A Coastline Is an Immeasurable Thing
A Coastline Is an Immeasurable Thing

Author: Mary-Alice Daniel

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2022-11-29

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 0062960067

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A poetic coming-of-age memoir that probes the legacies and myths of family, race, and religion—from Nigeria to England to America Mary-Alice Daniel’s family moved from West Africa to England when she was a very young girl, leaving behind the vivid culture of her native land in the Nigerian savanna. They arrived to a blanched, cold world of prim suburbs and unfamiliar customs. So began her family’s series of travels across three continents in search of places of belonging. A Coastline Is an Immeasurable Thing ventures through the physical and mythical landscapes of Daniel’s upbringing. Against the backdrop of a migratory adolescence, she reckons with race, religious conflict, culture clash, and a multiplicity of possible identities. Daniel lays bare the lives and legends of her parents and past generations, unearthing the tribal mythologies that shaped her kin and her own way of being in the world. The impossible question of which tribe to claim as her own is one she has long struggled with: the Nigerian government recognizes her as Longuda, her father’s tribe; according to matrilineal tradition, Daniel belongs to her mother’s tribe, the nomadic Fulani; and the language she grew up speaking is that of the Hausa tribe. But her strongest emotional connection is to her adopted home: California, the final place she reveals to readers through its spellbinding history. Daniel’s approach is deeply personal: in order to reclaim her legacies, she revisits her unsettled childhood and navigates the traditions of her ancestors. Her layered narratives invoke the contrasting spiritualities of her tribes: Islam, Christianity, and magic. A Coastline Is an Immeasurable Thing is a powerful cultural distillation of mythos and ethos, mapping the far-flung corners of the Black diaspora that Daniel inherits and inhabits. Through lyrical observation and deep introspection, she probes the bonds and boundaries of Blackness, from bygone colonial empires to her present home in America.

Sourdough
Sourdough

Author: Robin Sloan

Publisher: MCD

Published: 2017-09-05

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0374716439

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From Robin Sloan, the New York Times bestselling author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, comes Sourdough, "a perfect parable for our times" (San Francisco Magazine): a delicious and funny novel about an overworked and under-socialized software engineer discovering a calling and a community as a baker. Named One of the Best Books of the Year by NPR, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Southern Living Lois Clary is a software engineer at General Dexterity, a San Francisco robotics company with world-changing ambitions. She codes all day and collapses at night, her human contact limited to the two brothers who run the neighborhood hole-in-the-wall from which she orders dinner every evening. Then, disaster! Visa issues. The brothers quickly close up shop. But they have one last delivery for Lois: their culture, the sourdough starter used to bake their bread. She must keep it alive, they tell her—feed it daily, play it music, and learn to bake with it. Lois is no baker, but she could use a roommate, even if it is a needy colony of microorganisms. Soon, not only is she eating her own homemade bread, she’s providing loaves to the General Dexterity cafeteria every day. Then the company chef urges her to take her product to the farmer’s market—and a whole new world opens up.

Buzz Books 2022: Fall/Winter
Buzz Books 2022: Fall/Winter

Author:

Publisher: Publishers Lunch

Published: 2022-05-10

Total Pages: 1136

ISBN-13: 1948586509

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The 21st edition of Buzz Books is a treasure-trove of what readers value the most: substantial excerpts from titles scheduled for publication this fall and winter. Think of it as a compilation of nearly 60 great “singles.” Major bestselling authors such as Alice Feeney and John Irving are featured, along with literary greats Yiyun Li, Elizabeth McCracken, and Kamila Shamsie. Other sure-to-be popular titles are by Lauren Denton, Stephen Markley, and Ellen Marie Wiseman. Buzz Books has had a particularly stellar track record with highlighting the most talented, exciting debut authors, and this edition is no exception with Jonathan Escoffery’s If I Survive You, Jamila Minnicks’ Moonrise Over New Jessup, and Kai Thomas’s In the Upper Country. Our nonfiction selections range from New Yorker writer Rachel Aviv’s exploration of trauma to Cin Fabré’s inspiring story of becoming a Wall Street Trader at 19. Pulitzer-Prize winning historian Thomas Ricks offers a look into the civil rights movement. Finally, we present ten early looks at new work up-and-coming young adult authors Kate Armstrong, Krystal Marquis, and Maya Prasad and more, as well as Nubia, a debut from actor Omar Epps.

Don't Let It Get You Down
Don't Let It Get You Down

Author: Savala Nolan

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2022-07-19

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 1982137282

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"An incisive and vulnerable yet powerful and provocative collection of essays, Savala offers poignant reflections on living between society's most charged, politicized, and intractably polar spaces: between black and white, between rich and poor, between thin and fat - as a woman. The daughter of an Afro-Latinx father and a white mother, Savala's light complexion has always contrast her kinky hair and broad nose to embody what old folks used to call "a whole lot of yellow wasted." With her mother's beckoning, she began her first diet at the age of three and has been nearly skeletal and truly fat, multiple times. She has lived in poverty and had an elite education, with regular access to wealth and privilege. She has been in the in between. It is these liminal spaces - the living in the in-between of race, class and body type that gives the essays in Nearly, Not Quite their strikingly clear and refreshing point of view on the defining tension points in our culture. Each of the twelve essays, that comprises this collection are rife with unforgettable and insightful anecdotes, and are as humorous and as full of Savala's appetites as they are of anxieties. The result is a lyrical and magnetic read. In "On Dating White Guys While Me," Savala realizes her early romantic pursuits of rich, preppy white guys wasn't about preference, but about self-erasure. In "Don't Let it Get You Down" we traverse the beauty and pain of being Black in America as men of color face police brutality and "large Black females" are ignored in hospital waiting rooms. Savala offers an angle to inequities that is as deft as it is lyrical. In "Bad Education" we mine how women learn to internalize violence and rage in hopes of truly having power. And in "To Wit and Also" we meet Filliss, Peggy, and Grace the enslaved women owned by her ancestors, reckoning with how America's original sin lives intimately within our stories. Over and over again, Savala reminds readers that our true identities are often most authentically lived not in the black and white in the grey, in the in-between. Perfect for fans of Heavy by Kiese Laymon and Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay, this book delivers a fresh perspective on race, class, bodies, and gender, that is both an entertaining and engaging addition to the ongoing social and cultural conversation"--

