The Best New Movies in August 2019 - AMC Scene
The Best New Movies in August 2019 - AMC Scene |
- The Best New Movies in August 2019 - AMC Scene
- Wilton Bulletin Board — music, short stories, the 4th! - The Wilton Bulletin
- Saturday short story: The Grave of the Heart Eater - Newsroom
- The Best Books You’ve Never Heard of, July 2019 - Book Riot
- Arrowhead: 'We're just so much more than Melville' - Berkshire Eagle
| The Best New Movies in August 2019 - AMC Scene Posted: 26 Jul 2019 09:13 AM PDT August is typically when the summer movie season starts to wind down. But if the list of titles headed to AMC is any indication, things are about to get even more interesting at your local theatre. This is mostly because a relatively new initiative known as AMC Artisan Films is in play, bringing you the latest and greatest in artist-driven films. These titles will be displayed in gold text in the listings below. But, of course, there's plenty of new and exciting blockbuster fare to bring you through August, and that too will be highlighted in the monthly watch list you're about to read through. Here now are the movies that will be coming soon to an AMC theatre near you in August 2019. August 2Hobbs & ShawSpinning off the world famous FAST & FURIOUS franchise, HOBBS & SHAW sees Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) teaming up to take down the seemingly superhuman villain Brixton (Idris Elba). They'll have plenty of help to face him down, as both men will bring in key family members to get the job done. LuceTensions boil between student, teacher and parents when the central conflict of LUCE starts to take hold, as a young man (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) believes his teacher (Octavia Spencer) is unfairly singling him out for punishment. When this ordeal starts to involve Luce's adoptive parents (Tim Roth and Naomi Watts), the truth of who to believe and who to reject becomes even less apparent, with no one knowing how, or when, it'll all end. August 9Dora and the Lost City of GoldMaking her way to the big screen for the first time, Nickelodeon's favorite explorer will face the adventure of her life in DORA AND THE LOST CITY OF GOLD! As Dora (Isabela Moner) is just about to get used to life in a typical high school, she and her classmates are apprehended to try and find the mythical lost city of gold. Unfortunately for her captors, Dora's pretty resourceful and will give them quite the run for their money. Scary Stories to Tell in the DarkA literary classic comes to life in SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK, as producer/co-writer Guillermo del Toro helps to turn the famed collections of short stories and urban legends into a cinematic experience. After finding a hidden diary filled with creepy short stories, a group of teenagers must race against time to figure out how, and if, they can stop these seemingly fictional stories from coming true in their reality. The Art of Racing in the RainDog fans are going to love THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN, based on author Garth Stein's novel of the same name. A story of the joys and pains of life, the film is told from the viewpoint of Enzo (voiced by Kevin Costner), a golden retriever who lives with a race car driver (Milo Ventimiglia) and sees him go through personal and professional triumphs. You're probably going to need tissues for this one. Just a guess. Brian BanksA true story of adversity, BRIAN BANKS dramatizes the actual proceedings that saw Banks (Aldis Hodge) falsely convicted and imprisoned on sexual assault charges, as well as chronicles his fight to clear his name and play the game he loves. Co-starring Academy Award®-nominee Greg Kinnear, this inspiring biopic shows what happens when people band together to demand justice and never give up. The Peanut Butter FalconZak (Zack Gottsagen) wants to become a big time professional wrestler, but is stuck in a residential nursing home due to the fact that he has Down syndrome. That's nothing a quick escape and a new friend (Shia LaBeouf) can't fix, as the two become partners of sorts and sail the high seas in the name of Zak's wildest dreams. After the WeddingA remake of the 2006 Susanne Bier film of the same name, AFTER THE WEDDING sees Isabel (Michelle Williams) travel from India to the United States, in the name of seeking a charitable donation to the orphanage she runs. This trip just happens to be right before the wedding of her would-be benefactor's daughter (Abby Quinn). Naturally, events start to take some unexpected turns, with Isabel's past surfacing in some surprising ways. The KitchenA trio of '70s mob wives (Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish and Elisabeth Moss) takes matters into their own hands in THE KITCHEN, a film based on the DC/Vertigo graphic novel of the same name. With their