In A Fishbone Church

Download or read book In a Fishbone Church written by Catherine Chidgey and published by Victoria University Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Clifford Stilton dies, his son Gene crams his carefully kept diaries into a hall cupboard - but Clifford's words have too much life in them to be ignored, and start to permeate his family's world. Clifford taught Gene about how to find rocks and fossils, and about how to kill birds and fish. Gene passes on a similar inheritance to his daughters, Bridget and Christina - they have their own ways of digging and discovering the past, keeping an account of life, watching out for the varieties of death that lie hidden. Etta their mother tells a very different story of her 1940s childhood. In a fishbone church spans continents and decades. From the Berlin rave scene to the Canterbury duck season, from the rural 1950s to the cosmopolitan present, these five vivid lives cohere in a deeply affecting and exhilarating novel. In a fishbone church, Catherine Chidgey's acclaimed debut, won the Hubert Church Award for Best First Book in the Montana New Zealand Book Awards, the Adam Award, the regional Commonwealth Prize for Best First Novel, and a Betty Trask Award in the UK, where it was also longlisted for the Orange Prize. First published in 1998, it has been a bestseller in New Zealand and has been published around the world.

Download or read book In a Fishbone Church written by Catherine Chidgey and published by Victoria University Press. This book was released on 1998-05-01 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Clifford Stilton dies, his son Gene crams his carefully kept diaries into a hall cupboard – but Clifford's words have too much life in them to be ignored, and start to permeate his family's world. Clifford taught Gene about how to find rocks and fossils, and about how to kill birds and fish. Gene passes on a similar inheritance to his daughters, Bridget and Christina – they have their own ways of digging and discovering the past, keeping an account of life, watching out for the varieties of death that lie hidden. Etta their mother tells a very different story of her 1940s childhood. In a Fishbone Church spans continents and decades. From the Berlin rave scene to the Canterbury duck season, from the rural 1950s to the cosmopolitan present, these five vivid lives cohere in a deeply affecting and exhilarating novel. In a Fishbone Church, Catherine Chidgey's acclaimed debut, won the Hubert Church Award for Best First Book in the Montana New Zealand Book Awards, the Adam Award, the regional Commonwealth Prize for Best First Novel, and a Betty Trask Award in the UK, where it was also longlisted for the Orange Prize. First published in 1998, it has been a bestseller in New Zealand and has been published around the world.

Download or read book The Wish Child written by Catherine Chidgey and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2018-10-02 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This internationally bestselling historical novel that "fans of The Book Thief will enjoy" follows two children and a mysterious narrator as they navigate the falsehoods and wreckage of WWII Germany (Publishers Weekly). Germany, 1939. As Germany’s hope for a glorious future begins to collapse, two children, Sieglinde and Erich, find temporary refuge in an abandoned theater amid the rubble of Berlin. Outside, white bedsheets hang from windows; all over the city, people are talking of surrender. The days Sieglinde and Erich spend together will shape the rest of their lives. Watching over them is the wish child, the enigmatic narrator of their story. He sees what they see, he feels what they feel, yet his is a voice that comes from deep inside the ruins of a nation’s dream. Winner of the Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize at the Ockham New Zealand Awards “A remarkable book with a stunningly original twist.” —The Times (London)

Download or read book Remote Sympathy written by Catherine Chidgey and published by Europa Editions. This book was released on 2021-05-11 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This polyphonic novel of an S.S. officer, his ailing wife, and a concentration camp survivor “marks a vital turn in Holocaust literature” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Being appointed administrator of the Buchenwald work camp is a major advancement for SS Sturmbannführer Dietrich Hahn. But as the prison population begins to rise, his job becomes ever more consuming. His wife, Frau Greta Hahn, finds their new home even lovelier than their apartment in Munich. She enjoys life among the other officer’s wives, and the ease with which she can purchase nearly anything her heart desires. When Frau Hahn is forced into an unlikely alliance with one of Buchenwald’s prisoners, Dr. Lenard Weber, her naïve ignorance about what is going on so nearby is challenged. A decade earlier, Dr. Weber had invented a machine: the Sympathetic Vitaliser. At the time he believed that its subtle resonances might cure cancer. But does it really work? One way or another, it might yet save a life. A tour de force about the evils of obliviousness, Remote Sympathy compels us to question our continuing and willful ability to look the other way in a world that is once more in thrall to the idea that everything—even facts, truth and morals—is relative. Shortlisted for the 2021 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards

Download or read book The Beat of the Pendulum written by Catherine Chidgey and published by Eye & Lightning Books. This book was released on 2018-12-17 with total page 487 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book of the year... Every day for a year, Catherine Chidgey recorded the words and language she came across during her day-to-day life – phone calls, television commercials, emails, radio shows, conversations with her family, street signs and satnav instructions. From these seemingly random snippets, she creates a fascinating portrait of modern life, focusing on the things that most people filter out. Chidgey listens in as her daughter, born through surrogacy, begins to speak and develop a personality, and her mother slips into dementia. With her husband, she debates the pros and cons of moving to a new town. With her publisher, she discusses the novel she is writing. While, all around, the world is bombarding her with information. InThe Beat of the Pendulum, Chidgey approaches the idea of the novel from an experimental new direction. It is bold, exciting, funny, moving and utterly compelling. 'For those who love books, Catherine Chidgey is a find' - Ali Smith

