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Diary of a Wimpy Kid The Long Haul
Brief Summary
A family road trip is supposed to be a lot of fun . . . unless, of course, you’re the Heffleys. The journey starts off full of promise, then quickly takes several wrong turns.
Gas station bathrooms, crazed seagulls, a fender bender, and a runaway pig—not exactly Greg Heffley’s idea of a good time.
But even the worst road trip can turn into an adventure—and this is one the Heffleys won’t soon forget.
ISBN:9781419711893
Author:Jeff Kinney
Cosmos The Story of Cosmic Evolution ...
Brief Summary
• Spacecraft missions to nearby planets
• The Library of ancient Alexandria
• The human brain
• Egyptian hieroglyphics
• The origin of life
• The death of the sun
• The evolution of galaxies
The origins of matter, suns and worlds the story of fifteen billion years of cosmic evolution transforming matter and life into consciousness, of how science and civilization grew up together, and of the forces and individuals who helped shape modern science.
A story told with Carl Sagan's remarkable ability to make scientific ideas both comprehensible and exciting.
ISBN:9780349107035
Author:Carl Sagan
Pope Francis His Life in His Own Words
Brief Summary
An intimate and personal glimpse inside the mind of the leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis, through his own words..
"I believe in the kindness of others, and that I must love them without fear.”—Jorge Bergoglio, Pope Francis
Jorge Bergoglio is the first Latin American pope, the first Jesuit pope, and the first to take the name Francis, after Saint Francis of Assisi, the thirteenth-century friar known for his charity and kindness. Here, in a series of extensive interviews conducted over two years, he reveals the very image of a humble priest and inspired teacher.
This is a portrait of a man more interested in substance than style. In spontaneous, intimate terms, he talks about his childhood and family life, his first job, the discovery of his calling, and his early days in the seminary. He was a teacher of psychology and literature who befriended writers such as Jorge Luis Borges.
He cites Homer and Cervantes with ease, and names Babette’s Feast as a favorite film and Marc Chagall as a favorite painter. He also takes on uncomfortable subjects: the declining number of priests and nuns; celibacy; the scandals that have rocked the Church; and his experience with the military dictatorship of Argentina.
Through his own words, this book reveals a man who is thoughtful and witty, learned and introspective—one whose actions and words reflect his deeply rooted humility. Also included in this volume are Pope Francis’s own writings and reflections—full of wisdom and inspiration.
ISBN:9780451469410
Author:Francesca Ambrogetti and Sergio Rubin
The Four Agreements A Practical Guide...
In The Four Agreements, don Miguel Ruiz reveals the source of self-limiting beliefs that rob us of joy and create needless suffering.
Based on ancient Toltec wisdom, the Four Agreements offer a powerful code of conduct that can rapidly transform our lives to a new experience of freedom, true happiness, and love.
The Four Agreements are:
• Be Impeccable with Your Word,
• Don't Take Anything Personally,
• Don't Make Assumptions
• Always Do Your Best.
Alias Grace
Brief Summary
Soon to be a Netflix Original series, Alias Grace takes listeners into the life of one of the most notorious women of the 19th century. It's 1843, and Grace Marks has been convicted for her involvement in the vicious murders of her employer and his housekeeper and mistress. Some believe Grace is innocent; others think her evil or insane. Now serving a life sentence, Grace claims to have no memory of the murders.
An up-and-coming expert in the burgeoning field of mental illness is engaged by a group of reformers and spiritualists who seek a pardon for Grace. He listens to her story while bringing her closer and closer to the day she cannot remember. What will he find in attempting to unlock her memories?
Captivating and disturbing, Alias Grace showcases best-selling, Booker Prize-winning author Margaret Atwood at the peak of her powers. The miniseries Alias Grace is a Halfire Entertainment Production made for CBC and Netflix.
ISBN:9780385475716
Author:Margaret Atwood
The Hot Zone The Chilling True Story ...
Brief Summary
In March 2014, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa was first reported. By October 2014, it had become the largest and deadliest occurrence of the disease.
Over 4,500 people have died. Almost 10,000 cases have been reported, across Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and the United States.
Impossible to ignore, The Hot Zone is the terrifying, true-life account of when this highly infectious virus spread from the rainforests of Africa to the suburbs of Washington, D.C in 1989. A secret SWAT team of soldiers and scientists were quickly tasked with halting the outbreak. And they did. But now, that very same virus is back. And we could be just one wrong move away from a pandemic.
ISBN:9780552143035
Author:Richard Preston
The Lords of Strategy The Secret Inte...
Imagine, if you can, the world of business - without corporate strategy.
Remarkably, fifty years ago that's the way it was. Businesses made plans, certainly, but without understanding the underlying dynamics of competition, costs, and customers. It was like trying to design a large-scale engineering project without knowing the laws of physics.
