Mister Pip

Author: Lloyd Jones
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1459616359
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 278

Book Description
Lloyd Jones' new novel is set mainly in a small village on Bougainville, a country torn apart by civil war. Matilda attends the school set up by Mr Watts, the only white man on the island. By his own admission he's not much of a teacher and proceeds to educate the children by reading them Great Expectations. Matilda falls in love with the novel, strongly identifying with Pip. The promise of the next chapter is what keeps her going; Pip's story protects her from the horror of what is happening around her - helicopters menacing the skies above the village and rebel raids on the ground. When the rebels visit the village searching for any remaining men to join their cause, they discover the name Pip written in the sand and instigate a search for him. When Pip can't be found the soldiers destroy the book. Mr Watts then encourages the children to retell the story from their memories. Then when the rebels invade the village, the teacher tells them a story which lasts seven nights, about a boy named Pip, and a convict . . .

He's Not Lazy

Author: Adam Price
Publisher: Union Square & Co.
ISBN: 1454926457
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 243

Book Description
“Clinical psychologist Price offers one of the most significant books of the year in this new look at an old problem—the underperforming teenage boy… Price’s book brings an important voice to a much needed conversation.” —Library Journal (Starred review) On the surface, capable teenage boys may look lazy. But dig a little deeper, writes child psychologist Adam Price in He’s Not Lazy, and you’ll often find conflicted boys who want to do well in middle and high school but are afraid to fail, and so do not try. This book can help you become an ally with your son, as he discovers greater self-confidence and accepts responsibility for his future. Why are some teenage boys unmotivated? Why do they spend endless hours playing video games or glued to their phones and social media sites instead of studying? Is this a sign of laziness or something more troubling? As a clinical psychologist, Dr. Adam Price has found that teenage boys are extremely sensitive to the stress of our competitive achievement-oriented culture—one that has created a pressure cooker for today’s adolescent. In He’s Not Lazy, Dr. Price, a renowned expert on ADHD and learning disabilities, explains how to help a boy who is not lazy, but rather, is conflicted about trying his best. Dr. Price will guide you to discover hidden obstacles to your son’s success, set expectations, and empower him to accept responsibility for his own future. He’s Not Lazy will help you become your son’s ally, as he discovers greater self-confidence and becomes more self-reliant. Rather than reacting to pressure by shunning academic responsibilities altogether or propping up fear-based rebellion with justifications like “I am not going to be one of those nerds who have no life,” or “Tests don’t measure intelligence or help you learn, so what’s the point of studying for them?” your teenage son can work with you using the guidance in this book.

Mr Peacock's Possessions

Author: Lydia Syson
Publisher: Bonnier Publishing Fiction Ltd.
ISBN: 147140370X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 344

Book Description
An intimate, intense and beautifully realised novel of possession, power and the liberating loss of innocence, this will delight fans of MISTER PIP and THE POISONWOOD BIBLE. Oceania, 1879. For two years the Peacocks, a determined family of settlers, have struggled to make a remote volcanic island their home. At last, a ship appears. The six Pacific Islanders on board have travelled over eight hundred miles in search of new horizons. Hopes are high, until a vulnerable boy vanishes. In their search for the lost child, settlers and newcomers together uncover far more than they were looking for. The island's secrets force young Lizzie Peacock to question her deepest convictions, and slowly this tiny, fragile community begins to fracture . . . 'Intelligent, beautifully written' The Times 'Historical fiction fans, meet your new favourite author' Stella Magazine 'Beautifully written, immaculately researched and powerfully imagined' Lancashire Evening Post

Great Expectations

Author: Charles Dickens
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 300

Book Description
Great Expectations is the thirteenth novel by Charles Dickens and his penultimate completed novel. It depicts the education of an orphan nicknamed Pip. It is Dickens's second novel, after David Copperfield, to be fully narrated in the first person.

