A heartwarming collection of short stories from towns within India, possibly from a place near yours and about someone familiar.... The sisters in Benares, whose fate led them to different cities, one to mercurial heights of stardom and the other to the depths of misfortune. Now, thirteen years later, they are back in the same city where they started; will the ghats change the course of their lives? Sethji had been an astute and successful diamond merchant, and his grandson’s passion for “paper money” or stocks was wiping the family fortunes. Ironically, he learnt the most valuable lesson of his life from the old, toothless, homeless, flower seller. Too late or just in time? Where was the property, which the whole family was searching for, hidden? Who was the mysterious old man that Raghu had seen from the train? Will Anirban get away with murder? Why was Priyanka dreaming of her dead daughter’s blue stilettos? Will the women in Kumaon save the trees by “hugging them?” Would the ghosts who lived in the library let the young couple in love live happily ever after? Find the answers to these and many more…. These fourteen delightful tales may end with a twist, but they bring with them the powerful lessons of Hope!

In the tradition of celebrated wartime storytellers Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene, Tan Twan Eng's debut novel casts a powerful spell. The recipient of extraordinary acclaim from critics and the bookselling community, Tan Twan Eng's debut novel casts a powerful spell and has garnered comparisons to celebrated wartime storytellers Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene. Set during the tumult of World War II, on the lush Malayan island of Penang, The Gift of Rain tells a riveting and poignant tale about a young man caught in the tangle of wartime loyalties and deceits. In 1939, sixteen-year-old Philip Hutton-the half-Chinese, half-English youngest child of the head of one of Penang's great trading families-feels alienated from both the Chinese and British communities. He at last discovers a sense of belonging in his unexpected friendship with Hayato Endo, a Japanese diplomat. Philip proudly shows his new friend around his adored island, and in return Endo teaches him about Japanese language and culture and trains him in the art and discipline of aikido. But such knowledge comes at a terrible price. When the Japanese savagely invade Malaya, Philip realizes that his mentor and sensei-to whom he owes absolute loyalty-is a Japanese spy. Young Philip has been an unwitting traitor, and must now work in secret to save as many lives as possible, even as his own family is brought to its knees.

Bewildered by a series of strange, erotic dreams, Maggie Kildare, a young writer living in New York, is eager to discover their meaning. When she finds herself the sole beneficiary in an unknown woman's will, leaving her a large estate in Cornwall, England, she feels that perhaps she has been given a key to unlock the dreams' mysteries. This feeling is enhanced when she is introduced to Ethan Jones, a young Englishman who more than just resembles the man in her dreams. Their mutual attraction is hampered by the arrival of Maggie's jealous boyfriend, Mark Devane-and by Celia Collins, the scheming ex-companion of Maggie's benefactress, Penelope Burroughs. A diary and a letter, left by Penelope, only help to confuse Maggie even more. An attempt on her life, and a supposed betrayal by the man she is falling in love with, send Maggie into a tailspin. Researching the history of Park Manor, the estate she now owns, she discovers that her great-great-grandfather was murdered on the day he was to be married-and that the spirits of both he and his bride-to-be are urging her to avenge them, and set them free.

A dazzling collection of original essays by some of America's most notable young writers on the cultural impact of the Star Wars films A Galaxy Not So Far Away is the first ever exploration of the innumerable ways the Star Wars films have forever altered our cultural and artistic landscape. Edited by Glenn Kenny, a senior editor and critic at Premiere magazine, this singular collection allows some of the nation's most acclaimed writers to anatomize, criticize, celebrate, and sometimes simply riff on the prismatic aftereffects of an unparalleled American phenomenon. Jonathan Lethem writes of the summer he saw Star Wars twenty-one times as his mother lay dying of cancer. Neal Pollack chips in with the putative memoir of a certain young man having problems with his father, written in the voice of Holden Caulfield. Erika Krouse ponders the code of the Jedi Knight and its relation to her own pursuit of the martial arts. New York Times film critic Elvis Mitchell meditates upon the mysterious figure Lando Calrissian. A classic assemblage of pop writing at its best, A Galaxy Not So Far Away is a book for everyone who loves Star Wars films and seeks to understand just what it is about these films that has so enchanted an entire generation of filmgoers.

