Books for English as a Second Language Students and Others: Around the World
Books in the ESL Collection, located at the Worthington Atlantic City library and in our Ebook Collections.
Found Something to Read? Here's How to Get It!
All books listed in this guide are either available in print on the ESL shelves in the Atlantic City Worthington Center Library at Atlantic Cape, or in the library's eBook collections from the vendor Ebsco. Look at the book's call number to determine where the books are.
Books with call numbers that start out with the location AC ESL can be found in the library. Copy the call number, or click on the link to see the catalog record for the book.
Books with a call number that starts out with the word EBSCO are digital. Click on the link to open the record for the book, then click on the link to the full text to begin reading.
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Red Azalea
by
A revelatory and disturbing portrait of China, this is Anchee Min's celebrated memoir of growing up in the last years of Mao's China. As a child, Min was asked to publicly humiliate a teacher; at seventeen, she was sent to work at a labor collective. Forbidden to speak, dress, read, write, or love as she pleased, she found a lifeline in a secret love affair with another woman. Miraculously selected for the film version of one of Madame Mao's political operas, Min's life changed overnight. Then Chairman Mao suddenly died, taking with him an entire world. This national bestseller and New York Times Notable Book is exceptional for its candor, its poignancy, its courage, and for its prose which Newsweek calls "as delicate and evocative as a traditional Chinese brush painting."
Call Number: AC ESL DS 778.7 .M56 2006ISBN: 9781400096985Publication Date: 2006-04-11 Lexile 640 -
Kaffir Boy
by
When first published 20 years ago, Kaffir Boy changed the way the West understood South Africa. As powerful today as when it was first written, Mathabane's remarkable story of life under apartheid is told with brutal honesty and gives the reader a rare glimpse, behind the protests and boycotts, of the daily fear and hunger which was so devastating to the soul. Often compared to Richard Wright's Black Boy, Kaffir Boy is a memoir of growing up in a world where poverty, hopelessness and desperation are constant companions.
Call Number: AC ESL DT1949.M38 A3 1986ISBN: 9780684848280Publication Date: 1998-10-07 Lexile 970 -
Stories from Blue Latitudes
by
Stories from Blue Latitudes gathers the major and emerging women fiction writers from the Caribbean, including Dionne Brand, Michelle Cliff, Merle Collins, Edwidge Danticat, Jamaica Kincaid, Paule Marshall, and Pauline Melville. Similar themes grace their stories of life at home and abroad. In some, the sexual exploitation of Caribbean girls and women becomes a metaphor for neocolonialism, a biting rejoinder to enticing travel brochures that depict the Caribbean as a tropical playground and encourage Americans to "make it your own." Other tales deal with the sad legacy of colonial history and the ways in which race, skin colour, and class complicate relationships between men and women, parents and children.But whether writing about childhood or adulthood, life in the islands or life abroad, the writers express their particular concerns with a passion that comes from lived experience, and with a love of place and a feminist sensibility that are accessible to new readers of Caribbean literature as well as to an academic audience. "What matters is how well we have told our tale, how well we have drawn pictures of the people and places we write about, " Nunez says. And indeed, this anthology makes those pictures come alive.
Call Number: AC ESL PR 9205.8 .S76 2006ISBN: 9781580051392Publication Date: 2005-11-29 -
Swallows of Kabul
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Set in Kabul under the rule of the Taliban, this extraordinary novel takes readers into the lives of two couples: Mohsen, who comes from a family of wealthy shopkeepers whom the Taliban has destroyed; Zunaira, his wife, exceedingly beautiful, who was once a brilliant teacher and is now no longer allowed to leave her home without an escort or covering her face. Intersecting their world is Atiq, a prison keeper, a man who has sincerely adopted the Taliban ideology and struggles to keep his faith, and his wife, Musarrat, who once rescued Atiq and is now dying of sickness and despair. Desperate, exhausted Mohsen wanders through Kabul when he is surrounded by a crowd about to stone an adulterous woman. Numbed by the hysterical atmosphere and drawn into their rage, he too throws stones at the face of the condemned woman buried up to her waist. With this gesture the lives of all four protagonists move toward their destinies. The Swallows of Kabulis a dazzling novel written with compassion and exquisite detail by one of the most lucid writers about the mentality of Islamic fundamentalists and the complexities of the Muslim world. Yasmina Khadra brings readers into the hot, dusty streets of Kabul and offers them an unflinching but compassionate insight into a society that violence and hypocrisy have brought to the edge of despair.
Call Number: AC ESL PQ3989.2.K386 H57 2002ISBN: 9780385510011Publication Date: 2004-02-17 Lexile 940 -
Small Place
by
A brilliant look at colonialism and its effects in Antigua--by the author ofAnnie John "If you go to Antigua as a tourist, this is what you will see. If you come by aeroplane, you will land at the V. C. Bird International Airport. Vere Cornwall (V. C.) Bird is the Prime Minister of Antigua. You may be the sort of tourist who would wonder why a Prime Minister would want an airport named after him--why not a school, why not a hospital, why not some great public monument. You are a tourist and you have not yet seen . . ." So begins Jamaica Kincaid's expansive essay, which shows us what we have not yet seen of the ten-by-twelve-mile island in the British West Indies where she grew up. Lyrical, sardonic, and forthright by turns, in a Swiftian mode,A Small Place cannot help but amplify our vision of one small place and all that it signifies.
Call Number: AC ESL PR9275.A583 K5637 2000ISBN: 9780374527075Publication Date: 2000-04-28 -
Cellist of Sarajevo
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A spare and haunting, wise and beautiful novel about the endurance of the human spirit and the subtle ways individuals reclaim their humanity in a city ravaged by war. In a city under siege, four people whose lives have been upended are ultimately reminded of what it is to be human. From his window, a musician sees twenty-two of his friends and neighbors waiting in a breadline. Then, in a flash, they are killed by a mortar attack. In an act of defiance, the man picks up his cello and decides to play at the site of the shelling for twenty-two days, honoring their memory. Elsewhere, a young man leaves home to collect drinking water for his family and, in the face of danger, must weigh the value of generosity against selfish survivalism. A third man, older, sets off in search of bread and distraction and instead runs into a long-ago friend who reminds him of the city he thought he had lost, and the man he once was. As both men are drawn into the orbit of cello music, a fourth characteraa young woman, a sniperaholds the fate of the cellist in her hands. As she protects him with her life, her own army prepares to challenge the kind of person she has become. A novel of great intensity and power, and inspired by a true story, The Cellist of Sarajevo poignantly explores how war can change oneas definition of humanity, the effect of music on our emotional endurance, and how a romance with the rituals of daily life can itself be a form of resistance.
