Explore the latest books of this year!
Bookbot

Albert Witteveen

    The Earthquake Bird
    Twelve steps to a compassionate life
    Fatal Purity
    Thing Explainer
    Desert Flower
    Second World War
    • Thing Explainer

      Complicated stuff in simple words

      Simplified Chinese translation of Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words by Randall Munroe.

      Thing Explainer2015
      4.2
    • Second World War

      • 880 pages
      • 31 hours of reading

      The Second World War began in August 1939 on the edge of Manchuria and ended there exactly six years later with the Soviet invasion of northern China. The war in Europe appeared completely divorced from the war in the Pacific and China, and yet events on opposite sides of the world had profound effects. Using the most up-to-date scholarship and research, Beevor assembles the whole picture in a gripping narrative that extends from the North Atlantic to the South Pacific and from the snowbound steppe to the North African Desert. Although filling the broadest canvas on a heroic scale, Beevor's THE SECOND WORLD WAR never loses sight of the fate of the ordinary soldiers and civilians whose lives were crushed by the titanic forces unleashed in this, the most terrible war in history.

      Second World War2012
      4.6
    • The award-winning author of A History of God shares practical recommendations for promoting world peace by cultivating one's intrinsic tendencies for compassion, outlining a program for achieving mindfulness and engaging in acts of kindness.

      Twelve steps to a compassionate life2010
      3.9
    • Fatal Purity

      • 400 pages
      • 14 hours of reading

      Robespierre was only thirty-six when he died, sent to the guillotine where he had sent thousands ahead of him.

      Fatal Purity2006
      3.8
    • Natasha and Other Stories

      • 176 pages
      • 7 hours of reading

      One of the most anticipated international debuts of 2004, DavidBezmozgis’s Natasha and Other Stories lives up to its buzz withnumerous award distinctions and a sheaf of praise from reviewers and readers.These are stories that capture the immigrant experience with wit and deepsympathy, recalling the early work of Bernard Malamud and Philip Roth. Anexquisitely crafted collection from a gifted young writer.

      Natasha and Other Stories2004
      3.5
    • Desert Flower

      • 369 pages
      • 13 hours of reading

      Waris Dirie (the name means desert flower) lives a double life - by day she is a famous model and UN spokeswoman on women's rights in Africa, at night she dreams of her native Somalia. Waris, one of 12 children, was born into a traditional family of desert nomads in East Africa. She remembers her early childhood as carefree- racing camels and moving on with her family to the next grazing spot - until it came her turn to meet the old woman who administered the ancient custom imposed on most Somalian girls: circumcision. Waris suffered this torture when she was just five years old. Then, aged 12, when her father attempted to arrange a marriage with a 60 year old stranger in exchange for five camels - she took flight. After an extraordinary escape through the dangerous desert she made her way to London and worked as a maid for the Somalian ambassador until that family returned home. Penniless and speaking little English, she became a janitor in McDonalds where she was famously discovered by a fashion photographer. Her story is a truly inspirational and extraordinary self-portrait of a remarkable woman whose spirit is as breathtaking as her beauty.

      Desert Flower2003
      4.2
    • The Earthquake Bird

      • 211 pages
      • 8 hours of reading

      Early this morning, several hours before my arrest, I was woken by an earth tremor. I mention the incident not to suggest that there was a connection - that somehow the fault lines in my life came crashing together in a form of a couple of policemen - for in Tokyo we have a quake like this every month. I am simply relating the sequence of events as it happened. It has been an unusual day and I would hate to forget anything . . . So begins The Earthquake Bird, a haunting novel set in Japan which reveals a murder on its first page and takes its readers into the mind of the chief suspect, Lucy Fly - a young, vulnerable English girl living and working in Tokyo as a translator. As Lucy is interrogated by the police she reveals her past to the reader, and it is a past which is dangerously ambiguous and compromising . . .Why did Lucy leave England for the foreign anonymity of Japan ten years before, and what exactly had prompted her to sever all links with her family back home? She was the last person to see the murdered girl alive, so why was she not more forthcoming about the circumstances of their last meeting? As Lucy's story unfolds, it emerges that secrets, both past and present, obsess her waking life . . .

      The Earthquake Bird2001
      3.1
    • Prague with Local Tips

      • 116 pages
      • 5 hours of reading

      This guide includes an integrated road atlas with index, plus area and city maps. Local tips are highlighted in yellow, covering hotels, restaurants and places to visit. Travel tips are cross-referenced to the atlas.

      Prague with Local Tips1999
    • Bombay Ice

      • 404 pages
      • 15 hours of reading

      Rosalind Bengal arrives in Bombay on the eve of the monsoon to find her family embroiled in a suspicious situation involving the Bombay movie industry and a series of murders of the community's transgenderprostitutes.

      Bombay Ice1998
      2.6