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Melmoth legend5/13/2023 It’s intricate and crisp, finely layered with keen observation. This supernatural concoction really appealed, but did the novel match the promise? If I was to give it a percentage then I’d say it hit 75% – a clear four star, but no more, which is a shame because I am totally in love with Sarah Perry’s writing. To Helen it all seems the stuff of unenlightened fantasy.īut, unaware, as she wanders the cobblestone streets Helen is being watched. As such superstition has it, Melmoth travels through the ages, dooming those she persuades to join her to a damnation of timeless, itinerant solitude. That changes when her friend Karel discovers a mysterious letter in the library, a strange confession and a curious warning that speaks of Melmoth the Witness, a dark legend found in obscure fairy tales and antique village lore. In Prague, working as a translator, she has found a home of sorts-or, at least, refuge. It has been years since Helen Franklin left England. I’d heard glimmers of mixed reviews on Bookstagram but I decided not to read them, preferring to be led by the haunting premise alone:įor centuries, the mysterious dark-robed figure has roamed the globe, searching for those whose complicity and cowardice have fed into the rapids of history’s darkest waters-and now, in Sarah Perry’s breathtaking follow-up to The Essex Serpent, it is heading in our direction. I’m always attracted to ghost stories in the winter so Melmoth by Sarah Perry was one of my first choices for January.
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Michael Moorcock by Michael Moorcock5/13/2023 Discerning readers, even of popular fiction, don’t like their dreams to come true too easily, and Burroughs’ stories are high on action and plot and less strong on psychological depth or emotional complexity. They’re unashamedly male wish-fulfilment fantasy, and therein lies both their appeal and their limitation. After all, if the continent of Africa was exotic and far-flung for most British and American readers, just think how exciting and alluring the landscape of another planet could be!īurroughs’ John Carter of Mars novels were pure escapism: adventure for its own sake. Rider Haggard’s bestselling novels, such as She and King Solomon’s Mines – and combine it with another genre or subgenre, the planetary romance. Burroughs’ contribution was to take the existing template for the adventure novel – particularly the imperial romance, most famously exemplified by H. There had been planetary romances set elsewhere in our own solar system before the Tarzan creator unleashed the first John Carter of Mars book, A Princess of Mars, on readers in 1912: George Griffith’s 1890s Stories of Other Worlds is just one example of earlier adventure tales set on the Red Planet, and Griffith’s newlywed travellers actually visited many of the planets in the solar system in the course of their adventures. In fact, even Burroughs was standing on the shoulders of other writers.
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Red mars trilogy5/13/2023 If historians or critics fifty years from now were to read most of our contemporary literary fiction, they might well infer that our main societal problems were issues with our parents, bad relationships, and death. ^ 1^ When we call literary writers “political” today, we’re usually talking about identity politics. It’s hard to think of any “serious” literary writers in the United States under the age of fifty who engage the big political issues of our time as directly as Boomer authors like Paul Auster (“Leviathan”), Thomas Pynchon (“Vineland”), or Robert Stone (“A Flag for Sunrise”), let alone in the way that muckraker novelists like Upton Sinclair used to. It’s a monoculture, taken for granted, like monogamy, or monotheism, or having one sun. Sometime in the past couple of generations, capitalism’s victory over our hearts and minds seems to have become complete, in that hardly anyone even notices it anymore.
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Pangolina by Jane Goodall5/13/2023 To the rescue comes a small girl who knows that pangolins are friendly fellow creatures who have feelings too, and who convinces her mother to buy Pangolina and set her free. Pangolina is especially vulnerable, since her scales are prized by humans who believe they have curative powers. But one day cruel hunters trap Pangolina, putting her into a cage along with her friends, and bring them to a market to be sold as wild game. From legendary naturalist Jane Goodall, an absorbing fictional tale that will steal hearts and open minds about the plight of the pangolin, the only mammalian species with scales, and endangered by illegal trafficking.Īfter a blissful babyhood being cared for by her loving mother, Pangolina ventures out alone into the forest to become an independent adult, helped along by wise, older animal companions, including a civet and a bat.
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Cotillion by georgette heyer5/13/2023 We get bad boys of a couple of different stripes in Jack and Camille, and of course the difference between true gentlemen and not-so-true ones in Jack and Freddy.Īh, Freddy.We get a look at the manners and etiquette around courtship and marriage of the time (a word of warning here-though Heyer frequently uses the device, engagement announcements were NOT published in the newspapers-only marriages were.).We get a mini-course on the amusements of fashionable London-Almack’s, the Egyptian Hall in Bullock’s Museum, the Elgin Marbles (didn’t you love the bit in Chapter 11 where Freddy complains about them to his father?)-and not-so-fashionable London-shopping at Grafton House and public masquerade balls at the Opera House and Pantheon. She’s never been to London, so we get to view the city and the Season through her eyes. The heroine, Kitty Charing, is one of Heyer’s ingenue heroines, very young but certainly not lacking in spunk.I thought this book would be perfect for discussion on Nineteenteen for a couple of reasons.
