Books with category 🐇 Transformation
Displaying 18 books

Lazarus Man

2024

by Richard Price

In this electrifying novel, Richard Price, the author of Clockers and a writer on The Wire, shines a light in every corner of New York City.

Boom! A June morning on Frederick Douglass Boulevard in Harlem. Suddenly, where a five-story building had stood is nothing but fuming low hills of rubble, the cars parked in front pancaked and coated in ash. Sirens. Havoc. Confusion. Destruction. And people missing.

Richard Price, our greatest chronicler of the city today, describes the effect of the disaster on the outer and inner lives of a rich and compelling group of characters. Anthony Walker is pulled from the rubble and, miraculously, survives, to find himself inspired by a religious sense of mission. Royal Lyons, who owns a failing funeral parlor, discovers a new lease on life. And Mary Roe, a hard-bitten NYPD detective, embarks on a personal quest to find a man who is missing.

Price's first novel since the bestselling Lush Life presents a bravura portrait of a community on the edge of disintegration. Rich with indelible characters and incredible drama, Lazarus Man is a compelling work of suspense and social vision by one of our preeminent writers.

Cecilia

2024

by K Ming Chang

Cecilia is a surreal novella that delves deep into the intensity and eroticism of girlhood friendships, the ecstasy of desire and disgust, and matriarchal mythmaking. The story unfolds with Seven, who works as a cleaner at a chiropractor's office, reencountering Cecilia, a woman who has captivated her since their school days. As they coincidentally board the same bus, with each claiming not to be following the other, their chance meeting spurs a series of intensely vivid and corporeal memories.

In the midst of this defamiliarization, the narrator begins to see queerness itself as an alienation from normative time. Smart, subversive, and gripping, Cecilia takes readers on a winding, misty road trip through bodily transformation, inextricable histories of desire and violence, diaspora, and obsessive love.

Counting Feminicide

Why grassroots data activists in Latin America count feminicide—and how this vital social justice work challenges mainstream data science. What isn’t counted doesn’t count. And mainstream institutions systematically fail to account for feminicide, the gender-related killing of women and girls, including cisgender and transgender women.

Against this failure, Counting Feminicide brings to the fore the work of data activists across the Americas who are documenting such murders—and challenging the reigning logic of data science by centering care, memory, and justice in their work. Drawing on Data Against Feminicide, a large-scale collaborative research project, Catherine D’Ignazio describes the creative, intellectual, and emotional labor of feminicide data activists who are at the forefront of a data ethics that rigorously and consistently takes power and people into account.

Counting Feminicide showcases the incredible power of data feminism in practice, in which each murdered woman or girl counts, and, in being counted, joins a collective demand for the restoration of rights and a transformation of the gendered order of the world.

Burma Sahib

2024

by Paul Theroux

Burma Sahib is a riveting new novel from acclaimed author Paul Theroux, exploring one of English literature's most beloved and controversial figures—George Orwell. This biographical fiction delves into the early years of Orwell as an officer in colonial Burma, a time that transformed him from Eric Blair, the British Raj policeman, into Orwell, the anticolonial writer.

At the tender age of nineteen, young Eton graduate Eric Blair sets sail for India, filled with dread for the assignment that lies ahead. As a conscript trained to serve the British Empire, Blair is tasked with overseeing the local policemen in Burma. He must navigate the complex social, racial, and class politics of his fellow Britons while simultaneously learning the local languages and maintaining control over his men.

Faced with challenges to his self-worth and a sense that he is not suited for the role, Blair's experiences in the hot, beautiful land of Burma are overwhelming. His clashes with superiors and the unfolding drama in this setting ultimately lead to a profound transformation, forever changing the man known to the world as George Orwell.

Hidden Potential

2023

by Adam M. Grant

Hidden Potential offers a new framework for raising aspirations and exceeding expectations. Adam Grant weaves together groundbreaking evidence, surprising insights, and vivid storytelling that takes us from the classroom to the boardroom, the playground to the Olympics, and underground to outer space. He shows that progress depends less on how hard you work than how well you learn. Growth is not about the genius you possess—it’s about the character you develop. Grant explores how to build the character skills and motivational structures to realize our own potential, and how to design systems that create opportunities for those who have been underrated and overlooked.

