When Women Were Birds

Author: Terry Tempest Williams
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1250024110
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Book Description
In 54 chapters that unfold like a series of yoga poses, each with its own logic and beauty, Williams creates a lyrical and caring meditation of the mystery of her mother's journals in a book that keeps turning around the question, "What does it mean to have a voice?"

When We Were Birds

Author: Ayanna Lloyd Banwo
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0385547277
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description
A mythic love story set in Trinidad, Ayanna Lloyd Banwo's radiant debut is a masterwork of lush imagination and exuberant storytelling—a spellbinding and hopeful novel about inheritance, loss, and love's seismic power to heal. "Roots the reader in [Trinidad’s] traditions and rituals [and] ... in the glorious matriarchy by which lineage is upheld. The result is a depiction of ordinary life that’s full and breathtaking."—The New York Times Book Review In the old house on a hill, where the city meets the rainforest, Yejide’s mother is dying. She is leaving behind a legacy that now passes to Yejide: one St Bernard woman in every generation has the power to shepherd the city’s souls into the afterlife. But after years of suffering her mother’s neglect and bitterness, Yejide is looking for a way out. Raised in the countryside by a devout Rastafarian mother, Darwin has always abided by the religious commandment not to interact with death. He has never been to a funeral, much less seen a dead body. But when the only job he can find is grave digging, he must betray the life his mother built for him in order to provide for them both. Newly shorn of his dreadlocks and his past, and determined to prove himself, Darwin finds himself adrift in a city electric with possibility and danger. Yejide and Darwin will meet inside the gates of Fidelis, an ancient and sprawling cemetery, where the dead lie uneasy in their graves and a reckoning with fate beckons them both.

When We Were Birds

Author: Joe Wilkins
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
ISBN: 1557286973
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 134

Book Description
In When We Were Birds, Joe Wilkins wrestles his attention away from the griefs, deprivations, and high prairies of his Montana childhood and turns toward "the bean-rusted fields and gutted factories of the Midwest," toward ordinary injustice and everyday sadness, toward the imminent birth of his son and his own confusions in taking up the mantle of fatherhood, toward faith and grace, legacy and luck. A panoply of voices are at play--the escaped convict, the late-night convenience store clerk, and the drowned child all have their say--and as this motley chorus rises and crests, we begin to understand something of what binds us and makes us human: while the world invariably breaks all our hearts, Wilkins insists that is the very "place / hope lives, in the breaking." Within a notable range of form, concern, and voice, the poems here never fail to sing. Whether praiseful or interrogating, When We Were Birds is a book of flight, light, and song. "When we were birds," Wilkins begins, "we veered & wheeled, we flapped & looped-- / it's true, we flew."

If We Were Birds

Author: Erin Shields
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781770910126
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
If We Were Birds is a shocking, uncompromising examination of the horrors of war, giving voice to a woman long ago forced into silence, and placing a spotlight on millions of female victims who have been silenced through violence. A deeply affecting and thought-provoking re-imagining of Ovid's masterpiece "Tereus, Procne, and Philomela," Erin Shields's award-winning play is an unflinching commentary on contemporary war and its aftermath delivered through the lens of Greek tragedy.

The Bone Readers

Author: Jacob Ross
Publisher: Sphere
ISBN: 0751574473
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 219

Book Description
WINNER OF THE JHALAK PRIZE 'The Bone Readers is a page-turner, but its insights and language are equally testament to a literary novel of impressive depth and acuity' Guardian Secrets can be buried, but bones can speak . . . After standing witness to a murder on the streets of the Caribbean island of Camaho, young Michael 'Digger' Digson is recruited into a unique plain clothes homicide squad, an eclectic group of semi-official police officers, led by the enigmatic DS Chilman. Digger becomes enmeshed in Chilman's obsession with a cold case, the disappearance of a young man. But Digger has a murder to pursue too: that of his mother, killed by a renegade police squad when he was a boy. He has two weapons at his disposal - his skill in forensics, and Chilman's latest recruit, the mysterious, observant Miss Stanislaus. Together, the two find themselves dragged into a world of dangerous secrets that demands every ounce of their courage to survive. This award-winning crime debut by highly acclaimed author Jacob Ross marks the thrilling start to a new series following forensics genius Michael Digson. 'It's masterly. I've started to read it again with increasing admiration' Crime Time 'A breath-taking, thought-provoking, and yes brilliant read. I know this is a book I shall go back to again and again' Sunny Singh 'Ross's novel is one that effortlessly draws together the past and the present, gender, politics and the legacy of colonialism in a top quality Caribbean set crime thriller. The Bone Readers is a wonderful read' Catherine Johnson 'By turns thrilling, visceral and meditative, and always cinematic' Musa Okwonga 'An unconventional crime novel, and one that exposes the dark underbelly of 'paradise'' Book Muse (blog) 'I was fascinated by Ross' ability to create characters with depth and diversity. A great read' Not Chai tea (blog) 'A unique read, paced to the islands where it takes place with a group of interesting characters I will enjoy following into future books' Word Dreams (blog) 'An engaging, poetic and twist-filled Caribbean crime-noir novel. Masterful' Book Witty (blog)

