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For readers of The Glass Castle and Wild, a stunning new memoir about family, loss and the struggle for a better future #1 International Bestseller Tara Westover was seventeen when she first set foot in a classroom. Instead of traditional lessons, she grew up learning how to stew herbs into medicine, scavenging in the family scrap yard and helping her family prepare for the apocalypse. She had no birth certificate and no medical records and had never been enrolled in school. Westover’s mother proved a marvel at concocting folk remedies for many ailments. As Tara developed her own coping mechanisms, little by little, she started to realize that what her family was offering didn’t have to be her only education. Her first day of university was her first day in school—ever—and she would eventually win an esteemed fellowship from Cambridge and graduate with a PhD in intellectual history and political thought.

Author ,
Isbn 1443452505
Genre Biography & Autobiography
Year 2018-02-20
Pages 400
Language English
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PLEASE NOTE: This is a summary and analysis of the book and not the original book. If you'd like to purchase the original book, please paste this link in your browser: https://amzn.to/2Cp3ple Educated--debut author Tara Westover’s gripping account of her life growing up barely literate in a conservative family in rural America and achieving academic success through hard work--is one of the greatest, and most well-told, inspirational stories of our times. What does this ZIP Reads Summary Include? - Synopsis of the original book - Guide to the Key Players - Chapter-by-chapter summaries of Westover's experiences - Key themes from the original book - Editorial Review - Background on Tara Westover About the Original Book: Tara Westover’s internationally feted debut, Educated, is a no-holds-barred memoir of her life growing up in an ultra-conservative survivalist Mormon family in Idaho in the 1990s. This is the inspirational story of how, having never been inside a classroom till she was seventeen, Westover went on to study at Cambridge and Harvard and write a book that has been lauded by people like Bill Gates and Barack Obama. This is also the story of the other America that, despite existing in our midst, continues to be suspect of the government and disowns children who try to join the mainstream. DISCLAIMER: This book is intended as a companion to, not a replacement for, Educated: A Memoir. ZIP Reads is wholly responsible for this content and is not associated with the original author in any way. Please follow this link: https://amzn.to/2Cp3ple to purchase a copy of the original book. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

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*#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER *Winner, Kobo Emerging Writer Prize Nonfiction *Winner, Indigenous Voices Awards *Winner, High Plains Book Awards *Finalist, CBC Canada Reads *A Globe and Mail Book of the Year *An Indigo Book of the Year *A CBC Best Canadian Nonfiction Book of the Year In this extraordinary and inspiring debut memoir, Jesse Thistle, once a high school dropout and now a rising Indigenous scholar, chronicles his life on the streets and how he overcame trauma and addiction to discover the truth about who he is. If I can just make it to the next minute...then I might have a chance to live; I might have a chance to be something more than just a struggling crackhead. From the Ashes is a remarkable memoir about hope and resilience, and a revelatory look into the life of a Métis-Cree man who refused to give up. Abandoned by his parents as a toddler, Jesse Thistle briefly found himself in the foster-care system with his two brothers, cut off from all they had known. Eventually the children landed in the home of their paternal grandparents, whose tough-love attitudes quickly resulted in conflicts. Throughout it all, the ghost of Jesse’s drug-addicted father haunted the halls of the house and the memories of every family member. Struggling with all that had happened, Jesse succumbed to a self-destructive cycle of drug and alcohol addiction and petty crime, spending more than a decade on and off the streets, often homeless. Finally, he realized he would die unless he turned his life around. In this heartwarming and heart-wrenching memoir, Jesse Thistle writes honestly and fearlessly about his painful past, the abuse he endured, and how he uncovered the truth about his parents. Through sheer perseverance and education—and newfound love—he found his way back into the circle of his Indigenous culture and family. An eloquent exploration of the impact of prejudice and racism, From the Ashes is, in the end, about how love and support can help us find happiness despite the odds.

