In a crumbling, isolated house at the foot of Mount Kanchenjunga in the Himalayas lives an embittered judge who wants only to retire in peace, when his orphaned granddaughter, Sai, arrives on his doorstep. The judge’s cook watches over her distractedly, for his thoughts are often on his son, Biju, who is hopscotching from one gritty New York restaurant to another. In a generous vision that is at times funny and at others sad, Desai’s characters face numerous choices which majestically illuminate the consequences of colonialism as it collides with the modern world.
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Poignant and compelling, evocative and unforgettable, The Space Between Us is an intimate portrait of a distant yet familiar world. Set in modern-day India and witnessed through the lives of two compelling and achingly real women, the novel shows how the lives of the rich and the poor are intrinsically connected yet vastly removed from each other, and vividly captures how the bonds of womanhood are pitted against the divisions of class and culture.
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As you read the newspapers with their daily stories of the Middle East and Afghanistan, do you ever wonder what Muslim family life is like, with men and women inhabiting separate parts of the home? Or what it would be like to be a woman in purdah? Mission to Kabul starts there, in 19th century India, then takes the protagonist from his comfortable, predictable environment on a life-changing journey. Attempting to protect his younger brother, Mahmoud is jailed for a crime he didn’t commit. This makes him vulnerable, on his release, to being blackmailed into undertaking a dangerous mission to Afghanistan.
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During a year spent in Japan on a personal quest to deepen her appreciation for such Eastern ideals as commitment and devotion, documentary filmmaker Karin Muller discovered just how maddeningly complicated it is being Japanese. Muller invites the reader along for a uniquely American odyssey into the ancient heart of modern Japan. Deftly observed by an author with a rich visual sense of people and place, Japanland is as beguiling as this colorful country of contradictions.
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In what is certain to be one of the most talked-about fiction debuts of the year, Yasmin Crowther paints a magnificent portrait of betrayal and retribution set against a backdrop of Iran’s tumultuous history, dramatic landscapes, and cultural beauty. The story begins on a blustery day in London, when Maryam Mazar’s dark secrets and troubled past surface violently with tragic consequences for her pregnant daughter, Sara. Burdened by guilt, Maryam leaves her comfortable English home for the remote village in Iran where she was raised and disowned by her father. When Sara decides to follow her, she learns the price that her mother had to pay for her freedom and of the love she left behind.
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Showcasing the intensity and perception of a truly gifted writer, this collection of stories by the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Memory Keeper’s Daughter transports us to exotic locations as it follows the lives of those on the fringes of society—a fire-eater, an American and his Korean war bride, a juggler and a trapeze artist, a cleaning woman whose life is interwoven with Marie Curie’s. Each must confront, in dramatically different ways, the barriers of time, place and circumstance in that most universal of human experiences: the quest to discover, and understand,
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