![]() ![]() “Even the people are like a rainbow,” says one. Many recall the Island with fondness: nonstop music, mangoes so sweet “they make you want to cry,” colors of every kind. When her teacher asks everyone to draw a picture of “the country you were originally from, your first country,” Lola, who doesn’t remember the Island herself, embarks on a quest through her tight-knit city neighborhood to collect memories. From its very first sentence, this first picture book from Díaz ( The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao) is both beautifully nuanced and instantly comprehensible: “Every kid in Lola’s school was from somewhere else.” Lola is from a place that she calls the Island, which adult readers will recognize as the author’s native Dominican Republic, but she left as a baby. ![]()
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![]() ![]() Arjun Ram Meghwal found his calling in politics and took voluntary retirement from the civil services. ![]()
![]() ![]() Some kind of shadow was throwing itself across the negatives. Within a few hours, having had to do quite a lot of emergency work on my heart and my lungs, the physicians at this sad border post had shown me a few other postcards from the interior and told me that my immediate next stop would have to be with an oncologist. I had the time to wonder why they needed so many boots and helmets and so much heavy backup equipment, but now that I view the scene in retrospect I see it as a very gentle and firm deportation, taking me from the country of the well across the stark frontier that marks off the land of malady. ![]() They arrived with great dispatch and behaved with immense courtesy and professionalism. It took strenuous effort for me to cross the room of my New York hotel and summon the emergency services. Any movement, however slight, required forethought and planning. My heart was beating either much too much or much too little. I could faintly hear myself breathe but could not manage to inflate my lungs. The whole cave of my chest and thorax seemed to have been hollowed out and then refilled with slow-drying cement. But nothing prepared me for the early morning last June when I came to consciousness feeling as if I were actually shackled to my own corpse. ![]() I have more than once in my time woken up feeling like death. ![]() ![]() My feelings towards spending the end of the year in Albatroz were inexistent. ![]() I haven’t been there since my great grandma passed away. Unofficially, it’s a beach for retired people. Nowadays Imbé has some nightlife, but I bet Albatroz remains the same one-street town with the total of one grocery store and one “pub” where old people go to drink. It was a semi-habitated beach called Albatroz, tiny town on the outside of another so-so beach called Imbé. It was made of wood, with two Brazilian hammock posts, and a whole lot of grass for the dogs to run. Never liked the number seven much.Īs broke Brazilians from the south, we celebrated Christmas going to an ugly little beach an hour and a half away from the capital, where my great grandpa had built an ugly little house that was falling apart. All I wanted was for Christmas to go well, for us to go through New Year’s Eve, and then my birthday would finally be there, once and for all. ![]() I was going to turn eight, so you see, the end of the world was at the bottom of my concerns. The world was going to end in the turn of the century. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() And the Evil gathers: evil and legendary creatures, the bestial Trolloc bloodthirsty, are unleashed in the hunt for a boy that the Dark One seems to fear, and that he wants to enslave in every way. News has come of a war in remote lands and the rise of a false Dragon, whose coming, feared and foretold, will bring a new Breach into the world. ![]() Some strangers roam the village of Emond's Field, and there is nothing else to talk about: an elegant lady accompanied by an icy knight, mysterious figures on horseback that disappear into thin air, a minstrel eager to sing epic deeds. Preparations are underway for the Spring Festival in the Twin Rivers region, and young Rand al'Thor is anxious to leave behind a difficult year full of omens. Plot The Wheel of Time, The Eye of the World Robert Jordan.There is neither beginning nor end as the Wheel of Time turns. “… The wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The Wheel of Time, The Eye of the World Robert Jordan ![]() ![]() ![]() The best story in this book is "Jungli Admi" by Sarath Kumar Ghosh. Not a _The King in Yellow_ story, but it had a cleaner prose style than the stories in the _King in Yellow_ cycle. "The Messenger" is a supernatural horror story by Robert W. A man falls overboard from a ship the others on the ship don't hear his pleas for help and his attempt to swim back to the ship fails. ![]() "Man Overboard" is a three page story written by Winston Churchill when he was a young man. This long story goes in various directions and I found it to be a slog. ![]() "A Study of Destiny" by Count Leigh de Hamong, probably published in the 1890s, is a horror story set during an archaeology expedition in Egypt. The stories, though, were a mixed