But in the 1960s, four mavericks and their posses instigated a profound shift in thinking that turbocharged business as never before, with implications far beyond what even they imagined.
In The Lords of Strategy, renowned business journalist and editor Walter Kiechel tells, for the first time, the story of the four men who invented corporate strategy as we know it and set in motion the modern, multibillion-dollar consulting industry:
• Bruce Henderson, founder of Boston Consulting Group
• Bill Bain, creator of Bain & Company
• Fred Gluck, longtime Managing Director of McKinsey & Company
• Michael Porter, Harvard Business School professor
Providing a window into how to think about strategy today, Kiechel tells their story with novelistic flair. At times inspiring, at times nearly terrifying, this book is a revealing account of how these iconoclasts and the organizations they led revolutionized the way we think about business, changed the very soul of the corporation, and transformed the way we work.
Prime Time Love Health Sex Fitness Fr...
Brief summary
Prime Time: Love, health, sex, fitness, friendship, spirit; Making the most of all of your life
In this unique, candid, and inspiring book, Jane Fonda explores how midlife and beyond can be the time when we become our most energetic, loving, and fulfilled selves. Highlighting new research and sharing stories from her own life and from the lives of others, she outlines the 11 key ingredients to vitality—from exercise and diet, to forging new pathways in the brain, to loving, staying connected, and giving of oneself.
She explains how performing a life review helped her clarify goals and move ahead, and shows how we can do this too. In Prime Time, Jane Fonda offers an empowering vision for how to live your best life, for all of your life.
ISBN:9780812978582
Author:Jane Fonda
This Blinding Absence of Light
Brief summary
An immediate and critically acclaimed bestseller in France, This Blinding Absence of Light is the latest work by internationally renowned author Tahar Ben Jelloun, the first North African winner of the Prix Goncourt and winner of the Prix Mahgreb.
Crafting real life events into narrative fiction, Ben Jelloun reveals the horrific story of the desert concentration camps in which King Hassan II of Morocco held his political enemies in underground cells with no light and only enough food and water to keep them lingering on the edge of death.
Working closely with one of the survivors, Ben Jelloun narrates the story in the simplest of language and delivers a shocking novel that explores both the limitlessness of inhumanity and the impossible endurance of the human will.
ISBN:9780143035725
Author:Tahar Ben Jelloun
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by...
The essential universe, from our most celebrated and beloved astrophysicist.
What is the nature of space and time? How do we fit within the universe? How does the universe fit within us? There’s no better guide through these mind-expanding questions than acclaimed astrophysicist and best-selling author Neil deGrasse Tyson.
But today, few of us have time to contemplate the cosmos. So Tyson brings the universe down to Earth succinctly and clearly, with sparkling wit, in tasty chapter’s consumable anytime and anywhere in your busy day.
While you wait for your morning coffee to brew, for the bus, the train, or a plane to arrive, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry will reveal just what you need to be fluent and ready for the next cosmic headlines: from the Big Bang to black holes, from quarks to quantum mechanics, and from the search for planets to the search for life in the universe.
Stars of the New Curfew
Brief summary
This collection of short stories is set in Nigeria and reflects the mad, exotic and often dangerous chaos which reigns there.
They include jumbled up voodoo stories, stories of shanty towns and of men from the villages seeking their fortunes in the streets and filthy gutters of the new towns.
ISBN:9780140116021
Author:Ben Okri
Incidents at the shrine
Brief summary
Incidents at the Shrine is the first collection of stories by the author of 1991 Booker Prize-winning novel, The Famished Road.
Whether the subject is a child's eye view of the Nigerian Civil War, Lagos and the spirit world or dispossession in a decaying British inner city, Okri's lyrical, poetic and humorous prose recreates the known and the unknown world with startling power.
ISBN:9780099983002
Author:Ben Okri
Songs of Enchantment
Brief summary
One great thought can change the dreams of the world. One great action, lived out all the way to the sea, can change the history of the world.
The adventures of Azaro, the spirit child, continue. From the bestselling author of The Famished Road comes this radiant sequel.
ISBN:9780385471572
Author:Ben Okri
The Magic Lamp Dreams of Our Age
Brief summary
Twenty-five stories, twenty-five paintings, five years to write, ten years to paint. This is an extraordinary collaboration between artist and artist: the Booker Prize-winning writer Ben Okri and the painter Rosemary Clunie. Together they have created a world, and peopled it with dreams.
Twenty-five fairy tales for adults, these narratives are a response to our times, informed by our world but not limited by it, imaginative, enchanting, haunting – both prescient and prophetic. Twenty-five original paintings, beautiful, playful, intimate, dreamlike, these works pull you in to a land of colour and vision.
