Book Description
In What Gets Into Us, the new collection of short stories by Moira Crone, a curious child discovers that some believe "the gods who made this world didn't make it right, and they are terribly sorry about it." A nine-year-old girl is the only one who realizes that her mother's mental illness has put the family's survival at stake. A shy African American woman confronts evil directly in a terrifying act of love. A teenage orphan replaces a wayward son in a privileged but unhappy family. A young carpenter decides that if his baby is going to be born right, he will have to commit a crime, and build the world anew.
Fayton, North Carolina, is a rural town in which everyone knows everyone else's business. Crone explores this fictional landscape and its inhabitants from many angles. The stories follow the lives of men and women who grew up together in Fayton. Full of memorable characters from several generations, this story cycle evolves into a chronicle of a region and its characters. Through it, Crone meditates on the mix of history and spirit that shapes souls and creates community.
Through the perspectives of its various protagonists—white and black, male and female, young and old—we watch as Fayton comes to deal with the charged issues of race, feminism, southern traditions, and the unforeseen changes wrought by economics and technology. What Gets Into Us is a powerful story cycle that resonates as deeply as a classic novel.
Customer Reviews:
Haunting stories.......2007-10-10
These haunting short stories cover about 50 years in a North Carolina town...each story can stand on its own, but since many of the characters weave in and out of all of them, the book is really more like a novel (similar to Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio). The narrators include some of the main characters, so the style of each tale varies; moreover, the people aren't freaks, as many of Sherwood Anderson's characters are----so what happens over the years in this small town is moving and meaningful to the reader in the way that the best literature becomes part of our lives.
SEEING THE LIGHT: review from Times-Picayune.......2006-04-10
Fayton, N.C., is a small town in Moira Crone's imagination, but it will strike a truthful chord with anyone who has experienced small-town life, with all its claustrophobic joys and troubles. The South is familiar territory to this New Orleanian, who teaches at Louisiana State University. In "What Gets Into Us," a story collection that also works as a fragmented novel with varying points of view, Crone depicts the tangled lives of Southern families -- the secrets of the neighbor next door, the waves of change that came with the civil rights movement and feminism and greedy development. Springing out into the world or slouching homeward, Crone's characters are as real as real can be.
In "The Ice Garden," winner of the Faulkner/Wisdom Prize, Crone tells a story of Claire McKenzie, one of the most engaging characters in this collection. Daughter of a troubled mother and a father in denial, Claire has more than her share of difficulties to face, but she does, and head-on, as is often the way with Crone's female characters.
Crone knows the tangled ties of mothers and daughters: "After a while I had the thought that my mother was very brave, compared to other people," Claire says. "Because it was so hard for her to live, knowing all she knew, feeling all she felt, as disappointed as she was, as confused and jealous. My mother needed beauty to keep her going. There was just no other way for her. She could never get enough. I must be just like her, I thought, then I thought, no."
As with Ellen Gilchrist's beloved Traceleen, Crone's African-American domestic workers often provide the most telling perspectives. Sidney Byrd returns to town for her friend Pauline's funeral and has tea with a grown-up Lily Stark, whom Pauline once rescued from a terrible situation. "At the sight of her serving me, I think, well, the time has finally come when Lily and I can talk as if there had been one life in that town in those days, and not two, the one at the front door and the one at the back. But soon I learn."
Crone has a gift for the telling phrase that conjures a time, a shared perception. Remember those parties, 'the kind where there was a huge dance band, white tablecloths, rum and Coke, and dinner"? Or the days when "There were big state hospitals then, with nice grounds, which were peaceful, some of them -- people lived in such places for years, their whole adult lives. Families could take a person there and drop them off." Or consider this description of a desperate woman: "She is old now, but she can still throw herself at strangers." Or "Being a lady is all about ignoring things." Entire eras, types of people, states of mind are summoned in Crone's gorgeous, memorable sentences.
