{"title":"Kathleen Alcala","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"flower-in-the-skull-book-kathleen-alcala-9780156006347","title":"The Flower in the Skull","description":"Deep in the Sonoran Desert of Mexico in the 1870s, a village of Opata Indians is attacked by soldiers. Along with the rest of her tribe, Concha is driven from her homeland and eventually finds her way to Tucson, where she finds a job cleaning houses and caring for children. When her own daughter, Rosa, is born, the legacy of Concha's dislocation continues, as Rosa is raised far from her native culture and struggles to find her place in a strange world. As she did in her acclaimed, award-winning novel, Spirits of the Ordinary, Kathleen Alcala takes on the complexities of cultural heritage, identity, and assimilation, and explores the mysterious nature of place, spiritualism, and faith in the lives of these extraordinary ordinary people.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49560419533073,"sku":"GOR013105401","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49757437296913,"sku":"CIN0156006340G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50405500748049,"sku":"CIN0156006340VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0156006340.jpg?v=1751005120"},{"product_id":"mrs-vargas-and-the-dead-naturalist-book-kathleen-alcala-9780934971256","title":"Mrs. Vargas and the Dead Naturalist","description":"Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Get a glimpse at the life of actor, Patrick Stewart. Read about his humble debut and the roles that propelled him to stardom such as Jeffrey, The Lion in Winter, A Christmas Carol, and Moby Dick. Whether you are a true fan or just want to know more about the star, you will find this book comprehensive and perfect for your needs. Project Webster represents a new publishing paradigm, allowing disparate content sources to be curated into cohesive, relevant, and informative books. To date, this content has been curated from Wikipedia articles and images under Creative Commons licensing, although as Project Webster continues to increase in scope and dimension, more licensed and public domain content is being added. We believe books such as this represent a new and exciting lexicon in the sharing of human knowledge.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50072836604177,"sku":"CIN0934971250G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51757904199953,"sku":"CIN0934971250VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0934971250.jpg?v=1750820053"},{"product_id":"flower-in-the-skull-book-kathleen-alcala-9780811819169","title":"The Flower in the Skull","description":"Deep in the Sonoran Desert of Mexico in the 1870s, a village of Opata Indians is attacked by soldiers. Along with the rest of her tribe, Concha is driven from her homeland and eventually finds her way to Tucson, where she finds a job cleaning houses and caring for children. When her own daughter, Rosa, is born, the legacy of Concha's dislocation continues, as Rosa is raised far from her native culture and struggles to find her place in a strange world. As she did in her acclaimed, award-winning novel, Spirits of the Ordinary, Kathleen Alcala takes on the complexities of cultural heritage, identity, and assimilation, and explores the mysterious nature of place, spiritualism, and faith in the lives of these extraordinary ordinary people.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50120758526225,"sku":"CIN0811819167G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0811819167.jpg?v=1751107370"},{"product_id":"spirits-of-the-ordinary-book-kathleen-alcala-9780156005685","title":"Spirits of the Ordinary","description":"This \"strong and finely rendered book\" (Larry McMurtry) takes us to the Mexican-american border in the 1870s, conjuring up a magical tale of faith, gold, and family passions that \"echoes the style of Isabel Allende and Laura Esquivel\" (Washington Post Book World). Winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Book Award. A spectacular tapestry of folklore, spirituality, and landscape, this extraordinary first novel vividly blurs fantasy and reality as it details one family's search for identity. In a small village in northern Mexico, the Carabajals have long been practicing their Jewish faith in secret. The father, Julio, spends his days dabbling with alchemy. His wife, Mariana, cannot speak but is clairvoyant. Their son has allied himself with a Catholic woman and is obsessed with his search for gold. Central to the surprising destinies of these characters are the momentous events and the ancient and sacred cliff dwellings of Casas Grandes, high in the mountains. This story of two cultures, of the elusive bonds of love and faith, is dazzling in its originality. It is for all readers who loved Allende's The House of Spirits or Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50345230958865,"sku":"CIN0156005689A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50345931014417,"sku":"CIN0156005689G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0156005689.jpg?v=1750940613"},{"product_id":"spirits-of-the-ordinary-book-kathleen-alcala-9780811814478","title":"Spirits of the Ordinary","description":"This strong and finely rendered book (Larry McMurtry) takes us to the Mexican-american border in the 1870s, conjuring up a magical tale of faith, gold, and family passions that echoes the style of Isabel Allende and Laura Esquivel (Washington Post Book World). Winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Book Award. \u003cbr\u003eA spectacular tapestry of folklore, spirituality, and landscape, this extraordinary first novel vividly blurs fantasy and reality as it details one family's search for identity. In a small village in northern Mexico, the Carabajals have long been practicing their Jewish faith in