این کتاب، طنزی تند و بیپرده دربارهی نژاد، تبعیض، هویت و ریاکاری اجتماعی در آمریکای مدرن است؛ اثری که هم خنده بر لب میآورد و هم از شدت واقعیتهای تلخش، در ذهن میماند. راوی داستان، مردی سیاهپوست از حومهی لسآنجلس است که پس از مرگ پدرش، تصمیم میگیرد برای بازگرداندن شأن و هویت جامعهی خود، مدرسهای بازتأسیس کند که در آن تفکیک نژادی دوباره برقرار شود! تصمیمی عجیب، طعنهآمیز و در عین حال افشاگر، که از دل طنز به نقد عمیق جامعهی آمریکایی میرسد. بیتی با بهرهگیری از زبان محاورهای، شوخطبعی سیاه و نثر شاعرانه، واقعیتی دردناک را در قالب طنز به تصویر میکشد.
Ifemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America, where despite her academic success, she is forced to grapple with what it means to be black for the first time. Quiet, thoughtful Obinze had hoped to join her, but with post-9/11 America closed to him, he instead plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. Fifteen years later, they reunite in a newly democratic Nigeria, and reignite their passion—for each other and for their homeland.
Thelonious (Monk) Ellison has never allowed race to define his identity. But as both a writer and an African American, he is offended and angered by the success of We's Lives in Da Ghetto, the exploitative debut novel of a young, middle-class black woman who once visited "some relatives in Harlem for a couple of days." Hailed as an authentic representation of the African American experience, the book is a national bestseller and its author feted on the Kenya Dunston television show. The book's success rankles all the more as Monk's own most recent novel has just notched its seventh rejection.
Even as his career as a writer appears to have stalled, Monk finds himself coping with changes in his personal life. In need of distraction from old memories, new responsibilities, and his professional stagnation, Monk composes, in a heat of inspiration and energy, a fierce parody of the sort of exploitative, ghetto wanna-be lit represented by We's Lives in Da Ghetto.
But when his agent sends this literary indictment (included here in its entirety) out to publishers, it is greeted as an authentic new voice of black America. Monk -- or his pseudonymous alter ego, Stagg R. Leigh -- is offered money, fame, success beyond anything he has known. And as demand begins to build for meetings with and appearances by Leigh, Monk is faced with a whole new set of problems.
A brilliant reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—both harrowing and satirical—told from the enslaved Jim's point of view
When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he runs away until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.
Brimming with nuanced humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a literary icon, this brilliant and tender novel radically illuminates Jim's agency, intelligence, and compassion as never before. James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first-century American literature.
In this dog-eat-dog world, three friends find themselves getting nowhere in their careers despite their education and work skills. They decide to make their own rules to the game of life and play dirty to get ahead. Each of them concoct schemes to sabotage colleagues and clear the path for their swift advancement.
Through a journey of deception and personal discovery, they find that life at the top isn’t what they imagined it would be. All the while, they’re not aware that they’re part of a much larger game being played by a world-controlling group that doesn’t have their best interests in mind. And with a physical manifestation of karma on the loose, their futures are uncertain.
In this fast-paced, entertaining ride, readers will confront a cache of arcane truth and thought-provoking situations by means of dark humor, satire, and zany humor. The Beasts of Success lifts the veil on a hidden world of which few are aware. How far down the rabbit hole are you willing to go?
A woman’s ambitions clash with familial expectations in a captivating novel about generational secrets and self-discovery by the bestselling author of The Candid Life of Meena Dave.
Raised by her mother and grandmother and tutored in the healing wonders of spices, Tulsi Gupta is expected to carry on the ancestral tradition from her family’s Salem spice shop. Restless and reluctant, Tulsi yearns to follow her own path—destiny has other plans.
When Tulsi finds a letter written by her grandmother, addressed and never sent, that speaks of a long-ago betrayal, she decides to unravel the mystery as a distraction. But Tulsi stumbles into much more than she bargained for. With each new discovery, she learns there’s much more to her mother and grandmother than their expertise in the remedial aromas of coriander and cloves. When an attractive neighbor begins renovating the shuttered deli next door, Tulsi finds the courage to break her routine and chase the unexpected.
As Tulsi digs into the past and secrets come to light, she’s determined to heal old family wounds and find her true purpose—and maybe even love—every step of the way.
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove and “writer of astonishing depth” (The Washington Times) comes a poignant comedy about a crime that never took place, a would-be bank robber who disappears into thin air, and eight extremely anxious strangers who find they have more in common than they ever imagined.
Viewing an apartment normally doesn’t turn into a life-or-death situation, but this particular open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes everyone in the apartment hostage. As the pressure mounts, the eight strangers begin slowly opening up to one another and reveal long-hidden truths.
First is Zara, a wealthy bank director who has been too busy to care about anyone else until tragedy changed her life. Now, she’s obsessed with visiting open houses to see how ordinary people live—and, perhaps, to set an old wrong to right. Then there’s Roger and Anna-Lena, an Ikea-addicted retired couple who are on a never-ending hunt for fixer-uppers to hide the fact that they don’t know how to fix their own failing marriage. Julia and Ro are a young lesbian couple and soon-to-be parents who are nervous about their chances for a successful life together since they can’t agree on anything. And there’s Estelle, an eighty-year-old woman who has lived long enough to be unimpressed by a masked bank robber waving a gun in her face. And despite the story she tells them all, Estelle hasn’t really come to the apartment to view it for her daughter, and her husband really isn’t outside parking the car.
As police surround the premises and television channels broadcast the hostage situation live, the tension mounts and even deeper secrets are slowly revealed. Before long, the robber must decide which is the more terrifying prospect: going out to face the police, or staying in the apartment with this group of impossible people.
Rich with Fredrik Backman’s “pitch-perfect dialogue and an unparalleled understanding of human nature” (Shelf Awareness), Anxious People’s whimsical plot serves up unforgettable insights into the human condition and a gentle reminder to be compassionate to all the anxious people we encounter every day.
Meet Ove. He's a curmudgeon, the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him the bitter neighbor from hell, but must Ove be bitter just because he doesn't walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time?
Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove's mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents' association to their very foundations.
William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him—so when he meets the spirited and ambitious Julia Padavano in his freshman year of college, it’s as if the world has lit up around him. With Julia comes her family, as she and her three sisters are inseparable: Sylvie, the family’s dreamer, is happiest with her nose in a book; Cecelia is a free-spirited artist; and Emeline patiently takes care of them all. With the Padavanos, William experiences a newfound contentment; every moment in their house is filled with loving chaos.
But then darkness from William’s past surfaces, jeopardizing not only Julia’s carefully orchestrated plans for their future, but the sisters’ unshakeable devotion to one another. The result is a catastrophic family rift that changes their lives for generations. Will the loyalty that once rooted them be strong enough to draw them back together when it matters most?
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