husbands in jail and their needs not being met by those who swore to protect them, these women are about to turn the tables in their favor, in a bid to run Hell's Kitchen. August 14The Angry Birds Movie 2The birds (Jason Sudeikis, Danny McBride and Josh Gad) and the pigs, led by King Mudbeard (Bill Hader), are at war again, as THE ANGRY BIRDS MOVIE 2 sees clashing factions picking up old grudges and trying to fight it out for dominance. Though it will be a pretty short fight, when a common rival (Leslie Jones) threatens everyone's way of life, triggering the old-fashioned strategy of teaming up to take down their shared foe. Let's just hope they can get along long enough to actually do the job. August 16Good BoysThree sixth-grade boys (Jacob Tremblay, Brady Noon and Keith L. Williams) are about to go on an adventure of maturity and self-discovery in the very adolescent, but very R-rated comedy GOOD BOYS. Operating as a sort of SUPERBAD but with middle schoolers at the center, GOOD BOYS follows the trio as their growly outrageous and hysterical antics lead to their very first kissing party. Blinded by the LightJaved (Viveik Kalra) is a young Pakistani teenager growing up in the 1980s. Feeling out of place, he stumbles onto the music of Bruce Springsteen and starts to identify with the message of a blue collar guy from New Jersey, while growing up in small town England. BLINDED BY THE LIGHT feels like a film that would make a perfect double feature with YESTERDAY, as it's an artist-driven movie that uses music to tell a powerful, triumphant message. Where'd You Go, BernadetteMaria Semple's best-seller, WHERE'D YOU GO, BERNADETTE, is finally hitting the big screen! The offbeat tale of an architect (Cate Blanchett) who randomly disappears one day and her family's journey to find her looks to be a mix of light comedy and deep emotional drama. Just the sort of movie the world needs to prepare for prestige season! Ready or NotWeddings can be killer, and Grace (Samara Weaving) is about to find that out firsthand in Fox Searchlight's summer horror film READY OR NOT. After just marrying her fiancé, Alex (Mark O'Brien), Grace's new in-laws have one simple request to make everything official: She has to play a game of hide-and-seek and remain hidden until the sun rises. Of course, the game is just a cover for something more sinister, and Grace is going to have to stay a couple steps ahead of the game if she expects to live until tomorrow. August 23Angel Has FallenMike Banning (Gerard Butler) is back, and this time the crisis is so big that ANGEL HAS FALLEN. After an attempt on the life of President Trumbull (Morgan Freeman), the Secret Service all-star of the FALLEN franchise is accused of the treasonous act he's sworn to prevent. With forces on both sides of the equation closing in, Banning will have to work fast before those conspiring against the president succeed in their nefarious deeds. Brittany Runs a MarathonBrittany (Jillian Bell) is a party girl who doesn't care what the world thinks of her — until, one day, she does. And in the aftermath of that newfound concern, she starts training to become a marathon runner. A dramedy based on a true life story, BRITTANY RUNS A MARATHON tells a funny, but heartwarming story about a person who learns to truly accept herself and achieve a goal bigger than they are as a celebration. Check showtimes to these titles and more at your local AMC theatre!  |
| Wilton Bulletin Board — music, short stories, the 4th! - The Wilton Bulletin Posted: 27 Jun 2019 12:00 AM PDT  The Bulletin Board is a guide to events of public interest happening in Wilton designed to let you know what's happening and when, and to help schedule important events. Submissions may be emailed to editor@wiltonbulletin.com by 5 p.m. Wednesday the week before intended publication. The full listings are posted at wiltonbulletin.com.  |
| Saturday short story: The Grave of the Heart Eater - Newsroom Posted: 26 Jul 2019 11:07 AM PDT ReadingRoom 'A girl, a princess no less, who once lived and ate out the heart of a squealing child every night': a short story by Wellington writer Rijula Das. Photography by Peter Black. Soon after my father left, mother and I moved to this hick town. We have a large corner room to ourselves in the Trainee Hostel. She says we'll soon move into the employee housing where we can have a proper apartment with a kitchen and a drawing room. The long corridor with its unlived rooms and rows of shower cubicles at the end of the floor makes her nervous. 