Who can say which came first, the word or image, when both grew together out of a long friendship and a creative symbiosis. What if Calvino and Magritte had combined inspiration? What if we could see our world again with a child's eyes? What if there really is a magic lamp
ISBN:9781786694508
Author:Ben Okri and Rosemary Clunie
Wild
Brief summary
Ben Okri is a prolific Booker-Prize winning novelist and essayist, but has published only two collections of poetry. The first was An African Elegy and the second was Mental Fight. Both were highly regarded. Thus a third collection is a literary event, especially since 13 years have elapsed since his last.
As acclaimed for his poetic vision as for the beauty of his language, in these poems Okri captures both the tenderness and the fragility, as well as the depths and the often hidden directions of our lives. To him, the 'wild' is an alternative to the familiar; an essential place in the journey where energy meets freedom, where art meets the elemental, where chaos can be honed.
The wild is our link to the stars... Ranging across a wide variety of subjects, from the autobiographical to the philosophical, from war to love, from nature to the difficulty of truly seeing, these poems reconfigure the human condition in unusual light through their mastery of tone and condensed brilliance.
ISBN:9781846043307
Author:Ben Okri
Tadunos Song
Brief summary
The day a stained brown envelope arrives from Taduno's homeland, he knows that the time has come to return from exile. Arriving full of trepidation, the musician discovers that his community no longer recognizes him, believing that Taduno is dead.
His girlfriend Lela has disappeared, taken away by government agents. As he wanders through his house in search of clues, he realises that any traces of his old life have been erased. All that was left of his life and himself are memories.
But Taduno finds a new purpose: to unravel the mystery of his lost life and to find his lost love. Through this search, he comes to face a difficult decision: to sing for love or to sing for his people. Taduno's Song is a moving tale of sacrifice, love and courage.
ISBN:9781782118053
Author:Odafe Atogun
Tattoos on the Heart The Power of Bou...
Brief summary
Father Gregory Boyle’s sparkling parables about kinship and the sacredness of life are drawn from twenty years working with gangs in LA.
How do you fight despair and learn to meet the world with a loving heart? How do you overcome shame? Stay faithful in spite of failure? No matter where people live or what their circumstances may be, everyone needs boundless, restorative love. Gorgeous and uplifting, Tattoos on the Heart amply demonstrates the impact unconditional love can have on your life.
As a pastor working in a neighborhood with the highest concentration of murderous gang activity in Los Angeles, Gregory Boyle created an organization to provide jobs, job training, and encouragement so that young people could work together and learn the mutual respect that comes from collaboration. Tattoos on the Heart is a breathtaking series of parables distilled from his twenty years in the barrio.
Arranged by theme and filled with sparkling humor and glowing generosity, these essays offer a stirring look at how full our lives could be if we could find the joy in loving others and in being loved unconditionally. From giant, tattooed Cesar, shopping at JCPenney fresh out of prison, we learn how to feel worthy of God’s love. From ten-year-old Lula we learn the importance of being known and acknowledged. From Pedro we understand the kind of patience necessary to rescue someone from the darkness.
In each chapter we benefit from Boyle’s wonderful, hard-earned wisdom. Inspired by faith but applicable to anyone trying to be good, these personal, unflinching stories are full of surprising revelations and observations of the community in which Boyle works and of the many lives he has helped save.
Erudite, down-to-earth, and utterly heartening, these essays about universal kinship and redemption are moving examples of the power of unconditional love in difficult times and the importance of fighting despair. With Gregory Boyle’s guidance, we can recognize our own wounds in the broken lives and daunting struggles of the men and women in these parables and learn to find joy in all of the people around us. Tattoos on the Heart reminds us that no life is less valuable than another.
ISBN:9781439153024
Author:Gregory Boyle
The Big Conservation Lie: The Untold ...
The Big Conservation Lie' is a wakeup call focused on a field that has been 'front and center' of many people's hearts and minds in recent years; the conservation of Africa's wildlife. It is a pursuit whose power to inspire is only rivalled by its ability to blind its audience to reality.
This book takes the reader through Kenya's conservation 'industry' and the players therein with all their prejudices, weaknesses and commitment to causes, many of which are indistinguishable from their personalities.
It is a call to indigenous Africans to claim their place at the table where the management of their natural resources is being discussed and invites well-meaning donors to look beyond the romantic images and detect the possible role of their money in the disenfranchisement of a people.
Man and His Symbols
Home and exile by Chinua Achebe
Powerful and deeply personal, these three essays by the great Nigerian author articulate his mission to rescue African culture from the narratives written by Europeans.
Looking through the prism of his experiences as a student in English schools in Nigeria, he recalls his first encounters with European perspectives on Africa in the works of Joyce Cary and Elspeth Huxley. He examines the impact that his novel Things Fall Apart—as well as fellow Nigerian Amos Tutola’s The Palm-Wine Drinkard and Jomo Kenyatta’s Facing Mt. Kenya, among other works—had on efforts to reclaim Africa's story. He confronts the persistence of colonial views of Africa.
And he argues for the importance of living and writing the African experience: Africa needs stories told by Africans.
