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From the author of Sistina, Alone in the Light, and World Hunger The Book of Names is Brian Kenneth Swain’s first collection of short fiction. The stories, characters, and themes explored in this work are as universal as they are diverse: bravery, greed, legacy, and a serious infatuation with horses and French horns. In the title story, one soldier turns hopelessness into a moment of grandeur and sacrifice. In “The Antique Shop,” the proprietor and his customer marvel at the absurdity of debating the provenance and value of a book that cannot possibly exist, despite it being there in the shop with them. And in “Convergence,” two Middle Eastern men share a drink and speak of the ine...
Mind State is a new collection of imaginative and thought-provoking tales from the author of Day’s End, Sistina, and World Hunger. In Icarus Falling, a routine lunar supply mission turns into a hellish journey whose end can only be carnage, for the crew and for everyone awaiting their arrival. In Eliot’s Ghost, a business executive must finally face the consequences of a long-forgotten decision as he searches for a mysterious, long-lost worker whose tormented spirit fills his dreams. And in Arwen, a young woman shopping for books meets an unexpected stranger, one who shares wonders beyond her imagining and, in the end, leaves her with a truly unexpected gift. Swain’s second collection ...
Come and look upon these things, so that you may understand and believe. Sistina, Brian Kenneth Swain's gripping and thought-provoking new novel, is a story two thousand years in the making. The events set in motion following Christ's crucifixion build to a crescendo during the Italian High Renaissance and will test the faith of the story's historical and modern-day characters, as well as that of readers. When a violent earthquake damages Michelangelo's magnificent frescoes, a team of experts undertakes the Vatican's most important restoration in centuries, only to discover a perplexing secret hidden for five hundred years beneath the chapel's plaster ceiling. The message, both cryptic and i...
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The Lobsterman's Daughter is a tale of murder and deceit in five generations of a Maine family, the Markhams. The story's narrator, Henrietta Markham, is a recent Harvard graduate, who submits an early version as her honors thesis and claims her work is an actual history of her family. She tells the story in her own voice and the conjured voices of her relatives, both living and dead. After graduation, in Barcelona she faces her own deceit in omitting her sins from the chronicle and adds a journal that documents her bizarre attempts at expiation and atonement. Markham sends the new version back to her advisor and asks that it be published as her final word on her family's history. In an epilogue Lieberman's author struggles unsuccessfully to regain control of a narrator who is at once incorrigible and essential. Ultimately the novel asks us to consider our capacity for evil, what it means to atone, and where forgiveness and grace reside.
From the award-winning champion of culinary simplicity who gave us the bestselling How to Cook Everything and How to Cook Everything Vegetarian comes Food Matters, a plan for responsible eating that's as good for the planet as it is for your weight and your health. We are finally starting to acknowledge the threat carbon emissions pose to our ozone layer, but few people have focused on the extent to which our consumption of meat contributes to global warming. Think about it this way: In terms of energy consumption, serving a typical family-of-four steak dinner is the rough equivalent of driving around in an SUV for three hours while leaving all the lights on at home. Bittman offers a no-nons...
Vanguard Corporation, an agricultural company led by a greedy and mercurial CEO, has developed a new line of genetically modified seed products. Designed to significantly increase crop yields and resist drought, pests, and disease in the hopes of reducing hunger in Third World countries, the seeds should also earn huge profits for the firm. Vanguard's testing in Belarus, Colombia, and India initially goes well, but midway through the crops' development, reports begin to emerge of bizarre insect observations linked to incidents of domestic animal slaughter, and eventually, the death of several people. The high-growth genetic enhancements engineered into the seeds have been transferred into th...
carry me away, beyond the cusp of the hemisphere, all the way back to the start of time ------------- The start of time and the start of poetry are very tightly entwined. Whether you subscribe to a big bang or the touch of a creator, either event yields images at once breathtaking and diffi cult to describe, in other words poems. Still, we try our best. From the most renowned poet to the youngest schoolchild, we are all searching for meaning. And in those few fl eeting moments when we feel like perhaps weve unearthed some small explanatory fragment, our instincts are the sameto take up a pen and share what weve discovered with those we know and love. This collection is my attempt to share the few small truths Ive stumbled upon during my journey from here to wherever Im headed
Celebrated for its natural beauty and its abundance of wildlife, the Mekong river runs thousands of miles through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Its basin is home to more than 70 million people and has for centuries been one of the world's richest agricultural areas and a biodynamic wonder. Today, however, it is undergoing profound changes. Development policies, led by a rising China in particular, aim to interconnect the region and urbanize the inhabitants. And a series of dams will harness the river's energy, while also stymieing its natural cycles and cutting off food supplies for swathes of the population. In Last Days of the Mighty Mekong, Brian Eyler travels from the river's headwaters in China to its delta in southern Vietnam to explore its modern evolution. Along the way he meets the region’s diverse peoples, from villagers to community leaders, politicians to policy makers. Through conversations with them he reveals the urgent struggle to save the Mekong and its unique ecosystem.