River of Tears
River of Tears

Author: Alexander Dent

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2009-10-05

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 0822391090

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River of Tears is the first ethnography of Brazilian country music, one of the most popular genres in Brazil yet least-known outside it. Beginning in the mid-1980s, commercial musical duos practicing música sertaneja reached beyond their home in Brazil’s central-southern region to become national bestsellers. Rodeo events revolving around country music came to rival soccer matches in attendance. A revival of folkloric rural music called música caipira, heralded as música sertaneja’s ancestor, also took shape. And all the while, large numbers of Brazilians in the central-south were moving to cities, using music to support the claim that their Brazil was first and foremost a rural nation. Since 1998, Alexander Sebastian Dent has analyzed rural music in the state of São Paulo, interviewing and spending time with listeners, musicians, songwriters, journalists, record-company owners, and radio hosts. Dent not only describes the production and reception of this music, he also explains why the genre experienced such tremendous growth as Brazil transitioned from an era of dictatorship to a period of intense neoliberal reform. Dent argues that rural genres reflect a widespread anxiety that change has been too radical and has come too fast. In defining their music as rural, Brazil’s country musicians—whose work circulates largely in cities—are criticizing an increasingly inescapable urban life characterized by suppressed emotions and an inattentiveness to the past. Their performances evoke a river of tears flowing through a landscape of loss—of love, of life in the countryside, and of man’s connections to the natural world.

Tears of Longing
Tears of Longing

Author: Christine Reiko Yano

Publisher: Harvard Univ Asia Center

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 9780674012769

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Enka, a sentimental ballad genre, epitomizes for many the nihonjin no kokoro (heart/soul of Japanese). To older members of the Japanese public, who constitute enka's primary audience, this music--of parted lovers, long unseen rural hometowns, and self-sacrificing mothers--evokes a direct connection to the traditional roots of "Japaneseness." Overlooked in this emotional invocation of the past, however, are the powerful commercial forces that, since the 1970s, have shaped the consumption of enka and its version of national identity. Informed by theories of nostalgia, collective memory, cultural nationalism, and gender, this book draws on the author's extensive fieldwork in probing the practice of identity-making and the processes at work when Japan becomes "Japan."

Follow the River
Follow the River

Author: Ce Ricci

Publisher:

Published: 2020-12

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781960818041

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I've never been one to back down from a challenge. Rather than shy away, I grit my teeth and use it as an opportunity to prove myself. Not just in football, but also in life. Even when I was thrown through a loop in discovering I was bisexual, I embraced it. Owning it so no one can use it as ammunition against me. But when Ciaráin Grady comes barreling into my life with his venomous tongue and amber eyes brimming with disdain, I realize every test of my character and strength could never have prepared me for the trial he holds. One that toes the line of love and hate. It's all-consuming and toxic. Yet under the layers of revulsion he masks his face with, I see it. A glimmer of lust from deep within his secretive, broken soul. And when we're thrown together under heinous circumstances, the distinction between enemy and lover begins to blur. So...what is Ciaráin Grady to me? I'm only certain that he is the greatest challenge of my life. *Follow the River is a full-length, mature, new adult bully/enemies-to-lovers MM (male/male) romance with dark themes. There will be triggering content for some readers.*

The Gift of Rain
The Gift of Rain

Author: Tan Twan Eng

Publisher: Hachette Books

Published: 2009-05-05

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 1602860599

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In the tradition of celebrated wartime storytellers Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene, Tan Twan Eng's debut novel casts a powerful spell. The recipient of extraordinary acclaim from critics and the bookselling community, Tan Twan Eng's debut novel casts a powerful spell and has garnered comparisons to celebrated wartime storytellers Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene. Set during the tumult of World War II, on the lush Malayan island of Penang, The Gift of Rain tells a riveting and poignant tale about a young man caught in the tangle of wartime loyalties and deceits. In 1939, sixteen-year-old Philip Hutton-the half-Chinese, half-English youngest child of the head of one of Penang's great trading families-feels alienated from both the Chinese and British communities. He at last discovers a sense of belonging in his unexpected friendship with Hayato Endo, a Japanese diplomat. Philip proudly shows his new friend around his adored island, and in return Endo teaches him about Japanese language and culture and trains him in the art and discipline of aikido. But such knowledge comes at a terrible price. When the Japanese savagely invade Malaya, Philip realizes that his mentor and sensei-to whom he owes absolute loyalty-is a Japanese spy. Young Philip has been an unwitting traitor, and must now work in secret to save as many lives as possible, even as his own family is brought to its knees.

My Comic Book Mind Series
My Comic Book Mind Series

Author: Gabriel Zeldis

Publisher: Lulu.com

Published: 2014-02-10

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 1304895815

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I remember the things I felt at that bar in the mountains. The music was over... Some songs played on the Jukebox. The tears welled within me. The dusty road outside... I had my whole life ahead of me, a vision of the indescribable future. Tears fell within. Mountain life was different, but it fit me. A ship set sail on a lonely river. What was love anyway? Complicated. There was no one that could hurt me again I imagined. Just scars. Scars and a desire to make something out of my life. My cabin was just a shadow in the night. And I was supposed to believe I didn't know Jesus? I poured shots and beers that night to the locals. Some who had hearts and some whose hearts had escaped them. I'll never forget the songs that played on the Jukebox. The moon cast weary shadows, and eyes met eyes in the smoky bar. Smoke rising. All I could think of was having a fire for myself in my shell of a cabin outside, by the river. A river that always ran...

When Breath Becomes Air
When Breath Becomes Air

Author: Paul Kalanithi

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2016-02-04

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 1473523494

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**THE MILLION COPY BESTSELLER** 'Rattling. Heartbreaking. Beautiful,' Atul Gawande, bestselling author of Being Mortal What makes life worth living in the face of death? At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade's training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, the next he was a patient struggling to live. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi's transformation from a medical student asking what makes a virtuous and meaningful life into a neurosurgeon working in the core of human identity - the brain - and finally into a patient and a new father. Paul Kalanithi died while working on this profoundly moving book, yet his words live on as a guide to us all. When Breath Becomes Air is a life-affirming reflection on facing our mortality and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a gifted writer who became both. 'A vital book about dying. Awe-inspiring and exquisite. Obligatory reading for the living' Nigella Lawson

Before the Rain
Before the Rain

Author: Luisita López Torregrosa

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 0547669208

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A seductive memoir of a life-changing affair during a time of revolution as it unfolds over a decade and across three continents, surprising both lovers with the power and urgency of love.

Hyper Sexual, Hyper Masculine?
Hyper Sexual, Hyper Masculine?

Author: Brittany C. Slatton

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-05-13

Total Pages: 177

ISBN-13: 1317119258

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This book provides critical insights into the many, often overlooked, challenges and societal issues that face contemporary black men, focusing in particular on the ways in which governing societal expectations result in internal and external constraints on black male identity formation, sexuality and black ’masculine’ expression. Presenting new interview and auto-ethnographic data, and drawing on an array of theoretical approaches methodologies, Hyper Sexual, Hyper Masculine? explores the formation of gendered and sexual identity in the lives of black men, shedding light on the manner in which these are affected by class and social structure. It examines the intersecting oppressions of race, gender and class, while acknowledging and discussing the extent to which black men’s social lives differ as a result of their varying degrees of cumulative disadvantage. A wide-ranging and empirically grounded exploration of the intersecting roles of race, masculinity, and sexuality on the lives of black men, this volume will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interests in race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, social stratification and intersectionality.