Back to Blog
The unnamed midwife7/8/2023 ![]() ![]() The effect is harrowing and powerfully Feminist The Book of the Unnamed Midwife won the Philip K Dick Award. Travelling in male disguise, the unnamed bisexual protagonist does what she can to help women avoid pregnancy or, if pregnant, survive the now all too frequent stillbirths. The Post-Holocaust USA into which the title character awakens (after surviving her own illness) has all the worst excesses of Survivalist Fiction, with women hunted, raped, brutalized and sold as chattel slaves (see Slavery) against a background of lawlessness and rampant violence. ![]() (1982- ) US author whose first novel was The Book of the Unnamed Midwife ( 2014), a particularly grim Dystopia whose precipitating Disaster is the rapid onslaught of an autoimmune disease that kills most men and almost all women and children. ![]()
0 Comments
Read More
Back to Blog
The remains of the day book reviews7/8/2023 ![]() It’s not quite a satire, but it is definitely a multilayered critique, while also being an entirely sincere and sad book about an aging butler in 1956. The Remains of the Day is a strange book, and a brilliant one too. Reading his book The Remains of the Day recently, I realized that he’d long ago learned Britishisms, or more specifically, Englishisms, to an intensely precise degree. His accent was so extremely British that I was surprised-I knew he’d moved to England from Japan as a youth, and had been expecting some vestiges of a different kind of accent. He had a commanding presence and his reading was slow and deliberate and beautiful. ![]() The Remains of the Day b y Kazuo Ishiguro - Ilana Masadīack when The Buried Giant was published, I went to see Kazuo Ishiguro read at the 92 nd Street Y in New York City. ![]()
Back to Blog
The Handfasted Wife by Carol McGrath7/8/2023 ![]() ![]() But it detracted from the overall enjoyment of the read for me. I’m sure this kind of detail about meals, travel, clothing, and customs would be gobbled up by some. On the other hand, there are places where I was completely bored by tedious detail about the everyday lives of the time period. And that was interesting to me since so much of England’s history is so often pro-Norman. This novel focuses on Edith, the handfasted (married but not by Christian clergy) wife of Harold Godwin who was briefly King of England after the death of Edward the Confessor.Įdith’s relationship with Godwin, their children, and their collective fates are portrayed through a pro-Anglo Saxon, anti-Norman lens. ![]() ![]() Though William is a peripheral character in this novel, his shadow obviously hangs over the book since it covers the years surrounding the Battle of Hastings in 1066. I picked up this book intentionally because, though I’ve read a lot of historical fiction, I had never read any about William the Conquerer. Interesting period, but WAY too much detail for me. ![]()
Back to Blog
The absolute book by elizabeth knox7/8/2023 ![]() ![]() The library had already gone, broken up before the sale. But the stone walls were dis‑ mantled to make long fields with nothing to impede the big harvesting machines-not walls, or drainage ditches, or the hawthorn hedges the foxes had followed. The new owners left the last of the wetlands intact, and the plantation forest with its kernel, a copse of ancient oaks. A farm conglomerate had taken over the estate. She never went near Princes Gate, because she couldn’t cope with the changes. Taryn would spend some of her holidays with her mother, then stay with friends. Addy Cornick had been struggling with illness and was dispiriting company. Basil Cornick was in New Zealand, playing the bluff fellow in a fantasy epic. It was Grandma Ruth whom Beatrice was visiting when Webber found her.īeatrice and Taryn’s parents were separated. The family had to give up the debt‑encumbered house-though Grandma Ruth stayed on in the gatehouse while she continued at her vet’s practice. Beatrice was seventeen and Taryn thirteen when their grandfather died. The Cornick girls loved libraries, most of all the one at Princes Gate, which belonged to their grandfather, James Northover. ![]() Beatrice enjoyed those books, perhaps because they were often set in libraries. The book in the bag still strapped to Beatrice’s body when Timothy Webber bundled her into the boot of his car was the blockbuster of that year, 2003, a novel about tantalising, epoch‑spanning conspiracies. ![]()
Back to Blog
![]() Incorporating both primary and secondary sources from Thailand and Laos, he examines premodern inscriptional, codicological, anthropological, art historical, ecclesiastical, royal, and French colonial records. He depicts Buddhism as a series of overlapping processes, bringing fresh attention to the continuities of Theravada monastic communities that have endured despite regional and linguistic variations. Through five centuries of adaptation and reinterpretation of sacred texts and commentaries, Justin McDaniel traces curricular variations in Buddhist oral and written education that reflect a wide array of community goals and values. Gathering Leaves and Lifting Words examines modern and premodern Buddhist monastic education traditions in Laos and Thailand. ![]() Benda Prize sponsored by the Association for Asian Studies ![]()
Back to Blog
