Leonard Gardner, a former artist suffering from aphasia, is confined to a nursing home. A young care assistant, Kate Davies, discovers his collection of paintings and begins to work with him in a new approach to therapy.

"Go read Andy Davidson’s lush nightmare, The Boatman’s Daughter. It put an arrow through my head and heart.” —Paul Tremblay, author of Growing Things "Ample bloodshed is offset by beautiful prose . . . A stunning supernatural Southern Gothic." —Kirkus (starred) Ever since her father was killed when she was just a child, Miranda Crabtree has kept her head down and her eyes up, ferrying contraband for a mad preacher and his declining band of followers to make ends meet and to protect an old witch and a secret child from harm. But dark forces are at work in the bayou, both human and supernatural, conspiring to disrupt the rhythms of Miranda’s peculiar and precarious life. And when the preacher makes an unthinkable demand, it sets Miranda on a desperate, dangerous path, forcing her to consider what she is willing to sacrifice to keep her loved ones safe. With the heady mythmaking of Neil Gaiman and the heartrending pacing of Joe Hill, Andy Davidson spins a thrilling tale of love and duty, of loss and discovery. The Boatman's Daughter is a gorgeous, horrifying novel, a journey into the dark corners of human nature, drawing our worst fears and temptations out into the light.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and author of Never Let Me Go and the Booker Prize–winning novel The Remains of the Day comes a luminous meditation on the act of forgetting and the power of memory. In post-Arthurian Britain, the wars that once raged between the Saxons and the Britons have finally ceased. Axl and Beatrice, an elderly British couple, set off to visit their son, whom they haven't seen in years. And, because a strange mist has caused mass amnesia throughout the land, they can scarcely remember anything about him. As they are joined on their journey by a Saxon warrior, his orphan charge, and an illustrious knight, Axl and Beatrice slowly begin to remember the dark and troubled past they all share. By turns savage, suspenseful, and intensely moving, The Buried Giant is a luminous meditation on the act of forgetting and the power of memory.

As a backyard naturalist and river enthusiast, Henry David Thoreau was keenly aware of the many ways in which humans had altered the waterways and meadows of his beloved Concord River Valley. A land surveyor by trade, he recognized that he was as complicit in these transformations as the bankers, builders, and elected officials who were his clients. The Boatman reveals the depth of his knowledge about the river as it elegantly chronicles his move from anger to lament to acceptance of how humans had changed a place he cherished even more than Walden Pond. “A scrupulous account of the environment Thoreau loved most... Thorson argues convincingly—sometimes beautifully—that Thoreau’s thinking and writing were integrally connected to paddling and sailing.” —Wall Street Journal “An in-depth account of Thoreau’s lifelong love of boats, his skill as a navigator, his intimate knowledge of the waterways around Concord, and his extensive survey of the Concord River.” —Robert Pogue Harrison, New York Review of Books “An impressive feat of empirical research...an important contribution to the scholarship on Thoreau as natural scientist.” —Los Angeles Review of Books “The Boatman presents a whole new Thoreau—the river rat. This is not just groundbreaking, but fun.” —David Gessner, author of All the Wild That Remains

A collection of poems that provide a look at some of the animals, insects, and plants that are found in ponds, with accompanying information about each.

A red-haired naughty boy Xiao Tao saw that a silly hare had hit its head accidently against a tree trunk and died. He picked up the hare, gave it to his mom so she could make it into a delicious dinner. He then waited near the trunk everyday hoping hares would come continuously and hit their heads against the tree. His dad had gone to town on a trip and had told Xiao Tao to sow seeds in the farmland, but Xiao Tao only concentrated on his plan of catching hares and forgot about the sowing. Half a month later Xiao Tao suddenly remembered his dad's order. He then sowed seeds in a rush. Seedlings grew very slowly because of the delay in time. For fear of dad's rebuke, Xiao Tao quietly got up at midnight to “help” the seedlings grow more quickly by pulling them upward. When Xiao Tao's dad came back home, he saw all of the seedlings lying down in the field with their roots exposed in the air. He knew that Xiao Tao had done this. Dad asked Xiao Tao why he had made this mess, and wanted him to admit his fault. Xiao Tao did not acknowledge his mistake, but instead said that this had been the hares' fault. Lately, no hares had come to hit their heads against the tree trunk, and so he had to wait patiently for them; had it not been for the hares' fault, he would have remembered his task and would not have pulled the seedlings upward, and would not have been criticized by dad. Xiao Tao's dad was so angry that he slapped Xiao Tao's face. Xiao Tao did not cry. Instead, he decided that he would leave home to visit various scenic spots, and make a living wandering from place to place. In his adventurous journey Xiao Tao experienced more than a few strange affairs, met many interesting people and animals and learned a lot about the world. In the end, his trip turned the naughty boy into a good one. ************************ The Chinese language has become a popular subject to study in recent years. However, because it is not an alphabetic language and is quite different from other languages, it is not very easy to learn. Are there any knacks to quicken the learning process? The answer is YES! The key to success lies in learning Chinese idioms. Chinese idioms are not just a play on words; they are the heart and soul of the language. There are roughly one thousand very popular idioms in Chinese, and among them, about half are most frequently in use. Many of them are very vivid and interesting. Learning Chinese idioms can greatly increase readers' interest, and thus raise the speed of Chinese-learning. This story about a boy's journey connects a series of 366 most frequently used Chinese idioms. Through reading and remembering this interesting story, readers will be able to learn Chinese efficiently. An idiom a day kicks the Chinese-learning difficulty away. For understanding Chinese idioms, readers should read THE KEY OF THIS BOOK first and then use the notes that were inserted into the story. This book may function as a combination of a storybook and a textbook, with the story in the main body and the text in the notes. Readers can enjoy the story while they learn Chinese idioms at the same time and on the same page. Many books in Chinese have characters in only one form, either the simplified form or the standardized form (i.e. the traditional form or the original complex form), but this book has both forms. Many books in Chinese have only one kind of phonetic notation, which is the Chinese phonetic alphabet, or Chinese Pinying notation (mandarin pronunciations with four tones), but this book has both Chinese mandarin pronunciations with four tones and English pronunciations. For readers' convenience, the author has summarized all idioms mentioned in the story and placed them at the end of this book. For