Author Jesse Thistle
Isbn 1982101237
Genre Biography & Autobiography
Year 2019-08-06
Pages 368
Language English
File format PDF

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Want more free books like this? Download our app for free at https://www.QuickRead.com/App and get access to hundreds of free book and audiobook summaries. The captivating memoir of a woman who grew up isolated from society, abused by her family, and despite zero childhood education, she broke the restraints of her father’s twisted worldly views and earned her Ph.D. at Cambridge and Harvard University. Born on a rural farm in Idaho to strict Mormon parents, Tara Westover spent her childhood and teen years working in her father’s junkyard and helping her mother create herbal medicine while attending a small, devout church. Tara’s parents were skeptical of public education, medical institutions, and the government’s role in the lives of its citizens. This skepticism led to their self-sufficient lifestyle, homeschooling their children and even tending to serious burns and injuries with herbal remedies. Plagued with physical and emotional violence, Tara’s household became a space filled with turmoil and brutality. As Tara grew older, she gained a curiosity about the world beyond her family and set out to receive higher education. Going against her father’s wishes, Tara attended Brigham Young University, a Mormon college in Utah, and eventually went on to study at Cambridge University and complete a fellowship at Harvard. As Tara continued her education, her home life became more abusive and violent, eventually forcing her to make the difficult decision to choose between her family and education.

Author QuickRead,Lea Schullery
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Genre Study Aids
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Now a New York Times bestseller! From the author of Truths I Never Told You, Before I Let You Go, and the upcoming The Warsaw Orphan, Kelly Rimmer’s powerful WWII novel follows a woman’s urgent search for answers to a family mystery that uncovers truths about herself that she never expected. “Kelly Rimmer has outdone herself. I thought that Before I Let You Go was one of the best novels I had ever read…If you only have time to read one book this year The Things We Cannot Say should be that book. Keep tissues handy.”—Fresh Fiction “Fans of The Nightingale and Lilac Girls will adore The Things We Cannot Say.” —Pam Jenoff, New York Times bestselling author In 1942, Europe remains in the relentless grip of war. Just beyond the tents of the Russian refugee camp she calls home, a young woman speaks her wedding vows. It’s a decision that will alter her destiny…and it’s a lie that will remain buried until the next century. Since she was nine years old, Alina Dziak knew she would marry her best friend, Tomasz. Now fifteen and engaged, Alina is unconcerned by reports of Nazi soldiers at the Polish border, believing her neighbors that they pose no real threat, and dreams instead of the day Tomasz returns from college in Warsaw so they can be married. But little by little, injustice by brutal injustice, the Nazi occupation takes hold, and Alina’s tiny rural village, its families, are divided by fear and hate. Then, as the fabric of their lives is slowly picked apart, Tomasz disappears. Where Alina used to measure time between visits from her beloved, now she measures the spaces between hope and despair, waiting for word from Tomasz and avoiding the attentions of the soldiers who patrol her parents’ farm. But for now, even deafening silence is preferable to grief. Slipping between Nazi-occupied Poland and the frenetic pace of modern life, Kelly Rimmer creates an emotional and finely wrought narrative. The Things We Cannot Say is an unshakable reminder of the devastation when truth is silenced…and how it can take a lifetime to find our voice before we learn to trust it. Don't miss Kelly Rimmer's new and unforgettable novel, The Warsaw Orphan.

Author Kelly Rimmer
Isbn 1488096783
Genre Fiction
Year 2019-03-19
Pages 416
Language English
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Kate Svenson may be a dynamite businesswoman—but after three failed engagements, she's decided she's hopeless at romance. What she needs is a Business Plan to help her find Mr. Right. The Cabins resort is ripe with eligible bachelors, all rich and ambitious—just her type. But they're dropping like flies, and after fishing Kate's latest reject out of the swimming pool Jake Templeton is convinced that Kate is nothing but trouble. Especially for him. A man who's sworn off ambition and a woman hanging from the top of the corporate ladder don't have much in common. But in that unpredictable territory known as the heart, anything can happen…

Author Jennifer Crusie
Isbn 1460305116
Genre Fiction
Year 2012-10-15
Pages 384
Language English
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“Wickedly funny and always movingly illuminating, thanks to kick-ass storytelling and a poet's ear.” –Oprah.com The New York Times bestselling, hilarious tale of Mary Karr’s hardscrabble Texas childhood that Oprah.com calls the best memoir of a generation. The Liars’ Club took the world by storm and raised the art of the memoir to an entirely new level, bringing about a dramatic revival of the form. Karr’s comic childhood in an east Texas oil town brings us characters as darkly hilarious as any of J. D. Salinger’s—a hard-drinking daddy, a sister who can talk down the sheriff at age twelve, and an oft-married mother whose accumulated secrets threaten to destroy them all. This unsentimental and profoundly moving account of an apocalyptic childhood is as “funny, lively, and un-put-downable” (USA Today) today as it ever was.

