Nina is a thirty-year-old English lecturer in New Delhi, living with her widowed mother & struggling to make ends meet. Ananda has recently emigrated to Halifax, Canada; having spent his twenties painstakingly building his career, he searches for something to complete his new life. When Ananda`s sister proposes an arranged marriage between the two, Nina is uncertain: can she really give up her home & her country to build a new life with a husband she barely knows? The consequences of change are far greater than she could have imagined. As the two of them struggle to adapt to married life, Nina`s whole world is thrown into question. & as she discovers truths about her husband
- both sexual & emotional
- her fragile new life in Canada begins to unravel. Tender & compelling, The Immigrant is an honest exploration of a marriage, what it costs to start again
- & what we can never leave behind.


...

75 immigrant chefs each contribute a favourite recipe that speaks of where they come from. In travelling the world & in settling in a new country the influence of these chefs & many others have transformed they way we eat.; In these times of troubling anti-immigrant rhetoric, The Immigrant Cookbook offers a culinary celebration of the many ethnic groups that contribute to a vibrant food culture. This beautifully photographed cookbook features starters, soups, salads, mains, desserts, & side dishes
- some familiar favourites, some likely to be new encounters
- by immigrant chefs from Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, Europe, & Australia.; Chefs include bestselling authors such as Barbara Abdeni Massaad, author/compilerof Soup for Syria: Recipes to Celebrate Our Shared Humanity.

...

Between Christmas & new year of 1817 the eccentric painter, B.R. Haydon, gave a famous dinner party. His guests included three of the greatest literary stars of the age: the poets John Keats & William Wordsworth & the essayist & wit Charles Lamb. They recited poetry, took part in ridiculous antics, indulged in high-minded discussions
- with such displays of brilliance that the party became known as the Immortal Dinner. Penelope Hughes-Hallett celebrates this famous evening, setting it against a backdrop of change, reflected in the preoccupations of the illustrious diners. A compelling & sympathetic picture emerges of these rare spirits & the age which created them.
...

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, now an HBO film starring Oprah Winfrey & Rose Byrne Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as He La. Born a poor black tobacco farmer, her cancer cells
- taken without her knowledge
- became a multimillion-dollar industry & one of the most important tools in medicine. Yet Henrietta`s family did not learn of her `immortality` until more than twenty years after her death, with devastating consequences.. . Rebecca Skloot`s fascinating account is the story of the life, & afterlife, of one woman who changed the medical world forever. Balancing the beauty & drama of scientific discovery with dark questions about who owns the stuff our bodies are made from, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is an extraordinary journey in search of the soul & story of a real woman, whose cells live on today in all four corners of the world. ` No dead woman has done more for the living.. .A fascinating, harrowing, necessary book` Hilary Mantel, Guardian ` An extraordinary mix of memoir & science reveals the story of how one woman`s cells have saved countless lives` Daily Telegraph `A heartbreaking account of racism & injustice.. . Moving & magnificent` Metro

...

Poet & post-punk heroine Eileen Myles has always operated in the art, writing, & queer performance scenes as a kind of observant flaneur. Like Baudelaire`s gentleman stroller, Myles travels the city--wandering on garbage-strewn New York streets in the heat of summer, drifting though the antiseptic malls of La Jolla, & riding in the van with Sister Spit--seeing it with a poet`s eye for detail & with the consciousness that writing about art & culture has always been a social gesture. Culled by the poet from twenty years of art writing, the essays in The Importance of Being Iceland make a lush document of her--and our--lives in these contemporary crowds. Framed by Myles`s account of her travels in Icel&, these essays posit inbetweenness as the most vital position from which to perceive culture as a whole, & a fluidity in national identity as the best model for writing & thinking about art & culture. The essays include fresh takes on Thoreau`s Cape Cod walk, working class speech, James Schulyer & Bjork, queer Russia & Robert Smithson; how-tos on writing an avant-garde poem & driving a battered Japanese car that resembles a menopausal body; & opinions on such widely ranging subjects as filmmaker Sadie Benning, actor Daniel Day-Lewis, Ted Berrigan`s Sonnets, & flossing. ...

