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The Roaches Have No King

Author : Daniel Evan Weiss

Publisher :

Page : 260 pages

File Size : 31,13 MB

Release : 2001

Category : Fiction

ISBN : 9781852427467

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Book Description

When Ira Fishblatt's girlfriend, Ruth Grubstein, moves into his appartment, he cleans up his act and his kitchen much to the repulsion of the hoards of cockroaches who also inhabit his flat. This grubby army who, up until now, had happily existed on the food debris littering his flat, now face a harsh future: eviction or death from starvation. Driven into a frenzy by their dark fate, a leader cockroach, Numbers, devises a diabolical plan which will forever rid them of Ruth and her damnable tidiness. Enlisting the unwitting help of Rufus, the local cocaine dealer, Elizabeth and his hot-blooded ex-girlfriend, the Gypsy, they act out a masterplan to save their home? and their lives.



Cockroach

Author : Marion Copeland

Publisher : Reaktion Books

Page : 204 pages

File Size : 24,60 MB

Release : 2004-04-04

Category : Nature

ISBN : 1861894856

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Book Description

The cockroach could not have scuttled along, almost unchanged, for two hundred and fifty million years – some two hundred and forty-nine before man evolved – unless it was doing something right. It would be fascinating as well as instructive to have access to the cockroach’s own record of its life on earth, to know its point of view on evolution and species domination over the millennia. Such chronicles would perhaps radically alter our perceptions of the dinosaur’s span and importance – and that of our own development and significance. We might learn that throughout all these aeons, the dominant life form has been, if not the cockroach itself, then certainly the insect. Attempts to chronicle the cockroach’s intellectual and emotional life have been made only within the last century when a scientist titled his essay on the cockroach "The Intellectual and Emotional World of the Cockroach", and artists as radically different as Franz Kafka and Don Marquis created equally memorable cockroach protagonists. At least since Classical Greece, authors have brought cockroach characters into the foreground to speak for the weak and downtrodden, the outsiders, those forced to survive on the underside of dominant human cultures. Cockroaches have become the subjects of songs (La Cucaracha), have competed in "roachraces" and have even ended up in recipes. In this accessible, sympathetic and often humorous book, Marion Copeland examines the natural history, symbolism and cultural significance of this poorly understood and much-maligned insect.



A World Below

Author : Wesley King

Publisher : Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books

Page : 288 pages

File Size : 31,52 MB

Release : 2019-08-06

Category : Juvenile Fiction

ISBN : 1481478230

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Book Description

“A swift-paced survival tale that’s a cool blend of Lord of the Flies and Journey to the Center of the Earth.” —School Library Journal “A sharp meditation on the seemingly universal difficulties of being young, smart, and uncertain.” —BCCB “A multifaceted journey from darkness to light.” —Kirkus Reviews Winner of the Red Maple Fiction Award A class field trips turns into an underground quest for survival in the latest middle grade novel from the author of Edgar Award winner OCDaniel. Mr. Baker’s eighth grade class thought they were in for a normal field trip to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. But when an earthquake hits, their field trip takes a terrifying turn. The students are plunged into an underground lake…and their teacher goes missing. They have no choice but to try and make their way back above ground, even though no one can agree on the best course of action. The darkness brings out everyone’s true self. Supplies dwindle and tensions mount. Pretty and popular Silvia does everything she can to hide her panic attacks, even as she tries to step up and be a leader. But the longer she’s underground, the more frequent and debilitating they become. Meanwhile, Eric has always been a social no one, preferring to sit at the back of the class and spend evenings alone. Now, he finds himself separated from his class, totally by himself underground. That is, until he meets an unexpected stranger. Told from three different points of view, this fast-paced adventure novel explores how group dynamics change under dire circumstances. Do the students of Mr. Baker’s class really know each other at all? Or do they just think they do? It turns out, it’s hard to hide in the dark.



100% American

Author : Daniel Evan Weiss

Publisher : Simon & Schuster

Page : 233 pages

File Size : 48,36 MB

Release : 1988

Category : Humor

ISBN : 9780671668723

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Book Description

Gathers unusual and little known statistics about Americans, from the one percent who are color-blind to the ninety-nine percent of American households that have at least one radio



The Swine's Wedding

Author : Daniel Evan Weiss

Publisher :

Page : 0 pages

File Size : 31,95 MB

Release : 1999

Category : Interfaith marriage

ISBN : 9781852427061

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Book Description

When Allison Pennybaker and Solomon Beneviste announce their engagement, the trouble begins: the Pennybakers plan a church wedding they can't afford, while Solomon's mother traces the Beneviste genealogy all the way back to the Spanish Inquisition. Both sides take determined, unwitting steps to promote a disaster. In a darkly comic mode, Daniel Evan Weiss once again says profound truths about the human condition.



The Bees

Author : Laline Paull

Publisher : Harper Collins

Page : 240 pages

File Size : 44,97 MB

Release : 2014-05-06

Category : Fiction

ISBN : 0062331167

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Book Description

The Handmaid’s Tale meets The Hunger Games in this brilliantly imagined debut set in an ancient culture where only the queen may breed and deformity means death. Flora 717 is a sanitation worker, a member of the lowest caste in her orchard hive where work and sacrifice are the highest virtues and worship of the beloved Queen the only religion. But Flora is not like other bees. With circumstances threatening the hive’s survival, her curiosity is regarded as a dangerous flaw but her courage and strength are an asset. She is allowed to feed the newborns in the royal nursery and then to become a forager, flying alone and free to collect pollen. She also finds her way into the Queen’s inner sanctum, where she discovers mysteries about the hive that are both profound and ominous. But when Flora breaks the most sacred law of all—daring to challenge the Queen’s fertility—enemies abound, from the fearsome fertility police who enforce the strict social hierarchy to the high priestesses jealously wedded to power. Her deepest instincts to serve and sacrifice are now overshadowed by an even deeper desire, a fierce maternal love that will bring her into conflict with her conscience, her heart, her society—and lead her to unthinkable deeds. Thrilling, suspenseful and spectacularly imaginative, The Bees gives us a dazzling young heroine and will change forever the way you look at the world outside your window.