Author Mary Karr
Isbn 1101650737
Genre Biography & Autobiography
Year 2005-05-31
Pages 352
Language English
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At the end of the world, a woman must hide her secret power and find her kidnapped daughter in this "intricate and extraordinary" Hugo Award winning novel of power, oppression, and revolution. (The New York Times) This is the way the world ends. . .for the last time. It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester. This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy. Read the first book in the critically acclaimed, three-time Hugo award-winning trilogy by NYT bestselling author N. K. Jemisin.

Author N. K. Jemisin
Isbn 031622930X
Genre Fiction
Year 2015-08-04
Pages 512
Language English
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"Betancourt's riveting account...is an unforgettable epic of moral courage and human endurance." -Los Angeles Times In the midst of her campaign for the Colombian presidency in 2002, Ingrid Betancourt traveled into a military-controlled region, where she was abducted by the FARC, a brutal terrorist guerrilla organization in conflict with the government. She would spend the next six and a half years captive in the depths of the Colombian jungle. Even Silence Has an End is her deeply moving and personal account of that time. The facts of her story are astounding, but it is Betancourt's indomitable spirit that drives this very special narrative-an intensely intelligent, thoughtful, and compassionate reflection on what it really means to be human.

Author Ingrid Betancourt
Isbn 1101442913
Genre Biography & Autobiography
Year 2010-09-21
Pages 544
Language English
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In the late 1960s, riding the crest of the counterculture movement, Cea’s family left a comfortable existence in California to live off the land in northern Alberta. But unlike most commune dwellers of the time, the Persons weren’t trying to build a new society—they wanted to escape civilization altogether. Led by Cea’s grandfather Dick, they lived in a canvas Teepee, grew pot, and hunted and gathered to survive. Living out her grandparents’ dream with her teenage mother, Michelle, young Cea knew little of the world beyond her forest. She spent her summers playing nude in the meadow and her winters snowshoeing behind the grandfather she idolized. Despite fierce storms, food shortages and the occasional drug-and-sex-infused party for visitors, it was a happy existence. For Michelle, however, there was one crucial element missing: a man. When Cea was five, Michelle took her on the road with a new boyfriend. As the trio set upon a series of ill-fated adventures, Cea began to question both her highly unusual world and the hedonistic woman at the centre of it—questions that eventually evolved into an all-consuming search for a more normal life. Finally, in her early teens, Cea realized she would have to make a choice as drastic as the one her grandparents once had made in order to get the life she craved. From nature child to international model by the age of thirteen, Cea’s astonishing saga is one of long-held family secrets and extreme family dysfunction, all in an incredibly unusual setting. It is also the story of one girl’s deep-seated desire for normality—a desire that enabled her to risk everything, overcome adversity and achieve her dreams.

Author Cea Sunrise Person
Isbn 1443424404
Genre Biography & Autobiography
Year 2014-04-29
Pages 416
Language English
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Regina’s Calcaterra memoir, Etched in Sand, is an inspiring and triumphant coming-of-age story of tenacity and hope. Regina Calcaterra is a successful lawyer, New York State official, and activist. Her painful early life, however, was quite different. Regina and her four siblings survived an abusive and painful childhood only to find themselves faced with the challenges of the foster-care system and intermittent homelessness in the shadows of Manhattan and the Hamptons. A true-life rags-to-riches story, Etched in Sand chronicles Regina’s rising above her past, while fighting to keep her brother and three sisters together through it all. Beautifully written, with heartbreaking honesty, Etched in Sand is an unforgettable reminder that regardless of social status, the American Dream is still within reach for those who have the desire and the determination to succeed.

Author Regina Calcaterra
Isbn 0062218840
Genre Biography & Autobiography
Year 2013-08-06
Pages 320
Language English
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Now a major motion picture from Lionsgate starring Brie Larson, Woody Harrelson, and Naomi Watts. MORE THAN SEVEN YEARS ON THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LIST The perennially bestselling, extraordinary, one-of-a-kind, “nothing short of spectacular” (Entertainment Weekly) memoir from one of the world’s most gifted storytellers. The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette’s brilliant and charismatic father captured his children’s imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn’t want the responsibility of raising a family. The Walls children learned to take care of themselves. They fed, clothed, and protected one another, and eventually found their way to New York. Their parents followed them, choosing to be homeless even as their children prospered. The Glass Castle is truly astonishing—a memoir permeated by the intense love of a peculiar but loyal family.

