Reporter Diana Marcum is in crisis. A long-buried personal sadness is enfolding her--and her career is stalled--when she stumbles upon an unusual group of immigrants living in rural California. She follows them on their annual return to the remote Azorean Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, where bulls run down village streets, volcanoes are active, and the people celebrate festas to ease their saudade, a longing so deep that the Portuguese word for it can't be fully translated. Years later, California is in a terrible drought, the wildfires seem to never end, and Diana finds herself still dreaming of those islands and the chuva--a rain so soft you don't notice when it begins or ends. With her troublesome Labrador retriever, Murphy, in tow, Diana returns to the islands of her dreams only to discover that there are still things she longs for--and one of them may be a most unexpected love.
'Dazzling storytelling' - Hilary McKay Born with a serious heart condition, Dara has been waiting for his Big Operation forever, and this summer it's finally going to happen. The moment his heart is fixed he'll row out to the island in the bay all by himself just like he's always dreamed. But when his op is postponed, Dara snaps. When will he get to live his real life? Maybe the adventures he dreams of are just silly fantasies. And then he finds a girl hiding in the boat shed. She wears animal skins. She has a real live pet wolf. She is, simply, impossible. Could Mothgirl really be from the Stone Age? And what is she seeking on Lathrin Island? As Dara and Mothgirl set out on a wild, windswept sea journey Dara begins to realise that when you stop worrying about what's impossible, you can do anything. A brave, life-affirming middle-grade timeslip adventure about finding your family and finding yourself, from the author of The Wild Way Home.
A memoir by the legendary cookbook editor who was present at the creation of the American food revolution and played a pivotal role in shaping it • “Engrossing. . . . The Tenth Muse lets you pull up a chair at the table where American gastronomic history took place.”—O, The Oprah Magazine Living in Paris after World War II, Jones broke free of bland American food and reveled in everyday French culinary delights. On returning to the States she published Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The rest is publishing and gastronomic history. A new world now opened up to Jones as she discovered, with her husband Evan, the delights of American food, publishing some of the premier culinary luminaries of the twentieth century: from Julia Child, James Beard, and M.F.K. Fisher to Claudia Roden, Edna Lewis, and Lidia Bastianich. Also included are fifty of Jones's favorite recipes collected over a lifetime of cooking-each with its own story and special tips. “Lovely. . . . A rare glimpse into the roots of the modern culinary world.”—Chicago Tribune
During the 19th century, the United States and Europe were on the brink of a transition that would lead to the modern world. In the middle of the Atlantic the Dabney family from Boston had settled on the small island of Faial in the Azores and quickly became involved in the political, literary, intellectual and religious changes taking place at that time on both sides of the Atlantic. This book provides a rare glimpse of life from the point of view of some well-known historical figures, as well as some "anonymous" insiders, creating a picture of individuals and events in the 19th century from a fresh perspective. In some instances it fills in unsuspected gaps or provides different interpretations of what occurred in the story of the 19th century. This American family at the crossroads of the Atlantic had an importance that was hidden behind the mists of the Atlantic.
?This diverse group of poets, novelists, artists, theologians, explorers, and psychologists muse on solitude as a means of discovering God and self, and as inspiration for creativity and inner peace. They grapple with how to reconcile the spirit of community with the spirit of seclusion, and, ultimately, how to use the power of silence and solitude to counter the distractions of our daily lives. The Wonders of Solitude is an inspiring companion in the struggle to remove ourselves, as Salwak writes, from “our peripheral concerns, from the pressures of a madly active world, and to return to the center where life is sacred — a humble miracle and mystery.”
This volume is a stimulating series of spiritual reflections which will prove helpful for all struggling to find the meaning of human existence and to live the richest, fullest and noblest life. --Chicago Tribune
Stormy Isles, originally published in Portuguese in 1944 and set in the Azores between 1917 and 1919, focuses on the vivacious and sharp Margarida, who, at twenty years of age, is a model of feminist aspirations and the paragon of her generation. A member of the elite, she foregoes some of the entitlements of her class and struggles with the morals of the bourgeois society in which her life unfolds. Narrated in realist and poetic language as a series of interconnected tales within a larger story, this completely revised translation of Stormy Isles provides a rich, vivid portrait of the Azores in the early twentieth century.
The harrowing story of five men who were sent into a dark, airless, miles-long tunnel, hundreds of feet below the ocean, to do a nearly impossible job—with deadly results A quarter-century ago, Boston had the dirtiest harbor in America. The city had been dumping sewage into it for generations, coating the seafloor with a layer of “black mayonnaise.” Fisheries collapsed, wildlife fled, and locals referred to floating tampon applicators as “beach whistles.” In the 1990s, work began on a state-of-the-art treatment plant and a 10-mile-long tunnel—its endpoint stretching farther from civilization than the earth’s deepest ocean trench—to carry waste out of the harbor. With this impressive feat of engineering, Boston was poised to show the country how to rebound from environmental ruin. But when bad decisions and clashing corporations endangered the project, a team of commercial divers was sent on a perilous mission to rescue the stymied cleanup effort. Five divers went in; not all of them came out alive. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and thousands of documents collected over five years of reporting, award-winning writer Neil Swidey takes us deep into the lives of the divers, engineers, politicians, lawyers, and investigators involved in the tragedy and its aftermath, creating a taut, action-packed narrative. The climax comes just after the hard-partying DJ Gillis and his friend Billy Juse trade assignments as they head into the tunnel, sentencing one of them to death. An intimate portrait of the wreckage left in the wake of lives lost, the book—which Dennis Lehane calls "extraordinary" and compares with The Perfect Storm—is also a morality tale. What is the true cost of these large-scale construction projects, as designers and builders, emboldened by new technology and pressured to address a growing population’s rapacious needs, push the limits of the possible? This is a story about human risk—how it is calculated, discounted, and transferred—and the institutional failures that can lead to catastrophe. Suspenseful yet humane, Trapped Under the Sea reminds us that behind every bridge, tower, and tunnel—behind the infrastructure that makes modern life possible—lies unsung bravery and extraordinary sacrifice.
