This book features people from one of the most closed countries of today's world, where the passage of time resembles the passage of a caravan through the waterless desert. This world has been recreated by a true-born son of that mysterious country, a Turkmen who, at the will of fate, has now been living for a quarter of a century in snowy Scandinavia. Is that not why two different worlds come together in Ryazan horseradish and Tula gingerbread, to come apart in Love in Lilac, in which a student from the non-free world falls in love with a girl from the West? In the story Death of the Snake Catcher, an old snake catcher meets one on one with a giant cobra in the heart of the desert. In the dialogue between them the author unveils the age-old interdependence of Man and untamed nature, where the fear and mistrust of the strong and the hopes and apprehensions of the weak change places but co-exist as ever. Egyptian night of fear, in which a boy goes to an Eastern bazaar and falls into the clutches of depraved forces, is created in the writer's characteristic style of magical realism, while the novella Altynai celebrates first love, radiant and sad, pure as virgin snow. Now mythical, now lyrical, Welsapar's characters face life's injustice with a surprising optimism and fortitude. The intense Asiatic colour not only of nature but of human feelings and relationships, is expressed by the author in striking, expressive language making the reader unable to close the book until the last page.

Tony Harrison has lived the life of a professional snake catcher for twenty years. In this book, he introduces you to the reptiles most commonly encountered in our cities and towns, including some of the most venomous snakes on earth. Tony has spent his whole life surrounded by reptiles. His work and his animals are regularly featured on TV and in movies. That means he has a tale or two to tell. In Snake Catcher, Tony shares entertaining and informative stories, written by award-winning Australian writer, David Blissett. You are part of the action as Tony enters a suburban bedroom to bag a large and lethal Eastern Brown Snake. You will meet Tiger, the Lace Monitor who is afraid of heights. And you will find out what happens when you try to flush a venomous snake down the toilet. However, more than telling great stories and showing great pictures, this book has another purpose. Tony wants to dispel the myth that 'the only good snake is a dead snake.' He shares his insights into some truly fascinating reptiles, and gives common-sense advice about living safely with them.Snake Catcher includes information on:* The most commonly encountered Australian reptiles, complete with stunning full-colour photos.* What to do if you encounter a snake at home or in the bush.* How to discourage dangerous snakes from entering your property.* The benefits of having some snake species living nearby.* How to treat a snake bite.* How to protect your pets from run-ins with snakes.* Some of the rules about keeping reptiles for yourself.

A malfunctioning weathervane forces the wind to realign itself. A collector travels all over the world tracking down tools used in crimes against corpses. A gardener frets over the consequences of stealing the Navab of Lucknow’s prized myna. Minutiae and mystery form the warp and weft of Naiyer Masud’s densely woven, enchantingly hypnotic stories, combining precisely delineated characters and objects with accounts of inexplicable phenomena and the arcane arts. Compiled and introduced by the acclaimed Urdu scholar Muhammad Umar Memon, this edition collects all thirty-five of Masud’s stories for the first time, establishing him as one of the most original voices to emerge in world literature in the past few decades.

Ambition will fuel him. Competition will drive him. But power has its price. It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the tenth annual Hunger Games. In the Capitol, eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow is preparing for his one shot at glory as a mentor in the Games. The once-mighty house of Snow has fallen on hard times, its fate hanging on the slender chance that Coriolanus will be able to outcharm, outwit, and outmaneuver his fellow students to mentor the winning tribute. The odds are against him. He's been given the humiliating assignment of mentoring the female tribute from District 12, the lowest of the low. Their fates are now completely intertwined - every choice Coriolanus makes could lead to favor or failure, triumph or ruin. Inside the arena, it will be a fight to the death. Outside the arena, Coriolanus starts to feel for his doomed tribute . . . and must weigh his need to follow the rules against his desire to survive no matter what it takes.

After a failed push for political reform, the T’ang era’s greatest prose-writer, Liu Tsung-yuan, was exiled to the southern reaches of China. Thousands of miles from home and freed from the strictures of court bureaucracy, he turned his gaze inward and chronicled his estrangement in poems. Liu’s fame as a prose writer, however, overshadowed his accomplishment as a poet. Three hundred years after Liu died, the poet Su Tung-p’o ranked him as one of the greatest poets of the T’ang, along with Tu Fu, Li Pai, and Wei Ying-wu. And yet Liu is unknown in the West, with fewer than a dozen poems published in English translation. The renowned translator Red Pine discovered Liu’s poetry during his travels throughout China and was compelled to translate 140 of the 146 poems attributed to Liu. As Red Pine writes, “I was captivated by the man and by how he came to write what he did.” Appended with thoroughly researched notes, an in-depth introduction, and the Chinese originals, Written in Exile presents the long-overdue introduction of a legendary T’ang poet.

A major contribution to debates about the value of death and its place in Western and Eastern religions is presented by this work's belief that religious and secular attitudes can support and reinforce one another through their attitudes towards death.

This is the simple but powerful biographical story of Mensa. Mensa went to school under the colonial British educational system during the eventful post-independence years. The profession of his parents, who were both teachers, put him always on the move. But his problems of movement were compounded when the parents divorced. Eventually he ended up in boarding school, and he loved it to death because the alternative was a nonexistent home life. The novel captures his life from school to school, hopping from home to home. It is mostly about boarding school life interlaced with wicked humor. A parallel poignant story is the story of kids from broken homes, especially the one in which the woman plays the role of the vanished parent.