The Bird Skinner
The Bird Skinner

Author: Alice Greenway

Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

Published: 2014-01-07

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 0802121047

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Jim Kennoway was once an esteemed member of the ornithology department at the Museum of Natural History in New York, collecting and skinning birds as specimens. Slowing down from a hard-lived life and a recent leg amputation, Jim retreats to an island in Maine: to drink, smoke, and to be left alone. As a young man he worked for Naval Intelligence during World War II in the Solomon Islands. While spying on Japanese shipping from behind enemy lines, Jim befriended Tosca, a young islander who worked with him as a scout. Now, thirty years later, Tosca has sent his daughter Cadillac to stay with Jim in the weeks before she begins premedical studies at Yale. She arrives to Jim’s consternation, yet she will capture his heart and the hearts of everyone she meets, irrevocably changing their lives. Written in lush, lyrical prose—rich in island detail, redolent of Maine in summer and of the Pacific—The Bird Skinner is wise and wrenching, an unforgettable masterwork from an extraordinarily skillful novelist.

The Bird Skinner
The Bird Skinner

Author: Alice Greenway

Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic

Published: 2014-01-07

Total Pages: 291

ISBN-13: 0802193633

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On a weather-beaten island in Maine, a birder and WWII vet confronts his past in this “atmospheric and engrossing” novel (People). After a recent leg amputation, ornithologist and World War II veteran Jim Kennoway retreats to an island in Penobscot Bay, off the coast of Maine. All he wants is to drink, smoke, and be left alone. From his perch, he listens for birdcalls and thinks back on his youth, his romance with his now deceased wife, his work for the American Museum of Natural History, and earlier, for Naval Intelligence in the South Pacific. Thirty years ago, while stationed in the Solomon Islands, Jim befriended Tosca, a young islander who worked with him as a scout. Now Tosca has sent his daughter to stay with Jim before she begins premedical studies at Yale. She arrives to Jim’s consternation, bringing with her a flood of troubling memories. Yet she will capture his heart and that of everyone she meets, irrevocably changing their lives. Winner of the Los Angeles Times Award for First Fiction, Alice Greenway’s second novel is “a beautiful, ultimately painful story as haunting as its settings” (Publishers Weekly).

Birds of Tifft
Birds of Tifft

Author: Jonathan Skinner

Publisher:

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781609640361

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Poetry. "At once rigorous and casual, conceptual and hilarious, BIRDS OF TIFFT offers us a tour through a nature preserve reclaimed from industry. Sometimes our guide reads Tifft like an old-school naturalist, identifying flora and fauna and noting the weather; sometimes he reads it like a contemporary poet, delighting in the visual beauties and ethical ironies of a post-industrial landscape. Ultimately, however, our guide demonstrates that ecopoetics gains its power from inhabiting both positions at once. By neither idealizing nature nor demonizing industry, he shows us our own equal participation in both, and thereby animates a dialectic between 'the bittern and the train / the tulip and the dump.' Inviting us to think through our own participation in conjunctions such as these, Skinner enacts an innovative and deeply poethical practice in these poems, 'proportion's restored / to think with others'" Brian Teare."

The Skinner's Tale
The Skinner's Tale

Author: Charles Nicholson

Publisher: Stackpole Books

Published: 1991

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 9780811719391

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This is Jericho Walker's story, the story of an old black man who skins the deer other people have killed. He's seen it all and heard it all, and if he had the education and the desire, these would be the stories he'd tell. Through old family secrets, opinions, gossip, and history we learn about Jericho's family and the family of Boss Bishop, the white landowner he works for, This is a richly woven story filled with lovingly depicted characters and arresting descriptions of the land, hunting, and the South.

White Ghost Girls
White Ghost Girls

Author: Alice Greenway

Publisher: Atlantic Books Ltd

Published: 2010-05-01

Total Pages: 125

ISBN-13: 1848877781

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Longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction A Radio 4 Book at Bedtime Two sisters grow together and apart into their emerging selves. Frankie pulses with curiosity and risk; Kate is watchful, all eyes and ears. Immersed in the heat and colours of Hong Kong in the 1960s, theirs is a world of fishermen and insurgents, temple gods and ghosts, of blinding light and dark, dark waters. As Frankie's behaviour becomes more and more outrageous in her defiant attempt to win her parents' attention, Kate retreats into a quiet desperation, unable to act to save the soul for whom she would sacrifice everything - Frankie.

The Bird
The Bird

Author: Colin Tudge

Publisher: Crown

Published: 2010-09-07

Total Pages: 481

ISBN-13: 0307342050

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• How are birds so good at flying and navigating? • Why are birds so like mammals– and yet so very different? • Did birds descend from dinosaurs, and if so, does that mean birds are dinosaurs? • How do they court each other and fend off rivals? • What' s being communicated in birdsong? • Can we ever know how birds think? In this fascinating exploration of the avian class, Colin Tudge considers the creatures of the air. From their evolutionary roots to their flying, feeding, fighting, mating, nesting, and communicating, Tudge provocatively ponders what birds actually do–as well as why they do it and how. With the same curiosity, passion, and insight he brought to redwoods, pines, and palm trees in his widely acclaimed book The Tree, Tudge here studies sparrows, parrots, and even the Monkey-eating Eagle to better understand their world–and our own. There is far more to a bird's existence than gliding gracefully on air currents or chirping sweetly from fence posts–the stakes are life and death. By observing and explaining the complex strategy that comes into play with everything from migration to social interaction to the timing of giving birth to young, Tudge reveals how birds are uniquely equipped biologically to succeed and survive. And he offers an impassioned plea for humans to learn to coexist with birds without continuing to endanger their survival. Complete with an "annotated cast list" of all the known birds in the world– plus gorgeous illustrations–The Bird is a comprehensive and delightfully accessible guide for everyone from dedicated birders to casual birdwatchers that celebrates and illuminates the remarkable lives of birds.

