"We will go to America!" It is 1868, and Carl Erik's family faces starvation in Sweden. As their hopes fade, they must endure a journey over land and sea to reach a better life in a new country thousands of miles away.
“We do not take a trip; a trip takes us,” John Steinbeck noted in his 1962 classic, Travels with Charley. In 2008, Bill Barich decided to explore the mood of the United States as Steinbeck had done almost a half century before. He set off on a 5,943 mile cross-country drive from New York to his old hometown of San Francisco on Route 50, a road twisting through the American heartland. Long Way Home is the stunning result of his pilgrimage. From the Eastern Shore of Maryland to the spectacular landscape of Moab, Utah, to Steinbeck’s own Salinas Valley, the book is filled with memorable encounters and rich in history and local color; a truthful, inspired account of a once-in-a-lifetime trip. It offers an incisive portrait of a nation divided and the grassroots dissatisfaction that ultimately catapulted Donald Trump into the White House. From the Eastern Shore of Maryland to the spectacular landscape of Moab, Utah, to Steinbeck's own Salinas Valley, filled with memorable encounters and redolent with history and local color, Long Way Home is a truthful, inspiring account of the country at a social and political crossroad.
The bestselling Journey to the West comic book by artist Chang Boon Kiat is now back in a brand new fully coloured edition. Journey to the West is one of the greatest classics in Chinese literature. It tells the epic tale of the monk Xuanzang who journeys to the West in search of the Buddhist sutras with his disciples, Sun Wukong, Sandy and Pigsy. Along the way, Xuanzang's life was threatened by the diabolical White Bone Spirit, the menacing Red Child and his fearsome parents and, a host of evil spirits who sought to devour Xuanzang's flesh to attain immortality. Bear witness to the formidable Sun Wukong's (Monkey God) prowess as he takes them on, using his Fiery Eyes, Golden Cudgel, Somersault Cloud, and quick wits! Be prepared for a galloping read that will leave you breathless!
Vivid, succinct, and highly accessible, Heinrich Winkler's magisterial history of modern Germany offers the history of a nation and its people through two turbulent centuries. It is the story of a country that, while always culturally identified with the West, long resisted the political trajectories of its neighbours. This second and final volume begins at the point of the collapse of the first German democracy, and ends with the joining of East and West Germany in the reunification of 1990. Winkler offers a brilliant synthesis of complex events and illuminates them with fresh insights. He analyses the decisions that shaped the country's triumphs and catastrophes, interweaving high politics with telling vignettes about the German people and their own self-perception. The two volumes of Germany: The Long Road West, exploring the history of the German lands from the final days of the Holy Roman Empire to the very first of a reunified state in the late twentieth century, will be welcomed by scholars, students, and anyone wishing to understand a most complex and contradictory past.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER They met over their dogs. Gail Caldwell and Caroline Knapp (author of Drinking: A Love Story) became best friends, talking about everything from their love of books and their shared history of a struggle with alcohol to their relationships with men. Walking the woods of New England and rowing on the Charles River, these two private, self-reliant women created an attachment more profound than either of them could ever have foreseen. Then, several years into this remarkable connection, Knapp was diagnosed with cancer. With her signature exquisite prose, Caldwell mines the deepest levels of devotion, and courage in this gorgeous memoir about treasuring a best friend, and coming of age in midlife. Let’s Take the Long Way Home is a celebration of the profound transformations that come from intimate connection—and it affirms, once again, why Gail Caldwell is recognized as one of our bravest and most honest literary voices.
America's dialogue on race relations has fragmented into specialized, often academic discussions. Now, after seven years of extraordinary, on-the-ground reporting, bestselling author Jonathan Coleman revives a broader perspective by showing us, dramatically and poignantly, how race continues to affect us all on a human level: in our daily lives, in our workplaces, in our hopes, and in our fears.
My new friends have begun to suspect I haven’t told them the full story of my life. “Why did you leave Sierra Leone?” “Because there is a war.” “You mean, you saw people running around with guns and shooting each other?” “Yes, all the time.” “Cool.” I smile a little. “You should tell us about it sometime.” “Yes, sometime.” This is how wars are fought now: by children, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s. Children have become soldiers of choice. In the more than fifty conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them. What is war like through the eyes of a child soldier? How does one become a killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But until now, there has not been a first-person account from someone who came through this hell and survived. In A Long Way Gone, Beah, now twenty-five years old, tells a riveting story: how at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he’d been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts. This is a rare and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty.
Vivid, succinct, and highly accessible, Heinrich Winkler's magisterial history of modern Germany offers the history of a nation and its people through two turbulent centuries. It is the story of a country that, while always culturally identified with the West, long resisted the political trajectories of its neighbors. This first volume (of two) begins with the origins and consequences of the medieval myth of the "Reich," which was to experience a fateful renaissance in the twentieth century, and ends with the collapse of the first German democracy. Winkler offers a brilliant synthesis of complex events and illuminates them with fresh insights. He analyses the decisions that shaped the country's triumphs and catastrophes, interweaving high politics with telling vignettes about the German people and their own self-perception. With a second volume that takes the story up to reunification in 1990, Germany: The Long Road West will be welcomed by scholars, students, and anyone wishing to understand this most complex and contradictory of countries.