![]() Thankful by Eileen Spinelli, illustrated by Archie Preston (or Simon James perhaps mysteriously so), 2015 You can see more about this book in my older post. Patrick McDonnell books often have that affect on me. ![]() Somehow this one always makes me a little teary in the end. But their plans go quickly awry when the monster comes to life, not with mayhem on his mind, but gratitude. Three (or four) little destructive creatures decide to make the ultimate monster. While a monster book seems more apt for October, this book is all kinds of charming. The Monster’s Monster by Patrick McDonnell, 2012 So, let’s reflect and let’s read three thankful books. I’ve covered all three of these books in the past and they continue to be the ones I reach for this time of year. And what better way to remember how to be thankful than with picture books. ![]() ![]() We love autumn and we fill our home with food and friendship as we remind our hearts to be filled with gratitude. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in America, and while it is a holiday fraught with controversial myths and history our family celebrates in the tradition of harvest feasts. We are deep into autumn in the Western hemisphere. ![]()
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![]() I came up with every excuse in the book not to step foot back in that classroom, most of my reasons starting and ending with a stomach ache. I nearly funked my seventh-grade year due to basically the same situation, but mine stemmed from a classmate getting sick in the science classroom. The tummy aches evolve into panic attacks, which affect her life in numerous ways. ![]() The lead character, Raina (named after the author, obviously), starts to develop some weird tummy aches after a stomach bug. This is what Guts explores within its graphic pages. It waxes and wanes, and while I will never be rid of it, I am looking forward to it fading into the background of my life once again.Īs a younger child, looking back, I can recognize that a lot of the fear and worry I felt was actually anxiety. For years prior to that, I was mostly fine. I am just now, in fact, coming out of a two-year stretch of heightened anxiety thanks to some health issues. There are times – days, weeks, years even – that are worse than others, and many more that are easier. ![]() ![]() I have nearly always lived an anxious life. ![]() ![]() Meanwhile, she became entangled with her supervisor, Capt. Guided by a strong moral imperative in her fight against Nazis, Odette risked her life on multiple occasions yet managed to cheat death each time at one point she opines that nothing she endured could compare with the pain of being separated from her children. Marriage to an Englishman finds Odette raising a family in Somerset when, at age 30, she is recruited by the spy branch of England’s War Office, known as Special Operations Executive, or SOE, to help “set Europe ablaze.” Loftis follows Odette as she undergoes rigorous training, assumes a new identity (“Lise”), and is shipped abroad. ![]() This exciting portrait of Odette Sansom, a French Mata Hari at the forefront of the Resistance, vividly captures her years in occupied France, complete with lively dialogue. ![]() ![]() With evident sympathy, Loftis ( Into the Lion’s Mouth) tells a well-researched, novelistic story of a heroine and patriot whose face recently graced a postage stamp in the U.K. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() It’s fun to see Banks filter Vosill’s extremely foreign nature through the eyes of someone native to this world. First, I like that it’s narrated in first person by her assistant, Oelph, who is spying on her for an unnamed “Master”. Honestly, I much preferred the Doctor’s narrative over DeWar’s, for a few reasons. I’m going to address it from the point of view of a Culture fan with a lot of my analysis. And the Culture is definitely a presence, but it is one that the reader has to tease out and infer-if you haven’t read any of the other Culture novels, then you can still enjoy this story, you’ll just be missing a patina that adds a little bit more flair to that enjoyment. The two narratives never intersect directly, but they are definitely related. Alternating chapters follow Vosill, foreign doctor to the King Quience of Haspidus, and DeWar, bodyguard to the regicide Protector UrLeyn of Tassasen, half a continent away. On its surface, this is a split narrative on a pre-industrial planet. And I may very well just do that this summer, because why not?įor those who aren’t familiar with the premise to this one: the Culture is not mentioned by name at all in Inversions. Inversions has really just made me want to go back and re-read the other novels now. It has been too long since a visit to Iain M. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Capitol on January 6, 2021, was a terrible day for American democracy, but many people dared to hope that at least it would break the fever that had overcome the Republican Party and banish Trump's relentless lies about the stealing of the 2020 election. That is not what happened. Instead, “the big steal” has become dogma among an ever-higher percentage of American Republicans. What happened to the Republican Party, and America, during the Trump presidency is a story we more or less think we know. What has happened to the party since, it turns out, is even more disquieting. The disturbing eyewitness account of how a new breed of Republicans-led by Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar, Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, and Madison Cawthorn-far from moving on from Trump, have taken the politics of hysteria to even greater extremes and brought American democracy to the edge ![]() One of The Washington Post's 10 Best Books of 2022 ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Now Colin and Henry are on a collision course. Then a Hollywood studio wants Colin for a lead role, and magically, the part seems like it was written just for him… Meanwhile, Colin’s transformation makes him more confident as an actor, landing him bigger and bigger parts. ![]() I realized one day that I didn’t have to be me, you know?”