As time works on Fayton and exacts its inevitable toll on human life and spirit, Crone's families -- the Senders, the Starks, the McKenzies, the Cobbs -- experience loss and change, abuse and betrayal and sometimes redemption. The drug of place -- sometimes intoxicating, sometimes poisonous -- gets into the town's inhabitants with its changing architecture, its difficult, sometimes blinding, sometimes obscuring, light. Crone wholly imagines the lives of these people, who might be you or me, in the house next door in any Southern town, with all the lights on and everybody home, dark secrets in every corner.
. . . . . . .
Book editor Susan Larson can be reached at slarson@timespicayune.com or at (504) 826-3457.
Book Description
Wuntvor has caught the cold eye of Death himself, who seeks to add the hapless apprentice to his morbid minions...
Customer Reviews:
The most fun I've had since the Hitchhiker's Guide!.......2000-06-01
This is a really fun book. It's the third in the Ballad of Wuntvor. All the characters appear in it, from the Dealer of Death to Cuthbert the pacifist sword. This book gets a little silly in its characters, verbage, and plot, but it's fun to read. As a teacher, I will keep it in my classroom, because I think the kids will love it.
Average customer rating:
- Down There in Darkness
- Zigs and Zags to a stirring conclusion
- Exploring the dark future of humanity proves illuminating.
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Down There In Darkness
George Turner
Manufacturer: Tor Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Turner, George
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| Authors, A-Z
| Science Fiction & Fantasy
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Science Fiction
| Science Fiction & Fantasy
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0312872585 |
Book Description
Turner was a significant Australian novelist before turning to SF in the 1970s and becoming one of the great living SF writers, winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award for best novel. This novel chronicles the future destruction and eventual rebirth of human civilization.
Customer Reviews:
Down There in Darkness.......2001-08-21
I am an Aussie and I stumbled across this book not long ago. I was impressed with the cover so decided to take a chance to read as I had not heard of the author before but since it was an Aussie book i decided to give it ago. I read this book and was very impressed. I wondered why George Turner is unknown when he writes great books such as "Down There in Darkness." I recommend it to anyone who enjoys stories about the near future and the social decay that is predicted with it.
Zigs and Zags to a stirring conclusion.......2000-10-27
I found this novel a bit troublesome to read on several accounts. The story is extremely well written and very absorbing, but it takes several great leaps and in so doing leaves the previous plots and major characters behind. The second problem stems from the fact that the author was Australian and has incorporated a fair amount of Australian Koori lore and Australian vernacular into his tale.
That said, I found it a remarkable book. Each "section" is very interesting in its own right. Turner's dark vision of a future Earth is well rendered and gives considerable pause to reflect. The characters are finely wrought, but I feel that the star of this effort is the concept itself.
The intense drama revolving around the "cleansing" of the Earth is as much a shock to us as it is to Gus, one of the few survivors from the bitterly difficult earlier times. The ending of the story is a curious and curiously refreshing twist that speaks of hope and lifts us above the dark brew.
Not a simple read, but highly recommended.
Exploring the dark future of humanity proves illuminating........1999-05-30
George Turner was a superb writer, and this novel brings together many themes explored in his earlier novels. The future as distopia, the power of the mind, the bleakness of humanity and it's reactionary procession through time.
As dark as it all sounds, it really is quite illuminating to see the author's vision, and as a tale showing a possible future without shoving cautionary rhetoric down the readers gullet. It *is* a remade "Brave New World"--updated for the new century, and told with the voice of an aging writer who has seen worlds of change in his lifetime. There is a lot more here than is first exposed, and put's this in the "thoughtful" school of science fiction--possibly a bit heavy for some. Entertaining as well as enlightening, and highly recommended.
Product Description
183 pages, hardcover. By Takashi Amano. Learn how to make your aquarium a work of art and a part of your home.
Customer Reviews:
one of the best inspirational aquascaping books.......2007-05-22
One buys this book for the pictures. They deserve five stars. I am using this book for inspiration as to what can be achieved with nano and micro tanks.
