Serendib: one of the many names for Sri Lanka, Ceylon, Taprobane -- an island nation south of India, rich in tea and spices, vegetables, fruit and fish, possessing a complex multicultural cuisine. A Taste of Serendib is a collection of unexpected, delightful, fortunate flavors, forty-five recipes to tantalize your tastebuds and satisfy your stomach.
We come together with other Sri Lankans-homelander and diaspora, Sinhalese and Tamil, Buddhist and Hindu and Christian and Muslim-over delicious shared meals. Sri Lanka has been a multi-ethnic society for over two thousand years, with neighbors of different ethnicities, languages, religions, living side by side. We try to teach our children to be welcoming to all, to share our unique cultural traditions. That is part of what it means to be Sri Lankan, what it has always meant. Dark roasted curry powder, a fine attention to the balance of salty-sour-sweet, wholesome red rice and toasted curry leaves, plenty of coconut milk and chili heat. These are the flavors of Sri Lanka, a South Asian island at the crossroads of centuries of migration and trade. Can we choose the good parts of our culture to cherish, and leave the darker aspects behind? I hope so. I hope food can help provide a pathway there. Come together at our table, sharing milk rice and pol sambol, paruppu and crab curry. Linger over the chai-just one more cup. Eat, drink, and share joy. In A Feast of Serendib, novelist and post-colonial academic Mary Anne Mohanraj introduces her mother's cooking and her own American adaptations, providing an introduction to Sri Lankan American cooking that is straightforward enough for a beginner, yet nuanced enough to capture the unique flavors of Sri Lankan cooking.
Serendip takes us on a rich and rewarding journey through Sri Lanka's traditional foods, its family-orientated culture and its colourful approach to life. Acclaimed chef Peter Kuruvita has reached deep into kitchen experiences with his grandmother and aunties, and has travelled the markets and stalls of the lush green island, to bring us this comprehensive collection of Sri Lankan recipes and a host of heart-warming stories. Offering Sri Lankan curries of every kind, as well as traditional snacks, breads and sticky sweet treats, Serendip is a treasury of spicy meals and tasty morsels.
Like the sweet heat of a palate-pleasing curry or the brilliant radiance of bougainvillea, the short stories in Mary Anne Mohanraj's Bodies in Motion will delight the senses and sensibilities. Her tales follow two generations of two families living on the cusp of disparate worlds, America and Sri Lanka -- their lives and ties shaped, strengthened, devastated, and altered by the emigrant-immigrant ebb and flow. Through stunning, effervescent prose, intimate moments are beautifully distilled, revealing the tug-of-war between generations and gender in stories sensual and honest, chronicling love, ambition, and the spiritual and sexual quests of mothers and daughters, fathers and sons.
Imagine a hot tub party where a married couple tests the boundaries of fidelity. A model who finds herself unaccountably aroused as she poses for a watercolor artist. A pool of water on a desert road and two lovers who know how to make the most of it. This is Aqua Erotica, a sensuous tasting of desire's liquid, ecstatic other worlds. Aqua Erotica is a siren's song, a book so unforgettably sexy that you will want to take it with you to the bath, the sauna, the night-lit pool. What's amazing is that you can. The first-ever waterproof book for adults. The most seductive collection of original literary erotica ever gathered under one cover. Aqua Erotica is a book that quite literally goes places you never imagined books could go. Featuring today's boldest erotic voices: Francesca Lia Block Poppy Z. Brite Louise Erdrich Carol Queen Marcy Sheiner Cecilia Tan Barry Yourgrau and many others --
Thief. Rebel. Bandit. Hero? Chaya usually has an answer for everything. But stealing the Queen's jewels, even for the best of reasons, is not something she can talk her way out of. So she makes her great escape on the back of a gorgeous, stolen elephant and leads her friends on a noisy, fraught, joyous adventure through the jungle where revolution is stirring and leeches lurk. Will stealing these jewels be the beginning or the end of everything for the intrepid gang?
A whimsical tale of a young poet who goes on a journey to find poetry, encountering dragons, handsome young men, ravens, and hazel trees along her way.
Sri Lanka Style showcases 30 of the finest traditional and modern dwellings in Sri Lanka. Reflecting its location and status as a hub of Indian Ocean trade from time immemorial, the tropical island of Sri Lanka has always been open to the movements and patterns of world culture. Indigenous architects and cultural traditions, colonial incursions and the vagaries of living in a tropical environment have combined to produce a distinctive Sri Lankan architectural style: thick lime-washed walls, tall windows and doors, terracotta or granite tile floors, open pavilions and verandas, courtyard gardens, elaborately carved furniture and vibrant hand-looms. The Sri Lankan homes vary from private homes to retreats and resorts, all designed by the island's most creative architects and interior designers including some by the world-renowned architect Geoffrey Bawa that have never been seen before. These works demonstrate the essentials of the Sri Lankan spaces open to the elements and the natural use of space and decor, contributing to a palpable sense of peace and discipline. In addition, there are practical design ideas that can be applied to any tropical locale. Photographed entirely on location, Sri Lanka Style is an inspirational sourcebook of contemporary tropical style.
"Irresistible... a Golden Age homage, an elegantly constructed mystery that on every page reinforces the message that everyone counts." –New York Times Book Review AGATHA AWARD WINNER! Recommended by New York Times Book Review • Wall Street Journal • Parade • Country Living • Chicago Tribune • South Florida Sun-Sentinel • The Free-Lance Star • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • CrimeReads • Nerd Daily • Red Carpet Crash • and many more! From the award-winning author of The Day I Died and The Lucky One, a captivating suspense novel about nurses during World War II who come to Agatha Christie’s holiday estate to care for evacuated children, but when a body is discovered nearby, the idyllic setting becomes host to a deadly mystery. Bridey Kelly has come to Greenway House—the beloved holiday home of Agatha Christie—in disgrace. A terrible mistake at St. Prisca’s Hospital in London has led to her dismissal as a nurse trainee, and her only chance for redemption is a position in the countryside caring for children evacuated to safety from the Blitz. Greenway is a beautiful home full of riddles: wondrous curios not to be touched, restrictions on rooms not to be entered, and a generous library, filled with books about murder. The biggest mystery might be the other nurse, Gigi, who is like no one Bridey has ever met. Chasing ten young children through the winding paths of the estate grounds might have soothed Bridey’s anxieties and grief—if Greenway were not situated so near the English Channel and the rising aggressions of the war. When a body washes ashore near the estate, Bridey is horrified to realize this is not a victim of war, but of a brutal killing. As the local villagers look among themselves, Bridey and Gigi discover they each harbor dangerous secrets about what has led them to Greenway. With a mystery writer’s home as their unsettling backdrop, the young women must unravel the truth before their safe haven becomes a place of death . . .