She considers what a homeland would be for a divided nation and a divided self: what it means to enter language, the body, the family, the community; to be a daughter, sister, lover, citizen, or exile.In settings from New York to San Francisco, from Scotland to Seoul, her poems question "what threads hold / our lives together" in cities and gardens, battlefields and small towns. Across the no-man's-land between every "you" and "I," her speakers encounter, quarrel with, or honor others, traveling between the living and the dead, between horror over the disastrous events of the past and hope for the future. Drawing upon a wide range of voices, styles, and perspectives, Notes from the Divided Country bears witness to the vanishing world.

    Novel set in 3rd and 4th century India

    Author Bob Fenster has captured all their hilarious, behind-the-scenes antics in They Did What!? Consider, for example:o The Beach Boys originally wanted to call their group the Pendletons, so they could get free shirts from the Oregon clothing manufacturer.o At her wedding, movie star Lana Turner had "I love you" spelled out in pimentos in the sides of baked hams.o Before they hit it big in the movies, Angelina Jolie studied to be a funeral director and Sean Connery polished coffins.Filled with hundreds of fascinating escapades and interesting idiosyncrasies, They Did What!? also looks at issues associated with fame, such as "Why do famous people marry other famous people?" and includes tongue-in-cheek lessons we can learn from celebrities, like "How to become famous and still get into heaven."

    Determined to learn the truth about his family's cloudy past, he sets sail for Ireland, and quickly becomes involved in a struggle between soldiers of the newly formed Irish Republican Army and the brutal British troops. Amidst the lush and rugged Irish countryside, and the horrible violence unfolding across it, Ben must search for the truth of his identity, and the ties of his family's blood.

    For seventeen-year-old Connie, however, the newcomers provide a tantalising glimpse of the wider world — a world beyond the gossip and petty concerns traded over the counter of Cleat’s Corner Store. As the Onorati brothers begin to cast an unexpected influence over Leyton, Connie realises that, like them, she must grapple with her ambitions and dreams for the future. But what can any of them hope to find in the ruins of all they’ve lost?

    For many they’re as close as children; for some they may be our only children. And while most of us can expect that our children will outlive us, sadly, our pets almost never do.Losing a pet can be as difficult as losing any other family member; we grieve, we miss them, and, mostly, we want closure, to know that our furry, feathered, or scaled friends are okay, wherever they are.For years, animal communicator Sonya Fitzpatrick has helped pet owners cope with the loss of their beloved companions. Many of them ask the same questions: Is my pet happy? Why did this happen? Is it okay to get another pet? Using her personal experiences as well as the stories of the families she’s worked with, Sonya sheds some light on the questions that every grieving pet owner has, and assures the reader that there are, in fact, no sad dogs (or cats or birds or turtles or horses or cows) in heaven.

    But all of that changes when she drives her car into the darkened parking lot of a fast food restaurant. After she lowers her car window to place an order at the drive-thru, a man suddenly appears and places a gun at her temple. What follows is every woman's worst nightmare. The Edge of Malice is a true story about struggle, determination, and a quest for justice. The author, an attorney, places the reader into the swirling currents of the courtroom where no outcome is ever certain. But the story does not conclude when the legal battle is over. The reader follows Marie as she struggles to resolve the unrelenting anger that the legal system has been unable to extinguish. In the end, Marie's journey to find inner peace is as improbable as it is transformative.

    . . A woman in an arranged marriage struggles to connect with the son she hid from her husband for years . . . A well-meaning sister unwittingly reunites an abuser with his victims . . . Through the lives of an indelible array of individuals--musicians, housewives and pastors, children and grandparents, the men and women who own the dry cleaners and the mini-marts--Yoon Choi explores the Korean American experience at its interstices: where first and second generations either clash or find common ground; where meaning falls in the cracks between languages; where relationships bend under the weight of tenderness and disappointment; where displacement turns to heartbreak. Suffused with a profound understanding of humanity, Skinship is, ultimately, a searing look at the failure of intimacy to show us who the people we love truly are.

