Where is Joe Merchant? That's what his sister, Trevor Kane, the hemorrhoid-ointment heiress, wants to know. For Desdemona, Merchant is the missing link in her ongoing communications with space aliens. Tabloid journalist Rudy Breno only cares that Merchant gets bigger headlines than Elvis. And for renegade seaplane pilot Frank Bama, the mystery of the presumed-dead-but-often-sighted rock star is turning his life upside down.
In his debut novel, Jimmy Buffett cooks up an irresistible gumbo of dreamers, wackos, pirates, and sharks, as he leads Trevor and Frank on a wild chase through the Caribbean Islands to a place where anything can happen . . . and everything does.
.
"Where is Joe Merchant? A Novel Tale" is now in the stack with "A Salty Piece of Land" and "the Gun Seller" for rereading next winter when on vacation!
Great Read.......2006-09-24
This is the kind of book you want to read when you need to get away from life in the city. Jimmy Buffett can weave a tale and draws his characters so nicely that you feel you know them and describes places so well that I will feel like I'm experiencing deja vu should I ever see them.
Download Description
"Can you imagine a world without night? No moonbeams? No stars? No time to rest in your bed? This story tells how night came to Brazil. Celebrating the rhythm of evening and morning, shadow and light, rest and activity, this lyrical fairytale is the story of the ancient African sea goddess Iemanji whose daughter marries one of the sons of the earth people who live in eternal daylight in Brazil. When her daughter longs to rest her eyes in the cool shadows of evening, Iemanji sends her the gift of darkness. Strong, intense, tropically colored illustrations vibrate with energy in this folktale that demonstrates the African connection to Brazil. An author's note explains the slavery connection between the countries and describes how a religion called Candomble (a complex set of African beliefs) is practiced in the northeast of Brazil. Mary-Joan Gerson has written four books for children. Her children's writing career began when she and her husband served with the Peace Corps from 1965-67 in Nigeria. Her books focus on how other cultures explain the world -- they are all what is referred to in folklore as ""creation tales."" Dr. Gerson is now a clinical professor of psychology at New York University, where she directs a training program in family therapy and teaches and does research in psychoanalytic development. Carla Golembe studied painting and printmaking in college and graduate school. She began illustrating children's books in 1992. Because her artwork has a tropical style, she illustrated a number of folktales from Africa, Latin America and Hawaii. "
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General Sherman and the Georgia Belles: Tales from Women Left Behind
Cathy J. Kaemmerlen
Manufacturer: The History Press
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Binding: Paperback
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Savannah's Little Crooked Houses: If These Walls Could Talk
ASIN: 1596291591
Release Date: 2006-10-18 |
Book Description
"He was coming. It was not the second coming of Christ, but some believed it to be the Devil himself."
In 1864, General William Tecumseh Sherman and 60,000 Union soldiers embarked on a sixty-mile wide path of destruction through central Georgia now known as Sherman's March to the Sea. Georgians scrambled to resist this infamous campaign wherever possible, and opposition came from many unexpected sources, including the brave women of the Peach State. In every sense "steel magnolias," Georgia's women weren't ready to give up their precious South without a fight. This book explores the brave contributions these women made in the face of severe destruction and loss.
In Sherman's wake, Union soldiers burned and plundered as they went, destroying mill towns and charging with treason the fleeing women and children laborers who had sewn Confederate cloth. One Atlantan named Mary Rawson said, "Time after time we had been told of the severity of General Sherman until we came to dread his approach as we would that of a mighty hurricane." Still, despite the devastation and fear Sherman and his troops inflicted on the Georgia countryside and its cities, the Georgian belles were poised to stand firm in the face of an invasion meant to sever the very fabric of the South.
Cathy Kaemmerlen, a renowned storyteller and historical interpreter, provides a colorful collection of tales of exceptional Georgia women who made great sacrifices in an effort to save their families and homes. From the innocent diary of a 10-year-old girl to the words of a woman who risks everything to see her husband one last time, Kaemmerlen exposes the grit and gumption of these remarkable Southern women in inspiring and entertaining fashion.