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My cousin rachel du maurier5/13/2023 I picked up My Cousin Rachel with my expectations set pretty high even before checking out what the book was all about… What It Is About But a quick search through Google, and I was convinced Daphne du Maurier would definitely be an author I’d want on my bookshelf. I’ve never seen an adaptation of any of her work or read anything by her. There is also My Cousin Rachel from 2017 (starring Sam Claflin and Rachel Weisz), as well as Netflix’s 2020 version of Rebecca (Lily James, Armie Hammer and Kirstin Scott Thomas). Hitchcock based a few of his movies on her writings, including Rebecca and The Birds. There are also a few very well-known adaptations of Du Maurier’s novels. I’ve also heard many praises of her writing style, setting the atmosphere and character work. So, I decided to leave it for the next year and read something else by this author.ĭaphne du Maurier is known as a queen of dark, gothic, unnerving novels in which not even the end brings a full reveal. And autumn, and specifically October, seemed like the perfect time for it.īut, I couldn’t get a copy of Rebecca in time for this year’s pre-Halloween read. I’ve heard so many amazing things about it, I just had to try it out. To be completely honest, the only reason why I picked up My Cousin Rachel was because Daphne du Maurier has gained a lot of attention lately with her other gothic mystery novel – Rebecca. RATED ON GOODREADS – 3.97 of 5 Initial Thoughts GENRE – classic, gothic, mystery, romance My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier – Book Details
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Sophie resides in Houston with her family and loves to hear from readers. Her second novel, TOO WICKED TO TAME, released in March 2007 with a bang, landing on the USA Today Bestseller's List.Īnd as if she's not busy enough, Sophie writes contemporary paranormals for Pocket under the name Sharie Kohler. In less than three years, her first book, ONCE UPON A WEDDING NIGHT, a 2006 Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Nominee for Best First Historical, hit book shelves. After several years teaching high school students to love ANTIGONE, Sophie resigned with the birth of her first child and decided it was time to pursue the long-held dream of writing. A brief stint in law school taught her that case law was not nearly as interesting as literature - teaching English seemed the natural recourse. This passion led her to pursue a degree in English and History. While the Duke Was Sleeping (The Rogue Files 1) by Sophie Jordan Audiobook Gibson TV 1.89K subscribers Subscribe 260 Share 22K views 6 months ago Sometimes the man of your dreams. Sophie Jordan took her adolescent daydreaming one step further and penned her first historical romance in the back of her high school Spanish class.
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Tell no one book5/13/2023 He reports on how our overreliance on phosphorus is today causing toxic “dead zones” in waterways from the Florida Everglades to the Mississippi River Basin to the Great Lakes and beyond.Īnd he explores the alarming reality that diminishing access to phosphorus poses a threat to the food system worldwide―which risks rising conflict and even war. In this major work of explanatory science and environmental journalism, Pulitzer Prize finalist Dan Egan investigates the past, present, and future of what has been called “the oil of our time.” He describes the race to mine it from the fabled guano islands to the far Pacific to the sand dunes of the Western Sahara. But it’s also the key component of one of the most vital: fertilizer, which has sustained life for billions of people. Phosphorus has played a critical role in some of the most lethal substances on earth: firebombs, rat poison, nerve gas. Patrick works for Interlochen Public Radio, an NPR affiliate in northern Michigan.Įgan writes about phosphorus, the source of great bounty―and now great peril―all over the world. He presented his new book, “The Devil’s Element, Phosphorus and a World Out of Balance.”Įnvironmental reporter, Patrick Shea, was the guest host. On March 10, New York Times Bestselling Author Dan Egan visited the City Opera House in Traverse City.
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Red Hot by K.A. Merikan5/13/2023 After all, he deserves one last shot at love. Big, confident, and dangerous, Red Jack is all Loki ever wanted in a man. One of those is fucking the hot bearded biker he meets the same night he got the bad news. With only a few months left, he decides to live to the fullest and get every last wish on his bucket list fulfilled. As if his life wasn’t shit enough already. The world crumbles around Loki when he finds out he has cancer. Loki invades his life and just won’t leave, wreaking havoc wherever he follows Jack, but getting rid of him becomes harder with every kiss. When a hookup takes an ominous turn, and the sexy stranger turns up at his house, the heat is on. It’s a good way to keep the gay flings far away from the eyes of his brothers in the Coffin Nails Motorcycle Club, and he will make damn sure it stays that way. The guy has to be hot, out of town, and not up for repeats. When it comes to men, Red Jack has three rules.
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Revolution 2020 by chetan bhagat5/13/2023 Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review 's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. " Revolution 2020 bears all the Bhagat hallmarks (.) Chetan Bhagat’s style is, as always, simple, unpretentious and unadorned: critics may call the prose pedestrian, but it serves its purpose admirably." - Shashi Tharoor, Outlook India.Bhagat has made it impossible not to like his books." - Pritish Nandy, India Today And certainly not anything about life as it ought to be lived. For it is not meant to teach you anything. "You will learn nothing from this book.General information | review summaries | our review | links | about the authorī- : zips along, with a lot going on, but rides roughshod over too much Trying to meet all your book preview and review needs. |