![]() In other words, I find it irresponsible to write about an adopted wolf comfortably adapting to life with humans, to the point of bonding with a small child. ![]() Of course, any and all conflict in this book is summarily resolved because Kapu and Sweet Fur Amy are perfect beings, which doesn't help with feeling like the plot is dragging.Īnother note is that while Uqaq's difficulties adapting to life in the wild make for a high point in the book, Nutik's story fails for me simply because we humans have proven time and again that we are incapable of separating fantasy from reality. Nearly a third of it is spent following the wolves around doing wolf things while Raw Bones repeatedly and continuously (and I mean constantly, to the point of being comical) attempts to gain power, until the second part seems to realize it needs at least something resembling a conflict and introduces us to Ice Blink. However, the dragging nature of the story, partly incurred by whatever the wolf equivalent of a Gary Stu/Mary Sue is called (Hairy Chew?), is definitely a fault against this book. Part of this is not the fault of the author, or any author that relied on the familiar alpha-beta-omega structure before science caught up with what wild pack systems are really like. ![]() ![]() Once again, I hate to downgrade an old favorite, but this book is simply not up to par with the others. ![]()
0 Comments
![]() ![]() “Eighteen years have gone by, and still I can bring back every detail of that day in the meadow It almost hurt to look at that far-off sky.” So begins Toru’s journey his past, spurred by hearing a rendition of “Norwegian Wood” as his flight touches down in Hamburg, Germany. As Toru’s memories rush back and mix together, the delineation between these two modes of memory often becomes blurry, rendering difficult moments more beautiful and pleasant ones more tense than they may have been in reality. Toru’s recollection of his formative years is precise and near-perfect, yet also tinged, at various times, with the hazy wash of nostalgia and the sharp, uncomfortable pain of regret. The world of Norwegian Wood is one based on memory. Ultimately, Murakami uses the mixture of painful and pleasurable memories Toru recollects to show that feelings of nostalgia and regret can often be intermixed and muddied within one’s memories-sometimes, even, to the point of these two different emotions becoming indistinguishable from each other. His immersive retreat into memories of the Tokyo of his youth and all that happened to him there is somewhat reluctant, and yet the sharpness of his memories from this time is astounding-soon, it becomes clear that these memories are the most important of his entire life. ![]() ![]() At the beginning of Norwegian Wood, 37-year-old Toru Watanabe is flung backward into memory and nostalgia when he hears a version of The Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood” playing on an airplane loudspeaker. ![]() 6/8/2023 0 Comments Turkish embassy letters![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Montagu’s letters can be studied in the context of “intercultural” relations between a well-educated and wealthy woman from the British upper class and Ottoman women, who were actually seen and subsequently described by her (unlike Paul Rycaut in the previous century who never saw the women but still went ahead and gave a detailed description of the harem). There are also selections from the letters of Pope and from various “Orientalist Fictions” that help to situate her work in the larger framework of European-Ottoman encounter and exchange. Not only does this edition have these, it offers an excellent apparatus that includes a chronology of events related to the life of Montagu, and more than one hundred pages of additional information, ranging from selections of other letters by her, to a discussion of her role in the history of smallpox inoculation, and brief excerpts illustrating European views of Islam. I have always wanted a solidly researched and well annotated paperback edition of the letters, with notes at the bottom of the page (rather than those cumbersome endnotes), a good introduction, and a wide-ranging bibliography. This edition of the letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s Turkish Embassy Letters has solved a problem for me. ![]() 6/8/2023 0 Comments City of Glass by Paul Karasik![]() ![]() ![]() Rather, he saw personal identity as defined by a process of on-going, ever changing dialogue with oneself and others. In the triad of selves that Quinn had become, Wilson served as a kind of ventriloquist, Quinn himself was the dummy, and Work was the animated voice that gave purpose to the enterprise." - Michel Foucault completely rejected the idea that a person has one fixed inner self or essence serving them as their individual personal identity. Whereas William Wilson remained an abstract figure for him Work had increasingly come to life. We read, "Over the years, Work had become very close to Quinn. On the first pages of the novel, the narrator conveys mystery writer Quinn's reflections on William Wilson, his literary pseudonym and Max Work, the detective in his novels. ![]() By way of example, here are three quotes from the novel coupled with key concepts from the postmodern tradition along with my brief commentary. I found the story and writing as compelling as Chandler's The Big Sleep or Hammett's The Maltese Falcon and as thought-provoking as reading an essay by Foucault or Barthes. ![]() Paul Auster's City of Glass reads like Raymond Chandler on Derrida, that is, a hard-boiled detective novel seasoned with a healthy dose of postmodernist themes, a novel about main character Daniel Quinn as he walks the streets of uptown New York City. ![]() 6/7/2023 0 Comments The flame leonard cohen![]() He has been inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame and is also a Companion of the Order of Canada, the nation's highest civilian honour. His work often explores the themes of religion, isolation, sexuality, and complex interpersonal relationships.