Search results for ""Author Amy""

Get to know the inhabitants of a tiny Japanese island—and their unusual stories and secrets—through this fascinating, intimate collection of portraits."This book beautifully describes the residents of tiny Shiraishi Island as well as telling how Amy herself came to be in such a fascinating little corner of Japan…Amy herself, with this book, has shown herself an integral part of this preservation. —Rebecca Otowa, author of At Home in JapanWhen American journalist Amy Chavez moved to the tiny island of Shiraishi (population 430), she rented a house from an elderly woman named Eiko, who left many of her most cherished possessions in the house—including a portrait of Emperor Hirohito and a family altar bearing the spirit tablet of her late husband. Why did she abandon these things? And why did her tombstone later bear the name of a daughter no one knew? These are just some of the mysteries Amy pursues as she explores the lives of Shiraishi's elusive residents. The 31 revealing accounts in this book include: The story of 40-year-old fisherman Hiro, one of two octopus hunters left on the island, who moved back to his home island to fill a void left by his brother who died in a boating accident. A Buddhist priest, eighty-eight, who reflects on his childhood during the war years, witnessing fighter pilots hiding in bunkers on the back side of the island. A "pufferfish widow," so named because her husband died after accidentally eating a poisonous pufferfish. The ex-postmaster who talks about hiking over the mountains at night to deliver telegrams at a time when there were only 17 telephone numbers on the island. Interspersed with the author's reflections on her own life on the island, these stories paint an evocative picture of the dramatic changes which have taken place in Japanese society across nearly a century. Fascinating insights into local superstitions and folklore, memories of the war and the bombing of nearby Hiroshima, and of Shiraishi's heyday as a resort in the 1960s and 70s are interspersed with accounts of common modern-day problems like the collapse of the local economy and a rapidly-aging community which has fewer residents each year.

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Xuanhe Catalogue of Paintings is the first complete translation of the well-known document produced at the court of Emperor Huizong (r. 1100–1125). Dated to 1120, the Catalogue is divided into ten categories of subject matter. Under Daoist and Buddhist Subjects, Figural Subjects, Architecture, Barbarian Tribes, Dragons and Fish, Landscape, Domestic and Wild Animals, Flowers and Birds, Ink Bamboo, and Vegetables and Fruit are biographies of 231 painters, ranging from famous early masters, such as Wu Daozi (ca. 685-758) and Li Cheng (919-967), to otherwise unknown artists of the Song-dynasty court, including fourteen eunuch officials and sixteen male and female members of the royal family. Titles of their pictures held in the palace collection are listed for each artist. These 6,396 paintings testify to the visual culture experienced by viewers of the twelfth century. The author's Introduction analyzes the Catalogue as a source of evidence about the formation of the Song-dynasty palace collection and argues that the majority of its pictures were already in the collection before Huizong's reign, as a result of conquest, confiscation, tribute, gift culture, collecting by earlier emperors, and the production of academy artists and regular officials at the Song court. Under Huizong's reign, around a thousand other pictures were added to the Catalogue through acquisition and reattribution. Open access edition funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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Lori and Joe have lived in the Lake District for many years, in a quiet valley where one day is much like another. Bringing Joe his regular cup of coffee one morning, Lori finds him dead. She could call an ambulance, but what difference would it make? Instead, she heads out for a walk over the fells. As she makes her way through the November fog, Lori’s thoughts slip between past and present, revealing a marriage marked by isolation, childlessness and a terrible secret she’s never disclosed. Arnold’s musical prose merges form and content to express what cannot be communicated through language alone. Taking place over the course of a single day, yet revealing the secrets of a marriage of many decades, Lori & Joe is a sparse, intimate and deeply moving story of entrapment and isolation, and of a life in which desire is continually overcome by inertia: nothing changes and nothing is ever (re)solved.

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NEW ORLEANS, 1995. MINA'S HAVING A KILLER HALLOWEEN. Three months after Fang Fest, Mina's settling into her new life. Despite the teething problems in her relationship with Jared, she has her sister back, new friends and a part-time job to die for. Over Halloween, Mina and the gang have planned a spooky week of Gothic restaurants, horror movies, ghostly tours, creepy carnivals and a costume ball. But the fun doesn't last. Mina is on work experience with Detective Cafferty while the police are investigating a savage masked killer and a rise in suspicious 'animal attacks'. During her own investigations, Mina discovers a mysterious group of slayers, who are battling to control the rogue vampires. The threats circle closer as Mina spends her days with the police and nights with the slayers. Will she and her friends survive Halloween without being staked, stabbed or bitten?