Eigengrau
Eigengrau

Author: Penelope Skinner

Publisher: Faber & Faber

Published: 2010-11-04

Total Pages: 108

ISBN-13: 0571274676

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Eigengrau / [ay-gen-gr-ow ] - noun. intrinsic light; the colour seen by the eye in perfect darkness Rose believes in true love and leprechauns. Her flatmate Cassie is engaged in a fervent struggle against patriarchal oppression. Across London, Mark believes in the power of marketing. His flatmate Tim Muffin is engaged in a fervent struggle against his own waistline. In a city where Gumtree can feel like your closest friend, looking for the right person can lead you all the wrong places. Penelope Skinner's Eigengrau premiered at the Bush Theatre, London, in March 2010 in a Strawberry Vale production.

Lynyrd Skynyrd
Lynyrd Skynyrd

Author: Gene Odom

Publisher: Crown

Published: 2003-10-14

Total Pages: 269

ISBN-13: 0767910273

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The first complete, unvarnished history of Southern rock’s legendary and most popular band, from its members’ hardscrabble boyhoods in Jacksonville, Florida and their rise to worldwide fame to the tragic plane crash that killed the founder and the band’s rise again from the ashes. In the summer of 1964 Jacksonville, Florida teenager Ronnie Van Zant and some of his friends hatched the idea of forming a band to play covers of the Rolling Stones, Beatles, Yardbirds and the country and blues-rock music they had grown to love. Naming their band after Leonard Skinner, the gym teacher at Robert E. Lee Senior High School who constantly badgered the long-haired aspiring musicians to get haircuts, they were soon playing gigs at parties, and bars throughout the South. During the next decade Lynyrd Skynyrd grew into the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful of the rock bands to emerge from the South since the Allman Brothers. Their hits “Free Bird” and “Sweet Home Alabama” became classics. Then, at the height of its popularlity in 1977, the band was struck with tragedy --a plane crash that killed Ronnie Van Zant and two other band members. Lynyrd Skynyrd: Remembering the Free Birds of Southern Rock is an intimate chronicle of the band from its earliest days through the plane crash and its aftermath, to its rebirth and current status as an enduring cult favorite. From his behind-the-scenes perspective as Ronnie Van Zant’s lifelong friend and frequent member of the band’s entourage who was also aboard the plane on that fateful flight, Gene Odom reveals the unique synthesis of blues/country rock and songwriting talent, relentless drive, rebellious Southern swagger and down-to-earth sensibility that brought the band together and made it a defining and hugely popular Southern rock band -- as well as the destructive forces that tore it apart. Illustrated throughout with rare photos, Odom traces the band’s rise to fame and shares personal stories that bring to life the band’s journey. For the fans who have purchased a cumulative 35 million copies of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s albums and continue to pack concerts today, Lynyrd Skynyrd is a celebration of an immortal American band.

Dr. Franklin's Island
Dr. Franklin's Island

Author: Ann Halam

Publisher: Laurel Leaf

Published: 2007-12-18

Total Pages: 197

ISBN-13: 0307433315

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Semi, Miranda, and Arnie are part of a group of 50 British Young Conservationists on their way to a wildlife conservation station deep in the rain forests of Ecuador. After a terrifying mid-air disaster and subsequent crash, these three are the sole survivors, stranded together on a deserted tropical island. Or so they think. Semi, Miranda, and Arnie stumble into the hands of Dr. Franklin, a mad scientist who’s been waiting for them, eager to use them as specimens for his experiments in genetic engineering.

Skinner's Drift
Skinner's Drift

Author: Lisa Fugard

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2013-03-07

Total Pages: 331

ISBN-13: 0670923575

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Lisa Fugard's Skinner's Drift is a beautifully written début that reveals the secrets and violence buried beneath the earth of a South African farm. Skinner's Drift, lying amongst the sandstone rocks of the eastern borders of South Africa, beside the snaking bed of the Limpopo River, was Eva Van Rensburg's home. As a young girl she would range through its mopane trees at night, hunting jackals with her stammering father. But as soon as she grew up, Eva fled the farm and has not returned for more than ten years. Now, as her father lies dying in hospital with only his claustrophobic sister for company, Eva must go back to confront her family and remember the beauty, and the horror, of her life on Skinner's Drift. Praise for Skinner's Drift: 'A wonderfully brave novel - unflinchingly and lovingly written. It is books like this - books that shake the dust out of our heads and hearts - that allow us all to understand our past slightly better and walk forward more confidently' Alexandra Fuller 'An achingly beautiful book' Monica Ali 'Fugard wonderfully captures the swift rivers of change in which contempt and fear, resentment, righteousness and loyalty churn in one unending torrent' Daily Mail Lisa Fugard grew up in South Africa and now lives in the desert of Southern California with her husband and young son. Her short stories have been published in magazines and literary journals and she has written many travel pieces for the New York Times. Skinner's Drift is her first novel.