Hubert's Freaks


Book Description

From the moment Bob Langmuir, a down-and-out rare book dealer, spies some intriguing photographs in the archive of a midcentury Times Square freak show, he knows he's on to something. It turns out he's made the find of a lifetime--never-before-seen prints by the legendary Diane Arbus. Furthermore, he begins to suspect that what he's found may add a pivotal chapter to what is now known about Arbus as well as about the "old weird America," in Greil Marcus's phrase, that Hubert's inhabited. Bob's ensuing adventure--a roller-coaster ride filled with bizarre characters and coincidences--takes him from the fringes of the rare book business to Sotheby's, and from the exhibits of a run-down Times Square freak show to the curator's office of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Will the photos be authenticated? How will Arbus's notoriously protective daughter react? Most importantly, can Bob, who always manages to screw up his most promising deals, finally make just one big score?




Flowers on the Path (eBook)


Book Description

The Flowers on the Path series is a bouquet. It comprises articles created by Sadhguru for the Speaking Tree column of the Times of India. These articles have, for many years, brought daily infusions of beauty, humour, clarity and wisdom into lives abraded by mayhem and monotony. In pages devoted to the changing weather of the stock market and international affairs, these articles have brought readers moments of unexpected insight and stillness. Sadhguru's original thoughts, outspoken comments and references to current affairs have sometimes provoked controversy. But they have invariably added vitality and color to a national debate. Like flowers, these articles have inspired and stimulated readers, wafting into their lives as a gentle fragrance on some mornings, and on others, startling them awake with fresh perspectives on age-old ideas and beliefs.




Truevine


Book Description

The true story of two African-American brothers who were kidnapped and displayed as circus freaks, and whose mother endured a 28-year struggle to get them back. The year was 1899 and the place a sweltering tobacco farm in the Jim Crow South town of Truevine, Virginia. George and Willie Muse were two little boys born to a sharecropper family. One day a white man offered them a piece of candy, setting off events that would take them around the world and change their lives forever. Captured into the circus, the Muse brothers performed for royalty at Buckingham Palace and headlined over a dozen sold-out shows at New York's Madison Square Garden. They were global superstars in a pre-broadcast era. But the very root of their success was in the color of their skin and in the outrageous caricatures they were forced to assume: supposed cannibals, sheep-headed freaks, even "Ambassadors from Mars." Back home, their mother never accepted that they were "gone" and spent 28 years trying to get them back. Through hundreds of interviews and decades of research, Beth Macy expertly explores a central and difficult question: Where were the brothers better off? On the world stage as stars or in poverty at home? Truevine is a compelling narrative rich in historical detail and rife with implications to race relations today.




The Mahzur


Book Description

‘It isn’t enticing enough if it isn’t forbidden.’ Humanity has sworn by this dictum since eons. Aren’t we here as a testimony to the first sin ever committed by Man? How can Sin be sacred? How can anything related to life remotely be connected to sanctity and yet we swear by Sanctity as well. For years, the conflict is manifest and for years, unresolved. Somewhere between the promise of resurrection and eternal damnation, we exist as a race tugged towards both good and bad by a thin thread of belief. Satan in one minute and angel in another, we defy all logic when it comes to tasting the forbidden fruit. What is so tantalizing about it is the same thing that makes it unforgiving, its soul! And in the end it hurts, it leads to bloodshed, it kills and it destroys. It leaves us vulnerable to damage and then the perdition never ends. ‘The Mahzur,’ reminds you of a simple fact, If it is forbidden, It will Bleed.. The Al Nafud is not just another desert. It is an amalgamation of poetry and music in the right proportions but it has a heart of stone under that soft burnished gold skin. The sand dunes sing to your call as if a dozen tubas are blown in unison but it isn’t a song for the faint of heart. It is unforgiving. Sarah, the lovely daughter of the Al Janubis is engaged to be married to another man but this doesn’t deter Ahmed from falling for a woman whose clan he has abhorred all his life. And when kismet trudges them towards an unlikely path through its bosom, does the Nafud forgive them for this mistake or does it unleash a fury unheard of in Janub as Sehra, their native land? I bring to you a love story from the wildest and the most beautiful desert of the Middle East. It is a story of love and loss for where there is great love, the loss, invariably is greater.




