Back to Blog
All the bright places by jennifer niven6/12/2023 ![]() ![]() This may seem flippant but I thought it was quite an important point to make as it resonates with so many stories of suicidal intention where someone doesn’t necessarily want to die, but they just don’t want to live. In this book Finch sort of wants to die, but seems to be finding almost insignificant reasons not to go through with it – it would be a horrible mess for someone to clear up, and so on. We had lots of divorce and occasionally people died, but the frank approach to teens wanting to take their own lives just wasn’t talked (or written) about in the way it is now, in books such as this and Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher and My Heart and Other Black Holes by Jasmine Warga and so on. ![]() I’m oddly intrigued by suicide books, partly because I do a lot of work on suicide and child and adolescent mental health as part of my day job, and partly because I don’t remember quite so many books being quite so daring in this regard when I was an official young adult. At least one of them has a plan to make the pain stop in the most final way possible. And he doesn’t mean that in terms of physically awake, but more so in terms of his emotions. Finch, meanwhile has started from zero and is logging the number of days in a row he is awake. Violet is on countdown to graduation, to getting away from the school and town that hold so many torturous memories. Finch and Violet are both counting the days. ![]()
0 Comments
Read More
Back to Blog
Movie called the shape of water6/12/2023 ![]() However the reactions were delivered smoothly, so smoothly, in fact, that they didn't bother me, or make me 'dwell' for longer than a moment. There were a couple of times I expected a completely different reaction from characters (no spoilers). The same should also be said of the film crew. The wardrobe and props departments also did a great job giving the film a 1950s type of look and feel. There really wasn't any room for 'spectacular' acting, though the whole cast did their job delivering the character they were assigned. ![]() It is more of a love story like I've never seen before. While I'm not into 'creature from the deep' type movies, this is not really one of those. ![]()
Back to Blog
Stormdancer series6/12/2023 ![]() ![]() Returning to the city, Yukiko and Buruu plan to make the Shogun pay for his crimes – but what can one girl and a flightless griffin do against the might of an empire? Yukiko has always been uneasy in the shadow of power, when she learns the awful truth of what the Shogun has done, both to her country and to her own family she's determined to do something about it. ![]() A toxic fuel is slowly choking the land the omnipotent, machine-powered Lotus Guild is publicly burning those they deem Impure and the Shogun cares about nothing but his own dominion. Meanwhile, the country around them verges on the brink of collapse. But trapped together in the forest, Yukiko and Buruu soon discover a friendship that neither of them expected. ![]() Everyone knows what happens to those who fail him, no matter how hopeless the task.īut the mission proves far less impossible, and far more deadly, than anyone expects – and soon Yukiko finds herself stranded: a young woman alone in her country's last wilderness, with only a furious, crippled griffin for company. ![]() So when Yukiko and her warrior father Masaru are sent to capture one for the Shogun, they fear that their lives are over. ![]()
Back to Blog
Jackie collins husbands6/12/2023 ![]() ![]() Joan and Jackie Collins, photographed together in1966. ![]() Jackie Collins felt like an ugly duckling next to her sister. While she scored roles in some British B-movies, including The Missing Scientists and Undercover Girl, Jackie's acting career never really took off the way Joan’s had. ![]() It was right around this time that Jackie decided she was ready to launch her own acting career, so she dropped out of school and started going on auditions. In a hint at her career to come, Collins wrote about Monroe. She rubbed elbows with such luminaries as Gene Kelly, Judy Garland, Marlon Brando, and Marilyn Monroe. Jackie, then just a starry-eyed teenager, filled her diary with tales of the Hollywood nightlife. When the English ingénue moved to Hollywood in the mid-1950s, 16-year-old Jackie came for a visit-and was immediately intrigued. Jackie's older sister, Dynasty actress Joan Collins, had long been heralded for her beauty. Jackie Collins initially wanted to follow in the footsteps of her famous sister. We took it in turns to lick a lollipop,” and "Mel kissed me madly on both cheeks.“ Collins would keep up journaling for the rest of her life. ![]() As a teen girl discovering the joys of sex, Collins wrote things like, “We drove around and necked a bit. Lady Boss reveals passages from both of these personal confessionals to showcase just exactly who Collins was beyond her public persona. All her life, Collins kept scrapbooks and diaries in which she detailed dates, parties, and family affairs. ![]()
Back to Blog
Left behind novels6/12/2023 ![]() ![]() She is added to their ranks and helps to plan their escape before the mark.Īlbie and Rayford Steele run across Steve Plank, under the alias Pinkerton Stephens, at Boulder, CO, where Hattie has been taken. He awakes to find himself tended by Hannah Palemoon, a nurse and a believer. David passes out in the heat after the "funeral" while looking for Annie. David Hassid finally finds out that his fiancée Annie Christopher has been killed by lightning called down by GC Supreme Commander and False Prophet Leon Fortunato. The Antichrist declares that every single person on earth must receive his mark of loyalty and worship his image or lose their head to the loyalty enforcement facilitator. He introduces Viv Ivins to the senior staff and tells them of the loyalty mark program. Statues of himself are erected for worship. He also demands that the people of the Global Community (GC) worship him. He plans to remodel his offices and add two floors to his palace, including a glass ceiling. ![]() His Excellency Global Community Potentate Nicolae Carpathia has been resurrected and indwelt by Satan himself. ![]() It takes place 42 months into the Tribulation and 3–25 days into the Great Tribulation. It was on The New York Times Best Seller List for 32 weeks. It was published in November 2000 by Tyndale House. The Mark: The Beast Rules the World is the eighth book in the Left Behind series. ![]()
