The following collection of stories capture the quirks and eccentricities of everyday life. The author deftly moves between descriptions of life-changing events and moments of playfulness. Although, the characters often have to face difficult situations and make tough choices, they follow their heart. The diverse stories in this book are filled with wonder, excitement,curiosity, and intense emotions. Padmavati trusts her astrologer, but his predictions don’t always turn out to be true. In an unexpected twist, the astrologer is forced to acknowledge the failings of his craft. A son is forced to choose between his wife and his old mother. Who does he choose and is he happy with the outcome? A young woman comes into her own, as she moves away to study abroad, leaving her family behind.A Kashmiri boy leaves his family to join the ranks of militants and gets killed by the security forces. How does his family cope up with the choice he’s made? What does a family living close to India-Pakistan border go through when it is forced by severe cross border shelling to migrate to a makeshift camp in the hinterland in severe winter? These stories are a rollercoaster ride of love and laughter, misery and loss, acceptance and escape. These stories are about the choices that define human struggles and enable, in the process, the protagonists to find greater meaning and purpose in life. They focus on the dark and the beautiful, right and wrong, black and white, and all shades of grey in between. They are a tribute to the human spirit, an ode to the tireless struggles of ordinary men and women.

The work of a visionary and iconoclastic feminist cartoonist—available in English for the first time The Sky is Blue with a Single Cloud collects the best short stories from Kuniko Tsurita’s remarkable career. While the works of her male peers in literary manga are widely reprinted, this formally ambitious and poetic female voice is like none other currently available to an English readership. A master of the comics form, expert pacing and compositions combined with bold characters are signature qualities of Tsurita's work. Tsurita’s early stories “Nonsense” and “Anti” provide a unique, intimate perspective on the bohemian culture and political heat of late 1960s and early ‘70s Tokyo. Her work gradually became darker and more surreal under the influence of modern French literature and her own prematurely failing health. As in works like “The Sky is Blue with a Single Cloud” and “Max,” the gender of many of Tsurita's strong and sensual protagonists is ambiguous, marking an early exploration of gender fluidity. Late stories like "Arctic Cold" and "Flight" show the artist experimenting with more conventional narrative modes, though with dystopian themes that extend the philosophical interests of her early work. An exciting and essential gekiga collection, The Sky is Blue with a Single Cloud is translated by the comics scholar Ryan Holmberg and includes an afterword cowritten by Holmberg and manga editor Mitsuhiro Asakawa delineating Tsurita's importance and historical relevance.

'A bracing, heart-lifting read. Patterson is a superb writer' Observer OUTSIDE, THE SKY IS BLUE is a heart-breaking yet also truly joyful and wise memoir of growing up, of dealing with mental health and illness, and of what it means to be part of a family that, despite everything, is able to laugh and to love. 'A memoir about the loss of faith and hope. A memoir about the loss of faith and hope. The book journeys to dark places but it's too honest and well written to be dispiriting. She perseveres in her quest to understand' Guardian When Christina Patterson's brother Tom died suddenly, she faced the harrowing task of clearing out his house. Tom had always been the one who held on to the family treasures and memories, but now Christina had to sift through boxes of letters, photos and belongings, not just of Tom's, but of their parents and their older sister, Caroline. The contents of those boxes tell the story of a young couple who decide to swap a glamorous diplomatic life in Rome for a housing estate in Surrey. But their new suburban, happy life, is increasingly disrupted by Caroline's erratic behaviour. As she is diagnosed with schizophrenia, Tom seeks solace in sport and Christina in a youth club where she hopes to meet boys, but finds God instead. It doesn't help her in her quest for romance. 'A hymn to optimism, and a beacon of unflagging hope' iPaper 'This is a joyful book. Despite the sorrows, there is a determined joy to this tale, a pattern of finding the good despite the bad, of turning to face the sun so the shadows fall behind' Dr Kathryn Mannix 'She writes beautifully - crisp, yet emotional and page-turning. For me, it is something about her clarity and brutal honesty in describing both heartbreak and heart bursting life and love. In the end it is only the love that matters' Julia Samuel, author of Grief Works