Call Number: AC ESL PR9199.3.G265 C45 2008ISBN: 9781594489860Publication Date: 2008-05-15 -
Roots: the Saga of an American Family
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One of the most important books and television series ever to appear, Roots, galvanized the nation, and created an extraordinary political, racial, social and cultural dialogue that hadn't been seen since the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin. The book sold over one million copies in the first year, and the miniseries was watched by an astonishing 130 million people. It also won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Roots opened up the minds of Americans of all colors and faiths to one of the darkest and most painful parts of America's past. Over the years, both Roots and Alex Haley have attracted controversy, which comes with the territory for trailblazing, iconic books, particularly on the topic of race. Some of the criticism results from whether Roots is fact or fiction and whether Alex Haley confused these two issues, a subject he addresses directly in the book. There is also the fact that Haley was sued for plagiarism when it was discovered that several dozen paragraphs in Roots were taken directly from a novel, The African, by Harold Courlander, who ultimately received a substantial financial settlement at the end of the case. But none of the controversy affects the basic issue. Roots fostered a remarkable dialogue about not just the past, but the then present day 1970s and how America had fared since the days portrayed in Roots. Vanguard Press feels that it is important to publish Roots: The 30th Anniversary Edition to remind the generation that originally read it that there are issues that still need to be discussed and debated, and to introduce to a new and younger generation, a book that will help them understand, perhaps for the first time, the reality of what took place during the time of Roots.
Call Number: AC ESL E185.97.H24 A33 2007ISBN: 9781593154493Publication Date: 2007-05-22 lEXILE 1330 -
Persepolis
by
Originally published to wide critical acclaim in France, where it elicited comparisons to Art Spiegelman's Maus, Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi's wise, funny, and heartbreaking memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah's regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. The intelligent and outspoken only child of committed Marxists and the great-granddaughter of one of Iran's last emperors, Marjane bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country. Persepolis paints an unforgettable portrait of daily life in Iran: of the bewildering contradictions between home life and public life and of the enormous toll repressive regimes exact on the individual spirit. Marjane's child's-eye-view of dethroned emperors, state-sanctioned whippings, and heroes of the revolution allows us to learn as she does the history of this fascinating country and of her own extraordinary family. Intensely personal, profoundly political, and wholly original, Persepolis is at once a story of growing up and a stunning reminder of the human cost of war and political repression. It shows how we carry on, through laughter and tears, in the face of absurdity. And, finally, it introduces us to an irresistible little girl with whom we cannot help but fall in love.
Call Number: AC ESL PN6747.S24 P47 2003ISBN: 9780375422300Publication Date: 2003-04-29 Lexile 380 -
Before We Were Free
by
890 Lexile.
Anita de la Torre never questioned her freedom living in the Dominican Republic. But by her 12th birthday in 1960, most of her relatives have emigrated to the United States, her Tío Toni has disappeared without a trace, and the government’s secret police terrorize her remaining family because of their suspected opposition of el Trujillo’s dictatorship. Using the strength and courage of her family, Anita must overcome her fears and fly to freedom, leaving all that she once knew behind. From renowned author Julia Alvarez comes an unforgettable story about adolescence, perseverance, and one girl’s struggle to be free.
Call Number: AC ESL PS3551.L845 B44 2004ISBN: 9780440237846Publication Date: 2004-04-13 Lexile 890 -
July's People
by
A startling, imaginative novel from the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature For years, it had been what is called a "deteriorating situation." Now all over South Africa the cities are battlegrounds. The members of the Smales family--liberal whites--are rescued from the terror by their servant, July, who leads them to refuge in his village. What happens to the Smaleses and to July--the shifts in character and relationships--gives us an unforgettable look into the terrifying, tacit understandings and misunderstandings between blacks and whites. "So flawlessly written that every one of its events seems chillingly, ominously possible."--Anne Tyler, The New York Times Book Review
Call Number: AC ESL PR9369.3.G6 J8 1982ISBN: 9780140061406Publication Date: 1982-07-29 Lexile 970 -
Pearl
by
"There it lay, the great pearl, perfect as the moon." One of Steinbeck's most taught works, The Pearl is the story of the Mexican diver Kino, whose discovery of a magnificent pearl from the Gulf beds means the promise of a better life for his impoverished family. His dream blinds him to the greed and suspicions the pearl arouses in him and his neighbors, and even his loving wife Juana cannot temper his obsession or stem the events leading to tragedy. This classic novella from Nobel Prize-winner John Steinbeck examines the fallacy of the American dream, and illustrates the fall from innocence experienced by people who believe that wealth erases all problems. This Centennial edition, specially designed to commemorate one hundred years of Steinbeck, features french flaps and deckle-edged pages. For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Call Number: AC ESL PS3537.T3234 P4 2002ISBN: 9780142000694Publication Date: 2002-01-08 Lexile 1000 -
Stranger
by
Through the story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on an Algerian beach, Camus explored what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd." First published in 1946; now in a new translation by Matthew Ward.
Call Number: AC ESL PQ2605.A3734 E813 1989ISBN: 9780679720201Publication Date: 1989-03-13 Lexile 880 -
Midaq Alley
by
Call Number: AC ESL PJ7846.A46 Z4813 1992ISBN: 9780385264754Publication Date: 1992-01-01 -
Attack
by
From the bestselling author of The Swallows of Kabul comes this timely and haunting novel that powerfully illuminates the devastating human costs of terrorism.Dr. Amin Jaafari is an Arab-Israeli surgeon at a hospital in Tel Aviv. As an admired and respected member of his community, he has carved a space for himself and his wife, Sihem, at the crossroads of two troubled societies. Jaafari’s world is abruptly shattered when Sihem is killed in a suicide bombing.As evidence mounts that Sihem could have been responsible for the catastrophic bombing, Jaafari begins a tortured search for answers. Faced with the ultimate betrayal, he must find a way to reconcile his cherished memories of his wife with the growing realization that she may have had another life, one that was entirely removed from the comfortable, modern existence that they shared.
Call Number: AC ESL PQ3989.2.K386 A88 2007ISBN: 9780307275707Publication Date: 2007-04-25 -
Abeng
by
Ever since Abeng was first published in 1984, Michelle Cliff has steadily become a literary force. Her novels evoke both the clearly delineated hierarchies of colonial Jamaica and the subtleties of present-day island life. Nowhere is her power felt more than in Clare Savage, her Jamaican heroine, who appeared, already grown, in No Telephone to Heaven. Abeng is a kind of prequel to that highly-acclaimed novel and is a small masterpiece in its own right. Here Clare is twelve years old, the light-skinned daughter of a middle-class family, growing up among the complex contradictions of class versus color, blood versus history, harsh reality versus delusion, in a colonized country. In language that surrounds us with a richness of meaning and voices, the several strands of young Clare's heritage are explored: the Maroons, who used the conch shell--the abengmdash;to pass messages as they fought a guerilla struggle against their English enslavers; and the legacy of Clare's white great-great-grandfater, Judge Savage, who burned his hundred slaves on the eve of their emancipation. A lyrical, explosive coming-of-age story combined with a provocative retelling of the colonial history of Jamaica, this novel is a triumph.
