The Arts
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Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)March 2022The Green Indian Problem
by J.L. Willetts
Set in the valleys of South Wales at the tail end of Thatcher’s Britain, The Green Indian Problem is the story of Green, a seven year-old with intelligence beyond his years – an ordinary boy with an extraordinary problem: everyone thinks he’s a girl. Green sets out to try and solve the mystery of his identity, but other issues keep cropping up – God, Father Christmas, cancer – and one day his best friend goes missing, leaving a rift in the community and even more unanswered questions. Dealing with deep themes of friendship, identity, child abuse and grief, The Green Indian Problem is, at heart, an all-too-real story of a young boy trying to find out why he’s not like the other boys in his class. Longlisted for the Bridport Prize (in the Peggy Chapman-Andrews category)
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FictionJune 2022Still Lives
by Reshma Ruia
The glow of my cigarette picks out a dark shape lying on the ground. I bend down to take a closer look. It’s a dead sparrow. I wondered if I had become that bird, disoriented and lost.’ Young, handsome and contemptuous of his father’s traditional ways, PK Malik leaves Bombay to start a new life in America. Stopping in Manchester to visit an old friend, he thinks he sees a business opportunity, and decides to stay on. Now fifty-five, PK has fallen out of love with life. His business is struggling and his wife Geeta is lonely, pining for the India she’s left behind. One day PK crosses the path of Esther, the wife of his business competitor, and they launch into an affair conducted in shabby hotel rooms, with the fear of discovery forever hanging in the air. Still Lives is a tightly woven, haunting work that pulls apart the threads of a family and plays with notions of identity. Shortlisted for the SI Leeds Literary Prize
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January 2022The 7 Questions
The Ultimate Toolkit to Boost Self-Esteem, Unlock Potential and Transform Your Life
by Nick Hatter
Do you feel stuck in bad habits, or wonder why you procrastinate, or find yourself repeating old patterns? Every one of us has unlimited potential for personal growth. But it can’t be accessed by blindly following advice or rules: it’s uncovered by asking the right questions. In The 7 Questions, award-winning life coach Nick Hatter offers a toolkit for bringing clarity and self-awareness whenever you feel you’ve lost direction in life. Each question – from how you formed your opinion of yourself to whether your beliefs are serving you – will prompt you to look within and ultimately improve your self-esteem, confidence and emotional intelligence when the loss of a job, relationship or loved one brings you low. Drawing on vivid examples from the cutting edge of psychology and the author’s personal and professional experience, The 7 Questions will help you to coach yourself, unlock your potential and transform your life. First published by Piatkus Books in January, 2022
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Literary FictionJune 2021This Good Book
by Iain Hood
‘Sometimes I wonder, if I had known that it was going to take me fourteen years to paint this painting of the Crucifixion with Douglas as Jesus, and what it would take for me to paint this painting, would I have been as happy as I was then?’ Susan Alison MacLeod, a Glasgow School of Art graduate with a dark sense of humour, first lays eyes on Douglas MacDougal at a party in 1988, and resolves to put him on the cross in the Crucifixion painting she’s been sketching out, but her desire to create ‘good’ art and a powerful, beautiful portrayal means that a final painting doesn’t see the light of day for fourteen years. Over the same years, Douglas’s ever-more elaborately designed urine-based installations bring him increasing fame, prizes and commissions, while his modelling for Susan Alison, who continues to work pain and suffering on to the canvas, takes place mostly in the shadows. This Good Book is a wickedly funny, brilliantly observed novel that spins the moral compass and plays with notions of creating art.
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Trusted Partner
Plantation Coffee in Jamaica 1790-1848
by Kathleen E.A. Monteith
Plantation Coffee in Jamaica, 1790–1848 is the first comprehensive history of the Jamaican coffee industry, covering a period of rapid expansion and decline. The primary objective is to examine the structure and performance of the industry and to demonstrate the extent to which it contributed to the diversity of the Jamaican economy and society in this period. All of this is examined within the context of a period characterized by significant structural shifts in the then emerging global economy. As a work in economic history, the book is based on solid archival research and econometric analysis. Kathleen E.A. Monteith examines the changing levels of production, trade, productivity, and profitability of the industry and discusses the people involved in the industry, both free and enslaved. A demographic profile of the coffee planters and their familial relationships is established. The work experience of the enslaved men, women and children in the coffee industry, their organization, the nature of their works and their resistance to enslavement are also discussed. The clash of interests between the former enslaved people and coffee planters with respect to labour availability in the industry in the immediate post-slavery period are discussed also. Throughout the book, wherever possible, comparisons are made with other sectors of the Jamaican economy, especially with the sugar industry. Differences are explained in terms of environment, scale and the nature of production. Plantation Coffee in Jamaica, 1790–1848 contributes fresh material and interrogates data in systematic ways not previously undertaken by scholars in this area. Strikingly original are the sections dealing with the backgrounds of the coffee planters, drawing on sources only recently available for exploitation, notably the Legacies of British Slave-Ownership database, family history and genealogical websites, and the sections dealing with profitability. This book compares well with other works in Caribbean history published at this level of scholarship. It has no immediate rivals in its specific field.
