Masks
Fumiko Enchi - 1958
This is a curiously elegant and scandalous tale of sexual deception and revenge. Ibuki loves widow Yasuko who is young, charming and sparkling with intelligence as well as beauty. His friend, Mikame, desires her too but that is not the difficulty. What troubles Ibuki is the curious bond that has grown between Yasuko and her mother-in-law, Mieko, a handsome, cultivated yet jealous woman in her fifties, who is manipulating the relationship between Yasuko and the two men who love her.
Ladyboys: The Secret World of Thailand's Third Gender
Susan Aldous - 2008
The book offers intimate details of the lives that they've never publicly revealed. They talk about the choices they've made, their relationships, families, frustrations and hopes.
The DeLorean Story: The car, the people, the scandal
Nick Sutton - 2013
The short life of the DeLorean DMC-12 sports car – a vision of the future with its gullwing doors and stainless steel body – began after John DeLorean secured financial backing from the British government for his car-making venture in Northern Ireland. Four years and nearly 9,000 cars later the company went bust and DeLorean faced questions about fraud against the British taxpayer, and his big ally, Colin Chapman of Lotus, also drew scrutiny. As an insider’s account, this book contains a great deal of new information about the DeLorean scandal.
Gaysia: Adventures in the Queer East
Benjamin Law - 2012
But as the child of migrants, he's also curious about how different life might have been had he grown up in Asia. So he sets off to meet his fellow Gaysians. Law takes his investigative duties seriously, going nude where required in Balinese sex resorts, sitting backstage for hours with Thai ladyboy beauty contestants and trying Indian yoga classes designed to cure his homosexuality. The characters he meets - from Tokyo's celebrity drag queens to HIV-positive Burmese sex workers, from Malaysian ex-gay Christian fundamentalists to Chinese gays and lesbians who marry each other to please their parents - all teach him something new about being queer in Asia. At once entertaining and moving,
Treasures of the Thunder Dragon: A Portrait of Bhutan
Ashi Dori Wangmo Wangchuck - 2007
Even today, little is known about this remote Himalayan Buddhist kingdom nestled between two giant neighbours, India and China. Often described as the Last Shangri La, Bhutan is still a country of pristine forests, alpine valleys and glacial lakes, rich in rare flora and fauna such as the blue poppy, the golden langur and the red panda. As spectacular as its natural beauty are the architecture of its towering dzongs (fortresses) and the art treasures that fill its monasteries and temples.Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck’s portrait of her country is a captivating blend of personal memoir, history, folklore and travelogue. It provides unique and intimate insights into Bhutanese culture and society, with its vivid glimpses of life in Bhutan’s villages and hamlets, monasteries and palaces. Her engaging account of her childhood, growing up in a village in western Bhutan and the changes she witnessed when the country decided to end its isolation also tells a larger story—that of Bhutan’s rapid transition from a medieval kingdom to a modern nation within the space of a decade.The author shares with us her delight in some of the hidden treasures of her country, which she discovered during her journeys on foot to every corner of Bhutan—from highland villages in the shadow of the great Himalayan peaks to serene monasteries wreathed in myth and legend to the rainforests in the south and centre of the country, which are among the world’s richest biodiversity hotspots. This book, with its specially commissioned illustrations by young Bhutanese artists, and photographs from the author’s family album, is essential reading both for those who plan to visit the Kingdom of the Thunder Dragon and for armchair travellers who yearn to experience the magic of Bhutan through their imaginations.
Stranger in the Shogun's City: A Japanese Woman and Her World
Amy Stanley - 2020
But after three divorces, she ran away to make a life for herself in one of the largest cities in the world: Edo.In the book we experience the drama and excitement of Edo just prior to the arrival of American Commodore Perry’s fleet, which transformed Japan. During this pivotal moment in Japanese history, Tsuneno bounces from tenement to tenement, marries a masterless samurai, and eventually enters the service of a famous city magistrate. Tsuneno’s life provides a window into 19th-century Japanese culture—and a rare view of an extraordinary woman who sacrificed her family and her reputation to make a new life for herself, in defiance of social conventions.
The Noodle Maker of Kalimpong: The Untold Story of My Struggle for Tibet
Gyalo Thondup - 2015
At that moment, he became the symbolic head of the Tibetan government in exile, and Gyalo Thondup, the only one of the Dalai Lama's brothers not to don the robes of a Buddhist monk, became the fulcrum for the independence movement.The Noodle Maker of Kalimpong tells the extraordinary story of the Dalai Lama's family, the exile of the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism from Tibet, and the enduring political crisis that has seen remote and bleakly beautiful Tibet all but disappear as an independent nation-state. For the last sixty years, Gyalo Thondup has been at the at the heart of the epic struggle to protect and advance Tibet in the face of unreliable allies, overwhelming odds, and devious rivals, playing an utterly determined and unique role in a Cold War high-altitude superpower rivalry. Here, for the first time, he reveals how he found himself whisked between Chiang Kai-shek, Zhou Enlai, Jawaharlal Nehru, and the CIA, as he tried to secure, on behalf of his brother, the future of Tibet.