    While an acolyte at the temple, he fixates on the structure’s aesthetic perfection and it becomes the one and only object of his desire. But as Mizoguchi begins to perceive flaws in the temple, he determines that the only true path to beauty lies in an act of horrendous violence. Based on a real incident that occurred in 1950, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion brilliantly portrays the passions and agonies of a young man in postwar Japan, bringing to the subject the erotic imagination and instinct for the dramatic moment that marked Mishima as one of the towering makers of modern fiction. With an introduction by Donald Keene; Translated from the Japanese by Ivan Morris.(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)

    It appears to be suicide, by a cocktail of morphine, alcohol and Valium. But upon investigation by a CID inspector, who might not be what he seems, the family discover there may be far more sinister circumstances behind his death, reaching the uppermost echelons of government. Death of a Perm Sec exposes the dark heart of power politics, from the country’s tumultuous post-independence days to the socio-political landscape of the 1980s.

    The Vardanank novel is based on real historical events of the 5th century- the Armenian Liberation War, historically known as the "war of Vardanians".It is written by a bright, juicy language, includes historically colorful images of St Vardan's associates, the real picture of the life of Persian and Byzantine ruling circles.

    What they found was Kim Hyun Hee, an idealistic young woman who had been transformed by her country into an obedient killing machine. The Tears of My Soul is her poignant, shocking, and utterly compelling story. Kim Hyun Hee grew up in a country obsessed by the loss of South Korea, an Orwellian world where right and wrong, good and evil, slavery and freedom meant nothing but what the North Korean Communist Party said they did. At sixteen, she was singled out by the Party for her intelligence and beauty and given special training in languages. At nineteen she was honored to be chosen for the North Korean Army's secret and elite espionage school. There she was trained to kill with everything from her hands and feet to grenades and assault rifles, enduring years of grueling physical and psychological conditioning designed to make her an effective and utterly obedient tool of the Party's spy masters. And in 1987, at age twenty-five, she was sent on the mission that would, she was told, reunify her divided country forever. Kim and her control agent, a man she considered her spiritual father, were captured only hours after the explosion. They were provided with suicide capsules, but hers failed and, for the first time in her life, Kim was outside the control of her masters. After more than a year of soul-wrenching questioning and deprogramming by the South Korean police, Kim realized the full enormity of her crimes, made a full confession, and waited for execution. But in a remarkable decision that sparked national outrage, the South Korean president gave her a full pardon, declaring that she was as much a victim of North Korea as the passengers. Kim Hyun Hee has devoted the rest of her life to atoning for the 115 lives lost on flight 858.

    In 1995, at the age of twenty-three, Michael Meyer joined the Peace Corps and, after rejecting offers to go to seven other countries, was sent to a tiny town in Sichuan. Knowing nothing about China, or even how to use chopsticks, Meyer wrote Chinese words up and down his arms so he could hold conversations, and, per a Communist dean's orders, jumped into teaching his students about the Enlightenment, the stock market, and Beatles lyrics. Soon he realized his Chinese counterparts were just as bewildered by China's changes as he was.Thus began an impassioned immersion into Chinese life. With humor and insight, Meyer puts readers in his novice shoes, winding across the length and breadth of his adopted country --from a terrifying bus attack on arrival, to remote Xinjiang and Tibet, into Beijing's backstreets and his future wife's Manchurian family, and headlong into efforts to protect China's vanishing heritage at places like Sleeping Dragon, the world's largest panda preserve.In the last book of his China trilogy, Meyer tells a story both deeply personal and universal, as he gains greater - if never complete - assurance, capturing what it feels like to learn a language, culture and history from the ground up. Both funny and relatable, The Road to Sleeping Dragon is essential reading for anyone interested in China's history, and how daily life plays out there today.

    Beijing, sometime in the near future: a month has gone missing from official records. No one has any memory of it, and no one can care less. Except for a small circle of friends, who will stop at nothing to get to the bottom of the sinister cheerfulness and amnesia that has possessed the Chinese nation. When they kidnap a high-ranking official and force him to reveal all, what they learn - not only about their leaders, but also about their own people - stuns them to the core. It is a message that will rock the world... Terrifying methods of cunning, deception and terror are unveiled by the truth-seekers in this thriller-expose of the Communist Party's stranglehold on China today.'An all-encompassing metaphor for today's looming superpower' OBSERVER

    The death of the author's mother sparks a series of reflections on the secret roles mothers play in the lives of troubled adolescents.