Home of the Floating Lily


Book Description

2021 DANUTA GLEED LITERARY AWARD — RUNNER-UP Caught between cultures, immigrant families from a Bengali neighbourhood in Toronto strive to navigate their home, relationships, and happiness. Set in both Canada and Bangladesh, the eight stories in Home of the Floating Lily follow the lives of everyday people as they navigate the complexities of migration, displacement, love, friendship, and familial conflict. A young woman moves to Toronto after getting married but soon discovers her husband is not who she believes him to be. A mother reconciles her heartbreak when her sons defy her expectations and choose their own paths in life. A lonely international student returns to Bangladesh and forms an unexpected bond with her domestic helper. A working-class woman, caught between her love for Bangladesh and her determination to raise her daughter in Canada, makes a life-altering decision after a dark secret from the past is revealed. In each of the stories, characters embark on difficult journeys in search of love, dignity, and a sense of belonging.




The Flower of Empire


Book Description

In 1837, while charting the Amazonian country of Guiana for Great Britain, German naturalist Robert Schomburgk discovered an astounding "vegetable wonder"--a huge water lily whose leaves were five or six feet across and whose flowers were dazzlingly white. In England, a horticultural nation with a mania for gardens and flowers, news of the discovery sparked a race to bring a live specimen back, and to bring it to bloom. In this extraordinary plant, named Victoria regia for the newly crowned queen, the flower-obsessed British had found their beau ideal. In The Flower of Empire, Tatiana Holway tells the story of this magnificent lily, revealing how it touched nearly every aspect of Victorian life, art, and culture. Holway's colorful narrative captures the sensation stirred by Victoria regia in England, particularly the intense race among prominent Britons to be the first to coax the flower to bloom. We meet the great botanists of the age, from the legendary Sir Joseph Banks, to Sir William Jackson Hooker, director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, to the extravagant flower collector the Duke of Devonshire. Perhaps most important was the Duke's remarkable gardener, Joseph Paxton, who rose from garden boy to knight, and whose design of a series of ever-more astonishing glass-houses--one, the Big Stove, had a footprint the size of Grand Central Station--culminated in his design of the architectural wonder of the age, the Crystal Palace. Fittingly, Paxton based his design on a glass-house he had recently built to house Victoria regia. Indeed, the natural ribbing of the lily's leaf inspired the pattern of girders supporting the massive iron-and-glass building. From alligator-laden jungle ponds to the heights of Victorian society, The Flower of Empire unfolds the marvelous odyssey of this wonder of nature in a revealing work of cultural history.




Home of the Floating Lily


Book Description

Home of the Floating Lily is a collection of eight short stories that provide a glimpse into the lives of Bangladeshi immigrants, mostly women, in Scarborough and the ways in which they deal with migration, displacement, and the longing for home as they move between countries, cities, and relationships.




The Camp of Gods Tears


Book Description

A highly evolved civilization, almost unknown to history, thrived in North America for centuries long before the coming of Europeans.The Camp of God's Tears is a tragic tale about this civilization as it ended. This story is grounded in fact according to archeological, genetic, and linguistic data as reflected in the Afterward which presents supportive information and a bibliography of nearly 400 sources. This saga is told as a narrative by Gray Wolf who begins his story during his late adolescence and follows through six generations until he becomes a great-grandfather.The Camp of God's Tears reveals the high level of sophistication of this culture which was far more advanced than many cultures of the same time period, circa 300 AD. More importantly, it articulates the depth of their spirituality and moral codes by which these people lived. While the mysterious ending of a great culture is heart-rendering, the story ends on a note of hope for contemporary times. The story came to me in a dream. It was told to me by Falling Star. She answered a myriad of questions I asked. She showed me the locations of where the events in the story took place. She showed me her People who wore exotic clothes made of finely woven textiles decorated with pearls, copper and other artistic ornaments. She showed me strongly built homes, their villages, and their expansive farms. I saw their social organization was powerful yet simple, a few shaman, elders, and no real leaders. She intrigued me with their immense earthworks which demonstrate accurate astronomical alignments to the Sun, Moon, stars, and galaxies. The organization of labor, engineering skills, mathematical and astronomical knowledge required to build these phenomenal earthworks amazes modern researchers. I asked Falling Star why she showed me all of this. She said her People wanted their story told and asked me if I would tell it. Of course, I said, and then I asked her why. She said her People were so deeply spiritual, so in tune and in touch with the Creator that they actively lived the principles of Oneness. Their ways demonstrated what being one and at one with the One . . . looked like in real life. She said the people of my time need to know these principles and to learn to live them, because humankind is struggling to regain balance in a troubled world.




