24 Results for : bleakness

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    The Red Children (eBook, ePUB)
    It's the 2030s in Ramsgate and four people who don't look quite human are found sitting, naked, in the early spring sunlight on the quay of the quiet south coast resort. The locals are puzzled - the newcomers are larger and heavier than they are and say they are fleeing the heat. Soon more arrive. Their tall red-haired leader, The Professor, talks to the universe. The locals talk among themselves.Red people appear everywhere, making friends, going into the caves, liked by some but accused of bringing infection by others. Two rivalrous brothers, Liam and Joe, take different sides as one joins a notorious far-right group. Their teacher Monica is the first to warn there'll be trouble. And she's right, there is; but there is also a great Midsummer Festival, laughter and love.Set in a world in crisis, this original, gripping fable about migration and global warming restores belief in the power of human kindness.'A stylish, intriguing novel. A fable bursting with freshness and foresight, a charming, sparkling jewel of a novel to be cherished and held high as an antidote to modern day bleakness and climate despair.'-- Leila Aboulela'The Red Children offers a warning and a vision of our past, present and future. This timely, vital and generous book is extraordinary in its courage, and hopeful and brutally honest in its clarity. An essential book for our times.'-- Salena Godden'Superb. A mesmerising, deeply engrossing work.'--Irenosen Okojie
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    Queen of Winter: A Pride and Prejudice Novella : Sweet Sentiments, Book 2 , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 135min
    Winter is a curse, bringing nothing but cold and darkness.Until he meets the Queen.Elizabeth Bennet is at the end of her strength. A frantic search for her missing sister Lydia has led her into danger she could never have imagined. Alone, injured, and lost, she stumbles into a snowstorm and loses hope. And then she loses consciousness.Fitzwilliam Darcy has finally found a chance to avenge himself on George Wickham. When word comes that Wickham is on his way to Gretna Green to elope, Darcy seizes the opportunity to follow him and bring him to justice. However, a storm from nowhere forces him to leave his carriage on the road and make his way to whatever shelter he can find. Along the way, almost hidden in the snow, he finds a woman more dead than alive. No one knows who she is, and most think she will not live through the night.As Darcy fights to save his mystery woman and nurse her back to health, the possibility of catching Wickham is slipping through his fingers. With the roads impassable, Darcy's only hope is that Wickham is similarly delayed. All he can do is wait, and try to keep from going mad. He turns his attention to the woman under his care and finds a friend, a kindred spirit, and possibly something warmer and richer. With Elizabeth Bennet at his side, perhaps there is more to life than bleakness and duty.When the roads clear, will they be able to find George Wickham in time to save Lydia Bennet and keep Darcy's family from disgrace? And will the heavy frost settle once more over Darcy's heart, or will hope melt the snow at last?Queen of Winter is a clean, winter-themed Regency Novella of approximately 20,000 words, and is Book 2 of the Sweet Sentiments series. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Megan Green. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/acx0/232943/bk_acx0_232943_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.
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    Agents of the Undertow: A Pan21 Novel , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 383min
    Helen Small is journalist at the largest news organization in the Republic of Texas, and a survivor. Seven years after a plague - known as Pan21 - has culled humanity in half, the Republic is falling into a totalitarian state. Survivors - the few who contracted the virus and survived, though they lost all pigmentation in their skin and hair and eyes - are being vilified by William Chaste, the new Administrator of the Republic. An army of Chaste's zealots known as the Grey Alliance has taken on the "patriotic" call of protecting the Republic from survivors, who they believe - based upon false information from Chaste - are still spreading the plague. When a mob of Grey Alliance supporters murder a survivor, Helen finds herself in an increasingly hostile and fearful atmosphere as she attempts to uncover the truth and expose Chaste's lies. All the while, she struggles with her own guilt at having survived the plague that killed both her husband and son. Amidst all of the bleakness she meets Francisco Stiles, an artist from the barrio in Denver who offers her a chance at a real life - and love. Average citizens and coworkers become more hostile towards her (and all survivors) and she loses her job because she makes people uncomfortable and fearful. Having lost everything, she decides to go to the barrio to be with Stiles. Tensions escalate in the Republic and Helen is attacked and then arrested while driving to Denver. She is put in jail without any rights or even a phone call. Two articles by her appear on the Republic Voice website - written and uploaded before she was fired - questioning Chaste and proving he is lying. She and the virologist who helps her with the science are announced as terrorists for spreading false and misleading information. Helen realizes no one knows she is in jail. No one knows where she is. At her lowest moment, she understands that she has to rely on herself.... ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Jack McDaniel. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/acx0/085152/bk_acx0_085152_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.