Many writers have chronicled the habits of superstars who accomplish great things. This book reveals how anyone can rise to achieve greater things. The true measure of your potential is not the height of the peak you’ve reached, but how far you’ve climbed to get there.

Clay's Ark

An innocent family, carjacked on a desolate highway, is abducted to a bizarre new world. A world being born in the Californian desert. They discover Earth has been invaded by an alien microorganism. The deadly entity attacks like a virus, but survivors of the disease genetically bond with it, developing amazing powers, near-immortality, unnatural desires - and a need to spread the contagion and create a secret colony of the transformed. Now the meaning of "survival" changes. For the babies born in the colony are clearly, undeniably, not human...

In a violent near-future, Asa Elias Doyle and her companions encounter an alien life form so heinous and destructive, they exile themselves in the desert so as not to contaminate other humans. To resist the compulsion to infect others is mental agony, but to succumb is to relinquish humanity and free will. Desperate, they kidnap a doctor and his two daughters as they cross the wasteland--and endanger the world.

In an alternate America marked by volatile class warfare, Blake Maslin is traveling with his teenage twin daughters when their car is ambushed. Their attackers appear sickly yet possess inhuman strength, and they transport Blake's family to an isolated compound. There, the three captives discover that the compound's residents have a highly contagious alien disease that has mutated their DNA to make them powerful, dangerous, and compelled to infect others. If Blake and his daughters do not escape, they will be infected with a virus that will either kill them outright or transform them into outcasts whose very existence is a threat to the world around them. In the following hours, Blake and his daughters each must make a vital choice: risk everything to escape and warn the rest of the world, or accept their new reality -- as well as the uncertain fate of the human race.

Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak

From internationally bestselling author Charlie Jane Anders comes Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak, the sequel to Victories Greater Than Death in the thrilling adventure Unstoppable series, set against an intergalactic war.

They'll do anything to be the people they were meant to be — even journey into the heart of evil.

Rachael Townsend is the first artist ever to leave Earth and journey out into the galaxy — but after an encounter with an alien artifact, she can't make art at all. Elza Monteiro is determined to be the first human to venture inside the Palace of Scented Tears and compete for the chance to become a princess — except that inside the palace, she finds the last person she ever wanted to see again. Tina Mains is studying at the Royal Space Academy with her friends, but she's not the badass space hero everyone was expecting. Soon Rachael is journeying into a dark void, Elza is on a deadly spy mission, and Tina is facing an impossible choice that could change all her friends' lives forever.

Relating Revolution: All It Takes Is One Person To Change

2020

by Kris Kelkar

Do you find painful repeating patterns in your relationships? Do you experience frustrations like old hurts, criticism, complaints, predictability, or boredom? Would you like to learn to alchemize these into honesty, trust, laughter, passion, and play? The majority of people have never been taught how to do relationships. You likely created your relationships using a paradigm where one person wins and the other loses. While this may not show up all of the time, it can create an unconscious tendency to maneuver the other person.

In this book, Relating Revolution: All It Takes is One Person to Change, you will learn a new paradigm called Third Consciousness, which will change how you view all of your relationships. You will:

  • See a bigger picture that holds both your truth and the other person's
  • See your role in repeating patterns of disconnection and what is really going on underneath the “he said, she said”
  • Learn how to break old stuck patterns to access an infinite set of new and magical possibilities
  • Incorporate what you learn into your life through suggested practices and exercises

This applies to more than just romantic partnerships. It works in relationships with friends, family, and even colleagues. Using this book, you can start to transform your relationships into fuel for the MORE in your life.

Whether you want to address a challenging relationship situation; or learn to play the relationship game so both people win; or are just curious to find out what is really possible when relating with others, you are not alone. This book can be your guide.

The Infinite Jeff: A Parable of Change (Part 1)

2019

by Will Holcomb

Stanley, an out of work tech writer, is deeply unsatisfied with the lack of meaning in his life. Of the three places he feels should provide meaning in his life—religion, work, and family—only one gives his life purpose: family.