Deacon King Kong (Oprah's Book Club)

Author : James McBride

Publisher : Penguin

Page : 385 pages

File Size : 38,3 MB

Release : 2020-03-03

Category : Fiction

ISBN : 073521672X

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Book Description

Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Fiction Winner of the Gotham Book Prize One of Barack Obama's "Favorite Books of the Year" Oprah's Book Club Pick Named one of the Top Ten Books of the Year by the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly and TIME Magazine A Washington Post Notable Novel From the author of The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, the National Book Award–winning The Good Lord Bird, and the bestselling modern classic The Color of Water, comes one of the most celebrated novels of the year. In September 1969, a fumbling, cranky old church deacon known as Sportcoat shuffles into the courtyard of the Cause Houses housing project in south Brooklyn, pulls a .38 from his pocket, and, in front of everybody, shoots the project’s drug dealer at point-blank range. The reasons for this desperate burst of violence and the consequences that spring from it lie at the heart of Deacon King Kong, James McBride’s funny, moving novel and his first since his National Book Award–winning The Good Lord Bird. In Deacon King Kong, McBride brings to vivid life the people affected by the shooting: the victim, the African-American and Latinx residents who witnessed it, the white neighbors, the local cops assigned to investigate, the members of the Five Ends Baptist Church where Sportcoat was deacon, the neighborhood’s Italian mobsters, and Sportcoat himself. As the story deepens, it becomes clear that the lives of the characters—caught in the tumultuous swirl of 1960s New York—overlap in unexpected ways. When the truth does emerge, McBride shows us that not all secrets are meant to be hidden, that the best way to grow is to face change without fear, and that the seeds of love lie in hope and compassion. Bringing to these pages both his masterly storytelling skills and his abiding faith in humanity, James McBride has written a novel every bit as involving as The Good Lord Bird and as emotionally honest as The Color of Water. Told with insight and wit, Deacon King Kong demonstrates that love and faith live in all of us.



Animals and Agency

Author : Sarah McFarland

Publisher : BRILL

Page : 392 pages

File Size : 28,97 MB

Release : 2009-06-02

Category : Nature

ISBN : 9047429249

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Book Description

While many scholars who write about animals deal with animal agency in some way, this volume is the first to position the question of nonhuman agency as the primary focus of inquiry. Section I presents studies of actual animals demonstrating agency; Section II moves agency into new terrain while considering key representations of animal agency in literature; Section III analyzes animals as mediators and as conveyances of human-to-human communication;and Section IV investigates the agency of beings who defy conventional species categories. The Envoi demonstrates how the microscopic polyp is interwoven into notions of agency and mythical superagency. This volume's interdisciplinary explorations press hard on issues of agency to open up space for more questions about how we can understand relationships between the human and the nonhuman.



It

Author : Joseph Roach

Publisher : University of Michigan Press

Page : 284 pages

File Size : 35,87 MB

Release : 2007-04-12

Category : History

ISBN : 9780472069361

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Book Description

A witty and engaging exploration of the elusive quality of charm, animal magnetism, or charisma possessed by extraordinarily interesting people through the ages



FKA USA

Author : Reed King

Publisher : Flatiron Books

Page : 480 pages

File Size : 47,53 MB

Release : 2019-06-18

Category : Fiction

ISBN : 125010890X

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Book Description

“Mr. King looks at all our upcoming problems, and imagines a local reaction to each one. The result is often funny, usually sardonic, and always imaginative, what with all the mole rats, flesh drones, dimeheads, and especially ‘The Grifter’s Guide to the Territories FKA USA,’ a notable addition to the line of imaginary authorities.” —The Wall Street Journal Indie Next Pick for July Best of June: io9, AV Club, Amazing Stories, The Verge Reed King’s amazingly audacious novel is something of a cross between L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz, Douglas Adams’s A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, and Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One. In Reed King’s wildly imaginative and possibly prescient debut, the United States has dissolved in the wake of environmental disasters and the catastrophic policies of its final president. It is 2085, and Truckee Wallace, a factory worker in Crunchtown 407 (formerly Little Rock, Arkansas, before the secessions), has no grand ambitions besides maybe, possibly, losing his virginity someday. But when Truckee is thrust unexpectedly into the spotlight he is tapped by the President for a sensitive political mission: to deliver a talking goat across the continent. The fate of the world depends upon it. The problem is—Truckee’s not sure it’s worth it. Joined on the road by an android who wants to be human and a former convict lobotomized in Texas, Truckee will navigate an environmentally depleted and lawless continent with devastating—and hilarious—parallels to our own, dodging body pickers and Elvis-worshippers and logo girls, body subbers, and VR addicts. Elvis-willing, he may even lose his virginity. FKA USA is the epic novel we’ve all been waiting for about the American end of times, with its unavoidable sense of being on the wrong end of the roller coaster ride. It is a masterwork of ambition, humor, and satire with the power to make us cry, despair, and laugh out loud all at once. It is a tour de force unlike anything else you will read this year.



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