Call Number: AC ESL PR9265.9.C55 A63 1995ISBN: 9780452274839Publication Date: 1995-09-01 -
Ivy Tree
by
Mary Grey had come from Canada to the land of her forebears: Northumberland. As she savored the ordered, spare beauty of England's northern fells, the silence was shattered by the shout of a single name: "Annabel!" And there stood one of the angriest, most threatening young men Mary had ever seen. His name was Connor Winslow, and Mary quickly discovered that he thought she was his cousin--a girl supposedly dead these past eight years. Alive, she would be heiress to an inheritance Connor was determined to have for himself. This remarkably atmospheric novel is one of bestselling-author Mary Stewart's richest, most tantalizing, and most surprising efforts, proving her a rare master of the genre.
Call Number: AC ESL PR6069.T46 I9 2007ISBN: 9781556527265Publication Date: 2007-09-01 Lexile 790 -
Like Water for Chocolate
by
The bestselling phenomenon and inspiration for the award-winning film. Earthy, magical, and utterly charming, this tale of family life in turn-of-the-century Mexico blends poignant romance and bittersweet wit. This classic love story takes place on the De la Garza ranch, as the tyrannical owner, Mama Elena, chops onions at the kitchen table in her final days of pregnancy. While still in her mother's womb, her daughter to be weeps so violently she causes an early labor, and little Tita slips out amid the spices and fixings for noodle soup. This early encounter with food soon becomes a way of life, and Tita grows up to be a master chef, using cooking to express herself and sharing recipes with readers along the way.
Call Number: AC ESL PQ7298.S6 E86 1995ISBN: 9780385420174Publication Date: 1995-10-01 Lexile 1030 -
Red Scarf Girl
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Publishers Weekly Best Book * ALA Best Book for Young Adults * ALA Notable Children's Book * ALA Booklist Editors' Choice In the tradition of The Diary of Anne Frank and I Am Malala, this is the incredible true story of one girl's courage and determination during one of the most terrifying eras of the twentieth century. This edition includes a detailed glossary, pronunciation guide, discussion questions, and a Q&A with the author. It's 1966, and twelve-year-old Ji-li Jiang has everything a girl could want: brains, popularity, and a bright future in Communist China. But it's also the year that China's leader, Mao Ze-dong, launches the Cultural Revolution--and Ji-li's world begins to fall apart. Over the next few years, people who were once her friends and neighbors turn on her and her family, forcing them to live in constant terror of arrest. And when Ji-li's father is finally imprisoned, she faces the most difficult dilemma of her life. Written in an accessible and engaging style, this page-turning, honest, and deeply personal autobiography will appeal to readers of all ages.
Call Number: AC ESL DS 778.7 .J53 2008ISBN: 9780064462082Publication Date: 2018-01-30 Lexile 780 -
Wild Swans
by
The story of three generations in twentieth-century China that blends the intimacy of memoir and the panoramic sweep of eyewitness history--a bestselling classic in thirty languages with more than ten million copies sold around the world, now with a new introduction from the author. An engrossing record of Mao's impact on China, an unusual window on the female experience in the modern world, and an inspiring tale of courage and love, Jung Chang describes the extraordinary lives and experiences of her family members: her grandmother, a warlord's concubine; her mother's struggles as a young idealistic Communist; and her parents' experience as members of the Communist elite and their ordeal during the Cultural Revolution. Chang was a Red Guard briefly at the age of fourteen, then worked as a peasant, a "barefoot doctor," a steelworker, and an electrician. As the story of each generation unfolds, Chang captures in gripping, moving--and ultimately uplifting--detail the cycles of violent drama visited on her own family and millions of others caught in the whirlwind of history.
Call Number: AC ESL CT1828.C478 A3 2003ISBN: 9780743246989Publication Date: 2003-08-12 -
Murder in Lascaux
by
The cave of Lascaux may be closed to the public, but five scholars a day are allowed inside, and Nora Barnes has finagled an appointment. True, she may have fudged a bit in her letter to the authorities, but she does teach art history, and she isn't about to miss her chance to see the world's most famous prehistoric paintings. Nora and her high-spirited husband, Toby, are visiting the Dordogne, in the southern French region of the Aquitaine. Aware that the Dordogne's renown for cave art is matched only by its reputation for delicious cuisine, the couple has also signed up for a cooking class at a nearby château, but they soon find that more than food is on their minds. During their tour of the cave, another visitor is murdered. When the local inspector pegs Nora and Toby as suspects, they embark on a mission to solve the crime, tracing strange links between a Cro-Magnon symbol and a thirteenth-century religious cult. As they match wits with the crusty inspector, Nora finds herself immersed in the notebooks of a forgotten artist who once lived in the château. In sifting through the artist's papers and uncovering old secrets, she begins to piece together the motives for the murder. But has she cooked up more trouble than she can handle? Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the American Association of School Librarians Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the Public Library Reviewers
Call Number: Ebsco eBook Academic CollectionISBN: 9780299284206Publication Date: 2011-10-04
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Memory Mambo
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Memory Mambo describes the life of Juani Casas, a 25-year-old Cuban-born American lesbian who manages her family's laundromat in Chicago while trying to cope with family, work, love, sex, and the weirdness of North American culture. Achy Obejas's writing is sharp and mordantly funny. She understands perfectly how the romance of exile - from a homeland as well as from heterosexuality - and the mundane reality of everyday life balance one another. Memory Mambo is ultimately very moving in its depiction of what it means to find a new and finally safe sense of home.
Call Number: AC ESL PS3565.B34 M4 1996ISBN: 9781573440172Publication Date: 1996-08-27 -
Kite Runner
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The New York Times bestseller and international classic loved by millions of readers. The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father's servant, The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country that is in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption; and an exploration of the power of fathers over sonstheir love, their sacrifices, their lies. A sweeping story of family, love, and friendship told against the devastating backdrop of the history of Afghanistan over the last thirty years, The Kite Runner is an unusual and powerful novel that has become a beloved, one-of-a-kind classic.
Call Number: AC ESL PS3608.O832 K58 2003ISBN: 9781594480003Publication Date: 2004-04-27 Lexile 840 -
Across a Hundred Mountains
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Winner of the American Book Award, Across a Hundred Mountains is a "timely and riveting" (People) novel about a young girl who leaves her small town in Mexico to find her father, who left his family to work in America--a story of migration, loss, and discovery. After a tragedy separates her from her mother, Juana García leaves in search of her father, who left them two years earlier. Out of money and in need of someone to help her across the border, Juana meets Adelina Vasquez, a young woman who left her family in California to follow her lover to Mexico. Finding themselves--in a Tijuana jail--in desperate circumstances, they offer each other much needed material and spiritual support and ultimately become linked forever in the most unexpected of ways. In Across a Hundred Mountains, Reyna Grande puts a human face on the controversial issue of immigration, helping readers to better understand "the desperation of illegal immigrants and the families they leave behind" (Entertainment Weekly) in pursuit of a better life.