Average customer rating:
- OK for mixed Stevenson Island Literature
- Stevenson's retelling of Pacific island legends & stories
- Some enjoyable South Pacific yarns
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South Sea Tales (Oxford World's Classics)
Robert Louis Stevenson
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
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Binding: Paperback
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In the South Seas (Penguin Classics)
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South Sea Tales (Tale of the Pacific)
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Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life (Penguin Classics)
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The Cruise of the Snark: Jack London's South Sea Adventure
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Omoo
ASIN: 0192837001 |
Book Description
The literary world was shocked when in 1889, at the height of his career, Robert Louis Stevenson announced his intention to settle permanently on the Pacific island of Samoa. His readers were equally shocked when he began to use the subject material offered by his new environment, not to promote a romance of empire, but to produce some of the most ironic and critical treatments of imperialism in nineteenth-century fiction. In these stories, as in his work generally, Stevenson shows himself to be a virtuoso of narrative styles: his Pacific fiction includes the domestic realism of `The Beach at Falese, the folktale plots of `The Bottle Imp' and `The Isle of Voices', and the modernist blending of naturalism and symbolism in The Ebb-Tide. But beyond their generic diversity the stories are linked by their concern with representing the multiracial society of which their author had become a member. In this collection - the first to bring together all his shorter Pacific fiction in one volume - Stevenson emerges as a witness both to the cross- cultural encounters of nineteenth-century imperialism and to the creation of the global culture which characterizes the post-colonial world.
Customer Reviews:
OK for mixed Stevenson Island Literature.......2007-10-05
I agree with Mr. Coppedge. RLS's "island literature" is uneven, as a read of this book will reveal. For a real treat, read his "In the South Seas". Now that is a treasure.
Stevenson's retelling of Pacific island legends & stories.......2007-05-21
Towards the end of Robert Louis Stevenson's life in the late 1880's, he had to move to the Pacific islands for his health. He managed to visit many of the most famous locales while there, including Hawaii, Tahiti, Samoa, the Gilberts, the Marshalls, and many besides these. He listened to and recorded both native legends and sailors' stories, besides creating a few original stories of his own.
The book contains the following stories: The Beach of Falesa, The Bottle Imp, The Isle of Voices, The Ebb-Tide: A Trio and Quartette, and two very short stories. The book also contains a very lengthy literary overview and critique of Stevenson's work, which I would recommend skipping until after you've read the book. Thankfully, it also contains a map, which you will repeatedly refer to.
The Beach of Falesa is about a European trader (Wiltshire) who takes up residence in the fictitious island of Falesa, whereupon he is hoodwinked by a fellow European (Case) into buying a worthless business and marrying an untouchable girl. Wiltshire then determines to unseat Case from his position of dominance among the natives, so he (Wiltshire) can make good on his business and restore his wife Uma to respectibility. This story like the others that follow are true character studies of both human weakness and resolve.
The Bottle Imp is the story of a native Hawaiian who gets his genie in a bottle to grant him his wishes. But though his wishes are made true and he wins the heart of the girl of his dreams, he becomes both arrogant and cursed with leprosy. He is believed to be a devil by his neighbors. Forced into exile with a wife who believes that he doesn't love her, he desperately seeks out the genie once more to cure his illness. Then he can be with her again, but at the price of external damnation. Or is there still a way out?
The Isle of Voices is also a story about greed and lust. One young Hawaiian man (Keola) yearns for a native girl, but lacks the material wealth for a comfortable marriage. So his girlfriend's father magically takes him to the mysterious and frightful Isle of Voices where treasure lies at his feet simply waiting to be picked up. Not sated with slight and trivial wealth, Keola determines to treacherously seize a vast fortune despite being ominously forbidden by the father. However, Keola's plan is overturned, and he is doomed to learn the secret of the Isle of Voices.
The Ebb-Tide is about three washed up derelict sailors of varying criminal aptitudes who take up the job of delivering an abandoned cargo ship to Australia. However, the ship's European company have all died of smallpox, and everyone believes the ship to be cursed. So, Herrick, Davis, and Huish let sail - but to sell the cargo themselves and then take up as pirates. As the trio complete their dangerous moral and legal fall into piracy and murder, they come upon a queer island loaded with wealth. But will they survive what lies ahead?
Overall, I enjoyed the book, but I wasn't engrossed in it. Skip the introduction, or you won't continue reading the book. Go straight to the stories. All the stories are good, but the Ebb-Tide is probably the best.
Some enjoyable South Pacific yarns.......2006-01-03
I don't know why no one has reviewed this volume before. It is a good readable edition of several of Stevenson's South Sea stories, including the rarely encountered novel The Ebb Tide. The introduction is interesting enough, and the footnotes are very helpful for expressions in the Beach-la-Mar pidgin dialect and nautical terms. This is Stevenson's most mature fiction and is a far cry from Kidnapped and the Child's Garden of Verses.
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Sea Serpent'S Daughter - Pbk (Legends of the World)
Lippert
Manufacturer: Troll Communications
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Binding: Paperback
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How Night Came from the Sea: A Story from Brazil
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How Night Came To Be - Pbk
ASIN: 0816730547 |
Book Description
Oh, how the world is changed when a woman begins to wonder! When Woman Became the Sea is Costa Rica's beautiful story of how the world began. Sibu creates the world but cannot decide what is missing. To get help from Thunder, Sibu creates something intriguing and magical for his friend: a woman named Sea. Sea soon becomes frustrated obeying the ridiculous commands of Sibu and Thunder and thinks to herself, "I wonder why I should listen to this man telling me one thing, and this man telling me something else, and I think I just won't listen to them any more." Enchanted by her new freedom, she lets down her guard and is bitten by a magical snake. Sea appears to die, but a tree grows out of her burial bundle. Like a butterfly from a cocoon, the waters of the world and the creatures of the sea burst forth from this great tree. Sibu realizes that the Sea is the missing piece, and he is thankful for her crowning creation.
