Sophie's World

Author: Jostein Gaarder
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1466804270
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 599

Book Description
A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.

The Stationery Shop

Author: Marjan Kamali
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982107502
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Book Description
A poignant, heartfelt new novel by the award-nominated author of Together Tea—extolled by the Wall Street Journal as a “moving tale of lost love” and by Shelf Awareness as “a powerful, heartbreaking story”—explores loss, reconciliation, and the quirks of fate. Roya, a dreamy, idealistic teenager living amid the political upheaval of 1953 Tehran, finds a literary oasis in kindly Mr. Fakhri’s neighborhood stationery shop, stocked with books and pens and bottles of jewel-colored ink. Then Mr. Fakhri, with a keen instinct for a budding romance, introduces Roya to his other favorite customer—handsome Bahman, who has a burning passion for justice and a love for Rumi’s poetry—and she loses her heart at once. Their romance blossoms, and the little stationery shop remains their favorite place in all of Tehran. A few short months later, on the eve of their marriage, Roya agrees to meet Bahman at the town square when violence erupts—a result of the coup d’etat that forever changes their country’s future. In the chaos, Bahman never shows. For weeks, Roya tries desperately to contact him, but her efforts are fruitless. With a sorrowful heart, she moves on—to college in California, to another man, to a life in New England—until, more than sixty years later, an accident of fate leads her back to Bahman and offers her a chance to ask him the questions that have haunted her for more than half a century: Why did you leave? Where did you go? How is it that you were able to forget me?

Arabic Club Readers: Red Band: I Like Fruit

Author: Rabab Hamiduddin
Publisher: Arabic Club Readers
ISBN: 9781408524664
Category : JUVENILE NONFICTION
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
The Arabic Club Readers are series of banded, colourful and fun books for young learners of Arabic, designed to nurture confidence and motivation.

Book Traces

Author: Andrew M. Stauffer
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812252683
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Book Description
In most college and university libraries, materials published before 1800 have been moved into special collections, while the post-1923 books remain in general circulation. But books published between these dates are vulnerable to deaccessioning, as libraries increasingly reconfigure access to public-domain texts via digital repositories such as Google Books. Even libraries with strong commitments to their print collections are clearing out the duplicates, assuming that circulating copies of any given nineteenth-century edition are essentially identical to one another. When you look closely, however, you see that they are not. Many nineteenth-century books were donated by alumni or their families decades ago, and many of them bear traces left behind by the people who first owned and used them. In Book Traces, Andrew M. Stauffer adopts what he calls "guided serendipity" as a tactic in pursuit of two goals: first, to read nineteenth-century poetry through the clues and objects earlier readers left in their books and, second, to defend the value of keeping the physical volumes on the shelves. Finding in such books of poetry the inscriptions, annotations, and insertions made by their original owners, and using them as exemplary case studies, Stauffer shows how the physical, historical book enables a modern reader to encounter poetry through the eyes of someone for whom it was personal.

Esperanza Rising (Scholastic Gold)

Author: Pam Muñoz Ryan
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
ISBN: 0545532345
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 194

Book Description
A modern classic for our time and for all time-this beloved, award-winning bestseller resonates with fresh meaning for each new generation. Perfect for fans of Kate DiCamillo, Christopher Paul Curtis, and Rita Williams-Garcia. Pura Belpre Award Winner * "Readers will be swept up." -Publishers Weekly, starred review Esperanza thought she'd always live a privileged life on her family's ranch in Mexico. She'd always have fancy dresses, a beautiful home filled with servants, and Mama, Papa, and Abuelita to care for her. But a sudden tragedy forces Esperanza and Mama to flee to California and settle in a Mexican farm labor camp. Esperanza isn't ready for the hard work, financial struggles brought on by the Great Depression, or lack of acceptance she now faces. When Mama gets sick and a strike for better working conditions threatens to uproot their new life, Esperanza must find a way to rise above her difficult circumstances--because Mama's life, and her own, depend on it.

Switch

Author: Chip Heath
Publisher: Crown Currency
ISBN: 030759016X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Book Description
Why is it so hard to make lasting changes in our companies, in our communities, and in our own lives? The primary obstacle is a conflict that's built into our brains, say Chip and Dan Heath, authors of the critically acclaimed bestseller Made to Stick. Psychologists have discovered that our minds are ruled by two different systems - the rational mind and the emotional mind—that compete for control. The rational mind wants a great beach body; the emotional mind wants that Oreo cookie. The rational mind wants to change something at work; the emotional mind loves the comfort of the existing routine. This tension can doom a change effort - but if it is overcome, change can come quickly. In Switch, the Heaths show how everyday people - employees and managers, parents and nurses - have united both minds and, as a result, achieved dramatic results: • The lowly medical interns who managed to defeat an entrenched, decades-old medical practice that was endangering patients • The home-organizing guru who developed a simple technique for overcoming the dread of housekeeping • The manager who transformed a lackadaisical customer-support team into service zealots by removing a standard tool of customer service In a compelling, story-driven narrative, the Heaths bring together decades of counterintuitive research in psychology, sociology, and other fields to shed new light on how we can effect transformative change. Switch shows that successful changes follow a pattern, a pattern you can use to make the changes that matter to you, whether your interest is in changing the world or changing your waistline.