In PART ONE, his lack of meaning starts to change. Out of desperation to support his family, he takes a short-term contract job on the other side of the country. He cannot afford to fly, so he packs his car for the cross-country journey.

The trip gets strange almost immediately when he reluctantly picks up a hitchhiker who transforms Stanley's religious views by answering questions that have kept religion at arm's length.

Unbound

2017

by Steph Jagger

A young woman follows winter across five continents on a physical and spiritual journey that tests her body and soul, in this transformative memoir, full of heart and courage, that speaks to the adventurousness in all of us.

Steph Jagger had always been a force of nature. Dissatisfied with the passive, limited roles she saw for women growing up, she emulated the men in her life—chasing success, climbing the corporate ladder, ticking the boxes, playing by the rules of a masculine ideal. She was accomplished. She was living The Dream. But it wasn't her dream.

Then the universe caught her attention with a sign: Raise Restraining Device. Steph had seen this ski lift sign on countless occasions in the past, but the familiar words suddenly became a personal call to shake off the life she had built in a search for something different, something more.

Steph soon decided to walk away from the success and security she had worked long and hard to obtain. She quit her job, took a second mortgage on her house, sold everything except her ski equipment and her laptop, and bought a bundle of plane tickets. For the next year, she followed winter across North and South America, Asia, Europe, and New Zealand—and up and down the mountains of nine countries—on a mission to ski four million vertical feet in a year.

What hiking was for Cheryl Strayed, skiing became for Steph: a crucible in which to crack open her life and get to the very center of herself. But she would have to break herself down—first physically, then emotionally—before she could start to rebuild. And it was through this journey that she came to understand how to be a woman, how to love, and how to live authentically.

Electrifying, heartfelt, and full of humor, Unbound is Steph's story—an odyssey of courage and self-discovery that, like Wild and Eat, Pray, Love, will inspire readers to remove their own restraining devices and pursue the life they are meant to lead.

I Am Her...

A sometimes funny, tragically graphic, compelling tale of a woman suffering...

She has no name of her own. She is every name everyone has ever called her. She is nameless. She has a good job, a beautiful home, and a wonderful husband. She is everything she was supposed to be. She has structure and stability, but she is lost.

She is trying. Her whole life is spent trying; yet her whole life has been nothing but an apology. She is so tired of trying and failing.

In just one week, she learns her entire life is a series of brutalities. She learns intense, consuming passion for the first time with a beautiful stranger. She learns love within this passion, and she learns heartbreak while without.

Slowly her breakdown overcomes her. She tries to rise above her circumstances, but when she has nothing left to fight with; she tries to ease the pain forever.

Desperately, she fights her way through the agony of life, and she returns with a gentle hope. She wants to live, and she wants to love, for the first time in her life.

Now, she has a name. Now, she can be 'her'... Any HER that she wants to be.

The Monster in the Hollows

2011

by Andrew Peterson

Book Three of The Wingfeather Saga

Janner Wingfeather's father was the High King of Anniera. But his father is gone. The kingdom has fallen. The royal family is on the run, and the Fang armies of Gnag the Nameless are close behind.

Janner and his family hope to find refuge in the last safe place in the world: the Green Hollows—a land of warriors feared even by Fangs of Dang. But there's a big problem. Janner's little brother—heir to the throne of Anniera—has grown a tail. And gray fur. Not to mention two pointed ears and long, dangerous fangs.

To the suspicious folk of the Green Hollows, he looks like a monster. But Janner knows better. His brother isn't as scary as he looks. He's perfectly harmless. Or is he?

Join the Wingfeathers on an adventure filled with mystery, betrayal, and sneakery in a land of tasty fruits. There's a monster on the loose and the truth lurks in the shadows.

Freedom from the Known

Krishnamurti shows how people can free themselves radically and immediately from the tyranny of the expected, no matter what their age. This book opens the door to transforming society and their relationships.

With witty sarcasm, Krishnamurti discusses the chains in which the present man lives, addressing fears of the known and fears of the unknown. He critiques the readiness to accept the ideological tyranny of religious institutions while rejecting political dictatorship.

Freedom from all the shackles that draw us backward from being a universal citizen is the core topic discussed in this book.