Customer Reviews:
Beautiful Illustration.......2005-12-03
I have a five year old, Diego, that absolutely loves this book. I am originally from Costa Rica and was looking for books that would interest him while teaching him something as well. This book reminds us that there are many wonderful ideas and theories that explain the beginnings of the Earth and that it is wonderful to share in others' thoughts (on this and other subjects). The illustrations are amazing. The colors are vibrant and the characters are each beautiful in their own way. I now have a 7 month old daughter, Sofia, and I can't wait to share it with her.
I really loved reading this story and looking at the art........1998-11-14
I am a mother of two small children ( 2 & 3) and they really enjoyed listening to this story being told aloud at a recent book signing. The colorful art on every page keeps my children very interested in this wonderful book.
Book Description
My South Seas Sleeping Beauty is a captivating coming-of-age tale set in the magical jungles of Borneo. Told through the vivid recollections of a Chinese-Malay youth, the novel recounts the life of Su Qi, a troubled, sensitive son of a wealthy family, and exemplifies the imaginative range of one of Taiwan's most innovative writers.
"There were all sorts of stories about how my younger sister died," Su Qi begins, hinting at the power of memory to bend and refract truth. Yet whichever the real story may be, the fact is that the death of Su Qi's sister created an irrevocable rift in Su Qi's family, driving his father into the arms of aboriginal women and his mother into a world of her own invention.
In an effort to escape the oppression of home, Su Qi loses himself in the surrounding jungle, full of Communist guerillas and strange tropical fauna. The jungle further blurs the line between fantasy and reality for Su Qi, until he meets Chunxi, the beautiful, frail daughter of his father's best friend. Chunxi is an oasis of kindness and honesty in an otherwise cruel and evasive world, but after a bizarre accident, Chunxi falls into a deep coma, and Su Qui flees to Taiwan.
In college Su Qi meets Keyi, a vivacious siren who helps Su Qi forget not only his violent past but also the colorful tales of his youth. When a family member dies, however, Su Qi is pulled back to the jungles of Borneo where he begins to unravel the secrets of his family's past-a story stranger than any fairy tale-and learns that his cherished dream of awakening his beloved Chunxi may be more than just a fantasy.
Influenced by the lyricism of William Faulkner and the magical realism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, My South Seas Sleeping Beauty is a deeply evocative exploration of sexuality and identity and a masterful reworking of Chinese and Western myth. Valerie Jaffee's careful translation retains all the tone and detail of the original work and provides rare access to a new and exciting generation of Chinese writers born in Southeast Asia.
Book Description
I met him first in a hurricane; and though we had gone through the hurricane on the same schooner, it was not until the schooner had gone to pieces under us that I first laid eyes on him. Without doubt I had seen him with the rest of the kanaka crew on board, but I had not consciously been aware of his existence, for the Petite Jeanne was rather overcrowded.
Download Description
Despite the heavy clumsiness of her lines, the Aorai handled easily in the light breeze, and her captain ran her well in before he hove to just outside the suck of the surf. The atoll of Hikueru lay low on the water, a circle of pounded coral sand a hundred yards wide, twenty miles in circumference, and from three to five feet above high-water mark. On the bottom of the huge and glassy lagoon was much pearl shell, and from the deck of the schooner, across the slender ring of the atoll, the divers could be seen at work.
Customer Reviews:
Terrific Collection .......2005-11-28
London does not disappoint in this collection. His observations are as sound today as they were in his time. It was fascinating to see that London even experimented with science fiction in his story the Red One.
Sean O'Reilly
Editor-at-large
Travelers' Tales
Editor of 30 Days in the South Pacific
A Fine Collection!.......2004-11-28
It's a shame Jack London's "South Sea Tales" (sometimes referred to as "Hawai'ian Stories") are not more respected, both by the masses and by literary circles. London's stories here are equally as engaging as his better-known Yukon tales ("White Fang," etc.). And the fact that the setting is so drastically different from the snowy Northern Hemisphere of his other tales represents how versatile of a writer he was. It is true, there is not a lot of character differentiation from story to story, which may annoy readers looking for a veritable "collection" of stories and yet please those other readers looking for stories that are connected and read more like chapters of a novel. Nonetheless, Hawai'i is a United State and yet, fiction from this region that is taught on an academic, American Literature collegiate level is rare. That is a shame, because this collection shows that the region is intriguing, dangerous, and beautiful, all at the same time (and what more can you want out of a short story collection)!
