5 books found
Hailed by Bill Bryson and the New York Times Book Review as a rising star among travel writers, Jeffrey Tayler penetrates one of the most isolated, forbidding regions on earth--the Sahel. This lower expanse of the Sahara, which marks the southern limit of Islam's reach in West and Central Africa, boasts such mythologized places as Mopti and Timbuktu, as well as Africa's poorest countries, Chad and Niger. In parts of the Sahel, hard-line Sharia law rules and slaves are still traded. Racked by lethal harmattan winds, chronic civil wars, and grim Islamic fundamentalism, it is not the ideal place for a traveler with a U.S. passport. Tayler finds genuine danger in many guises, from drunken soldiers to a thieving teenage mob. But he also encounters patience and generosity of a sort found only in Africa. Traveling overland by the same rickety means used by the local people--tottering, overfilled buses, bush taxis with holes in the floor, disgruntled camels--he uses his fluency in French and Arabic (the region's lingua francas) to connect with them. Tayler is able to illuminate the roiling, enigmatic cultures of the Sahel as no other Western writer could.
by Joseph Fink, Jeffrey Cranor
2020 · HarperCollins
“A chilling ghost story. . . . A decades long, globe-spanning saga of adventure, betrayal, love, and fate [about] one of Welcome to Night Vale’s most enigmatic and terrifying characters. . . How these stories converge and how the narrator becomes immortal are merciless in their ingenuity and immensely satisfying. . . . A funny, terrifying, and unpredictable slice of Night Vale's macabre history.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review) From the New York Times bestselling authors of Welcome to Night Vale and It Devours! and the creators of the hit podcast, comes a haunting novel set in the world of Night Vale and beyond. In the town of Night Vale, there’s a faceless old woman who secretly lives in everyone’s home, but no one knows how she got there or where she came from...until now. Told in a series of eerie flashbacks, the story of The Faceless Old Woman goes back centuries to reveal an initially blissful and then tragic childhood on a Mediterranean Estate in the early nineteenth century, her rise in the criminal underworld of Europe, a nautical adventure with a mysterious organization of smugglers, her plot for revenge on the ones who betrayed her, and ultimately her death and its aftermath, as her spirit travels the world for decades until settling in modern-day Night Vale. Interspersed throughout is a present-day story in Night Vale, as The Faceless Old Woman guides, haunts, and sabotages a man named Craig. In the end, her current day dealings with Craig and her swashbuckling history in nineteenth century Europe will come together in the most unexpected and horrifying way. Part The Haunting of Hill House, part The Count of Monte Cristo, The Faceless Old Woman Who Lives in Your Home is a lively tale of loyalty, betrayal, and revenge, that will have you looking around the corners of your own home...just in case.
A sixty-three-year-old literature professor and his forty-one-year-old student fall in love despite criticism (and moral judgement) from his university, the community, and their circle of friends. Sam and Cassie’s commitment to each other, and their love of poetry, sustains the relationship and brings them new awareness about the connections between art and life. Brought together by a powerful destiny, their romance is also nurtured by the world of nature and honest and direct communication. Dr. Hill’s Poet is richly descriptive of the Platte River Valley in central Nebraska. This pleasant and fast-moving story contains textual elements common to traditional fiction, poetry, and the screen play genre.