Peel Me a Lotus

Author: Charmian Clift
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781838110123
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 212

Book Description
In 1951 the Australian writers Charmian Clift and George Johnston left grey, post-war London for Greece. Settling first on the tiny island of Kalymnos, then Hydra, their plan was to live simply and focus on their writing The result is Charmian Clift's best known and most loved books, Mermaid Singing and Peel Me a Lotus. Peel Me a Lotus, the companion volume to Mermaid Singing, relates their move to Hydra where they bought a house and grappled with the chaos of domestic life whilst becoming the center of an informal bohemian community of artists and writers. That group included Leonard Cohen, who became their lodger, and his girlfriend Marianne Ihlen Clift paints an evocative picture of the characters and sun-drenched rhythms of traditional life, long before backpackers and mass tourism descended.

A Theatre for Dreamers

Author: Polly Samson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1526600579
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 369

Book Description
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'Delicious' Nigella Lawson 'Clever and beguiling' Guardian 'Sublime and immersive' Jojo Moyes Erica is eighteen and ready for freedom. It's the summer of 1960 when she lands on the sun-baked Greek island of Hydra where she is swept up in a circle of bohemian poets, painters, musicians, writers and artists, living tangled lives. Life on their island paradise is heady, dream-like, a string of seemingly endless summer days. But nothing can last forever. 'A surefire summer hit ... At once a blissful piece of escapism and a powerful meditation on art and sexuality' Observer 'Heady armchair escapism ... An impressionistic, intoxicating rush of sensory experience' Sunday Times 'If summer was suddenly like a novel, it would be like this one. Immaculate' Andrew O'Hagan

The Kindness

Author: Polly Samson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1632860678
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Book Description
A novel both heartbreaking and hopeful, about love and family, and the major and minor ways we lose people in our lives--from an acclaimed talent.

City of a Million Dreams

Author: Jason Berry
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 146964715X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 424

Book Description
In 2015, the beautiful jazz funeral in New Orleans for composer Allen Toussaint coincided with a debate over removing four Confederate monuments. Mayor Mitch Landrieu led the ceremony, attended by living legends of jazz, music aficionados, politicians, and everyday people. The scene captured the history and culture of the city in microcosm--a city legendary for its noisy, complicated, tradition-rich splendor. In City of a Million Dreams, Jason Berry delivers a character-driven history of New Orleans at its tricentennial. Chronicling cycles of invention, struggle, death, and rebirth, Berry reveals the city's survival as a triumph of diversity, its map-of-the-world neighborhoods marked by resilience despite hurricanes, epidemics, fires, and floods. Berry orchestrates a parade of vibrant personalities, from the founder Bienville, a warrior emblazoned with snake tattoos; to Governor William C. C. Claiborne, General Andrew Jackson, and Pere Antoine, an influential priest and secret agent of the Inquisition; Sister Gertrude Morgan, a street evangelist and visionary artist of the 1960s; and Michael White, the famous clarinetist who remade his life after losing everything in Hurricane Katrina. The textured profiles of this extraordinary cast furnish a dramatic narrative of the beloved city, famous the world over for mysterious rituals as people dance when they bury their dead.

Perfect Lives

Author: Polly Samson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1632865505
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 209

Book Description
In an English seaside town, lovers and children, men and women weave in and out of each other's lives and stories. A mother is tormented by her daughter's tattoo; another only pretends to love her baby. A wife stalks her husband and his new lover; a broken egg through a mailbox tells a story that will not go away; the cat thinks he knows best. Threaded throughout are longings for love and poignant disappointments, surprising pleasures and temptations. Some will fall but some, like the small boy at the circus who sees his babysitter fly past on a trapeze wearing little more than a blue bra and spangles, will retain their feeling of awe. The stories in Perfect Lives are rueful, knowing, witty, poignant, bashful, bold. Polly Samson's genius is in the nuance.

Out Of The Picture

Author: Polly Samson
Publisher: Virago
ISBN: 0748128611
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 198

Book Description
Quite unlike her fair stepsisters, Lizzie is dark and secretive: 'Just like your father' says her mother. But what was her father like? Photos of him are hidden away; snatches of overheard conversation between her mother and her stepfather deepen the mystery. Only her best friend Savannah - also abandoned by her father when she was a baby - knows what it feels like to wonder, to try and piece together an earlier story. But when events propel Lizzie alone to London she stops wondering and starts searching... Beautifully evoking the ache of childhood loss, the scrappy joys of chaotic families, and the hurt and relief of understanding, OUT OF THE PICTURE reveals Polly Samson's talent for laying bare the uncomfortable truths that lie just under the skin - in every family, in every secret.

The Sponge Divers

Author: Charmian Clift
Publisher: Angus & Robertson Publishers
ISBN: 9780207169021
Category : Divers
Languages : en
Pages : 318

Book Description
For some 3000 years, the ships on the Greek island of Kalymnos have put out to sea. In recent generations the men have been sponge divers, but then a chemist learned to make a synthetic sponge. A way of life is ending. This is the story of people facing this break in the life of the island.

Inside Out & Back Again

Author: Thanhha Lai
Publisher: Univ. of Queensland Press
ISBN: 0702251178
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 227

Book Description
Moving to America turns H&à's life inside out. For all the 10 years of her life, H&à has only known Saigon: the thrills of its markets, the joy of its traditions, the warmth of her friends close by, and the beauty of her very own papaya tree. But now the Vietnam War has reached her home. H&à and her family are forced to flee as Saigon falls, and they board a ship headed toward hope. In America, H&à discovers the foreign world of Alabama: the coldness of its strangers, the dullness of its food, the strange shape of its landscape, and the strength of her very own family. This is the moving story of one girl's year of change, dreams, grief, and healing as she journeys from one country to another, one life to the next.

Peel Me a Lotus

Author: Charmian Clift
Publisher: Muswell Press
ISBN: 1838110143
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 227

Book Description
In 1951 the Australian writers Charmian Clift and George Johnston left grey, post-war London for Greece. Settling first on the tiny island of Kalymnos, then Hydra, their plan was to live simply and focus on their writing The result is Charmian Clift's best known and most loved books, Mermaid Singing and Peel Me a Lotus. Peel Me a Lotus, the companion volume to Mermaid Singing relates their move to Hydra where they bought a house and grappled with the chaos of domestic life whilst becoming the centre of an informal bohemian community of artists and writers. That group included Leonard Cohen, who became their lodger, and his girlfriend Marianne Ihlen. Clift paints an evocative picture of the characters and sun-drenched rhythms of traditional life, long before backpackers and mass tourism descended.

Fear

Author: Thich Nhat Hanh
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062123815
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 105

Book Description
“Written in words so intimate, calm, kind, and immediate, this extraordinary book feels like a message from our very own heart….Thich Nhat Hanh is one of the most important voices of our time, and we have never needed to listen to him more than now.” —Sogyal Rinpoche Fear is destructive, a pervasive problem we all face. Vietnamese Buddhist Zen Master, poet, scholar, peace activist, and one of the foremost spiritual leaders in the world—a gifted teacher who was once nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King Jr.—Thich Nhat Hanh has written a powerful and practical strategic guide to overcoming our debilitating uncertainties and personal terrors. The New York Times said Hanh, “ranks second only to the Dalai Lama” as the Buddhist leader with the most influence in the West. In Fear: Essential Wisdom for Getting through the Storm, Hanh explores the origins of our fears, illuminating a path to finding peace and freedom from anxiety and offering powerful tools to help us eradicate it from our lives