You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Yeong-hye and her husband are ordinary people. He is an office worker with moderate ambitions and mild manners; she is an uninspired but dutiful wife. The acceptable flatline of their marriage is interrupted when Yeong-hye, seeking a more 'plant-like' existence, decides to become a vegetarian, prompted by grotesque recurring nightmares. In South Korea, where vegetarianism is almost unheard-of and societal mores are strictly obeyed, Yeong-hye's decision is a shocking act of subversion. Her passive rebellion manifests in ever more bizarre and frightening forms, leading her bland husband to self-justified acts of sexual sadism. His cruelties drive her towards attempted suicide and hospitalisation. She unknowingly captivates her sister's husband, a video artist. She becomes the focus of his increasingly erotic and unhinged artworks, while spiralling further and further into her fantasies of abandoning her fleshly prison and becoming - impossibly, ecstatically - a tree. Fraught, disturbing and beautiful, The Vegetarian is a novel about modern day South Korea, but also a novel about shame, desire and our faltering attempts to understand others, from one imprisoned body to another.
The world's most beautiful movie star is scarred in a fiery car accident. Her career over and her self-esteem in shreds, she hides in the magnificent home her grandmother left her in the mountains of North Carolina. But her motherly cousin refuses to let her become a recluse, and a handsome neighbor with painful dilemmas of his own is lured into the mix. Romance, family life, drama, humor, and secrets.
FROM HAN KANG, WINNER OF THE 2024 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE “[Han Kang writes in] intense poetic prose that . . . exposes the fragility of human life.”—from the Nobel Prize citation SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE • A “formally daring, emotionally devastating, and deeply political” (The New York Times Book Review) exploration of personal grief through the prism of the color white, from the internationally bestselling author of The Vegetarian “Stunningly beautiful. . . one of the smartest reflections on what it means to remember those we’ve lost.”—NPR Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, Han Kang’s The White Book is a meditation on color, as well as an attempt to make sense of her older sister’s death, who died in her mother’s arms just a few hours after she was born. In captivating, starkly beautiful language, The White Book is a letter from Kang to her sister, offering a multilayered exploration of color and its absence, and of the tenacity and fragility of the human spirit.
Near the beginning of A Greater Music, the narrator, a young Korean writer, falls into an icy river in the Berlin suburbs, where she's been house-sitting for her on-off boyfriend Joachim. This sets into motion a series of memories that move between the hazily defined present and the period three years ago when she first lived in Berlin. Throughout, the narrator's relationship with Joachim, a rough-and-ready metalworker, is contrasted with her friendship with M, an ultra-refined music-loving German teacher, whom, it is suggested, later became her lesbian lover.
An invitation to a more participatory relationship with God through the power of prayer. Nothing is more remarkable—or more beautiful—than an ordinary life, quietly transformed by prayer. This is the life that Deborah Smith Douglas chronicles—and invites readers into—in her lovely collection of essays and poems. Drawing from events as simple as breakfast with her five-year-old daughter or waiting in line at the post office, Douglas shows how a loving relationship with God can be nurtured in small ways every day. “Without my ever really intending it,” she writes, “my own life—as a wife and mother, daughter and friend—has taught me to see God hidden in the ordinary, to watch for God under the surface of things as a fisherman watches for fish.” Woven into each of these pieces, along with reflections on the author’s experiences, are guidelines for readers watching for God in their own unique—and ordinary—lives. Divided into four sections—Ways of Praying, Healing, Spiritual Companionship, and Fruitfulness—The Praying Life will help Christians move from awareness of God’s presence in their lives to a deep participation in God’s love.
Speak up. Don’t take it so personally. Just make a decision already. Every day, whether they’re competing in the business world or serving in a nonprofit, women hear that they’re not enough. They’re too emotional to lead, and the way they act, speak, and even think is detrimental to success. But in Lead Like a Woman, former Fortune 500 executive Deborah Smith Pegues shows that your uniquely female qualities can position you for success—if you know how to use them. She’ll teach you to embrace 12 traits that can help you excel as a leader, and she’ll also help you eliminate 12 tendencies that could be hindering your progress. You will discover how to… develop confidence while sharpening your professional and relational skills let go of unproductive thoughts and habits that sabotage your success create a transformative, participative, and inclusive organization Whether at work or in your community, Lead Like a Woman will empower you to walk boldly down your path of leadership and find fulfillment in the journey.
Her Harvard-student son just eloped with the First Daughter. CNN is parked on the road to her apple orchards. Secret Service agents have commandeered her country kitchen. The irate First Parents are threatening to have her taxes audited. The President's handsome, tough, ex-military nephew is setting up camp in her guest room. Hush McGillan's quiet Appalachian world of heirloom apples, country festivals, and carefully guarded family secrets has just been flipped like one of her famous Sweet Hush Apple Turnovers. What do you do when your brand-new-in-laws are the First Family, and they don't like you any more than you like them? And what happens next when you find yourself falling in love with the man they sent to unearth all your secrets? From the White House to the apple house, from humor to tears and sorrow to laughter, get ready to fall in love with Sweet Hush.
'As cryptic and compelling as a fever dream... Bae Suah is one of the most unique and adroit literary voices working today' Sharlene Teo Finishing her last shift at Seoul's only audio theatre for the blind, Kim Ayami heads into the night with her former boss, searching for a missing friend. The following day, she looks after a visiting poet, a man who is not as he seems. Unfolding over a night and a day in the sweltering summer heat, their world's order gives way to chaos, the edges of reality start to fray, and the past intrudes on the present in increasingly disorientating ways. Untold Night and Day is a hallucinatory feat of storytelling from one of the most radical voices in contemporary Korean literature. 'Highly original... Once I finished it, much of it slipped into my subconscious' Daily Telegraph
A toolbox of positive principles, tips and techniques for the ultimate self-care. Science tells us that happiness is 50% genetic, 10% circumstantial and 40% how we think and act. Which means that it is possible to increase our happiness by up to 40%. For anyone wanting to increase their wellbeing, Grow Your Own Happiness shows how positive psychology - the science of happiness- can be used every day. With key principles explained to provide the foundation for change, tests for measuring wellbeing and simple techniques that can easily be applied to a busy lifestyle, as well as case studies, anecdotes and tips, this book provides everything you need to shine.
Places the Douglases describe include: - Whithorn, the cradle of Scottish Christianity - Iona, the place of Saint Columba - Canterbury Cathedral, site of Thomas a Becket's martyrdom - Norwich, the site of Julian's spiritual insights - Bemerton, where George Herbert ministered - Aldersgate Street, where John Wesley felt his heart strangely warmed - Olney, where John Newton wrote Amazing Grace - Oxford, the legacy of C.S. Lewis - Coventry Cathedral, bombed during World War 2 and now offering hope to all Each chapter describes the place and illumines the lives of the men and women associated with the place. Black and white photographs by Joan Myers illustrate each of the sites.