, and splurging on big adventures, with the intention of living the life of his dreams until the money in his bank account runs out. “Narrated with haunting lyricism, The Selfless Act of Breathing is an intimate journey through the darkest of human impulses to the gleaming flickers of love and radical hope” (Susan Abulhawa, author of Against the Loveless World).
Author: JJ Bola
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982175583
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Get Book
Book Description
A Black teacher searches for himself across the United States in this “emotive, brave” (Daily Mail, London) story for all of us who have fantasized about escaping our daily lives and starting over. Michael Kabongo is a British Congolese teacher living in London and living the dream: he’s beloved by his students, popular with his coworkers, and adored by his proud mother who emigrated from the Congo to the UK in search of a better life. But when he suffers a devastating loss, his life is thrown into a tailspin. As he struggles to find a way forward, memories of his fathers’ violent death, the weight of refugeehood, and an increasing sense of dread threaten everything he’s worked so hard to achieve. Longing to start over, Michael decides to spontaneously pack up and go to America, the mythical “land of the free,” where he imagines everything will be better and easier. On this transformative journey, Michael travels everywhere from New York City to San Francisco, partying with new friends, sparking fleeting romances, and splurging on big adventures, with the intention of living the life of his dreams until the money in his bank account runs out. “Narrated with haunting lyricism, The Selfless Act of Breathing is an intimate journey through the darkest of human impulses to the gleaming flickers of love and radical hope” (Susan Abulhawa, author of Against the Loveless World).
Author: JJ Bola
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0349702098
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 263
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Book Description
A heartbreaking, lyrical story for all of those who have fantasised about escaping their daily lives and starting over. Michael Kabongo is a British-Congolese teacher living in London on the cusp of two identities. On paper, he seems to have it all - he's loved by his students, popular with his colleagues, and enjoys the pride of his mother who emigrated from the Congo. But behind closed doors, he's been struggling with the overwhelming sense that he can't improve the injustices he sees - from his efforts to change the lives of his students, to his attempts to transcend the violence that marginalises young Black men around the world. Then Michael suffers a devastating loss, and his life is thrown into a tailspin. As he struggles to find a way forward, memories of his fathers' violent death, the weight of being a refugee, and an increasing sense of dread threaten everything he's worked so hard to achieve. Longing to escape the shadows in his mind and start anew, Michael decides to spontaneously pack up and go to America, the mythical 'land of the free,' where he imagines everything will be better, easier - a place where he can become someone new, someone without a past filled with pain. On this transformative journey, Michael travels from New York City to San Francisco, partying with new friends, sparking fleeting romances, and splurging on big adventures. In the back of his mind, Michael has a plan: follow his dreams until the money in his bank account runs out, and then he will decide if his life is truly worth living... Written in spellbinding prose, with Bola's trademark, magnetic storytelling, The Selfless Act of Breathing is a heart-wrenching and deeply emotional novel about mental health, masculinity and the power of love. What people are saying about The Selfless Act of Breathing: 'Well, wow. The writing in this book was so lyrical and beautiful... I really couldn't put this book down and finished it in two days... The last page had me on the verge of tears.' NetGalley Reviewer 'I knew from the opening that this book was going to break my heart. Breathless and gripping, it is a masterclass in empathy.' Yvonne Battle-Felton 'Heartfelt and searing... Devastating and insightful... Readers will be swept up in the sheer beauty of Bola's writing.' The i 'Possessed by a daring turn of phrase and at times a beautifully powerful sense of personal poignancy... Should be pushed into the hands of friends accompanied by the question: do you feel this too?' Big Issue 'Absolutely stunning.' Elizabeth Day 'I loved this book - I lost my whole day reading - just couldn't bear to put it down!' NetGalley Reviewer 'Wonderfully tender... Bola's vulnerable, delicate writing conveys so much truth and heart about the quiet pain in our hearts.' Nikesh Shukla 'Arresting... Important and emotive... Powerfully raw.' Guardian 'A bold work with a broad scope, bravely tackling masculinity, hopelessness and despair with force and directness.' Okechukwu Nzelu 'A beautiful, absorbing read. By turns searing and quietly devastating.' Irenosen Okojie 'An emotive, brave novel that ultimately holds out the prospect of salvation, without sacrificing any of its power.' Daily Mail 'Providing a spark of hope.' Observer 'Narrated with haunting lyricism... An intimate journey through the darkest of human impulses to the gleaming flickers of love and radical hope.' Susan Abulhawa 'Bola's insightful, intimate and lyrical work has been entrancing readers... Reminiscent of Paul Beatty and Ralph Ellison.' The Bookseller
Author: Ayesha Harruna Attah
Publisher: Other Press, LLC
ISBN: 1590519957
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 241
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Book Description
Based on true events, a story of courage, forgiveness, love, and freedom in precolonial Ghana, told through the eyes of two women born to vastly different fates. Aminah lives an idyllic life until she is brutally separated from her home and forced on a journey that transforms her from a daydreamer into a resilient woman. Wurche, the willful daughter of a chief, is desperate to play an important role in her father's court. These two women's lives converge as infighting among Wurche's people threatens the region, during the height of the slave trade at the end of the nineteenth century. Through the experiences of Aminah and Wurche, The Hundred Wells of Salaga offers a remarkable view of slavery and how the scramble for Africa affected the lives of everyday people.
