First published in the late 1920s, The Island Within was Ludwig Lewisohn's first novel to focus on a Jewish theme. Emerging from the experience of World War I and the 1920s, this novel on alienation and mixed marriage (and much more) addresses itself with undiminished power and relevance—and poignancy—to the peculiarities of American Jewish life that continue through to this day.
Far off the coast of California looms a harsh rock known as the island of San Nicholas. Dolphins flash in the blue waters around it, sea otter play in the vast kep beds, and sea elephants loll on the stony beaches. Here, in the early 1800s, according to history, an Indian girl spent eighteen years alone, and this beautifully written novel is her story. It is a romantic adventure filled with drama and heartache, for not only was mere subsistence on so desolate a spot a near miracle, but Karana had to contend with the ferocious pack of wild dogs that had killed her younger brother, constantly guard against the Aleutian sea otter hunters, and maintain a precarious food supply. More than this, it is an adventure of the spirit that will haunt the reader long after the book has been put down. Karana's quiet courage, her Indian self-reliance and acceptance of fate, transform what to many would have been a devastating ordeal into an uplifting experience. From loneliness and terror come strength and serenity in this Newbery Medal-winning classic.
While shipwrecked on the island of Pala, Will Farnaby, a disenchanted journalist, discovers a utopian society that has flourished for the past 120 years. Although he at first disregards the possibility of an ideal society, as Farnaby spends time with the people of Pala his ideas about humanity change. HarperPerennial Classics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library.
"A wordless graphic novel in which twelve-year-old Marisol must adapt to a new life 1960s Brooklyn after her parents send her to the United States from Cuba to keep her safe during Castro's regime."--
Family continues to be a wellspring of inspiration and learning for Blanco. His third book of poetry, Looking for The Gulf Motel is a genealogy of the heart, exploring how his family's emotional legacy has shaped—and continues shaping—his perspectives. The collection is presented in three movements, each one chronicling his understanding of a particular facet of life from childhood into adulthood. As a child born into the milieu of his Cuban exiled familia, the first movement delves into early questions of cultural identity and their evolution into his unrelenting sense of displacement and quest for the elusive meaning of home. The second begins with poems peering back into family again, examining the blurred lines of gender, the frailty of his father-son relationship, and the intersection of his cultural and sexual identities as a Cuban-American gay man living in rural Maine. In the last movement, poems focused on his mother's life shaped by exile, his father's death, and the passing of a generation of relatives, all provide lessons about his own impermanence in the world and the permanence of loss. Looking for the Gulf Motel is looking for the beauty of that which we cannot hold onto, be it country, family, or love.
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of One Day in December . . . When a double-booking at a remote one-room cabin accidentally throws two solace seekers together, it feels like a cruel twist of fate. But what if it’s fate of a different kind? “A perfectly executed and quintessential romantic comedy.”—Christina Lauren, author of The Unhoneymooners Spending her thirtieth birthday alone is not what dating columnist Cleo Wilder wanted, but she plans a solo retreat―at the insistence of her boss―in the name of re-energizing herself and adding a new perspective to her column. The remote Irish island she’s booked is a far cry from London, but at least it’s a chance to hunker down in a luxury cabin and indulge in some self-care while she figures out the next steps in her love life and her career. Mack Sullivan is also looking forward to some time to himself. With his life in Boston deteriorating in ways he can’t bring himself to acknowledge, his soul-searching has brought him to the same Irish island to explore his roots and find some clarity. Unfortunately, a mix-up with the bookings means both have reserved the same one-room hideaway on exactly the same dates. Instantly at odds, Cleo and Mack don’t know how they’re going to manage until the next weekly ferry arrives. But as the days go by, they no longer seem to mind each other’s company quite as much as they thought they would. Written with Josie Silver’s signature charm, One Night on the Island explores the meaning of home, the joys of escape, and how the things we think we want are never the things we really need.
A young boy living a normal life suddenly wakes up to find himself stranded on a deserted island. Although he is confused as to how he arrived there, through his experiences, he begins to find new ways of looking at life and dealing with his hardships—and soon he is filled with joy and abundance. Through this narrative, A Journey Within presents a series of tools to help carry you into a new way of living. It shows the way to a life of ease and spiritual growth. Using variations on a fable, each chapter presents a theme demonstrating a process for development and improvement. You can smooth out life's rough edges, and build a better everyday experience through these heavenly inspired tools. Presented in the form of a fable, this guide offers methods to help you gain spiritual wisdom and self-knowledge, emerging more enlightened and better equipped to flourish.
“Anne Rivers Siddons’s novels are women’s stories in the best sense, pulling you into the internal landscape of her characters’ lives and holding you there.” – People A poignant novel of the love that unites us and the secrets that drive us apart, Islands is New York Times bestselling author Anne Rivers Siddons at her lyrical best—a glorious evocation of the people and the place she knows so well. Anny Butler is a caretaker, a nurturer, first for her own brothers and sisters, and then as a director of an agency devoted to the welfare of children. What she has never had is a real family. That changes when she meets and marries Lewis Aiken, an exuberant surgeon fifteen years older than Anny. When they marry, she finds her family—not a traditional one, but a group of Charleston childhood friends who are inseparable, who are one another's surrogate family. They are called the Scrubs, and they all, in some way, have the common cord of family. Instantly upon meeting them at the old beach house on Sullivan's Island, which they co-own, Anny knows that she has found home and family. They vow that, when the time comes, they will find a place where they can live together by the sea. Bad things begin to happen—a hurricane, a fire, deaths—but still the remaining Scrubs cling together. They are watched over and bolstered by Camilla Curry, the heart and core of their group, always the healer. Anny herself allows Camilla to enfold and to care for her. It is the first time she has felt this kind of love and support.
A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK Winner of the 2022 BookTube Silver Medal in Fiction * Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction "A wise novel of love and grief, roots and branches, displacement and home, faith and belief. Balm for our bruised times." -David Mitchell, author of Utopia Avenue A rich, magical new novel on belonging and identity, love and trauma, nature and renewal, from the Booker-shortlisted author of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World. Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. In the taverna, hidden beneath garlands of garlic, chili peppers and creeping honeysuckle, Kostas and Defne grow in their forbidden love for each other. A fig tree stretches through a cavity in the roof, and this tree bears witness to their hushed, happy meetings and eventually, to their silent, surreptitious departures. The tree is there when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, and when the teenagers vanish. Decades later, Kostas returns. He is a botanist looking for native species, but really, he's searching for lost love. Years later a Ficus carica grows in the back garden of a house in London where Ada Kazantzakis lives. This tree is her only connection to an island she has never visited--- her only connection to her family's troubled history and her complex identity as she seeks to untangle years of secrets to find her place in the world. A moving, beautifully written, and delicately constructed story of love, division, transcendence, history, and eco-consciousness, The Island of Missing Trees is Elif Shafak's best work yet.