Goodness and the Literary Imagination

Author: Toni Morrison
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813943639
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 297

Book Description
What exactly is goodness? Where is it found in the literary imagination? Toni Morrison, one of American letters’ greatest voices, pondered these perplexing questions in her celebrated Ingersoll Lecture, delivered at Harvard University in 2012 and published now for the first time in book form. Perhaps because it is overshadowed by the more easily defined evil, goodness often escapes our attention. Recalling many literary examples, from Ahab to Coetzee’s Michael K, Morrison seeks the essence of goodness and ponders its significant place in her writing. She considers the concept in relation to unforgettable characters from her own works of fiction and arrives at conclusions that are both eloquent and edifying. In a lively interview conducted for this book, Morrison further elaborates on her lecture’s ideas, discussing goodness not only in literature but in society and history—particularly black history, which has responded to centuries of brutality with profound creativity. Morrison’s essay is followed by a series of responses by scholars in the fields of religion, ethics, history, and literature to her thoughts on goodness and evil, mercy and love, racism and self-destruction, language and liberation, together with close examination of literary and theoretical expressions from her works. Each of these contributions, written by a scholar of religion, considers the legacy of slavery and how it continues to shape our memories, our complicities, our outcries, our lives, our communities, our literature, and our faith. In addition, the contributors engage the religious orientation in Morrison’s novels so that readers who encounter her many memorable characters such as Sula, Beloved, or Frank Money will learn and appreciate how Morrison’s notions of goodness and mercy also reflect her understanding of the sacred and the human spirit.

Here at the End of the World We Learn to Dance

Author: Lloyd Jones
Publisher: Vintage Canada
ISBN: 0307369684
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 261

Book Description
Available in Canada for the first time from the author of Mister Pip The two intertwined love stories in this brilliant novel take the reader from New Zealand to Buenos Aires to Sydney, from the final days of WWI, to the present moment, and back again. Drawing on the intimate rhythms of the tango to find its shape, Jones has written a thrilling and sensuous essay on how we can fall in love, while brilliantly evoking the spare and windswept landscapes of New Zealand’s South Island and the stately sensuous contours of one of the world’s most famous dances.

The Man in the Shed

Author: Lloyd Jones
Publisher: Text Publishing
ISBN: 1921520663
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Book Description
A boy watches his mother hooked and reeled ashore by a fisherman. A man builds a swing in the backyard to sit between his wife and her lover. A couple gives up their seat on a bus for lovers soon to be parted. A boy sees his mother come to life gliding on roller skates. Lloyd Jones's The Man in the Shed is a haunting collection of stories about family and longing. Jones's extraordinary tales take conventional family situations and tilt them sideways, delivering a memorable, beautiful blend of the suburban and the surreal.

Jack Maggs

Author: Peter Carey
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307426440
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 370

Book Description
The Booker Prize-winning author of Oscar and Lucinda returns to the nineteenth century in an utterly captivating mystery. The year is 1837 and a stranger is prowling London. He is Jack Maggs, an illegal returnee from the prison island of Australia. He has the demeanor of a savage and the skills of a hardened criminal, and he is risking his life on seeking vengeance and reconciliation. Installing himself within the household of the genteel grocer Percy Buckle, Maggs soon attracts the attention of a cross section of London society. Saucy Mercy Larkin wants him for a mate. The writer Tobias Oates wants to possess his soul through hypnosis. But Maggs is obsessed with a plan of his own. And as all the various schemes converge, Maggs rises into the center, a dark looming figure, at once frightening, mysterious, and compelling. Not since Caleb Carr's The Alienist have the shadowy city streets of the nineteenth century lit up with such mystery and romance.

The Book of Fame

Author: Lloyd Jones
Publisher: Vintage Canada
ISBN: 0307363848
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 178

Book Description
A glorious novel from the award-winning author of Mister Pip, now available as a trade paperback original from Vintage Canada. The Book of Fame is a lyrical semi-fictional account of the 1905 All Black rugby tour of Europe - a tour that shaped New Zealand's identity, from which the players returned to find themselves accorded almost god-like status. This remarkable, award-winning novel is both a tribute to some of the world's first sporting celebrities and an investigation into the curious workings of fame. Not just a book for lovers of sport, The Book of Fame is essentially a story about friendship and loyalty, and about a group of astonishing young men at the peak of their abilities.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

Author: Helen Simonson
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 140880932X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 402

Book Description
Major Ernest Pettigrew is perfectly content to lead a quiet life in the sleepy village of Edgecombe St Mary, away from the meddling of the locals and his overbearing son. But when his brother dies, the Major finds himself seeking companionship with the village shopkeeper, Mrs Ali. Drawn together by a love of books and the loss of their partners, they are soon forced to contend with irate relatives and gossiping villagers. The perfect gentleman, but the most unlikely hero, the Major must ask himself what matters most: family obligation, tradition or love? Funny, comforting and heart-warming, Major Pettigrew's Last Stand proves that sometimes, against all odds, life does give you a second chance.