Red Sand Blue Sky

Two young girls from very different backgrounds discover what they hold in common in this funny Australian classic.

This funny and surprising mystery/adventure is set in the brilliant desert landscape of the Australian outback. Twelve-year-old Amy arrives from Melbourne, unsettled by the starkly different landscape and people. There she meets an Aboriginal girl, Lana, who seems as different as anyone could be-in Amy's eyes. As they learn more about each other's cultures, they also find that they share the loss of their mothers, and their friendship deepens. Soon they are working together to uncover a sinister plot-which may put unto jeopardy everything and everyone they hold dear.

This early 20th century memoir of a woman’s faith in the face of debilitating disease is a “remarkably un-self-pitying book remains poignant and truthful” (Publishers Weekly). “You must not miss it . . . It is the kind of book that cannot come into being without great living and great suffering and a rare spirit behind it.” —The New York Times In 1895, a specialist straps five-year-old Katharine Hathaway, then suffering from spinal tuberculosis, to a board with halters and pulleys in a failed attempt to prevent her from becoming a “hunchback” like the “little locksmith” who does odd jobs at her family’s home. Forced to endure her confinement for ten years, Katharine remains immobile until age fifteen, only to find that none of it has prevented her from developing a deformity of her own. The Little Locksmith charts Katharine’s struggle to transcend physical limitations and embrace her life, her body, and herself. Her spirit and courage prevail as she expands her world far beyond the boundaries prescribed by her family and society: she attends Radcliffe College, forms deep friendships, begins to write, and in 1921, purchases a house of her own that she fashions into a space for guests, lovers, and artists. Revealing and inspirational, The Little Locksmith stands as a testimony to Katharine’s aspirations and desires—for independence, love, and the pursuit of her art. “A powerful revelation of spiritual truth” —The Boston Globe “Katharine Butler Hathaway . . . was the kind of heroine whose deeds are rarely chronicled . . . [She took] a life which fate had cast in the mold of a frightful tragedy and redesign[ed] it into a quiet, modest work of art.” —The New Yorker

Pallavi Ratnam's life could be better. Yes, she has a "little god" who helps her when she's hungry, but this gift hasn't stopped her father from becoming ill or her mother from kicking her out of the family home. If only her boyfriend offered any real support. But all he wants is to use her little god to help him rob people. When she hears her father's former business partner and nemesis is returning to town with a caravan full of spices, she wonders just what it would take to steal his spices and pay for her father's medical care. At last, this is an idea Pallavi's boyfriend can get excited about, and before they know it, they are working with three of the city's most notorious personalities to plan the heist of a lifetime. Their greatest obstacle, though, isn't the man they want to rob or the authorities. It's a government bureaucrat who knows the truth about Pallavi's budding powers, and wants to take her away before she becomes a danger to herself, or others.

Australia's arid outback is teeming with life ... when you know where to look. From taipan snakes and pelicans to hippie activists and hardline miners, John Read brings to life the characters, creatures and cultures of the outback. Through vivid, personal stories he shares his experience as an ecologist making new discoveries; challenging conventional approaches to pastoralism, mining, tourism and environmental management; and witnessing the precarious balance of nature as species are pitted against the harsh climate of the outback. Written in an accessible and non-scientific style, Red Sand Green Heart: Ecological adventures in the outback evokes a humorous, entertaining and informative picture of Australia's desert region and the environmental issues that affect us all.

In the 1960s and 1970s in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), or West Germany, newspaper readers and television viewers were appalled by terrible images of fires burning half a world away. The Vietnam War was a decisive catalyst for the era’s wider protest movements and gave rise to an ardent anti-war discourse. This discourse privileged writing in many forms. Within it, poetry and poetic writing were key; and because coverage of the conflict in Vietnam often focused on spectacular, destructive conflagrations ignited by hi-tech machines of war, their dominant trope was fire. Hundreds of poems and related writings about Vietnam circulated in the FRG, yet they are almost entirely forgotten today. Poetic Writing and the Vietnam War in West Germany uncovers and explores some of this rich production in order to present a new history of engaged poetic writing in the FRG in the 1960s and 1970s, and to draw out distinctive characteristics of wider protest culture. In doing so, it makes the case for attending to marginal, non-canonical or neglected literary and cultural forms, and for critical thinking about why they might, over time, have been obscured. This book offers, too, a case study for reflection on the representation of war, on ways in which German oppositional culture could imagine its others, and the ways in which other voices could speak to it in turn, and on the relationship of poetry to the historical world.

An ambitious bilingual anthology of postwar German poetry.

Backpack? Check. Sunscreen? Check. Water bottle? Check. We’re almost ready for the trip of a lifetime! Over the next 365 days we will travel across North America, fleeing alligators in the Louisiana bayou; munching on chocolate from Hershey, Pennsylvania; and cleaning fish with the Inuit in Alaska. We will experience the excitement of Western rodeos and swim with beluga whales from the Arctic Ocean. But our final destination lies far beyond the North American continent, the earth, or even our solar system. We’re headed to heaven. How can an awkward-looking Texas armadillo prepare you for the biggest trip of your life? How can Roanoke Island’s mysterious carvings get you ready for your home in the sky? Grab your boarding pass for a yearlong tour of America—and an eternal trip to heaven. Bible? Check.