Call Number: AC ESL PS3607.R3627 A63 2007ISBN: 9780743269582Publication Date: 2007-05-15 -
West of the Jordan
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This is a brilliant and revelatory first novel by a woman who is both an Arab and an American, who speaks with both voices and understands both worlds. Through the narratives of four cousins at the brink of maturity, Laila Halaby immerses her readers in the lives, friendships, and loves of girls struggling with national, ethnic, and sexual identities. Mawal is the stable one, living steeped in the security of Palestinian traditions in the West Bank. Hala is torn between two worlds-in love in Jordan, drawn back to the world she has come to love in Arizona. Khadija is terrified by the sexual freedom of her American friends, but scarred, both literally and figuratively, by her father's abusive behavior. Soraya is lost in trying to forge an acceptable life in a foreign yet familiar land, in love with her own uncle, and unable to navigate the fast culture of California youth. Interweaving their stories, allowing us to see each cousin from multiple points of view, Halaby creates a compelling and entirely original story, a window into the rich and complicated Arab world.
Call Number: AC ESL PS3608.A5455 W47 2003ISBN: 9780807083598Publication Date: 2003-06-15 -
House Divided
by
A House Divided, the third volume of the trilogy that began with The Good Earth and Sons, is a powerful portrayal of China in the midst of revolution. Wang Yuan is caught between the opposing ideas of different generations. After 6 years abroad, Yuan returns to China in the middle of a peasant uprising. His cousin is a captain in the revolutionary army, his sister has scandalized the family by her premarital pregnancy, and his warlord father continues to cling to his traditional ideals. It is through Yuan's efforts that a kind of peace is restored to the family.
Call Number: AC ESL PS3503.U198 H68 2012ISBN: 9781559210348Publication Date: 2006-01-01 Lexile 1380 -
Bonesetter's Daughter
by
The first time Amy Tan - The New York Times best-selling author of The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God's Wife, and The Hundred Secret Senses - learned her mother's real name as well as that of her grandmother was on the day she died. It happened as Tan and several sidblings - unified by a need to feel helpful instead of helpless - gathered to discuss their dying mother's past and prepare her obituary. Tan was stunned when she realized she had not known her own mother's birth name. It was just one of several surprises. In the act of writing a simple obituary Tan came to realize there was still so much she did not know about her. Soon afterwards she began rewriting the novel she had been working on for five years. Inspired by her own experiences with family secrets kept by one generation from the next, and drawn from a lifetime of questions and images, the result is The Bonesetters's Daughter.The story begins when Ruth Young, a ghostwriter of self-help books, comes across a clipped stack of papers in the bottom of a desk drawer. Young has been caring for her ailing mother, LuLing, who is beginning to show the unmistakable signs of Alzheimer's disease. Written in Chinese by LuLing years earlier, when she first started worrying something was wrong with her memory, the papers contain a narrative of LuLing's life as a girl in China, and the life of her own mother, the daughter of the Famous Bonesetter from the village of Xian Xin - Immortal Heart - near the Mouth of the Mountain. Within the calligraphed pages Ruth finds the truth about a mother's heart, what she cannot tell her daughter yet hopes her daughter will never forget. With her latest novel Amy Tan explores the changing place one has in a family of names that were nearly forgotten. Just as she herself has done, Tan shows Ruth finding the secrets and fragments of her mother's past - its heartfelt desires, its deepest wounds, its most profound hopes - and with each new discovery reconfiguring her assessment of the woman who shaped her life, who is in her bones. The extent to which Tan's newest novel mixes pure fiction with elements of autobiography is made clear by Tan herself. In acknowledgements of The Bonesetter's Daughter she writes, "The heart of this story belongs to my grandmother, its voice to my mother."
Call Number: AC ESL PS3570.A48 B6 2008ISBN: 9780399146435Publication Date: 2001-02-19 Lexile 800 -
Things Fall Apart
by
"A true classic of world literature . . . A masterpiece that has inspired generations of writers in Nigeria, across Africa, and around the world." --Barack Obama "African literature is incomplete and unthinkable without the works of Chinua Achebe." --Toni Morrison Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read Things Fall Apart is the first of three novels in Chinua Achebe's critically acclaimed African Trilogy. It is a classic narrative about Africa's cataclysmic encounter with Europe as it establishes a colonial presence on the continent. Told through the fictional experiences of Okonkwo, a wealthy and fearless Igbo warrior of Umuofia in the late 1800s, Things Fall Apart explores one man's futile resistance to the devaluing of his Igbo traditions by British political andreligious forces and his despair as his community capitulates to the powerful new order. With more than 20 million copies sold and translated into fifty-seven languages, Things Fall Apart provides one of the most illuminating and permanent monuments to African experience. Achebe does not only capture life in a pre-colonial African village, he conveys the tragedy of the loss of that world while broadening our understanding of our contemporary realities.
Call Number: AC ESL PR9387.9.A3 T5 1994ISBN: 9780385474542Publication Date: 1994-09-01 Lexile 890 -
Persepolis 2
by
In Persepolis, heralded by the Los Angeles Times as "one of the freshest and most original memoirs of our day," Marjane Satrapi dazzled us with her heartrending graphic memoir about growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. Here is the continuation of her fascinating story. In 1984, Marjane flees fundamentalism and the war with Iraq to begin a new life in Vienna. Once there, she faces the trials of adolescence far from her friends and family, and while she soon carves out a place for herself among a group of fellow outsiders, she continues to struggle for a sense of belonging. Finding that she misses her home more than she can stand, Marjane returns to Iran after graduation. Her difficult homecoming forces her to confront the changes both she and her country have undergone in her absence and her shame at what she perceives as her failure in Austria. Marjane allows her past to weigh heavily on her until she finds some like-minded friends, falls in love, and begins studying art at a university. However, the repression and state-sanctioned chauvinism eventually lead her to question whether she can have a future in Iran. As funny and poignant as its predecessor, Persepolis 2 is another clear-eyed and searing condemnation of the human cost of fundamentalism. In its depiction of the struggles of growing up--here compounded by Marjane's status as an outsider both abroad and at home--it is raw, honest, and incredibly illuminating.