Lily


Book Description

One rainy Sunday morning 4-year old Lily Waters was kidnapped from the front door of her family church. Her mother sings with the choir and had come to church earlier leaving Lily and her step-father to come later. By the time they came to church it was pouring down rain. Lily did not want to be carried in and begged to be dropped off at the front door like the old ladies who didnt want to get too wet running in from the parking lot. She never made it into the church. There were no clues. No stranger had been seen inside or outside the church. A thorough search of the neighborhood provided nothing. Lilys step-father was questioned but dismissed as to fault. A ransom note was never received. Lily seemed to have vanished into thin air.




Lily's Journey


Book Description

Lily, a beautiful five-year-old, leaned over the fire to poke at the wood. A spark flew up and landed on the collar of her high-necked velvet dress. She brushed at the spark, but it had caught the lace and was burning her neck. Another spark landed in her hair. /span/em “Momma,” she screamed, as she frantically brushed at the flames that seemed to be crawling up her body./span/em An accident that changes Lily's life. But there are other changes affecting the family that are coming. Lily's uncle George has suggested to her mother Elizabeth that the family make a new start in Canada. Lily quickly finds work in their new home and starts her journey into future adventures. The first three parts of this story are a mix of fact and fiction, based on Lily's own story. The final part is fact, based on Lily's own recollections, as a policeman's wife living with constant fear for her husband's life.




Flowers


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House & Garden


Book Description




The Sustainability Class


Book Description

An original argument that environmental sustainability has been co-opted by the urban elite, along with examples from around the world of ways we can save our planet “Caring for the environment means reclaiming ecology for everyone.” —from the introduction A sustainability apartheid is emerging. More than ever, urban residents want to be green, yet to cater to their interests, a green-tech service economy has sprung up, co-opting well-intentioned concerns over sustainability to sell a resource-heavy and exclusive “lifestyle environmentalism.” This has made cities more unsustainable and inaccessible to the working class. The Sustainability Class is about those wealthy “progressive” urbanites convinced that we can save the planet through individual action, smart urbanism, green finance, and technological innovation. Authors Vijay Kolinjivadi and Aaron Vansintjan challenge many of the popular ideas about environmentalism, showing that it is actually the sustainability class itself that is unsustainable. The solutions they propose work to safeguard an elite minority, exclude billions of people, and ultimately hasten ecological breakdown, not reverse it. From Venice Beach, Los Angeles, to Neom in Saudi Arabia and beyond, the authors explore with biting humor how investors around the world are rushing to capitalize on going green. By contrast, real-world examples of movements for housing and food production, transport, and waste management demonstrate how ordinary people around the world are building a more ecological future by working together, against all odds. In doing so, they show us how sustainability can be reclaimed for everyone. Sustainability isn’t about vibes and superficial green facades. It’s about building people power to reimagine the world.




All the Beautiful Girls


Book Description

“An exquisitely crafted novel of love discovered and friendship found.”—Martha Hall Kelly, author of Lilac Girls Ruby’s life glitters with success, but she still must conquer her tragic past and discover what love really looks like. Lily Decker never meant to become a showgirl. As a young girl in small-town Kansas, she danced to forget the pain of losing her family in a car accident. And dancing made her feel beautiful when the attentions of her Uncle Miles only brought shame. In 1967, Lily is grown and ready to leave her past behind. She changes her name to Ruby Wilde and heads to the Rat Pack’s Las Vegas to make a name for herself as a troupe dancer. However, the competition is fierce and she finds work as a showgirl, instead, doing fan-kicks in sky-high headdresses and sparkling costumes. Her new life brims with glamour and excitement, but something is still missing. Is it love? What choices will she make to feel whole again, and at what cost? With her uncanny understanding of the hidden lives of women, Elizabeth J. Church captures the iconic extravagance of an era and the bravery of a woman who blazes her own path to freedom. Praise for All the Beautiful Girls “[Elizabeth] Church’s lively coming-of-age tale transports us to a world of ostrich-plumed headdresses and pinky-ringed mobsters while tracing a tumultuous quest for acceptance and love.”—People “A gorgeously written novel with the bite of a gin martini, All the Beautiful Girls goes beyond the splashy, gaudy dazzle of Las Vegas in the sixties to reveal the beating heart beneath the glamorous façade of a showgirl with big ambitions.”—Sara Gruen, New York Times bestselling author of At the Water’s Edge “A stirring bildungsroman that follows a girl from trauma in 1957 Kansas to self-discovery in 1960s Las Vegas . . . Church paints an unflinching, frequently heartbreaking portrait of a resilient young woman’s coming-of-age set against an exciting, glamorous backdrop.”—Publishers Weekly “Church’s appreciation of language is apparent as she masterfully creates pictures with words . . . All the Beautiful Girls provides a delightful antidote to cold and dark mid-winter days.”—Associated Press “A beautifully rendered tale of personal redemption filled with friendship, loss, extravagant furs, and feathery headdresses.”—Kirkus Reviews