Under the Wide and Starry Sky

Author: Nancy Horan
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 034553882X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 534

Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • TODAY SHOW BOOK CLUB PICK • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH From the New York Times bestselling author of Loving Frank comes a much-anticipated second novel, which tells the improbable love story of Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson and his tempestuous American wife, Fanny. At the age of thirty-five, Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne has left her philandering husband in San Francisco to set sail for Belgium—with her three children and nanny in tow—to study art. It is a chance for this adventurous woman to start over, to make a better life for all of them, and to pursue her own desires. Not long after her arrival, however, tragedy strikes, and Fanny and her children repair to a quiet artists’ colony in France where she can recuperate. Emerging from a deep sorrow, she meets a lively Scot, Robert Louis Stevenson, ten years her junior, who falls instantly in love with the earthy, independent, and opinionated “belle Americaine.” Fanny does not immediately take to the slender young lawyer who longs to devote his life to writing—and who would eventually pen such classics as Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In time, though, she succumbs to Stevenson’s charms, and the two begin a fierce love affair—marked by intense joy and harrowing darkness—that spans the decades and the globe. The shared life of these two strong-willed individuals unfolds into an adventure as impassioned and unpredictable as any of Stevenson’s own unforgettable tales. Praise for Under the Wide and Starry Sky “A richly imagined [novel] of love, laughter, pain and sacrifice . . . Under the Wide and Starry Sky is a dual portrait, with Louis and Fanny sharing the limelight in the best spirit of teamwork—a romantic partnership.”—USA Today “Powerful . . . flawless . . . a perfect example of what a man and a woman will do for love, and what they can accomplish when it’s meant to be.”—Fort Worth Star-Telegram “Horan’s prose is gorgeous enough to keep a reader transfixed, even if the story itself weren’t so compelling. I kept re-reading passages just to savor the exquisite wordplay. . . . Few writers are as masterful as she is at blending carefully researched history with the novelist’s art.”—The Dallas Morning News “A classic artistic bildungsroman and a retort to the genre, a novel that shows how love and marriage can simultaneously offer inspiration and encumbrance.”—The New York Times Book Review

To Know a Starry Night

Author: Paul Bogard
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781647790127
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 164

Book Description
Combining the lyrical writing from Paul Bogard with night-sky photography from Beau Rogers, To Know A Starry Night explores the powerful experience of being outside under a natural starry sky.

Starry River of the Sky

Author: Grace Lin
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 0316215538
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 202

Book Description
From bestselling author Grace Lin comes the companion to the Newbery Honor winner Where the Mountain Meets the Moon and the National Book Award finalist When the Sea Turned to Silver. The moon is missing from the remote Village of Clear Sky, but only a young boy named Rendi seems to notice! Rendi has run away from home and is now working as a chore boy at the village inn. He can't help but notice the village's peculiar inhabitants and their problems. But one day, a mysterious lady arrives at the Inn with the gift of storytelling, and slowly transforms the villagers and Rendi himself. As she tells more stories and the days pass in the Village of Clear Sky, Rendi begins to realize that perhaps it is his own story that holds the answers to all those questions. Newbery Honor author Grace Lin brings readers another enthralling fantasy featuring her marvelous full-color illustrations. Starry River of the Sky is filled with Chinese folklore, fascinating characters, and exciting new adventures.

Night Sky With the Naked Eye

Author: Bob King
Publisher: Page Street Publishing
ISBN: 1624143113
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Book Description
Understand and Enjoy the Wonders of the Stars with Fun Activities for the Whole Family Gain a deeper appreciation of the universe and our place in it with Night Sky with the Naked Eye. Learn how to spot the International Space Station, follow the moon through its phases, forecast an aurora and watch a meteor shower along with traditional night sky activities such as identifying the bright planets, stars and constellations. Fun activities embrace modern technology with the best apps and websites that make it easy for anyone to observe the greatest spectacles of the sky without a telescope or other expensive equipment. An expert in his field, Bob King teaches night sky courses and makes cosmic mysteries practical and accessible for skywatchers new and old. Understand what makes stars twinkle and where meteors come from in this complete guide to the heavens. Unique illustrations and stunning photos help the reader understand the concepts presented. Tips on how to photograph satellites, eclipses and the aurora are also included. Unravel the secrets of the universe while deepening your appreciation of its beauty through this clear and concise guide.

The Starry Sky Within

Author: Anna Henchman
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191510572
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 313

Book Description
Tracing unexplored connections between nineteenth-century astronomy and literature, The Starry Sky Within offers a new understanding of literary point of view as essentially multiple, mobile, and comparative. Nineteenth-century astronomy revealed a cosmos of celestial systems in constant motion. Stars, comets, planets, and moons coursed through space in complex and changing relation. As the skies were in motion, so too was the human subject. Astronomers showed that human beings never perceive the world from a stable position. The mobility of our bodies in space and the very structure of stereoscopic vision mean that point of view is neither singular nor stable. We always see the world as an amalgam of fractured perspectives. In this innovative study, Henchman shows that the reconceptualization of the skies gave poets and novelists new spaces in which to indulge their longing to escape the limitations of individual perspective. She links astronomy and optics to the form of the multiplot novel, with its many centers of consciousness, complex systems of relation, and criss-crossing points of view. Accounts of a world and a subject both in relative motion shaped the form of grand-scale narratives such as Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Bleak House, and Daniel Deronda. De Quincey, Tennyson, and Eliot befriended leading astronomers and visited observatories, while Hardy learned about astronomy from the vast popular literature of the day. These writers use cosmic distances to dislodge their readers from the earth, setting human perception against views from high above and then telescoping back to earth again. What results is a new perception of the mobility of point of view in both literature and science.

Bright Sky, Starry City

Author: Uma Krishnaswami
Publisher: Groundwood Books Ltd
ISBN: 1554984068
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 34

Book Description
A little girl and her father have an opportunity to appreciate the wonders of the night sky. Phoebe helps her dad set up telescopes on the sidewalk outside his store. It’s a special night — Saturn and Mars are going to appear together in the sky. But will Phoebe be able to see them with all the city lights? Raindrops begin to fall, followed by lightning and thunder. Phoebe is filled with disappointment as she and her father hurry inside to wait out the storm. But suddenly the power fails and then, amazingly, the rain and clouds disappear. Phoebe and her dad and all kinds of people spill into the street. And there, in the bright night sky, the splendor of the planets and a multitude of stars are revealed for all to see. An illustrated afterword includes information about the solar system, planetary conjunctions and rings, moons, telescopes and light pollution. A glossary and recommended further reading are also included. Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.3 Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.2.1 Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.2.7 Use information gained from the illustrations and words in a print or digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting, or plot.

Starry Skies

Author: Samantha Chagollan
Publisher: Walter Foster Jr.
ISBN: 1633225097
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 35

Book Description
An engaging introduction to astronomy for kids, featuring 14 well-known constellations and a star map of each hemisphere. Full color.

Loving Frank

Author: Nancy Horan
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0345502256
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 384

Book Description
I have been standing on the side of life, watching it float by. I want to swim in the river. I want to feel the current. So writes Mamah Borthwick Cheney in her diary as she struggles to justify her clandestine love affair with Frank Lloyd Wright. Four years earlier, in 1903, Mamah and her husband, Edwin, had commissioned the renowned architect to design a new home for them. During the construction of the house, a powerful attraction developed between Mamah and Frank, and in time the lovers, each married with children, embarked on a course that would shock Chicago society and forever change their lives. In this ambitious debut novel, fact and fiction blend together brilliantly. While scholars have largely relegated Mamah to a footnote in the life of America’s greatest architect, author Nancy Horan gives full weight to their dramatic love story and illuminates Cheney’s profound influence on Wright. Drawing on years of research, Horan weaves little-known facts into a compelling narrative, vividly portraying the conflicts and struggles of a woman forced to choose between the roles of mother, wife, lover, and intellectual. Horan’s Mamah is a woman seeking to find her own place, her own creative calling in the world. Mamah’s is an unforgettable journey marked by choices that reshape her notions of love and responsibility, leading inexorably ultimately lead to this novel’s stunning conclusion. Elegantly written and remarkably rich in detail, Loving Frank is a fitting tribute to a courageous woman, a national icon, and their timeless love story. BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Nancy Horan's Under the Wide and Starry Sky. Advance praise for Loving Frank: “Loving Frank is one of those novels that takes over your life. It’s mesmerizing and fascinating–filled with complex characters, deep passions, tactile descriptions of astonishing architecture, and the colorful immediacy of daily life a hundred years ago–all gathered into a story that unfolds with riveting urgency.” –Lauren Belfer, author of City of Light “This graceful, assured first novel tells the remarkable story of the long-lived affair between Frank Lloyd Wright, a passionate and impossible figure, and Mamah Cheney, a married woman whom Wright beguiled and led beyond the restraint of convention. It is engrossing, provocative reading.” ——Scott Turow “It takes great courage to write a novel about historical people, and in particular to give voice to someone as mythic as Frank Lloyd Wright. This beautifully written novel about Mamah Cheney and Frank Lloyd Wright’s love affair is vivid and intelligent, unsentimental and compassionate.” ——Jane Hamilton “I admire this novel, adore this novel, for so many reasons: The intelligence and lyricism of the prose. The attention to period detail. The epic proportions of this most fascinating love story. Mamah Cheney has been in my head and heart and soul since reading this book; I doubt she’ ll ever leave.” –Elizabeth Berg

The End of Night

Author: Paul Bogard
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316228796
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 332

Book Description
A deeply panoramic tour of the night, from its brightest spots to the darkest skies we have left. A starry night is one of nature's most magical wonders. Yet in our artificially lit world, three-quarters of Americans' eyes never switch to night vision and most of us no longer experience true darkness. In The End of Night, Paul Bogard restores our awareness of the spectacularly primal, wildly dark night sky and how it has influenced the human experience across everything from science to art. From Las Vegas' Luxor Beam -- the brightest single spot on this planet -- to nights so starlit the sky looks like snow, Bogard blends personal narrative, natural history, science, and history to shed light on the importance of darkness -- what we've lost, what we still have, and what we might regain -- and the simple ways we can reduce the brightness of our nights tonight.

The World at Night

Author: Babak Tafreshi
Publisher: White Lion Publishing
ISBN: 1781319138
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 243

Book Description
See the full beauty of our night sky revealed as never before in over 200 photographs from around the world. Bringing together the images of over 40 photographers across 25 countries, be astounded by the lights of the night sky in some of the darkest places on earth; discover the beauty of galaxies, planets, and stars; view great celestial events; and see some of the world’s most important landmarks against the backdrop of an incredible nightscape. Babak Tafreshi, founder of the international organization The World at Night, has curated the images in this collection—many of them previously unseen—to reveal the true splendor of the sky at night. A specialist guide to night-sky photography will help you capture your own gorgeous images of the heavens. Commentary on the science, astronomy, and photography accompany stunning images organized by theme: Symbols of all nations and religions embraced by one sky of endless beauties UNESCO World Heritage Sites at night The Universe revealed through constellations, sky motions, atmospheric phenomenon, Aurora, and other wonders Images highlighting the beauty of dark skies away from light-polluted urban areas Celestial events, from great comets to spectacular eclipses Astro-tourism destinations, like ancient astronomical monuments and modern observatories