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But their shared hopes of riches and dreams of escape start to rot.And the rounded corpse of Mircha in the courtyard refuses to decompose, as the snow turns it into a hill, and its spirit takes flight around the apartments, dispensing more advice than anyone desires, goading the men, annoying the women, in a block where too many mothers and fathers are missing and too many memories lie stagnant on old battlefields.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49603962241297,"sku":"GOR002803083","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52507686174993,"sku":"GOR004340498","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1846270073.jpg?v=1758967768"},{"product_id":"people-i-wanted-to-be-book-gina-ochsner-9781846270086","title":"People I Wanted To Be","description":"From the Russian couple haunted by the ghosts of children they never had, to the man who buys a mynah bird in the hope of saving his marriage, these are people who feel that their lives are loose skins they've not quite grown into and perhaps won't ever fit. The world they inhabit is one of half-forgotten dreams and unwhispered yearning. And yet each of them is about to embark upon a journey in which inspiration is found in the most unlikely places, reality is catapulted to the edge of the possible, and even the blackest despair can be illuminated by small, improbable miracles.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49635448127761,"sku":"GOR003096360","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52898303574289,"sku":"GOR011089587","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1846270081.jpg?v=1750866227"},{"product_id":"russian-dreambook-of-colour-and-flight-book-gina-ochsner-9781846270093","title":"The Russian Dreambook of Colour and Flight","description":"In her very dusty provincial museum of fake exhibits lovingly crafted from cardboard, wire and glue, Tanya dreams of Russian art's long colours and wonders when Yuri will stop fishing long enough to notice how she adores him, while she tries the zero-one-zero diet in order to meet Aeroflot's maximum waist requirements for trainee cabin crew. 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In the title story the usual thoroughness of an insurance claims investigator spirals into obsession when Howard learns that a beautiful, drowned policyholder was a childhood neighbor he never knew. He is left uncentered, and his wife is convinced that he is having an affair. In \"How the Dead Live\" Karen keeps her late father's spirit trapped in her home until her newly detected pregnancy drives her thoughts outward and forward. In \"Unfinished Business\" Ciri's ghost cannot forsake her previous life's routines, or the chance that even in death she might love or be loved by the living.  Gina Ochsner's interests in folklore and myth often suffuse these stories of visitations, crossings, partings, and second chances. Fears and longings, for example, are often projected onto animals such as the earthbound, ice-covered swans of the Siberian tundra in \"Sixty-six Degrees North.\" Likewise, Ochsner's insights into history-burdened contemporary life in Eastern Europe and Russia also filter through. In \"Then, Returning\" a Lithuanian and a Russian sort body parts and marble fragments in a Vilnius cemetery hit by stray artillery shells. As they work, a group of American genealogy buffs approaches, filled with hope that a day among the gravestones will bring order to their family trees.  In such wildly inventive ways, Gina Ochsner gives us new means to think about how the dead remain among us and how we can find beauty and solace even in graceless times and places.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49890789687569,"sku":"CIN0820334235G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50371432612113,"sku":"CIN0820334235VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51008339181841,"sku":"NIN9780820334233","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0820334235.jpg?v=1766139397"},{"product_id":"hidden-letters-of-velta-b-book-gina-ochsner-9780544703049","title":"The Hidden Letters of Velta B.","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFINALIST FOR THE OREGON BOOK AWARDS--KEN KESEY AWARD FOR FICTION\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"Intimate, vibrant, and richly colored.\"--\u003ci\u003ePortland Monthly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"[An] extraordinary feat of storytelling . . . A spellbinding novel as tough as it is beautiful.\" -- Helen Simonson, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Summer Before the War\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \"A beautifully spun tale . . . An astonishing alchemy of history, romance, and fable.\" --\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e, starred review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Maris was born knowing things: his very large, very special ears enable him to hear the secrets of the dead, as well as the memories that haunt his Latvian hometown. As a boy, Maris finds himself heir to an odd assortment of hidden letters, letters from which he would weave a story that could finally expose--and maybe even patch--the holes in the fabric of his family and their town.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e With humor, heart, and her characteristic \"luminous writing [and] affection for her characters\" (\u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e), Gina Ochsner creates an intimate, hopeful portrait of a fascinating town in all its complications and charm. From the onset of World War II through the cold shock of independence, we see how, despite years of distrust, a community can come through love and loss to the joy of understanding.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\"A captivating novel of secrets, love, and memory . . . 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Maris was born with what some might call a blessing and others might deem a curse: his very large, very special ears enable him to hear the secrets of the dead, as well as the memories that haunt his Latvian hometown. Nestled in the woodlands on the banks of the Aiviekste River, their town suffered the ravages of war, then the cold shock of independence. As a boy, Maris found himself heir to an odd assortment of hidden letters; a school project provided the chance to share them, forcing the town to hear the truth from the past and face what it meant for their future. With luminous writing  and] affection for her characters (\u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e), Gina Ochsner creates an intimate, hopeful portrait of a fascinating town in all its complications and charm. 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In her eagerly anticipated new collection, Ochsner deftly examines the harrowing moments after a life or love slips away and discovers that the human heart can be large enough for anything.\u003cbr\u003e A Russian couple come to accept their infertility by bidding farewell tot he ghosts of the children they never had. A disgruntled husband buys a talking bird that he hopes will restore love to his marriage. Twin sisters learn to prepare bodies for burial in their Hungarian parents' funeral home, but when faced with a death of their own, they must learn to prepare the soul. Glowing with warmth and sparkling with imagination, these stories are rendered with a deep understanding of human resilience as well as an unerring belief in small, daily miracles.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50356220166417,"sku":"CIN0618563725G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51004990390545,"sku":"NIN9780618563722","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0618563725.jpg?v=1751041222"},{"product_id":"russian-dreambook-of-color-and-flight-book-gina-ochsner-9780547394558","title":"The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight","description":"In a crumbling apartment building in post-Soviet Russia, there's a ghost who won't keep quiet. Mircha fell from the roof and was never properly buried, so he sticks around to heckle the living: his wife, Azade; Olga, a disillusioned translator\/censor for a military newspaper; Yuri, an army veteran who always wears an aviator's helmet; and Tanya, a student of hope, words, and color. Tanya carries a notebook wherever she goes, recording her dreams of finding love and escaping her job at the All-Russia All-Cosmopolitan Museum, a place that holds a fantastic and terrible collection of art knockoffs created with the materials at hand, from foam to chewing gum, Popsicle sticks to tomato juice. When the museum's director hears of an American group seeking to fund art in Russia, it looks as if Tanya might get her chance at a better life, if she can only convince them of the collection's worth. 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