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FictionJanuary 2020The Illusionist on the Skywalk (Sean Chuang)
by Wu Ming-Yi, Sean Chuang
* 2020 Japan International Manga Award (Silver)* 2020 Golden Comic Award* French, Japanese, and Korean rights have been sold for the original novel and a TV series is soon to be released. Man Booker prize nominee Wu Ming-Yi’s much-loved collection of nostalgic short stories, as a graphic novel. Let the artists whisk you back to Taipei of the 1980s, to the long-gone Chunghwa Market Bazaar and a world of magical memories. In 1980s Taipei, the Chunghwa Market Bazaar was home to hardware stores, snack stalls, record shops, tailors, locksmiths and seal-carvers – if you needed it, you could find it here. Any resident of Taipei at the time will have precious memories of the eight buildings that formed the market. And linking those buildings, they will remember, was a skywalk. And perhaps one day, on the skywalk, they saw an illusionist. The illusionist on the skywalk has many tricks. He can magic up a copy of a key, make the safety railing disappear, and have a papercut man stand up and dance. Children cluster round, trying to spot the trick to his tricks. Years later, those children are grown and the market is gone, and all that is left is stories steeped in magic: The elevator to the 99th floor that turns you invisible, the stone lion that walks into your dreams and joins you for a stroll, the drawing of a goldfish which comes to life and swims around its bowl (although if you look closely, you can see through it) and a curiously clever cat which keeps lonely old folk company. Adapted from a collection of short stories by Taiwan’s best-known writer, Wu Ming-Yi, this graphic novel has been created by two artists, each drawing four stories from the lives of those children who watched the illusionist on the skywalk. These are tales of adventure and setback, of love and death – of all that we must face as we grow up, told in a blend of nostalgia and magical realism. Let Wu Ming-Yi’s words and the art of Sean Chuang and Ruan Guang-Ming carry you back to 1980s Taipei.
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FictionDecember 2019Good Friend, Cancer
by Pam Pam Liu
When my mother gets cancer for the second time, she asked if I would keep her company through her chemotherapy. And of course, I said yes. But how am I meant to cope with it all? Pam Pam uses a clean but comical style to portray the joys and sorrows of accompanying a loved one through an illness. Despite the technical and medical wonders of the modern age, cancer remains one of humanity’s biggest enemies. And while we all know the patients themselves suffer, what of their loved ones, who find themselves sudden becoming carers, struggling with negative emotions, drained by the demands upon them? They too face a long physical and emotional battle. Good Friend, Cancer is a daughter’s first-hand account of her mother’s chemotherapy treatment. Finding herself now responsible for caring for her mother, she worries as she waits in the hospital that maybe her genes mean the same fate is in store for her. And she is also resentful – she has missed out on a change to follow her dreams and travel overseas. And most of all, and most unanswerably: why her? Graphic novelist Pam Pam’s simple style and plain strokes provide a humorous look at a harsh reality and turn misfortunes into charming tales. Over the course of 18 short comics, Pam Pam examines the traditional roles of a “daughter” and the pressures of being an adult as she portrays truths about family relationships which we all recognize – even if we cannot admit to it.
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FictionMay 2020Son of Formosa
by Yu Peiyun, Zhou Jianxin
* 2021 Taipei Book Fair Award The true story of Tsai Kun-lin, born in Qingshui, Taichung, in 1930, as he lives through Japanese rule and the arrival of the Kuomintang. Polite and a good student, Tsai found himself sentenced to ten years in jail for “membership of an illegal organization” after attending a high school book club. This graphic novel recounts his tenacity and determination. The 1930s, Japanese-ruled Taiwan. A young boy, Tsai Kun-lin grows up, accompanied by picture books and folk tales. But the merciless flames of World War 2 soon arrive – protests, bombing and conscription will change his life forever. After the war, the young booklover learns a new language and hopes to finally live a life of peace, never expecting his attendance at a high school book club will land him in jail. Transported to the penal colony for political prisoners on Green Island, he loses ten years of his youth to torture, terror, hard labor, and brainwashing. This series of graphic novels draws on the actual events of Tsai’s life. At Taichung First Senior High School he was a trainee soldier and a good student; years later he was sentenced to ten years in prison for attending a high school book club. On release he worked in publishing and advertising, and founded Prince, a children’s magazine which kept Taiwan’s cartooning tradition alive during martial law. He raised funds to allow a rural little league team to compete in Taipei and, on retirement, became a human rights activist. Tsai’s life is Taiwan’s recent history writ small. There is darkness, but always a light; hardship, but always the strength to endure. A simple yet graceful style faithfully recreates the historical scenes, with the accurate use of the Chinese, Taiwanese, and Japanese languages bringing those times to life. The warmth and vitality of the storytelling demonstrate that while we cannot control events, we can, as Tsai did, persevere through them.
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December 2021Pediatric Telephone Protocols
by Barton D. Schmitt, MD, FAAP
Telehealth and telephone care serve as important tools to connect with patients and families, especially when we are practicing physical distancing. This comprehensive telehealth resource is a must-have for thousands of practices and call centers. From telehealth pioneer Barton D. Schmitt, MD, FAAP, this award-winning office essential efficiently steps triagers through more than 141 decision support protocols spanning 98% of today's most common complaints. Key updates in this edition Completely updated protocols, references, and resources New protocol, COVID-19—Diagnosed or Suspected Medication Questions And more
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December 2021Adult Telephone Protocols
by David A. Thompson
Now in its 5th edition, this powerful decision-support tool will guide triagers thorough each call with the same step-by-step checklist organization and ease-of-use features as its companion resource, Pediatric Telephone Protocols. This comprehensive resource includes protocols that cover 95% of the most common adult complaints. Look here for triage guidelines ranging from everyday problems such as back pain, insect bites, and sunburn to more serious conditions such as breathing difficulty, seizures, and wound care. KEY FEATURES Completely updated and revised 6 new protocols—Anxiety and Panic Attack, Breast Symptoms, Coronavirus (COVID-19), Flank Pain, Hip Pain, and Shoulder Pain Triage guidance updated to include video visit options
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Crime & mysteryJanuary 2021Over Her Dead Body
by AB Morgan
Humurous private investigator series first in series
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Crime & mysteryApril 2021
Catch As Catch Can
by Malcolm Hollingdrake
Police procedural second in series
