The Virgin in the Treehouse


Book Description

A South African novel that involves distinctive personalities--a woman who lives in a tree house and awaits immaculate conception, a failed artist whose deepest desires are only revealed to her in forgotten dreams, a wise woman who lives in a red car, a tragic domestic worker who only experiences atrocity, and a King whose chest is home to a bird of paradise--this extraordinary story tells of two sisters and their family as they try to understand the landscapes of their lives. With beauty, provocation, and skill, this carefully woven narrative explores the battleground of human relationships and explores the personal and familial consequences of mother-daughter estrangement.




The Treehouse Book


Book Description

It seems that almost everyone likes treehouses. Smiles of recognition turn into grins of enthusiasm as more people discover them and dream about making their own private retreats or family play spaces. And it's nice to remind ourselves that treehouses are built into the oldest and most forgiving, living things on earth. Also, history records treehouses as being built as deliberate follies, as challenges for arboreal designers, for merrymaking, and for keeping the spirit of fairy tales alive. But treehouses can also be social places. We will visit many that were built to entertain, to hang out with friends, or as guest houses. Trees come in all types. Master treehouse builders Peter and Judy Nelson, with David Larkin, have embarked on yet another treehouse-discovery expedition across America, this time adding the investigation of backyard playhouses to their agenda. Now, in The Treehouse Book, they reveal their findings, illustrated and described in the most complete volume yet. From casual treeshacks made from discarded lumber to multitiered feats of fancy, they found shelters representing myriad builders--interesting characters ranging from childhood fanatics grown up, to weekend carpenters, to those who want their grandkids to have the best clubhouse on the block. Detailed how-to information, including plans and drawings, is woven with behind-the-scenes tales of each structure's occupants and stunning interior and exterior photographic exploration.




Be in a Treehouse


Book Description

A guide from the premier treehouse designer: “Stunning photos of fanciful houses . . . To browse through Nelson’s book is to fantasize about life in midair.” —The Washington Post Book World The host of Animal Planet’s Treehouse Masters and the world’s best-known treehouse designer and builder, Pete Nelsonwants to put you in a tree. His motto: “Get ’er done, so you can BE in a TREE.” With this book he provides a comprehensive source of inspiration and practical information about treehouse design and construction, and shares the basics of treehouse construction with his own recent projects as case studies. Using photographs taken especially for this project along with diagrams, he covers the selection and care of trees, and explains the fundamentals of building treehouse platforms. To ignite the imagination, Nelson presents twenty-seven treehouses in the United States, Europe, and Africa. It’s an indispensable handbook for anyone who aspires to have a treehouse, from the armchair dreamer to the amateur builder to the professional contractor.




The Virgin Suicides


Book Description

First published in 1993, The Virgin Suicides announced the arrival of a major new American novelist. In a quiet suburb of Detroit, the five Lisbon sisters—beautiful, eccentric, and obsessively watched by the neighborhood boys—commit suicide one by one over the course of a single year. As the boys observe them from afar, transfixed, they piece together the mystery of the family’s fatal melancholy, in this hypnotic and unforgettable novel of adolescent love, disquiet, and death. Jeffrey Eugenides evokes the emotions of youth with haunting sensitivity and dark humor and creates a coming-of-age story unlike any of our time. Adapted into a critically acclaimed film by Sofia Coppola, The Virgin Suicides is a modern classic, a lyrical and timeless tale of sex and suicide that transforms and mythologizes suburban middle-American life.




After My Fall from the Tree House:


Book Description

When I was not quite three, I fell out of the family tree house and landed on my head. Since then friends and family have wondered about my brain. This memoir of several dozen vignettes explores my fallen condition while growing up in Alabama, while serving as a medic with the Navy and Marine Corps, and while pursuing my teaching career. As a five-year-old I hated suspenders, so when I got my first belt I stood next to the highway in front of our house with my stomach stuck out so people in cars passing by could see my belt While serving in the Navy, I once tried to impress a barmaid in Tijuana with my knowledge of high school Spanish by reciting the Lords Prayer in Spanish. Other vignettes celebrate normal times, as when I provided nursing care for a slowly dying, 84-year-old veteran of the Spanish American War. Another is when I attended the graduation of a former student of mine, a 50-year-old black woman who graduated summa cum laude from Mercer University. At eighteen she was denied admission to Mercer because of her race. Of course the best times have been with my beloved Danish wife of fifty-one years, our son and his family, and my parents, brothers and sisters. I hope the reader finds all of the vignettes either amusing or engaging.




Tree House to Palm Trees


Book Description

Eugene F. Thomas was thirteen years old in 1961 when his family stuffed its belongings in the 1954 Chrysler and left New York for new opportunities in California. Having just finished eighth grade, Thomas wondered what adventures awaited him on the West Coast. The oldest son of Gene and Vivian, Eugenealso called Genelearned the way any teenager wouldby trial and error. In this memoir, he narrates his lifes journey and lessons learned this way: moving across the country, growing up in the turbulent sixties, enduring puberty, serving in the military, working as an air traffic controller, teaching college students, practicing religion, getting married, and mastering single parenting. In Tree House to Palm Tree, Eugene tells how he came of age in California, showing a true example of a man who learned what it was like to dream of things and, by his actions and courage, turn them into reality.







Jericho


Book Description

Librarian Syd Murphy flees the carnage of a failed marriage by accepting an eighteen-month position in Jericho, a small town in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia. Her plans to hide out and heal her wounds fall by the wayside as she gets drawn into the daily lives of the quirky locals. When Syd gets a flat tire and is rescued by the town physician, Maddie Stevenson, the two women form a fast friendship—but almost immediately begin struggling with a mutual attraction. And, if that’s not enough, Syd is straight and going through a divorce—and Maddie somehow forgets to mention her sexual orientation to her new best friend. Almost everyone who crosses their paths believes it’s only a matter of time until they figure it out, but sometimes, it takes a while to see the obvious. Together, Syd and Maddie learn that life and love can have as many twists and turns as a winding mountain road.







The Virgin Suicides


Book Description

The national bestseller from Jeffrey Eugenides, the Pulitzer Prize–Winning Author of Middlesex and The Marriage Plot With a New Introduction by Emma Cline Adapted into a critically acclaimed film by Sofia Coppola, The Virgin Suicides is a modern classic, a lyrical and timeless tale of sex and suicide that transforms and mythologizes suburban middle-American life. First published in 1993, The Virgin Suicides announced the arrival of a major new American novelist. In a quiet suburb of Detroit, the five Lisbon sisters—beautiful, eccentric, and obsessively watched by the neighborhood boys—commit suicide one by one over the course of a single year. As the boys observe them from afar, transfixed, they piece together the mystery of the family's fatal melancholy, in this hypnotic and unforgettable novel of adolescent love, disquiet, and death. Jeffrey Eugenides evokes the emotions of youth with haunting sensitivity and dark humor and creates a coming-of-age story unlike any of our time.