Faraway

Heartfelt and irresistible—“a lovely, deeply moving story of loss and love and memory made real” (Diana Gabaldon, #1 New York Times bestselling author)—this enchanting debut follows a woman who travels back in time to be reunited with the mother she lost when she was a child. Every night, as Faye puts her daughters to bed, she thinks of her own mother, Jeanie, who died when Faye was eight. The pain of that loss has never left her, and that’s why she wants her own girls to know how very much they are loved by her—and always will be, whatever happens. Then one day, Faye gets her heart’s desire when she’s whisked back into the past and is reunited not just with her mother but with her own younger self. Jeanie doesn’t recognize grown-up Faye as her daughter, even though there is something eerily familiar about her. But the two women become close friends and share all kinds of secrets—except for the deepest secret of all, the secret of who Faye really is. Faye worries that telling the truth may prevent her from being able to return to the present day, to her dear husband and beloved daughters. Eventually she’ll have to choose between those she loved in the past and those she loves in the here and now, and that knowledge presents her with an impossible choice. If only she didn’t have to make it....

Fairies may be gentle creatures now, but they had to fight for their place in this world – and what a fight it was! For the first time, KNOW where fairies came from and how they live amongst us. Experience the bond that developed between fairies and elves. This book will give you insights into the magical world that surrounds us all. Take up the drawbridge; clear the outlying areas of innocent civilians; stock up the larder; bring in more ammunition; station guards on every entrance; impose an evening curfew. Things are about to happen.

In Taiwanese writer Lo Yi-Chin’s Faraway, a fictionalized version of the author finds himself stranded in mainland China attempting to bring his comatose father home. Lo’s father had fled decades ago, abandoning his first family to start a new life in Taiwan. After travel between the two countries becomes politically possible, he returns to visit the son he left behind, only to suffer a stroke. The middle-aged protagonist ventures to China, where he embarks on a protracted struggle with the byzantine hospital regulations while dealing with relatives he barely knows. Meanwhile, back in Taiwan, his wife is about to give birth to their second child. Isolated in a foreign country, Lo mulls over his life, dwelling on his difficult relationship with his father and how becoming a father himself has changed him. Faraway is a powerful meditation on the nature of family and the many ways blood can both unite and divide us. Lo’s depiction of family dynamics and fraught politics contains a keen sense of irony and sensitivity to everyday absurdity. He offers a deft portrayal of the rift between China and Taiwan through an intimate view of a father-son relationship that bridges this divide. One of the most celebrated writers in Taiwan, Lo has been greatly influential throughout the Chinese-speaking world, but his work has not previously been translated into English. Jeremy Tiang’s translation captures Lo’s distinctive voice, mordant wit, and nuanced portrayal of Taiwanese culture.

A New York Times Notable Book Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award A personal, lyrical narrative about storytelling and empathy, from the author of Orwell's Roses Apricots. Her mother's disintegrating memory. An invitation to Iceland. Illness. These are Rebecca Solnit's raw materials, but The Faraway Nearby goes beyond her own life, as she spirals out into the stories she heard and read—from fairy tales to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein—that helped her navigate her difficult passge. Solnit takes us into the lives of others—an arctic cannibal, the young Che Guevara among the leprosy afflicted, a blues musician, an Icelandic artist and her labyrinth—to understand warmth and coldness, kindness and imagination, decay and transformation, making art and making self. This captivating, exquisitely written exploration of the forces that connect us and the way we tell our stories is a tour de force of association, a marvelous Russian doll of a book that is a fitting companion to Solnit's much-loved A Field Guide to Getting Lost.

Nervous about visiting her grandmother in Taipei, Taiwan, a young girl soon adjusts to her unfamiliar surroundings and enjoys the adventure.

In the enchanting realm of the Faraway Tree, a spoiled and haughty girl named Connie arrives for a summer stay with three adventurous children. Unfazed by the magical wonders and whimsical creatures dwelling within the tree, Connie stubbornly denies their existence, even as the Angry Pixie showers her with ink and Dame Washalot drenches her. However, as the children embark on their journey to the top of the tree, Connie's skepticism is shattered by delightful surprises.

Only a week after a fierce battle in the abandoned scrapyard against the wicked horde of large insect-bots known as The Others, culminating in their destruction when the huge Mars Biosphere spaceship blasted its way out of the scrapyard, Alex Faraway waits impatiently for his long-missing father's promised return from that planet. But Dart, Alex's large, robotic Guardian Dragonfly, is unsure if the sinister creatures from his own past are gone for good. The robot flies regular patrols over the 100 acre scrapyard until one morning he abruptly disappears. Alex goes in search of his adventurous friend, unaware that the plot to invade Mars and destroy the last remaining Martians before they awaken from their hibernation Time Tombs is far from finished. The battle from the previous week has only added weight to the might of The Others and has triggered the arrival in the scrapyard of an ever more powerful robot - one with brutish motivation to complete the creation of a deadly machine from ten thousand years ago. And now, not only is Mars in their sites, but Earth is as well. Something new, powerful, and frightening is also happening to Alex Faraway with each passing day and each time he uses the strange Martian-made device called a Luss. His nightly dreams of an ancient people long forgotten are growing more physical in nature as the Glass Tunnels blur the immutable barrier between past and present, dreams and reality. The Ghosts and the Nethlins are coming. And all the while, the unknown rogue world, the shadowy Planet X, draws ever nearer to its ten-thousand-year close-encounter with Mars. What mysteries from the distant past does that strange glittering world hold?

Cousin Dick comes to stay with Jo, Bessie and Fanny and together they share many more wonderful adventures up the Faraway Tree. With Moonface, Saucepan Man and Silky the pixie, they explore the amazing lands to be found at the top of the tree – the Land of Spells, the Land of Toys, and the tempting Land of Goodies, but then one day Moonface, Silky and Saucepan Man disappear mysteriously. Where have they gone, and why are people from the Land of Tempers living in the tree instead?