Shadow's Edge

2008

by Brent Weeks

Kylar Stern has rejected the assassin's life. In the wake of the Godking's violent coup, both his master and his closest friend are dead. His friend was Logan Gyre, heir to Cenaria's throne, but few of the ruling class survive to mourn his loss. So Kylar is starting over: new city, new companions, and new profession. But when he learns that Logan might be alive, trapped and in hiding, Kylar faces an impossible choice. He could give up the way of shadows forever, and find peace with his young family. Or Kylar could succumb to his flair for destruction, the years of training, to save his friend and his country - and lose all he holds precious.

Cloud Atlas

2004

by David Mitchell

Cloud Atlas, authored by David Mitchell, is a visionary novel that combines elements of adventure, mystery, and philosophical speculation. The narrative begins in 1850 with Adam Ewing, an American notary traveling from the Chatham Isles to California. During his journey, he becomes acquainted with Dr. Goose, who treats him for a rare brain parasite.

The story then leaps to Belgium in 1931, where we meet Robert Frobisher, a disinherited composer who finds himself in the household of an ailing maestro. The narrative continues to shift, taking us to the West Coast in the 1970s with Luisa Rey, a reporter uncovering a conspiracy, and then to various other settings including a near-future Korean superstate and a post-apocalyptic Hawaii.

The unique structure of Cloud Atlas sees the narrative fold back on itself, with characters' fates intertwining across time and space. It's a novel that questions the nature of reality and identity, and how our actions reverberate through history. Mitchell's work is as playful as it is profound, earning it the status of a modern classic and a worldwide phenomenon.

Slaughterhouse-Five

Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic and one of the world's great antiwar books, centers on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden. Kurt Vonnegut Jr. describes the novel as a result of a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he had witnessed as an American prisoner of war. The novel combines elements of historical fiction, science fiction, autobiography, and satire in the life story of Billy Pilgrim.

Billy, a barber's son turned draftee turned optometrist turned alien abductee, experiences the destruction of Dresden as a POW. Unlike Vonnegut, he also experiences time travel, or coming "unstuck in time." An instant bestseller, Slaughterhouse-Five established Kurt Vonnegut Jr. as a cult hero in American literature, a status that has only strengthened over time despite censorship challenges. The novel's political edginess, genre-bending inventiveness, frank violence, and transgressive wit have inspired generations of readers to see the world differently and speak out.

More than fifty years after its initial publication during the Vietnam War, Vonnegut's portrayal of political disillusionment, PTSD, and postwar anxiety remains darkly humorous and profoundly affecting, serving as an enduring beacon through our own era's uncertainties.

The Street Lawyer

1998

by John Grisham

Michael was in a hurry. He was scrambling up the ladder at Drake & Sweeney, a giant D.C. law firm with eight hundred lawyers. The money was good and getting better; a partnership was three years away. He was a rising star with no time to waste, no time to stop, no time to toss a few coins into the cups of panhandlers. No time for a conscience.But a violent encounter with a homeless man stopped him cold. Michael survived; his assailant did not. Who was this man? Michael did some digging, and learned that he was a mentally ill veteran who'd been in and out of shelters for many years. Then Michael dug a little deeper, and found a dirty secret, and the secret involved Drake & Sweeney.The fast track derailed; the ladder collapsed. Michael bolted the firm and took a top-secret file with him. He landed in the streets, an advocate for the homeless, a street lawyer.And a thief.

The Magician's Assistant

1997

by Ann Patchett

Sabine—twenty years a magician's assistant to her handsome, charming husband—is suddenly a widow. In the wake of his death, she finds he has left a final trick; a false identity and a family allegedly lost in a tragic accident but now revealed as very much alive and well. Named as heirs in his will, they enter Sabine's life and set her on an adventure of unraveling his secrets, from sunny Los Angeles to the windswept plains of Nebraska, that will work its own sort of magic on her.

From the bestselling author of The Dutch House, this enchanting book is something of a magic trick in itself. Sabine's extraordinary tale, with its big dreams, vast spaces, and disparate realities lying side by side, captures the hearts of its readers and proves to be the perfect place for miraculous transformations.

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