The Indomitable Florence Finch
The Indomitable Florence Finch

Author: Robert J. Mrazek

Publisher: Hachette Books

Published: 2020-07-21

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 031642224X

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The New York Times bestselling author of Fly Girls shares the riveting story of an unsung World War II hero who saved countless American lives in the Philippines. When Florence Finch died at the age of 101, few of her Ithaca, NY neighbors knew that this unassuming Filipina native was a Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, whose courage and sacrifice were unsurpassed in the Pacific War against Japan. Long accustomed to keeping her secrets close in service of the Allies, she waited fifty years to reveal the story of those dramatic and harrowing days to her own children. Florence was an unlikely warrior. She relied on her own intelligence and fortitude to survive on her own from the age of seven, facing bigotry as a mixed-race mestiza with the dual heritage of her American serviceman father and Filipina mother. As the war drew ever closer to the Philippines, Florence fell in love with a dashing American naval intelligence agent, Charles "Bing" Smith. In the wake of Bing's sudden death in battle, Florence transformed from a mild-mannered young wife into a fervent resistance fighter. She conceived a bold plan to divert tons of precious fuel from the Japanese army, which was then sold on the black market to provide desperately needed medicine and food for hundreds of American POWs. In constant peril of arrest and execution, Florence fought to save others, even as the Japanese police closed in. With a wealth of original sources including taped interviews, personal journals, and unpublished memoirs, The Indomitable Florence Finch unfolds against the Bataan Death March, the fall of Corregidor, and the daily struggle to survive a brutal occupying force. Award-winning military historian and former Congressman Robert J. Mrazek brings to light this long-hidden American patriot. The Indomitable Florence Finch is the story of the transcendent bravery of a woman who belongs in America's pantheon of war heroes.

Queen Sugar
Queen Sugar

Author: Natalie Baszile

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2014-02-06

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 0698151542

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The inspiration for the acclaimed OWN TV series produced by Oprah Winfrey and Ava DuVernay "Queen Sugar is a page-turning, heart-breaking novel of the new south, where the past is never truly past, but the future is a hot, bright promise. This is a story of family and the healing power of our connections—to each other, and to the rich land beneath our feet." —Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage Readers, booksellers, and critics alike are embracing Queen Sugar and cheering for its heroine, Charley Bordelon, an African American woman and single mother struggling to build a new life amid the complexities of the contemporary South. When Charley unexpectedly inherits eight hundred acres of sugarcane land, she and her eleven-year-old daughter say goodbye to smoggy Los Angeles and head to Louisiana. She soon learns, however, that cane farming is always going to be a white man’s business. As the sweltering summer unfolds, Charley struggles to balance the overwhelming challenges of a farm in decline with the demands of family and the startling desires of her own heart.

Coast: Our Island Story
Coast: Our Island Story

Author: Nicholas Crane

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2010-10-31

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 1409074552

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Along our shores, towering cliffs from the age of the dinosaurs rise beside wide estuaries teeming with wildlife, while Victorian ports share waterfronts with imposing fortifications. And the people who have lived, worked and played on this spectacular coast - from Stone Age fishermen to seafarers, chart-makers and surfers - have an incredible tale to tell. Coast: Our Island Story is an enthralling account, sparkling with geography, history, adventure and eccentric characters, told with Nick Crane's trademark charisma and wit.

Sermonettes from the Seashore
Sermonettes from the Seashore

Author: Barry Blackstone

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2019-05-23

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 1532682573

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Coming from this preacher's love of the seashore is a series of sermonettes he heard while walking along some of the world's sandy beaches. Stroll with this man as he shares his insights from days spent on seashores in the counties of Israel, India, Canada, and Australia, as well as the states of Alaska, California, Florida, New Jersey, and Maine. Listen with him as he hears surf and sea sermons, tide and tern tenets, beach and breeze benedictions, and sand and storm sermonettes. Look with him into the face of a coastal nor'easter; watch with him as sea creatures and shoreline birds play together along the sea edge; behold brilliant sunrises and amazing sunsets over distant shores with family and friends; and observe the rising and falling of the great tides, all events along a seashore that inspired these spiritual messages from the Almighty. So take off your shoes; let the sand fill the cracks between your toes; lift your eyes toward the sea; open your ears to the sound of the surf; and "be still, and know that I am God" (Ps 46:10). What does God want to say?

Ask a Little-Learn a Lot
Ask a Little-Learn a Lot

Author: R. W. A. Mitchell

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2012-08

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 1475933789

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The best way to learn comes by simply asking questions. This work communicates that the best way to explore new ideas comes simply by asking questions.