Call Number: AC ESL PN6747.S24 P49 2004ISBN: 9780375422881Publication Date: 2004-08-31 Lexile 500 -
Number the Stars
by
1990 Newbery Medal Winner As the German troops begin their campaign to "relocate" all the Jews of Denmark, Annemarie Johansen's family takes in Annemarie's best friend, Ellen Rosen, and conceals her as part of the family. Through the eyes of ten-year-old Annemarie, we watch as the Danish Resistance smuggles almost the entire Jewish population of Denmark, nearly seven thousand people, across the sea to Sweden. The heroism of an entire nation reminds us that there was pride and human decency in the world even during a time of terror and war. Winner of the 1990 Newbery Medal.
Call Number: AC ESL PS 3562.O923 N86 1989ISBN: 9780395510605Publication Date: 1989-04-24 Lexile 670 -
Son of the Revolution
by
An autobiography of a young Chinese man whose childhood and adolescence were spent in Mao's China during the Cultural Revolution.
Call Number: AC ESL DS778.L4534 A37 1984ISBN: 9780394722740Publication Date: 1984-02-12 -
Fine Balance
by
With a compassionate realism and narrative sweep that recall the work of Charles Dickens, this magnificent novel captures all the cruelty and corruption, dignity and heroism, of India. The time is 1975. The place is an unnamed city by the sea. The government has just declared a State of Emergency, in whose upheavals four strangers--a spirited widow, a young student uprooted from his idyllic hill station, and two tailors who have fled the caste violence of their native village--will be thrust together, forced to share one cramped apartment and an uncertain future. As the characters move from distrust to friendship and from friendship to love, A Fine Balance creates an enduring panorama of the human spirit in an inhuman state.
Call Number: AC ESL PR9199.3.M494 F56 1997ISBN: 9781400030651Publication Date: 2001-11-30 -
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
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"A joy to read."--The Cleveland Plain Dealer Acclaimed writer Julia Alvarez's beloved first novel gives voice to four sisters as they grow up in two cultures. The García sisters--Carla, Sandra, Yolanda, and Sofía--and their family must flee their home in the Dominican Republic after their father's role in an attempt to overthrow brutal dictator Rafael Trujillo is discovered. They arrive in New York City in 1960 to a life far removed from their existence in the Caribbean. In the wondrous but not always welcoming U.S.A., their parents try to hold on to their old ways as the girls try find new lives: by straightening their hair and wearing American fashions, and by forgetting their Spanish. For them, it is at once liberating and excruciating to be caught between the old world and the new. Here they tell their stories about being at home--and not at home--in America.
Call Number: AC ESL PS3573.A425 A48 1991ISBN: 9780945575573Publication Date: 1991-01-04 Lexile 950 -
Call Me by Your Name
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Call Me by Your Nameis the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at his parents' cliff-side mansion on the Italian Riviera. Unprepared for the consequences of their attraction, at first each feigns indifference. But during the restless summer weeks that follow, unrelenting buried currents of obsession and fear, fascination and desire, intensify their passion as they test the charged ground between them. What grows from the depths of their spiritsis a romance of scarcely six weeks' duration and an experience that marks them for a lifetime. For what the two discover on the Riviera and during a sultry evening in Rome is the one thing both already fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy. The psychological maneuvers that accompany attraction have seldom been more shrewdly captured than in André Aciman's frank, unsentimental, heartrending elegy to human passion.Call Me by YourNameis clear-eyed, bare-knuckled, and ultimately unforgettable.
Call Number: AC ESL PS3601.C525 C35 2007ISBN: 9780374299217Publication Date: 2007-01-23 -
Color Purple
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Celie is a poor black woman whose letters tell the story of 20 years of her life, beginning at age 14 when she is being abused and raped by her father and attempting to protect her sister from the same fate, and continuing over the course of her marriage to "Mister," a brutal man who terrorizes her. Celie eventually learns that her abusive husband has been keeping her sister's letters from her and the rage she feels, combined with an example of love and independence provided by her close friend Shug, pushes her finally toward an awakening of her creative and loving self.
Call Number: AC ESL PS3573.A425 C7 2003ISBN: 9780156031820Publication Date: 2006-11-01 Lexile 690 -
Night Watch
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“[A] wonderful novel…Waters is almost Dickensian in her wealth of description and depth of character.”—Chicago Tribune Moving back through the 1940s, through air raids, blacked-out streets, illicit partying, and sexual adventure, to end with its beginning in 1941, The Night Watch tells the story of four Londoners—three women and a young man with a past—whose lives, and those of their friends and lovers, connect in tragedy, stunning surprise and exquisite turns, only to change irreversibly in the shadow of a grand historical event.
Call Number: AC ESL PR 6073.A828 N54 2006ISBN: 9781594489051Publication Date: 2006-03-23 -
Annie John
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"Annie John "is a haunting and provocative story of a young girl growing up on the island of Antigua. A classic coming-of-age story in the tradition of "The Catcher in the Rye "and "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, "Kincaid's novel focuses on a universal, tragic, and often comic theme: the loss of childhood. Annie's voice--urgent, demanding to be heard--is one that will not soon be forgotten by readers. An adored only child, Annie has until recently lived an idyllic life. She is inseparable from her beautiful mother, a powerful presence, who is the very center of the little girl's existence. Loved and cherished, Annie grows and thrives within her mother's benign shadow. Looking back on her childhood, she reflects, "It was in such a paradise that I lived." When she turns twelve, however, Annie's life changes, in ways that are often mysterious to her. She begins to question the cultural assumptions of her island world; at school she instinctively rebels against authority; and most frighteningly, her mother, seeing Annie as a "young lady," ceases to be the source of unconditional adoration and takes on the new and unfamiliar guise of adversary. At the end of her school years, Annie decides to leave Antigua and her family, but not without a measure of sorrow, especially for the mother she once knew and never ceases to mourn. "For I could not be sure," she reflects, "whether for the rest of my life I would be able to tell when it was really my mother and when it was really her shadow standing between me and the rest of the world."
Call Number: AC ESL PR9275.A583 K5634 1985ISBN: 9780374105211Publication Date: 1985-06-01 Lexile 1130 -
Man in the Queue
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"The Man in the Queue" is the first case for Scotland Yard Inspector Grant who was to become the hero of five of Josephine Tey's mystery novels. Josephine Tey was in fact a pseudonym for the Scottish author Elizabeth Mackintosh. It is set in London and is concerned with a mysterious murder that is committed whilst people are queuing in front of the Woofington Theatre to see the final performance of Didn't You Know? starring Ray Marcable, the sensation of the moment. Written over 80 years ago, in 1929, this crime novel has aged amazingly well and is mostly concerned with the personalities and motivations of the characters.
Call Number: AC ESL PR6025.A2547 M34 1995ISBN: 1781391998Publication Date: 2012-05-01 -
Son of the Revolution
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An autobiography of a young Chinese man whose childhood and adolescence were spent in Mao's China during the Cultural Revolution.