All the Birds, Singing

Author: Evie Wyld
Publisher: Pantheon
ISBN: 0307907775
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Book Description
From one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists, a stunningly insightful, emotionally powerful new novel about an outsider haunted by an inescapable past: a story of loneliness and survival, guilt and loss, and the power of forgiveness. Jake Whyte is living on her own in an old farmhouse on a craggy British island, a place of ceaseless rain and battering wind. Her disobedient collie, Dog, and a flock of sheep are her sole companions, which is how she wants it to be. But every few nights something—or someone—picks off one of the sheep and sounds a new deep pulse of terror. There are foxes in the woods, a strange boy and a strange man, and rumors of an obscure, formidable beast. And there is also Jake’s past, hidden thousands of miles away and years ago, held in the silences about her family and the scars that stripe her back—a past that threatens to break into the present. With exceptional artistry and empathy, All the Birds, Singing reveals an isolated life in all its struggles and stubborn hopes, unexpected beauty, and hard-won redemption. This eBook edition includes a Reading Group Guide.

Birds Without Wings

Author: Louis de Bernieres
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307424995
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 578

Book Description
In his first novel since Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernières creates a world, populates it with characters as real as our best friends, and launches it into the maelstrom of twentieth-century history. The setting is a small village in southwestern Anatolia in the waning years of the Ottoman Empire. Everyone there speaks Turkish, though they write it in Greek letters. It’s a place that has room for a professional blasphemer; where a brokenhearted aga finds solace in the arms of a Circassian courtesan who isn’t Circassian at all; where a beautiful Christian girl named Philothei is engaged to a Muslim boy named Ibrahim. But all of this will change when Turkey enters the modern world. Epic in sweep, intoxicating in its sensual detail, Birds Without Wings is an enchantment.

We Are All Birds of Uganda

Author: Hafsa Zayyan
Publisher: Merky Books
ISBN: 9781529118667
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
'A remarkably accomplished, polished debut.' MALORIE BLACKMAN 'Rightfully tipped for greatness' SUNDAY TIMES 'This moving tale of love and loss ... is well worth the wait' INDEPENDENT ' W hat's distinctive is the modern, multi-ethnic vision of masculinity she presents and the solidarity that emerges from it ... undeniably powerful too.' GUARDIAN ' A sprawling and epic dual narrative ... woven together with gentle urgency; sensitive and with a rare perspective on how our mixed race backgrounds can help form feelings of both internal power and conflict.' I-D MAGAZINE 'You can't exactly stop birds from flying, can you? They go where they will...' 1960s UGANDA. Hasan is struggling to run his family business following the sudden death of his wife. Just as he begins to see a way forward, a new regime seizes power, and a wave of rising prejudice threatens to sweep away everything he has built. Present-day LONDON. Sameer, a young high-flying lawyer, senses an emptiness in what he thought was the life of his dreams. Called back to his family home by an unexpected tragedy, Sameer begins to find the missing pieces of himself not in his future plans, but in a past he never knew. Shortlisted for the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award 2022

Red-Tails in Love

Author: Marie Winn
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0679758461
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 353

Book Description
Updated Edition—Ten Years Later The scene of this enchanting (and true) story is the Ramble, an unknown wilderness deep in the heart of New York's fabled Central Park. There an odd and amiable band of nature lovers devote themselves to observing and protecting the park's rich wildlife. When a pair of red-tailed hawks builds a nest atop a Fifth Avenue apartment house across the street from the model-boat pond, Marie Winn and her fellow "Regulars" are soon transformed into obsessed hawkwatchers. The hilarious and occasionally heartbreaking saga of Pale Male and his mate as they struggle to raise a family in their unprecedented nest site, and the affectionate portrait of the humans who fall under their spell will delight and inspire readers for years to come.

When There Were Birds

Author: Roy Adkins
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 140871356X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 343

Book Description
A landmark book that charts humanity's changing relationship with birds - from the ancient Egyptians to the twenty-first century 'A marvellously original slice of social history' Daily Mail 'The facts and folklore of birdlife are dissected in admirable detail in this handsome book' Sunday Times 'Roy and Lesley Adkins are masters of their craft' BBC Countryfile Magazine No other group of animals has had such a complex and lengthy relationship with humankind as birds. They have been kept in cages as pets, taught to speak and displayed as trophies. More practically, they have been used to tell the time, predict the weather, foretell marriages, provide unlikely cures for ailments, convey messages and warn of poisonous gases. When There Were Birds is a social history of Britain that charts the complex connections between people and birds, set against a background of changes in the landscape and evolving tastes, beliefs and behaviours. It draws together many disparate, forgotten strands to present a story that is an intriguing and unexpectedly significant part of our heritage.