Free PDF The Natural Laws of Good Luck: A Memoir of an Unlikely Marriage, by Ellen Graf
Book lovers, when you require a brand-new book to review, discover guide The Natural Laws Of Good Luck: A Memoir Of An Unlikely Marriage, By Ellen Graf here. Never ever fret not to find exactly what you require. Is the The Natural Laws Of Good Luck: A Memoir Of An Unlikely Marriage, By Ellen Graf your required book currently? That holds true; you are really a great user. This is an ideal book The Natural Laws Of Good Luck: A Memoir Of An Unlikely Marriage, By Ellen Graf that originates from excellent writer to show you. The book The Natural Laws Of Good Luck: A Memoir Of An Unlikely Marriage, By Ellen Graf offers the very best encounter and lesson to take, not just take, but also learn.
The Natural Laws of Good Luck: A Memoir of an Unlikely Marriage, by Ellen Graf
Free PDF The Natural Laws of Good Luck: A Memoir of an Unlikely Marriage, by Ellen Graf
The Natural Laws Of Good Luck: A Memoir Of An Unlikely Marriage, By Ellen Graf When creating can change your life, when composing can improve you by providing much cash, why do not you try it? Are you still really confused of where getting the ideas? Do you still have no idea with exactly what you are going to create? Currently, you will need reading The Natural Laws Of Good Luck: A Memoir Of An Unlikely Marriage, By Ellen Graf An excellent author is an excellent viewers at once. You can specify exactly how you write depending on just what books to check out. This The Natural Laws Of Good Luck: A Memoir Of An Unlikely Marriage, By Ellen Graf can assist you to fix the problem. It can be one of the best resources to create your writing ability.
Right here, we have numerous publication The Natural Laws Of Good Luck: A Memoir Of An Unlikely Marriage, By Ellen Graf as well as collections to read. We likewise offer alternative kinds and also sort of the e-books to browse. The enjoyable e-book, fiction, past history, unique, science, and also other kinds of books are available here. As this The Natural Laws Of Good Luck: A Memoir Of An Unlikely Marriage, By Ellen Graf, it comes to be one of the recommended publication The Natural Laws Of Good Luck: A Memoir Of An Unlikely Marriage, By Ellen Graf collections that we have. This is why you are in the appropriate website to view the incredible publications to have.
It won't take even more time to obtain this The Natural Laws Of Good Luck: A Memoir Of An Unlikely Marriage, By Ellen Graf It won't take even more money to print this book The Natural Laws Of Good Luck: A Memoir Of An Unlikely Marriage, By Ellen Graf Nowadays, individuals have been so clever to utilize the technology. Why do not you utilize your kitchen appliance or other device to conserve this downloaded soft file publication The Natural Laws Of Good Luck: A Memoir Of An Unlikely Marriage, By Ellen Graf In this manner will certainly let you to consistently be come with by this publication The Natural Laws Of Good Luck: A Memoir Of An Unlikely Marriage, By Ellen Graf Obviously, it will be the most effective close friend if you review this e-book The Natural Laws Of Good Luck: A Memoir Of An Unlikely Marriage, By Ellen Graf till finished.
Be the initial to purchase this book now and also obtain all factors why you require to read this The Natural Laws Of Good Luck: A Memoir Of An Unlikely Marriage, By Ellen Graf The e-book The Natural Laws Of Good Luck: A Memoir Of An Unlikely Marriage, By Ellen Graf is not only for your duties or need in your life. Publications will constantly be a buddy in every single time you review. Now, let the others understand about this page. You can take the advantages as well as discuss it also for your pals and also people around you. By in this manner, you could really get the meaning of this publication The Natural Laws Of Good Luck: A Memoir Of An Unlikely Marriage, By Ellen Graf beneficially. Exactly what do you consider our idea here?
Ellen is forty-six, divorced, and having no luck with personal ads when her Chinese girlfriend comes up with a plan: she has a brother in China, Zhong-hua, who’s lonely too. Maybe they’d like each other? Taking a leap of faith that most of us wouldn’t dare, Ellen travels to China to meet him. Though they speak only a few words of each other’s language, there’s an unspoken connection between them and they decide to marry.
