Alive Book Ru

Ru

Ru. In Vietnamese it means lullaby; in French it is a small stream, but also signifies a flow--of tears, blood, money. Kim Thúy's Ru is literature at its most crystalline: the flow of a life on the tides of unrest and on to more peaceful waters. In vignettes of exquisite clarity, sharp observation and sly wit, we are carried along on an unforgettable journey from a palatial residence in Saigon to a crowded and muddy Malaysian refugee camp, and onward to a new life in Quebec. There, the young girl feels the embrace of a new community, and revels in the chance to be part of the American Dream. As an adult, the waters become rough again: now a mother of two sons, she must learn to shape her love around the younger boy's autism. Moving seamlessly from past to present, from history to memory and back again, Ru is a book that celebrates life in all its wonder: its moments of beauty and sensuality, brutality and sorrow, comfort and comedy.

A Text-book of Colloquial Japanese

All of Us and Everything

Esme: eldest child, control-freak, perfect wife. In fact, her husband has run off with his dentist and their teenage daughter is live-tweeting the entire mess to her 3,000 followers. Liv: middle child, fiancé stealer, squatter. Holed up in her ex-husband's apartment with her acupuncturist and a bottle of whiskey. Ru: youngest child, writer, runaway. Hopes to find inspiration for her second novel whilst fleeing her fiancé. One-by-one the siblings return to the family home, where a box of old letters awaits them containing the answer to the mystery they have all lived with, until now: who was their father, and why the hell did he disappear?