Author: JJ Bola
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1628728884
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 288
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Book Description
A tale of love, loss, identity, and belonging, No Place to Call Home tells the story of a family who fled to the United Kingdom from their native Congo to escape the political violence under the dictator, Le Maréchal. The young son Jean starts at a new school and struggles to fit in. An unlikely friendship gets him into a string of sticky situations, eventually leading to a suspension. At home, his parents pressure him to focus on school and get his act together, to behave more like his star-student little sister. As the family tries to integrate in and navigate modern British society while holding on to their roots and culture, they meet Tonton, a womanizer who loves alcohol and parties. Much to Jean's father's dismay, after losing his job, Tonton moves in with them. He introduces the family—via his church where colorful characters congregate—to a familiar community of fellow country-people, making them feel slightly less alone. The family begins to settle, but their current situation unravels and a threat to their future appears, while the fear of uncertainty remains.
Author: Michaela Coel
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
ISBN: 1250843456
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 74
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Book Description
From the brilliant mind of Michaela Coel, creator and star of I May Destroy You and Chewing Gum and a Royal Society of Literature fellow, comes a passionate and inspired declaration against fitting in. When invited to deliver the MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh International Television Festival, Michaela Coel touched a lot of people with her striking revelations about race, class and gender, but the person most significantly impacted was Coel herself. Building on her celebrated speech, Misfits immerses readers in her vision through powerful allegory and deeply personal anecdotes—from her coming of age in London public housing to her discovery of theater and her love for storytelling. And she tells of her reckoning with trauma and metamorphosis into a champion for herself, inclusivity, and radical honesty. With inspiring insight and wit, Coel lays bare her journey so far and invites us to reflect on our own. By embracing our differences, she says, we can transform our lives. An artist to her core, Coel holds up the path of the creative as an emblem of our need to regard one another with care and respect—and transparency. Misfits is a triumphant call for honesty, empathy and inclusion. Championing “misfits” everywhere, this timely, necessary book is a rousing coming-to-power manifesto dedicated to anyone who has ever worried about fitting in.
Author: Natalia Ginzburg
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
ISBN: 0811228797
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 94
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Book Description
Finally back in print, a frighteningly lucid feminist horror story about marriage The Dry Heart begins and ends with the matter-of-fact pronouncement: “I shot him between the eyes.” As the tale—a plunge into the chilly waters of loneliness, desperation, and bitterness—proceeds, the narrator's murder of her flighty husband takes on a certain logical inevitability. Stripped of any preciousness or sentimentality, Natalia Ginzburg's writing here is white-hot, tempered by rage. She transforms the unhappy tale of an ordinary dull marriage into a rich psychological thriller that seems to beg the question: why don't more wives kill their husbands?
