Bøger af Andrea Barrett

Århundreder efter opdagelsen af den nye verden, var det meste af klodens isdækkede områder stadig ikke kortlagt. Med håb om prestige og økonomisk gevinst drager en ekspedition i 1800-tallet ombord på skibet "Narhvalen" mod Arktis uden begreb om de udfordringer, der venter dem undervejs. Både passagerernes mentale og fysiske helbred udfordres på den farefulde rejse, hvor menneskets mest grundlæggende træk kommer op til overfladen.Andrea Barrett (f. 1954) er en prisvindende amerikansk forfatter. Efter en karriere indenfor biologi begyndte hun i sine tredivere at skrive fiktion, der ofte tager udgangspunkt i videnskaben. Hun er særligt blevet anerkendt for sin historiske fiktionsstil, hvor hun blander virkelige og opdigtede karakterer, og for at belyse kvindelige videnskabsfolk.

Focusing on developing states, this book captures and deliberates on best models to build their capacity and capability to become innovative. It emphasizes the organic links among economic growth, innovation, and wealth creation through entrepreneurship. In addition, it identifies and discusses some of the key factors that are required for the development of national systems to support an innovation-centric culture that is essential for the sustained socioeconomic transformation of developing states.

Servants of the Map sweeps through two centuries, from the Western Himalayas to the Adirondacks, conjuring characters that travel through the territories of yearning and awakening, of loss and unexpected discovery. A mapper of the highest mountain peaks realizes his true obsession. A young woman afire with scientific curiosity must come to terms with a romantic fantasy. Brothers and sisters, torn apart at an early age, are beset by dreams of reunion. As we move through these richly layered tales, Andrea Barrett weaves subtle connections among the stories within this collection and characters in her earlier works.

In Natural History, Andrea Barrett completes the beautiful arc of intertwined lives of a family of scientists, teachers, and innovators that she has been weaving through multiple books since her National Book Award-winning collection, Ship Fever. The six exquisite stories in Natural History are set largely in a small community in central New York state and portray some of her most beloved characters, spanning the decades between the Civil War to the present day. In "Henrietta and Her Moths," a woman tends to an insect nursery as her sister's life follows a different path. In "Open House," a young man grapples with a choice between a thrilling life spent discovering fossils and a desire to remain close to home. And in the magnificent title novella, "Natural History," Barrett deepens the connection between her characters, bringing us through to the present day and providing an unforgettable capstone.Told with Barrett's characteristic elegance, passion for science, and wonderful eye for the natural world, the psychologically astute and moving stories gathered in this collection evoke the ways women's lives and expectations-in families, in work, and in love-have shifted across a century and more. Building upon one another, these tales brilliantly culminate to reveal how the smallest events of the past can have large reverberations across the generations, and how potent, wondrous, and strange the relationship between history and memory can be.

A young boy comes of age amid an explosion of homespun investigations. A widowed science writer tries to reconcile the influence of emotion on scientific theory. A famous biologist finds himself outpaced by his students, even as he seeks to teach them. As the characters in this "elegant, thought-provoking" (Connie Ogle, Miami Herald) collection witness the world transform around them through groundbreaking discoveries-the flight of an early aeroplane, Darwin's theory of evolution, developments in genetics and X-ray technology-they grapple with the thrill and loss that accompanies scientific progress, and the personal passions and impersonal politics that shape all human knowledge. Throughout these deftly plotted stories, Andrea Barrett weaves subtle connections among the tales within this collection and characters in her earlier works.

1847. Thousands of Irish emigrants are boarding ships to flee the potato famine at home, hoping for a better life in Canada. Yet, many do not survive the crossing. Those who do reach Canada, arrive weakened, starving and riddled with disease and are forced to stay in quarantine on Grosse Isle, an Island just outside Quebec.This is the story of one doctor's seemingly hopeless struggle against the deadly disease that threatens to spread inland and affect other large cities like Montreal and Toronto. Andrea Barrett's sensitive account of one of the 19th Century's defining moments masterfully challenges readers' awareness and perception of current events. After all, history does have a habit of repeating itself.

"Luminous...Each [story] is rich and independent and beautiful and should draw Barrett many new admirers."-Publishers Weekly, starred review

At the age of eighty, Brendan Auberon—formerly of the Order of Our Lady of the Valley, now confined to a nursing home—has one last wish: to see his 200 acres overlooking what used to be Paradise Valley, before the villages were drowned to provide water for the city of Boston. Now, Brendan’s memories drift beneath the surface of the Stillwater Reservoir. When Brendan dupes his nephew, Henry, into hijacking the nursing home van for the journey, what begins as a lark becomes an adventure infinitely more complex.

For Grace, the ardent yet puzzled heroine of Andrea Barrett’s third novel, this trip has been planned as a three-week stay: she’s to play dutiful wife to Walter, her prominent scientist husband, at the 1986 Beijing International Conference on the Effects of Acid Rain. Walter is twelve years older than Grace, and as sour as the rain he studies; he and Grace are at a particularly troubled point in their marriage. Their tightly circumscribed visit, however, becomes a journey infinitely less tidy and more complex as Grace falls forever out of love with her husband and very much in love with this country and its culture. In the chaos of the Beijing streets and in the home of her new friends Dr. Yu and her son Zaofan, Grace finds the web of life she’s been too lost to perceive. “Time you spend in the past and future is time you spend alone,” Dr. Yu tells her. “But between them there is a middle kingdom, both feet planted here.”

Andrea Barrett’s novels have received resounding critical acclaim, inspiring comparisons to Gail Godwin and Anne Tyler. In Secret Harmonies, she creates a wonderful portrait of a family struggling to make sense of their lives in the rural hills of western Massachusetts. When childhood sweethearts Reba Dwyer and Luke Wyatt marry, they expect no surprises. But now that Luke—friend of Reba’s childhood, friend of her heart—is her husband, discord enters their lives. Secret Harmonies is the utterly absorbing, moving story of what happens to this couple and to the eccentric constellation of loved ones swirling around them.

"[Andrea Barrett's] work stands out for its sheer intelligence The overall effect is quietly dazzling." New York Times Book Review"

Exceptional tales of emancipation and evolution at the birth of the modern era. Winner of US National Book Award.'Andrea Barrett's work stands out for its sheer intelligence. The overall effect is quietly dazzling.' New York TimesSet against the backdrop of the nineteenth century, this elegant collection of stories take their impulse from the world of science. Interweaving historical and fictional characters, they illuminate the secret passions of those driven by a devotion to, and an intimate acquaintance with, the natural world.'Barrett's stories fascinate...she pulls us into them as into fast-moving water.' San Francisco Chronicle'Beautiful stories about the wonder and work of science. The title novella describes the horrors of typhus in the newly arrived Irish immigrants to Quebec, and suggests that, in epidemics, medicine is more a piece of politics than a form of science. In Barrett's hands, science is transformed from hard and known fact into malleable, strange and thrilling fictional material.' Boston Globe'An extraordinary story collection. Barrett blends a sure grasp of the history and method of science into each of her evocative tales.' Chicago Tribune'Many of these stories are set in the late nineteenth century, the adolescence of modern science. Barrett's women are often scoffed at for their love of learning. Some try to use science as a currency with which to buy acceptance in a male-dominated world. But no character relates only to his or her work. Barrett builds her fictions like stones thrown into prose ponds: science is the stone, while human dramas, personal and social, are the concentric rings that radiate beautifully outward.' Newsday

Here in the crisp, mountain air where wealthy tuberculosis patients recover in private cottages and charity patients, mostly European emigres, fill the sanatorium, time stands still.