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Toni Morrison's first novel since she was awarded the
Nobel Prize for Literature.
Early one morning in 1976, nine men from Ruby, Oklahoma (pop. 360) assault the nearby Convent and the
women in it in defense of "the one all-black town worth the pain." From the town's ancestral origins in 1890 to the fateful day of the assault,
Paradise tells the story of a people trying to preserve their community and coming to terms with themselves in the
process.
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In a voice totally authentic to its speaker, Banks narrates in first-person the sad story of a teenage boy whose aimlessness leads him to steal from his mother in order to buy pot; as a result, he is kicked out of the house. As a drifter, he's too young and inexperienced to take advantage of other people--he's taken advantage of. His need for dope and shelter drives him to consort with types even more disreputable than himself. (The thing is, he's not really so bad, he's just been kicked around too much.) He decides that tracking down his real father in Jamaica is a priority. From that experience, he gains some wisdom that just might help him over the hurdle into responsible adulthood. Banks' previous novels have been eagerly sought, and this one should prove no exception. Brad Hooper Copyright© 1995, American Library Association. All rights reserved
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Stegner's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel--the magnificent story of four generations in the life of an American family. A wheelchair-bound retired historian embarks on a monumental quest: to come to know his grandparents, now long dead. The unfolding drama of the story of the American West sets the tone for Stegner's masterpiece.
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Nine stories, six of which have been previously published, that successfully explore the tensions and confusions that so often muddle relations between East and West. Divided into three groups, the stories are a reminder that Rushdie (Haroun and the Sea of Stories, 1991, etc.), the accomplished postmodern fabulist, is also a splendid realist storyteller who describes the human heart with clear-eyed sympathy. Grouped under the heading ``EAST,'' the first trio describes an encounter between a young Pakistani woman and an advice expert, who doesn't understand why the young woman is happy when the British Consulate rejects her application to join her aging fianc‚ in England (``Good Advice is Rarer than Rubies''); a poor young man, who has ``the rare quality of total belief in his dreams'' of moviedom success and who is sterilized because he believes the Indian government will give him a free radio (``The Free Radio''); and two children who try to have their greedy father robbed of a precious religious relic he is determined to add to his collection (``The Prophet's Hair''). Of the three stories in ``WEST,'' the most accomplished is ``At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers,'' which describes a world where auctioneers ``establish the value of our pasts, of our futures, of our lives'' as they auction off movie memorabilia and cultural icons that help us be what ``we fear we are not--somebody.'' The stories in the final section, ``EAST, WEST,'' are all set in England. A young Indian learns too late of a betrayal by a now-dead English friend (``The Harmony of the Spheres''); two Indian diplomats, Star Trek fans and old school chums, have a prophetic conversation while posted in England (``Chekov and Zulu''); and a young Indian, recalling the unlikely friendship between his ayah and an elderly chess player in London, refuses to choose between East and West (``The Courter''). A product of both worlds, Rushdie builds a safe passage over the seemingly unbridgeable with generous insight and wry humor in this distinguished collection. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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These two novellas, by the author of The Age of Grief and The Greenlanders reveal the intricate and often
heart-breaking inner workings of families. Here a woman recalls the long ago affair that ended her relationship
with her husband and changed their lives. And a man discovers that the carefully planned lifestyle he has
chosen for his family incorporates unexpected consequences. Nominee for the National Book Critics Circle
Award. HC: Knopf.
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Moving backward in time, Dorris's critically acclaimed debut novel is a lyrical and fierce saga of three generations of Indian women beset by hardship and torn by angry secrets, yet bound together by kinship, set in the Pacific Northwestand on a Montana Indian reservation.
David Sedaris
Isabel Fonseca
I have my resume online.
Are you curious to know what books we are reading right now? I bet you are. You can also see what we've been eating .
You can reach me by e-mail at suzukigrrl@yahoo.com |