As a young boy growing up in the hills of central Vietnam, Nhuong’s companion was Tank, the family water buffalo. When bullies harassed Nhuong, Tank sent them packing. When a wild tiger threatened the entire village, Tank defeated it. He led the herd and adopted a lonely puppy. Tank was Nhuong’s best friend. Nhuong gives readers a glimpse of himself when he was their age, and tells a thrilling story of how he and Tank together faced the dangers of life in the Vietnamese jungle which was their home.
This debut novel of the Vietnam War from the veteran and famous Merry Prankster is a “cross between Joseph Heller and Hunter S. Thompson” (Booklist). Lt. Tom Huckelbee, leathery as any Texican come crawling out of the sage, and Lt. Mike Cochran, loquacious son of an Ohio gangster, make an unlikely pair training to be marine corps chopper pilots on their way to Vietnam. But they soon go through a strange transformation together—from a couple of know-nothing young men straight out of flight school into marine aviators caught in the middle of a disorienting war. Tough and comical, quiet and boisterous, and always vivid and poetic, Ken Babbs—who cowrote The Last Go Round with fellow Prankster Ken Kesey—is at the top of his craft in this debut novel. Who Shot the Water Buffalo? manages to capture the tumult of the 1960s in all its guts and glory through the eyes of a young man discovering what it means to be beholden to another. “An impeccable, humorous heirloom, a shock of napalm that smells like . . . victory.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
An expert in fighting global poverty shares lessons from her travels and outlines a path to help impoverished people achieve self-sufficiency. Dr. Marilyn A. Fitzgerald has travelled the globe working to end world poverty through humanitarian aid and microfinance. With her unique opportunity to observe what works and what doesn’t, she set out to find a system that not only provides resources, but helps people thrive—a way that helps people build a foundation of dignity and self-determination. If I Had a Water Buffalo details Fitzgerald’s journey of discovery from the remote villages and cities of Indonesia to Eastern Europe, South America, Bangladesh, and beyond. Fitzgerald begins her book by recounting the ongoing cycle of visiting international humanitarian projects and then returning home to solicit the funds and resources needed to support those projects. Then, during a trip to a village in Indonesia, a man’s request for a water buffalo inspired Fitzgerald to find a better way. In If I Had a Water Buffalo, Fitzgerald shares the lessons she learned both in academia and in the world—lessons that can be adopted by businesses, institutions, schools, parents, and individuals seeking to help lift people around the world out of poverty.
The instant New York Times bestseller and companion book to the PBS series. “Absolutely brilliant . . . A necessary and moving work.” —Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., author of Begin Again “Engaging. . . . In Gates’s telling, the Black church shines bright even as the nation itself moves uncertainly through the gloaming, seeking justice on earth—as it is in heaven.” —Jon Meacham, New York Times Book Review From the New York Times bestselling author of Stony the Road and The Black Box, and one of our most important voices on the African American experience, comes a powerful new history of the Black church as a foundation of Black life and a driving force in the larger freedom struggle in America. For the young Henry Louis Gates, Jr., growing up in a small, residentially segregated West Virginia town, the church was a center of gravity—an intimate place where voices rose up in song and neighbors gathered to celebrate life's blessings and offer comfort amid its trials and tribulations. In this tender and expansive reckoning with the meaning of the Black Church in America, Gates takes us on a journey spanning more than five centuries, from the intersection of Christianity and the transatlantic slave trade to today’s political landscape. At road’s end, and after Gates’s distinctive meditation on the churches of his childhood, we emerge with a new understanding of the importance of African American religion to the larger national narrative—as a center of resistance to slavery and white supremacy, as a magnet for political mobilization, as an incubator of musical and oratorical talent that would transform the culture, and as a crucible for working through the Black community’s most critical personal and social issues. In a country that has historically afforded its citizens from the African diaspora tragically few safe spaces, the Black Church has always been more than a sanctuary. This fact was never lost on white supremacists: from the earliest days of slavery, when enslaved people were allowed to worship at all, their meetinghouses were subject to surveillance and destruction. Long after slavery’s formal eradication, church burnings and bombings by anti-Black racists continued, a hallmark of the violent effort to suppress the African American struggle for equality. The past often isn’t even past—Dylann Roof committed his slaughter in the Mother Emanuel AME Church 193 years after it was first burned down by white citizens of Charleston, South Carolina, following a thwarted slave rebellion. But as Gates brilliantly shows, the Black church has never been only one thing. Its story lies at the heart of the Black political struggle, and it has produced many of the Black community’s most notable leaders. At the same time, some churches and denominations have eschewed political engagement and exemplified practices of exclusion and intolerance that have caused polarization and pain. Those tensions remain today, as a rising generation demands freedom and dignity for all within and beyond their communities, regardless of race, sex, or gender. Still, as a source of faith and refuge, spiritual sustenance and struggle against society’s darkest forces, the Black Church has been central, as this enthralling history makes vividly clear.
In 1882, Gottlieb Kalfell staked his claim on Camp Creek and became one of the first ranchers in eastern Montana. A former coal miner, Kalfell saw the profit to be had in eastern Montana's agricultural industry. In Since the Days of the Buffalo, Michael Bugenstien chronicles the challenges and achievements of Gottlieb Kalfell, as well as the trials faced by ranchers on the plains. Beginning with the first inhabitants who crossed the Bering Strait and ending with a history of the Kalfell Ranch since 1930, Since the Days of the Buffalo is a comprehensive yet concise history of eastern Montana and eastern Montana ranching focusing on the Kalfell Ranch. The Kalfell Ranch has been in the Kalfell family continuously for 130 years, making it an excellent example of successful ranching. Bugenstein's readable style makes Since the Days of the Buffalo an enjoyable and entertaining read -- from website.
Seventeen-year-old Loi's family promises to wed her to an older man. She flees to Ho Chi Minh City and, with her boyfriend, prepares to leave for America in search of her biological father.
This autobiographical story tells of ten-year-old Sookan and her family's suffering and humiliation in Korea, first under Japanese rule and after the Russians invade, and of a harrowing escape to South Korea.
A beautifully written, timeless tale by Cao Wenxuan, best-selling Chinese author and 2016 recipient of the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Award. Sunflower is an only child, and when her father is sent to the rural Cadre School, she has to go with him. Her father is an established artist from the city and finds his new life of physical labor and endless meetings exhausting. Sunflower is lonely and longs to play with the local children in the village across the river. When her father tragically drowns, Sunflower is taken in by the poorest family in the village, a family with a son named Bronze. Until Sunflower joins his family, Bronze was an only child, too, and hasn’t spoken a word since he was traumatized by a terrible fire. Bronze and Sunflower become inseparable, understanding each other as only the closest friends can. Translated from Mandarin, the story meanders gracefully through the challenges that face the family, creating a timeless story of the trials of poverty and the power of love and loyalty to overcome hardship.
The author describes his close relationship to two water buffalo that were part of his family when he was growing up in a village in the central highlands of Vietnam.