'Just until they sort out the paperwork,' she tells me over and over, 'soon we'll have a TV.' I walk around the Employee Housing after school because there's a set of rusty swings up there. By four it is enemy territory. The other children, The Gang, gather there in the afternoons and move towards me in a shoal. The swing is theirs; I can only steal it in noon-time when they're not allowed to come out, imprisoned under the vigilant gaze of their stay-at-home mothers. They have a leader— a small and wiry, short-haired Pygmy leader who loathes me. I sometimes see her looking at me from the window when I'm on the swings. If I look up at her, she closes the curtains. When I round the corner to the Trainee Hostel, Aziz Mama is already standing outside the entrance, looking at his watch. He's promised me an 'educational trip' round the sticks after weeks of lengthy lectures on The Historical Wonders of Murshidabad. He's promised me gold vases from ancient Persia, poison plates and stuffed crocodiles, mirrors that show only the faces of your enemies, and the grave of the heart-eating princess who was buried alive by her own father. Ma smirks at his stories, but Aziz Mama is proud of this small hick town with its mossy buildings and dead remnants of Mughal era pageantry. He turns around and frowns at me. 'You look like a monkey. Have you been rolling in the dirt? When is the last time you had a bath?' 'This morning.' 'Liar.' I thump him on the back. 'I am not a liar.' 'You're a lying monkey. But it's okay. Where's your mother?' 'At work.' 'Isn't she supposed to be back by now? I said we're going to leave by four-thirty. Really, we should've gone in the morning, it's going to close up soon,' he frowns. 'Wait here, I need to go back to the car.' I follow him instead. Usually he comes on a bicycle—a dark green Atlas bike chipped in places, a dirty insignia blazoned at the helm, one copper man holding the whole world up, bending at the knees, defeated. When he's in our room The Gang gathers around the Trainee Hostel, under our eaves, a few of them always trying to look through the window to the room inside. The half lace curtains flare in the wind of the ceiling fans, the white rod of tube light bounces off the blue washed walls. At such times I stand guard outside our walls. Protecting them, protecting my mother from their prying gaze. They always gather as silently as geckos. When they see me, they recede as one, except the Pygmy leader. 'Your ma has a boyfriend,' someone sniggers from the back. 'Who is he?' the Pygmy asks, twisting her mouth. 'Aziz Mama.' 'Mama?' she mocks. 'You mean your mother's brother?' I pick up a broken brick and say nothing. 'Aziz is a Muslim name,' she states. 'You're not Muslim.' 'So?' 'So he's not your real uncle,' the leader is unflinching, final in her declaration. 'Boyfriend!' someone shouts again. I move towards them, blocking their view of the room. When they finally turn and leave I throw the bricks after them anyway. Once we reach the car Aziz Mama manhandles a crate full of mangoes from the boot. 'Can you close it?' I jump on top of the boot and it closes with a thud. The metal is hot under my bum. The cardboard box in his hands sags under the weight of fruit as he carries it to our corner room. 'I need to teach you how to store them properly,' he says. 'Come on and make yourself useful.' 'What will you give me if I do?' 'Stop bargaining, you imp.' 'Last time you said you'd bring me an Ashrafi, remember? The same one your grandfather left you, an heirloom, you said.' I put my hands on my hips. 'Next time,' he says and swats the flies buzzing around the stalks of the mangoes, where the gum has run dry and stained the fruit. 'Besides, you're not old enough for heirlooms. You wouldn't know what they are.' 'I know what an Ashrafi is. Pure silver Mughal coins, a rare thing these days, you said.' 'Not so rare in these parts.' Aziz Mama laughs. 'Plenty of pauper princes rotting away in their derelict castles. Royal Mughal blood doesn't alone keep you from starvation.' We work together. I fetch the newspapers and lay them side by side under my mother's bed like sheets, and Aziz Mama puts the mangoes on them one by one, covering them with leaves. I think of the Ashrafi, pure silver, hunchbacked with curly Arabic. It must be as heavy as the moon. 'If you behave, you may even get it next time I visit. Now turn off the damned fan,' he says. 'It's blowing the newspapers away.' We sweat in the simmering heat, arranging fruit after fruit in a bed of leaves and old newspapers, our hands sticky from the mango gum. 'The battle of Plassey was fought in a mango grove,' Aziz Mama says. I turn one around, examining it's blackened dented skin for signs of violence, for history or myth. He shakes his head. 'An insignificant skirmish that handed India on a plate to the British, fought in a swamp full of mosquitos and fruit.' 'What are you two up to?' Ma's standing in the doorway, smelling salty in the ripe heat of walking home. Her face slowly cooling from the afternoon heat, her frazzled hair sticking out around her face like a halo. 'Who's going to eat so much, Aziz da? You really shouldn't have.' Aziz Mama told me once that he was younger than my mother. But she calls him Aziz da, like dada, big brother. 'It's from my Desher Bari, you'll like them.' 'What's Desher Bari?' I ask. 'Place in the country, ancestral home. It's where you come from.' 'I come from Calcutta.' 'No, you just lived there. Your Desher Bari is where your father and grandfather come from.' 'Bangladesh, Chittagong I think. But they came before the partition when Bangladesh was still East Pakistan,' Ma supplies. 'Maybe around '42.' 'There you are then, your Desher Bari is Chittagong.' 'But I have never seen it.' 'Still,' he says. * * * It's boiling hot inside the car. 'We'll go see Siraj's Hazarduari palace, but before that, we'll take a peek at his aunt's estate.' Aziz Mama starts the engine, the smell of burnt diesel spreads everywhere. 'Do you know who Siraj ud-Daulah was?' 'The last independent Nawab of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. He lost the battle of Plassey and boom, the British East India Company….' 'He was betrayed,' Aziz Mama interrupts Ma. 'His general was in cahoots with the British.' 'Sirajs real palace is under the Ganges,' Ma looks at Aziz Mama. 'What's cahoots?' I ask. 'And these roads have not been repaired since,' Ma laughs. Aziz Mama pushes back his glasses on the bridge of his nose. I can see his frown in the rear-view mirror from my perch on the backseat. Murshidabad depresses my mother. When we take the train down to Calcutta, she points out the marble dome of the Victoria Memorial during taxi rides across town— 'Look Rumi look, Victoria,' she shrieks. As if that is something worth mentioning every time. Last time she carried a few Murshidabad silk saris with her when we visited. They were coarse, garish things. After my father left, she doesn't want to visit anymore. 'You really should see these places,' Aziz Mama says. 'You know how old some of these things are? Siraj was merely the last of them. This place was a great wealthy settlement long before the British came. But you Calcutta people know nothing.' The roads are narrower, the closer we get to old town. Where we live, up in Berhampore, the roads are newer though Ma likes to joke about them. Here there are horse carriages everywhere. Not like the ones outside the Victoria Memorial that Ma so excitedly points out every time we pass, which have started looking more and more like chariots with tin foil embossing. Fake silver and red velvet seats, plumes on the horses' heads, as though they're auditioning for Mahabharat on TV. These are more like actual carriages people take to actual places. No fuss, no gilding, but the horses crap a lot. Blobs of sandy tan-coloured dung are all over the roads. 'You'll like it,' Aziz Mama is telling Ma. One eye on the road, with the other he glances sideways from time to time. Ma is fiddling with the radio knob, humming. 'Sometimes they play nice Rabindra sangeet at this time,' she tells him. * * * A scrawny looking man in a white vest and blue checked lungi is walking towards us. 'Take a guide, sir. I'll tell you all about this place.' 'Don't need a guide, local.' Aziz Mama is brusque, brushing him away. 'I'm the official caretaker sir, government. See?' He holds out a badge. 'I get five rupees salary every month.' 'Really, five?', Ma says. 'Come on, it's all a trick.' 'No, really? Why do you do this?' 'This is the family tradition, Didi. We've done it for generations. My father was the caretaker before me, and my son,' he pulls towards him a boy of eleven or twelve, 'will do this after me.' The boy is wearing rubber slippers and blue shorts. His hair is oiled but his feet are dirty. 'We want to preserve this place,' he adds. 'It's a ruin.' 'Whatever's left of it. These bricks are hundreds of years old, and they're still standing.' 'Amazing,' Aziz Mama observes dryly. 'But we don't need a guide.' 'No, let him,' Ma whispers, looking at the caretaker's son. 'We'll give him something. It's fine.' My mother has boundless sympathy for other people's children. The caretaker overtakes us, clears his throat and begins in a high-pitched nasal voice, 'In front of you lies the estate of Begum Ghaseti, and the lake she constructed in the shape of the English alphabet U, a horseshoe all around her lands in the middle of which, on an island stood her palace, which has long since been destroyed. In this lake, pearls, or Moti was cultivated, hence the name Motijheel. or Pearl-lake. This lake, or rather, moat, was built to protect the Begum's palace since cannon-balls could not fly past its range.' A man and a woman are sitting side by side in front of the lake staring vacuously at a child running in circles. Not far from them a very old woman is shaking grains of rice from her cloth bag and carefully putting them one by one in a small bowl. Unlike the small family, she pays no attention to the guide, or us. The other two are intermittently glancing at us, soaking up the free history lesson with a bemused, relaxed expression. Aziz Mama is glaring at them from time to time for poaching on words he's paying for. 'Many believe that a secret underground tunnel connected the Begum's palace to this antechamber here—the gumkhana—nobody knows what it was used for or what might still remain. Though popular belief through the ages has held that the Begum had salted away the vast majority of her fortune in diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, gold Mohurs and silver Ashrafis into this room for safekeeping, since the political situation was volatile and she feared for her life. It is also said that there's a curse on this place. Nobody knows the truth….' 'Or historical facts,'Aziz Mama mutters. 'But after the British had taken over Murshidabad and Lord Warren Hastings resided in the Begum's palace, a sahib once fired cannon at this antechamber. You can see where it has left a dent, and just there, standing beside his cannon in front of the mosque, he died vomiting blood. There were other attempts, in the name of archaeology, but none survived. Since then, it's been left alone. Even if there's a Nawab's ransom in there, we'll never know.' 'And to think that you'll have lived for generations only inches away from such wealth,' Aziz Mama says. 'Aziz da,' Ma hisses at him. 'So what's your name then, Mian?', he asks, conciliatory under Ma's gaze. 'Basheer, sahib.' 'So Basheer Mian, here's something for your trouble. Send the boy to school.' 'Oh he goes to school sahib, right here. The Begum had a school built on her estate for the children of the royals and the nobles, but now we have a sort of village cooperative, all our boys go there, our own madrasa.' 'Good.' 'We have a small booklet here, sahib, we publish it ourselves, it'll tell you about all the historical attractions of Murshidabad sir, it also has a road map, look.' 'We don't need a guidebook.' Ma opens her purse and hands the guide a crisp ten rupee note and holds out her hand for a copy of the booklet. Aziz Mama doesn't say anything but walks away towards the shanty tea shop where the car is parked. Ma follows him cautiously, a few steps behind. I'm left with Basheer Mian's boy sitting on the steps of the royal Begum's mosque, slapping mosquitos from his knees and piling the flattened black bodies on top of one another. 'So where's the heart-eating princess buried?' 'Who?' He looks up. A smear of blood squashed from a fat mosquito runs across his shin, the black blot still sticking to his flaky skin. 'The Kalija Begum. The one buried by her own father.' He shakes his head. 'She ate livers and she's buried in Katra Masjid, not here.' He looks around, 'But you've got a car.' "Liver? Are you sure? My uncle told me it was hearts she ate.' He eyes another buzzing mosquito. 'She had some rare disease, the Hakim prescribed fresh livers, preferably that of young children, but her father realised it was sinful of him to have people killed for her sake so he buried her alive and had a mosque built over both their graves so the prayers of the faithful would wash their sins away.' 'How do you know? My uncle said she ate hearts. He knows a lot.' 'She ate livers,' he repeats stoically. 'Her father was Murshid Quli Khan, the man after whom Murshidabad is named. Before that it was called Maksudabad. You can read all about it in that book,' he points to the one held in my mother's hand. 'My father wrote it.' They're arguing in the distance. My mother is saying something and Aziz Mama is staring across her, his jaw hard. I don't want to intrude, so I walk around them, keeping my distance. 'I cannot put it off forever,' he says to her. 'And what about us?' My mother glances towards me and falters. They start walking. 'Get in the car,' she yells, and hands me a green coconut with a white straw bobbing up and down. 'We're going to the Hazarduari.' 'But I want to see the heart eater's grave at Katra Masjid.' 'We'll do Hazarduari another day, it's too late now.' Aziz Mama starts the car, backing it away from the Begum's cursed treasure. The loud engine spits heat and fills the car with the smell of burnt diesel. 'Another day,' my mother half-laughs. 'Another day,' she repeats in a whisper. Aziz Mama turns the car into a narrow mud lane. We jostle through a thicket of banana trees, young palms, the fringed blades of coconuts. Clots of grey hang like grapes over the windshield, gathering, racing us. The bowed curtain of plantain leaves glow fluorescent against the pewter of rainclouds. * * * In the front seat they are sitting apart. Ma is looking out of the window on her side, the first spray of rain moving through her before it can reach me. She is humming, and Aziz Mama's eyes are fixed on the road. He says something to her quietly. The radio still plays Tagore's songs. The tune is whiny and meanders in the diesel air far too long. 'When will you be back?' Aziz Mama moves one hand from the gear stick and covers hers. 'Things will be different when I'm back.' 'Yes.' I can only see half of my mother's face as she turns away from him. 'You'll come back with a wife, a brand new bride, for a start.' And now my mother is crying. I close my eyes so I don't embarrass her. They do their talking when they think I'm sleeping. The car falls into ditches, splatters mud everywhere, honks unceremoniously at lost cows. 'You knew,' Aziz Mama says. 'But things have changed.' 'Not for them. They're tiring of a long engagement, beginning to think I won't come through.' 'That didn't stop you all these months.' She stops, breathes. 'You don't have to,' she says. 'Unless of course that's what you want.' 'You knew.' Aziz Mama's eyes are still on the road but both his hands are back on the steering wheel, 'It didn't stop you either.' * * * We're ambushed by the rain. Bombed, caught out as we open the heavy doors of the car. He says, 'There it is, your heart eater's grave.' I suppose I couldn't stop thinking about her, ever since Aziz Mama had first told me about her. A girl, a princess no less, who once lived and ate out the heart of a squealing child every night. I close my eyes and try very hard to imagine what it would be like. A red thing, a dark matted spilling thing like those discarded from the corpses of goats strung from their hooves in meat shops. What did they make of her, those people whose children were sacrificed, and what did she make of herself, this monster that lived in the castle? I wondered what stories they told of her. Now she lay in a dark underground crevice, abandoned by her father. I peer into her mausoleum through rusted iron bars, and see mice scampering in my shadow, skittering among cobwebs. In the beginning I would take the Pygmy peace-offerings. I wanted to belong, to have other mothers allow their children to play with me, watch TV together. I stole small things, hid them in my clothes, and took it to the field by the swings. Plastic animals, erasers that smelled like rubber strawberries, bars of chocolate. The leader looked at them in disdain, but accepted them anyway. I came like a fool, supplicant, smiling, and took out treasures out of the folds of my flesh and was allowed to join the play. Ma and Aziz Mama are standing on the flat red stones of Murshid Quli's mosque, and under its dome a heart eating princess sleeps forever, their prayers washing away her sins. I can hardly see them through the rain. It comes down in a heavy grey curtain, smoking them, blurring them, washing them away. They're standing before the Jafri window, framed in an archway, looking through the laced stone screen. My mother moves closer to him. In the folktales my grandmother used to tell, often a queen would birth a monkey-child. The story changed with every telling. Sometimes it was a doll made of cream, sometimes an ape-child, mistaken, wrong. Ma would joke, 'When you came out of me, covered in hair and wagging a tail, I said this is not what I wanted at all. A girl, a beautiful girl with the manners of the princess, please, not this monkey-child.' I believed everything she said in those days, and she said, 'I had to return you to Ma Shoshti the baby goddess, and she gave us a different girl, but hey look some of that monkey remained.' In my grandmother's stories sometimes the king would take another wife and send the queen to the wilderness, or he would behead the monkey and her mother. In my dreams their stories opened large maws and sucked the darkness of fairytales. Inside the car my mother is leaning out of her window, her face turned to the road. The drapes and folds of her sari wilt in the breeze. The booklet flaps between them, its cheap paper limp and blotchy from the rain. I slept, feeling sick from hunger and the sweet water still whirling inside my throat. When I wake it's only me and Aziz Mama in the car. Only his headlights shine yellow in the dark compound. We watch my mother in silence out in the distance, walking like a palm in a thunderstorm, swaying towards the hostel. 'She's coming down with a fever,' he says. 'Try and call your grandmother, see if she can come. I'm getting late, I…' He stops and turns around to look at me. 'It'll be okay, you'll see.' I nod. He reaches out to touch my arm. 'Aziz Mama,' I say. 'You'll really give me your grandfather's Ashrafi?' 'The day we go to Hazarduari, the palace with a thousand doors.' He laughs, as if remembering something. 'Only, nine hundred of them are fake.' The sign above the Trainee Hostel has rusted through the tin, but I can just about see the highway from here. The line of dark grey on which the yellow lamplights drop. On nights I cannot sleep, I listen out for the trucks that go through the night. They have strange horns, long and piercing. It is a greeting. I listen out for them when I can't sleep. My mother moves like a sleepwalker through the long grass, humming now with insects. I run fast but I'm always behind, till we are both moving through the long dark corridors, the unnerving rows of empty rooms and bathroom cubicles towards a corner room stifling in the stench of fruit. A crateful of mangoes breathe under my mother's bed. The inaudible buzz of their heat-filled dreams, their sticky sweetness, spread their gummy tendrils through the mattress. Their resin covers her like a fly in amber. My mother looks like a folktale princess, one reeling from the shock of birthing a monkey-child, or a heart-eater, unable to stop. The salt on her skin burns in the fever. All of her is moving away, her forehead, her hands, the back of her neck, into sleep, into fever. I may never know her again, and such is the magic of nightmares. I find the ripest of them and come outside. Its orange flesh has turned red, ferment-tangy in late June. It drips through my fingers. There will be fat, red ants swarming the drops in a few hours. It's a full moon tonight. I ravage the mangoes one after another. A pool of ant food puddles under my dripping hands. The moon gleams like an old silver coin, writing curled on its back. Rijula Das's debut novel 'A Death in Sonagachhi' will be published in December by Picador India. Next week's short story is by Witi Ihimaera.  |
| The Best Books You’ve Never Heard of, July 2019 - Book Riot Posted: 26 Jul 2019 03:56 AM PDT Keeping up with all the newest releases is a losing game: you can never get through all of them, and they just keep coming! As fun as it is to read the books everyone is talking about, there are so many more books that don't get nearly as much attention. Sometimes it's nice to set aside some time to read "quiet" books, books that didn't get the big advertising budget. These are hidden gems that lay forgotten on used bookstore shelves, or tucked away in a back corner of the library. But just because no one is talking about them doesn't mean they're not worth reading! Some of my favourite books are obscure or little known. In "The Best Books You've Never Heard of," we share our favourite books that deserve more attention. To make sure they're actually underrated, we have picked an arbitrary cut-off point of under 250 Goodreads ratings. I highly recommend checking out your own underrated reads: you can sort your read Goodreads shelf by number of ratings to see how obscure your book taste is! (Go to your Read bookshelf and select "Num. Ratings" and "Asc." in the bottom bar.) That's enough lead up. Let's get into the best books you've (probably) never heard of!
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| Arrowhead: 'We're just so much more than Melville' - Berkshire Eagle Posted: 26 Jul 2019 11:39 AM PDT  By Benjamin Cassidy, The Berkshire Eagle PITTSFIELD — It's not a towering mansion with a hand-crafted landscape like Edith Wharton's The Mount, and a pool isn't waiting in its shadows as it is at Edna St. Vincent Millay's Steepletop. But the modesty of Arrowhead, Herman Melville's old Pittsfield farmhouse, pronounces it a writer's home, one that resonates with generations of scribes coping with hardscrabble lives. "This is not one of those Berkshire cottages," guide Richard Matturro said during a Wednesday tour of the property. The New Lebanon, N.Y., resident described the house that Melville lived in from 1850 to 1863 as comparable to that of a "moderately successful farmer" during that epoch. "Moderately successful" would have been a kind label for Melville's prose in the mid-19th century; "Moby-Dick," the epic tale that Melville started in New York but predominantly penned at Arrowhead, wasn't well-received upon its publication in 1851, and the author spent much of his life owing money to various people. It wasn't until decades after his 1891 death that Melville's reputation began to rise precipitously. Today, "Moby-Dick" is deemed one of the great American novels, which is why the 200th anniversary of his birth on Aug. 1 is an occasion already receiving international media attention. For the Berkshire County Historical Society, which has owned the house for decades, the bicentennial is an opportunity to remind the community of the organization's local significance through a slew of programming. "I talk to a lot of people, and they don't even know that the Berkshire Historical Society owns Arrowhead," said Lesley Herzberg, the organization's executive director. "They know Arrowhead, but they have no idea that we as an organization actually operate Arrowhead. We have our own separate collection that has nothing to do with Herman Melville, but really has a lot to do with Berkshire history." In the future, Herzberg, who was named to her current position in April, imagines