Back to Blog
Kristine Series 11 by Martha Cecilia6/11/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() Navarro: Alta Tierra – somewhere near Quezon Province Atienza, Santa de Leones), also the latter stories feature men of the SEALs.įortalejos: Paso de Blas – an island somewhere in Palawan (or near to it), Kristine Hotel and Resort, Villa Kristine ![]() I’ll be doing an individual summary of the books in the near future, but for now let’s focus first on the series as a whole.īook #s: to date there are 53 books in the series, some stories have 3 parts, while most consist of two to one.Īuthors: Most of the books were written by Martha Cecilia, during the first part of the series, however, some authors (or is it only Amanda? sorry I skipped those which MC didn’t wrote) wrote for some of the books.Ĭharacters: If I’ll generalize the series, I’ll have to say that it is mainly about the Fortalejo and the Navarro clan, though some families were also introduced at some point (i.e. A lot of people maybe wondering what Kristine Series is all about, and now I’ll try to provide a summary of the series. This will be an overview of the books (not the drama). ![]()
Back to Blog
And the mountains echoed goodreads6/11/2023 ![]() )Įven if he could talk, which he cannot at the moment, Idris wouldn’t know the proper thing to say. I’d be easily sucked back into my own life it’s better to be someone who may not care but does help, anyway. ![]() It hurts me to think of myself the only-opinions-haver. ![]() When it came to actually doing good, Timur’s falsities bore better results than Idris’s hypocritical importance on good intentions. Idris’s awkward courtesy was disturbingly easy to relate to, in contrast to the show of airs that his cousin Timur put on, of concern and philanthropy. (Referring to the near murder of a little girl by her uncle, after he slaughtered her family. Still, I felt some surprise, and disappointment, that my sister’s misfortune had been used to entertain guests, and I could not shake the sense that some vague betrayal had been committed. The guests seemed to love the poem, judging by the nods and the murmurs of approval around the room, and by their hearty applause when Nila looked up from the page. It was about a man and his wife, in the village, mourning the death of the infant they had lost to the winter cold. That night, the poem she chose to read caught me off guard. This reminded me of Wordsworth, how poetry is supposedly about the humble and rustic life, written in the real language of men and how wrong it is when put into perspective.) ![]() ( The chauffeur Nabi on his mistress, the poet Nila Wahdati, after she’s visited his village. Here are some wonderful passages I bookmarked and why I liked them. ![]()
Back to Blog
Big bang singh6/11/2023 ![]() ![]() He starts “Now, why, you will ask me, have I chosen to speak on the Universe rather than some other topic. The comedian Severn Darden, in his persona as Professor Walther von der Vogelweide, did a routine titled “The Metaphysics Lecture” or “A Short Talk on the Universe”. But how many of us can actually claim to understand it? With characteristic clarity and a narrative peppered with anecdotes and personal histories of those who have struggled to understand creation, Simon Singh has written the story of the most important theory ever. ![]() Simon Singh, renowned for making difficult ideas much less difficult than they first seem, is the perfect guide for this journey.Everybody has heard of the Big Bang Theory. It will also tell the story of the scientists who fought against the establishment idea of an eternal and unchanging universe. We all can.As well as explaining what the Big Bang theory actually is, the book will address why cosmologists believe that it is an accurate description of the origin of the universe. ![]() The best selling author of FERMAT'S LAST THEOREM and THE CODE BOOK tells the story of the brilliant minds that deciphered the mysteries of the Big Bang.Albert Einstein once said: 'The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.' Simon Singh believes geniuses like Einstein are not the only people able to grasp the physics that govern the universe. ![]()
Back to Blog
Hell House by Richard Matheson6/10/2023 ![]() Several of his stories, like "Third from the Sun" (1950), "Deadline" (1959) and "Button, Button" (1970) are simple sketches with twist endings others, like "Trespass" (1953), "Being" (1954) and "Mute" (1962) explore their characters' dilemmas over twenty or thirty pages. Between 19, Matheson produced dozens of stories, frequently blending elements of the science fiction, horror and fantasy genres. ![]() The tale of a monstrous child chained in its parents' cellar, it was told in the first person as the creature's diary (in poignantly non-idiomatic English) and immediately made Matheson famous. His first short story, "Born of Man and Woman," appeared in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1950. He married in 1952 and has four children, three of whom ( Chris, Richard Christian, and Ali Matheson) are writers of fiction and screenplays. In 1949 he earned his bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri and moved to California in 1951. ![]() He then entered the military and spent World War II as an infantry soldier. Born in Allendale, New Jersey to Norwegian immigrant parents, Matheson was raised in Brooklyn and graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School in 1943. ![]()
Back to Blog
The best we can do thi bui6/10/2023 ![]() ![]() Thi Bui was born in Vietnam three months before the end of the Vietnam War, and came to the United States in 1978 as part of the “boat people” wave of refugees from Southeast Asia. Exploring the anguish of immigration and the lasting effects that displacement has on a child and her family, Bui documents the story of her family’s daring escape after the fall of South Vietnam in the 1970s and the difficulties they faced building new lives for themselves. The Best We Could Do, the debut graphic novel memoir by Bui, published by Abrams ComicArts, is an intimate look at one family’s journey from their war-torn home in Vietnam to their new lives in America. ![]() Emerging Artist Showcase: Thi Bui, The Best We Could Do On view Aug– January 14, 2019 ![]() |