The shortcomings of this book are only to blame this book for being what it is not and what it does not claim to be. It does not claim to be a 'how to' book, though I believe many readers (me included) wish it WAS a 'how to' book. As such, one can continue moaning about how inaccurate the scientific names of plants are; how little information there is on planting, propagating and maintaining the plants; what the mineral contents of the substrate and fertilizers are; what the light spectrum and intensity is; etcetera...
So, although I love the book. I'm going to minus one star for the lousy reason that it isn't what I want it to be.
Great picturebook, but not a very good "Educational"........2007-05-21
I, really think it was a good book for beginners like me, but it wasn't what I was looking for. It had great photography, but it was very unclear how to make a beautiful, planted aquarium grow. It's very good in somethings and lacks in others.
Great as usual.......2006-02-22
As usually with Takashi Amano's work it has superb aquascapes and pictures. Although, they have changed the paper used to a cheaper kind and not the glossy type of the earlier editions. It also states some of the tank's data like temp and the species of plants and fishes used in the setup. However, if your planning to buy this book to learn to how to take care and maintain aquatic plants, you will be disappointed. This is not for aquatic plant reference, this book is more on inspiring you to make good aquascapes. If you want a better reference on the care and maintenance of aquatic plants maybe Pablo Teepot's book is for you.
spectacular.......2006-01-19
This book is a fantastic coffee table book. If you are looking for aquascaping inspiration BUY THIS BOOK!!. However if you are looking for instruction on how to aquascape it does not give you this. The only gripe is that Takashi Amano hasen't named any of the wonderful flora or fauna used. In my opinion it is the best book out of the three 'Nature Aquarium World' series although his other two go into more detail. Buy it and you won't be able to put it down. Beautifully enchanting, a true work of art.
Amazing.......2005-10-25
I realy engoy it It is amazing to view how you can do art with aquarium plants,inclusive in little space.
Book Description
Selecting the finest specimens by Dürer, Beardsley, Kent, and others, the former editor of American Artist offers 761 miniature works of art representing 500 years of the bookplate from the first known example — ca. 1450 — to a wide range of fascinating 20th-century designs. Most comprehensive collection available. Introduction.
Book Description
Beautifully drawn embellishments, selected from authentic 19th-century sources. Presented in an array of artistic styles — Gothic, Renaissance, Victorian, Art Nouveau, and Art Deco — the graphics come in varied shapes and sizes and are frequently enhanced with plants, animals, and mythical and human figures. 312 black-and-white illustrations.
Book Description
503 copyright-free designs of ornamental scroll-work form from authentic Victorian sources. Many styles, motifs, sizes.
Customer Reviews:
Quite Useful.......2001-02-28
If you need a scroll motif, there isn't a better variety to be found in any single source. Torn-paper scrolls, currency panels, neoclassical banners. The odd illustration that could be useful in its own right, a la the wonderful *Treasury of Book Ornament and Decoration* (ISBN 0486251675).
Book Description
M->CREATED
Average customer rating:
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NTNTNT
Manufacturer: CalArts, School of Art
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
| History & Criticism
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
Pop Culture
| Graphic Design
| Design & Decorative Arts
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
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General
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
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ASIN: 0972704507 |
Book Description
A discussion of the relationship of art and the Internet, presented in the form of interviews, discussion, vignettes, etc.
