![]() ![]() " This book just seemed like a disaster to me. " yawn :( i just cudnt feel it " - Sumiyyah, " I loved this, I really did but the fact that its a white girl who ends up saving the day, leaves a bitter aftertaste. It draws on Maori mythology instead, a whole fascinating mythos I knew nothing about. " This is an urban fantasy which is not, in fact, about werewolves, vampires, or zombies. " This started out slow and actually kind of annoying, but then it turned into everything I have ever loved. The author did a great job of weaving together several different mythologies and creating multi-layered characters. Despite the fact that I had to run to Wikipedia every five minutes while reading GUARDIAN OF THE DEAD, I really enjoyed it. " This urban fantasy book almost read like a high fantasy for me since everything I know about New Zealand was learned from multiple viewings of Lord of the Rings. Fans of paranormal and mythological fiction would probably like it better. Overall Performance: Narration Rating: Story Rating:. ![]()
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![]() ![]() In March 2022, Leake will release his anticipated new book of poetry, Unraveling. In 2021, joined by fellow poet Black Chakra, Leake released a poignant album titled Level, a 9-track album that weaves an intricate tale of two men on opposite coasts with a parallel life experience, intertwined with musical interludes and showcasing a love of words. ![]() Whether acknowledging his grief after losing his sister or commenting on police brutality in the African American community, Leake’s words serve as commentary as well as inspiration. Leake’s spoken word art is both personal and insightful, ranging from a varied list of topics. His creative mixture of art, charisma, and passion tailored to his own unique personal narrative has taken him across the world as a speaker and performer, and ultimately earned Leake the “Golden Buzzer” on season 15 of America’s Got Talent – which he went on to win. Brandon Leake is an award-winning spoken word poet, artistic educator, motivational speaker. ![]() ![]() ![]() Paul Trilby, Hynes's protagonist, is an ex-academic who began his fall in an earlier Hynes novel. Middle managers had offices along the inner wall with a view of the dying oak tree, and everybody else occupied the honeycomb of cubicles in between, where nearly every vertical surface was grown over as if by moss with stubbly gray fabric. The offices along the outer walls, with views of the parking lot and the river, were taken by senior managers. ![]() In the center of the square was a courtyard where a sun-blasted redwood deck surrounded an old live oak, which was fighting a losing battle with oak wilt. housed in a wide, low-ceilinged, underlit room in the shape of a hollow square. In his brand-new novel, Kings of Infinite Space, Hynes has broadened the object of his satire: it's in the workaday world of a government bureaucracy, in this case the Texas Department of General Services (TxDOGS, for short), an office. ![]() He has combined highbrow literary influences with wonderful popular ones like Buffy the Vampire Slayer in a way that is both very funny and genuinely weird. Of all the writers looking, sometimes desperately, for new ways to tell stories, Hynes is one of the most successful. James Hynes's two previous books, Publish and Perish: Three Tales of Tenure and Terror and The Lecturer's Tale, both received a good deal of national attention for their blend of biting academic satire and sometimes chilling horror. ![]() ![]() ![]() In Democracy in America he vividly describes the unprecedented “equality of conditions” found in the United States and explores its implications for European society in the emerging modern era. ![]() After returning to France, Tocqueville read hundreds of books and documents while reflecting on what his trip had revealed about the “great democratic revolution” that was transforming the Western world. During their nine-month visit they conducted interviews with more than 200 people on American politics, law, and social practices. ![]() This Library of America volume presents Alexis de Tocqueville’s masterpiece in an entirely new translation, the first to capture fully the precision and grace of his style while providing a rigorous and faithful rendering of his profound ideas and observations.Ī young aristocratic lawyer, Tocqueville came to the United States in 1831 with his friend and fellow magistrate Gustave de Beaumont to study American penitentiary systems. Democracy in America (1835–1840) is arguably the most perceptive and influential book ever written about American politics and society. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() To understand what I mean by digital minimalism it’s important to first understand the existing community from which it takes its name. Recently, I’ve been trying to clarify the underlying philosophy that informs how I think about the role of these technologies in our personal lives (their role in the world of work is a distinct issue that I ‘ve already written quite a bit about). My thinking in this direction is still early, but I decided it might be a useful exercise to share some tentative thoughts, many of which seem to be orbiting a concept that I’ve taken to calling digital minimalism. I’m critical, for example, of our culture’s increasingly Orwellian allegiance to social media and am indifferent to my smartphone. On the other hand, as a writer I’m often pointing out my dissatisfaction with certain developments of the Internet Era. As you might therefore expect, I’m incredibly optimistic about the role of computing and networks in our future. ![]() On the one hand, I’m a computer scientist who studies and improves these tools. People are sometimes confused about my personal relationship with digital communication technologies. ![]() ![]() ![]() It is the most disturbing work of fiction I have ever read. Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica is a masterpiece that exposes the grotesque horror of necro-capitalism and the banalities of social convention that sustain it. Their deaths are just the cost of doing business. ![]() The deaths of slaughterhouse workers, like those of the animals they carve up and process for grocery chains everywhere, is facilitated by a larger, systemic indifference to their plight. These multi-billion dollar companies are supported by the politicians whose campaigns they fund and the civil society groups they finance. A predominately immigrant workforce, their status makes them vulnerable to the whims of highly exploitative employers who are often able to deploy one of our country’s most racist police forces-ICE-to keep the workers in line. ![]() In 2020, one of the groups who were most vulnerable to disease and death were slaughterhouse workers. It’s a way of looking at how capitalism organizes segments of the population in ways that result in some groups of workers being exposed to extreme dangers and even death as a routine part of the production process. “Necro-capitalism” was a term I first learned in 2020, at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. ![]() ![]() ![]() On April 23, 2010, he was awarded a Los Angeles Times Book Prize: the Robert Kirsch Award, for "a living author with a substantial connection to the American West, whose contribution to American letters deserves special recognition."Ĭonnell was born in Kansas City, Missouri, the only son of Evan S. ![]() In 2009, Connell was nominated for the Man Booker International Prize, for lifetime achievement. ![]() His writing covered a variety of genres, although he published most frequently in fiction. ![]() Bridge, builds a world with tiny brushstrokes and short, telling vignettes.Įvan Shelby Connell Jr. Connell, who also wrote the twinned novel Mr. in the morning one doesn't wear earrings that dangle." Though her life is increasingly filled with leisure and plenty, she can't shuffle off vague feelings of dissatisfaction, confusion, and futility. She defends her dainty, untouched guest towels from son Douglas, who has the gall to dry his hands on one, and earnestly attempts to control her daughters with pronouncements such as "Now see here, young lady. India Bridge, the title character, has three children and a meticulous workaholic husband. Bridge, an inspired novel set in the years around World War II that testified to the sapping ennui of an unexamined suburban life. The wife of a successful lawyer in 1930s Kansas City, India Bridge, tries to cope with her dissatisfaction with an easy, though empty, life.īefore Betty Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique there was Mrs. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() But she is dying, visiting Scotland as part of her will to live life to the fullest. Now, in present day, one brother, Alan, is about to meet his soulmate. They could only walk as humans every fifty years, for a period of fifteen years at a time, with the hope that they would each meet their soulmate and break the curse upon them. Drawing from their shapeshifter ancestry, they were turned into fantastic sea creatures. Once there were two brothers who, out of love for their sister, sacrificed themselves to save her from a terrible fate. Guaranteed to grab your attention and hold it until the book is done. Every time I would think - I know who did it! - I would be proven wrong. In addition, there is a brilliant murder mystery (or rather, several murder mysteries) that will keep you guessing until the very end. I love the self-sacrifice, the bravery, and the ultimate love in the story, and the characters intrigued me as much as the tale. What Karen Nutt has done is created this truly magical tale of how the Loch Ness Monster came to be, assuming that it is real. ![]() No verified photos have been captured, and most believe it's simply a tale told to children or to reel in tourists. I don't know much about the Loch Ness Monster myth beyond the fact that it's largely believed to be a tall tale. Being a bit Scotland-mad for years now, I was immediately interested in this book. ![]() ![]() ![]() At the beginning of The Sundial (1958), the eccentric Halloran clan, gathered at the family manse for a funeral, becomes convinced that the world is about to end and that only those who remain in the house shall be saved. The Bird's Nest (1954) has not one but four protagonists: the shy, demure young Elizabeth and, revealed with a series of surprising twists, her other, multiple personalities. ![]() ![]() In Hangsaman (1951)-inspired by the real-life disappearance of a Bennington College sophomore-the precocious but lonely Natalie Waite grows increasingly dependent on an imaginary friend. Her haunting debut tale The Road Through the Wall (1948) explores the secret desires, petty hatreds, and ultimate terrors that lurk beneath the picture-perfect domesticities of a suburban California neighborhood. Now, Jackson's award-winning biographer Ruth Franklin gathers the subtle, chilling, hypnotic novels with which she began her unique career. Shirley Jackson-the beloved author of The Lottery, The Haunting of Hill House, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle-is more and more being recognized as one of the finest writers of the American gothic tradition, a true heir of Edgar Allan Poe and Henry James. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() "We would like every time an author gets up to perform they get paid." He said authors were facing a perfect storm, including the proposal to scrap parallel importation restrictions: "There is both commercial pressure and government pressure. David Day, chairman of the Australian Society of Authors, said in Australia it was common for some smaller literary festivals to get away with not paying guests. Its survey, which elicited responses from 17 of 22 festivals contacted, showed that 12 festivals paid writers. According to the Society of Authors, some literary festivals in Britain pay £150-£200 ($310-$414) per appearance. Novelist and critic Amanda Craig wrote an open letter calling for the boycott that other writers such as Linda Grant, Francis Wheen, Joanne Harris and Louisa Young have now signed. Many of us have had enough of that," he said. ![]() Only the authors are expected to work for nothing. If you have not heard 'Passion: Salvations Tide is Rising', you are missing some of the best Christian worship and praise music on the market. "That's equivalent to saying 'we're not paying you, and we're not letting you get paid anywhere else either. What's more, the festival demands that writers do not appear on the same topic within 30 days or 40 miles of the festival. British writers festivals that don't pay authors for their appearances face a potential boycott by authors and publishers after Philip Pullman, the president of the country's Society of Authors, resigned as patron (after being so for 20 years) of the Oxford Literary Festival because of its policy of not paying his members. ![]() |