Beautiful Country

Beautiful Country

Author: Qian Julie Wang

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2022-09-27

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0593313003

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A NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • The moving story of an undocumented child living in poverty in the richest country in the world—an incandescent debut from an astonishing new talent • A TODAY SHOW #READWITHJENNA PICK In Chinese, the word for America, Mei Guo, translates directly to “beautiful country.” Yet when seven-year-old Qian arrives in New York City in 1994 full of curiosity, she is overwhelmed by crushing fear and scarcity. In China, Qian’s parents were professors; in America, her family is “illegal” and it will require all the determination and small joys they can muster to survive. In Chinatown, Qian’s parents labor in sweatshops. Instead of laughing at her jokes, they fight constantly, taking out the stress of their new life on one another. Shunned by her classmates and teachers for her limited English, Qian takes refuge in the library and masters the language through books, coming to think of The Berenstain Bears as her first American friends. And where there is delight to be found, Qian relishes it: her first bite of gloriously greasy pizza, weekly “shopping days,” when Qian finds small treasures in the trash lining Brooklyn’s streets, and a magical Christmas visit to Rockefeller Center—confirmation that the New York City she saw in movies does exist after all. But then Qian’s headstrong Ma Ma collapses, revealing an illness that she has kept secret for months for fear of the cost and scrutiny of a doctor’s visit. As Ba Ba retreats further inward, Qian has little to hold onto beyond his constant refrain: Whatever happens, say that you were born here, that you’ve always lived here. Inhabiting her childhood perspective with exquisite lyric clarity and unforgettable charm and strength, Qian Julie Wang has penned an essential American story about a family fracturing under the weight of invisibility, and a girl coming of age in the shadows, who never stops seeking the light.


Hadrian the Seventh

Hadrian the Seventh

Author: Frederick Rolfe

Publisher:

Published: 1904

Total Pages: 466

ISBN-13:

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This fantasy of a shabby London outcast who is elected Pope, shows considerable knowledge of the organisation of the papal court and betrays the author's frustrated desire to become a priest.


The Elizas

The Elizas

Author: Sara Shepard

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2018-04-17

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 1501162799

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Harper’s Bazaar | 10 New Books to Add to Your Reading List in 2018 Cosmopolitan | Best April Ever Roundup Bustle | 35 Most Anticipated Fiction Books of 2018 PopSugar | 10 of the Most Anticipated Books in 2018 BuzzFeed | 5 Best Thrillers of Spring BookBub | 17 Great New Books Coming in 2018 She Reads | Most Anticipated Books of April 2018 Bookish | April 2018 Book Club Picks Real Simple | The Best Books of 2018 (So Far) Town & Country | The Best Books to Read This April From the New York Times bestselling author of the Pretty Little Liars series comes a thriller “blending Hitchcock, S.J. Watson, and Ruth Ware” (Entertainment Weekly) filled with half-truths, suppressed memories, and ingenious twists. When Eliza Fontaine is rescued from the bottom of a hotel pool just a few weeks before her first novel is going to be published, her family assumes that it’s another failed suicide attempt. But Eliza swears she was pushed. The problem is she remembers little of that night, a result of the large quantity of alcohol she consumed and a worsening struggle with memory loss due to a brain tumor. Feeling ignored and vulnerable, she decides she must find the truth of what actually happened. As she searches for answers, something very peculiar begins to happen: The people closest to her start to confuse the events in her novel with those in her real life. The dividing line between fact and fiction seems to be dissolving, and even Eliza is becoming uncertain about where her protagonist’s story ends and hers begins. She glimpses a shadowy presence hovering nearby, a mirror image of herself…but is it all in her head or is there really someone following her, studying her, wishing to do her harm? Perhaps the answers to all her questions already exist in the pages of her novel, if only she could put the pieces together in the right way. The Elizas is a heart-pounding, Hitchcockian double narrative composed of secrets, lies, false memories, and an unreliable narrator you’ll never forget.


Banshee at the Gate

Banshee at the Gate

Author: Wendy Knight

Publisher: Six Gate Publishing

Published: 2014-07-25

Total Pages: 213

ISBN-13: 1939993393

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Thirteen-year-old half-breed banshee, Seven, likes her life. She leads souls safely to Death and she has the planet’s most awesome dad and little brother. But a cryptic message from Atlantis asking for her help changes all that. And then there’s Death, who has decided it’s time to take her brother’s soul. Now she’s racing across the world, trying to stay one step ahead of Death. Unfortunately, getting to Atlantis from Ireland isn’t easy, and there are evil minions determined to keep her away every time she turns around. But fighting for their lives teaches Seven one very important lesson—she isn’t human, and she isn’t a banshee. She has to be both if she wants to save her brother and make it back home alive.


