Winner of the 2016 Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and longlisted for the 2017 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, this extraordinary novel tells the story of three musicians in China before, during and after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
Madeleine Thien's new novel is breathtaking in scope and ambition even as it is hauntingly intimate. With the ease and skill of a master storyteller, Thien takes us inside an extended family in China, showing us the lives of two successive generations--those who lived through Mao's Cultural Revolution in the mid-twentieth century; and the children of the survivors, who became the students protesting in Tiananmen Square in 1989, in one of the most important political moments of the past century. With exquisite writing sharpened by a surprising vein of wit and sly humour, Thien has crafted unforgettable characters who are by turns flinty and headstrong, dreamy and tender, foolish and wise.
At the centre of this epic tale, as capacious and mysterious as life itself, are enigmatic Sparrow, a genius composer who wishes desperately to create music yet can find truth only in silence; his mother and aunt, Big Mother Knife and Swirl, survivors with captivating singing voices and an unbreakable bond; Sparrow's ethereal cousin Zhuli, daughter of Swirl and storyteller Wen the Dreamer, who as a child witnesses the denunciation of her parents and as a young woman becomes the target of denunciations herself; and headstrong, talented Kai, best friend of Sparrow and Zhuli, and a determinedly successful musician who is a virtuoso at masking his true self until the day he can hide no longer. Here, too, is Kai's daughter, the ever-questioning mathematician Marie, who pieces together the tale of her fractured family in present-day Vancouver, seeking a fragile meaning in the layers of their collective story.
With maturity and sophistication, humour and beauty, a huge heart and impressive understanding, Thien has crafted a novel that is at once beautifully intimate and grandly political, rooted in the details of daily life inside China, yet transcendent in its universality.
'Late one evening towards the end of March, a teenager picked up a double-barrelled shotgun, walked into the forest, put the gun to someone else's forehead and pulled the trigger.
This is the story of how we got there.'
For most of the year it is under a thick blanket of snow, experiencing the kind of cold and dark that brings people closer together - or pulls them apart.
Its isolation means that Beartown has been slowly shrinking with each passing year. But now the town is on the verge of an astonishing revival. Everyone can feel the excitement. A bright new future is just around the corner.
Until the day it is all put in jeopardy by a single, brutal act. It divides the town into those who think it should be hushed up and forgotten, and those who'll risk the future to see justice done. At last, it falls to one young man to find the courage to speak the truth that it seems no one else wants to hear.
With the town's future at stake, no one can stand by or stay silent. Everyone is on one side or the other.
Which side would you be on?
Amsterdam 1654: a dangerous secret threatens to destroy a young widow's new life.
Following the sudden death of her husband, 25-year-old Catrin leaves her small village and takes a job as housekeeper to the successful Van Nulandt merchant family. Amsterdam is a city at the peak of its powers: science and art are flourishing, and Dutch ships bring back exotic riches from the Far East.
When a figure from her past threatens her new life, Catrin flees to Delft. There, her painting talent earns her a chance as a pottery painter. Slowly the workshop begins to develop a new type of pottery to rival the coveted Chinese porcelain - and Delft Blue is born. But when tragedy strikes, Catrin has a hard choice to make.
Rich and engrossing, Midnight Blue is perfect for fans of Tulip Fever and Girl with a Pearl Earring.
"The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed." Like all of Steve Biko's writings, those words testify to the passion, courage, and keen insight that made him one of the most powerful figures in South Africa's struggle against apartheid. They also reflect his conviction that black people in South Africa could not be liberated until they united to break their chains of servitude, a key tenet of the Black Consciousness movement that he helped found.
I Write What I Like contains a selection of Biko's writings from 1969, when he became the president of the South African Students' Organization, to 1972, when he was prohibited from publishing. The collection also includes a preface by Archbishop Desmond Tutu; an introduction by Malusi and Thoko Mpumlwana, who were both involved with Biko in the Black Consciousness movement; a memoir of Biko by Father Aelred Stubbs, his longtime pastor and friend; and a new foreword by Professor Lewis Gordon.