![]() ![]() But as she gradually gets to know the other kids at the home–charming Simon and his ominous, unsmiling brother Derek, obnoxious Tori, and Rae, who has a “thing” for fire–Chloe begins to realize that there is something that binds them all together, and it isn’t your usual “problem kid” behaviour. After she suffers a breakdown, her devoted aunt Lauren gets her into a highly recommended group home.Īt first, Lyle House seems a pretty okay place, except for Chloe’s small problem of fearing she might be facing a lifetime of mental illness. Chloe starts seeing ghosts–everywhere, demanding her attention. But when puberty does hit, it brings more than hormone surges. Her biggest concern is that she’s not developing as fast as her friends are. ![]() She is attending art school, pursuing her dreams of becoming a director, making friends, meeting boys. After years of frequent moves following her mother’s death, Chloe Saunders’s life is finally settling down. ![]()
Back to Blog
![]() ![]() I’d buy some other things, car, good computer/entertainment system throughout the house, many books, more geeky shit, stuff like that □ And I would spend it on my family and friends, help them out if they have a tight spot, stuff like that. I want to go back to Edinburgh, for example, but I also want to visit Scandinavia, and go to the US, and visit New Zealand, and Mongolia and, and, and… There are so many places I wanna see, on and off the beaten path, new and old. I’d either quit my job or drastically cut my hours for at least a year or so to go traveling. A place to live, but also a place to fall back on while doing other shit. I’d buy a house somewhere out in the countryside, all paid off and everything. Money can’t buy you happiness and such, but it damn well can make life easier. Oh, I would do sooooo many things. I’d mainly be sensible about it, though. ![]()
Back to Blog
Just listen sarah dessen epub7/7/2023 ![]() ![]() Praise for Once and For All: "Dessen’s expertise at creating a character faced with change is once again on display in this book that reminds readers that love is measured ‘not in minutes but in moments.’ -VOYA "Romance, humor, kindhearted characters, and a touch of painful reality make this another sure bet for Dessen fans."5(). Once and For All is Dessen's thirteenth novel - and they just seem to get better and better Brand: Penguin Young Readers Group.Plot Summary Louna is the year-old daughter of Natalie Barrett, one of the premier wedding planners in Lakeview, downloadted Reading Time: 7 mins. Once and for All by Sarah Dessen has been reviewed by Focus on the Family’s marriage and parenting magazine. ![]() ![]() > CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD EBOOK > CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD EBOOK <<<< _Once and for All by Sarah Dessen Ebook Epub PDF ghb (Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read). ![]()
Back to Blog
Lost in Time by A.G. Riddle7/7/2023 ![]() But which ones are connected to the murder that exiled her father? That mystery stretches across the past, present, and future–and leads to a revelation that will change everything ![]() And that she is made of tougher stuff that she ever imagined.Īs she peels back the layers of the mystery that ripped her father from this world, Adeline finds more questions than answers. She soon learns that impossible tasks are her specialty. People around her insist that both are impossible tasks.īut Adeline doesn’t give up. She sets out on a quest to prove him innocent. ![]() Two hundred million years into the past-to the age of the dinosaurs-to live out their lives alone, in exile from the human race.Īdeline Anderson has already lost her mother to a deadly and unfair disease. They will be convicted.Īnd so, Sam does what he must: he confesses to the crime.īut in the future, murderers aren’t sent to prison. He and his daughter are accused of the crime. Sam Anderson wakes up to discover that the woman he loves has been murdered. ![]() ![]() And more than her life is at stake.įrom the worldwide bestselling author of Departure and Winter World comes a standalone novel with a twist you’ll never see coming. Synopsis from Goodreads: When his daughter is falsely accused of murder, a scientist must travel 200 million years into the past to save her. This ARC was provided by Head of Zeus (via NetGalley) in exchange for an honest review. ![]()
Back to Blog
The ravenhood7/6/2023 ![]() ![]() Given its pre-feminism timeframe, the marriage between Will and Katherine is a polar opposite from Cora and Michael. ![]() Her loveless relationship also leads to her becoming somewhat a terrible mother to Francis who sees Martha as more of a mother figure.Ĭora doesn’t come to a realization that the brokenness of her marriage and love in any relationship should not be one-sided until she meets Will. Because our past experiences with love are what we base our love language on. You can clearly see how we have been loved will affect how we continue to love others. It comes to no surprise that Michael’s abuse shaped Cora’s perspectives of love which almost led her to spiral into her next relationship with narcissist Luke Garrett. Michael and Cora’s marriage seemed perfect since Michael is a respectable member of society but Michael was, in fact, an abusive spouse. As a new widow, Cora unwittingly begins to reflect on her marriage to Michael. The first example would obviously be Cora and Michael. ![]() It was hard to ignore the theme of love in this book with many seemingly parallel examples of love. How do you love? “I’ll fill your wounds with gold” ![]() I want to caution future readers of The Essex Serpent to not get lost in finding out if the serpent is real or not. I really enjoyed the journey it took me on with each chapter. The Essex Serpent is the first book in a long time that I actually enjoyed from my book club. ![]() |