Speak

Author: Laurie Halse Anderson
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
ISBN: 1429997044
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 212

Book Description
The groundbreaking National Book Award Finalist and Michael L. Printz Honor Book with more than 3.5 million copies sold, Speak is a bestselling modern classic about consent, healing, and finding your voice. "Speak up for yourself—we want to know what you have to say." From the first moment of her freshman year at Merryweather High, Melinda knows this is a big lie, part of the nonsense of high school. She is friendless, an outcast, because she busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops. Now nobody will talk to her, let alone listen to her. As time passes, Melinda becomes increasingly isolated and practically stops talking altogether. Only her art class offers any solace, and it is through her work on an art project that she is finally able to face what really happened at that terrible party: she was raped by an upperclassman, a guy who still attends Merryweather and is still a threat to her. Her healing process has just begun when she has another violent encounter with him. But this time Melinda fights back—and refuses to be silent. From Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award laureate Laurie Halse Anderson comes the extraordinary landmark novel that has spoken to millions of readers. Powerful and utterly unforgettable, Speak has been translated into 35 languages, was the basis for the major motion picture starring Kristen Stewart, and is now a stunning graphic novel adapted by Laurie Halse Anderson herself, with artwork from Eisner-Award winner Emily Carroll. Awards and Accolades for Speak: A New York Times Bestseller A National Book Award Finalist for Young People’s Literature A Michael L. Printz Honor Book An Edgar Allan Poe Award Finalist A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist A TIME Magazine Best YA Book of All Time A Cosmopolitan Magazine Best YA Books Everyone Should Read, Regardless of Age

Arabic Club Readers: Red Band: I Like Fruit Salad

Author: Rabab Hamiduddin
Publisher: Arabic Club Readers
ISBN: 9781408524596
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
The Arabic Club Readers are series of banded, colorful and fun books for young learners of Arabic, designed to nurture confidence and motivation.

Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots

Author: Jessica Soffer
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0547759282
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 343

Book Description
A troubled teen turns to cooking lessons to win her emotionally distant mother’s love in this “moving [and] extraordinary” novel (The Atlantic). Lorca spends her life poring over cookbooks to earn the love of her distracted, angry mother, a prominent Manhattan chef who left Lorca’s father and is now packing her off to boarding school. Desperate to prove herself, Lorca resolves to track down the recipe for her mother’s ideal meal. She signs up for cooking lessons from Victoria, an Iraqi-Jewish immigrant profoundly shaken by her husband’s death. Soon these two develop a deeper bond while their concoctions—cardamom pistachio cookies, baklava, and masgouf—bake in Victoria’s kitchen. But their individual endeavors force a reckoning with the past, the future, and the truth—whatever it might be. “Sassy, brash, acrobatic and colorful…I want to read it again and again.” —Time “Impressive…Soffer’s style is natural and assured.”—Meg Wolitzer, All Things Considered, NPR “Breathtaking…a profoundly redemptive story about loss, self-discovery, and acceptance.”—O: The Oprah Magazine “Soffer’s prose is as controlled as it is fresh, as incisive as it is musical.” —Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin

Mad Honey

Author: Jodi Picoult
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 1984818406
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 497

Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Alternatingly heart-pounding and heartbreaking. This collaboration between two best-selling authors seamlessly weaves together Olivia and Lily’s journeys, creating a provocative exploration of the strength that love and acceptance require.”—The Washington Post Look for Jodi Picoult’s new novel, By Any Other Name, available now! GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK • PEOPLE’S BOOK OF THE WEEK • A POPSUGAR BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR Olivia McAfee knows what it feels like to start over. Her picture-perfect life—living in Boston, married to a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon, raising their beautiful son, Asher—was upended when her husband revealed a darker side. She never imagined that she would end up back in her sleepy New Hampshire hometown, living in the house she grew up in and taking over her father’s beekeeping business. Lily Campanello is familiar with do-overs, too. When she and her mom relocate to Adams, New Hampshire, for her final year of high school, they both hope it will be a fresh start. And for just a short while, these new beginnings are exactly what Olivia and Lily need. Their paths cross when Asher falls for the new girl in school, and Lily can’t help but fall for him, too. With Ash, she feels happy for the first time. Yet she wonders if she can trust him completely. . . . Then one day, Olivia receives a phone call: Lily is dead, and Asher is being questioned by the police. Olivia is adamant that her son is innocent. But she would be lying if she didn’t acknowledge the flashes of his father’s temper in Ash, and as the case against him unfolds, she realizes he’s hidden more than he’s shared with her. Mad Honey is a riveting novel of suspense, an unforgettable love story, and a moving and powerful exploration of the secrets we keep and the risks we take in order to become ourselves.