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    The Dawn Prayer (or How to Survive in a Secret Syrian Terrorist Prison) , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 587min
    A photographer captured in Syria and imprisoned for seven months recounts his story and how he became the first American ever to escape al-Qaeda. "What is your name?" asked General Mohammad. "Matthew," I said. I had stopped saying Matt a while ago because it means "dead" in Arabic. On New Year's Eve in 2012, Matthew Schrier was headed home from Syria, where he'd been photographing the intense combat of the country's civil war. Just 45 minutes from the safety of the Turkish border, he was taken prisoner by the al-Nusra Front, an organization the world would come to know as the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda. Over the next seven months he would endure torture and near starvation in six brutal terrorist prisons. He would face a daily struggle just to survive. And, eventually, he would escape. In this gripping, raw, and surprisingly funny memoir, Schrier details the horrifying and frequently surreal experience of being a slight, wisecracking Jewish guy held captive by the world's most violent Islamic extremists. Managing to keep his heritage a secret, Schrier used humor to develop relationships with his captors - and to keep himself sane during the long months of captivity. The Dawn Prayer (or How to Survive in a Secret Syrian Terrorist Prison) is a tale of patriotism and unimaginable bleakness shot through with light, of despair and friendship, sacrifice and betrayal, in a setting of bombed-out buildings and shifting alliances. It's the story of the first Westerner to escape al-Qaeda - not a battle-hardened soldier, but an ordinary New Yorker who figured out how to set his escape plan in motion from a scene in Jurassic Park. From the prisoners' fiercely competitive hacky-sack games and volleyball tournaments (played using a ball made of shredded orange peels and a shoelace) to his own truly nail-biting breakout, Matthew Schrier's story is unforgettable - and one you won't want to miss. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Michael David Axtell. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/blak/011570/bk_blak_011570_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.
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    Sovietistan (eBook, ePUB)
    "A mesmerising trip across Central Asia . . . A fascinating travelogue" Financial TimesSHORTLISTED FOR EDWARD STANFORD/LONELY PLANET DEBUT TRAVEL WRITER OF THE YEAR 2020Erika Fatland takes the reader on a journey that is unknown to even the most seasoned globetrotter. The five former Soviet Republics' Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan all became independent when the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991. How have these countries developed since then? In the Kyrgyzstani villages Erika Fatland meets victims of the widely known tradition of bride snatching; she visits the huge and desolate Polygon in Kazakhstan where the Soviet Union tested explosions of nuclear bombs; she meets Chinese shrimp gatherers on the banks of the dried out Aral Sea and she witnesses the fall of a dictator. She travels incognito through Turkmenistan, a country that is closed to journalists. She meets exhausted human rights activists in Kazakhstan, survivors from the massacre in Osh in 2010, German Menonites that found paradise on the Kyrgyzstani plains 200 years ago. During her travels, she observes how ancient customs clash with gas production and she witnesses the underlying conflicts between ethnic Russians and the majority in a country that is slowly building its future in Nationalist colours. In these countries, that used to be the furthest border of the Soviet Union, life follows another pace of time. Amidst the treasures of Samarkand and the bleakness of Soviet architecture, Erika Fatland moves with her openness towards the people and the landscapes around her. A rare and unforgettable travelogue.
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    Benjamin Franklin's Bastard: A Novel , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 745min
    An absorbing and compelling work of literary historical fiction, set in colonial Philadelphia, that brings to life a little-known chapter of the American Revolution - the story of Benjamin Franklin and his bastard son, and the women who loved them. Sixteen-year-old Anne is an uneducated serving girl at the Penny Pot tavern when she first meets the commanding Benjamin Franklin. The time she spends with the brilliant young printer teases her curious mind, and the money he provides keeps her family from starving. But the ambitious Franklin is committed to someone else, a proper but infatuated woman named Deborah Read who becomes his common-law wife. At least Anne has William, her cherished infant son, to remind her of his father and to soften some of life's bleakness. But growing up a bastard amid the squalor of Eades Alley isn't the life Anne wants for her only son. Acutely aware of the challenges facing them, she makes a heartbreaking sacrifice. She will give up William forever, allowing Benjamin and Deborah Franklin to raise him as their own. Though she cannot be with him, Anne secretly watches out for her beloved child, daring to be close to him without revealing the truth about herself or his birth, and standing guard as Deborah Franklin struggles to accept her husband's bastard son as her own. As the years pass, the bustling colonies grow and prosper, offering opportunities for wealth and power for a talented man like William's father. Benjamin's growing fame and connections as a scientist, writer, philosopher, businessman, and political genius open doors for the astute William as well, and eventually King George III appoints Benjamin's bastard son to the new position of Royal Governor of New Jersey. Anne's fortunes also rise. A shrewd woman of many talents, she builds a comfortable life of her own - yet nothing fills her with more joy or pride than her son's success and happiness. But all that her accomplished son has achiev ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: David Colacci. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/harp/003418/bk_harp_003418_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.
