A House of Stone Is Forever


Book Description

Life in the village of Blackwood, Michigan, is one defined by natural beauty, regionalism, and a strong sense of what it means to be Welsh. In this collection of intertwined short stories and novellas, the fictional residents of this beautiful region come to life. Travel from the 1920s to the near future as these stories explore themes of survival and community pride. In 1922, the Dee family struggles to rise out of poverty and see the dream of a house built of stone come to life in the opening story, A House of Stone Is Forever, Part One. To them, a stone house is more than simple shelter; it is a promise of continued survival in a house that is built to endure all the storms they may face over the years. When the house is completed, the family buries a treasurean archive to ensure that their story is known by future generations. As the years pass, the Blackwood community members struggle to adjust to the social and cultural changes that inevitably find their way into their idyllic community. And as the villagers attempt to exert increasing control over the environment, they may not be ready to pay the price theyll be forced to pay. Presenting a series of coming-of-age stories with environmental implications, A House of Stone Is Forever follows one familys hopes and dreams for immortality.




All the Light We Cannot See


Book Description

*NOW A NETFLIX LIMITED SERIES—from producer and director Shawn Levy (Stranger Things) starring Mark Ruffalo, Hugh Laurie, and newcomer Aria Mia Loberti* Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist, the beloved instant New York Times bestseller and New York Times Book Review Top 10 Book about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris, and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel. In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the Resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge. Doerr’s “stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors” (San Francisco Chronicle) are dazzling. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, he illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, All the Light We Cannot See is a magnificent, deeply moving novel from a writer “whose sentences never fail to thrill” (Los Angeles Times).




Escape Under the Forever Sky


Book Description

Loosely based on real-life events, this suspenseful story, by a debut novelist, is also funny and touching and will have readers riveted from start to finish. Lucy's mother is the U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia, so Lucy's life must be one big adventure, right? Wrong. Lucy's worrywart mother keeps her locked up inside the ambassador's residence. All Lucy can do is read about the exotic and exciting world that lies beyond the compound walls and imagine what it would be like to be a part of it. That is, until one day Lucy decides she has had enough and she and a friend sneak off for some fun. But to their horror, Lucy gets kidnapped! With only herself to rely upon, Lucy must use her knowledge of African animals, inventiveness, will, and courage to escape, and in the process embarks on an adventure beyond her wildest imagination. Includes bonus material! - Book Club Discussion Guide




Stick and Stone


Book Description

When Stick rescues Stone from a prickly situation with a Pinecone, the pair becomes fast friends. But when Stick gets stuck, can Stone return the favor? Author Beth Ferry makes a memorable debut with a warm, rhyming text that includes a subtle anti-bullying message even the youngest reader will understand. New York Times bestselling illustrator Tom Lichtenheld imbues Stick and Stone with energy, emotion, and personality to spare. In this funny story about kindness and friendship, Stick and Stone join George and Martha, Frog and Toad, and Elephant and Piggie, as some of the best friend duos in children's literature.




House of Stone


Book Description

“Wonderful . . . One of the finest memoirs I’ve read.” — Philip Caputo, Washington Post In the summer of 2006, racing through Lebanon to report on the Israeli invasion, Anthony Shadid found himself in his family’s ancestral hometown of Marjayoun. There, he discovered his great-grandfather’s once magnificent estate in near ruins, devastated by war. One year later, Shadid returned to Marjayoun, not to chronicle the violence, but to rebuild in its wake. So begins the story of a battle-scarred home and a journalist’s wounded spirit, and of how reconstructing the one came to fortify the other. In this bittersweet and resonant memoir, Shadid creates a mosaic of past and present, tracing the house’s renewal alongside the history of his family’s flight from Lebanon and resettlement in America around the turn of the twentieth century. In the process, he memorializes a lost world and provides profound insights into a shifting Middle East. This paperback edition includes an afterword by the journalist Nada Bakri, Anthony Shadid’s wife, reflecting on his legacy. “A poignant dedication to family, to home, and to history . . . Breathtaking.” — San Francisco Chronicle “Entertaining, informative, and deeply moving . . . House of Stone will stand a long time, for those fortunate enough to read it.” — Telegraph (London)




House of Stone


Book Description

Culture and institutions.




Modernisation and Tradition


Book Description

This anthology is based on a symposium which had as its key issue a critical discussion of different theories of modernisation from the perspective of people's activities in local manorial societies. Modernisation can be studied in terms of changing values, norms and social relationships. From a theoretical point of view the book makes use of the possibility to change main macro-conceptions of the modernisation process, using dichotomies such as feudal/capitalist and individual/collective, and it also tries to integrate tradition and continuity perspective.




The Short Forever


Book Description

Stone Barrington gets caught up in a matter of international intrigue in this explosive thriller in the #1 New York Times bestselling series. In London to locate the niece of his enigmatic client, Stone Barrington soon finds himself out of his territory and out of his depth. Baffled as he is by the behavior of his quarry, Stone’s life is further complicated by two—possibly three—murders and the affectionate attentions of two former lovers. And when the intelligence services of three countries become involved, he can only hang on for the wild ride...




Mobile Peoples – Permanent Places: Nomadic Landscapes and Stone Architecture from the Hellenistic to Early Islamic Periods in North-Eastern Jordan


Book Description

This study explores the relationship between nomadic communities in the Black Desert of north-eastern Jordan (c. 300 BC and 900 AD) and the landscapes they inhabited and extensively modified. This book focuses on the architectural features created in the landscape some 2000 years ago which were used and revisited on multiple occasions.