Fairest: A Memoir
Meredith Talusan - 2020
citizenship, Talusan found childhood comfort from her devoted grandmother, a grounding force as she was treated by others with special preference or public curiosity.As an immigrant to the United States, Talusan came to be perceived as white. An academic scholarship to Harvard provided access to elite circles of privilege but required Talusan to navigate through the complex spheres of race, class, sexuality, and her place within the gay community. She emerged as an artist and an activist questioning the boundaries of gender. Talusan realized she did not want to be confined to a prescribed role as a man, and transitioned to become a woman, despite the risk of losing a man she deeply loved.Throughout her journey, Talusan shares poignant and powerful episodes of desirability and love that will remind readers of works such as Call Me By Your Name and Giovanni's Room. Her evocative reflections will shift our own perceptions of love, identity, gender, and the fairness of life.
Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China
Leta Hong Fincher - 2014
Yet those gains are now being eroded in China's post-socialist era. Contrary to many claims made in the mainstream media, women in China have experienced a dramatic rollback of many rights and gains relative to men. "Leftover Women" debunks the popular myth that women have fared well as a result of post-socialist China's economic reforms and breakneck growth.
Can You See Me Now
Trisha Sakhlecha - 2021
Perfect for fans of Lisa Jewell and Erin Kelly.Fifteen years ago, three sixteen-year-old girls meet at Wescott, an exclusive private school in India.Two, Sabah and Noor, are the most popular girls in their year. One, Alia, is a new arrival from England, who feels her happiness depends on their acceptance.Before she knows it, Sabah and Noor’s intoxicating world of privilege and intimacy opens up to Alia and, for the first time, after years of neglect from her parents, she feels she is exactly where, and with whom, she belongs.But with intimacy comes jealousy, and with privilege, resentment, and Alia finds that it only takes one night for her bright new world to shatter around her.Now Alia, a cabinet minister in the Indian government, is about to find her secrets have no intention of stayingburied . . .
The Foot Soldier
Mark Rubinstein - 2013
The Foot Soldier brings you to the hell of jungle combat. Close your eyes and this novella takes you there. It conveys the terror and brutality of jungle warfare and their effect on the American riflemen--those who bore the greatest burden. It's every bit as compelling as The Things They Carried.
Hellfire
Leesa Gazi - 2020
Which meant that even in the eyes of Allah, ‘forty’ held some special meaning. Something special happened at forty, something special was going to happen.For the sisters Lovely and Beauty, home is a cage. Their mother Farida Khanam never lets them out of her hawk-eyed gaze.Leesa Gazi’s Hellfire opens with Lovely's first ever solo expedition to Gausia Market on her fortieth birthday. There will be many firsts for her today, but she mustn’t forget the curfew Farida Khanam has ordained. As Lovely roams the streets of Dhaka, her mother’s carefully constructed world begins to unravel. The twisted but working arrangements of a fragile household begin to assume a macabre quality as the day progresses.Told in stark, taut prose, this grisly tale of a family born of a dark secret is one of the most scintillating debuts in contemporary Bengali literature.
Pink Sari Revolution: A Tale of Women and Power in India
Amana Fontanella-Khan - 2014
This is one explanation for how Sheelu, a seventeen-year-old girl, ended up in jail after fleeing her service in the home of a powerful local legislator. In a region plagued by corruption, an incident like this might have gone unnoticed—except that it captured the attention of Sampat Pal, leader of India’s infamous Gulabi (Pink) Gang.Poor and illiterate, married off around the age of twelve, pregnant with her first child at fifteen, and prohibited from attending school, Sampat Pal has risen to become the courageous commander and chief of a women’s brigade numbering in the tens of thousands. Uniformed in pink saris and carrying pink batons, they aim to intervene wherever other women are victims of abuse or injustice. Joined in her struggle by Babuji, a sensitive man whose intellectualism complements her innate sense of justice, and by a host of passionate field commanders, Sampat Pal has confronted policemen and gangsters, officiated love marriages, and empowered women to become financially independent.In a country where women’s rights struggle to keep up with rapid modernization, the story of Sampat Pal and her Pink Gang illuminates the thrilling possibilities of female grassroots activism.
Foreign Babes in Beijing: Behind the Scenes of a New China
Rachel DeWoskin - 2005
Before she knows it, she is not just exploring Chinese culture but also creating it as the sexy, aggressive, fearless Jiexi, the starring femme fatale in a wildly successful Chinese soap opera. Experiencing the cultural clashes in real life while performing a fictional version onscreen, DeWoskin forms a group of friends with whom she witnesses the vast changes sweeping through China as the country pursues the new maxim, “to get rich is glorious.” In only a few years, China’s capital is transformed. With “considerable cultural and linguistic resources” (The New Yorker), DeWoskin captures Beijing at this pivotal juncture in her “intelligent, funny memoir” (People), and “readers will feel lucky to have sharp-eyed, yet sisterly, DeWoskin sitting in the driver’s seat”(Elle).