Author Jeannette Walls
Isbn 9781416550600
Genre Biography & Autobiography
Year 2006-12-15
Pages 304
Language English
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Prepare to be shocked. From the man The Wall Street Journal hailed as a "Swiftean satirist" comes the most shocking book ever written! The Borowitz Report: The Big Book of Shockers, by award-winning fake journalist Andy Borowitz, contains page after page of "news stories" too hot, too controversial, too -- yes, shocking -- for the mainstream press to handle. Sample the groundbreaking reporting from the news organization whose motto is "Give us thirty minutes -- we'll waste it."

Author Andy Borowitz
Isbn 1439129495
Genre Humor
Year 2010-05-11
Pages 112
Language English
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The Blair Years is the most compelling and revealing account of contemporary politics you will ever read. Taken from Alastair Campbell's daily diaries, it charts the rise of New Labour and the tumultuous years of Tony Blair's leadership, providing the first important record of a remarkable decade in our national life. Here are the defining events of our time, from Labour's new dawn to the war on terror, from the death of Diana to negotiations for peace in Northern Ireland, from Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, through to the Hutton Inquiry of 2003, the year Campbell resigned his position at No 10. But above all here is Tony Blair up close and personal, taking the decisions that affected the lives of millions, under relentless and often hostile pressure. Often described as the second most powerful figure in Britain, Alastair Campbell is no stranger to controversy. Feared and admired in equal measure, hated by some, he was pivotal to the founding of New Labour and the sensational election victory of 1997. As Blair's press secretary, strategist and trusted confidant, Campbell spent more waking hours alongside the Prime Minister than anyone. His diaires - at times brutally frank, often funny, always compelling - take the reader right to the heart of government. The Blair Years is a story of politics in the raw, of progress and setback, of reputations made and destroyed, under the relentless scrutiny of a 24-hour media. Unflinchingly told, it covers the crises and scandals, the rows and resignations, the ups and downs of Britain's hothouse politics. But amid the big events are insights and observations that make this a remarkably human portrayal of some of the most powerful people in the world. There has never been so riveting a book about life at the very top, nor a more human book about politics, told by a man who saw it all.

Author Alastair Campbell
Isbn 1446441318
Genre Biography & Autobiography
Year 2011-03-08
Pages 832
Language English
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An intimate, powerful, and inspiring memoir by the former First Lady of the United States #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • WATCH THE EMMY-NOMINATED NETFLIX ORIGINAL DOCUMENTARY • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • NAACP IMAGE AWARD WINNER • ONE OF ESSENCE’S 50 MOST IMPACTFUL BLACK BOOKS OF THE PAST 50 YEARS In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America—the first African American to serve in that role—she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the U.S. and around the world, dramatically changing the ways that families pursue healthier and more active lives, and standing with her husband as he led America through some of its most harrowing moments. Along the way, she showed us a few dance moves, crushed Carpool Karaoke, and raised two down-to-earth daughters under an unforgiving media glare. In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her—from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world’s most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it—in her own words and on her own terms. Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations—and whose story inspires us to do the same.

Author Michelle Obama
Isbn 1524763152
Genre Biography & Autobiography
Year 2018-11-13
Pages 464
Language English
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SOON TO BE ADAPTED FOR FILM in A White Lie, a TriStar major motion picture, starring and produced by Zendaya in collaboration with Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine. “Tanabe immerses the reader in a world of romance and manners, but also leaves you gripping the edge of your seat…An elegant and extremely gratifying imagining of one remarkable woman's life.” —USA TODAY “Based on the true story of the first African-American woman to ever go to Vassar College. The catch? No one knew she was African-American…Think: “Gatsby” meets college meets an impressive beach read." —theSkimm An Us Weekly “Sizzling Summer Read” * A Time Summer Read Passing meets The House of Mirth in this “utterly captivating” (Kathleen Grissom, New York Times bestselling author of The Kitchen House) historical novel based on the true story of Anita Hemmings, the first black student to attend Vassar, who successfully passed as white—until she let herself grow too attached to the wrong person. Since childhood, Anita Hemmings has longed to attend the country’s most exclusive school for women, Vassar College. Now, a bright, beautiful senior in the class of 1897, she is hiding a secret that would have banned her from admission: Anita is the only African-American student ever to attend Vassar. With her olive complexion and dark hair, this daughter of a janitor and descendant of slaves has successfully passed as white, but now finds herself rooming with Louise “Lottie” Taylor, the scion of one of New York’s most prominent families. Though Anita has kept herself at a distance from her classmates, Lottie’s sphere of influence is inescapable, her energy irresistible, and the two become fast friends. Pulled into her elite world, Anita learns what it’s like to be treated as a wealthy, educated white woman—the person everyone believes her to be—and even finds herself in a heady romance with a moneyed Harvard student. It’s only when Lottie becomes infatuated with Anita’s brother, Frederick, whose skin is almost as light as his sister’s, that the situation becomes particularly perilous. And as Anita’s college graduation looms, those closest to her will be the ones to dangerously threaten her secret. Set against the vibrant backdrop of the Gilded Age, an era when old money traditions collided with modern ideas, Tanabe has written an unputdownable and emotionally compelling story of hope, sacrifice, and betrayal—and a gripping account of how one woman dared to risk everything for the chance at a better life.

