{"title":"Two By Two Ser","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"to-stir-the-heart-book-ngugi-wa-thiong-o-9781558615472","title":"To Stir The Heart","description":"These powerful stories by two of Africa's most renowned twentieth-century authors explore African cultures at the intersection of tradition and modernity, colonialism, and independence. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBotswana's preeminent writer \u003cb\u003eBessie Head\u003c\/b\u003e and \u003cb\u003eNgugi wa Thiong'o\u003c\/b\u003e, the most significant East African writer (the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e), each use the politics and history of Africa in the midst of change as background for compelling stories of characters who, like their countries, are in search of their identity. In different ways, Head and Ngugi also chart the uneasy coexistence of men and women when their individual natures and desires conflict with societal expectations and customs.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49634718548241,"sku":"GOR002947753","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50445613302033,"sku":"CIN1558615474VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53369945555217,"sku":"CIN1558615474G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1558615474.jpg?v=1751341091"},{"product_id":"rites-of-compassion-book-gustave-flaubert-9781558615625","title":"Rites Of Compassion","description":"\u003cp\u003eCather and Flaubert's ultimate \"servants\" provide piercing commentary on aging and individuals taken for granted.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003ePersonally selected by award-winning writer Mary Gordon, these two stories by Willa Cather and Gustave Flaubert render a flawless portrait of characters who unquestioningly offer their compassionate service to those that take them for granted.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eOld Mrs. Harris is the staunch matriarch of a busy house (the look of which Cather based on her own childhood home), brimming with her spendthrift son-in-law, her displaced Southern debutante daughter, and a bevy of children whose dreams seem out of reach. In \"A Simple Heart,\" written at the request of George Sand, Félicité is the faithful servant first to a family fallen on hard times and then to a stuffed parrot she confuses with the Holy Spirit.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eCruel and honest, these two stories explore the ways in which families treat their aging members, the harsh impatience of the young, and the patient compassion of women who make their family's everyday lives possible.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49875605487889,"sku":"CIN1558615628G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50736096542993,"sku":"GOR012458524","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50922737631505,"sku":"CIN1558615628VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1558615628.jpg?v=1750861465"},{"product_id":"here-and-somewhere-else-book-grace-paley-9781558615373","title":"Here And Somewhere Else","description":"Husband and wife, parents and grandparents, Grace Paley and Robert Nichols are two writers and activists who constantly engage the world. \u003ci\u003eHere and Somewhere Else\u003c\/i\u003e, including uncollected or unpublished fiction by both Paley and Nichols, encompasses diverse countries and cultures, and counterpoints stories and poems that reveal engaged artists inventing different ways to illuminate political themes and issues.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49896114618641,"sku":"CIN1558615377G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50822449070353,"sku":"GOR013070031","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":51152282124561,"sku":"CIN1558615377A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1558615377.jpg?v=1751023161"},{"product_id":"riddle-of-life-and-death-book-leo-tolstoy-9781558615366","title":"The Riddle Of Life And Death","description":"These two literary classics dare to pose difficult existential questions: What is the meaning of life? Was my life of value? Why am I dying? The narrative employed in Tolstoy's novella is linear and realistically detailed. The style of Olsen's story, set in the United States about a century later, is allusive, moving in psychological time, from the senses, voices, and scenes in the present to memories of the past. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eOther differences are sharper still: Tolstoy's Ilych is a self-satisfied czarist official; Olsen's protagonist, Eva, once a proletarian revolutionary, is a sixty-nine year-old dissatisfied working-class housewife, mother, and grandmother. Tolstoy focuses entirely on the life of a model man of his generation, who is successful professionally, though less so in his private life. Ultimately, though, Olsen and Tolstoy demand that readers examine their lives, and consider questions about pain, suffering, inequalities, fate, and one's life work.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50317175882001,"sku":"CIN1558615369VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51134466031889,"sku":"GOR013150056","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52106406166801,"sku":"CIN1558615369G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1558615369.jpg?v=1751309377"},{"product_id":"inventing-the-real-book-henry-james-9781558615762","title":"Inventing The Real","description":"Ironies upon ironies unfold as two kindred writers (in life as well as art) and masters of the short story dance along the border between reality and appearance. Wharton explores the secret love of a woman for her illegitimate daughter, whom her married sister has adopted in an effort to save the mother's reputation and to allow her daughter to have a peaceful childhood. James probes a portrait painter's art as he deals with a couple of threadbare aristocrats, who are seeking employment as his models. They are the real thing he is seeking to portray--denizens of drawing room society--but his work is thwarted when he discovers that plucky lower-class models are, in fact, far better able to take on the personae of a rarified class.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52751457255697,"sku":"NIN9781558615762","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781558615762.jpg?v=1763557333"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/two-by-two-ser-book-series.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}