Based on a trip to the now abandoned Mexican mercury mining town of San Felipe Nuevo Mercurio, The Company explores the development of mercury mining as a technology and its present environmental consequences, both predictable and unforeseen, in what Cristina Rivera Garza terms an exemplary disappropriative work.
In a book that subverts both textual and graphic expectations, part a involves a rewriting of Amparo Dávila's The Houseguest, changing specific aspects of the text: verb tenses are transposed to the future; the houseguest becomes the menacing presence of The Company; and the domestic helper who suffers the intimidation of The Company along with her unnamed female employer is the machine. In part b, scientific reports dating from the 1950s to the present day, conversations with experts and miners, and excerpts from the story of Long, Tall José construct a history of mercury mining in the area and the subsequent environmental contamination. In both sections, text is accompanied by images that range from Gerber Bicecci's intervened photographs of the ghost town and the surrounding area to technical diagrams and reinterpreted maps, plus pictograms from Manuel Felguérez's La máquina estética (1975). As Rivera Garza says in her epilogue, Gerber Bicecci moves us toward the past and the future, without for an instant forgetting the present we share . . . Nothing is at peace here, everything is at stake.The Book of Conjurations, Irizelma Robles's fourth poetry collection, transforms poet, reader and language through its conjurations. Among these pages, we find all forms of material existence transmuted. Barbwire, rain, soul, sugarcane, scream are all raw materials for alchemy, or poetry.
Drawing from the periodic table, precious and semi-precious stones, minerals, rocks, the elements, flora and fauna from Puerto Rico, the Caribbean and Latin America, and her memories, Robles creates an alternate cosmogony that neither rejects nor unquestioningly accepts Western medical discourse, nor offers up one of many parallel traditions and bodies of knowledge. These poems are written to conjure another life out of this one, a way forward despite and with the poet's neurodivergence, sadness, depression, and anxiety. Irizelma imagines herself as the poet-alchemist in order to conjure another self in that poetic voice, one that not only survived these hospitalizations, but that found metaphor, imagen, and poetic figure in the basest of elements. It is also a voice that found gold to be as useless as it was for all who sought it, a tool of power that ultimately became dead weight in her search for a way out.Manuela left Colombia a year ago for a coastal town in the Basque region of Spain with her nine-year-old son, Juan Camilo, who has not said a word since they arrived. She is now working as a housekeeper-companion to Irene, a well-known dress designer left blind as the result of an accident. Gradually, as the two women exchange their stories, cope with the boy's silence, and forge a strong friendship, the traumatic events that changed all of their lives emerge, with unexpected consequences. Despite the inherent dangers, Irene continues to swim alone in the ocean each day, attached to a harness of her own making, because there's more to life than just living. Meanwhile, Manuela and her son each strive to overcome their fears and past experiences so they can begin their lives afresh in their new home, looking to the future rather than the past.
Cruzar el agua / Crossing Waters is a powerful reflection on the need to avoid nostalgia, to move forward, to grow and adapt to new situations and environments. Such impetus dredges up critical elements from the past of each of the three main characters that cannot be suppressed. This adds a powerful dimension to the novel. As in other works by Luisa Etxenike, the images are haunting, and the language is poetic, starkly simple, and meticulously chosen to reflect the different voices and registers of her characters. A confrontation between human nature on the one hand and the forces of nature on the other is ever-present, and the relevant issues Etxenike explores in her prose leave her reader with much to consider, and also to relish.Experience the magic of the season with the small-town, enemies-to-lovers Christmas romance The Christmas War Paws.
Dr. Francesca Johnson-DeWitt is ready for a Bahamian Christmas vacation, but her post-divorce plans take an unexpected turn when fate intervenes. In the charming town of Ohio Falls, her college nemesis, the smug Dr. Sebastian Bing, rekindles an old rivalry, sparking a hilarious and heartwarming Christmas War that turns the quaint town upside down.
Join the festive chaos in this delightful, heated, rom-com novella filled with pranks, pie, forgiveness, and unexpected love.
Meet Erin, a lively little boy with a big imagination! He loves playing, exploring, and going on fun adventures with his family and friends. Erin would stay busy all day if he could-except there's one thing he doesn't like: naps! But with a little rest, Erin can be ready for even more exciting adventures.
This charming story is perfect for little explorers who don't like naps but love all the fun that comes afterward!
Seventeen-year-old Vanessa's life is as mundane as it gets in her sleepy, small town. The only thing that breaks up the monotony? Her obsession with corny horror movies. When a murder hits close to home, Vanessa doesn't blink-until she finds the body of a fellow student in the girls' bathroom.
Inspired by her favorite slasher films, Vanessa hatches an exciting plan: create the perfect death and become the killer's next victim.
However, no matter what she tries, the mysterious murderer won't take the bait! Frustrated, she flips the script. If she can't be the victim, she'll save her clueless peers from becoming one, because in Vanessa's world, if she can't star in the horror show, no one can.
With razor-sharp wit and a rebellious spirit, Vanessa is Not a Victim delivers a wickedly fun ride through high school halls fraught with danger and dark comedy. It's a tale where the line between hunter and hunted blurs, keeping readers laughing one moment and gripping their seats the next.