bag for me. This book is a collection of short stories in fantasy, horror, and science fiction that were published-roughly-between 18, and which the editors consider to be "forgotton gems". I recently purchased a used paperback of this book from Myopic Books, a used bookstore the size of a two story house. ![]() ![]() ![]() ".Fall of Giants is Follett's magnificent new historical epic. Illustrated with color maps on both the front and rear endpapers. Includes Dedication Cast of Characters Prologue Historical Characters and Acknowledgments. As new condition brown boards/black spine/gold spine lettering contained in an as new condition non price-clipped color illustrated dust jacket. From the dirt and danger of a coal mine to the glittering chandeliers of a palace, from the corridors of power to the bedrooms of the mighty, Fall of Giants takes us into the inextricably entangled fates of five families?and into a century that we thought we knew, but that now will never seem the same again. And two orphaned Russian brothers embark on radically different paths when their plan to emigrate to America falls afoul of war, conscription, and revolution. A housekeeper for the aristocratic Fitzherberts takes a fateful step above her station, while Lady Maud Fitzherbert herself crosses deep into forbidden territory when she falls in love with a German spy. An American law student rejected in love finds a surprising new career in Woodrow Wilson's White House. A thirteen-year-old Welsh boy enters a man's world in the mining pits. Staining at bottom of inner dust jacket, single light crease down spine, spine ends bruised. ![]() ![]() ![]() The book is set in the intervening period between World War I and II. The grim reality of the poor’s economic hardships is exposed through touching stories to trigger social support. He elicits varied emotions by exaggerating conversations while using his experiences for readers to share in his observations. His ethnographic account seems to shift the readers’ attention to the specific deplorable instances (Crawley 2016). Orwell uses language effectively to illustrate the abject poverty in northern England. His narration illustrates the reality of poverty in the country, laying the ground for intervention. Due to the nature of his research, Orwell presented a clear understanding of his subject matter by relating his observations with experiences (Amundsen 2016). Additionally, Orwell considered himself is an ethnographer seeking truth through experiencing afflictions with other people, in this case, the coal miners. ![]() The author identifies the difficulty encountered in trying to maintain hygiene without water or even a toilet. Additionally, the author sympathetically analyses the living conditions of women and children loitering in shacks and hurdling in tiny rooms. Orwell watches as families without any income struggle to find scraps of coals from dumping grounds (Mcdonald 2016). He documents his experiences and those of the working class. ![]() Orwells’ investigation leads him to live among the poor for some time. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Even when she doesn’t understand another character’s quirks or motivations, she is quick to forgive, slow to anger, and genuinely tries to see the best in others-even when they have no intention of the doing the same for her. While society scoffs at her naivete, Henry marvels at her innocence and authenticity, sees is for the rare and precious jewel it is. It doesn’t help that her nerves cause her psychokinetic abilities to act out, a major faux-pas amongst the city’s upper crust.īut when she catches the eye of the famous Hector Auvray, a world-famous performer with psychokinetic abilities of his own, all her hopes for love and a future seem to be blooming before her, as gentle and sweet as a flower.īut Hector has a secret, and Nina soon learns that the past can cast a shadow too dark for dreams to bloom. She was looking forward to spring in Loisail, but she cannot seem to help speaking out of turn, wearing the wrong dresses, and constantly annoying her cousin’s wife, the beautiful but austere Valérie. Nina Beaulieu is staying with her cousin, debuting for the Grand Season. In the glittering metropolis of Loisail, etiquette is key, appearance is utmost, and money is everything. ![]() ![]() ![]() The narrator's dad, and by extension, all fathers, appear here as strong and protective figures in the young child's life, always ready to participate in any fun, and always ready to step in should anything - like the Big, Bad Wolf! - threaten. Originally published in the UK in 2000, and here in the USA shortly thereafter, My Dad is celebrated British author/artist Anthony Browne's answer to the classic reassurance tale. ![]() The story concludes with a declaration of love for dad, on the narrator's part, and a corresponding statement that his dad loves him. "He's all right, my dad," the text begins, going on to list this one father's many feats - he can jump over the moon, and wrestle giants - and other appealing characteristics. ![]() This sweet picture-book tribute to fathers is narrated by a young child who describes his own dad, and all of his many amazing qualities. ![]() |