Author: J. J. Bola
Publisher: Outspoken by Pluto
ISBN: 9780745338743
Category : Masculinity
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
What is masculinity? Dominating the world around us, from Trump's twitter outbursts to deadly gun violence, from male suicide rates to incels on Reddit and 4chan, masculinity is perceived to be 'toxic', 'fragile' and 'in crisis'. In Mask Off, JJ Bola exposes masculinity as a performance that men are socially conditioned into. Using examples of non-Western cultural traditions, music and sport, he shines light on historical narratives around manhood, debunking popular myths along the way. He explores how LGBTQ men, men of colour, and male refugees experience masculinity in diverse ways, revealing its fluidity, how it's strengthened and weakened by different political contexts, such as the patriarchy or the far-right, and perceived differently by those around them. At the heart of love and sex, the political stage, competitive sports, gang culture, and mental health issues, lies masculinity: Mask Off is an urgent call to unravel masculinity and redefine it.
Author: Ty Roth
Publisher: Ember
ISBN: 0385739591
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 338
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Book Description
When their friend Shelly drowns in a sailing accident, John Keats and Gordon Byron decide to steal Shelly's ashes and, in a romantic gesture, return them to the small Lake Erie island where her body washed up.
Author: Joy White
Publisher: Watkins Media Limited
ISBN: 1912248697
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 151
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Book Description
An uncompromising wake-up call. Joy White tells uncomfortable truths and blows apart our understanding of racism, crime and policing in our inner-cities. Since the 1980s, austerity, gentrification and structural racism have wreaked havoc on inner-city communities, widening inequality and entrenching poverty. In Terraformed, Joy White offers an insiders view of Forest Gate -- an urban neighbourhood in London -- analysing how these issues affect the black youth of today. Connecting the dots between music, politics and the built environment, it centres on the lived experiences of black youth who have had it all: huge student debt, invisible homelessness, custodial sentences, electronic tagging, surveillance, arrest, police brutality, issues with health and well-being, and of course, loss. Part ethnography, part memoir, Terraformed uses the history of Newham, London as an example of inner-city life across the globe and considers how young black lives are affected by racism, capitalism and austerity.
Author: Lalage Snow
Publisher: Quercus Publishing
ISBN: 1787470709
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 352
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Book Description
'A remarkable book . . . It's a powerful testament to the healing balm of gardening and the resilience of the human spirit in the direst of circumstances.' Financial Times 'Not a happy book and yet it's magically heartening. It makes a gardener question his or her values.' The Times 'This extraordinary book...warm and engaging...like a photograph magicked to life.' Spectator 'Snow has spent ten years as a photographer and filmmaker covering unrest . . . Throughout that time she has sought comfort in green oases and come to understand "how vital gardens are 'against a horrid wilderness' of war". . . There can be few counter-narratives as enchanting and sad as those Snow recounts in War Gardens.' Times Literary Supplement 'For all these victims of war, their gardens are places in which to breathe, providing moments of calm, hope and optimism in a fragile life of horror and uncertainty. For many, it helps them to grieve. Books seldom bring a lump to my throat, but this one did.' Spectator 'What makes War Gardens the most illuminating garden book to be published this year, is the realisation that people's gardens are the antidotes to the horrors of their surroundings.' Country Life A journey through the most unlikely of gardens: the oases of peace people create in the midst of war In this millennium, we have become war weary. From Afghanistan to Iraq, from Ukraine to South Sudan and Syria, from Kashmir to the West Bank, conflict is as contagious and poisonous as Japanese knotweed. Living through it are people just like us with ordinary jobs, ordinary pressures and ordinary lives. Against a new landscape of horror and violence it is up to them to maintain a modicum of normality and colour. For some, gardening is the way to achieve this. Working in the world's most dangerous war zones, freelance war correspondent and photographer Lally Snow has often chanced across a very moving sight, a testimony to the triumph of the human spirit in adversity, a celebration of hope and beauty: a war garden. In Kabul, the royal gardens are tended by a centenarian gardener, though the king is long gone; in Camp Bastion, bored soldiers improvise tiny gardens to give themselves a moment's peace; on both sides of the dividing line in Jerusalem families tend groves of olives and raise beautiful plants from the unforgiving, disputed landscape; in Ukraine, families tend their gardens in the middle of a surreal, frozen war. War Gardens is a surprising, tragic and beautiful journey through the darkest places of the modern world, revealing the ways people make time and space for themselves and for nature even in the middle of destruction. Illustrated with Lally Snow's own award-winning photography, this is a book to treasure.