Download or read book The Transformation written by Catherine Chidgey and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2013-12-31 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The lives of a French wig maker, a young American widow, and a Cuban cigar maker intersect to startling effect in this masterful, atmospheric novel from Catherine Chidgey Tampa, Florida, 1898: a hazy frontier where the Old World meets the New, where miracles of transformation are possible and the soil is so fertile that dry sticks take root and flower. Dominating the town is the new Tampa Bay Hotel, a fairy-tale castle that in the wintertime is a magnet for the finest sorts of people. During the off-season, the city is quiet, but a few residents remain. Among these is a most exotic creature by the name of Monsieur Lucien Goulet III, wig maker to the wealthy and glamorous-indeed to any resident of Tampa whose desire for his transformations is keen enough to meet his price. As winter nears its end, Goulet is entranced by a head of hair belonging to the young widow Marion Unger. But this material, without which he absolutely cannot form his greatest masterpiece, is hard to come by, being still attached to its owner. Determined to go forward with the project, Goulet drives his gifted night scavenger--a teenage cigar maker who is a refugee from the war in Cuba--to increasingly extreme efforts. As the lives of these three unlikely accomplices become ever more entwined, Goulet's true nature becomes disturbingly clear, leading to an electrifying conclusion.

Download or read book Hit the Bullseye written by Paul D. Borden and published by Abingdon Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is not an attempt to offer hope, help, or even advice on what denominations need to do. However, it is a book about a significant turn-around of a middle-level administration of justice in one Protestant denomination and it does offer hope that other like administrations might be able to experience a better and more effective existence. Everyone's experience is unique and therefore cannot be replicated. However, the implementation of foundational all-encompassing principles, the development of new strategies, and the performance of specific tactics that are successful in one situation does offer hope to others that their modeling of the principles, adapting the strategies, and creating specific tactics to fit their context can bring change. "Thisbook is a gutsy look at denominational life, leadership and vision, and offersnew paradigms for the local church, middle judicatories and nationaldenominational life. A must-read for anyone interested in bringing renewal tothe local church and our denomination. Clearly, Borden has hit the bull's-eyewith regard not only to our denomination's needs but also how renewal begins inthe local church." - ABE News Forewordto Hit the Bullseye byLeith Anderson July 2003 "Somelook at things that are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were and askwhy not?" --George Bernard Shaw There are approximately 400,000 churches in the UnitedStates and the vast majority of them belong to denominations. Some are healthy, vibrant, and growing. Most are tired, struggling, not growing, and don't know what to do. Plenty of critics and cynics take surveys, analyze data,and write books about what is wrong with the churches of America. As if following the theology of Chicken Little they are convinced that the sky is falling and there is little wecan do except seek cover. Proposals for renewal often are offered by theoristswho tell practitioners what to do but have never actually done it themselves. What if? What if there was a way to help declining churches to grow? What if we could teach pastors how to lead their congregations tospiritual renewal? What if thousands of churches changed from maintenance tomission? What if a movement beganwith 200 churches that grew to 200,000 churches? What if millions of unchurched people came into lasting relationshipswith Jesus Christ and the church? Whatif the denominations of America with all of their people, property, andpotential became the epicenter of this spiritual earthquake that became known asthe Great Awakening of the 21st Century? Maybe all this sounds too good to be true. Well, it has already begun. Centeredin the earthquake zone of northern California, the American Baptist Churches ofthe West have demonstrated that a plateaued and declining region of mainlinecongregations can become a model of healthy and growing congregations. They have overcome the usual excuses that "our churches are toosmall," "we have too many older people and congregations," and "propertyhere is too expensive." Theyfollowed a powerful formula of biblical strategies, courageous leadership, andmuch hard work. What is mostamazing is that the turnaround took less than five years. Why not? Here is the dream. Denominationalleaders, executive ministers, bishops, district superintendents, regionaldirectors, seminary teachers, pastors, and lay leaders will discover what Godhas done in northern California and say, "Why not here?" "With a few creative adaptations we can do the same thing in ourdenomination and in our churches." They will start small and multiply. They will risk their traditions, finances, staff, and jobs. They will respond to misunderstanding with teaching and take criticismwith grace. Then there will be onesuccessful church transformation--new vision, new faith, new people, and newexcitement. One will become ten andten will become one hundred. Churchby church, region by region, denomination by denomination--a true reformationwill bring a great new era to the people and churches of our generation. It can be done. Ithas been done. This is a dream ofthe way things can be. Be amongthose who say, "Why not? Let'sdo it!"