Some love affairs are not the storybook kind...Not even the second time around. Rupert Ruskin's well-crafted isolation is shattered when his ex-wife shows up with devastating news. Ruskin's inability to walk away from her in her need drives him to help her find a thousand beauties in a single day. Yet Ruskin is so blinded by his own need for redemption, that he ignores all of Elaine's warning signs that her need force him into a soul-shattering final decision. A Thousand Beauties contains adult themes that may not be suitable for some readers. The audio book, narrated by David Rollins, is available on audible.com.
Ordered to become a ghost bride in 1930s China, seventeen-year-old Spring Swallow flees to Soochow where she joins a community of embroiderers and engages in a dangerous love affair with a young revolutionary.
NAMED A RECOMMENDED BOOK OF 2018 BY Buzzfeed • The Wall Street Journal • The Millions • Southern Living • Bustle • Esquire • Entertainment Weekly • Nylon• Mashable • Libary Journal • Thrillist “Cassaras’s propulsive and profound first novel, finding one’s home in the world—particularly in a subculture plagued by fear and intolerance from society—comes with tragedy as well as extraordinary personal freedom.” -- Esquire A gritty and gorgeous debut that follows a cast of gay and transgender club kids navigating the Harlem ball scene of the 1980s and ’90s, inspired by the real House of Xtravaganza made famous by the seminal documentary Paris Is Burning It’s 1980 in New York City, and nowhere is the city’s glamour and energy better reflected than in the burgeoning Harlem ball scene, where seventeen-year-old Angel first comes into her own. Burned by her traumatic past, Angel is new to the drag world, new to ball culture, and has a yearning inside of her to help create family for those without. When she falls in love with Hector, a beautiful young man who dreams of becoming a professional dancer, the two decide to form the House of Xtravaganza, the first-ever all-Latino house in the Harlem ball circuit. But when Hector dies of AIDS-related complications, Angel must bear the responsibility of tending to their house alone. As mother of the house, Angel recruits Venus, a whip-fast trans girl who dreams of finding a rich man to take care of her; Juanito, a quiet boy who loves fabrics and design; and Daniel, a butch queen who accidentally saves Venus’s life. The Xtravaganzas must learn to navigate sex work, addiction, and persistent abuse, leaning on each other as bulwarks against a world that resists them. All are ambitious, resilient, and determined to control their own fates, even as they hurtle toward devastating consequences. Told in a voice that brims with wit, rage, tenderness, and fierce yearning, The House of Impossible Beauties is a tragic story of love, family, and the dynamism of the human spirit.
Ever since she was young, she had disguised herself as a man, and at the age of ten, she was repudiated by the heavens and earth. At the age of fourteen, she was bestowed with the name of a king, and was given the name of the king. Accept his fate? Accept your fate! Why not? You all regard yourself as the fiend of a country who lost. You all agreed to the words of heaven's will and were defeated by you all! The people of the world viewed him as a bloodthirsty demon, and thus, he had conformed to the will of the world and slaughtered him for the people of the world to see! So what if he was a monster? In this world of extreme flames, it was called the Burning Fire Cave. She grew up in the Burning Fire Cave, and after going through countless hardships, she created a peerless martial art called the Raging Flames Soul. The coldest place in the world was called the Valley of Ice. He grew up in the Valley of Ice, and after experiencing countless hardships, he created a peerless martial art called the Breaking Ice Soul. Wishing? This King never makes a wish! Only those who are incompetent will have a wish. Everything This King asks for, will be given to you! For example ... It commanded the whole world to be in chaos, to prostrate themselves within the Six Paths. He was the complete opposite of her, yet so similar! Ice and fire mutually restrained each other. Were those two fated to fall in love and kill each other as well? He had come from the nine heavens to descend into the mortal world. He was originally an unintentional person without desire or desire, and that person named Cang Qu had overturned the very essence of his life. Before I met you, I was unreal, but now, you are my unreal self! Bloody saffron, the love of this life, how could she let him? He was a man of martial arts, a man of great stature. He was the world's greatest tyrant ... Join Collection
This anthology gathers 368 poems by 80 British women poets of the long eighteenth century. Few of these poems have been reprinted since originally published, and all are crucial to understanding fully the literary history of women writers. Paula R. Backscheider and Catherine E. Ingrassia demonstrate the enormous diversity of poetry produced during this time by organizing the poems in three broad and deliberately overlapping categories: by genre, establishing that women wrote in all of the forms that men did with equal mastery and creativity; by theme, offering a revisionary look at the range of topics these writers addressed, including war, ecology, friendship, religion, and the stages of life; and by the poems’ more specific focus on the women’s experiences as writers. Backscheider and Ingrassia have selected poems that represent the best work of skilled poets, creating a wonderful mix of canonical and little-known pieces. They include the complete texts of longer poems that are abridged or omitted in other collections. Their substantial part introductions, textual notes, bibliographical information, and biographical sketches situate the poets and their writings within the cultural and political milieu in which they appeared. To generate further scholarship on this subject, this essential anthology puts primary texts in front of students, scholars, and general readers. It fills the persistent need to document women’s poetic expression during the long eighteenth century and to rewrite the literary history of the period, a history from which women have largely been excluded.
An Instant National Bestseller! An Indie Next Pick! A Most Anticipated in 2021 Pick for Oprah Magazine | USA Today | Buzzfeed | Greatist | BookPage | PopSugar | Bustle | The Nerd Daily | Goodreads | Literary Hub | Ms. Magazine | Library Journal | Culturess | Book Riot | Parade Magazine | Kirkus | The Week | Book Bub | OverDrive | The Portalist | Publishers Weekly A Best of Summer Pick for TIME Magazine | CNN | Book Riot | The Daily Beast | Lambda Literary | The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | Goodreads | Bustle | Veranda Magazine | The Week | Bookish | St. Louis Post-Dispatch | Den of Geek | LGBTQ Reads | Pittsburgh City Paper | Bookstr | Tatler HK A Best of 2021 Pick for NPR “A vibrant and queer reinvention of F. Scott Fitzgerald's jazz age classic. . . . I was captivated from the first sentence.”—NPR “A sumptuous, decadent read.”—The New York Times “Vo has crafted a retelling that, in many ways, surpasses the original.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review Immigrant. Socialite. Magician. Jordan Baker grows up in the most rarefied circles of 1920s American society—she has money, education, a killer golf handicap, and invitations to some of the most exclusive parties of the Jazz Age. She’s also queer and Asian, a Vietnamese adoptee treated as an exotic attraction by her peers, while the most important doors remain closed to her. But the world is full of wonders: infernal pacts and dazzling illusions, lost ghosts and elemental mysteries. In all paper is fire, and Jordan can burn the cut paper heart out of a man. She just has to learn how. Nghi Vo’s debut novel, The Chosen and the Beautiful, reinvents this classic of the American canon as a coming-of-age story full of magic, mystery, and glittering excess, and introduces a major new literary voice. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Every day millions of Tamil women in southeast India wake up before dawn to create a kolam, an ephemeral ritual design made with rice flour, on the thresholds of homes, businesses and temples. This thousand-year-old ritual welcomes and honors Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and alertness, and Bhudevi, the goddess of the earth. Created by hand with great skill, artistry, and mathematical precision, the kolam disappears in a few hours, borne away by passing footsteps and hungry insects. This is the first comprehensive study of the kolam in the English language. It examines its significance in historical, mathematical, ecological, anthropological, and literary contexts. The culmination of Vijaya Nagarajan's many years of research and writing on this exacting ritual practice, Feeding a Thousand Souls celebrates the experiences, thoughts, and voices of the Tamil women who keep this tradition alive.
