The Ghosts of Birds

Author: Eliot Weinberger
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
ISBN: 0811226190
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Book Description
A new collection from “one of the world’s great essayists” (The New York Times) The Ghosts of Birds offers thirty-five essays by Eliot Weinberger: the first section of the book continues his linked serial-essay, An Elemental Thing, which pulls the reader into “a vortex for the entire universe” (Boston Review). Here, Weinberger chronicles a nineteenth-century journey down the Colorado River, records the dreams of people named Chang, and shares other factually verifiable discoveries that seem too fabulous to possibly be true. The second section collects Weinberger’s essays on a wide range of subjects—some of which have been published in Harper’s, New York Review of Books, and London Review of Books—including his notorious review of George W. Bush’s memoir Decision Points and writings about Mongolian art and poetry, different versions of the Buddha, American Indophilia (“There is a line, however jagged, from pseudo-Hinduism to Malcolm X”), Béla Balázs, Herbert Read, and Charles Reznikoff. This collection proves once again that Weinberger is “one of the bravest and sharpest minds in the United States” (Javier Marías).

An Elemental Thing

Author: Eliot Weinberger
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
ISBN: 0811223701
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 212

Book Description
Internationally acclaimed as one of the most innovative writers today, Eliot Weinberger has taken the essay into unexplored territories on the borders of poetry and narrative where the only rule, according to the author, is that all the information must be verifiable. With An Elemental Thing, Weinberger turns from his celebrated political chronicles to the timelessness of the subjects of his literary essays. With the wisdom of a literary archaeologist-astronomer-anthropologist-zookeeper, he leads us through histories, fables, and meditations about the ten thousand things in the universe: the wind and the rhinoceros, Catholic saints and people named Chang, the Mandaeans on the Iran-Iraq border and the Kaluli in the mountains of New Guinea. Among the thirty-five essays included are a poetic biography of the prophet Muhammad, which was praised by the London Times for its "great beauty and grace," and "The Stars," a reverie on what's up there that has already been translated into Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, and Maori.

Ghosts of Gone Birds

Author: Chris Aldhous
Publisher: Bloomsbury Natural History
ISBN: 9781408187463
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
A visual record of the first four Ghosts of Gone Birds exhibitions, this book introduces the ideas behind this unique art and conservation project, providing a platform for the artists to tell us why they got involved, and how they approached the brief – to “breathe life back into the birds we have lost – so we don't lose any more”. Featuring the work of more than 180 artists and writers, Ghosts of Gone Birds captures the dazzling diversity of gone birds that exist beyond the familiar shape of the Dodo, and re-introduces the world to the delights of species like the Red-moustached Fruit Dove, the Snail-eating Coua and the Laughing Owl.

What Happened Here

Author: Eliot Weinberger
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
ISBN: 9780811216388
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 200

Book Description
Bush in January 2001 - and an eerie prediction of the invasion of Iraq - and picks up on September 12, with an account of downtown Manhattan, where Weinberger lives, on the "day after.""--BOOK JACKET.

Ghost Bird

Author: Lisa Fuller
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781910646809
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
A thrilling, multi award-winning, teen ghost story, from a First Nations Australian author, drawing on the culture and beliefs of her close-knit community. Stacey and Laney are twins and mirror images of each other but as different as the sun and the moon. Stacey wants to go places, do things and be someone different while Laney just wants to skip school and sneak out of the house to meet her boyfriend Troy. When Laney doesn't come home one night, the town assumes she's just doing her normal run-off but Stacey's gut tells her different.Stacey knows her twin isn't dead - she just doesn't know where she is; she can see her in her dreams but doesn't know if she is real or imagined. Holding onto the words her Nan taught her is one thing but listening to those around you is another - who will Stacey trust? As the town starts to believe that Laney is missing for good, can she find her twin in time?'Part coming-of-age story, part "Romeo and Juliet" romance, part speculative fiction, part Aboriginal spiritual revelation, part mystery - this is a story that is mature on many levels.' ReadPlus

Angels & Saints

Author: Eliot Weinberger
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
ISBN: 0811229874
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 153

