Since we opt to not email numerous times a month, this email is longer than what will fit in your email client. We recommend opening this in your browser so that you can see the various new options available. This week includes tour options in Buenos Aires, eight new books in our bookstore, and 14 recently released New Nonprofit Basics webinar recordings. To enroll in our New Nonprofit Basics Courses, click the link below:
Wrapping up Argentina
Our family has spent the last 10 months in Argentina. Primarily in Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata. We recently returned to Buenos Aires to participate in the Tango Singer Tour. Now, we prepare for our next adventure in Asia. The Memoirs of a Geisha tour in Kyoto, Japan is in April and the Human Acts Tour in Seoul, South Korea is May.
Have you always wanted to visit Buenos Aires? Do you love Tango, steak, and Malbec? We have just completed the first Stories Alive! tour this past week in the beautiful city of Buenos Aires. Want to travel to Buenos Aires and create your own itinerary? We have other suggestions that you can choose from.
Bookstore
We have recently launched our bookstore that includes the books from our tours as well as additional international books worthy of the acclaim they have received.
Books are purchased through Bookshop.org - supporting your local bookstores.
Troll: A Love Story
“Winner of the Finlandia Award, Troll: A Love Story is an enchanting novel that has become an international sensation. Angel, a young photographer, comes home from a night of carousing to find a group of drunken teenagers in the courtyard of his apartment building, taunting a wounded, helpless young troll. He takes it in, not suspecting the dramatic consequences of this decision. What does one do with a troll in the city? As the troll's presence influences Angel's life in ways he could never have predicted, it becomes clear that the creature is the familiar of man's most forbidden feelings. A novel of sparkling originality, Troll is a wry, beguiling story of nature and man's relationship to wild things, and of the dark power of the wildness in ourselves. “
Honeybees and Distant Thunder
“In a small coastal town just a stone's throw from Tokyo, a prestigious piano competition is underway. Over the course of two feverish weeks, three students will experience some of the most joyous--and painful--moments of their lives. Though they don't know it yet, each will profoundly and unpredictably change the others, for ever.
Aya was a child prodigy who abruptly gave up performing after the death of her mother, and is now trying for a comeback; Masaru, a childhood friend of Aya who came to the piano through her insistence that he learn to play, is now reunited with her after many years, and is equally invested in both his and her success; Akashi, who is older and married, works in a music store and is the "old man" of the competitors, hoping for a final chance at success; and Jin, a sixteen-year-old prodigy, the free spirited son of a beekeeper who travels constantly, and has no formal training (and doesn't even own a piano) yet whose mesmerizing insight into music has brought him to the attention of one of the world's most celebrated pianists, the late Maestro Von Hoffman.
Each of them will break the rules, awe their fans and push themselves to the brink. But at what cost?
Beloved in Japan, Riku Onda immerses us in the world of music--from piano masterpieces to the buzz of bees and the rumble of thunder--which crescendos to a surprising ending in this rich and vibrant novel.”
The Book of Fire
“In present-day Greece, deep in an ancient forest, lives a family: Irini, a musician, who teaches children to read and play music; her husband, Tasso, who paints pictures of the forest, his greatest muse; and Chara, their young daughter, whose name means joy. On the fateful day that will forever alter the trajectory of their lives, flames chase fleeing birds across the sky. The wildfire that will consume their home, and their lives as they know it, races toward them.
Months later, as the village tries to rebuild, Irini stumbles upon the man who started the fire, a land speculator who had intended only a small, controlled burn to clear forestland to build on but instead ignited a catastrophe. He is dying, although the cause is unclear, and in her anger at all he took from them, Irini makes a split-second decision that will haunt her.
As the local police investigate the suspicious death, Tasso mourns his father, who has not been seen since before the fire. Tasso's hands were burnt in the flames, leaving him unable to paint, and he struggles to cope with the overwhelming loss of his artistic voice and his beloved forest. Only his young daughter, who wants to repair the damage that's been done, gives him hope for the future.
Gorgeously written, sweeping in scope and intimate in tone, The Book of Fire is a masterful work about the search for meaning in the wake of tragedy, as well as the universal ties that bind people together, and to the land that they call home.”
A Shining
“A man starts driving without knowing where he is going. He alternates between turning right and left, and ultimately finds himself stuck at the end of a forest road. It soon grows dark and begins to snow. But instead of searching for help, he ventures, foolishly, into the dark forest. Inevitably, the man gets lost, and as he grows cold and tired, he encounters a glowing being amid the obscurity. Strange, haunting and dreamlike, A Shining is the latest work of fiction by National Book Award-finalist Jon Fosse, "the Beckett of the twenty-first century" (Le Monde).”
The Storm We Made
“Malaya, 1945. Cecily Alcantara's family is in terrible danger: her fifteen-year-old son, Abel, has disappeared, and her youngest daughter, Jasmin, is confined in a basement to prevent being pressed into service at the comfort stations. Her eldest daughter Jujube, who works at a tea house frequented by drunk Japanese soldiers, becomes angrier by the day.
Cecily knows two things: that this is all her fault; and that her family must never learn the truth.
A decade prior, Cecily had been desperate to be more than a housewife to a low-level bureaucrat in British-colonized Malaya. A chance meeting with the charismatic General Fuijwara lured her into a life of espionage, pursuing dreams of an "Asia for Asians." Instead, Cecily helped usher in an even more brutal occupation by the Japanese. Ten years later as the war reaches its apex, her actions have caught up with her. Now her family is on the brink of destruction--and she will do anything to save them.