presenting some of those artifacts from the county's history at area schools. The Pittsfield resident wants to increase the number of Arrowhead access points and perhaps start a pollinator habitat in the field on the 45-acre property. "There's a new rejuvenation in terms of what we can be, and it's really exciting," she said. The coming week, however, belongs to Melville, and those hoping to learn more about the famous scribe would be wise to go on one of Arrowhead's site tours. A novelist and former literature professor at the State University of New York at Albany, Matturro leads Wednesday afternoon sessions, applying his literary lens to Melville's life. The volunteer stressed that he's not a Melville scholar — Shakespeare is his specialty — but he used to frequently teach "Moby-Dick." Captain Ahab is perhaps the only character in American literature that conjures some of Shakespeare's most complex figures for Matturro. "'Moby-Dick,' I think, is just a wonderful work of art," he said. Over the course of an hour, the guide gives a primer on Melville's lineage and the ins and outs of a structure that dates back to the 18th century, an abode that inspires some of Melville's prose. Along one side of the home, the Mount Greylock-facing piazza gets its due in his short story collection, "The Piazza Tales." In the dining room, Melville's brother, Allan, had the words to Melville's story, "I and My Chimney," inscribed around the fireplace after swapping homes with Melville. Article Continues After These Ads Upstairs, visitors will find a study that is the largest room in the house, according to Matturro. A writing desk faces the same window that Melville would have gazed through while toiling on "Moby-Dick." No, Matturro doesn't believe that a snow-covered Greylock inspired the book's white whale. "It makes a nice story," he said. Nathaniel Hawthorne once stayed in a small guest room next to the study. The two novelists' conversation at Monument Mountain in Great Barrinton has become part of local lore, and Sunday, Aug. 4, will once again feature a hike honoring the meeting's anniversary. (A group leaves at 9 a.m. from the mountain's parking lot.) That gathering and the third annual "Moby-Dick" Marathon reading at Arrowhead, which will start at 10 a.m. and wrap up on Sunday, Aug. 4, at approximately 5 p.m., have become traditional homages to Melville. But Arrowhead is helping lead a host of other gatherings for the bicentennial of the author's birth. "Melville Week" commences Wednesday at Arrowhead with a special 7 p.m. screening of "The Act of Reading," which was partially shot at the site. In the soon-to-be-released film, the narrator attempts to redeem himself after failing a high school English class years earlier, finally presenting a "Moby-Dick" book report to his teacher. Tickets cost $15 in advance and $20 at the door. The following day, the official anniversary of Melville's birth, will be Old Salt's Day at Arrowhead, meaning Marines, Merchant Marines, sailors and other sea-related professionals can tour the site for free. At noon, free tours of the Berkshire Athenaeum's Melville Room will begin, allowing visitors to glimpse a robust collection of the author's personal memorabilia. And at 1 p.m., an American Library Association-sponsored Literary Landmark plaque will be revealed at the Athenaeum in honor of Melville's bicentennial. Afterward, spectators can head to Arrowhead for free music on the lawn by Woody Printz. A ticketed benefit event for the Berkshire County Historical Society at the Country Club of Pittsfield will begin at 4:30 p.m. Herzberg said that funds will go toward restoring the historic barn where tours currently begin. Tickets to the fundraiser are $85 per person or $160 per duo. On Friday, Aug. 2, the marathon "Moby-Dick" reading will start. Those interested can call to reserve a 10-minute reading slot or just drop by the site. And on Saturday, Aug. 3, Arrowhead will host a free community day celebration from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The event will include a giant inflatable North Atlantic white whale, Delilah, and information about the whale's anatomy. Tom Whalen will hold sessions on nautical knot tying. Melanie Mowinski will lead letterpress printing demonstrations. "The way I've been saying it is that we're just so much more than Melville," Herzberg said, "and I think we just need to make sure that we get that message out to people." Benjamin Cassidy can be reached at bcassidy@berkshireeagle.com, at @bybencassidy on Twitter and 413-496-6251. If you'd like to leave a comment (or a tip or a question) about this story with the editors, please email us. We also welcome letters to the editor for publication; you can do that by filling out our letters form and submitting it to the newsroom.  |
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