social life and customs

Christmas is celebrated all around the world. But celebrations in Latin America and in Hispanic communities have their own special traditions.

Little Nell, a young girl in Victorian England, is uprooted from her secure and innocent childhood and cast into a world of evil when she and her grandfather are pursued relentlessly by the evil and loathsome dwarf Quilp.

Provides a portrait of English provincial life in the nineteenth century, focusing on Dorothea Brooks and her two marriages, Dr. Lydgate, and the Vincy family.

The story of a family and the system of debtors' prisons as symbols of the social and psychological imprisonment of 19th century England.

Pyotr and Stavrogin, leaders of a Russian revolutionary cell, train terrorists to participate in a plot to overthrow the tsar, destroy society, and seize power, but when the group is threatened with exposure, the recruits must decide how far they are willing to go to save themselves.

Tells the story of young drawing master Walter Hartright and the events that unfold after he encounters a mysterious apparition at one o'clock in the morning on a deserted London road.

"Dorothea is bright, beautiful and rebellious. Lydgate is the ambitious new doctor in town. Both of them long to make a positive difference in the world. But their stories do not proceed as expected and both they, and the other inhabitants of Middlemarch, must struggle to reconcile themselves to their fates and find their places in the world. This novel contains all of life, the rich and the poor, the conventional and the radical, literature and science, politics and romance, but above all it gives us a vision of what lies within the human heart"--Provided by publisher.

Examines the American obsession with self-reliance and how it has led to inequality, self-blame, and shifted the responsibility for survival onto the backs of ordinary people.

"In a place where time is running out, sometimes the most radical act is remembrance. Hong Kong has long been known as a city of extremes: a former colony of the United Kingdom that today exists at the margins of an authoritarian, ascendant China; a cityrocked by mass protests, where residents take to the streets to rally against encroaching threats on their democracy and freedoms. But it is also misunderstood and often romanticized, its history and politics oversimplified in Western headlines. Drawing richly from her own experience, as well as countless interviews with the artists, protestors, students, and writers who have made Hong Kong their home, journalist Karen Cheung gives us an insider's view of this remarkable city, making the case along the way that we should look to Hong Kong as a warning sign for what lies ahead for other global democracies. Coming of age in the wake of Hong Kong's reunification with China in 1997, Cheung traverses the multifold identities available to her in childhood and beyond, whether that was at her English-speaking international schools, where her classmates were often the children of diplomats or corporate officers, or within her deeply traditional family. Along the way, Cheung gives a personal account of what it's like to seek out affordable housing and mental healthcare in one of the world's most expensive cities. She also takes us into Hong Kong's vibrant indie music and literary scenes--youth-driven spaces of creative resistance. Inevitably, Cheung brings us withher to the protests, where her understanding of what it means to belong to Hong Kong finally crystallized"--.

"Cinco de Mayo is about celebrating! It honors a Mexican Army victory during the Battle of Puebla in 1862. Some people mark the holiday with folk dancing or traditional foods such as chalupas and mole poblano. Others watch parades or attend cultural festivals. Readers will discover how a shared holiday can have multiple traditions and be celebrated in all sorts of ways"--Provided by publisher.