‘One empire expands and thrives on the death ground of another; the empire of human civilization did same on the kingdom of Nature: so was the destiny of a pack of jackals of this fiction under the steamroller aggression of the human urbanization’. An allegorical fable of imaginative fantasy questioning the advance of civilization and the right of authoritarian instinct of mankind. It is also a note on ecology and disorientation of Nature by what we tag as advancement of civilization. It also throws light on all sorts of beings that were and are still being thrown away from their natural abode and made stateless on ethnic grounds and compelled to cross borders for shelter and food. The novel describes how a handful of power-loving beings, for all time, shapes the future of a place as well as its people. They change a virgin land to a concrete city, the attitudes of the people of the land, the fate of the very place in the name of bright and lucrative urbanization as the fate of the jackals of the novel is shaped and sent to the darkness of future. The whole story unfolds through the answers of a mother jackal to the curious questions of her baby jackal trapped in a walled urban factory premises and the question is ‘Does the fate do the final justice to the homeless jackals?’

The New York Times–bestselling author of H is for Hawk explores the human relationship to the natural world in this “dazzling” essay collection (Wall Street Journal). In Vesper Flights, Helen Macdonald brings together a collection of her best loved essays, along with new pieces on topics ranging from nostalgia for a vanishing countryside to the tribulations of farming ostriches to her own private vespers while trying to fall asleep. Meditating on notions of captivity and freedom, immigration and flight, Helen invites us into her most intimate experiences: observing the massive migration of songbirds from the top of the Empire State Building, watching tens of thousands of cranes in Hungary, seeking the last golden orioles in Suffolk’s poplar forests. She writes with heart-tugging clarity about wild boar, swifts, mushroom hunting, migraines, the strangeness of birds’ nests, and the unexpected guidance and comfort we find when watching wildlife.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “This is history at its most immediate and moving…A marvelous and memorable book.” —Jon Meacham “Remarkable…A priceless civic gift…On page after page, a reader will encounter words that startle, or make him angry, or heartbroken.” —The Wall Street Journal “Visceral...I repeatedly cried…This book captures the emotions and unspooling horror of the day.” —NPR “Had me turning each page with my heart in my throat…There’s been a lot written about 9/11, but nothing like this. I urge you to read it.” —Katie Couric The first comprehensive oral history of September 11, 2001—a panoramic narrative woven from the voices of Americans on the front lines of an unprecedented national trauma. Over the past eighteen years, monumental literature has been published about 9/11, from Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower, which traced the rise of al-Qaeda, to The 9/11 Commission Report, the government’s definitive factual retrospective of the attacks. But one perspective has been missing up to this point—a 360-degree account of the day told through the voices of the people who experienced it. Now, in The Only Plane in the Sky, award-winning journalist and bestselling historian Garrett Graff tells the story of the day as it was lived—in the words of those who lived it. Drawing on never-before-published transcripts, recently declassified documents, original interviews, and oral histories from nearly five hundred government officials, first responders, witnesses, survivors, friends, and family members, Graff paints the most vivid and human portrait of the September 11 attacks yet. Beginning in the predawn hours of airports in the Northeast, we meet the ticket agents who unknowingly usher terrorists onto their flights, and the flight attendants inside the hijacked planes. In New York City, first responders confront a scene of unimaginable horror at the Twin Towers. From a secret bunker underneath the White House, officials watch for incoming planes on radar. Aboard the small number of unarmed fighter jets in the air, pilots make a pact to fly into a hijacked airliner if necessary to bring it down. In the skies above Pennsylvania, civilians aboard United Flight 93 make the ultimate sacrifice in their place. Then, as the day moves forward and flights are grounded nationwide, Air Force One circles the country alone, its passengers isolated and afraid. More than simply a collection of eyewitness testimonies, The Only Plane in the Sky is the historic narrative of how ordinary people grappled with extraordinary events in real time: the father and son working in the North Tower, caught on different ends of the impact zone; the firefighter searching for his wife who works at the World Trade Center; the operator of in-flight telephone calls who promises to share a passenger’s last words with his family; the beloved FDNY chaplain who bravely performs last rites for the dying, losing his own life when the Towers collapse; and the generals at the Pentagon who break down and weep when they are barred from rushing into the burning building to try to rescue their colleagues. At once a powerful tribute to the courage of everyday Americans and an essential addition to the literature of 9/11, The Only Plane in the Sky weaves together the unforgettable personal experiences of the men and women who found themselves caught at the center of an unprecedented human drama. The result is a unique, profound, and searing exploration of humanity on a day that changed the course of history, and all of our lives.

Knowing very little English, eleven-year-old Jingwen feels like an alien when his family immigrates to Australia, but copes with loneliness and the loss of his father by baking elaborate cakes.

The inspiring story of three young Sudanese boys who were driven from their homes by civil war and began an epic odyssey of survival, facing life-threatening perils, ultimately finding their way to a new life in America. Between 1987 and 1989, Alepho, Benjamin, and Benson, like tens of thousands of young boys, took flight from the massacres of Sudan's civil war. They became known as the Lost Boys. With little more than the clothes on their backs, sometimes not even that, they streamed out over Sudan in search of refuge. Their journey led them first to Ethiopia and then, driven back into Sudan, toward Kenya. They walked nearly one thousand miles, sustained only by the sheer will to live. They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky is the three boys' account of that unimaginable journey. With the candor and the purity of their child's-eye-vision, Alephonsian, Benjamin, and Benson recall by turns: how they endured the hunger and strength-sapping illnesses-dysentery, malaria, and yellow fever; how they dodged the life-threatening predators-lions, snakes, crocodiles and soldiers alike-that dogged their footsteps; and how they grappled with a war that threatened continually to overwhelm them. Their story is a lyrical, captivating, timeless portrait of a childhood hurled into wartime and how they had the good fortune and belief in themselves to survive.

Henry Lawson · Barbara Baynton ·Henry Handel Richardson · Katharine Susannah Prichard · Christina Stead ·Gavin Casey ·Vance Palmer · Alan Marshall · Marjorie Barnard ·Judah Waten · John Morrison · Peter Cowan · Hal Porter · Patrick White · Thelma Forshaw ·Dal Stivens · Peter Carey Murray Bail · Frank Moorhouse · T.A.G. Hungerford · Elizabeth Jolley · Michael Wilding · Olga Masters · Beverley Farmer · Fay Zwicky · Barry Hill · Gerald Murnane · Archie Weller · Thea Astley · Helen Garner · Lily Brett · Susan Hampton · Gail Jones In this bestselling collection the Australian short story is represented from its Bulletin beginnings to its vigorous revival in the late twentieth century.

Look up! From the Caldecott Medal–winning creator of the hat trilogy comes a new deadpan gem. There is a spot. It is a good spot. It is the perfect spot to stand. There is no reason to ever leave. But somewhere above there is also a rock. A rock from the sky. Here comes The Rock from the Sky, a hilarious meditation on the workings of friendship, fate, shared futuristic visions, and that funny feeling you get that there’s something off somewhere, but you just can’t put your finger on it. Merging broad visual suspense with wry wit, celebrated picture book creator Jon Klassen gives us a wholly original comedy for the ages.

Every aboriginal nation has its gods, from whom the people receive all that they have, all that they practice, and all that they know. Traditional American Indian life revolved around communication with divinity, and these stories about the origin of the earth and its creatures embody every facet of Native American culture-customs, institutions, and art. Curtin, a celebrated anthropologist, roved California and Central America in the 1890s in pursuit of these tales. Recounted here as he heard them, they offer both authentic views of an ancient society and captivating examples of storytelling art.