The Story of a Goat

The Story of a Goat
Author: Perumal Murugan
Publisher: Grove Press
Total Pages: 143
Release: 2019-12-10
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0802147526

“Fantastical . . . Through the thoughts of a rare black goat and the couple who adopt it, readers witness famines, death, and moments of beauty.” —National Geographic Longlisted for the National Book Award for Translated Literature As he did in the award-winning One Part Woman, Perumal Murugan explores a side of India that is rarely considered in the West: the rural lives of the country’s farming community. He paints a bucolic yet sometimes menacing portrait, showing movingly how danger and deception can threaten the lives of the weakest through the story of a helpless young animal lost in a world it naively misunderstands. As the novel opens, a mysterious stranger offers a farmer in Tamil Nadu a black goat kid who is the runt of the litter, surely too frail to survive. The farmer and his wife take care of the young she-goat, whom they name Poonachi, and soon the little goat is bounding with joy and growing at a rate they think miraculous for such a small animal. Intoxicating passages from the goat’s perspective offer a bawdy and earthy view of what it means to be an animal and a refreshing portrayal of the natural world. But Poonachi’s life is not destined to be a rural idyll—dangers can lurk around every corner, and may sometimes come from surprising places, including a government that is supposed to protect the weak and needy. Is this little goat too humble a creature to survive such a hostile world? “The title character of Murugan’s elegant new novel is indeed a joy . . . through Poonachi’s tale we are reminded how much bonds us with the animal world.” —USA Today

Gregory, the Terrible Eater

Gregory, the Terrible Eater
Author: Mitchell Sharmat
Publisher: Scholastic
Total Pages: 32
Release: 2009-10-01
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 9780545129312

Worried about their son's healthy eating habits, Gregory's parents take him to the doctor to teach him how to eat old shoes and boxes like the rest of the goats, but things don't go as planned and soon hungry Gregory is munching on more than anyone could have ever imagined, including violins and flat tires!

Goat Castle

Goat Castle
Author: Karen L. Cox
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2017-08-09
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1469635046

In 1932, the city of Natchez, Mississippi, reckoned with an unexpected influx of journalists and tourists as the lurid story of a local murder was splashed across headlines nationwide. Two eccentrics, Richard Dana and Octavia Dockery—known in the press as the "Wild Man" and the "Goat Woman"—enlisted an African American man named George Pearls to rob their reclusive neighbor, Jennie Merrill, at her estate. During the attempted robbery, Merrill was shot and killed. The crime drew national coverage when it came to light that Dana and Dockery, the alleged murderers, shared their huge, decaying antebellum mansion with their goats and other livestock, which prompted journalists to call the estate "Goat Castle." Pearls was killed by an Arkansas policeman in an unrelated incident before he could face trial. However, as was all too typical in the Jim Crow South, the white community demanded "justice," and an innocent black woman named Emily Burns was ultimately sent to prison for the murder of Merrill. Dana and Dockery not only avoided punishment but also lived to profit from the notoriety of the murder by opening their derelict home to tourists. Strange, fascinating, and sobering, Goat Castle tells the story of this local feud, killing, investigation, and trial, showing how a true crime tale of fallen southern grandeur and murder obscured an all too familiar story of racial injustice.

G is for Goat

G is for Goat
Author: Patricia Polacco
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 34
Release: 2006-03-02
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 0142405507

Letter by letter, meet cart-pulling goats; clothes-munching goats; head-butting, hill-climbing, tail-wagging goats! Cats, chicks, dogs, and bunnies play along with these friendly goats, joining in the fun. From A is for Apple to Z is for Zoe, these rascally animals just won’t stop until they’ve romped through the whole alphabet. Patricia Polacco, beloved author and proud owner and friend of many goats, has created another wonderful book to be treasured by all.

The Goat in the Rug

The Goat in the Rug
Author: Charles L. Blood
Publisher: Turtleback Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 1990
Genre: Navajo Indians
ISBN: 9780833559548

Geraldine, a goat, describes each step as she and her Navajo friend make a rug, from the hair clipping and carding to the dyeing and actual weaving.

Goat Mountain

Goat Mountain
Author: David Vann
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 150
Release: 2013-09-10
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0062121111

Explore new worlds in this riveting sci-fi novel In David Vann’s searing novel Goat Mountain, an 11-year-old boy at his family’s annual deer hunt is eager to make his first kill. His father discovers a poacher on the land, a 640-acre ranch in Northern California, and shows him to the boy through the scope of his rifle. With this simple gesture, tragedy erupts, shattering lives irrevocably. In prose devastating and beautiful in its precision, David Vann creates a haunting and provocative novel that explores our most primal urges and beliefs, the bonds of blood and religion that define and secure us, and the consequences of our actions—what we owe for what we’ve done. David Vann is the award-winning author of Legend of a Suicide, Caribou Island, A Mile Down, and Last Day on Earth.

One Part Woman

One Part Woman
Author: Perumal Murugan
Publisher: Grove Press
Total Pages: 187
Release: 2018-10-23
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0802146732

The “intimate and affecting” novel of an Indian couple’s quest for a child that sparked national conversations about caste and female empowerment (Laila Lalami, New York Times Book Review). Set in South India during the British colonial period, One Part Woman tells the story of Kali and Ponna, a married couple unable to conceive. The predicament is of major concern for their families—and the crowing amusement of Kali’s male friends. From making offerings at different temples to circumambulating a mountain supposed to cure barren women, Kali and Ponna try everything to solve the problem. But a more radical plan is required. The annual chariot festival, a celebration of the god Maadhorubaagan, who is part male and part female, may provide the answer. On the eighteenth night of the festival, the rules of marriage are relaxed, and consensual sex between unmarried men and women is overlooked, for all men are considered gods. The festival may be the solution to Kali and Ponna’s problem, but it soon threatens to drive the couple apart as much as to bring them together. Wryly amusing and deeply poignant, One Part Woman is a powerful exploration of a loving marriage strained by the expectations of others, and an attack on the rigid rules of caste and tradition that continue to constrict opportunity and happiness. Longlisted for the National Book Award

The Feast of the Goat

The Feast of the Goat
Author: Mario Vargas Llosa
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Total Pages: 420
Release: 2011-03-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1429921781

WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE In The Feast of the Goat, this 'masterpiece of Latin American and world literature, and one of the finest political novels ever written' (Bookforum), Mario Vargas Llosa recounts the end of a regime and the birth of a terrible democracy, giving voice to the historical Trujillo and the victims, both innocent and complicit, drawn into his deadly orbit. Haunted all her life by feelings of terror and emptiness, forty-nine-year-old Urania Cabral returns to her native Dominican Republic - and finds herself reliving the events of l961, when the capital was still called Trujillo City and one old man terrorized a nation of three million. Rafael Trujillo, the depraved ailing dictator whom Dominicans call the Goat, controls his inner circle with a combination of violence and blackmail. In Trujillo's gaudy palace, treachery and cowardice have become a way of life. But Trujillo's grasp is slipping. There is a conspiracy against him, and a Machiavellian revolution already underway that will have bloody consequences of its own. "A fierce, edgy and enthralling book ... Mr. Vargas Llosa has pushed the boundaries of the traditional historical novel, and in doing so has written a book of harrowing power and lasting resonance."--The New York Times