secret. The father, Julio, spends his days dabbling with alchemy. His wife, Mariana, cannot speak but is clairvoyant. Their son has allied himself with a Catholic woman and is obsessed with his search for gold. Central to the surprising destinies of these characters are the momentous events and the ancient and sacred cliff dwellings of Casas Grandes, high in the mountains. This story of two cultures, of the elusive bonds of love and faith, is dazzling in its originality. It is for all readers who loved Allende's The House of Spirits or Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate. \u003cbr\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50367834816785,"sku":"CIN0811814475G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0811814475.jpg?v=1751362147"},{"product_id":"spirits-of-the-ordinary-book-kathleen-alcal-9780997946888","title":"Spirits of the Ordinary","description":"At the turn of the last century, in a small village in northern Mexico, the Caravals have been practicing their Jewish faith in secret. The father Julio, spends his days dabbling with alchemy. His wife, Mariana, cannot speak, but is clairvoyant. Their son is obsessed with his search for gold. Central to the surprising destinies of these characters are the momentous events taking place high in the mountains, at the ancient and sacred cliff dwellings of Casas Grandes. Central to the story is the horrifying impact of the Spanish Inquisition, for 13 generations after all signs of Judaica were wiped from Spanish culture, some members of this family persist, behind bolted doors, in observing and studying Jewish rituals. For them, staying connected to their ancestral faith is paramount, and while each person's path to piety is different, each search proves powerfully moving. Alcalá embellishes straightforward prose with tinges of mysticism that will entice even the most spiritually disinterested.  This tale of ordinary people in pursuit of honor, decency, and cultural connection is sure to resonate.Set in northern Mexico in the 1870s, Spirits of the Ordinary weaves the stories of women struggling against societal constraints, Mexican Jews practicing their religion in secret, and a gold prospector turned spiritual seeker in a spectacular desert landscape.Winner of the Washington State Governor's Writers Award and the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award when it was originally published in 1997, Spirits of the Ordinary incorporates styles and themes that the author has continued to explore in her later novels and nonfiction works: speculative fiction, environmental writing, crypto-Judaism, and the Mexico-U.S. borderland in the late 19th century.A tapestry of fascinating lives in a world where visions, dreams, and portents are part of everyday experience, Spirits of the Ordinary demonstrates that, as Alcalá writes in her introduction, \"magic and holiness are all around us.\"","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50377450029329,"sku":"CIN0997946881G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51011856498961,"sku":"NIN9780997946888","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0997946881.jpg?v=1751046592"},{"product_id":"treasures-in-heaven-book-kathleen-alcala-9780811829533","title":"Treasures in Heaven","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51333001216273,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51333003542801,"sku":"CIN0811829537VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/B000H2MONC.jpg?v=1750946487"},{"product_id":"desert-remembers-my-name-book-kathleen-alcala-9780816526277","title":"The Desert Remembers My Name","description":"My parents always told me I was Mexican. I was Mexican because they were Mexican. This was sometimes modified to ?Mexican American, since I was born in California, and thus automatically a U.S. citizen. But, my parents said, this, too, was once part of Mexico. My father would say this with a sweeping gesture, taking in the smog, the beautiful mountains, the cars and houses and fast-food franchises. When he made that gesture, all was cleared away in my mind's eye to leave the hazy impression of a better place. We were here when the white people came, the Spaniards, then the Americans. And we will be here when they go away, he would say, and it will be part of Mexico again. Thus begins a lyrical and entirely absorbing collection of personal essays by esteemed Chicana writer and gifted storyteller Kathleen Alcala. Loosely linked by an exploration of the many meanings of family, these essays move in a broad arc from the stories and experiences of those close to her to those whom she wonders about, like Andrea Yates, a mother who drowned her children. In the process of digging and sifting, she is frequently surprised by what she unearths. Her family, she discovers, were Jewish refugees from the Spanish Inquisition who took on the trappings of Catholicism in order to survive. Although the essays are in many ways personal, they are also universal. When she examines her family history, she is encouraging us to inspect our own families, too. When she investigates a family secret, she is supporting our own search for meaning. And when she writes that being separated from our indigenous culture is ,  form of illiteracy, we know exactly what she means. After reading these essays, we find that we have discovered not only why Kathleen Alcala is a writer but also why we appreciate her so much. She helps us to find ourselves.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51334336839953,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51334338773265,"sku":"CIN0816526273VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0816526273.jpg?v=1763477898"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-au\/collections\/author-books-by-kathleen-alcala.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}