Thirteen-year-old Natalie Gallagher is trying to escape: from her parents' ugly divorce, and from the vicious cyber-bullying of her former best friend. Adrift, confused, she is a girl trying to find her way in a world that seems to either neglect or despise her. Her salvation arrives in an unlikely form: Bridget O'Connell, an Irish maid working for a wealthy Boston family. The catch? Bridget lives only in the pages of a dusty old 1920s diary Natalie unearthed in her mother's basement. But the life she describes is as troubling -- and mysterious -- as the one Natalie is trying to navigate herself, almost a century later. I am writing this down because this is my story. There were only ever two people who knew my secret, and both are gone before me. Who was Bridget, and what became of her? Natalie escapes into the diary, eager to unlock its secrets, and reluctantly accepts the help of library archivist Kathleen Lynch, a widow with her own painful secret: she's estranged from her only daughter. Kathleen sees in Natalie traces of the daughter she has lost, and in Bridget, another spirited young woman at risk. What could an Irish immigrant domestic servant from the 1920s teach them both? As the troubles of a very modern world close in around them, and Natalie's torments at school escalate, the faded pages of Bridget's journal unite the lonely girl and the unhappy widow . . . and might even change their lives forever.

What if you had a chance to travel back to your youth when you fell in love for first time, to relive that magical time when you met the girl who would forever change your life? Mark Peterson, a physics professor at Harvard University, has this chance, for he has created a time machine and uses it to transport himself back to that special summer of 1973. Mark arrives in 1973, taking over the young body of his former self, and begins to once again fall in love with Lena and spends time with his friends and family from so long ago. That carefree summer, shortly after the Vietnam war had ended when gas cost thirty-seven cents a gallon and Richard Nixon is nearing the end of his presidency as the Watergate hearings are taking place, at the beach with his friends, little transistor radios were playing hits from popular singers of the time like Jim Croce, Seals and Crofts, Gilbert O’Sullivan, and Roberta Flack. But this journey is not without danger, and Mark finds himself unable to return home. He has three weeks before his young body reclaims itself and he is erased from time. Without the help of his colleague and friend Ron Sarno, a fellow professor at Harvard, Mark will be unable to return to the present. Unbeknownst to Mark, Ron lies in a coma following a serious accident, unable to help his friend. As the point of no return approaches, Mark anxiously awaits his fate. Long Ago and Far Away, a suspenseful page-turner with a mixture of science fiction, adventure, and young love. A novel that will take you back to an innocent time, long before the internet, smartphones, and flat-screen TVs. A novel you won’t soon put down.

This book tells a story to shake the conscience of the world. It is the catalogue of the first-ever traveling exhibition about the Auschwitz concentration camp, where 1.1 million people—mostly Jews, but also non-Jewish Poles, Roma, and others—lost their lives. More than 280 objects and images from the exhibition are illustrated herein. Drawn from the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and other collections around the world, they range from the intimate (such as victims’ family snapshots and personal belongings) to the immense (an actual surviving barrack from the Auschwitz III–Monowitz satellite camp); all are eloquent in their testimony. An authoritative yet accessible text weaves the stories behind these artifacts into an encompassing history of Auschwitz—from a Polish town at the crossroads of Europe, to the dark center of the Holocaust, to a powerful site of remembrance. Auschwitz: Not long ago. Not far away. is an essential volume for everyone who is interested in history and its lessons.

'Far Away and Long Ago' is a biography of William Henry Hudson – known in Argentina as Guillermo Enrique Hudson. He was an Anglo-Argentine author, naturalist and ornithologist. He was born and lived his first years in a small estancia called "25 Ombues" in what is now Ingeniero Allan, Florencio Varela, Argentina.