Īs “Hamilton” guides Colin into becoming a confident gay man, Henry is inspired by Colin’s journey to write his screenplay. But first, he’s got to write the perfect screenplay… ![]() Henry wants nothing more than to drop the facade, to live in cargo shorts and an old Mets t-shirt, working as a screenwriter, to be free from playing the part of the high class lover. He’s yet another New Yorker living on the financial edge, cobbling together jobs in the sex industry to make a living. Few people know the man behind the character, Henry Davis. He goes by different names to fulfill a world of different fantasies, but he’s most popular as Hamilton, the escort who acts and dresses like he’s worth a million bucks. Whether it’s his acting career or his newly-discovered identity as a gay man, he can’t seem to get any traction in his job or his love life. “Whatever else is or isn’t true, I just lost my cherry to the hottest man in the world.”Ĭolin O’Neill has been in a rut for some time now. Genre(s): M/M Romantic Comedy, M/M Coming Out, M/M Contemporary Romance ![]() ![]() Drawing on new genealogical research, original records, and expert testimony, Black and British reaches back to Roman Britain, the medieval imagination, Elizabethan ‘blackamoors’ and the global slave-trading empire. In this vital re-examination of a shared history, historian and broadcaster David Olusoga tells the rich and revealing story of the long relationship between the British Isles and the people of Africa and the Caribbean. I Am Malala will make you believe in the power of one person’s voice to inspire change in the world. She has become a global symbol of peaceful protest and is the youngest ever winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. ![]() Her extraordinary journey has taken her from a remote valley in northern Pakistan to the halls of the United Nations. ![]() ![]() On Tuesday 9 October 2012, Malala Yousafzai almost paid the ultimate price when she was shot in the head at point-blank range. When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley, one girl fought for her right to an education. ![]() ‘Malala is an inspiration to girls and women all over the world.’ I am Malala: the Girl who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban ![]() ![]() When the magic is up, rogue mages cast their spells and monsters appear, while guns refuse to fire and cars fail to start. Ilona Andrews invites you to experience the first novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling series featuring the intriguing fantasy world of mercenary Kate Daniels… ![]() This list doesn’t include short stories, which are collected in Small Magics anthology or extras, such as free Curran’s stories. But sometimes even trained killers make friends and fall in love, and when the universe tries to kick them in the face, they kick back.īelow you will see the covers for all of the novels and novellas in the series. The magic in her blood makes her a target, and she spent most of her life hiding in plain sight. Kate likes her sword a little too much and has a hard time controlling her mouth. Monsters prowl the ruined streets, werebears and werehyenas stalk their prey and the Masters of the Dead, necromancers driven by their thirst of knowledge and wealth, pilot blood-crazed vampires with their minds. Magic feeds on technology, gnawing down on skyscrapers until most of them topple and fall, leaving only skeletal husks behind. When magic is down, guns work and spells fail. When magic is up, planes drop out of the sky, cars stall, electricity dies. ![]() It comes in waves, without warning, and vanishes as suddenly as it appears. We pushed the technological progress too far, and now magic returned with a vengeance. The world has suffered a magic apocalypse. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The series started with Gardens of the Moon – written by Erikson – that was published in 1999, and there have been other 30 books published since, that Ian Esslemont has co-written. But what is Malazan? Malazan is the world where all the story events take place. While there are two authors behind the Malazan series, Steven Erikson is the writer who started it all. ![]() But with the main series comprising 10 novels, not to mention spin-off novellas, trilogies, and other works set in the Malazan universe that are written by a completely different author, it can be hard to know where to start with this epic tale.īut don’t despair, because in this article I’ll take you through the Malazan Book Of The Fallen Series, as well as the books surrounding the main series so you can enjoy the in-depth, captivating world that Erikson and Ian Esslemont have created to the fullest.īut first, let’s take a look at the authors behind the series and its premise. ![]() ![]() In Rabbit Is Rich, the third installment of the Rabbit tetralogy, we meet up with Harry Angstrom, now 46, dealing as best he can with the challenges and cares of midlife, a time when you are carrying the world in a sense and yet it seems more out of control than ever. ![]() ![]() In The Coup, a surprising departure from his prior novels, Updike stages a withering take down of an array of targets, from American materialism and its baleful effects on the developing world to the follies of Cold War geopolitics and the fevered megalomania of the dictatorial mind. The third volume in our five-volume selected edition of the novels of John Updike includes three books: The Coup, one of Updike's most outlandish satires, set in a fictional African nation, Rabbit Is Rich, the third, and many say best, novel starring his most famous protagonist, and the wildly popular The Witches of Eastwick, which was memorably adapted in the film starring Cher, Michelle Pfeiffer, Susan Sarandon, and Jack Nicholson. The third volume of Library of America's five-volume edition of Updike's novels features the continuation of the renowned Rabbit saga and two wickedly funny satires set in the charged realms of sex, politics, and family. ![]() |