The Cailiffs Of Baghdad Georgia A Novel

Download or read book The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia: A Novel written by Mary Helen Stefaniak and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2011-09-19 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A hidden history of the South emerges when a worldly teacher leads Threestep, GA, to reinvent itself, setting in motion events that lead to triumph and tragedy for the black teenager who happens to be the smartest person in Piedmont County, Georgia, in 1938–39. As an epigraph from The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois reminds us at the start of this novel, "Throughout history, the powers of single black men flash here and there like falling stars, and die sometimes before the world has rightly gauged their brightness." Protagonist Theo Boykin is a genius, an artist, an inventor, a Leonardo DaVinci–type, whose talents are sought after by local blacks and whites alike, but even this is not enough to save him. He falls victim to "the tragedy of ignorance and the damage caused by fear," in the words of poet Rita Dove—the first African American to serve as U.S. Poet Laureate and a member of the jury that conferred on The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia the 2011 Anisfield-Wolf Award for books that "make a significant contribution to our understanding of racism and our appreciation for the diversity of human cultures." You won't forget Theo Boykin, nor will you forget his friends the Cailiffs, especially Gladys, who tells this story with love and bewilderment, and the teacher, Miss Spivey, who changes all their lives.

Download or read book The Turk and My Mother written by Mary Helen Stefaniak and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2004 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Showtime written by Larry Stempel and published by W. W. Norton. This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A definitive, accessible, and comprehensive history of the Broadway musical.

Download or read book The World of Pondside written by Mary Helen Stefaniak and published by Blackstone Publishing. This book was released on 2022-04-19 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a game of life or death, the seniors at Pondside Manor risk it all. With help from Pondside Manor’s quirky, twentysomething kitchen worker Foster Kresowik, resident Robert Kallman creates The World of Pondside, a video game that delights the nursing home’s residents by allowing them to virtually relive blissful moments from days long past—or even create new ones. One-legged Duane Lotspeich is overjoyed when he can dance the tango again. Octogenarian Laverne Slatchek cheers on her favorite baseball team from the stands at Candlestick Park with her beloved husband—who died years ago. Even the overwhelmed Pondside administrator escapes her job by logging into a much more luxurious virtual world. Robert’s game enlivens the halls of Pondside Manor, but chaos ensues when he is found dead, submerged in the pond, still strapped into his wheelchair. If any resident witnessed his death, they’re not telling—either covering up or, quite possibly, forgetting. And it’s far from clear to anyone—including the police—if the death of this brilliant man, who suffered from ALS, was suicide or murder. When Robert’s video game goes dark, its players grow desperate. The task of getting it back online falls to young Foster, who enlists help from a raucous group of residents and staff. Their pursuit—virtual and real—has unintended consequences, uncovering both criminal activities and the secret plans of Foster’s friend Robert. From Pondside Manor, this unlikely bunch of gamers embarks upon an astonishing journey—blissful, treacherous, and unforgettable. Packed with sharp wit and compassion, The World of Pondside is a rousing, perceptive, and utterly unique novel.

Download or read book Self Storage and Other Stories written by Mary Helen Stefaniak and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Show works as a manager/night watchperson of a self storage facility called the Nutty Squirrel. Overqualified for the job, she finds ways to accommodate Lola, who is dying of cancer, and helps the Knuckleheads--a loud brassy, struggling country western band. Rounding out the group at the self storage unit are illegal immigrants from El Salvador, and some very poor migrant workers.

Download or read book The Magician King written by Lev Grossman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-05-29 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lev Grossman’s new novel THE BRIGHT SWORD will be on sale July 2024 Return to Fillory in the riveting sequel to the New York Times bestseller and literary phenomenon, The Magicians, now an original series on SYFY, from the author of the #1 bestselling The Magician’s Land. Quentin Coldwater should be happy. He escaped a miserable Brooklyn childhood, matriculated at a secret college for magic, and graduated to discover that Fillory—a fictional utopia—was actually real. But even as a Fillorian king, Quentin finds little peace. His old restlessness returns, and he longs for the thrills a heroic quest can bring. Accompanied by his oldest friend, Julia, Quentin sets off—only to somehow wind up back in the real world and not in Fillory, as they’d hoped. As the pair struggle to find their way back to their lost kingdom, Quentin is forced to rely on Julia’s illicitly learned sorcery as they face a sinister threat in a world very far from the beloved fantasy novels of their youth.

Download or read book Great House: A Novel written by Nicole Krauss and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2011-09-06 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Bestseller • Finalist for the National Book Award • Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award • A Best Book of the Year as chosen by the New York Times (Notable), Seattle Times, San Francisco Chronicle, The Atlantic, St. Louis Post Dispatch, The Oregonian, and Book Page. "Masterful…Evocative and moving." —NPR For twenty-five years, a reclusive American novelist has been writing at the desk she inherited from a young Chilean poet who disappeared at the hands of Pinochet’s secret police; one day a girl claiming to be the poet’s daughter arrives to take it away, sending the writer’s life reeling. Across the ocean, in the leafy suburbs of London, a man caring for his dying wife discovers, among her papers, a lock of hair that unravels a terrible secret. In Jerusalem, an antiques dealer slowly reassembles his father’s study, plundered by the Nazis in Budapest in 1944. Connecting these stories is a desk of many drawers that exerts a power over those who possess it or have given it away. As the narrators of Great House make their confessions, the desk takes on more and more meaning, and comes finally to stand for all that has been taken from them, and all that binds them to what has disappeared. Great House is a story haunted by questions: What do we pass on to our children and how do they absorb our dreams and losses? How do we respond to disappearance, destruction, and change? Nicole Krauss has written a soaring, powerful novel about memory struggling to create a meaningful permanence in the face of inevitable loss. "This is a novel about the long journey of a magnificent desk as it travels through the twentieth century from one owner to the next. It is also a novel about love, exile, the defilements of war, and the restorative power of language." —National Book Award citation