What follows is a remarkably touching and humorous story of two people from completely different worlds trying to make a marriage work. Settling in at Ellen’s ramshackle farmhouse in upstate New York, they quickly discover the cultural chasm that lies between them. Ellen and her teenage daughter decide to adopt a policy of nonjudgment as Zhong-hua lobbies to sell their refrigerator (“Just three people, no need”), serves them giant sea slugs for dinner, and brusquely nudges Ellen aside without an “excuse me” (“Family no need these kind of words”).
Zhong-hua is not the type to offer his wife impromptu smiles or hugs, but in bed at night he holds her tightly like she’s “something long lost and precious that might not live until morning.” The Natural Laws of Good Luck is an unusual and exquisitely written love story—one that will resonate with anyone who has ever contemplated with wonder the spaces that exist between us and those we care about.
- Sales Rank: #1431225 in eBooks
- Published on: 2011-03-22
- Released on: 2011-03-22
- Format: Kindle eBook
Review
“A compelling read for anyone with an interest in the nuts and bolts of how to keep a marriage together.”—Times Union
“A poignant, witty look at cultural misunderstandings, the intimacies of marriage, and the deep bonds of human connection.”—Gail Tsukiyama
"An impressive debut, one of the funniest and most moving love stories to come around in a long time."—Library Journal
"This memoir is as unusual as it is hilarious, as brilliant as it is kind. Not only is it among the most moving love stories I have ever read, it is also one of the most emotionally complicated—which is not even to mention how fun it is to read."—Tom Bissell, author of The Father of All Things
"Ellen Graf and her husband, Lu Zhong-hua, take the realm of marriage and spin it on an irresistible new axis. Conventional notions of romance become riddles as these two quirky, endearing individuals fumble from delight to disaster and back again. Graf's exquisite memoir is quite simply the greatest love story I've ever read."—Aimee Liu, author of Cloud Mountain
“A winning tale of two surprisingly compatible lovers who find each other at the opposite ends of the earth.”—More.com
“After a blind date and the briefest of courtships, Ellen Graf, a divorced mother of four, marries her tai chi teacher’s brother-in-law in China, and the usual challenges of married life are complicated by an immense cultural gap. As her husband navigates the unfamiliar landscape of upstate New York, a portrait emerges of a heroic and memorable man, but not before you laugh a little, and cry a little more.”—Ilene Traiger, Books on the Common, on IndieBound.org
“Graf’s memoir is a delightful account of East meets West in a loving relationship, complete with inevitable culture clashes resulting from wildly different ethnicities, customs, and background experiences. This appealing, true tale of adaptation (an ongoing process required in any marriage but taken here to extremes) is infused with an unforced sweetness and offers heartfelt and authentic proof of what we do for love.”—Booklist
About the Author
Ellen Graf is a writer and sculptor. She has received the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, a Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation Grant, and she holds an MFA in creative writing from Bennington College.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
In China, my husband had never driven a car. He was sure he could learn in two hours. He owned a big a motorcycle in China. How different could it be?
I soon discovered that the solid centerlines had no significance to him. The lanes held no association to restricted sideways movement. Country drivers in big-wheeled pick-up trucks sped up and skimmed past us, shouting obscenities. I instructed Zhong-Hua in the basics, that the person on the main road had right-of-way and that a red light meant stop until the light changed to green.
“I don’t think so.”
“What do you mean, you don’t think so? Red means don’t go. You have to wait, that’s the law.”
“In China, who can go, just go. Is okay. Big road, small road, left turn, right turn—this doesn’t matter. Just watch, see, look at. Okay—go. Not okay—not go. Also, people drive on any side of the road. Which side open, which side drive.”
“Watch out! Stay in your lane, stay in your lane!”
“Another driver say ‘asshole.’ What is asshole?”
“It means he’s mad. Get over, get over!”
I was gasping and holding onto the ceiling, my feet braced against the dash. My husband sighed and said I “must be” ride in the back seat because I was making him nervous and this was “very danger.” I wasn’t in the habit of drinking alcohol, but for several weeks, as soon as we returned home alive from a driving excursion, I sedated myself with Chinese wine, the kind that numbs your mouth like Novocain for a full hour.
