![]() ![]() ![]() So I was drawn to the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, where players create imaginary personas and sally forth into mutually conceived worlds of swords and sorcery. Often, when I read, I felt like the character I was reading about. I also never really understood the boundary between the roles of character and reader. For me, Charlotte's Web was as profound a meditation on mortality as The Death of Ivan Ilyich. But I never really understood the boundaries between genres. I'm constantly flirting with other cities.Īs a kid I read widely: comics, science fiction, news magazines, children's books, atlases, "literature". ![]() I've had a lifelong love affair with Lahore, but it's been far from monogamous. In Istanbul to give a lecture last week, I wasn't dreaming of the next meal or next sight. When I travel, I feel more like a nomad than a tourist. ![]()
0 Comments
![]() ![]() Aggressively marketed to girls, the books contained all sorts of consumer perks: the second book in the series was offered free with the first, and each book showed a banner on the last page advertising the next exciting adventure. The series consisted of 27 books published by Grosset and Dunlap between 19, authored by Helen Wells and Julie Tatham. ![]() Their creator, Helen Wells, admitted they were formulaic-not great literature, but great entertainment. The books never claimed to have literary quality. Cherry, a dark-haired, rosy-cheeked midwestern girl, was always perky and helpful, ready to lend a hand in a medical emergency and solve any mysteries that might spring up along the way. Packed with wholesome values and cheerfulness, the Cherry Ames nursing mystery series was popular with girls in the mid-twentieth century. ![]() ![]() ![]() Hand does an excellent job of creating and sustaining the mood of teenage angst mixed with first love. Although the book is lengthy, the plot moves quickly and should appeal to reluctant readers. The day of her purpose comes and she must make an impossible choice-do what she is supposed to do or save the boy she loves. ![]() Clara learns that fallen angels have dark wings and will try to take her powers. She meets Angela, who is also an angel, and guesses that Clara is too. Despite her brief visions, Clara doesn't know much about her angelic nature. She tries to get closer to him, but is distracted by friends, trying to learn to fly, and a cute, but annoying cowboy. ![]() She meets the boy from her vision, Christian, but he already has a girlfriend and a popular set of friends. Clara's family packs up and moves there so that she can fulfill her destiny. The teen and her mom slowly piece together her visions and realize that the fire is near Jackson, WY. She lives with her mom and brother in California, until she starts to receive visions of her divine purpose involving a handsome young man, a forest fire, and sadness. Grade 7–10-Clara Gardner is a quarter-angel. ![]() ![]() ![]() Each is linked, in some way, by music, and Logan's old band called Unraveling Lovely. ![]() And white Logan develops a drinking problem when his ex-boyfriend and first love commits suicide.Īll three narrators have individual struggles, but these start to come together and overlap as the story progresses. Black identical twins Shay and Sasha have been torn apart by the end to Sasha's long battle with leukemia. Korean-American Autumn has lost her best friend, Tavia, in an accident. The Beauty That Remains follows three diverse teenagers as they cope with their individual grief. I think this second point is where the book struggled a little. What will happen next? Where do the characters go from here? What are we reading for? Books about grief risk becoming "concept books", in that the concept is "this character is sad" but a story doesn't grow out of it. Then you must also, usually, create a compelling story arc out of this grief. ![]() First, you must convince the reader of the importance of the relationship between the protagonist(s) and the deceased make them care about a fictional dead person as much as the characters supposedly do. It is hard to write a good book about grief. I feel like the book was spread a little thin over the three different perspectives, but the strong writing and diverse characters show a lot of promise. The Beauty That Remains is a really solid debut from an author I will be looking out for in the future. ![]() ![]() ![]() Anita sends Willie away.