Metropolitan Library System

"Ilse Lund is a French translator who lives in a beach house on stilts set on a remote spit of land off the west coast of Greenland. Restless from the predictability of life in her quaint cottage and her isolated world circumscribed by the sea, Ilse convinces her French publisher to pay for a trip to the country whose language she translates but has never visited--France. Her mission: to translate the verses of an elderly Provençal poet known as...

"Innocent or guilty: it all hinges on a single word . . .Thanks to a nomadic childhood, Revelle Lee is fluent in ten languages, which she puts to use at crime scenes and in courtrooms across London. Being a court interpreter is a stressful job, one that makes her privy to the most personal and often dark details of others' lives. In the meantime, she's close to adopting a six-year-old boy named Elliot from foster care. Revelle is determined to be...

"Up until a few months ago, Rheo Whitlock had it all. Stability, self-confidence and a safe job as an interpreter for the United Nations... It was the predictable sort of existence she, as a dedicated homebody, had always dreamed of--the security she'd needed thanks to her nomadic #vanlife upbringing. But ever since an unfortunate "hot mic" moment threw her career into a tailspin, she's been struggling--really struggling--with fear, anxiety and uncertainty....

Crazy wisdom explores the arrival of Tibetan Buddhism in America through the story of Chogyam Trungpa, who landed in the U.S. in 1970. Trungpa became renowned for translating ancient Buddhist concepts into language and ideas that Westerners could understand and shattered preconceived notions about how an enlightened teacher should behave. Initially rejected, his teachings are now recognized by western philosophers and spiritual leaders as authentic...

"It's the rule--always watch your fives and twenty-fives. When a convoy halts to investigate a possible roadside bomb, stay in the vehicle and scan five meters in every direction. A bomb inside five meters cuts through the armor, killing everyone in the truck. Once clear, get out and sweep twenty-five meters. A bomb inside twenty-five meters kills the dismounted scouts investigating the road ahead. Fives and twenty-fives mark the measure of a marine's...

Winner of the 2020 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing

A Best Book of the Year at BuzzFeed and the Times Literary Supplement

"It's a complex portrait of a young Oklahoma woman's development of a rich and exacting interior life. It's also a visual love letter to family, language and self-understanding... Every page of this stunning and surprising book turns words around and around." —The New

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A biography of Cameron Townsend, a twentieth-century Christian missionary who began organizations with a focus on translating the Bible into minority languages.

"Anisa Ellahi dreams of being a translator of "great works of literature," but mostly spends her days subtitling Bollywood movies and living off her parents' generous allowance. Adding to her growing sense of inadequacy, her mediocre white boyfriend, Adam, has successfully leveraged his savant-level aptitude for languages into an enviable career. But when Adam learns to speak Urdu practically overnight, Anisa forces him to reveal his secret. Adam...