Norman Gobetti Kolejność książek (chronologicznie)

A spellbinding, globe-trotting novel by the bestselling author of the Ibis trilogy

In a country teetering on the brink of civil war, two young people meet--sensual, fiercely independent Nadia and gentle, restrained Saeed. They embark on a furtive love affair, thrust into premature intimacy by the unrest roiling their city. When it explodes, turning familiar streets into a patchwork of checkpoints and bomb blasts, they begin to hear whispers about doors--doors that can whisk people far away, if perilously and for a price. As violence and the threat of violence escalate, Nadia and Saeed decide that they no longer have a choice. Leaving their homeland and their old lives behind, they find a door and step through.

It is 1839 and tension has been rapidly mounting between China and British India following the crackdown on opium smuggling by Beijing. With no resolution in sight, the colonial government declares war. One of the vessels requisitioned for the attack, the Hind, travels eastwards from Bengal to China, sailing into the midst of the First Opium War. The turbulent voyage brings together a diverse group of travellers, each with their own agenda to pursue. Among them is Kesri Singh, a sepoy in the East India Company who leads a company of Indian sepoys; Zachary Reid, an impoverished young sailor searching for his lost love, and Shireen Modi, a determined widow en route to China to reclaim her opium-trader husband's wealth and reputation. Flood of Fire follows a varied cast of characters from India to China, through the outbreak of the First Opium War and China's devastating defeat, to Britain's seizure of Hong Kong.

„W moim pokoju jest świat”, mówi Judyta McPherson, osierocona przez matkę 10-letnia narratorka powieści. „Zrobiony jest z rzeczy, których nikt nie chciał, i z rzeczy, które należały do mojej mamy, i które mi zostawiła”. Świat jest miniaturową repliką krainy mlekiem i miodem płynącej, w której nastanie po Armagedonie Judyta wierzy. Dziewczynka spędza w swoim pokoju całe dnie, ograniczona przez religijny fundamentalizm ojca, który zakazuje jej uczestniczyć w szkolnych imprezach i spędzać czas w niezbyt dobranym towarzystwie członków jej kościelnej grupy. Dla Judyty wszystko to mieści się w granicach normalności. Dopiero kiedy staje się celem ataków klasowego tyrana, nadciągający nieuchronnie Koniec zaczyna traktować osobiście i lękać się go naprawdę.

In September 1838, a storm blows up on the Indian Ocean and the Ibis, a ship carrying a consignment of convicts and indentured laborers from Calcutta to Mauritius, is caught up in the whirlwind. River of Smoke follows its storm-tossed characters to the crowded harbors of China. There, despite efforts of the emperor to stop them, ships from Europe and India exchange their cargoes of opium for boxes tea, silk, porcelain and silver. Among them are Bahram Modi, a wealthy Parsi opium merchant out of Bombay, his estranged half-Chinese son Ah Fatt, the orphaned Paulette and a motley collection of others whose pursuit of romance, riches and a legendary rare flower have thrown together. All struggle to cope with their losses—and for some, unimaginable freedoms—in the alleys and crowded waterways of 19th-century Canton.

Take us off the Earth and what traces of us would linger? Weisman writes about which objects from today would vanish without us; how our pipes, wires, and cables would be pulverized into a line of red rock, and why some museums and churches might be the last human creations left standing.

In the second year of the Korean War, a butcher's son flees Newark because of his father's increasingly unhinged fears for his safety. Heading to the Midwest, he finds a strange collegiate land of fraternities, football heroes, V-neck pullover sweaters and white buckskin shoes, mandatory chapel services, and, most startlingly, a young woman with desires of her own

Balram Halwai is a complicated man. Servant. Philosopher. Entrepreneur. Murderer. Over the course of seven nights, by the scattered light of a preposterous chandelier, Balram tells the terrible and transfixing story of how he came to be a success in life--having nothing but his own wits to help him along.