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The feisty, fiery Kopp sisters are back in another unforgettable romp by HWA-longlisted international bestseller Amy Stewart. When deputy sheriff Constance Kopp notices how many young women are being jailed over dubious charges of waywardness, incorrigibility, and moral depravity, she smells a rat. But what can she do to fight the forces of sexism? And how will her principles fare when her own sister, Fleurette, starts misbehaving? Against the backdrop of the First World War, and drawn once again from the true story of the Kopp sisters, Miss Kopp’s Midnight Confessions is a spirited page-turner that will delight fans of historical fiction and light-hearted detective fiction alike.

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This practical book provides school staff with lots of LEGO activities to use with children of all ages (5-16) to improve communication skills. Whether it is whole class doing group building activities to encourage collaborative working or paired work to target specific communication difficulties, this book is packed full of engaging, fun activities to suit all ages and abilities. LEGO never fails to entertain. Designed to look like play, each activity is structured to target the development of particular skills needed for successful learners, including many that focus on basic literacy and numeracy vocabulary.

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When Eva's mother abandons her on Iris's front porch, the girls don't seem to have much in common - except, they soon discover, a father. Thrown together with no mothers to care for them and a father who could not be considered a parent, Iris and Eva become one another's family. Iris wants to be a movie star; Eva is her sidekick. Together, they journey across 1940s America from scandal in Hollywood to the jazz clubs and golden mansions of Long Island, stumbling, cheating and loving their way through a landscape of war, betrayals and big dreams.

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On a remote island in Orkney, a curiously matched couple arrive on their honeymoon. He is an eminent literature professor; she was his pale, enigmatic star pupil. Alone beneath the shifting skies of this untethered landscape, the professor realises how little he knows about his new bride and yet, as the days go by and his mind turns obsessively upon the creature who has so beguiled him, she seems to slip ever further from his yearning grasp. Where does she come from? Why did she ask him to bring her north? What is it that constantly draws her to the sea?

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Amy Bloom's Away revitalizes the American road-trip novel from the perspective of a vulnerable but spirited woman. It paints a vivid, earthy and surprising picture of 1920s America, its smells and textures, its population of drifters and con artists, pimps and prostitutes. Away is storytelling at its finest - epic in sweep, but intimate and psychologically acute, moving but unsentimental. Like the novels of Sarah Waters, it is both richly authentic in its period detail and fresh and contemporary in its style. But, above all, Bloom has created an unforgettable character in Lillian Leyb - her voice, haunted, damaged yet innocent, passionate, witty and unpretentious, is so believable and strong that her presence lingers long after the novel ends.

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'A charming and fun read that will have you pining for a summer on a misty Irish island' - Georgie Tilney, author of Beach RivalsA wildly romantic story on a wild island with the promise of hope, redemption and self-discovery at its core.Cordelia James was once at the top of her game-a renowned street photographer with a massive social media following, gallery showings in Chelsea, and a lucrative book deal. But after the sudden death of her father, everything changed. Now, Cordelia can barely force herself to leave her apartment. That is, until she sees an ad for a summer gig at a cosy cottage on Ireland's picturesque Inishmore island. Rent-free, plus a small stipend if willing to do some menial housework and look after an elderly neighbour. Cordelia is on a plane before she can talk herself out of it. But practically the moment she steps off the boat, she crashes-literally-into Niall O'Connor, a grumpy local who's j

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Traditionally history is cerebral: what did they believe, what did they think, what did they know?Woodsmoke and Sage is not a traditional book. Using the five senses, historian Amy Licence presents a new perspective on the material culture of the past, exploring the Tudors’ relationship with the fabric of their existence, from the clothes on their backs, the roofs over their heads and the food on their tables, to the wider questions of how they interpreted and presented themselves, and what they believed about life, death and beyond.Take a journey back 500 years and experience the sixteenth century the way it was lived, through sight, sound, smell, taste and touch.

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