Book Description
A gorgeously illustrated co-publication with Christine Burgin by “one of the world’s great essayists” (The New York Times). With a guide to the illustrations by Mary Wellesley. Angels have soared through Western culture and consciousness from Biblical to contemporary times. But what do we really know about these celestial beings? Where do they come from, what are they made of, how do they communicate and perceive? The celebrated essayist Eliot Weinberger has mined and deconstructed, resurrected and distilled centuries of theology into an awe-inspiring exploration of the heavenly host. From a litany of angelic voices, Weinberger’s lyrical meditation then turns to the earthly counterparts, the saints, their lives retold in a series of vibrant and playful capsule biographies, followed by a glimpse of the afterlife. Threaded throughout Angels & Saints are the glorious illuminated grid poems by the eighteenth-century Benedictine monk Hrabanus Maurus. These astonishingly complex, proto-“concrete” poems are untangled in a lucid afterword by the medieval scholar and historian Mary Wellesley.

May Bird, Warrior Princess

Author: Jodi Lynn Anderson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0689869258
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 265

Book Description
This third and final installment of Andersons Ever After saga delivers even more of the sly hilarity and horror, original touches, and poignant moments that earned starred reviews for the first two novels of the trilogy.

Oranges & Peanuts for Sale

Author: Eliot Weinberger
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
ISBN: 9780811218344
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Book Description
Presented at the PEN World Voices Festival as a "post-national" writer, Eliot Weinberger is "a sparkling essayist" (Confrontation), and his writings "a boundary-crossing, shape-shifting cabinet of curiosities" (The Bloomsbury Review).

Birds of Paradise Lost

Author: Andrew Lam
Publisher: Red Hen Press
ISBN: 1597092789
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 172

Book Description
From the award-winning author of Perfume Dreams, a collection of thirteen short stories following Vietnamese immigrants new to the United States. The thirteen stories in Birds of Paradise Lost shimmer with humor and pathos as they chronicle the anguish and joy and bravery of America’s newest Americans, the troubled lives of those who fled Vietnam and remade themselves in the San Francisco Bay Area. The past—memories of war and its aftermath, of murder, arrest, re-education camps and new economic zones, of escape and shipwreck and atrocity—is ever present in these wise and compassionate stories. It plays itself out in surprising ways in the lives of people who thought they had moved beyond the nightmares of war and exodus. It comes back on TV in the form of a confession from a cannibal; it enters the Vietnamese restaurant as a Vietnam Vet with a shameful secret; it articulates itself in the peculiar tics of a man with Tourette’s Syndrome who struggles to deal with a profound tragedy. Birds of Paradise Lost is an emotional tour de force, intricately rendering the false starts and revelations in the struggle for integration, and in so doing, the human heart. *Finalist for the California Book Award* “His stories are elegant and humane and funny and sad. Lam has instantly established himself as one of our finest fiction writers.” —Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Perfume Mountain “Read Andrew Lam, and bask in his love of language, and his compassion for people, both those here and those far away.” —Maxine Hong Kingston, award-winning author of The Woman Warrior

What It's Like to Be a Bird

Author: David Allen Sibley
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0525520295
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Book Description
The bird book for birders and nonbirders alike that will excite and inspire by providing a new and deeper understanding of what common, mostly backyard, birds are doing—and why: "Can birds smell?"; "Is this the same cardinal that was at my feeder last year?"; "Do robins 'hear' worms?" "The book's beauty mirrors the beauty of birds it describes so marvelously." —NPR In What It's Like to Be a Bird, David Sibley answers the most frequently asked questions about the birds we see most often. This special, large-format volume is geared as much to nonbirders as it is to the out-and-out obsessed, covering more than two hundred species and including more than 330 new illustrations by the author. While its focus is on familiar backyard birds—blue jays, nuthatches, chickadees—it also examines certain species that can be fairly easily observed, such as the seashore-dwelling Atlantic puffin. David Sibley's exacting artwork and wide-ranging expertise bring observed behaviors vividly to life. (For most species, the primary illustration is reproduced life-sized.) And while the text is aimed at adults—including fascinating new scientific research on the myriad ways birds have adapted to environmental changes—it is nontechnical, making it the perfect occasion for parents and grandparents to share their love of birds with young children, who will delight in the big, full-color illustrations of birds in action. Unlike any other book he has written, What It's Like to Be a Bird is poised to bring a whole new audience to David Sibley's world of birds.