![]() Tan is an astute storyteller, enticing readers to immerse themselves into these lives of complexity and mystery. It inspired me as a writer and still remains hugely inspirational. For me, it was one of those once-in-a-lifetime reading experiences that you cherish forever. From the moment I first started reading it, I knew it was going to be incredible. ![]() Mothers boast or despair over daughters, and daughters roll their eyes even as they feel the inextricable tightening of their matriarchal ties. The Joy Luck Club is one of my favorite books. As each woman reveals her secrets, trying to unravel the truth about her life, the strings become more tangled, more entwined. With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters. Their daughters, who have never heard these stories, think their mothers' advice is irrelevant to their modern American lives – until their own inner crises reveal how much they've unknowingly inherited of their mothers' pasts. United in loss and new hope for their daughters' futures, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. The books name comes from the club formed in China by one of the mothers, Suyuan Woo, in order to lift her friends spirits and distract them from their. In 1949, four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, meet weekly to play mahjong and tell stories of what they left behind in China. ![]() ![]() Four mothers, four daughters, four families, whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who's telling the stories. ![]()
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![]() ![]() It is a totally new series set in a totally new world, making it accessible to longtime fans and newcomers alike. Gwynne is best known for his critically acclaimed series The Faithful and the Fallen, but thankfully you don’t need to be familiar with the author’s previous works to enjoy The Shadow of the Gods. ![]() If words like drengr and holmgang mean anything to you, or the very thought of a shield-wall gets you jittery with excitement, then make no mistake: this book is for you. Imagine if all the creatures from Norse mythology - shapeshifting berserkers, trolls, giants and sea serpents - actually existed alongside Viking-style war bands, and you’ve got a relatively good idea of what you’re walking into here. Shadow is the first installment in John Gwynne’s Bloodsworn trilogy, and it starts off the the series with a bang. If you’ve got a soft spot for Vikings and fantasy, then The Shadow of the Gods is the book you didn’t know you needed but have been waiting for. By Daniel Roman 2 years ago The Shadow of the Gods is the first installment of John Gwynne’s new Norse-inspired fantasy saga, and it’s filled to the brim with monsters, blood, and glory. ![]() ![]() ![]() Watching her deal with everything life throws at her (and grow from it) was so interesting. Her life totally changes multiple times over the course of the three books. The thing I love most about this series is Aurelia herself. I read Exileas soon as I got my hands on it in 2011 and have been dying for Redemption ever since! It was so great to finally find out what happens with Aurelia, Robert, and all of Tyralt. I was immediately captivated by the characters. My Thoughts:Īs I said, I read Aurelia before I started blogging regularly. ![]() Because both Aurelia and Robert know that if they make the wrong choice, with the freedom of an entire nation at stake, they may not find redemption. When a friend from the past arrives to persuade Aurelia to rescue her country, she and Robert must weigh the hopes of a kingdom against their own failures, nightmares, and self-doubt. In the Outer Realms, they have found safety, but their homeland has not. ![]() The-dare I say, epic?-conclusion of Aurelia & Robert’s trilogy.ĪURELIA, former crown princess of Tyralt, has cobbled together a new life in exile with ROBERT, the young countryman who loves her. I read Aurelia in 2009, before I really started blogging. Welcome to the next stop on the blog tour for Anne Osterlund’s Redemption, the third and final Aurelia book. I’m so happy to be a part of this tour. ![]() ![]() She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamedįor her stepsister’s illness. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl. From space, a ruthless Lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing.