One day my husband turned left from the right-hand lane, cutting off a Lincoln Continental. Brakes screamed, and Zhong-Hua was looking right into the quivering jowls of the red-faced driver. The man stuck his whole face out the window and sputtered, “You almost killed us!”
“Yes.”
“I said you almost killed us, buddy. Do you hear?”
“Yes, yes.”
“What do you have to say when I say you almost killed us?”
“Thank you very much!”
“I’m yelling at you. Why do you say thank you?”
“I don’t know. I just think, thank you.”
“Okay, you’re welcome.” The guy pulled his face back. Zhong-Hua waved and thanked him again.
Most helpful customer reviews
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful.
Masterful storytelling, and what a story!
By Toto
I spent hours in one of those massive bookstores in a God forsaken place (I'm waiting for an Amazon order) trying to pull out something good to read. Blah, blah, blah. Then I picked up this book and I knew quickly that it was going to hold my interest and probably be a treasure: I was right.
I'm around the author's age and I've been divorced forever, so I was interested to see what another woman dealt the same hand is up to. Wow, you can't imagine. For starters, Ellen Graf was living an interesting life when she was single: she has a handful of children with unusual names and she raised them in an old farmhouse in upstate New York, and she's an artist. The author is unusually perceptive and her descriptions of nature, including people, are delicious. Graf's skill at capturing dialog is breathtaking, and her timing is flawless: the book is funny. Reading it is a vicarious and wild ride through the experience of marrying a barely known man from China. There's also a lot of depth to the book in considering China's history and our cultural differences.
"The Natural Laws of Good Luck" is a beautiful testimony to the endurance of the human spirit. It's about love, not platitudes, but the real nitty-gritty stuff. I applaud the couple's determination to forge a life together and Graf's skill in sharing it with us. (Maybe fish do need bicycles).
There is so much to this fascinating story, and unlike another reviewer, I found it to be well-ordered and spellbinding. I hope it becomes a best seller, because it deserves to be. I won't forget this one.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful.
An Amazing Story -- Beautifully Told
By Vicki Lane
I loved this book, tangents and all.
What Ellen wanted was someone to share her life: someone with whom to watch the circling hawk, the setting sun -- someone to help her with her ramshackle farmhouse. She imagined a man with "a sweet and burly personality, and he came over after work in his tight, dirty blue jeans. He was wily and strong and always smiling. He would swing me up over his head, I would bubble with laughter, and then we would fix stuff."
This is the story of the man she got -- a stoic survivor of China's Cultural Revolution, a man who spoke almost no English, who in the beginning broke far more things than he fixed, but the man with whom she fell in love and began slowly to piece together a life.
Romantic, practical, and maddeningly impractical by turns -- the story of Ellen and Zhong-hua is, in the end, a love story and a lesson in acceptance. I loved the poetic descriptions, the wry humor, the philosophical insights, and the down-the-rabbit-hole quality of the entire adventure that is the marriage of these two amazing people.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
Insightful and uplifting view of marriage
By Bearette24
I really liked this book. It took me a few minutes to get used to the author's voice, which was a little unconventional, but by the time I got to the meat of the book -- the bicultural differences between her and her husband -- I was enjoying myself. The author is excellent at capturing Zhong-hua's sometimes hilarious, sometimes insightful fractured English and his philosophical worldview, which he developed after years of suffering under Chairman Mao. I thought a number of his aphorisms and thoughts were wonderful ways to deal with stress. Also, I think most people would find this book relatable - who hasn't sometimes been stunned by the differences between husband and wife in a marriage?
The Natural Laws of Good Luck: A Memoir of an Unlikely Marriage, by Ellen Graf PDF
The Natural Laws of Good Luck: A Memoir of an Unlikely Marriage, by Ellen Graf EPub
The Natural Laws of Good Luck: A Memoir of an Unlikely Marriage, by Ellen Graf Doc
The Natural Laws of Good Luck: A Memoir of an Unlikely Marriage, by Ellen Graf iBooks
The Natural Laws of Good Luck: A Memoir of an Unlikely Marriage, by Ellen Graf rtf
The Natural Laws of Good Luck: A Memoir of an Unlikely Marriage, by Ellen Graf Mobipocket
The Natural Laws of Good Luck: A Memoir of an Unlikely Marriage, by Ellen Graf Kindle
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar