Bøger af William Kowalski

A masterful blend of historical and modern fiction by a best-selling, award-winning author, THE BEST POLISH RESTAURANT IN BUFFALO chronicles a century of life in America for one humble Polish farm girl and three generations of her descendants in Buffalo, New York.

From the best-selling author of EDDIE'S BASTARD comes this stunning portrayal of the true cost of war for soldiers and generations of their families. Five years after being gravely wounded in Afghanistan, 25-year-old Jeremy Merkin is still trying to put the pieces of his life back together. The only man he can look to for inspiration--his grandfather, Al, a Vietnam veteran--is so shattered by his own experiences that they cannot even communicate with each other. As Jeremy seeks physical clues to what happened to him in the days preceding the IED explosion that changed his life forever, he learns things that will change him even more--about his dead best friend, Ari "Smartass" Garfunkel; about his grandfather, who was present at the My Lai massacre in 1968; and about himself. THE HUNDRED HEARTS is the winner of the 2014 Thomas H. Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award. It has been translated into German.

The year is 2147. Chago is a prisoner in a world made up only of prisoners and those who guard them. A high-tech machine that can determine innocence or guilt is introduced into the prison. People line up to walk through the Innocence Device and experience either immediate freedom or death. When they discover the machine is rigged, the prisoners riot. After the dust settles, Chago ends up in a position of power. But he soon finds not much has changed. "Kowalski is a talented and vivid stylist." --Washington Post

black lives matter, gangs, poverty, racism, addiction, violence, education

Kat is a tough, independent woman who makes her living as a professional poker player. She is single, childless and happy about it. But when her best friend, Josie, commits suicide, she names Kat as the temporary guardian of her ten-year-old son, David, until his father can come for him. In the few weeks that David is with her, Kat finds herself changed in ways she had never thought imaginable. With the old poker adage "e;bet with your head, not your heart"e; ringing in her head like a warning bell, Kat nevertheless finds that all the money and success in the world don't mean a thing unless you have someone to share it with...and that maybe there is more to life than winning after all.

"Look, man, real life is not always pretty. Sometimes you gotta do hard things. You have to protect what's yours in this life. No one else will do that for you." Rosario Gomez gave up gang life after his brother was killed in a street fight. Now all he wants to do is finish night school, be a good father and work hard enough at his job at the supermarket to get promoted. But when an old friend from the barrio shows up, Rosario realizes he was fooling himself if he thought he could ignore his violent past.

Haley Bombauer, aka Flash Jackson, confronts the summer of her seventeenth year with glorious anticipation. She envisions herself roaming the hillsides and forests on her beloved horse, venturing farther and farther away from her sleepy hometown and her overprotective mother. But when Haley falls through the rotted roof of the barn, she is destined to spend the summer in a thigh-high cast, stuck at home with her mother, enduring visits from her spooky grandmother, and pondering the error of her impulsive ways. The year that follows will, in fact, transform not only her life but also the lives of those around her. Set in Mannville, New York, William Kowalski's signature town, here is the story of one young woman's emergence into a world that, in her words, "was not designed with girls in mind" and her efforts to find a way to fit in without giving up her independence.

I'd wondered about my mother all my life -- what she looked like, how she smelled and sounded and acted. Lately this wondering had grown to encompass a curiosity about the kind of people she herself came from, because they were my family, too, after all, even though I knew nothing about them. I'd no idea whether they were loud or soft-spoken, funny or boring, preferred chocolate to vanilla, if they liked movies over books or the other way around. I wondered whether any of them had ever done anything magnificent in their lives, or if they were the kind of folks who were satisfied with just getting by. These things were important -- knowing them would help me to know myself, and the only way that would happen was if I went and looked for her.With all his possessions on his motorcycle, Billy Mann sets off on a cross-country odyssey from New York to Santa Fe in search of a mother who deserted him long ago. What Billy discovers, however, is a life rich with possibility -- the chance for love, friendship, and, finally, a family to call his own.

Med värme, envishet och ”rätt” inställning reder Walter ut både det ena och det andra. Det här är en riktig må bra-bok! Att läsa den är precis som att se en film. Man ser hela berättelsen tydligt framför sig. Och man sitter med ett leende på läpparna, samtidigt som den allvarliga undertonen går fram...

Boken finns även på svenska En andra chans.Tanken är att elever som kämpar med att lära sig engelska, ska först kunna läsa en engelsk bok på svenska, för att få en förförståelse. Det funkar också bra för nyanlända elever som kanske är duktiga på engelska och läser den boken först, innan de läser samma titel på svenska...