Biko's writings will inspire and educate anyone concerned with issues of racism, postcolonialism, and black nationalism.
A fresh, nuanced look at an extraordinary woman and her lifelong fight for justice. Defying the constraints of her gender and class, Emily Hobhouse travelled across continents and spoke out against oppression. A passionate pacifist and a feminist, she opposed both the 1899-1902 Anglo-Boer War and World War One, which led to accusations of treason. Despite saving thousands of lives in two wars, she died alone - an unsung hero in her own country. Elsabé Brits travelled in Emily Hobhouse's footsteps, retracing her inspirational, often astonishing story. In Canada the author discovered Hobhouse's handwritten notebooks, scrapbooks and letters in a trunk. With Emily Hobhouse: Beloved Traitor, she brings to life a colourful story of war, heroism and passion, spanning three continents.
"Christopher writes with passion about the history, people and customs of the Mediterranean, spanning one hundred centuries. Vivid accounts of fiction and fact are cunningly blended in this historical novel to draw the reader into the age of the Ottoman Empire, the Catholic Knights of Malta and the events leading to and the devastation of the Great Siege of Malta in 1565." EvG
Die fassinerende verhaal van ’n vrou wat in die laat vyftigerjare in Suid-Afrika gebore is. Gebeure soos die oproer van die sewentiger- en tagtigerjare en die ingrypende sosio-politieke veranderinge in die land dra by tot haar politieke bewuswording en belewenisse en laat haar dikwels vrae vra oor haar identiteit en plek binne die samelewing. Sy is ’n vrou wat vasgevang is binne die beperkings van ’n stelsel, maar met ’n versigtige blik op dinge soos die “tuislandbeleid”, die “expat”-generasie, moederskap, die lewe in Afrika en vele ander betekenisvolle aangeleenthede. Hierdie uiteenlopende invloede word deurlopend teen die agtergrond van haar witheid beleef. Die titel van hierdie fyn genuanseerde roman dui op ’n bewustheid dat haar storie maar net een van vele in hierdie land en op hierdie kontinent is.
Donna Tartt, winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for her most recent novel, The Goldfinch, established herself as a major talent with The Secret History, which has become a contemporary classic.
Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality their lives are changed profoundly and forever, and they discover how hard it can be to truly live and how easy it is to kill.
Why did Gandhi hate iodine (I, 53)? How did radium (Ra, 88) nearly ruin Marie Curie's reputation? And why is gallium (Ga, 31) the go-to element for laboratory pranksters?*
The Periodic Table is a crowning scientific achievement, but it's also a treasure trove of adventure, betrayal, and obsession. These fascinating tales follow every element on the table as they play out their parts in human history, and in the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them. THE DISAPPEARING SPOON masterfully fuses science with the classic lore of invention, investigation, and discovery--from the Big Bang through the end of time.
*Though solid at room temperature, gallium is a moldable metal that melts at 84 degrees Fahrenheit. A classic science prank is to mold gallium spoons, serve them with tea, and watch guests recoil as their utensils disappear.
'It's so good it'll leave you wanting to change your own life, to be a better person' INDEPENDENT
'Witty and sincere... very clever.' HUFFINGTON POST
'Another stand-out book from this outstanding author.' THE SUN, BOOK OF THE WEEK
'I absolutely loved this story... Extence has such a dry, witty style of writing.' MARIE CLAIRE
'Extence keeps the twists and turns coming, full of mordant wit, until the bitter end.' DAILY MAIL
RESCUED. GABRIEL HAS NEVER RESCUED ANYONE BEFORE. BUT WHEN HIS LIFE GETS TURNED UPSIDE DOWN THERE'S NO MORE TIME FOR REGRETS OR MISSED CHNACES. AND GABRIEL IS JUST ABOUT READY TO GRAB EVERY CHANCE LIFE THROWS AT HIM