Call Number: AC ESL DS778.L4534 A37 1984ISBN: 9780394722740Publication Date: 1984-02-12
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Hiroshima
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On August 6, 1945, Hiroshima was destroyed by the first atom bomb ever dropped on a city. This book, John Hersey's journalistic masterpiece, tells what happened on that day. Told through the memories of survivors, this timeless, powerful and compassionate document has become a classic "that stirs the conscience of humanity" (The New York Times). Almost four decades after the original publication of this celebrated book, John Hersey went back to Hiroshima in search of the people whose stories he had told.nbsp;nbsp;His account of what he discovered about them is now the eloquent and moving final chapter of Hiroshima.
Call Number: AC ESL D767.25.H6 H4 1989ISBN: 9780679721031Publication Date: 1989-03-04 Lexile 1190 -
Siddhartha
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Nobel Prize winner Hermann Hesse's most lauded book: The enchanting story of one man's journey in search of enlightenment Born into the privileged life of a Brahmin, young Siddhartha came of age surrounded by the teachings of the Buddha. But despite his earnest pursuit of enlightenment, Siddhartha is left unfulfilled. Determined to find his own path to the nirvana, Siddhartha leaves home to embark on a spiritual voyage, spurning the comforts of his caste and leaving behind all loved ones save for his best friend, Govinda. Homeless, without food, and dedicated to their austere lifestyle, the friends diverge along two separate paths. Govinda grows ever more dedicated to Buddhist teachings while Siddhartha travels a more meandering road--through asceticism, into an embrace of the joys of the flesh, and finally to an understanding of the nature of time, truth, and the ultimate path to self-realization. First published in Germany in 1922, Siddhartha grew in popularity through the 1960s, when it became a touchstone of the American counterculture movement. The book endures today as a stirring and lyrical exploration of self-discovery. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
Call Number: Ebsco eBook CollectionISBN: 9781497684348Publication Date: 2015-01-27 Lexile 1010
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Sold
by
The powerful, poignant, bestselling National Book Award Finalist gives voice to a young girl robbed of her childhood yet determined to find the strength to triumph Lakshmi is a thirteen-year-old girl who lives with her family in a small hut on a mountain in Nepal. Though she is desperately poor, her life is full of simple pleasures, like playing hopscotch with her best friend from school, and having her mother brush her hair by the light of an oil lamp. But when the harsh Himalayan monsoons wash away all that remains of the family's crops, Lakshmi's stepfather says she must leave home and take a job to support her family. He introduces her to a glamorous stranger who tells her she will find her a job as a maid in the city. Glad to be able to help, Lakshmi journeys to India and arrives at "Happiness House" full of hope. But she soon learns the unthinkable truth: she has been sold into prostitution. An old woman named Mumtaz rules the brothel with cruelty and cunning. She tells Lakshmi that she is trapped there until she can pay off her family's debt-then cheats Lakshmi of her meager earnings so that she can never leave. Lakshmi's life becomes a nightmare from which she cannot escape. Still, she lives by her mother's words-Simply to endure is to triumph-and gradually, she forms friendships with the other girls that enable her to survive in this terrifying new world. Then the day comes when she must make a decision-will she risk everything for a chance to reclaim her life? Written in spare and evocative vignettes by the co-author of I Am Malala (Young Readers Edition), this powerful novel renders a world that is as unimaginable as it is real, and a girl who not only survives but triumphs.
Call Number: AC ESL HQ 281 .M43 2008ISBN: 9780786851720Publication Date: 2008-04-01 Lexile 820 -
Dreaming in Cuban
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"Impressive . . . [Cristina García's] story is about three generations of Cuban women and their separate responses to the revolution. Her special feat is to tell it in a style as warm and gentle as the 'sustaining aromas of vanilla and almond,' as rhythmic as the music of Beny Moré."--Time Cristina García's acclaimed book is the haunting, bittersweet story of a family experiencing a country's revolution and the revelations that follow. The lives of Celia del Pino and her husband, daughters, and grandchildren mirror the magical realism of Cuba itself, a landscape of beauty and poverty, idealism and corruption. Dreaming in Cuban is "a work that possesses both the intimacy of a Chekov story and the hallucinatory magic of a novel by Gabriel García Márquez" (The New York Times). In celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the novel's original publication, this edition features a new introduction by the author. Praise for Dreaming in Cuban "Remarkable . . . an intricate weaving of dramatic events with the supernatural and the cosmic . . . evocative and lush."--San Francisco Chronicle "Captures the pain, the distance, the frustrations and the dreams of these family dramas with a vivid, poetic prose."--The Washington Post "Brilliant . . . With tremendous skill, passion and humor, García just may have written the definitive story of Cuban exiles and some of those they left behind."--The Denver Post
Call Number: AC ESL PS3557.A66 D73 1993ISBN: 9780345381439Publication Date: 1993-02-10 Lexile 940 -
Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela.
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"Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand history - and then go out and change it." -President Barack Obama Nelson Mandela was one of the great moral and political leaders of his time: an international hero whose lifelong dedication to the fight against racial oppression in South Africa won him the Nobel Peace Prize and the presidency of his country. After his triumphant release in 1990 from more than a quarter-century of imprisonment, Mandela was at the center of the most compelling and inspiring political drama in the world. As president of the African National Congress and head of South Africa's antiapartheid movement, he was instrumental in moving the nation toward multiracial government and majority rule. He is still revered everywhere as a vital force in the fight for human rights and racial equality. Long Walk to Freedom is his moving and exhilarating autobiography, destined to take its place among the finest memoirs of history's greatest figures. Here for the first time, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela told the extraordinary story of his life -- an epic of struggle, setback, renewed hope, and ultimate triumph. The book that inspired the major motion picture Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.
Call Number: AC ESL DT1949.M35 A3 1995ISBN: 9780316548182Publication Date: 1995-10-01 Lexile 1120 -
Cry, the Beloved Country
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"The greatest novel to emerge out of the tragedy of South Africa, and one of the best novels of our time." --The New Republic "A beautiful novel...its writing is so fresh, its projection of character so immediate and full, its events so compelling, and its understanding so compassionate that to read the book is to share intimately, even to the point of catharsis, in the grave human experience." --The New York Times An Oprah Book Club selection, Cry, the Beloved Country, was an immediate worldwide bestseller when it was published in 1948. Alan Paton's impassioned novel about a black man's country under white man's law is a work of searing beauty. Cry, the Beloved Country, is the deeply moving story of the Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo and his son, Absalom, set against the background of a land and a people riven by racial injustice. Remarkable for its lyricism, unforgettable for character and incident, Cry, the Beloved Country is a classic work of love and hope, courage and endurance, born of the dignity of man.
