My encounter with several soldiers on the road to destiny has revealed to me that many of us are not fully ready for what lies ahead. The hard truth is: we cannot avoid perils. If you aren’t seeing them, then consider changing your route because you might as well be taking the wrong path. They are there at every bend like the check points along our roads to destiny. There is no man who has ever journeyed this path that escaped them. On the journey of purpose, perils are not only necessary, but they are also mandatory.
For the colonies of Mennonites living in the fertile, prosperous part of Russia known as the Ukraine in the early twentieth century, life was idyllic. Paradise, some called it. The moderate climate, lush fields of grain, abundant orchards and steppes of waving grass, afforded them a comfortable, and for some even wealthy life-style. Their belief in non-resistance was never challenged, and no distant sign of turmoil intruded itself into their awareness; the future looked endlessly bright and sunny. It all changed with the beginning of WW1, the Russian Revolution and Civil War. The fictional Schroeder, Boldt and Lentz families are caught in the middle of warring factions which range back and forth over their peaceful villages, bringing destruction, famine, disease and death to their door. Also caught in the strangling net of revolution is Ivan, a young Russian orphan whose future rests in the hands of someone he has never known. One question faces them all: should they stay... or venture into an unknown future in a foreign land?
"Kingdoms in Peril is an epic historical novel covering the five hundred and fifty years of the Eastern Zhou dynasty, from the civil wars and invasions that marked the birth of a new regime in 771 BCE to the unification of China in 221 BCE. Kingdoms in Peril was written in the 1640s, at the very end of the Ming dynasty, by the great novelist Feng Menglong (1574-1646). In the course of the one hundred and eight chapters of the complete novel, he documents the collapse of the Zhou confederacy during the Spring and Autumn period (771-475 BCE) and the slow rebuilding of civil society during the Warring States era (475-221 BCE) which culminated in the unification of China under the First Emperor of the Qin dynasty (r. 246-221 BCE as king; r. 221-210 BCE as emperor). Thus overall this novel describes a grand arc, from stability to chaos and back again. As a novel about politics, much of the narrative in Kingdoms in Peril concentrates on the exercise of power"--
Speak It Louder: Asian Americans Making Music documents the variety of musics-from traditional Asian through jazz, classical, and pop-that have been created by Asian Americans. This book is not about "Asian American music" but rather about Asian Americans making music. This key distinction allows the author to track a wide range of musical genres. Wong covers an astonishing variety of music, ethnically as well as stylistically: Laotian song, Cambodian music drama, karaoke, Vietnamese pop, Japanese American taiko, Asian American hip hop, and panethnic Asian American improvisational music (encompassing jazz and avant-garde classical styles). In Wong's hands these diverse styles coalesce brilliantly around a coherent and consistent set of questions about what it means for Asian Americans to make music in environments of inter-ethnic contact, about the role of performativity in shaping social identities, and about the ways in which commercially and technologically mediated cultural production and reception transform individual perceptions of time, space, and society. Speak It Louder: Asian Americans Making Music encompasses ethnomusicology, oral history, Asian American studies, and cultural performance studies. It promises to set a new standard for writing in these fields, and will raise new questions for scholars to tackle for many years to come.
In 1862, while troops prepare to capture Richmond, undercover agent Bronwen Llyr begins her own battle: to free her brother from prison. But as time escapes her, so does hope.
