Wild Thorns

In this tense modern literary classic, acclaimed Palestinian author Sahar Khalifeh depicts the humiliation, bitter resignation and determined resistance of Palestinians under Israeli military occupation. First published in 1976, Wild Thorns was the first Arab novel to offer a glimpse of everyday life under Israeli occupation. With uncompromising honesty, Khalifeh pleads elegantly for survival in the face of oppression.

An enchanting, lyrical novel from the acclaimed author of The Light Between Worlds. When her father is convicted of treason, Violet is exiled from her beloved ancestral home, Burleigh House. One of the six great estates of England, its magic once kept her well - enchantment in its bricks and mortar providing secret hiding places, even lighting fires on the coldest nights. However, on her return Violet discovers that the place has gone wild with grief. Vines and briars are crumbling the walls. Magic that once fed the land has turned dark and deadly, twisting blooms into thorns, poisoning livestock and destroying crops. Now Violet must decide if her destiny is set in stone, and how far she will go to save Burleigh - before it destroys everything ... including the boy she loves.

What if all the Palestinians in Israel simply disappeared one day? What would happen next? How would Israelis react? These unsettling questions are posed in Azem’s powerfully imaginative novel. Set in contemporary Tel Aviv forty eight hours after Israelis discover all their Palestinian neighbors have vanished, the story unfolds through alternating narrators, Alaa, a young Palestinian man who converses with his dead grandmother in the journal he left behind when he disappeared, and his Jewish neighbor, Ariel, a journalist struggling to understand the traumatic event. Through these perspectives, the novel stages a confrontation between two memories. Ariel is a liberal Zionist who is critical of the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, but nevertheless believes in Israel’s project and its national myth. Alaa is haunted by his grandmother’s memories of being displaced from Jaffa and becoming a refugee in her homeland. Ariel’s search for clues to the secret of the collective disappearance and his reaction to it intimately reveal the fissures at the heart of the Palestinian question. The Book of Disappearance grapples with both the memory of loss and the loss of memory for the Palestinians. Presenting a narrative that is often marginalized, Antoon’s translation of the critically acclaimed Arabic novel invites English readers into the complex lives of Palestinians living in Israel.

In a landscape at once the brutal American South as it is the brutal mind, Boy with Thorn interrogates the genesis of all poetic creation—the imagination itself, questioning what role it plays in both our fascinations with and repulsion from a national history of racial and sexual violence. The personal and political crash into one language here, gothic as it is supple, meditating on visual art and myth, to desire, the practice of lynching and Hurricane Katrina. Always at its center, though, is the poet himself—confessing a double song of pleasure and inevitable pain.

BOOK ONE IN THE BROKEN EMPIRE TRILOGY “Prince of Thorns deserves attention as the work of an iconoclast who seems determined to turn that familiar thing, Medievalesque Fantasy Trilogy, entirely on its head.”—Locus When he was nine, he watched as his mother and brother were killed before him. By the time he was thirteen, he was the leader of a band of bloodthirsty thugs. By fifteen, he intends to be king... It’s time for Prince Honorous Jorg Ancrath to return to the castle he turned his back on, to take what’s rightfully his. Since the day he hung pinned on the thorns of a briar patch and watched Count Renar’s men slaughter his mother and young brother, Jorg has been driven to vent his rage. Life and death are no more than a game to him—and he has nothing left to lose. But treachery awaits him in his father’s castle. Treachery and dark magic. No matter how fierce his will, can one young man conquer enemies with power beyond his imagining?