Call Number: AC ESL PR9369.3.P37 C7 2003ISBN: 9780743261951Publication Date: 2003-11-25 Lexile 860 -
Lipstick Jihad
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As far back as she can remember, Azadeh Moaveni has felt at odds with her tangled identity as an Iranian-American. In suburban America, Azadeh lived in two worlds. At home, she was the daughter of the Iranian exile community, serving tea, clinging to tradition, and dreaming of Tehran. Outside, she was a California girl who practiced yoga and listened to Madonna. For years, she ignored the tense standoff between her two cultures. But college magnified the clash between Iran and America, and after graduating, she moved to Iran as a journalist. This is the story of her search for identity, between two cultures cleaved apart by a violent history. It is also the story of Iran, a restive land lost in the twilight of its revolution. Moaveni's homecoming falls in the heady days of the country's reform movement, when young people demonstrated in the streets and shouted for the Islamic regime to end. In these tumultuous times, she struggles to build a life in a dark country, wholly unlike the luminous, saffron and turquoise-tinted Iran of her imagination. As she leads us through the drug-soaked, underground parties of Tehran, into the hedonistic lives of young people desperate for change, Moaveni paints a rare portrait of Iran's rebellious next generation. The landscape of her Tehran -- ski slopes, fashion shows, malls and cafes -- is populated by a cast of young people whose exuberance and despair brings the modern reality of Iran to vivid life.
Call Number: AC ESL E184.I5 M63 2006ISBN: 9781586483784Publication Date: 2006-03-28 -
Joy Luck Club
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Master storyteller Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters in this New York Times bestseller. "The Joy Luck Club is one of my favorite books. From the moment I first started reading it, I knew it was going to be incredible. For me, it was one of those once-in-a-lifetime reading experiences that you cherish forever. It inspired me as a writer and still remains hugely inspirational."--Kevin Kwan, author of Crazy Rich Asians In 1949 four Chinese women-drawn together by the shadow of their past-begin meeting in San Francisco to play mah jong, invest in stocks, eat dim sum, and "say" stories. They call their gathering the Joy Luck Club. Nearly forty years later, one of the members has died, and her daughter has come to take her place, only to learn of her mother's lifelong wish--and the tragic way in which it has come true. The revelation of this secret unleashes an urgent need among the women to reach back and remember...
Call Number: AC ESLPS3570.A48 J6 2006ISBN: 9780399134203Publication Date: 1989-03-22 Lexile 930 -
Chicken with Plums
by
Graphic novel
"Chicken with Plums is a feast you'll devour." --Newsweek Acclaimed graphic artist Marjane Satrapi brings what has become her signature humor and insight, her keen eye and ear, to the heartrending story of a celebrated Iranian musician who gives up his life for music and love. When Nasser Ali Khan, the author's great-uncle, discovers that his beloved instrument is irreparably damaged, he takes to his bed, renouncing the world and all its pleasures. Over the course of the week that follows, we are treated to vivid scenes of his encounters with family and friends, flashbacks to his childhood, and flash-forwards to his children's future. And as the pieces of his story fall into place, we begin to understand the breadth of his decision to let go of life. The poignant story of one man, it is also stunningly universal--a luminous tale of life and death, and the courage and passion both require of us.
Call Number: AC ESL ML419.K495 S313 2006ISBN: 9780375714757Publication Date: 2009-04-14 -
Embroideries
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Graphic novel.
From the best-selling author of Persepolis comes this gloriously entertaining and enlightening look into the sex lives of Iranian women.Embroideriesgathers together Marjane’s tough-talking grandmother, stoic mother, glamorous and eccentric aunt and their friends and neighbors for an afternoon of tea drinking and talking. Naturally, the subject turns to love, sex and the vagaries of men. As the afternoon progresses, these vibrant women share their secrets, their regrets and their often outrageous stories about, among other things, how to fake one’s virginity, how to escape an arranged marriage, how to enjoy the miracles of plastic surgery and how to delight in being a mistress. By turns revealing and hilarious, these are stories about the lengths to which some women will go to find a man, keep a man or, most importantly, keep up appearances. Full of surprises, this introduction to the private lives of some fascinating women, whose life stories and lovers and will strike us as at once deeply familiar and profoundly different from our own, is sure to bring smiles of recognition to the faces of women everywhere–and to teach us all a thing or two. From the Hardcover edition.
Call Number: AC ESL PN6747.S245 E42 2005ISBN: 9780375423055Publication Date: 2005-04-19 -
Woman Hollering Creek
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A collection of stories by Sandra Cisneros, the winner of the 2019 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature. The lovingly drawn characters of these stories give voice to the vibrant and varied life on both sides of the Mexican border with tales of pure discovery, filled with moments of infinite and intimate wisdom.
Call Number: AC ESL PS3553.I78 W66 1992ISBN: 9780679738565Publication Date: 1992-03-03 Lexile 960 -
Poisonwood Bible
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"A powerful new epic . . . [Kingsolver] has with infinitely steady hands worked the prickly threads of religion, politics, race, sin and redemption into a thing of terrible beauty." --Los Angeles Times Book Review The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it--from garden seeds to Scripture--is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa. The novel is set against one of the most dramatic political chronicles of the twentieth century: the Congo's fight for independence from Belgium, the murder of its first elected prime minister, the CIA coup to install his replacement, and the insidious progress of a world economic order that robs the fledgling African nation of its autonomy. Taking its place alongside the classic works of postcolonial literature, this ambitious novel establishes Kingsolver as one of the most thoughtful and daring of modern writers.
Call Number: AC ESL PS3561.I496 P65 1998ISBN: 9780060175405Publication Date: 1998-10-07 Lexile 960 -
Anne of Green Gables
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Anne of Green Gables has been one of the world's most charming coming-of-age stories for more than a century. Best-selling Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery published the first book in her charming series in 1908, making it a literary favorite for more than a hundred years. Published as a children's novel, the story of Anne Shirley, an orphan, was inspired by the author's childhood adventures on rural Prince Edward Island. It follows Anne's journey as she moves to a farm on Prince Edward Island to live with a middle-aged brother and sister who had intended to adopt a boy to help them with farming chores. The story follows Anne as she makes a home and comes of age on the island. This chic and inexpensive edition comes with a heat-burnished cover, foil stamping, luxurious endpapers, and a smaller trim size that's easy to hold. The widely popular novel has sold more than 50 million copies and has been translated into more than twenty languages since its first publication. About the Word Cloud Classics series: Classic works of literature with a clean, modern aesthetic! Perfect for both old and new literature fans, the Word Cloud Classics series from Canterbury Classics provides a chic and inexpensive introduction to timeless tales. With a higher production value, including heat burnished covers and foil stamping, these eye-catching, easy-to-hold editions are the perfect gift for students and fans of literature everywhere.
