The Pine Islands

SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE 2019 AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER "Readers who like quiet, meditative works will enjoy this strangely affecting buddy story." —Publishers Weekly "Rather than tying up the loose ends, she leaves them beautifully fluttering in the wind, and you do not feel lost in that experience. The writing is poetic and it’s worth savouring." —Angela Caravan, Shrapnel A bad dream leads to a strange poetic pilgrimage through Japan in this playful and profound Booker International-shortlisted novel. Gilbert Silvester, eminent scholar of beard fashions in film, wakes up one day from a dream that his wife has cheated on him. Certain the dream is a message, and unable to even look at her, he flees - immediately, irrationally, inexplicably - for Japan. In Tokyo he discovers the travel writings of the great Japanese poet Basho. Keen to cure his malaise, he decides to find solace in nature the way Basho did. Suddenly, from Gilbert's directionless crisis there emerges a purpose: a pilgrimage in the footsteps of the poet to see the moon rise over the pine islands of Matsushima. Although, of course, unlike the great poet, he will take a train. Along the way he falls into step with another pilgrim: Yosa, a young Japanese student clutching a copy of The Complete Manual of Suicide . Together, Gilbert and Yosa travel across Basho's disappearing Japan, one in search of his perfect ending and the other a new beginning. Serene, playful, and profound, The Pine Islands is a story of the transformations we seek and the ones we find along the way.

Can the love reserved for family and friends be extended to a place? “Luminous essays” on nature and environmental stewardship (Booklist). Named one of the Top Ten Northwest Books of the Year by the Oregonian In this book, acclaimed author Kathleen Dean Moore, a winner of the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award for Holdfast, reflects on how deeply the environment is entrenched in the human spirit, despite the notion that nature and humans are somehow separate. Moore’s essays, deeply felt and often funny, make connections in what can appear to be a disconnected world. Written in parable form, her stories of family and friends—of wilderness excursions with her husband and children, camping trips with students, blowing up a dam, her daughter’s arrest for protesting the war in Iraq—affirm an impulse of caring that belies the abstract division of humans from nature, of the sacred from the mundane. Underlying these wonderfully engaging stories is the author’s belief in a new ecological ethic of care, one that expands the idea of community to include the environment, and embraces the land as family. “Stands with the best tradition of nature writing.” —The Oregonian

Tucked between the mainland of southwest Florida and the islands of Sanibel and Captiva is a 17-mile-long island accessible by a single drawbridge. A haven for some and a home to others, the community of Pine Island is a rare and lingering remnant of old Florida. The island's shores are home to mangroves teaming with fish instead of crowded beaches, making it a major destination for sport fishing enthusiasts and providing a livelihood for the independent commercial fishing families of the island. The genuine personalities and untouched splendor of Pine Island have attracted numerous artists to the area in recent years, with many praising Pine Island as the new Key West. Strolling the lazy street to Bokeelia's famous fishing pier, or exploring an active Calusa Indian archeological site in Pineland, the crowds and tourist-related glitz common to most of Florida's islands are nowhere to be found, leaving visitors to discover Pine Island's unspoiled beauty at their own pace.

Minor earthquakes every day; that's what they say. Lucy feels the tremors like a needle sensitized to respond to the slightest movement. She feels the push, the blind thrust of the earth's elastic body, pushing out, pulling in, behaving unpredictably. She lies awake at night, staring into the darkness, thinking of the tectonic plates moving against one another, building up tension, until something has to give. On an isolated island in Lake Ontario live twins Lucy and Levi and their father, Daniel. While Daniel desperately mourns for his dead wife, Levi and Lucy grow up ever more entwined in their enchanted childhood of fairy tales and rhymes. But when a fissure in the fragile cocoon of the family explodes into a chasm, each of the three is hurled in a different direction. Soon, there emerges a geographical triangle - Vancouver, Montreal, the island - that also maps out the terrain of love and the territory of family. Part Egyptian myth, part Alice in Wonderland, How the Blessed Live is an ethereally quiet, unexpected debut from a novelist to be watched.

The funny, charming, and self-deprecating adventure story of a young man in the Pacific. Living for thirty years in the Gilbert & Ellis Islands, Grimble was ultimately initiated and tattooed according to local tradition, but not before he was severely tested, as when he was used as human bait for a giant octopus. Beyond the hilarious and frightening adventure stories, A Pattern of Islands is also a true testament to the life of these Pacific islanders. Grimble collected stories from the last generation who could remember the full glory of the old pagan ways. This is anthropology with its hair down.

In the early eighteenth century, the noblewoman Ōgimachi Machiko composed a memoir of Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu, the powerful samurai for whom she had served as a concubine for twenty years. Machiko assisted Yoshiyasu in his ascent to the rank of chief adjutant to the Tokugawa shogun. She kept him in good graces with the imperial court, enabled him to study poetry with aristocratic teachers and have his compositions read by the retired emperor, and gave birth to two of his sons. Writing after Yoshiyasu’s retirement, she recalled it all—from the glittering formal visits of the shogun and his entourage to the passage of the seasons as seen from her apartments in the Yanagisawa mansion. In the Shelter of the Pine is the most significant work of literature by a woman of Japan’s early modern era. Featuring Machiko’s keen eye for detail, strong narrative voice, and polished prose studded with allusions to Chinese and Japanese classics, this memoir sheds light on everything from the social world of the Tokugawa elite to the role of literature in women’s lives. Machiko modeled her story on The Tale of Genji, illustrating how the eleventh-century classic continued to inspire its female readers and provide them with the means to make sense of their experiences. Elegant, poetic, and revealing, In the Shelter of the Pine is a vivid portrait of a distant world and a vital addition to the canon of Japanese literature available in English.

Government agent-turned-marine biologist Doc Ford sails an endless sea of questions when he agrees to investigate a death from the past. Years ago, off Florida’s Gulf Coast, a teenaged girl found an ancient gold medallion. Then, she began having nightmares. Then she was found hanging from a tree. Now, years later, the girl’s mother is being terrorized with break-ins, phone calls with no one there—and her daughter’s grave has been dug up. Somebody wants that medallion. The search for answers will lead Doc through a shadowy world of ancient ritual and modern corruption, to an evil that was born in the past—but lives in the present…

Four sisters search for true family in this story of resilience by a Newbery Honor author. When the McCready sisters' parents are washed away in a tsunami, their Great Aunt Martha volunteers to have them live with her on Pine Island in British Columbia. But while they are traveling there, Martha dies unexpectedly, forcing Fiona, the eldest, to come up with a scheme to keep social services from separating the girls - a scheme that will only work if no one knows they are living on their own. Fiona approaches their grouchy and indifferent neighbor Al and asks if he will pretend to be their live-in legal guardian should papers need to be signed or if anyone comes snooping around. He reluctantly agrees, under the condition that they bring him dinner every night. As weeks pass, Fiona takes on more and more adult responsibilities, while each of the younger girls finds their own special role in their atypical family. But even if things seem to be falling into place, Fiona is sure it's only a matter of time before they are caught. Written in Polly Horvath's inimitable style, gentle humor and tough obstacles are woven throughout this story about the bonds of sisterhood and what makes a family. Don’t miss the sequel, Pine Island Visitors, which Kirkus Reviews described as “terrifically entertaining” in a starred review. A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection A Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year