The Chinese Fairy Book

The Chinese Fairy Book

Author: Richard Wilhelm

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 1921

Total Pages: 366

ISBN-13:

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The fairy tales and legends of olden China have in common with the "Thousand and One Nights" an oriental glow and glitter of precious stones and gold and multicolored silks, an oriental wealth of fantastic and supernatural action. And yet they strike an exotic note distinct in itself. The seventy-three stories here presented after original sources, embracing "Nursery Fairy Tales," "Legends of the Gods," "Tales of Saints and Magicians," "Nature and Animal Tales," "Ghost Stories," "Historic Fairy Tales," and "Literary Fairy Tales," probably represent the most comprehensive and varied collection of oriental fairy tales ever made available for American readers. There is no child who will not enjoy their novel color, their fantastic beauty, their infinite variety of subject. Yet, like the "Arabian Nights," they will amply repay the attention of the older reader as well. Some are exquisitely poetic, such as "The Flower-Elves," "The Lady of the Moon" or "The Herd Boy and the Weaving Maiden"; others like "How Three Heroes Came By Their Deaths Because Of Two Peaches," carry us back dramatically and powerfully to the Chinese age of Chivalry. The summits of fantasy are scaled in the quasi-religious dramas of "The Ape Sun Wu Kung" and "Notscha," or the weird sorceries unfolded in "The Kindly Magician." Delightful ghost stories, with happy endings, such as "A Night on the Battlefield" and "The Ghost Who Was Foiled," are paralleled with such idyllic love-tales as that of "Rose of Evening," or such Lilliputian fancies as "The King of the Ants" and "The Little Hunting Dog." It is quite safe to say that these Chinese fairy tales will give equal pleasure to the old as well as the young. They have been retold simply, with no changes in style or expression beyond such details of presentation which differences between oriental and occidental viewpoints at times compel. It is the writer's hope that others may take as much pleasure in reading them as he did in their translation.


The Fairest of Them All

The Fairest of Them All

Author: Maria Tatar

Publisher: Belknap Press

Published: 2020-04-07

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 0674238605

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“With her trademark brio and deep-tissue understanding, Maria Tatar opens the glass casket on this undying story, which retains its power to charm twenty-one times, and counting.” —Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked The story of the rivalry between a beautiful, innocent girl and her cruel and jealous mother has been endlessly repeated and refashioned all over the world. The Brothers Grimm gave this story the name by which we know it best, and in 1937 Walt Disney sweetened their somber version to make the first feature-length, animated fairy tale, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Since then, the Disney film has become our cultural touchstone—the innocent heroine, her evil stepmother, the envy that divides them, and a romantic rescue from domestic drudgery and maternal persecution. But each culture has its own way of telling this story of jealousy and competition. An acclaimed folklorist, Maria Tatar brings to life a global melodrama of mother-daughter rivalries that play out in unforgettable variations across countries and cultures. “Fascinating...A strange, beguiling history of stories about beauty, jealousy, and maternal persecution.” —Wall Street Journal “Is the story of Snow White the cruelest, the deepest, the strangest, the most mythopoeic of them all?...Tatar trains a keen eye on the appeal of the bitter conflict between women at the heart of the tale...a feast of rich thoughts...An exciting and authoritative anthology from the wisest good fairy in the world of the fairy tale.” —Marina Warner “The inimitable Maria Tatar offers us a maze of mothers and daughters and within that glorious tangle an archetype with far more meaning than we imagine when we say ‘Snow White.’” —Honor Moore “Shocking yet familiar, these stories...retain the secret whisper of storytelling. This is a properly magical, erudite book.” —Literary Review


The Dopefiend:

The Dopefiend:

Author: JaQuavis Coleman

Publisher: Urban Books

Published: 2012-08-15

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 1622861205

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Part 2 of the Dopeman's Trilogy, JaQuavis Coleman chillingly chronicles the life and crimes of Harlem resident Hazel Brown, as she rises to the highest highs and spirals into an inevitable, devastating downfall. Hazel has nothing and no one in her life; the only thing she "owns" is an insatiable addiction to heroin. Her addiction brings her to the slums, where she quickly learns the tricks of surviving—of hustling and getting her street smarts. She'll do anything to feed her habit, even if that means robbing and conning and selling her own body. Yet no matter how much heroin she does, the pain that's cut so deep within her never goes away in this story so intimate and compellingly written, you'll feel like you're walking in her shoes.


Watermelon Guy

Watermelon Guy

Author: Tanner Cowgill

Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.

Published: 2022-01-14

Total Pages: 198

ISBN-13: 1638607982

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Rules of becoming a Melon: 1. Receive eight hours of sleep per night on the weekends. 2. Stay uncomfortable while performing uncomfortable acts. 3. Enjoy spending time in your friends' basement. 4. Never openly admit your feelings to the person you're crushing on. 5. Break rule number 4. A quirky, I-don't-know-what-I-wanna-do-with-my-life high school senior-to-be has his comfortable lifestyle turned upside down by the girl he knows is The One. Jaxson, invisible to many, isn't the easiest person to have a conversation with. But when Jordyn not only gets along with him, but shows interest toward Jaxson, will the summer together lead into a lifetime of memories, or a senior year filled with regret?