Author Karin Tanabe
Isbn 1501110462
Genre Fiction
Year 2016-06-07
Pages 400
Language English
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This beloved national bestselling memoir "is an extraordinary, honest, nuanced and compassionate look at adoption, race in America and families in general" (Jasmine Guillory, Code Switch, NPR) What does it means to lose your roots--within your culture, within your family--and what happens when you find them? Nicole Chung was born severely premature, placed for adoption by her Korean parents, and raised by a white family in a sheltered Oregon town. From childhood, she heard the story of her adoption as a comforting, prepackaged myth. She believed that her biological parents had made the ultimate sacrifice in the hope of giving her a better life, that forever feeling slightly out of place was her fate as a transracial adoptee. But as Nicole grew up—facing prejudice her adoptive family couldn’t see, finding her identity as an Asian American and as a writer, becoming ever more curious about where she came from—she wondered if the story she’d been told was the whole truth. With warmth, candor, and startling insight, Nicole Chung tells of her search for the people who gave her up, which coincided with the birth of her own child. All You Can Ever Know is a profound, moving chronicle of surprising connections and the repercussions of unearthing painful family secrets—vital reading for anyone who has ever struggled to figure out where they belong.

Author Nicole Chung
Isbn 1936787989
Genre Biography & Autobiography
Year 2018-10-02
Pages 256
Language English
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A courageous, moving, and powerful memoir from a renowned feminist activist, Heroes in My Head is the incredible untold story of Judy Rebick’s struggle with depression and Dissociative Identity Disorder. In this riveting memoir, renowned feminist Judy Rebick tells the story of the eleven personalities she developed in order to help her cope with, and survive, childhood sexual abuse. In Heroes in My Head, Rebick chronicles her struggle with depression in the 1980s, when she became a high-profile spokesperson for the pro-choice movement during the fight to legalize abortion. It was in the 1990s, when she took on her biggest challenge as a public figure by becoming president of a major women’s rights association, that her memories began to surface and became too persistent to ignore. Rebick reveals her moment of discovery: meeting the eleven personalities; uncovering her repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse; and then communicating with each personality in therapy and on the page in a journal — all of this while she is leading high-profile national struggles. Heroes in My Head is a fascinating, heartbreaking, but ultimately empowering story. With courage and honesty, Rebick lays bare the public and private battles that have shaped her life.

Author Judy Rebick
Isbn 1487003587
Genre Biography & Autobiography
Year 2018-04-10
Pages 304
Language English
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LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE. From New York Times bestselling author Jeanette Winterson comes her most anticipated book since Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? about the bodies we live in and the bodies we desire. Since her astonishing debut at twenty-five with Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson has achieved worldwide critical and commercial success as "one of the most daring and inventive writers of our time" (Elle). Her new novel, Frankissstein, is an audacious love story that weaves disparate lives into an exploration of transhumanism, artificial intelligence, and queer love. Lake Geneva, 1816. Nineteen-year-old Mary Shelley is inspired to write a story about a scientist who creates a new life-form. In Brexit Britain, 2019, a young transgender doctor called Ry is falling in love with Victor Stein, a celebrated professor leading the public debate around AI and carrying out some experiments of his own in a vast underground network of tunnels. Meanwhile, Ron Lord, just divorced and living with his mum, is set to make his fortune launching a new generation of sex dolls for lonely men everywhere. Across the Atlantic, in Phoenix, Arizona, a cryogenics facility houses dozens of bodies of men and women who are medically and legally dead...but waiting to return to life. What will happen when homo sapiens is no longer the smartest being on the planet? In fiercely intelligent prose, Jeanette Winterson shows us how much closer we are to that future than we realize. Funny and furious, bold and clear-sighted, Frankissstein is a love story about life itself.

Author Jeanette Winterson
Isbn 0735279705
Genre Fiction
Year 2019-10-01
Pages 352
Language English
File format PDF