"The thrill ... will keep readers flipping pages well past the point where they probably should have gone to bed." - Stephani Hren for IndieReader Laurence Riley might be able to see the future, but he can't see a way to fix his messed-up life. He can't control anything—not his supernatural talents, not his drug addiction, and not his violent ex-boyfriend. Laurence needs help and he knows it. A lifelong pagan, he turns to his god... and he gets Jack. Jack can help Laurence tame his powers and take control of his life. But it comes at a price: Laurence will need to keep him fed with regular offerings of sex. For the old Laurence, that would've been a pleasure. Problem is, Laurence has met Quentin. Quentin is devastatingly handsome, way out of Laurence's league (like British nobility levels of out-of-his-league), and unbearably chaste. If that weren’t enough to keep Laurence away, Quentin's wild telekinesis is even more uncontrollable than Laurence's precognition. But Laurence doesn't want anyone else, and Jack is getting hungry. Then Laurence foresees a glimpse of Jack's true plan. It will leave a trail of death across San Diego--and Laurence has been helping him do it. The past has taught him that the future can't be changed. But if Laurence and Quentin can't stop Jack, there won't be any future at all. Jack of Thorns is the first book in a dark urban fantasy series where X-Men meets The Magicians. "Striking prose and characters make this opening fantasy installment worthwhile." - Kirkus Reviews "AK Faulkner thrusts together two deliciously flawed main characters ... then weaves an empowering plot of destiny, inheritance, and self-improvement—all while letting the reader languor in the glow of a glorious slow burn romance." - Indie Reader "Mixing the paranormal with the deeply personal, A.K. Faulkner has delivered a bold debut novel with Jack of Thorns in what stacks up to be a thrilling new series." - Self Publishing Review

One of the most beloved novels of all time, Colleen McCullough's magnificent saga of dreams, struggles, dark passions, and forbidden love in the Australian outback has enthralled readers the world over. The Thorn Birds is a chronicle of three generations of Clearys—an indomitable clan of ranchers carving lives from a beautiful, hard land while contending with the bitterness, frailty, and secrets that penetrate their family. It is a poignant love story, a powerful epic of struggle and sacrifice, a celebration of individuality and spirit. Most of all, it is the story of the Clearys' only daughter, Meggie, and the haunted priest, Father Ralph de Bricassart—and the intense joining of two hearts and souls over a lifetime, a relationship that dangerously oversteps sacred boundaries of ethics and dogma.

A New York Times bestseller! “A bewitching gem...I absolutely loved every moment of this story.” —Stephanie Garber, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Caraval series “If you loved the Hogwarts Library…you’ll be right at home at Summershall.” —Katherine Arden, New York Times bestselling author of The Bear and the Nightingale From the New York Times bestselling author of An Enchantment of Ravens comes an “enthralling adventure” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) about an apprentice at a magical library who must battle a powerful sorcerer to save her kingdom. All sorcerers are evil. Elisabeth has known that as long as she has known anything. Raised as a foundling in one of Austermeer’s Great Libraries, Elisabeth has grown up among the tools of sorcery—magical grimoires that whisper on shelves and rattle beneath iron chains. If provoked, they transform into grotesque monsters of ink and leather. Then an act of sabotage releases the library’s most dangerous grimoire, and Elisabeth is implicated in the crime. With no one to turn to but her sworn enemy, the sorcerer Nathaniel Thorn, and his mysterious demonic servant, she finds herself entangled in a centuries-old conspiracy. Not only could the Great Libraries go up in flames, but the world along with them. As her alliance with Nathaniel grows stronger, Elisabeth starts to question everything she’s been taught—about sorcerers, about the libraries she loves, even about herself. For Elisabeth has a power she has never guessed, and a future she could never have imagined.

One afternoon, Sheikh Abdelmajid Boularwah embarks upon a journey in search of distant relatives. His immediate family are ruthless, rich and collaborate with colonial authorities. He hopes his long-lost relatives, who are unknown to the new Communist government, might be better placed to help him defraud it. Through a labyrinth of back alleys and memories, Boularwah makes his way from Algiers across the seven bridges of Constantine, battling the forces of a rapidly changing society while confronting the demons of his own past. The Earthquake offers a surrealist vision of post-colonial Algeria — a society in chaos, a world turned upside down. Written in the early 1970s, this classic work by pioneering novelist Tahir Wattar presciently foretells the dreadful events which would later besiege his country.