Call Number: AC ESL PZ7 .M768 2013ISBN: 9781607107286Publication Date: 2013-04-01 Lexile 990 -
Anne of Green Gables
by
Anne of Green Gables has been one of the world's most charming coming-of-age stories for more than a century. Best-selling Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery published the first book in her charming series in 1908, making it a literary favorite for more than a hundred years. Published as a children's novel, the story of Anne Shirley, an orphan, was inspired by the author's childhood adventures on rural Prince Edward Island. It follows Anne's journey as she moves to a farm on Prince Edward Island to live with a middle-aged brother and sister who had intended to adopt a boy to help them with farming chores. The story follows Anne as she makes a home and comes of age on the island. This chic and inexpensive edition comes with a heat-burnished cover, foil stamping, luxurious endpapers, and a smaller trim size that's easy to hold. The widely popular novel has sold more than 50 million copies and has been translated into more than twenty languages since its first publication. About the Word Cloud Classics series: Classic works of literature with a clean, modern aesthetic! Perfect for both old and new literature fans, the Word Cloud Classics series from Canterbury Classics provides a chic and inexpensive introduction to timeless tales. With a higher production value, including heat burnished covers and foil stamping, these eye-catching, easy-to-hold editions are the perfect gift for students and fans of literature everywhere.
Call Number: Ebsco eBook CollectionISBN: 9781607107286Publication Date: 2013-04-01 Lexile 990
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Ugly American
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The multi-million-copy bestseller that coined the phrase for tragic American blunders abroad. In the episode that lends the book its title, the "ugly American" is Homer Atkins, a plain and plain-spoken man, who has been sent by the U.S. government to advise the Southeast Asian country of Sarkhan on engineering projects. When Atkins finds badly misplaced priorities and bluntly challenges the entrenched interests, he lays bare a foreign policy gone dangerously wrong. First published in 1958, The Ugly American became a runaway national bestseller for its slashing exposé of American arrogance, incompetence, and corruption in Southeast Asia. In linked stories and vignettes, the book uses gripping storytelling to draw a devastating picture of how the United States was losing the struggle with Communism in Asia.
Call Number: AC ESL PS3562.E3 U4 1999ISBN: 9780393318678Publication Date: 1999-01-17 Lexile 960 -
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
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New York Times Bestseller Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is an enchanting tale that captures the magic of reading and the wonder of romantic awakening. An immediate international bestseller, it tells the story of two hapless city boys exiled to a remote mountain village for re-education during China's infamous Cultural Revolution. There the two friends meet the daughter of the local tailor and discover a hidden stash of Western classics in Chinese translation. As they flirt with the seamstress and secretly devour these banned works, the two friends find transit from their grim surroundings to worlds they never imagined.
Call Number: AC ESL PQ2664.A44 B351 2002ISBN: 9780385722209Publication Date: 2002-10-29 -
Possessing the Secret of Joy
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From the author the New York Times Book Review calls "a lavishly gifted writer," this is the searing story of Tashi, a tribal African woman first glimpsed in The Color Purple whose fateful decision to submit to the tsunga's knife and be genitally mutilated leads to a trauma that informs her life and fatefully alters her existence. Possessing the Secret of Joy, out of print for a number of years, was the first novel to deal with this controversial topic and managed to do so in a manner that Cosmopolitan called "masterful, honorable, and unforgettable storytelling." The New Press is proud to bring the book back into print with a new preface by the author addressing the book's initial reception and the changed attitudes toward female genital mutilation that have come about in part because of this book.
Call Number: AC ESL PS3573.A425 P67 2008ISBN: 9781595583642Publication Date: 2008-05-06 -
Nine Tailors
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The Nine Tailors is Dorothy L. Sayers's finest mystery, featuring Lord Peter Whimsey, and a classic of the genre. The nine tellerstrokes from the belfry of an ancient country church toll out the death of an unknown man and call the famous Lord Peter Whimsey to investigate the good and evil that lurks in every person. Steeped in the atmosphere of a quiet parish in the strange, flat fen-country of East Anglia, this is a tale of suspense, character, and mood by an author critics and readers rate as one of the great masters of the mystery novel.
Call Number: AC ESL PR6037.A95 N56 1962ISBN: 9780156658997Publication Date: 1966-09-28 Lexile 910 -
Old Man and the Sea
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A Scribner Classics Edition Told in his famed powerful and minimalist prose, this story of courage and personal triumph remains one of Ernest Hemingway's most enduring works. The Old Man and the Sea is one of Hemingway's most enduring works. Told in language of great simplicity and power, the story of an old Cuban fisherman, down on his luck, and his supreme ordeal--a relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream, on the water for months without a catch, but refusing to stop trying. Here Hemingway recasts, in strikingly contemporary style, the timeless theme of courage and commitment in the face of defeat, of personal triumph won from loss. Written in 1952, this hugely successful novella confirmed his talent and presence in the literary world and played a large part in his winning the 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature.
Call Number: AC ESL PS3515.E37 O52 1996ISBN: 9780684801223Publication Date: 1996-06-10 -
Purple Hibiscus
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"One of the most vital and original novelists of her generation." --Larissa MacFarquhar, The New Yorker From the bestselling author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists Fifteen-year-old Kambili and her older brother Jaja lead a privileged life in Enugu, Nigeria. They live in a beautiful house, with a caring family, and attend an exclusive missionary school. They're completely shielded from the troubles of the world. Yet, as Kambili reveals in her tender-voiced account, things are less perfect than they appear. Although her Papa is generous and well respected, he is fanatically religious and tyrannical at home--a home that is silent and suffocating. As the country begins to fall apart under a military coup, Kambili and Jaja are sent to their aunt, a university professor outside the city, where they discover a life beyond the confines of their father's authority. Books cram the shelves, curry and nutmeg permeate the air, and their cousins' laughter rings throughout the house. When they return home, tensions within the family escalate, and Kambili must find the strength to keep her loved ones together. Purple Hibiscus is an exquisite novel about the emotional turmoil of adolescence, the powerful bonds of family, and the bright promise of freedom.
Call Number: AC ESL PR9387.9.A34 P87 2012ISBN: 9781616202415Publication Date: 2012-04-17 Lexile 920 -
Suite Francaise
by
Beginning in Paris on the eve of the Nazi occupation in 1940, Suite Française tells the remarkable story of men and women thrown together in circumstances beyond their control. As Parisians flee the city, human folly surfaces in every imaginable way: a wealthy mother searches for sweets in a town without food; a couple is terrified at the thought of losing their jobs, even as their world begins to fall apart. Moving on to a provincial village now occupied by German soldiers, the locals must learn to coexist with the enemy--in their town, their homes, even in their hearts. When Irène Némirovsky began working on Suite Française, she was already a highly successful writer living in Paris. But she was also a Jew, and in 1942 she was arrested and deported to Auschwitz, where she died. For sixty-four years, this novel remained hidden and unknown.
Call Number: AC ESL PQ2627.E4 S8513 2007ISBN: 9781400096275Publication Date: 2007-04-10