This is not South Sea Tales.......2003-12-30
One star is not because the Jack London stories in this book are not wonderful. It is because this book is not South Sea Tales by Jack London, which I first got from my grandfather's bookshelf and was one of the most memorable reads from my youth. It is a collection of sea stories, including four from South Sea Tales, but I have found a copy of the original stories at Barnes and Noble. One might guess that some of the stories were dropped because, like Huck Finn, they use dialogue and espouse attitudes that we now know better than to live. The stories are still great and do not deserve to become un-stories. This collection is misnamed and misleading.
Good solid 1900's sea stories.......2000-10-17
Eight good stories by Jack London, about the people and places of the south Pacific in 1908. Also a good long introduction by A. Grove Day which should (like all too many "introductions") only be read *after* reading the stories.
Most of the people in these stories are, of course, either victims or perpetrators (or both) of one of those long painful Western exploitations of a less civilized ("less civilized") part of the world. London knows that that's what's going on, and he writes with sympathy for all concerned, and without the more self-conscious bemoaning that would be expected of a XXIst century writer. To the modern reader, then, he can sometimes seem cold-blooded, but seldom disturbingly so.
The prose is fine and spare most of the time, and never gets in the way of the tale. The places and the tales are memorable. There is not a great variety of character and setting; the eight stories together could almost be a single novel. His voyage on the Snark (which inspired these stories) clearly left him with a strong and single impression of this place and these people, and he conveys that impression skillfully along to us.
Definitely worth reading.
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Idylls of the South Seas
Williams Stone
Manufacturer: Univ of Hawaii Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Folklore & Mythology
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ASIN: 0870227750 |
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- A Classic Collection of Gullah Folklore
- Somewhat flawed, but fundamental
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Afro-American Folk Lore: Told Round Cabin Fires on the Sea Islands of South Carolina (Black Heritage Library Collection)
A. M. H. Christensen
Manufacturer: Greenwood Press Reprint
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0837113873 |
Customer Reviews:
A Classic Collection of Gullah Folklore.......2007-05-09
Abigail Christensen was the daughter of Northern abolitionists who came down to the South Carolina Sea Islands during the Civil War to assist the newly freed slaves in their transition to freedom. Growing up among Gullah people, she learned their language and heard their extraordinary folktales about Buh Rabbit, Buh Fox, Buh Bear, etc. Later, when she was a college student in the North, her professors encouraged her to compile the stories she had collected and written down into a book. Her "Afro-American Folk Lore" was originally published in 1892. Christensen's knowledge of Gullah was not as deep as that of the former slaveowner Charles Colcock Jones, Jr. whose story collection ("Negro Myths of the Georgia Coast," 1888) is also a classic work of Gullah folklore, but her book is an enormously valuable document of Gullah culture nonetheless. Christensen's stories even contain a few phrases in African languages, reflecting the early date at which they were collected. As far as I know, the African language (or languages) of these phrases has never been identified. This would be a great project someday for some enterprising young linguist. This collection has been igored by scholars for decades (though a full-scale biography of Christensen was recencly published), but with all the interest in Gullah culture these days, it is just a matter of time before these stories are rediscovered and republished in a popular edition.
Somewhat flawed, but fundamental.......2007-01-23
This book is one of the foundations of African-American folklore collections in the United States. Essentially, Miss Christensen was a White Northerner who recorded the tales of African-American ex-slaves and Gullah speakers in South Carolina's St. Helena Island in the 1870s. In 1877, one of those tales (included here) was among the first known publications of "Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby," a few years before the white Georgian Joel Chandler Harris gained more fame from the "rabbit stories" (as the indigenous call them). While Miss Christensen was the first to publish one of these stories, Harris's collection was published 12 years before she was able to find a publisher for her collection.
Interestingly, one of her informants, a black man named Prince Baskins, says that his African grandfather told him these tales. Recent studies indicate that he may have been right, as simiarities about between these proverbs of rabbits, alligators, and the like and actual African folktales. Unfortuantely, the tales are somewhat marred by Miss Christensen's sentiments that were common to her times, such as refering to the "monkey-like" appearance of some of her black informants. The stories themselves are written authentically in phonetic Gullah, but those who are not familiar with how this dialect sounds to the ear will find the book almost incomprehensible. Like other Gullah folklorists such as Ambrose Gonzales and Samuel Stoney, she does her job a bit too well in this aspect.
Overall, folklorists, storytellers, and those interested in Gullah culture will find this an interesting read.
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- 300
- A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland Indiana (Today Show Book Club #3)
- A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
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- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Penguin Classics)
- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (Signet Classics)
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