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    The Edge of In Between (eBook, ePUB)
    A spellbinding tale of magical realism, where twelve-year-old Lottie's colorful world turns suddenly gray when an unexpected accident claims her parents, and she is uprooted from her home to live with an eccentric uncle she never knew she had-on the border that separates the living and the dead. Lottie lives in Vivelle-the heart of a vibrant city where life exists in brilliant technicolor and nearly everyone has magic. And Lottie is no exception; she can paint pictures to life in every shade and hue imaginable. But at the sudden loss of her parents, all the color is stripped from Lottie's heart and the world around her. Taken in by her reclusive, eccentric uncle, Lottie moves into Forsaken, his vast manor located in the gray wasteland between the Land of the Living and Ever After, the land of the dead. The discovery of a locked-up garden, a wise cardinal, a hidden boy, and a family whose world is full of color despite the bleakness around them begins to pull at the threads of what it means to live in such a near-dead place, slowly returning some of the color to Lottie's private world and giving her hope that life is worth living and experiencing fully, even while one carries sorrow. But as time runs out, Lottie must find a way to thaw both the world and the hearts of her uncle, cousin, and those she has come to know and love in her new home, or all of Forsaken-including Lottie herself-will be absorbed by Ever After long before their time. An exquisitely written, richly imagined, stunning portrait of love and loss, magic and hope; a true celebration of the strength we all possess to transcend tragedy-and the gifts that make life worth living.
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    • Price: 8.95 EUR excl. shipping
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    The Edge of in Between
    A spellbinding tale of magical realism, where twelve-year-old Lottie's colorful world turns suddenly gray when an unexpected accident claims her parents, and she is uprooted from her home to live with an eccentric uncle she never knew she had-on the border that separates the living and the dead. Lottie lives in Vivelle-the heart of a vibrant city where life exists in brilliant technicolor and nearly everyone has magic. And Lottie is no exception; she can paint pictures to life in every shade and hue imaginable. But at the sudden loss of her parents, all the color is stripped from Lottie's heart and the world around her. Taken in by her reclusive, eccentric uncle, Lottie moves into Forsaken, his vast manor located in the gray wasteland between the Land of the Living and Ever After, the land of the dead. The discovery of a locked-up garden, a wise cardinal, a hidden boy, and a family whose world is full of color despite the bleakness around them begins to pull at the threads of what it means to live in such a near-dead place, slowly returning some of the color to Lottie's private world and giving her hope that life is worth living and experiencing fully, even while one carries sorrow. But as time runs out, Lottie must find a way to thaw both the world and the hearts of her uncle, cousin, and those she has come to know and love in her new home, or all of Forsaken-including Lottie herself-will be absorbed by Ever After long before their time. An exquisitely written, richly imagined, stunning portrait of love and loss, magic and hope; a true celebration of the strength we all possess to transcend tragedy-and the gifts that make life worth living.
    • Shop: buecher
    • Price: 16.99 EUR excl. shipping
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    A Manual for Cleaning Women
    A New York Times bestseller 'I have always had faith that the best writers will rise to the top, like cream, sooner or later, and will become exactly as well known as they should be . . . With the present collection, Lucia Berlin will begin to gain the attention she deserves.' Lydia Davis For the last fifty years Lucia Berlin has been one of America's best-kept secrets, celebrated by those in the know. The first publication of this collection of her astonishing short stories, in 2015, came a decade after her death and saw her rightly recognized as one of the most important writers in twentieth-century American short fiction. Her work has been compared to Alice Munro, Raymond Carver, and Anton Chekhov. Drawing on her own rich, itinerant life, Berlin invites the reader into a world of beauty, pain, laughter, drink and surprising moments of grace. In Mexico, Chile and the American southwest, in laundromats, hospitals, motels and bars, she crafts miracles from the everyday. Her voice is irresistible. 'In A Manual for Cleaning Women we witness the emergence of an important American writer.' New York Times 'Lucia Berlin's work is being compared to Raymond Carver . . . But only Carver's very final stories share Berlin's eye for the sudden exaltation in ordinary lives, or her ability to shift the tone of an entire story with an unexpected sentence.' Sarah Churchwell, Guardian 'Full of humor and tenderness and emphatic grace.' Washington Post 'Sharp, unpredictable, vital . . . [Berlin's stories] hit you with a force the moment you happen upon them.' Jackie Kay, Observer 'This career-spanning volume should reward readers who return to it for months, years, even decades.' Independent 'Berlin writes about extremities of shame, humiliation and degradation with a ferocious elegance that allows neither bleakness not sentimentality.' New Statesman
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    • Price: 9.99 EUR excl. shipping
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    Winterreise D 911
    The Gramophone-award winning partnership of Gerald Finley and Julius Drake turns to perhaps the most celebrated song-cycle of them all. Schubert's Winterreise is a masterpiece of despair, astonishing in its bleakness and enthrallingly mesmerizing as the journey continues. Finley brings all his considerable dramatic powers to his performance - and all but submerges them under the ice.
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    • Price: 16.73 EUR excl. shipping

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