Ĭohen's songs and poetry have influenced many other singer-songwriters, and more than a thousand renditions of his work have been recorded. Since the 1980s he has typically sung in lower registers (bass baritone, sometimes bass), with accompaniment from electronic synthesizers and female backing singers. The 1970s were a musically restless period in which his influences broadened to encompass pop, cabaret, and world music. Cohen published his first book of poetry in Montreal in 1956 and his first novel in 1963.Ĭohen's earliest songs (many of which appeared on the 1968 album Songs of Leonard Cohen) were rooted in European folk music melodies and instrumentation, sung in a high baritone. ![]() Leonard Norman Cohen was a Canadian singer-songwriter, poet and novelist. ![]() ![]() When HBO announced that Simon and longtime Wire writer George Pelecanos were producing a new miniseries called We Own This City, set in Baltimore and dealing with the Baltimore PD and the social cost of the War on Drugs, it was hard not to hope that this would be The Wire Season Six in disguise. ![]() ![]() Simon and Ed Burns made The Wire as much to politically agitate as to entertain, and Simon has said that the show’s inability to make so much as a dent in the systemic problems of America left him uninterested in revisiting Jimmy McNulty, Bunk Moreland, and friends. In the 14 years since The Wireconcluded its run as one of the most acclaimed dramas in television history, fans have pleaded with the series’ co-creator, journalist-turned-producer David Simon, for an additional season or three. ![]() 6/7/2023 0 Comments Pirate king's daughter![]() Slow but steady, this book spends a great deal of its time setting up the world and main character backgrounds while simultaneously plotting the conflict and edging towards the grand reveal. Well written with a bold narrative, dynamic characterization, and some interesting plotlines Levenseller relies heavily on her heroine and the heroine dialogue to fuel the story. As Alosa and Riden battle their wits and wants, someone else is looking for the map and will do whatever it takes to get it. Of course, she never expects to be waylaid by the good looking and frustratingly intelligent first mate-Riden-who’s been charged with extracting information from her. Allowing herself to be captured by rival pirates allows Alosa to gain access to their ship and search for the map. Bits of magic and mayhem rock the seven seas as Alosa is charged with finding a very special map. The Pirate King’s Daughter is a humorous, high spirited, action packed , YA fantasy adventure that offers readers an empowered teenage female pirate whose need for her infamous father’s approval sends her on the adventure of a lifetime.įans of the mythical Captain Jack Sparrow and the Pirates of the Caribbean films will find a kindred spirit (and some familiar scenes and plotlines) in Captain Alosa-the Pirate King’s Daughter. ![]() ![]() ![]() Oh, the ridiculous things one has to do when one is a pirate.” ![]() “If I’m to keep up appearances, I’ll have to escape the ship. The Pirate King’s Daughter by Tricia Levenseller ![]() ![]() ![]() And as shocking secrets and the harshest betrayals come to light, and enemies emerge to threaten everything Poppy and Casteel have fought for, they will discover just how far they are willing to go for their people-and each other. Poppy and Casteel must consider the impossible-travel to the Lands of the Gods and wake the King himself. And they will stop at nothing to ensure that the crown never sits upon Poppy’s head.īut the greatest threat to them and to Atlantia is what awaits in the far west, where the Queen of Blood and Ash has her own plans, ones she has waited hundreds of years to carry out. Armentrout, Apr 20, 2021, Brilliance Audio edition, audio cd The Crown of Gilded Bones (edition) Open Library It looks like you're offline. But as the kingdoms’ dark sins and blood-drenched secrets finally unravel, a long-forgotten power rises to pose a genuine threat. Poppy has only ever wanted to control her own life, not the lives of others, but now she must choose to either forsake her birthright or seize the gilded crown and become the Queen of Flesh and Fire. By right the crown and the kingdom are hers. She carries the blood of the King of Gods within her. Because Poppy is the Chosen, the Blessed. It’s a dangerous mission and one with far-reaching consequences neither dreamed of. She wants to revel in her happiness but first they must free his brother and find hers. ![]() Poppy never dreamed she would find the love she’s found with Prince Casteel. ![]() ![]()
6/6/2023 0 Comments Charles mann books![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() 1493 for Young People provides tools for wrestling with the most pressing issues of today, and will empower young people as they struggle with a changing world. Mann's language is as plainspoken and clear as it is provocative, his research and erudition vast, his conclusions ones that will stimulate the critical thinking of young people. Mann is the author of 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, a New York Times bestseller, and 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. Charles Mann, award-winning science journalist and nonfiction writer, is the author of the New York Times bestseller, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas. 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created is a nonfiction book by Charles C. How did the lowly potato plant feed the poor across Europe and then cause the deaths of millions? How did the rubber plant enable industrialization? What is the connection between malaria, slavery, and the outcome of the American Revolution? How did the fabled silver mountain of sixteenth-century Bolivia fund economic development in the flood-prone plains of rural China and the wars of the Spanish Empire? Here is the story of how sometimes the greatest leaps also posed the greatest threats to human advancement. Mann tells the gripping story of globalization through travel, trade, colonization, and migration from its beginnings in the fifteenth century to the present. According to Charles Mann’s newest book The Wizard and the Prophet, the experts answering these questions generally fall into two deeply divided groupsWizards and Prophets. ![]() |