Amazon.com
Tracing her family's odyssey from her grandmother's 1908 birth in rural India through her own 1960s childhood in the boomtowns of the American West Coast, Mira Kamdar paints a poignant but anti-nostalgic portrait. It's true, she notes, that Motiba (Hindi for "Grandmother") spoke, moved, and lived with a calm assurance that came from her roots in an ancient culture inaccessible to her cosmopolitan, mixed-ethnicity descendants. But she had also been pulled out of school at age 12, as was customary to preserve a girl's virtue, and was fiercely proud that her granddaughters had access to the education forbidden to her. Kamdar, whose prose is as subtle as her perceptions, captures the timeless appeal of village life when describing a visit to her grandmother's birthplace, but she also vividly evokes the vibrant sophistication of Rangoon, where her family made its fortune, as well as the colonial and racial tensions that forced most Indians out of Burma after World War II. Her father came to study in America and stayed to marry the red-haired daughter of Danish American farmers. Motiba's far-flung descendants remain close, even if they now keep in touch by e-mail as much as through the lengthy visits traditional among Indian relatives. In a moving final passage, Kamdar deems this new global community consistent with her grandmother's Jain belief that "we are all sojourners... adopting endless, myriad identities." --Wendy Smith
Book Description
The story of the Indian Diaspora--the great migration of Indians from their homeland to the New World--through one woman's memories of her remarkable family.
Delving back into the world into which her grandmother was born in a tiny village in Kathiawar, India, Mira Kamdar begins a wondrous journey into the past. She follows her family as it emigrates from the feudal, rural India of 1900 to the bustling streets of Rangoon in the 1920s and 1930s. After a harrowing flight out of war-torn Burma, the family returns to their profitable businesses, only to be stripped of everything and expelled by the Burmese dictatorship in the early 1960s. The family begins a new life in Bombay. It is there that they are first introduced to America. Hollywood captures the imagination of Kamdar's father, who, at the age of nineteen, is packed off to make the family's fortune in the United States. We witness his travails as one of the first Indian immigrants to the US in the 1950's and see how his children and grandchildren grapple with a multi-ethnic identity in post-modern America. Kamdar retraces pivotal historical moments-Satyagraha and India's independence movement, World War II, the "brain drain" years of a triumphant American military-industrial complex-but never strays from the intimate experiences of her own family. With rich, vivid details of her relatives' many fascinating lives, she recreates the moods and atmospheres of lost times and places and explores the borderless world of Indian-Americans today.
Customer Reviews:
"Part beauty mark, part brand, a legacy of tribal values.".......2003-08-04
In this poignant and sometimes melancholy account of the passing of an era, Mira Kamdar tells the story of her beloved grandmother Motiba, a woman from the agrarian and pastoral culture of old Gujarat, showing how the changes in Motiba's life and family during the past seventy years are also emblematic of dramatic changes in Indian culture as a whole. Herself the daughter of Motiba's son Prabhakar (Pete) and Lois Christensen, the Danish-American cowgirl he married while a student in the United States in the 1960's, Kamdar is especially sensitive to nuances of culture, and she brings her Indian family to life within the context of the country's history--her grandparents' marriage, her grandfather's adoption of the values of Mahatma Gandhi, the emigration of the family to Burma to manage their businesses there in the 1930's, the bombing of Rangoon by the Japanese during World War II, the return to Bombay, and eventually, the emigration of several of Motiba's children to the United States.
As she describes her own life, the author shifts her focus to that of the American immigrant experience. The tales of Indian history which infused her life as a child visiting in India eventually give way completely to tales of her life in the United States, as she moves with her parents and siblings throughout the west following her father's job changes. The significance of the death of Gandhi on her grandmother's life yields its place to the effects of the death of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King on her parents' and her own life. Her father's desire to have his family "fit in" becomes more important to him than teaching them the language and culture in which he grew up.
Rich, warm, humorous, and earnest, Motiba's Tattoos recreates the universal story of an immigrant family's metamorphosis from one whose primary allegiance is to another culture to one in which opportunities to assimilate are recognized and embraced. In the process of becoming American, uniquely personal values may evolve and be treasured, while retention of the old traditions must become a conscious effort. What was an integral part of their family life, historically, evolves into pleasant memories and echoes of the old way of life as new generations appear--the final result of the Indian diaspora, which began in the mid-20th century and which continues, unabated, to the present day. Mary Whipple
Preserving and Redefining Culture + a Good Story!!.......2001-02-13
Mira Kamdar writes about her Motiba because she was the last bastion of their family left in India. As long as Motiba was alive and living in India, India was "home". Now that she is gone, the Kamdars are forced to re-center their emotional homeland. This book was the authors attempt to maintain knowledge about her family history while simultaneouly redefining the meaning of being South Asian in the U.S.
