A Cage Of Butterflies

"We're like a new toy ... or a new energy source, and they're just playing with us, experimenting. Working out what we can do. What they can do with us." Mikki and the others live at "the farm", an advanced learning facility, a think-tank for a bunch of young people with very high IQs. But what is really going on at the farm? And what about the five much younger children known as the Babies, frail as butterflies? Brian Caswell's new novel explores the power of love . and presents readers with an intriguing jigsaw puzzle of suspense. SHORTLISTED CBC Children's Book of the Year Awards (1993)

"We're like a new toy... or a new energy source, and they're just playing with us, experimenting. Working out what we can do. What they can do with us." Mikki and the others live at "the farm" - an advanced learning facility, a think-tank for a bunch of young people with very high IQs. But what is really going on at the farm? And what about the five much younger children known as the Babies, frail as butterflies?

Celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2024, internationally bestselling author and literary icon Julia Alvarez's In the Time of the Butterflies is "beautiful, heartbreaking and alive ... a lyrical work of historical fiction based on the story of the Mirabal sisters, revolutionary heroes who had opposed and fought against Trujillo." (Concepción de León, New York Times) Alvarez’s new novel, The Cemetery of Untold Stories, is coming April 2, 2024. Pre-order now! It is November 25, 1960, and three beautiful sisters have been found near their wrecked Jeep at the bottom of a 150-foot cliff on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. The official state newspaper reports their deaths as accidental. It does not mention that a fourth sister lives. Nor does it explain that the sisters were among the leading opponents of Gen. Rafael Leónidas Trujillo’s dictatorship. It doesn’t have to. Everybody knows of Las Mariposas—the Butterflies. In this extraordinary novel, the voices of all four sisters--Minerva, Patria, María Teresa, and the survivor, Dedé--speak across the decades to tell their own stories, from secret crushes to gunrunning, and to describe the everyday horrors of life under Trujillo’s rule. Through the art and magic of Julia Alvarez’s imagination, the martyred Butterflies live again in this novel of courage and love, and the human costs of political oppression. "Alvarez helped blaze the trail for Latina authors to break into the literary mainstream, with novels like In the Time of the Butterflies and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents winning praise from critics and gracing best-seller lists across the Americas."—Francisco Cantú, The New York Times Book Review "This Julia Alvarez classic is a must-read for anyone of Latinx descent." —Popsugar.com "A gorgeous and sensitive novel . . . A compelling story of courage, patriotism and familial devotion." —People "Shimmering . . . Valuable and necessary." —Los Angeles Times "A magnificent treasure for all cultures and all time.” —St. Petersburg Times "Alvarez does a remarkable job illustrating the ruinous effect the 30-year dictatorship had on the Dominican Republic and the very real human cost it entailed."—Cosmopolitan.com

Revel in one of the most remarkable miracles of nature.

A triumphant memoir by the former editor-in-chief of French Elle that reveals an indomitable spirit and celebrates the liberating power of consciousness. In 1995, Jean-Dominique Bauby was the editor-in-chief of French Elle, the father of two young children, a 44-year-old man known and loved for his wit, his style, and his impassioned approach to life. By the end of the year he was also the victim of a rare kind of stroke to the brainstem. After 20 days in a coma, Bauby awoke into a body which had all but stopped working: only his left eye functioned, allowing him to see and, by blinking it, to make clear that his mind was unimpaired. Almost miraculously, he was soon able to express himself in the richest detail: dictating a word at a time, blinking to select each letter as the alphabet was recited to him slowly, over and over again. In the same way, he was able eventually to compose this extraordinary book. By turns wistful, mischievous, angry, and witty, Bauby bears witness to his determination to live as fully in his mind as he had been able to do in his body. He explains the joy, and deep sadness, of seeing his children and of hearing his aged father's voice on the phone. In magical sequences, he imagines traveling to other places and times and of lying next to the woman he loves. Fed only intravenously, he imagines preparing and tasting the full flavor of delectable dishes. Again and again he returns to an "inexhaustible reservoir of sensations," keeping in touch with himself and the life around him. Jean-Dominique Bauby died two days after the French publication of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. This book is a lasting testament to his life.

When Shahnaz refused to accept the abuse, she was plunged into violent conflict with her family, who condemned her for bringing disrespect on their name by trying to win her independence. They repeatedly assaulted and humiliated her to make her toe the line. After she left her second husband to get away from the beatings, they imprisoned her in her own bedroom. When they later tricked her into joining them in Pakistan she was beaten, stripped of her possessions, threatened with shooting and drowning and put under house arrest. It was only through her intelligence and extraordinary courage that Shahnaz was eventually able to win her freedom and her family’s respect and start building an independent life in England with her daughter and third husband. Now Shahnaz (she has used a pen-name to avoid embarrassment for her family) has written her extraordinary, compelling story.