The Negro Grandsons of Vercingetorix

The Negro Grandsons of Vercingetorix

Alain Mabanckou

Fiction / Cultural / Africa

The award-winning author of Black Moses is at his satiric best in this novel the catalogs the pain and suffering caused by the ravages of civil war.Set in the imaginary African Republic of Vietongo, The Negro Grandsons of Vercingetorix begins when conflict breaks out between rival leaders and the regional ethnic groups they represent. Events recorded in a series of notebooks under the watchful eye of Hortense Lloki show how civil war culminates in a series of outlandish actions perpetrated by the warring parties' private militias—the Anacondas and the Romans from the North who have seized power against Vercingetorix (named after none other than the legendary Gallic warrior who fought against Caesar's army) and his Little Negro Grandsons in the South who are eager to regain control. Translated into English for the first time, this novel provides a gritty slice of life in an active war zone."Nearly twenty years removed from its French...
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A Dream of Red Mansion

A Dream of Red Mansion

Cao Xueqin

Classics / Fiction / Cultural

The classic tale of the Ning and Rong families, Chinese aristocrats on the wrong side of the wheel of fate. Starring Baoyu, a character unique in literature, the young man who finds his own kind filthy, and seeks only the company of women. With characters high and low, corrupt and chaste, human and supernatural. Illustrated.
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Skyboarders - Episode 1 - Jelka

Skyboarders - Episode 1 - Jelka

Adah and Shannon Biggs

European Literature / German Literature / Cultural

Tarek is a god on his skyboard and lives for the thrill of open flight, but life isn’t all good. He has an evil boss, lives in a rat hole, eats bad food, and can’t remember who he is. Worse, his home is being betrayed by cybernetic priests from hell.From Director Steven Spielberg: Jurassic Park is an in-depth analysis of Steven Spielberg's 1993 blockbuster 'Jurassic Park'. The book looks at how Spielberg evolved themes explored in films like 'Duel' and 'Jaws', with a particular emphasis on his use of horror movie tropes, audience involvement, nature and masculinity.By doing this, the book aims to reassess 'Jurassic Park' as more than just an entertaining blockbuster and tremendous technical achievement, but a vital bridge between the Spielberg who wowed audiences with blockbusters such as 'Jaws' and 'Raiders of the Lost Ark', and the Spielberg who explored more serious issues in films like 'Schindler's List' and 'Lincoln'.
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Youngest in Charge

Youngest in Charge

K Elliott

Urban / Cultural / African American

The Westgate Kids book series follows four teens from disadvantaged backgrounds as they strive to escape the dangers of poverty, such as criminal activity, drug abuse and teenage parenthood. Elijah, Daniel, Brandon, and JJ dream of becoming doctors, Olympic athletes and nurse practitioners respectively. In spite offacing tough challenges like the murder of Elijah's father, these determined characters refuse to let their circumstances define them. All of them earn impressive grades in school, with one of them striving for academic excellence despite being a honors student already.This empoweringseries aims to motivate inner-city youth to find their strength within and beat the troubles that are ever-present in their lives. It tackles key topics such as poverty, crime and addiction - but it also powers up young readers with its encouraging messages about achieving goals no matter what life throws at you.Overall, Westgate Kids is an inspiring resource...
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Inside (A Short Story)

Inside (A Short Story)

Michael Wright

Nonfiction / Cultural / France

Gregory Chalmers was safe inside, nothing could get him in there. But what was outside isn't all he has to worry about.Gregory Chalmers was safe inside, nothing could get him in there. But what was outside isn't all he has to worry about.It's what's on the inside that counts. A short story on the depravity of man.
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Why Do You Dance When You Walk?

Why Do You Dance When You Walk?

Abdourahman A. Waberi

Cultural / Africa / Fiction

'Papa, why do you dance when you walk?When Aden's 8-year-old daughter asks him this one morning in Paris, he is taken aback. The question is innocent, but the answer is not so simple. Unable to resist Béa's inquisitive spirit, he moves silkily between memories of his childhood: from his silent, mysterious mother and the shanty roofs of his neighbourhood to the malicious attack that changed his life forever and the ensuing struggle that made him a man.Anchoring his memories is a Djibouti on the cusp of independence; a land of shifting deserts and immense heat, French-from-France ex-pats, and one lonely and sick boy finding solace in books.Why Do You Dance When You Walk is a poignant and timeless story of the complexity of family, the value of poetry and freedom, and the ripple effect of the traumas that stalk our movement.
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No Limits