This story is a good one for the larger South Asian immigrant community and for other ethnic groups that have immigrated in the U.S. in the last 20-30 years. Since Ms. Kamdar's father came here in the late 1940's, he was a very early Indian emigrant, but now a majority of the family is in the U.S. This will also happen to other immigrant families and it requires a redefinition by all generations of what their culture is. The positive light that Ms. Kamdar sheds on the emerging South Asian-American youth "movement" and on the younger members of her own family is refreshing given the negative image common in the South Asian-American community about Westernizing influences - that has given us the term ABCDs and such.
The difference between the current movement of people and ideas and previous emigrations of Indians abroad is well demonstrated by the Kamdar family. The Kamdars lived in Burma for a long time, but their spiritual and cultural center was always Gujarat. America has become a place which influences global culture and integrates the culture and ideas of its immigrants.
An excellent book for young people in search of identity.......2000-12-11
Mira Kamdar's family biography is the heart-warming and lovingly told tale of multiple generations of the Kamdar-Khara families. Beginning in the early twentieth century, in the small Kathiawar village of Gokhlana, we follow the lives and loves of this extended Jain family to the close of the twentieth century. Along the way we are allowed to share in the Kamdar-Khara families `adventures' and `mishaps', as a story that begins in the simple Gujarati villages of Kathiawar takes us on an enchanting journey through Rangoon and Bombay, ending in the vast suburban metropolises of the United States of America.
At the heart of the story lies Motiba, grandmother of the author, a simple lady steeped in the fine traditions of Kathiawari-Jain culture, and witness to all the dramas that have shaped the lives of her large extended family through the twentieth century. Mira Kamdar beautifully brings to life Motiba's world as a young Jain girl growing up in the deeply traditional Jain villages of Kathiawar. Through Mira's retelling of the anecdotes of older family members, especially Motiba, we learn about the lives of Jain women in the early part of the century: How they lived, their position in society, the role of religion in the Jain village and the impact of the British and Mahatma Gandhi upon this pre-modern world.
As the century moves on, the action switches to the British imperial possession of Burma and the cities of Akyub and Rangoon where many members of the Kamdar-Khara families, like other Indians, travelled in search of business opportunities and the hope for a more prosperous existence. Perhaps because the story of the Indian Diasporas in Burma is not as well known and documented as other Indian Diasporas experiences, the story of the Jain community in Burma is one of the most fascinating parts of the entire narrative. Here we discover how young Jain settlers in Burma built businesses and created new lives for themselves and their families and then saw it all swept away after the Japanese invasion during the Second World War and the consequent ethnic conflicts that gripped post-independence Burma. The poignancy of this section of the story is only heightened by Mira's interviews with the remnants of the once strong Indian community in Rangoon.
But wherever Mira Kamdar's story takes us, and it proceeds to take us to Bombay, Oregon and Los Angeles, a number of overarching themes dominate the book. Firstly, how the descendants of turn-of-the-century Kathiawari-Jain families attempted to preserve and adapt their Jain identity in a modern and, more importantly, non-Jain world. We are witness to the struggles of Motiba's eldest son, Prabhakar or `Pete' as he is known in America, as he attempts to cope with life after emigrating to America and how both he and his family cope with his marriage to a white American girl from Oregon and the status of Prabhakar's children's as perceived half-castes. Secondly, we see how the impersonal forces of history interact with people's personal choices to shape their lives as well as the lives of the generations to follow. Whether it be the ravages of the Second World War, the Cold war or the Indian independence struggle the fate of this Jain family has been touched by external events. But Mira never lets the `external' dominate her narrative; instead she weaves the major events of the century into the fabric of her story whilst preserving the primacy of her chronicle as a family biography.