Īnita becomes deeply embroiled in the case when more victims are found mutilated. ![]() Anita informs Willie that she is already a part of the Regional Preternatural Investigation Team and therefore, is already working the case. Willie wants Anita to investigate a string of vampire murders that have been taking place around St. The story begins with Anita meeting with Willie McCoy, a former weasel turned into two-bit vampire. From the job at Animators, Inc., Anita also became a vampire slayer and federal marshal, one of the few in the country that could legally execute vampires and other members of the undead community. Anita was born with the gift of necromancy, the ability to commune with the dead. The purpose of raising the dead is usually to grant closure to loved ones, to solve homicides, or resolve other legal matters. Anita Blake is by trade an animator, one who raises the dead for money. Hamilton is a novel introducing Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter. ![]() ![]() He is also one of the founders of the Open Book, New York City's oldest continuously operating reading theater. In addition to five Quayle novels, Kaye has written and edited dozens of works of fiction and nonfiction. ![]() He published his first nonfiction book, "The Histrionic Holmes", in 1971, and followed it with the mystery novel "A Lively Game of Death" (1972), which introduced sleuthing public relations agent Hilary Quayle, Kaye's most famous character. After reporting for the national newspaper "Grit" for several years, he moved to New York City and found work in publishing. Born in Philadelphia, he attended college at the University of Pennsylvania, graduating with advanced degrees in theater and English literature. 1938) is the author of more than forty books. Lovecraft, Frank Owen, and Farnsworth Wright. Collected here are 13 of the best short stories published in Weird Tales' first year of publication, 1923 - classics by many who would later play an integral part in the Unique Magazine, such as H. Its mix of exotic fantasy, horror, science fiction, suspense, and the just plain indescribable has enthralled generations of readers throughout the world. ![]() ![]() Weird Tales has always been the most popular and sought-after of all pulp magazines. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Though Westerners have often perceived India as a place of endless spirituality and unreasoning mysticism, he underlines its long tradition of skepticism and reasoning, not to mention its secular contributions to mathematics, astronomy, linguistics, medicine, and political economy. The millenia-old texts and interpretations of Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Muslim, agnostic, and atheistic Indian thought demonstrate, Sen reminds us, ancient and well-respected rules for conducting debates and disputations, and for appreciating not only the richness of India's diversity but its need for toleration. In The Argumentative Indian," Amartya Sen draws on a lifetime study of his country's history and culture to suggest the ways we must understand India today in the light of its rich, long argumentative tradition. ![]() India is a country with many distinct traditions, widely divergent customs, vastly different convictions, and a veritable feast of viewpoints. A Nobel Laureate offers a dazzling new book about his native country ![]() ![]() ![]() Leonie was extremely worried as to what to do and she had troubles of her own as well, connected with the Senior Surgeon, who had, it seemed, thought her a silly little flirt in her hospital days and did not seem prepared to revise his opinion now.īut when an emergency arose on board, it was to Leonie that he turned for extra help in the ship’s hospital, and so began for her a happiness that was not to end with the voyage but to last “for ever and ever”. ![]() So it was a considerable shock to her to find, the first night out, that this very young man was aboard too in the capacity of Assistant Surgeon-and that he didn’t seem to be quite the villain that Sir James had pictured. When Leonie Creighton was chosen as Claire Elstone’s companion on a voyage to Australia, she knew that the whole purpose of the journey was to separate Claire from a young man of whom her father disapproved. ![]() ![]() ![]() Passages of lyrical sciencefantasy and a god’s musings on philosophy and human behaviour are interspersed with Eolo’s dangerous attempts to solve the mystery of a disappeared religious leader. The Raven Tower tells two stories in parallel: that of an ancient god who has observed the world around it and quietly gathered knowledge for millennia, and that of Eolo, a young rural soldier thrown unhappily into a courtly conspiracy in the modern day. But language is a tricky tool for making magic, and any claim about the truth places a god in potential danger. Humans have given the gods language, and the ability to act on the world by speaking their desires into being. Any prodigy of nature – be it a meteorite or a recurring swarm of insects – can take on awareness and power if given enough attention. For the people of Iraden, faith in the gods is a highly transactional and complex affair. ![]() ![]() And Applegate’s message about loving and accepting cultural difference is an unabashedly political one, and an intervention against the increasing cultural and racial polarization of contemporary American life. ![]() Samar’s struggle with Islamophobic harassment is something very real and pressing-not at all fairy tale fodder. Applegate wishes for the story to function not as fantasy but as a parable of contemporary American issues. Applegate’s repeated assertion, then, may seem tongue-in-cheek, but it is also apt. It’s a fair assertion, as she populates the story with talking animals. Applegate reminds her young audience throughout the narrative that this story is not a fairy tale. ![]() |