No Limits

Andrew Small

Cultural / China / Pakistan

The riveting and mostly untold story about the battle for financial and technological power and mastery between the West and China over the last decade.Since China joined the WTO in December 2001, the West has been developing ever closer business and political ties. China's hosting of the Olympcis Games and its economic leadership in 2008 as the world faced recession were signs that China's new power and wealth would herald greater global prosperity for all. But that era is over. What was the cause of this rupture, leading China expert Andrew Small asks and what does it mean for the future? Using his deep access to the leading players in the story, Small dramatizes the intense political battles over the introduction of 5G to show how China and the West have spilt and how those abstract geopolitical rivalries translate into our daily lives—the phones we all use, the hidden wiring of the economy, and who controls it.  Written with...
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The Tattoo Murder

The Tattoo Murder

Akimitsu Takagi

Mystery / Cultural / Japan

An ingenious classic Japanese murder mystery, set in post-war Tokyo and steeped in the illicit subculture of Yakuza tattoos 'Like voyeurs, we follow Takagi down the charred streets of bombed-out Tokyo to scenes of fastidiously executed decadence' New York TimesCan you solve the mystery of the tattoo murder?Tokyo, 1947. At the first post-war meeting of the Edo Tattoo Society, Kinue Nomura reveals her full-body snake tattoo to rapturous applause. Days later she is gone. A dismembered corpse is discovered in the locked bathroom of her home, but her much-coveted body art is nowhere to be found.Kinue's horrified lover joins forces with the boy detective Kyosuke Kamizu to try to get to the bottom of the macabre crime, but similar deaths soon follow. Is someone being driven to murder by their lust for tattooed skin, and can they be stopped?Set in a seedy Tokyo of bomb sites, dive bars and Yakuza gangs, The Tattoo...
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Oh Gran!

Oh Gran!

Stephanie Dagg

Cultural / France / Nonfiction

Gran has plenty of surprises up her sleeve when she comes to look after Emily for the weekend. For one thing, she rides a tiger-striped motorbike, and for another, she lives on burgers and muffins. And that's just the start ...Gran is recently back from spending a few years in Australia. She comes to look after Emily for a weekend. Emily is dreading it as she doesn't really know her Gran, and all her friends say theirs are boring and fussy. Grans can be so uncool. But not this Gran. She rides a tiger-striped motor-bike, a bit too fast sometimes. She eats nothing but burgers and muffins and has picked up some handy Aboriginal skills during her time 'down under'. Emily is in for quite a surprise!
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Bled Dry

Bled Dry

Abdelilah Hamdouchi

Mystery / Cultural / Africa

When an ill-fated, young prostitute and her lover are killed in a gruesome double murder, seasoned investigator Detective Hanash is called in. The case draws him and his team into the poverty of Casablanca's slums, blighted by criminality, religious extremism, and despair.Hanash's years on the job have made him intimately familiar with the city's seedy underbelly, but this time he harbors a personal connection to one of the victims, one he must conceal at all costs.
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The Last Gift of the Master Artists

The Last Gift of the Master Artists

Ben Okri

Fiction / Cultural / Africa

'This is a story of a people on the eve of catastrophe. Others can tell of the catastrophe itself. I want to see the people in the last days of their innocence.' Ben OkriBy a riverbank in Africa, two lovers meet for the first time. They make a promise to meet again the next day, same time, same place, but only one of them shows up. This sounds like the beginning of a love story, but it's more than that, for this breath-taking tale takes the reader into the heart of a vibrant world, a complex and intriguing civilisation of warriors and kings, philosophers and artists, parents and lovers. A world and culture which is about to end, for glimpsed on the horizon, seen but unsuspected, beautiful ships with white sails are waiting...First published as Starbook in 2007, Ben Okri has spent many years rewriting this epic novel, set just before the arrival of the Atlantic slave trade. He has sought to bring to it a greater simplicity, to make the political and historical implications of the...
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These Good Hands

These Good Hands

Carol Bruneau

Fiction / Cultural / Canada

Set in the early autumn of 1943, the These Good Hands interweaves the biography of French sculptor Camille Claudel and the story of the nurse who cares for her during the final days of her thirty-year incarceration in France's Montdevergues Asylum. Biographers have suggested that Claudel survived her long internment by writing letters, few of which left the asylum because of her strict sequestration; in Bruneau's novel, these letters are reimagined in a series, penned to her younger self, the sculptor, popularly known as Rodin's tragic mistress. They trace the trajectory of her career in Belle Époque Paris and her descent into the stigmatizing illness that destroyed it. The nurse's story is revealed in her journal, which describes her labours and the ethical dilemma she eventually confronts. Through her letters, Camille relives the limits of her perseverance, and through her journal, Nurse confronts the limits of hers; these limits include the faith these women have in...
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