Spanning years of pain and triumph, told from the perspectives of four unforgettable characters, The Storm We Made is a dazzling saga about the horrors of war; the fraught relationships between the colonized and their oppressors, and the ambiguity of right and wrong when survival is at stake.”
The Stranger
“"The Stranger" is a novel by Albert Camus that centers around the character of Meursault, a detached and apathetic Algerian man residing in French Algiers. The narrative opens with the news of Meursault's mother's death, and the story unfolds as Meursault navigates the aftermath of this event. Throughout the novel, Meursault exhibits a dispassionate and detached demeanor, seeming unaffected by societal norms and expectations, which ultimately leads to his alienation from those around him.
The novel takes a thought-provoking turn when Meursault becomes involved in a violent and senseless act, further complicating his disengaged and detached outlook on life. As the story unfolds, Meursault's trial and the subsequent examination of his character prompt a deeper exploration of existential themes, including the nature of truth, the absurdity of life, and the human struggle for meaning.
Through Meursault's introspective narration, Camus offers an unflinching portrayal of the human condition, challenging readers to confront the inherent absurdity and indifference of existence. "The Stranger" remains a timeless and compelling work that continues to provoke philosophical contemplation and critical examination of the complexities of human experience.
With the intrigue of a psychological thriller, The Stranger--Camus's masterpiece--gives us the story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on an Algerian beach. With an Introduction by Peter Dunwoodie; translated by Matthew Ward.
Behind the subterfuge, Camus explores what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd" and describes the condition of reckless alienation and spiritual exhaustion that characterized so much of twentieth-century life.
"The Stranger is a strikingly modern text and Matthew Ward's translation will enable readers to appreciate why Camus's stoical anti-hero and devious narrator remains one of the key expressions of a postwar Western malaise, and one of the cleverest exponents of a literature of ambiguity." --from the Introduction by Peter Dunwoodie
First published in 1946; now in translation by Matthew Ward.”
How to Stand Up to a Dictator
“From the recipient of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, an impassioned and inspiring memoir of a career spent holding power to account, with an introduction by Amal Clooney
Maria Ressa is one of the most renowned international journalists of our time. For decades, she challenged corruption and malfeasance in her native country, the Philippines, on its rocky path from an authoritarian state to a democracy. As a reporter from CNN, she transformed news coverage in her region, which led her in 2012 to create a new and innovative online news organization, Rappler. Harnessing the emerging power of social media, Rappler crowdsourced breaking news, found pivotal sources and tips, harnessed collective action for climate change, and helped increase voter knowledge and participation in elections.
But by their fifth year of existence, Rappler had gone from being lauded for its ideas to being targeted by the new Philippine government, and made Ressa an enemy of her country's most powerful man: President Duterte. Still, she did not let up, tracking government seeded disinformation networks which spread lies to its own citizens laced with anger and hate. Hounded by the state and its allies using the legal system to silence her, accused of numerous crimes, and charged with cyberlibel for which she was found guilty, Ressa faces years in prison and thousands in fines.
There is another adversary Ressa is battling. How to Stand Up to a Dictator is also the story of how the creep towards authoritarianism, in the Phillipines and around the world, has been aided and abetted by the social media companies. Ressa exposes how they have allowed their platforms to spread a virus of lies that infect each of us, pitting us against one another, igniting, even creating, our fears, anger, and hate, and how this has accelerated the rise of authoritarians and dictators around the world. She maps a network of disinformation--a heinous web of cause and effect--that has netted the globe: from Duterte's drug wars to America's Capitol Hill; Britain's Brexit to Russian and Chinese cyber-warfare; Facebook and Silicon Valley to our own clicks and votes.
Democracy is fragile. How to Stand Up to a Dictator is an urgent cry for Western readers to recognize and understand the dangers to our freedoms before it is too late. It is a book for anyone who might take democracy for granted, written by someone who never would. And in telling her dramatic and turbulent and courageous story, Ressa forces readers to ask themselves the same question she and her colleagues ask every day: What are you willing to sacrifice for the truth?”
Prophet Song
“WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2023 - NATIONAL BESTSELLER
On a dark, wet evening in Dublin, scientist and mother-of-four Eilish Stack answers her front door to find two officers from Ireland's newly formed secret police on her step. They have arrived to interrogate her husband, a trade unionist.
Ireland is falling apart, caught in the grip of a government turning towards tyranny. As the life she knows and the ones she loves disappear before her eyes, Eilish must contend with the dystopian logic of her new, unraveling country. How far will she go to save her family? And what--or who--is she willing to leave behind?
The winner of the Booker Prize 2023, Prophet Song presents a terrifying and shocking vision of a country sliding into authoritarianism and a deeply human portrait of a mother's fight to hold her family together.”
Stories Alive! Tours
Human Acts - Seoul, South Korea
Memoires of a Geisha - Kyoto, Japan
Time Shelter - Switzerland
Tango Singer - Buenos Aires, Argentina - COMPLETE
Dracula - Hungary & Romania
A Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888-1889 - Vienna, Austria
Travel
Your Guide to Elena Ferrante's Naples, Italy
Culture
Health
Food
Nonprofit Basics
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