The hair-raising mash-up of feminist X-Men, gothic fairy tale, family saga and biting social criticism that is taking Europe by storm.When Anita Naakka jumps in front of an oncoming train, her daughter, Norma, is left alone with the secret they have spent their lives hiding: Norma has supernatural hair, sensitive to the slightest changes in her mood--and the moods of those around her--moving of its own accord, corkscrewing when danger is near. And so it is her hair that alerts her, while she talks with a strange man at her mother's funeral, that her mother may not have taken her own life. Setting out to reconstruct Anita's final months--sifting through puzzling cell phone records, bank statements, video files--Norma begins to realise that her mother knew more about her hair's powers than she let on: a sinister truth beyond Norma's imagining.

Wit and wisdom from the innovative, influential, and empowering wellness guru and designer Norma Kamali In her first book, fashion legend Norma Kamali offers readers a stylish, inspiring, and heartfelt handbook for gliding boldly through each of life’s decades with purpose and power. Manifesto, memoir, and essential guide, its pages are informed by 50 years of Kamali’s twists, turns, triumphs, and failures experienced while ï¬?nding the courage and conviction to race after her dreams and never look back. At 75, Kamali looks—and acts—nearly half her age. The secret, she writes, is learning to age with power: Embracing a healthy lifestyle and looking forward to every milestone and the changes they bring, with the realization that reaching one’s potential has no date. With wisdom and wit, Kamali imparts her lessons on authentic beauty, timeless style, career-building, ï¬?tness, and health through personal stories, worldly insight, and actionable advice designed to help women of every age create their happiest, healthiest, most successful and fulfilling lives.

'A life-affirming book' Daily Mail 'An uplifting personal story of a year lived like no other' Daily Express Two days after her husband of sixty-seven years dies, nonagenarian Miss Norma is diagnosed with cancer. When given her treatment options - surgery, chemo and radiotherapy - she rises to her full five feet and says in the strongest voice she can muster: 'I’m ninety years old. I’m hitting the road!' Driving Miss Norma is the story of her inspirational road trip across the US in a thirty-six-foot motorhome with her son, Tim, his wife, Ramie and their Poodle, Ringo - showing us that it's never too late to begin an adventure, inspire hope or become a trailblazer. As the journey unfolds, Miss Norma finally spreads her wings and lives life on her own terms for the very first time. With each adventure a once timid Miss Norma says YES to living in the face of death - whether it's experiencing her very first pedicure or taking the hot air balloon ride her late husband never found time for. With each passing mile - and one hilarious visit to a cannabis dispensary - Miss Norma’s health improves and conversations that had once been taboo begin to unfold. Norma, Tim and Ramie bond in ways they could never have anticipated and their definitions of home, family and friendship are rewritten as strangers become friends and shower them with kindness. Bursting with Miss Norma’s generous spirit, Driving Miss Norma ignites a renewed sense of life, family, fun and self-discovery - at any age.

Norma, a new work of fiction by writer Mark Zwolinski, asks you to enjoy a roller coaster like story about a kind, elderly woman, who saves a town from corruption and violence by surviving those very things herself. But the book also asks you to consider how you read fiction. Norma, as a work of fiction, intends to take its audience through a heroic tale where a 56 year old woman's life changes after she discovers a phone that belonged to a young murder victim, who bravely took a video of her assailants during a fatal altercation. There is all manner of life therein: love, sadness, emotion, endurance, the things we see when we look in the mirror, the challenges facing the elderly, poetry, youth, and above all, kindness. At the same time, there are two dissertations on the unseen balances between truth and lies. They are meant to create an over-riding ideology, which presents a constant reminder about the always undefinable space in which the characters live in, and the spaces we find ourselves in. It is an intellectual exercise in reading that will appeal to any lover of fiction. It is different. it is challenging, yet it is rewarding. All along, the truth about truth and lies, and the spaces we live in, are not truly defined until the book arrives at its final words. There is a strength there, and it is waiting for you. Finding it will rake all of your emotions. But there is a triumph in that. It is a tale for all ages. It's waiting there in this easy to read, page turner that mirrors the experience of spending time in an art museum with your favorite paintings.

From the internationally best-selling author of Purge and When the Doves Disappeared, a spellbinding new novel set in present-day Helsinki, about a young woman with a fantastical secret who is trying to solve the mystery of her mother's death. When Anita Naakka jumps in front of an oncoming train, her daughter, Norma, is left alone with the secret they have spent their lives hiding: Norma has supernatural hair, sensitive to the slightest changes in her mood--and the moods of those around her--moving of its own accord, corkscrewing when danger is near. And so it is her hair that alerts her, while she talks with a strange man at her mother's funeral, that her mother may not have taken her own life. Setting out to reconstruct Anita's final months--sifting through puzzling cell phone records, bank statements, video files--Norma begins to realize that her mother knew more about her hair's powers than she let on: a sinister truth beyond Norma's imagining. As Sofi Oksanen leads us ever more deeply into Norma's world, weaving together past and present, she gives us a dark family drama that is a searing portrait of both the exploitation of women's bodies and the extremes to which people will go for the sake of beauty.

Vincenzo Bellini's Norma, first produced at La Scala, Milan, in 1831, is widely regarded as the greatest achievement of the bel canto era. Its title role, sung at the premiere by Giuditta Pasta, has been undertaken in more recent times by Maria Callas, Joan Sutherland and Monserrat Caballe and remains one of the supremely challenging soprano parts in the operatic repertory. The opera tells of the conflicting loyalties of the High Priestess of the Druids, Norma, who is torn between her duty to her people and her love for the father of her two children, the proconsul of the occupying Roman forces in Gaul.The guide contains articles on the background to the opera and the development of bel canto, a detailed examination of its musical structure and a survey of its performance history, dealing in particular with the approaches of some of the many distinguished singers who have appeared in its principal roles. There is also a discussion of the contentious issue of which voice-types should more appropriately be singing each of the two leading female characters. The guide includes the full libretto with English translation, sixteen pages of illustrations, a musical thematic guide, a discography, a bibliography, and DVD and website guides.Contains:The Genesis of Norma, Susan RutherfordNorma's Musical Journey, Roger ParkerNorma: A Selective Performance History, John AllisonWeep, Shudder, Die: Vincenzo Bellini, Norma and Their Admirers, Gary KahnNorma: Libretto by Felice Romani after Alexandre Soumet's verse tragedy NormaNorma: English translation by Kenneth Chalmers