Once We Were Sisters

Author: Sheila Kohler
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143129295
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Book Description
ONE OF PEOPLE MAGAZINE’S BEST NEW BOOKS “A searing and intimate memoir about love turned deadly.” —The BBC “An intimate illumination of sisterhood and loss.” —People When Sheila Kohler was thirty-seven, she received the heart-stopping news that her sister Maxine, only two years older, was killed when her husband drove them off a deserted road in Johannesburg. Stunned by the news, she immediately flew back to the country where she was born, determined to find answers and forced to reckon with his history of violence and the lingering effects of their most unusual childhood—one marked by death and the misguided love of their mother. In her signature spare and incisive prose, Sheila Kohler recounts the lives she and her sister led. Flashing back to their storybook childhood at the family estate, Crossways, Kohler tells of the death of her father when she and Maxine were girls, which led to the family abandoning their house and the girls being raised by their mother, at turns distant and suffocating. We follow them to the cloistered Anglican boarding school where they first learn of separation and later their studies in Rome and Paris where they plan grand lives for themselves—lives that are interrupted when both marry young and discover they have made poor choices. Kohler evokes the bond between sisters and shows how that bond changes but never breaks, even after death. “A beautiful and disturbing memoir of a beloved sister who died at the age of thirty-nine in circumstances that strongly suggest murder. . . . Highly recommended.” —Joyce Carol Oates

When We Were Sisters

Author: Fatimah Asghar
Publisher: One World
ISBN: 0593133463
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 353

Book Description
LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • An orphan grapples with gender, siblinghood, family, and coming-of-age as a Muslim in America in this lyrical debut novel that “shimmers with love” (Los Angeles Times), from the acclaimed author of If They Come For Us “Haunting . . . a knife-sharp story of self-discovery.”—People In this heartrending, lyrical debut work of fiction, Fatimah Asghar traces the intense bond of three orphaned siblings who, after their parents die, are left to raise one another. The youngest, Kausar, grapples with the incomprehensible loss of their parents as she also charts out her own understanding of gender; Aisha, the middle sister, spars with her “crybaby” younger sibling as she desperately tries to hold on to her sense of family in an impossible situation; and Noreen, the eldest, does her best in the role of sister-mother while also trying to create a life for herself, on her own terms. As Kausar grows up, she must contend with the collision of her private and public worlds, and choose whether to remain in the life of love, sorrow, and codependency that she’s known or carve out a new path for herself. When We Were Sisters tenderly examines the bonds and fractures of sisterhood, names the perils of being three Muslim American girls alone against the world, and ultimately illustrates how those who’ve lost everything might still make homes in one another. LONGLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE

Before We Were Yours

Author: Lisa Wingate
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0425284697
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 354

Book Description
THE BLOCKBUSTER HIT—Over two million copies sold! A New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly Bestseller “Poignant, engrossing.”—People • “Lisa Wingate takes an almost unthinkable chapter in our nation’s history and weaves a tale of enduring power.”—Paula McLain Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family’s Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge—until strangers arrive in force. Wrenched from all that is familiar and thrown into a Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage, the Foss children are assured that they will soon be returned to their parents—but they quickly realize the dark truth. At the mercy of the facility’s cruel director, Rill fights to keep her sisters and brother together in a world of danger and uncertainty. Aiken, South Carolina, present day. Born into wealth and privilege, Avery Stafford seems to have it all: a successful career as a federal prosecutor, a handsome fiancé, and a lavish wedding on the horizon. But when Avery returns home to help her father weather a health crisis, a chance encounter leaves her with uncomfortable questions and compels her to take a journey through her family’s long-hidden history, on a path that will ultimately lead either to devastation or to redemption. Based on one of America’s most notorious real-life scandals—in which Georgia Tann, director of a Memphis-based adoption organization, kidnapped and sold poor children to wealthy families all over the country—Lisa Wingate’s riveting, wrenching, and ultimately uplifting tale reminds us how, even though the paths we take can lead to many places, the heart never forgets where we belong. Publishers Weekly’s #3 Longest-Running Bestseller of 2017 • Winner of the Southern Book Prize • If All Arkansas Read the Same Book Selection This edition includes a new essay by the author about shantyboat life.

Sisters: A Graphic Novel

Author: Raina Telgemeier
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
ISBN: 0545540666
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 211

Book Description
Raina Telgemeier’s #1 New York Times bestselling, Eisner Award-winning companion to Smile! Raina can't wait to be a big sister. But once Amara is born, things aren't quite how she expected them to be. Amara is cute, but she's also a cranky, grouchy baby, and mostly prefers to play by herself. Their relationship doesn't improve much over the years, but when a baby brother enters the picture and later, something doesn't seem right between their parents, they realize they must figure out how to get along. They are sisters, after all.Raina uses her signature humor and charm in both present-day narrative and perfectly placed flashbacks to tell the story of her relationship with her sister, which unfolds during the course of a road trip from their home in San Francisco to a family reunion in Colorado.

Cracks

Author: Sheila Kohler
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1504082109
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 129

Book Description
An “eerie, elliptical masterpiece set in a South African boarding school in the early 1960s. . . . First-rate psychological suspense . . . played out flawlessly” (Kirkus Reviews). The members of an elite girls swim team are the reigning queens at their South African boarding school. And then Italian student Fiamma Coronna joins their ranks. Beautiful, athletic, and suddenly commanding all the coach’s attention, Fiamma is the envy of every girl on the team—until the summer she walks into the rural grasslands surrounding the school and disappears. Forty years later, the former teammates return to the school for a reunion, and the memory of that summer emerges like a long buried secret, the shocking, violent truth of what really happened to Fiamma no longer able to be contained . . . “Riveting . . . while evocative of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Picnic at Hanging Rock, Kohler’s writing is so smoothly confident and erotic that she has produced a tale resonant with a chilling power all its own.” —Elle “A stunning and singular tale of the passion and tribalism of adolescence, Cracks lays bare the violence that lurks in the heart of even the most innocent. Shocking, reminiscent of Lord of the Flies . . . conjures up the wildness of the veld and the passion and drama of adolescence . . . peculiarly satisfying.” —The Times Literary Supplement “A disturbing, note-perfect novel. Dissection of evil has rarely been so extravagantly executed.” —San Francisco Chronicle “Polished, compact and chilling . . . Powerful.” —Publishers Weekly A Library Journal and Newsday Best Book of the Year, now a major motion picture starring Eva Green

You Were Always Mom's Favorite!

Author: Deborah Tannen
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0345496973
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTELLER Conversations between sisters reveal a deep and constant tug between two dynamics—an impulse toward closeness and an impulse toward competition. It takes just a word from your sister to start you laughing, or to summon up a past you both share. But it also takes just a word to send you into an emotional tailspin. For many women, a sister is both a devoted friend and a fierce rival. Wise and witty, You Were Always Mom’s Favorite! will leave you with a profound new understanding of the unique and precious sister bond, as well as provide practical advice that will open up communication, dispel tensions, and make a vital connection even stronger, deeper, and more resilient.

We Were the Lucky Ones

Author: Georgia Hunter
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0399563091
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 417

Book Description
The New York Times bestseller with more than 1 million copies sold worldwide | Soon to be a Hulu limited series starring Joey King and Logan Lerman Inspired by the incredible true story of one Jewish family separated at the start of World War II, determined to survive—and to reunite—We Were the Lucky Ones is a tribute to the triumph of hope and love against all odds. “Love in the face of global adversity? It couldn't be more timely.” —Glamour It is the spring of 1939 and three generations of the Kurc family are doing their best to live normal lives, even as the shadow of war grows closer. The talk around the family Seder table is of new babies and budding romance, not of the increasing hardships threatening Jews in their hometown of Radom, Poland. But soon the horrors overtaking Europe will become inescapable and the Kurcs will be flung to the far corners of the world, each desperately trying to navigate his or her own path to safety. As one sibling is forced into exile, another attempts to flee the continent, while others struggle to escape certain death, either by working grueling hours on empty stomachs in the factories of the ghetto or by hiding as gentiles in plain sight. Driven by an unwavering will to survive and by the fear that they may never see one another again, the Kurcs must rely on hope, ingenuity, and inner strength to persevere. An extraordinary, propulsive novel, We Were the Lucky Ones demonstrates how in the face of the twentieth century’s darkest moment, the human spirit can endure and even thrive.

If They Come for Us

Author: Fatimah Asghar
Publisher: One World
ISBN: 0525509798
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 130

Book Description
“A debut poetry collection showcasing both a fierce and tender new voice.”—Booklist “Elegant and playful . . . The poet invents new forms and updates classic ones.”—Elle “[Fatimah] Asghar interrogates divisions along lines of nationality, age, and gender, illuminating the forces by which identity is fixed or flexible.”—The New Yorker NAMED ONE OF THE TOP TEN BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY • FINALIST FOR THE LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD an aunt teaches me how to tell an edible flower from a poisonous one. just in case, I hear her say, just in case. From a co-creator of the Emmy-nominated web series Brown Girls comes an imaginative, soulful debut poetry that collection captures the experiences of being a young Pakistani Muslim woman in contemporary America. Orphaned as a child, Fatimah Asghar grapples with coming of age and navigating questions of sexuality and race without the guidance of a mother or father. These poems at once bear anguish, joy, vulnerability, and compassion, while also exploring the many facets of violence: how it persists within us, how it is inherited across generations, and how it manifests itself in our relationships. In experimental forms and language both lyrical and raw, Asghar seamlessly braids together marginalized people’s histories with her own understanding of identity, place, and belonging. Praise for If They Come for Us “In forms both traditional . . . and unorthodox . . . Asghar interrogates divisions along lines of nationality, age, and gender, illuminating the forces by which identity is fixed or flexible. Most vivid and revelatory are pieces such as ‘Boy,’ whose perspicacious turns and irreverent idiom conjure the rich, jagged textures of a childhood shadowed by loss.”—The New Yorker “[Asghar’s] debut poetry collection cemented her status as one of the city’s greatest present-day poets. . . . A stunning work of art that tackles place, race, sexuality and violence. These poems—both personal and historical, both celebratory and aggrieved—are unquestionably powerful in a way that would doubtless make both Gwendolyn Brooks and Harriet Monroe proud.”—Chicago Review of Books “Taut lines, vivid language, and searing images range cover to cover. . . . Inventive, sad, gripping, and beautiful.”—Library Journal (starred review)

The Once and Future Witches

Author: Alix E. Harrow
Publisher: Redhook
ISBN: 0316422037
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 528

Book Description
"A gorgeous and thrilling paean to the ferocious power of women. The characters live, bleed, and roar. "―Laini Taylor, New York Times bestselling author A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Winner of the British Fantasy Award for Best Fantasy Novel • Named One of the Best Books of the Year by NPR Books • Barnes and Noble • BookPage In the late 1800s, three sisters use witchcraft to change the course of history in this powerful novel of magic, family, and the suffragette movement. In 1893, there's no such thing as witches. There used to be, in the wild, dark days before the burnings began, but now witching is nothing but tidy charms and nursery rhymes. If the modern woman wants any measure of power, she must find it at the ballot box. But when the Eastwood sisters―James Juniper, Agnes Amaranth, and Beatrice Belladonna―join the suffragists of New Salem, they begin to pursue the forgotten words and ways that might turn the women's movement into the witch's movement. Stalked by shadows and sickness, hunted by forces who will not suffer a witch to vote―and perhaps not even to live―the sisters will need to delve into the oldest magics, draw new alliances, and heal the bond between them if they want to survive. There's no such thing as witches. But there will be. An homage to the indomitable power and persistence of women, The Once and Future Witches reimagines stories of revolution, motherhood, and women's suffrage—the lost ways are calling. Praise for The Once and Future Witches: "A glorious escape into a world where witchcraft has dwindled to a memory of women's magic, and three wild, sundered sisters hold the key to bring it back...A tale that will sweep you away."―Yangsze Choo, New York Times bestselling author "This book is an amazing bit of spellcraft and resistance so needed in our times, and a reminder that secret words and ways can never be truly and properly lost, as long as there are tongues to speak them and ears to listen."―P. Djèlí Clark, author The Black God's Drum For more from Alix E. Harrow, check out The Ten Thousand Doors of January.

Having Our Say

Author: Sarah L. Delany
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 182

Book Description
Warm, feisty, and intelligent, the Delany sisters speak their mind in a book that is at once a vital historical record and a moving portrait of two remarkable women who continued to love, laugh, and embrace life after over a hundred years of living side by side. Their sharp memories tell us about the post-Reconstruction South and Booker T. Washington, Harlem’s Golden Age and Langston Hughes, W. E. B. Du Bois and Paul Robeson. Bessie Delany breaks barriers to become a dentist; Sadie Delany quietly integrates the New York City system as a high school teacher. Their extraordinary story makes an important contribution to our nation’s heritage—and an indelible impression on our lives.