Author: Witold Szabłowski
Publisher: Text Publishing
ISBN: 1925603369
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 265
Book Description
• Incisive, humorous and heartbreaking oral histories of people living in formerly Communist countries holding fast to their former lives, from one of Poland’s finest journalists. • Like Anna Funder’s Stasiland or Svetlana Alexievich’s Secondhand Time, readers are guided through the aftereffects of authoritarian rule and the challenges of freedom via Szablowski’s immediate, heartwrenching stories of the people who lived through the collapse of Communism. • The bold and brilliant allegory at the centre of Dancing Bears is of bears raised and trained by Bulgarian Gypsies. With the fall of Communism, the bears were released into a wildlife refuge. But even today, whenever the bears see a human, they still get up on their hind legs to dance. • Dancing Bears traces the remarkable true stories of people throughout Eastern Europe and Cuba who, like the bears, are now free, but seem nostalgic for a time when they were not. • Szablowski is an award-winning Polish journalist—his reportage on illegal immigrants flocking to the EU won the European Parliament Journalism Prize, and his previous book about Turkey, The Assassin from Apricot City, won an English PEN Award. • This book comes at a pivotal moment for oral histories, following the success of 2015 Nobel Prize for Literature winner Svetlana Alexievich’s Secondhand Time. • For fans of Stasiland by Anna Funder, Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick and Tale of Two Cities by John Freeman.
When the Wind Bears Go Dancing
Author: Phoebe Stone
Publisher: Little Brown & Company
ISBN: 9780316815802
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 32
Book Description
Who hasn't wondered what's going on when the wind outside your window blows and howls all night long? In this magical explanation for stormy weather, one small child joins the wild and woolly Wind Bears as they cavort in the moonlit sky to music performed by the stormy night band.
Publisher: Little Brown & Company
ISBN: 9780316815802
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 32
Book Description
Who hasn't wondered what's going on when the wind outside your window blows and howls all night long? In this magical explanation for stormy weather, one small child joins the wild and woolly Wind Bears as they cavort in the moonlit sky to music performed by the stormy night band.
Mr Gum and the Dancing Bear
Author: Andy Stanton
Publisher: Dean
ISBN: 9780603579967
Category : Bears
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Good evening. Do you like bears called Padlock? Course you do. Do you like hot air balloons? Course you do. Do you like tall sailing ships with mad sea captains, and horrifying old villains and words like "wab!," "tungler," and "kelp?" COURSE you do! Well, guess what, you lucky little nibbleheads? This books got all of those things and a lot more besides. Its a rollicker! Its a frolicker! Its a funtime sun time yollicker! So what you waiting for?
Publisher: Dean
ISBN: 9780603579967
Category : Bears
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Good evening. Do you like bears called Padlock? Course you do. Do you like hot air balloons? Course you do. Do you like tall sailing ships with mad sea captains, and horrifying old villains and words like "wab!," "tungler," and "kelp?" COURSE you do! Well, guess what, you lucky little nibbleheads? This books got all of those things and a lot more besides. Its a rollicker! Its a frolicker! Its a funtime sun time yollicker! So what you waiting for?
Dancing Bears
Author: Witold Szablowski
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101993383
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 265
Book Description
*As heard on NPR’s All Things Considered* “Utterly original.” —The New York Times Book Review “Mixing bold journalism with bolder allegories, Mr. Szabłowski teaches us with witty persistence that we must desire freedom rather than simply expect it.” —Timothy Snyder, New York Times bestselling author of On Tyranny and The Road to Unfreedom An incisive, humorous, and heartbreaking account of people in formerly Communist countries holding fast to their former lives, by the acclaimed author of How to Feed a Dictator and What’s Cooking in the Kremlin For hundreds of years, Bulgarian Gypsies trained bears to dance, welcoming them into their families and taking them on the road to perform. In the early 2000s, with the fall of Communism, they were forced to release the bears into a wildlife refuge. But even today, whenever the bears see a human, they still get up on their hind legs to dance. In the tradition of Ryszard Kapuściński, award-winning Polish journalist Witold Szabłowski uncovers remarkable stories of people throughout Eastern Europe and in Cuba who, like Bulgaria’s dancing bears, are now free but who seem nostalgic for the time when they were not. His on-the-ground reporting—of smuggling a car into Ukraine, hitchhiking through Kosovo as it declares independence, arguing with Stalin-adoring tour guides at the Stalin Museum, sleeping in London’s Victoria Station alongside a homeless woman from Poland, and giving taxi rides to Cubans fearing for the life of Fidel Castro—provides a fascinating portrait of social and economic upheaval and a lesson in the challenges of freedom and the seductions of authoritarian rule. From the Introduction: “Guys with wacky hair who promise a great deal have been springing up in our part of the world like mushrooms after rain. And people go running after them, like bears after their keepers. . . . Fear of a changing world, and longing for someone . . . who will promise that life will be the same as it was in the past, are not confined to Regime-Change Land. In half the West, empty promises are made, wrapped in shiny paper like candy. And for this candy, people are happy to get up on their hind legs and dance.”
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101993383
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 265
Book Description
*As heard on NPR’s All Things Considered* “Utterly original.” —The New York Times Book Review “Mixing bold journalism with bolder allegories, Mr. Szabłowski teaches us with witty persistence that we must desire freedom rather than simply expect it.” —Timothy Snyder, New York Times bestselling author of On Tyranny and The Road to Unfreedom An incisive, humorous, and heartbreaking account of people in formerly Communist countries holding fast to their former lives, by the acclaimed author of How to Feed a Dictator and What’s Cooking in the Kremlin For hundreds of years, Bulgarian Gypsies trained bears to dance, welcoming them into their families and taking them on the road to perform. In the early 2000s, with the fall of Communism, they were forced to release the bears into a wildlife refuge. But even today, whenever the bears see a human, they still get up on their hind legs to dance. In the tradition of Ryszard Kapuściński, award-winning Polish journalist Witold Szabłowski uncovers remarkable stories of people throughout Eastern Europe and in Cuba who, like Bulgaria’s dancing bears, are now free but who seem nostalgic for the time when they were not. His on-the-ground reporting—of smuggling a car into Ukraine, hitchhiking through Kosovo as it declares independence, arguing with Stalin-adoring tour guides at the Stalin Museum, sleeping in London’s Victoria Station alongside a homeless woman from Poland, and giving taxi rides to Cubans fearing for the life of Fidel Castro—provides a fascinating portrait of social and economic upheaval and a lesson in the challenges of freedom and the seductions of authoritarian rule. From the Introduction: “Guys with wacky hair who promise a great deal have been springing up in our part of the world like mushrooms after rain. And people go running after them, like bears after their keepers. . . . Fear of a changing world, and longing for someone . . . who will promise that life will be the same as it was in the past, are not confined to Regime-Change Land. In half the West, empty promises are made, wrapped in shiny paper like candy. And for this candy, people are happy to get up on their hind legs and dance.”