The people and lives that Mira Kamdar has so affectionately described are not the lives of Maharajas, celebrated Indian independence fighters or Indian industrial magnates: There are no Nehrus, Tatas or Tagores amongst the Kamdar-Khara clan. But this, paradoxically, is the source of the very richness and beauty of Mira Kamdar's story. Mira Kamdar is telling the story of one Jain-Kathiawar family and how it has navigated the twentieth century. But this family is similar to hundreds and thousands of other Jain families who began the century in the pre-modern villages of Gujarat and who ended the century in the cosmopolitan cities of New York, Chicago, Toronto, London and Singapore. And this takes us to the heart of this book: How we, the younger generation of Jains, have a tendency to look at our silver-haired parents and grandparents and dismiss, or at the least never enquire, into their lives and experiences. We lose so much that sits just in front of us if we forget that our older relatives have lived fascinating lives, very different from our own, and have often made extraordinarily brave and difficult decisions to leave their homeland in search of a new future of which we are the ultimate beneficiaries. This then is the true joy of Mira Kamdar's book, reminding us all that within our own families are those who have lived through a history very different to our own and that we have much to discover by sitting down and learning from them and drawing upon their rich experiences and wisdom.
Jay Sheth
The contrasting worlds of a mutli-cultural family.......2000-10-26
Subtitled "A Granddaughter's Journey into her Indian Family's Past", Mira Kamdar give the reader a picture of a world that is increasingly getting smaller and a lifestyle that is fading into memory.
Born in 1957, Mira Kamdar is the daughter of an Indian engineer who came to the United States to study and fell in love with the red-haired freckled daughter of Danish-American farmers. Their marriage was a happy one and their four children were raised in the United States but kept their ties to their father's world through lengthy visits to India and close knit family ties.
The word "Motiba" means "grandmother" and Ms. Kamdar has chosen to tell her story by contrasting the differences between her own and her grandmother's life. For example, Motiba was abruptly taken out of school at the age of 9 where she had to live in a protected women's world until her marriage at age 15.
The family was of the merchant caste and settled in Burma during the 1920s and 30s where they lived a luxurious life. But when War came to Burma, things changed. Not only did they lose their prosperous businesses, but they were forced to undergo unspeakable horrors as they fled for their lives back to India.
There is much descriptive detail and a feel of history to this book. We also read about young Mira's feelings of living in two different worlds. We feel her discomfort at being different, and applaud the philosophy of her parents' marriage which they saw as way to bring peace and understanding into the world.
I found the book interesting but not without flaws. For example, the title implies that we would learn a lot about the geometric tattoos that Motiba had on her face. The author does mention them but never did find out exactly what they meant. Also, there were whole sections about Ms. Kamdar's own life that never were explored. We learn she has two children but she doesn't mention her own husband or marriage.
There were nice photographs. I savored them all. Some of them were a little small, but I did enjoy them. Also, the narrative structure, without one line of dialogue, was a little tiring for my eyes even though the book was only 275 pages long.
Changes are occurring so rapidly now that it is hard to stop the thrust of globalization that we live with every day. There's e-mail and instant communication and mixture of peoples from all over the world. Ms. Kamdar's story makes all of this very real and is indeed a worthwhile read.
Fiction And Nonfiction Readers Should Buy This Book.......2000-10-14
This journey quite literally around the world is as much a love letter from the writer to her children as it is a telling of a universal story of family evolution.
What a treasure that Kamdar chose to trace her family's path as a way to explore the past century's economic, military and sociological history.
If you choose to read this as a scholarly writing, you will gain great insight from Kamdar's subject. If instead you choose to read it as an epic cross-cultural tale, you won't be disappointed.
Or you could buy it just for the recipies.
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- Why I Don't Write Like Franz Kafka
- Zorro : The Masters Edition Vol. One (Zorro the Masters Edition)
- A Drink Called Paradise: A Novel
- All Quiet On The Orient Express: A Novel
- An American Girl, and Her Four Years in a Boys'
- An Imperative Duty
- Bad Man Blues: A Portable George Garrett
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