Once upon a time

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy The Ministry of Utmost Happiness transports us across a subcontinent on a journey of many years. It takes us deep into the lives of its gloriously rendered characters, each of them in search of a place of safety - in search of meaning, and of love. In a graveyard outside the walls of Old Delhi, a resident unrolls a threadbare Persian carpet. On a concrete sidewalk, a baby suddenly appears, just after midnight. In a snowy valle...y, a bereaved father writes a letter to his five-year-old daughter about the people who came to her funeral. In a second-floor apartment, a lone woman chain-smokes as she reads through her old notebooks. At the Jannat Guest House, two people who have known each other all their lives sleep with their arms wrapped around each other, as though they have just met. A braided narrative of astonishing force and originality, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness is at once a love story and a provocation-a novel as inventive as it is emotionally engaging. It is told with a whisper, in a shout, through joyous tears and sometimes with a bitter laugh. Its heroes, both present and departed, have been broken by the world we live in-and then mended by love. For this reason, they will never surrender. How to tell a shattered story? By slowly becoming everybody. No. By slowly becoming everything. Humane and sensuous, beautifully told, this extraordinary novel demonstrates on every page the miracle of Arundhati Roy's storytelling gifts.

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan How can we make intelligent decisions about our increasingly technology-driven lives if we don't understand the difference between the myths of pseudoscience and the testable hypotheses of science? Pulitzer Prize-winning author and distinguished astronomer Carl Sagan argues that scientific thinking is critical not only to the pursuit of truth but to the very well-being of our democratic institutions. Casti...ng a wide net through history and culture, Sagan examines and authoritatively debunks such celebrated fallacies of the past as witchcraft, faith healing, demons, and UFOs. And yet, disturbingly, in today's so-called information age, pseudoscience is burgeoning with stories of alien abduction, channeling past lives, and communal hallucinations commanding growing attention and respect. As Sagan demonstrates with lucid eloquence, the siren song of unreason is not just a cultural wrong turn but a dangerous plunge into darkness that threatens our most basic freedoms. See more

Other Voices by Tony Blenman Born in Barbados to a poor black family bordering a major sugar cane plantation, Tony Blenman immigrated to Canada in 1969. All he wanted was to be treated as a decent human being worthy of love and respect. Instead, he experienced multiple traumas in the form of sexual abuse by two siblings and a person in the community, physical abuse by his mother, and emotional abuse by his mother and others in the community, including more than one teacher wh...o thought children learned through being beaten. As a child, he witnessed violence and abuse in his home, in the behaviour of others, and at school. A devout Christian who knew the difference between right and wrong, he was constantly called a liar and beaten for telling the truth. He survived a mother who was herself physically abused as a child. Through it all, he nurtured the light of his faith, his dreams of escaping poverty and abuse, and finding a new life, new hope and new purpose in Canada. Other Voices is one man's journey to a life of hope, love, faith and perseverance in the face of sometimes overwhelming adversity. It tells the story of the many voices that shaped his life, for better or for worse. It is a testament to the strength of the human spirit and its potential to understand, forgive, and paying good forward to those who need a helping hand in their healing. Other Voices will touch your heart and soul-and sometimes your funny bone-with its wise observations on the human condition and its call to treat our children with love and respect to end the cycle of multi-generational family violence. See more