Winner of the 2015 New Welsh Writing Awards: WWF Cymru Prize for Writing on Nature and the Environment Shortlisted for the 2016 Wales Book of the Year: The Open University in Wales Creative Non-Fiction Award 'Eluned Gramich has written the perfect essay - a minutely detailed yet nuanced evocation of place and personalities that is full of ecologically precise imagery and is as attentive to the Japanese language as it is to Hokkaidan landscape.' – Mark Cocker As precise and nuanced as Japanese calligraphy, this memoir of the author's stay on the remote Hokkaido island in the far north of Japan, has at its heart the mountain, Yotei-san, the region's iconic equivalent to Mount Fuji. As much about learning a language (with connotations of 'reading' a wild landscape) as it is about nature, this dignified and nuanced work evokes what is cultured and cultivated, and yet also honours the wild; the untranslatable. With its themes of seasonal transformation, the peripheral, folklore, loneliness and learning to belong, this work takes a personal philosophical stance in relation to the centre and the periphery. '"Eluned Gramich" is a name to hear time and again in the future. [This writing] is as good as we the jurors have ever read... short but perfectly formed... absolutely perfect.' – Justin Albert 'Quite beautiful. [The author encounters a culture that is completely alien] and she does it with a poet's eye... precisely and vitally. She reads this unfamiliarity with all her imaginative nerve-endings open: the effect is quite remarkable...' – Tony Brown 'Most rewarding is the philosophical approach... [Gramich's] embracing of... cultural multiplicity, fluidity and adaptability... suits perfectly the changing boundaries of our modern world.' – Wales Arts Review

In the tradition of celebrated wartime storytellers Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene, Tan Twan Eng's debut novel casts a powerful spell. The recipient of extraordinary acclaim from critics and the bookselling community, Tan Twan Eng's debut novel casts a powerful spell and has garnered comparisons to celebrated wartime storytellers Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene. Set during the tumult of World War II, on the lush Malayan island of Penang, The Gift of Rain tells a riveting and poignant tale about a young man caught in the tangle of wartime loyalties and deceits. In 1939, sixteen-year-old Philip Hutton-the half-Chinese, half-English youngest child of the head of one of Penang's great trading families-feels alienated from both the Chinese and British communities. He at last discovers a sense of belonging in his unexpected friendship with Hayato Endo, a Japanese diplomat. Philip proudly shows his new friend around his adored island, and in return Endo teaches him about Japanese language and culture and trains him in the art and discipline of aikido. But such knowledge comes at a terrible price. When the Japanese savagely invade Malaya, Philip realizes that his mentor and sensei-to whom he owes absolute loyalty-is a Japanese spy. Young Philip has been an unwitting traitor, and must now work in secret to save as many lives as possible, even as his own family is brought to its knees.

What might result from hearing a particular song, wearing used clothing, or witnessing an accident? Ethnographic accounts of the Navajo refer repeatedly to the influences of events on health and well-being, yet until now no attempt has been made to clarify the Navajo system of rules governing association and effect. This book focuses on the complex interweaving of the cosmological, social, and bodily realms that Navajo people navigate in an effort alternately to control, contain, or harness the power manifested in various effects. Following the Navajo life-course from conception to puberty, Maureen Trudelle Schwarz explores the complex rules defining who or what can affect what or whom in specific circumstances as a means of determining what these effects tell us about the cultural construction of the human body and personhood for the Navajo. Schwarz shows how oral history informs Navajo conceptions of the body and personhood, showing how these conceptions are central to an ongoing Navajo identity. She treats the vivid narratives of emergence life-origins as compressed metaphorical accounts, rather than as myth, and is thus able to derive from what individual Navajos say about the past their understandings of personhood in a worldview that is actually a viable philosophical system. Working with Navajo religious practitioners, elders, and professional scholars. Schwarz has gained from her informants an unusually firm grasp of the Navajo highlighted by the foregrounding of Navajo voices through excerpts of interviews. These passages enliven the book and present Schwarz and her Navajo consultants as real, multifaceted human beings within the ethnographic context.

A Good Morning America Book Club Pick and New York Times Bestseller! From debut author Asha Lemmie, “a lovely, heartrending story about love and loss, prejudice and pain, and the sometimes dangerous, always durable ties that link a family together.” —Kristin Hannah, #1 New York Times–bestselling author of The Nightingale Kyoto, Japan, 1948. “Do not question. Do not fight. Do not resist.” Such is eight-year-old Noriko “Nori” Kamiza’s first lesson. She will not question why her mother abandoned her with only these final words. She will not fight her confinement to the attic of her grandparents’ imperial estate. And she will not resist the scalding chemical baths she receives daily to lighten her skin. The child of a married Japanese aristocrat and her African American GI lover, Nori is an outsider from birth. Her grandparents take her in, only to conceal her, fearful of a stain on the royal pedigree that they are desperate to uphold in a changing Japan. Obedient to a fault, Nori accepts her solitary life, despite her natural intellect and curiosity. But when chance brings her older half-brother, Akira, to the estate that is his inheritance and destiny, Nori finds in him an unlikely ally with whom she forms a powerful bond—a bond their formidable grandparents cannot allow and that will irrevocably change the lives they were always meant to lead. Because now that Nori has glimpsed a world in which perhaps there is a place for her after all, she is ready to fight to be a part of it—a battle that just might cost her everything. Spanning decades and continents, Fifty Words for Rain is a dazzling epic about the ties that bind, the ties that give you strength, and what it means to be free.

A cumulative rhyme relating how Ki-pat brought rain to the drought-stricken Kapiti Plain. Verna Aardema has brought the original story closer to the English nursery rhyme by putting in a cumulative refrain and giving the tale the rhythm of “The House That Jack Built.”

Ruth O'Reilly helps us to slow down, listen to God and respond to him in this beautiful devotional journal. God speaks. If we take the time to quiet our racing thoughts and be still for a moment, we can hear him. He is speaking all the time. Draw closer to God as you listen to 40 messages of love straight from the Father's heart, reflect on Bible verses and learn to talk to God with guided questions and prayers. As you write your thoughts in the journaling space provided, you will create a precious record of how God speaks to you that you can always treasure. Deepen your walk with God as you listen and respond to him speaking to you in this beautiful devotional journal. Content Benefits: With space for journaling included, God Speaks will help you to deepen your relationship with God, enable you to listen to his voice more closely, and spend more time in his presence. Each chapter has a letter in the voice of God to the reader, a Bible verse, a question to ask God, a prayer and space for journaling Each reflection is written in a conversational and easy to understand voice and is grounded in biblical truths Beautiful line drawings appear throughout and highlight Bible verses, giving the book visual appeal Coloured end papers complement the overall design Enables you to spend time listening to God and encourages you to respond Journaling space means that you can look back over your thoughts and be reminded of what God has spoken to you about Perfect for anyone who loves journaling Helpful for anyone who wants to start journaling as a spiritual practice Ideal resource for quiet times or devotional times Perfect religious gift for birthdays, celebrations, and more Binding - Hardback Pages - 176 Publisher - Authentic Media

C.1 GIFT. 12-02-2010. $12.99.