Dulcimer 1983 Jeoffrey Johnson Mahogany Wood - Bookshelf
308 pages
The Stone Angel
Hagar Shipley, a fiercely proud woman facing the end of her life, escapes from her nursing home and searches for a way to reconcile herself to her tumultuous past and come to terms with mortality With her life nearly behind her, the witty, ...
About this book
The Stone Angel, The Diviners, and A Bird in the Houseare three of the five books in Margaret Laurence's renowned "Manawaka series," named for the small Canadian prairie town in which they take place. Each of these books is narrated by a strong woman growing up in the town and struggling with physical and emotional isolation. In The Stone Angel, Hagar Shipley, age ninety, tells the story of her life, and in doing so tries to come to terms with how the very qualities which sustained her have deprived her of joy. Mingling past and present, she maintains pride in the face of senility, while recalling the life she led as a rebellious young bride, and later as a grieving mother. Laurence gives us in Hagar a woman who is funny, infuriating, and heartbreakingly poignant. "This is a revelation, not impersonation. The effect of such skilled use of language is to lead the reader towards the self-recognition that Hagar misses."Robertson Davies, New York Times "It is [Laurence's] admirable achievement to strike, with an equally sure touch, the peculiar note and the universal; she gives us a portrait of a remarkable character and at the same time the picture of old age itself, with the pain, the weariness, the terror, the impotent angers and physical mishaps, the realization that others are waiting and wishing for an end."Honor Tracy, The New Republic "Miss Laurence is the best fiction writer in the Dominion and one of the best in the hemisphere." Atlantic "[Laurence] demonstrates in The Stone Angelthat she has a true novelist's gift for catching a character in mid-passion and life at full flood. . . . As [Hagar Shipley] daydreams and chatters and lurches through the novel, she traces one of the most convincingand the most touchingportraits of an unregenerate sinner declining into senility since Sara Monday went to her reward in Joyce Cary's The Horse's Mouth." Time "Laurence's triumph is in her evocation of Hagar at ninety. . . . We sympathize with her in her resistance to being moved to a nursing home, in her preposterous flight, in her impatience in the hospital. Battered, depleted, suffering, she rages with her last breath against the dying of the light. The Stone Angelis a fine novel, admirably written and sustained by unfailing insight."Granville Hicks, Saturday Review " The Stone Angelis a good book because Mrs. Laurence avoids sentimentality and condescension; Hagar Shipley is still passionately involved in the puzzle of her own nature. . . . Laurence's imaginative tact is strikingly at work, for surely this is what it feels like to be old."Paul Pickrel, Harper's
255 pages
Snakeskin Shamisen
When a close friend is found murdered shortly after winning a half-million dollars from a novelty slot machine, Japanese-American gardener Mas Arai discovers that a snakeskin shamisen, a traditional Okinawa musical instrument, could hold a ...
About this book
From Summer of the Big Bachi to Gasa-Gasa Girl, Naomi Hirahara’s acclaimed novels have featured one of mystery fiction’s most unique heroes: Mas Arai, a curmudgeonly L.A. gardener, Hiroshima survivor, and inveterate gambler. Few things get Mas more excited than gambling, so when he hears about a $500,000 win–from a novelty slot machine!–he’s torn between admiration and derision. But the stakes are quickly raised when the winner, a friend of Mas’s pal G. I. Hasuike, is found stabbed to death just days later. The last thing Mas wants to do is stick his nose in someone else’s business, but at G.I.’s prodding he reluctantly agrees to follow the trail of a battered snakeskin shamisen (a traditional Okinawan musical instrument) left at the scene of the crime…and suddenly finds himself caught up in a dark mystery that reaches from the islands of Okinawa to the streets of L.A.–a world of heartbreaking memories, deception, and murder.
192 pages
Axis, Bold As Love
Includes note-for-note transcriptions for every instrument for 13 songs from the album, including: Bold as Love * Castles Made of Sand * Little Wing * Spanish Castle Magic.
About this book
Includes note-for-note transcriptions for every instrument for 13 songs from the album, including: Bold as Love * Castles Made of Sand * Little Wing * Spanish Castle Magic.
