Divided Heaven


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They Divided the Sky


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First published in 1963, in East Germany, They Divided the Sky tells the story of a young couple, living in the new, socialist, East Germany, whose relationship is tested to the extreme not only because of the political positions they gradually develop but, very concretely, by the Berlin Wall, which went up on August 13, 1961. The story is set in 1960 and 1961, a moment of high political cold war tension between the East Bloc and the West, a time when many thousands of people were leaving the young German Democratic Republic (the GDR) every day in order to seek better lives in West Germany, or escape the political ideology of the new country that promoted the "farmer and peasant" state over a state run by intellectuals or capitalists. The construction of the Wall put an end to this hemorrhaging of human capital, but separated families, friends, and lovers, for thirty years. The conflicts of the time permeate the relations between characters in the book at every level, and strongly affect the relationships that Rita, the protagonist, has not only with colleagues at work and at the teacher's college she attends, but also with her partner Manfred (an intellectual and academic) and his family. They also lead to an accident/attempted suicide that send her to hospital in a coma, and that provide the backdrop for the flashbacks that make up the narrative. Wolf's first full-length novel, published when she was thirty-five years old, was both a great literary success and a political scandal. Accused of having a 'decadent' attitude with regard to the new socialist Germany and deliberately misrepresenting the workers who are the foundation of this new state, Wolf survived a wave of political and other attacks after its publication. She went on to create a screenplay from the novel and participate in making the film version. More importantly, she went on to become the best-known East German writer of her generation, a writer who established an international reputation and never stopped working toward improving the socialist reality of the GDR.




Divided Heaven


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Heaven


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Heaven's Gate


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On March 26, 1997, the bodies of 39 men and women were found in an opulent mansion outside San Diego, all victims of a mass suicide. Messages left by the Heaven's Gate group indicate that they believed they were stepping out of their 'physical containers' in order to ascend to a UFO that was arriving in the wake of the Hale-Bopp comet. The Heaven's Gate suicides were part of a series of major incidents involving New Religions in the 1990s, as the new millennium approached. Despite the major attention that Heaven's Gate attracted at the time of the suicides, there have been relatively few scholarly studies. This anthology on Heaven's Gate includes a combination of articles previously published in academic journals, some new writings from experts in the field, and some original Heaven's Gate documents. All the material is expertly brought together under the editorship of George D. Chryssides.




The Ghosts of Heaven


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Timeless, beautiful, and haunting, spirals connect the four episodes of The Ghosts of Heaven, the mesmerizing new novel from Printz Award winner Marcus Sedgwick. They are there in prehistory, when a girl picks up a charred stick and makes the first written signs; there tens of centuries later, hiding in the treacherous waters of Golden Beck that take Anna, who people call a witch; there in the halls of a Long Island hospital at the beginning of the 20th century, where a mad poet watches the oceans and knows the horrors it hides; and there in the far future, as an astronaut faces his destiny on the first spaceship sent from earth to colonize another world. Each of the characters in these mysterious linked stories embarks on a journey of discovery and survival; carried forward through the spiral of time, none will return to the same place. This title has Common Core connections.




Heaven


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Heaven's Nursery


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Did you ever have a dream so rare and so real with colors, beauty, and tranquility unlike anything here on earth? And while in that dream, you were there not just in mind but in body too? I have. I dreamed I was in heaven, and it was so much more than I could imagine. There were angels surrounding me, and I felt so protected. As I turned to look at each of these angels, they were all staring at me. Their eyes never blinked. One angel took me by my hand and guided me. She was my guardian angel. They were all so beautiful. As I walked, they seemed to be gliding alongside of me so effortlessly and gracefully. Their skin shimmered; as they moved, tiny sparkles were left floating in the air all around us, glowing in brilliant shades of every color. The gaze from their eyes captured my soul with their beauty and kept me entranced. When they spoke, it was with a whisper followed by a faint, haunting echo. Their long tresses floating like long satin ribbons gently trailing behind them. Each dressed in a white silk gown delicately fl owing in a constant state of motion. Upon their shoulders were wings covered in white and golden down feathers. The floors were made of clouds, the ceilings were the stars, and the walls were made of golden pillars that divided heaven into chambers, each with its own special purpose. The first chamber shown to me was the nursery. In this nursery were angels nurturing tiny souls, each nestled in a cloud-like cradle. These little souls glowing with the intensity of the sun. My guardian angel told me they are a part of the soul of a past family member. Upon the birth of a child in that family, the soul and the child become one. A part of you will always live on. My guardian angel turned to me, held my hands, and then caressed my face. She gazed into my eyes and said, "Your grandchild is in this nursery. You will be a grandmother soon." I looked back into the nursery and wondered which tiny soul was mine. I looked back at her and asked, "When will I be a grandmother?" She said, "You must wake up now. Wake up, my child, wake up." I didnt want to leave! I wanted to stay! They began to fl oat away from me, our eyes locked on each other until they were out of sight. The angels whispered in unison, "Wake up, wake up." I opened my eyes, and it was morning. While I was still lying in bed, I thought to myself, What a vivid dream. It felt as if I were in heaven.




Hollywood Behind the Wall


Book Description

Daniela Berghahn demonstrates that East German cinema occupies an ambivalent position between German national cinema on the one hand and East European and Soviet cinema on the other. The book includes a wide-ranging exploration of post-unification cinemafrom East Germany.




Heaven, My Home


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In this "captivating" crime novel (People), Texas Ranger Darren Mathews is on the hunt for a missing child -- but it's the boy's family of white supremacists who are his real target. 9-year-old Levi King knew he should have left for home sooner; now he's alone in the darkness of vast Caddo Lake, in a boat whose motor just died. A sudden noise distracts him - and all goes dark. Darren Mathews is trying to emerge from another kind of darkness; after the events of his previous investigation, his marriage is in a precarious state of re-building, and his career and reputation lie in the hands of his mother, who's never exactly had his best interests at heart. Now she holds the key to his freedom, and she's not above a little maternal blackmail to press her advantage. An unlikely possibility of rescue arrives in the form of a case down Highway 59, in a small lakeside town where the local economy thrives on nostalgia for ante-bellum Texas - and some of the era's racial attitudes still thrive as well. Levi's disappearance has links to Darren's last case, and to a wealthy businesswoman, the boy's grandmother, who seems more concerned about the fate of her business than that of her grandson. Darren has to battle centuries-old suspicions and prejudices, as well as threats that have been reignited in the current political climate, as he races to find the boy, and to save himself. A Best Book of the Year New York TimesHouston ChronicleNPRWall Street JournalMilwaukee Journal-SentinelBook PageFinancial TimesKirkusSheReadsSunday TimesLitHubGuardianBook RiotSouth Florida Sun SentinelLonglisted for the Orwell Political Fiction Book Prize