Ghost Boy


Book Description

Harold Kline is an albino—an outcast. Folks stare and taunt, calling him Ghost Boy. It’s been that way for all of his 14 years. So when the circus comes to town, Harold runs off to join it. Full of colorful performers, the circus seems like the answer to Harold’s loneliness. He’s eager to meet the Cannibal King, a sideshow attraction who’s an albino, too. He’s touched that Princess Minikin and the Fossil Man, two other sideshow curiosities, embrace him like a son. He’s in love with Flip, the pretty and beguiling horse trainer, and awed by the all-knowing Gypsy Magda. Most of all, Harold is proud of training the elephants, and of earning respect and a sense of normalcy. Even at the circus, though, two groups exist—the freaks, and everyone else. Harold straddles both groups. But fitting in comes at a price, and Harold must recognize the truth beneath what seems apparent before he can find a place to call home.




Rain Village


Book Description

In this hypnotic, magically real debut novel, a tiny young woman from the heart of the Midwest overcomes an abusive childhood by following her mysterious and beautiful mentor's footsteps to become a circus trapeze artist.




The Museum of Extraordinary Things


Book Description

{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Arial;}} \viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang2057\fs18 Coney Island, 1911: Coralie Sardie is the daughter of a self-proclaimed scientist and professor who acts as the impresario of The Museum of Extraordinary Things, a boardwalk freak show offering amazement and entertainment to the masses. An extraordinary swimmer, Coralie appears as the Mermaid alongside performers like the Wolfman, the Butterfly Girl,and a 100 year old turtle, in her father's ""museum"". She swims regularly in New York's Hudson River, and one night stumbles upon a striking young man alone in the woods photographing moon-lit trees. From that moment, Coralie knows her life will never be the same. \par The dashing photographer Coralie spies is Eddie Cohen, a Russian immigrant who has run away from his father's Lower East Side Orthodox community. As Eddie photographs the devastation on the streets of New York following the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, he becomes embroiled in the mystery behind a young woman's disappearance and the dispute between factory owners and labourers. In the tumultuous times that characterized life in New York between the world wars, Coralie and Eddie's lives come crashing together in Alice Hoffman's mesmerizing, imaginative, and romantic new novel. \par }




Anchor My Heart


Book Description

As fourth engineer on board the MV Orchid, Lehar Saxena has no time to prissy up in front of a mirror or flirt with the boys. Her chief engineer hates her guts and much like the MV Orchid, which she helps keep afloat on the journey across the violent and pirate-infested high seas, she has her own baggage: heavy with anxiety, stress and love woes. Amidst the machines, sweat and testosterone surrounding her, loom thoughts of her relationship with Sameer, always too busy at the OPD to FaceTime or even text as much as he used to. With a long-distance relationship fast approaching the maelstrom it was destined for, Lehar must focus on her work - even as Veer, the handsome second officer who recently joined the crew - proves to be a pleasant distraction. He may be just what she needs as the journey grows even longer, and far more dangerous.




Lucking Out


Book Description

From one of our most admired (and feared) cultural critics, a memoir that captures all the gritty, grubby glamour of New York in the awful/wonderful Seventies. In the autumn of 1972, a very young and green James Wolcott arrived in New York from Maryland, full of literary dreams, equipped with a letter of introduction from Norman Mailer, and having no idea what was about to hit him. Landing at a time of accelerating municipal squalor and, paradoxically, gathering cultural energy in all spheres as "Downtown" became a category of art and life unto itself, he embarked upon his sentimental education, seventies New York style. This portrait of a critic as a young man is also a rollicking, acutely observant portrait of a legendary time and place. Mixing grit and glitter in just the right proportions, suffused with affection for the talented and sometimes half-crazed denizens of the scene, it will make readers long for a time when you really could get mugged around here.