Résultats lu par "Deidre Rubenstein" dans Toutes les catégories

Born in Australia in a Jewish enclave of Melbourne to Holocaust survivors, Dina left behind a childhood marred by misery and the tragedies of the past to build a new life for herself in the Promised Land. After starting a family of her own, she finds her life falling apart beneath the demands of her eccentric patients, a marriage starting to fray, the ever-present threat of terrorist attack and the ghost of her mother, haunting her with memories that Dina would prefer to leave on the other side of the world.

In the tradition of Paullina Simons comes an unforgettable story of a mother and daughter from a remarkable new writer. Beginning in a small village under Japanese occupation on the Chinese-Russian border in the final days of World War II, White Gardenia tells the story of a Russian mother and daughter separated by war.

Bondi Junction in the late 1940s is a microcosm of changing Australia, and life is changing too fast for locals like salt-of-the-earth Pop Wilson, prickly Miss McNulty and feisty single mum Kath, all of whom resent the European ‘reffos’ who have moved in. The newcomers are struggling to rebuild their lives while the unhealed wounds of the past threaten to overwhelm them.

A novel about connections in a changing world of friends, lovers, family, illness, and death, this unique narrative tells the story of Marie King - a 59-year-old divorcée from Sydney’s affluent north shore. Having devoted her rather conventional life to looking after her husband and three children, Marie is experiencing an identity crisis. Forced to sell the family home now that her children have moved out, Marie expresses herself by getting a tattoo and, consequently, forges a friendship with tattoo artist Rhys.

For 44 years Stella Templeton has been a dutiful daughter and a good citizen living in Maidenville, population 2,800, a town where nothing happens. Until one hot summer afternoon...An ugly act has lifted the respectable skirts of Maidenville and mystery starts to surround the daughter of the local minister. Then the disappearance of a 16-year-old-boy adds to the neighbourhood's confusion. Does something sinister lurk behind the neatly trimmed hedges and white picket fences that divide this sleepy town?

Ann Burton was born on a river bank the night her father tried to burn their house down. Six years later, her sister, Liza, disappears while they are staying at their uncle's property. What Ann sees that day robs her of her memory and her speech. Ann escapes her anguished childhood, finding love and a new life away from Mallawindy. But there is no escape from the Burton family and its dark secrets. Ann must return to Mallawindy and confront the past if she is ever to be free.

Edith and Frances, living with their mother on a tiny farm in the south-east of Australia, are visited by their cousin Leopold and his Armenian friend Aram. The two young men are taking the long way home after working on an archaeological dig in Iraq. It is 1937. The modern world they say, is waiting to erupt. Among the tales they tell is the story of Gilgamesh, the legendary king of Uruk, in ancient Mesopotamia.

Hetty’s family was torn apart following the German invasion of the Netherlands. Rounded up by the Nazis and then separated from their parents, Hetty and her brothers were sent to the Children’s House, within Belsen concentration camp. As one of the eldest, Hetty became the ‘Little Mother’, helping to care for not only her siblings, but the other children as well.In a direct and powerful style, Hetty recalls one of the remarkable, largely untold stories of the Holocaust – the extraordinary struggle and survival of this group of children through those terrible years.

Examining Judaism as a religion, philosophy, and lifestyle, this authoritative introduction asks what it means to be a Jew today. From the nature of God to worship and everyday life, Dan and Lavinia Cohn-Sherbok address the topics essential to an informed understanding of the beliefs, values, and enduring traditions of this highly influential religion.

The mysterious art of magic has been a source of wonderment since before the time of Christ. Ranging from the supernatural practices of "black" magic to demonstrations of dazzling illusion, magic has been called on to conjure the evil eye, burn villages to the ground, and slice women in half. From the astrology of the three wise men to David Blaine's "stunts", Robert Ralley delves into this magical underworld and illuminates the dangerous balance between illusion, fraud, and wickedness that still exists today.

The Enlightenment has been nothing if not divisive, being blamed for bloody disasters - Auschwitz, the gulags, Islamic terrorism - as well as being heralded as the harbinger of reason and equality. To this day historians disagree over when it was, where it was, and what it was. Kieron O’Hara deftly traverses these conflicts, presenting the history, ideology, culture, and social life of the Enlightenment, not as a simple set of easily enumerated ideas, but rather as an evolving conglomerate that spawned a diverse set of thinkers.

In August 1948, 545 passengers boarded an overcrowded, clapped-out vessel in Marseilles to face an uncertain future in Australia and New Zealand. They came from displaced persons camps in Germany, death camps in Poland, labour camps in Hungary, gulags in Siberia, and stony Agean islands. There were those who had been hunted by the Nazis and those who had welcomed them; those who had followed the Communists and those who had fled them.

Early one Sunday, the town of Molliston wakes to the news that a young bride is dead. The year is 1929. The Great War with Germany has been fought and won, but at an immense cost to the small community. Death is too familiar here. So many sons were lost. So many daughters would never be wives; so many grandchildren would never be born. Racial hatred is like a bushfire in the belly of some. And the dead girl is found only yards from the property of old Joe Reichenberg, a German..

It is Warsaw, 1939, and Elzunia is an indulged teenager who longs for a heroic life filled with romance. But the outbreak of war shatters all her dreams. As bombs fall, she meets Adam, a taciturn airman whose fate becomes entwined with hers. In despair over the occupation, Adam joins the Polish resistance, then flies bombers for the RAF.

A story of courage, unconventionality and lust for life. Vera Wasowski was just seven years old when German soldiers marched her family into the Lvov Jewish ghetto in Poland. She watched her father take his own life and her mother accede to sexual blackmail in order to ensure her and Vera’s survival. With unsparing honesty and the blackest humour, she recalls a world where the desire to survive was everything.

Isaac Asimov said that "whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse." Such quandaries are the bread and butter of philosophy of religion. Questioning why evil exists, whether God could create a stone he couldn't lift, and if the wonder of life suggests a Creator, this fascinating branch of philosophy is concerned with arguments for and against religion, and what form an immortal god (or gods) would take if in existence. Charles Taliaferro provides a clear exploration of the discipline, introducing a wide range of philosophers.

Lori Smyth-Owen isn't your average teenager - as you'd expect from the only girl in a family of 12. Or they were a family, until their father took his own life to escape his bed-bound wife, too obese to leave her room. But for Lori and the remaining brothers, there is no escape from their volatile, mentally unstable mother. They raise themselves away from the gaze of the authorities, realising that though abandoned, they are now in charge. They can control everything, including their mother's food intake.

It’s the swinging '60s, Sydney. Post-war Australia is booming and the excitement of the city lures two young women, Rose and Margot, eager for adventure in these rapidly changing times. They meet through work at David Jones, the iconic department store, and country-girl Rose is in awe of beautiful, worldly Margot, who makes it clear she’s determined to catch herself a wealthy husband. At a coffee bar in cosmopolitan Kings Cross, they encounter two debonair Europeans, Stefan and Josef, former Polish army officers seeking to rebuild their lives.