If you`re intrigued by the fact that Jack the Ripper was left-handed, or that Heinz ketchup flows at 0.7 miles per day
- &, more
...

` Elegantly written & cogently argued.. . His book is founded on a deep respect for, & love of, his subject`s curious greatness` Paul Bailey reviews Richard Bradford`s earlier Larkin biography First Boredom, Then Fear in The Independent The most widely read British poet of the twentieth century, Philip Larkin was also a keen amateur photographer & through his life he made images of the people, places & things that meant most to him. Publishing ahead of the thirtieth anniversary of the poet`s death in December 2015, The Importance of Elsewhere gathers the best of Larkin`s photographic work, divided into short thematic chapters arranged in chronological order. Written by Richard Bradford, the acclaimed author of the Larkin biography First Boredom, Then Fear, the book shows how Larkin, as an individual, as a writer & indeed as a photographer, developed an acute sensitivity to all aspects of the world around him, from his love of open uninhabited landscapes & empty churches to his mixed feelings about crowds. There are also fascinating portraits of those people who were closest to Larkin, including his lovers, his mother & his literary peers. The book beautifully reproduces more than 200 images from the Larkin archive at Hull: the majority have never previously been seen in print. A substantial foreword by Mark Haworth-Booth, formerly curator of photography at the V&A, explores what it meant to be a serious amateur photographer of Larkin`s generation. Together with Larkin`s literary works & his letters, these images make up the third, so far unseen, constituent of the material upon which our future perceptions of him will be based. ...

Burt Darwin is a writer & world religions specialist. Lady Chanel Mallory, a former hand model, has married into the aristocracy & loves romance novels. Her husband Lord Percy, a natural cynic, mistakenly thinks she`s French. Sister Mary dresses like Mother Teresa & hopes to be a nun one day. Four passengers on a cruise ship, thrown together by chance, experience the mysteries & contradictions of contemporary Africa when they take an ill-judged trip into the interior. As each is exposed to ancient African mythology & belief, their hypocrisies, petty jealousies & venality are revealed
- with hilarious & unforgettable results. The Importance of Manners is a slapstick, satirical comic novel for adults in the vein of Alexander Mc Call Smith, Evelyn Waugh & PG Wodehouse, from an acclaimed YA author.
...

The Impossible Fairy Tale tells the story of the nameless ` Child`, who struggles to make a mark on the world, & her classmate Mia, whose spoiled life is everything the Child`s is not. At school, adults are nearly invisible, & the society the children create on their own is marked by cruelty, soul-crushing hierarchies & an underlying menace. Then, one day after hours, the Child sneaks into the classroom to add ominous sentences to her classmates` notebooks, unlocking a series of events with cataclysmically horrible consequences. But that is not the end of this eerie, unpredictable novel... ...

Much discussed & often maligned, precious little is known or understood about North Korea, the world`s most controversial & isolated country. In ” The Impossible State” Victor Cha pulls back the curtain, providing an unprecedented insight into North Korea`s history, the rise of the Kim family dynasty, & the obsessive personality cult that surrounds them. He illuminates the repressive regime`s complex economy & culture, its appalling record of human-rights abuses, its belligerent relationship with its neighbours & the United States, & analyzes the regime`s major security issues
- from the seemingly endless war with its southern counterpart to its terrifying nuclear ambitions
- all in the light of the destabilizing effects of Kim Jong-il`s recent death. How has this enigmatic nation-state continued to survive when it regularly violates its own citizens` inalienable rights & has suffered severe famine, global economic sanctions, a collapsed economy, & near-total isolation from the rest of the world? Cha reveals a land facing a pivotal & disquieting transition of power from tyrannical father to inexperienced son, & delves into the ideology that leads an oppressed, starving populace to cling so fiercely to its failed leadership. With rare personal anecdotes from the author`s time in Pyongyang & his tenure as a White House adviser, this engagingly written, authoritative, & highly accessible account offers much-needed answers to the most pressing questions about North Korea & ultimately warns of a regime that might be closer to its end than many might think
- a political collapse for which the Western world may be woefully unprepared.


...