A boy’s nomadic life in Mongolia is under threat in a novel that “captures the mountains, valleys and steppes in all their surpassing beauty and brutality” (Minneapolis Star-Tribune). In the high Altai Mountains of northern Mongolia, a young shepherd boy comes of age, tending his family’s flocks on the mountain steppes and knowing little of the world beyond the surrounding peaks. But his nomadic way of life is increasingly disrupted by modernity. This confrontation comes in stages. First, his older siblings leave the family yurt to attend a distant boarding school. Then the boy’s grandmother dies, and with her his connection to the old ways. But perhaps the greatest tragedy strikes when his dog, Arsylang—“all that was left to me”—ingests poison set out by the boy’s father to protect his herd from wolves. “Why is it so?” Dshurukawaa cries out in despair to the Heavenly Blue Sky, to be answered only by the wind. Rooted in the oral traditions of the Tuvan people, The Blue Sky weaves the timeless story of a boy poised on the cusp of manhood with the story of a people on the threshold. “Thrilling. . . . Tschinag makes it easy for his readers to fall into the beautiful rhythms of the Tuvans’ daily life.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review “In this pristine and concentrated tale of miraculous survival and anguished loss, Tschinag evokes the nurturing warmth of a family within the circular embrace of a yurt as an ancient way of life lived in harmony with nature becomes endangered.” —Booklist

Sky’s small town turns absolutely claustrophobic when his secret promposal plans get leaked to the entire school in this witty, heartfelt, and ultimately hopeful debut novel for fans of What if it’s Us? and I Wish You All the Best. Sky Baker may be openly gay, but in his small, insular town, making sure he was invisible has always been easier than being himself. Determined not to let anything ruin his senior year, Sky decides to make a splash at his high school’s annual beach bum party by asking his crush, Ali, to prom—and he has thirty days to do it. What better way to start living loud and proud than by pulling off the gayest promposal Rock Ledge, Michigan, has ever seen? Then, Sky’s plans are leaked by an anonymous hacker in a deeply homophobic e-blast that quickly goes viral. He’s fully prepared to drop out and skip town altogether—until his classmates give him a reason to fight back by turning his thirty-day promposal countdown into a school-wide hunt to expose the e-blast perpetrator. But what happens at the end of the thirty days? Will Sky get to keep his hard-won visibility? Or will his small-town blues stop him from being his true self?

Colin Scott is a top literary agent at a firm representing some of the biggest names in publishing. He's worked hard to reach this place, yet now it seems routine and aggravating. On top of the creeping cynicism in his professional life, Colin and his wife are desperate to have a baby. As the pressure mounts, he finds himself questioning almost every decision he's ever made. And he seems to be having a nervous breakdown. Then disaster strikes. On a much-needed vacation in Mexico, his wife's parasail malfunctions and she plunges to her death. From that point on, Colin's life goes from bad to worse as he loses his job and, apparently, his mind.

Entertainment Weekly's 27 Female Authors Who Rule Sci-Fi and Fantasy Right Now Winner of the 2017 Nebula Award for Best Novel Finalist for the 2017 Hugo Award for Best Novel Paste's 50 Best Books of the 21st Century (So Far) List “The book is full of quirkiness and playful detail...but there's an overwhelming depth and poignancy to its virtuoso ending.” —NPR From the former editor-in-chief of io9.com, a stunning Nebula Award-winning and Hugo-shortlisted novel about the end of the world—and the beginning of our future An ancient society of witches and a hipster technological startup go to war in order to prevent the world from tearing itself apart. To further complicate things, each of the groups’ most promising followers (Patricia, a brilliant witch and Laurence, an engineering “wunderkind”) may just be in love with each other. As the battle between magic and science wages in San Francisco against the backdrop of international chaos, Laurence and Patricia are forced to choose sides. But their choices will determine the fate of the planet and all mankind. In a fashion unique to Charlie Jane Anders, All the Birds in the Sky offers a humorous and, at times, heart-breaking exploration of growing up extraordinary in a world filled with cruelty, scientific ingenuity, and magic. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

In every manner of framing, there is a house. There is a door one must enter through, a door one must shut behind herself in order to leave. In every manner of space, there is an intimate and crucial rivalry between open and close, between time and memory, between myself and yourself. The further we walk together, the further we walk in parallel, that distance between us that wavers, minuscule on some days, and incredibly vast on others, but always and certainly there, that distance persists. The entire sky between us. The entire sky between us.

( Photo 1 ) Circling bright lights are entities, zig-zagging ufo in the middle: I took this pic at the remote beach of Punta del Diablo in Uruguay, in february 2011. Hallo dears. I started writing thìs book the 14 of february of 2023, day of the enamoured of San Valentine that is the birthday of my eldest brother Alex, and finished writing it on saturday 18 of february 2023. I am Erik Kars Karsen Gleiss. I feel uruguayan, where born and grown up, and I am living in Holland. I am surprised about what was written through me when writing this book. Thank you and enjoy. ( photo 2 ) Sunday night 19 of february 2023 More: www.karsauthor.com

Although he wants to learn all that wise old Donkey knows, Rabbit cannot sit still to listen to the answers to his questions, but in the end he teaches Donkey some new things.