Vanessa is Not a Victim is the debut novel from seventeen year-old high school senior Gabrielle S. Clarke whose previous work has appeared in the Thurber House literary journal, Flip the Page and the nonfiction bestselling anthology Black Girl, White School: Thriving, Surviving and No, You Can't Touch My Hair.
A rising executive and her boss's new client - a heated workplace romance that goes deeper than one night.
Selene Whitaker's carefully curated life is thrown into comical then deadly chaos when her one-night stand is revealed as Jacob Q. Fox, her boss's new client.
A consummate professional and dedicated personal assistant, Selene has built her quiet, predictable life from the ashes of her wild, dark youth. She owes it to her estranged family to keep her head down and her passions under lock and key, but her boss's new client makes her ache for freedom from her restraints.
When Fox is roped into his brother's business affairs, he welcomes the distraction as a great way to keep him from chasing after the vixen who gave him the morning-after-brush-off. What was supposed to be a routine business meeting becomes more than he bargained for when he finds himself face-to-face with his fling and hundreds of employees' well-being on the line. He is drawn to the enigmatic Selene even though her uncanny ability to read people makes him uneasy and her quiet smile renders him speechless.
As their professional and personal worlds collide, will love conquer the shadows of the past, or will dark obsessions destroy them both in this riveting forced proximity, workplace romance where she's the morally gray one?
Every journey can take place in three realms: the interior, the one that takes place in time, and the one that passes through space. The one whose dimension is space fills the senses, the temporal realm, nourishes the experience, yet it is the inner journey, however, that is transcendental.
In The Book of Mistaken Journeys, characters begin a journey in which chance guides their individual stories as they build toward an overarching trajectory. Along disturbing narrative spiral, these eleven stories address exile, migration, and the search for an alternative future.Winner of the São Paulo Prize for Best Book of the Year, The Front by Edimilson de Almeida Pereira introduces us to a nameless figure who refers to himself only as a man-tree. He lives beneath the din of police helicopters and beside an imposing garbage dump, where, as a child, he'd hunt for books. How will he respond to a system that attempts, relentlessly, through its tedium and violence, to silence him?
This separation between there and here, between them and us, transformed the child in me too soon into an adult. There's something painful in this development, from being a child burning with joy, despite his own fear, to becoming a man who, every minute of the day, holds himself back from setting the world on fire. The Front is an astonishingly original novel, one that nevertheless brings to mind James Baldwin's unflinching critique of modern society and Clarice Lispector's daring experiments with language. The Front introduces to English-language readers an important, deeply poetic voice from contemporary Brazil.In her personal / poetic essay Arqueología de un cisne, Colombian writer Juliana Rozo traces two paths where beauty, trauma and violence intersect in works of art, family lore and historical events in Colombia. One of these paths goes historically through mythological, literary and artistic places in which the swan has had a relevance: starting with the artist Hilma Af Klint, the writer Marcel Proust, and the Swan Lake, to Latin American musical references such as Luis Alberto Spinetta and a Colombian film, Cóndores no entierran todos los días by Francisco Norden. The other path immerses the reader in the intimate and poetic relationship that the writer finds in the figure of the swan and the porous boundary between beauty and violence.
Smol Books contributed the Spanish text and illustrations for the bilingual edition of Arqueología de un cisne. Smol Books is an independent publishing house that specializes in short stories by authors who break literary, thematic, formal, and linguistic boundaries in experimental fiction.As you read this book, I pray you will find a way out of your dark hole of life, should you find yourself there. May you discover the wonderful love of God, His salvation, and His healing power.
Good reading, and many blessings.
Moving is no fun when you are 15 years old, and to Carly Grant moving to a small town in Nebraska is a a nightmare!
Still, she has to admit, there's more to this sleepy little town than she anticipated-including a handsome new boyfriend! Their mom is working outside the country, so Carly and her 3 siblings have to pull together when with their grandfather starts getting forgetful.
In addition, things start turning weird, and they form the Eagle River Detectives, determined to uncover hidden family secrets. As they dig deep, they must risk everything - including their lives - to uncover the truth.
Eagle River Detectives, Book1 This One's for You, Dad is the first installment in a thrilling new series that will keep readers on the edge of their seats. If you love books like Nancy Drew, The Boxcar Children, and The Hardy Boys, you won't be able to put this one down.
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Eagle River Detectives, Book 4: The Mystery of the Old House is the electrifying conclusion to The Grant Legacy series, where secrets are revealed, mysteries are unraveled, and danger lurks in the shadows.
If you like Nancy Drew or the Boxcar children you'll love this series.
Eagle River may look like a sleepy little town, but hidden secrets lie dormant, waiting for the right person to unearth them.
Meet Jodie Grant, the youngest but most determined of the Grant children, with a relentless curiosity that could change their family's legacy forever. After stumbling upon a hidden trove of enigmatic photographs and documents in the attic of their ancestral home, she embarks on a thrilling journey that will challenge her courage and the bonds of her family. Her siblings don't seem interested in her find, but Jodie is convinced there is a connection to the the mysterious old house on the edge of town .In addition, a series of fires is plaguing their peaceful village, Jodie and her loyal friend are convinced there's more to these flames than meets the eye. As she doggedly follows the trail of clues, is she putting herself in perilous danger? Will the Eagle River Detectives, rally together, and save her in this heart-pounding adventure?
Mystery, Adventure! Family values, fun and sometimes silly, the Eagle River Detectives are a delight.
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