![]() Hard SF addicts will applaud the author's talent for creating convincing alien beings and the often uneasy merging of human and machine intelligence, depicted here as nearly too frighteningly real for comfort. Clearly intoxicated by cutting-edge scientific research-in bioengineering, space physics, cybernetics-Reynolds spins a ravishingly inventive tale of intrigue. In Chasm City on the slum-ridden world of Yellowstone, assassin Ana Khouri joins the Nostalgia's crew-intent on killing Sylveste. ![]() Aboard the Nostalgia for Infinity, a vast light-hugger ship in interstellar space, the ominous Triumvirate of cyborg starfarers seeks Sylveste to heal its captain, afflicted by the deadly Melding Plague, which turns once-humans into their own semisentient spaceships. ![]() This distant-past/far-future, hard sci-fi tour de force probes a galaxy-wide enigma: why does spacefaring humanity encounter so few remnants of intelligent life? Excavating the 900,000-year-old Amarantin civilization on its home world, Resurgam, archaeologist Dan Sylveste discovers evidence of a splinter cult that abandoned Resurgam for the stars but returned, only to be swallowed up by a mysterious cataclysm that destroyed all the Amarantins. ![]() ![]() VERDICT Children will enjoy this clever and affectionate tale with an exuberant young protagonist. Harriet's numerous costumes are cute, and the pages are populated by a diverse group of children and adults. The language is silly and sweet, and the digital illustrations are filled with tiny details and soothing pastels. Harriet is determined to get home for her party, and after a few failed escape attempts she does find her way back to her dads in time to pick out party hats. But when she encounters a group of real penguins Harriet gets a little carried away, and before she realizes her mistake she's on a hot air balloon heading to Antarctica. On the day of her birthday party, Harriet puts on her special errand-running Penguin costume, and she and her dads head to the store to pick up party supplies. ![]() ![]() She absolutely loves costumes and wears them whenever she can, not just to costume parties or for Halloween. Harriet lives in the big city with her two dads. PreS-Gr 1-A young girl in a penguin costume sets off to pick out some birthday hats and gets a little carried away. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The end of the Civil War and Reconstruction was greeted with the Black Codes and Jim Crow the Supreme Court's landmark 1954 Brown v. Since 1865 and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, every time African Americans have made advances towards full participation in our democracy, white reaction has fueled a deliberate and relentless rollback of their gains. With so much attention on the flames, she argued, everyone had ignored the kindling. National Book Critics Circle Award WinnerĪ New York Times Notable Book of the YearĪ Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of the YearĪ Chicago Review of Books Best Nonfiction Book of 2016įrom the Civil War to our combustible present, White Rage reframes our continuing conversation about race, chronicling the powerful forces opposed to black progress in America-now in paperback with a new afterword by the author, acclaimed historian Carol Anderson.Īs Ferguson, Missouri, erupted in August 2014, and media commentators across the ideological spectrum referred to the angry response of African Americans as "black rage," historian Carol Anderson wrote a remarkable op-ed in The Washington Post suggesting that this was, instead, white rage at work. ![]() ![]() It's pretty much a lot of thinking "What, no, stop! Why are you doing that! Think! Be smart! What's wrong with you!" and so forth. "Once Rechele saw two blood-smeared butcher boys skin a goat and let it lie there with eyeballs protruding in amazement and white teeth projecting in a kind of death-smile." It tells the story of a small Polish town (shtetl), Goray, in the 1660s, after the Chmelnicki massacres had wiped out a large portion of the Jews/town population in 1648, and of what happens when the false messiah, Sabbatai Zevi, becomes known in the world and the town. ![]() The whole thing is very heavy, from the start. There is plenty of depravity of all sorts to go round. Butchering, blood, death, beatings, rape, this is not your light reading for the faint-hearted. One thing it's not, is for the squeamish. I don't really know what to say about it. ![]() This is one of those books where you finish it and just kind of sit back and go. ![]() "But it is the way of the world that in time everything reverts to what it has been." ![]() ![]() Also, fans of Holder and Sky will be happy to know that they have several scenes in this and it was a real treat to see them from the outside through someone else’s eyes. In case you don’t remember, Daniel and Six were Holder and Sky’s best friends from Hopeless and Losing Hope and while this novella reads as a standalone, it would have greater meaning if you read both those books first. ![]() Suffice it to say that I absolutely adored every word of story – it was fun, quirky and unique. I was originally going to talk about the plot here but honestly, I think it’ll be more fun to just discover it for yourselves. Daniel and Six captured my heart and I hope that one day we get more of their story because I’m not ready to let go yet! In less than 100 pages, it made me feel more than I have in many entire books. Finding Cinderella was a beautifully written, deeply heart warming novella that made me laugh, cry, and fall in love. ![]() ![]() In recent years, Goosebumps has returned to print with some new series including Goosebumps Horrorland which took some of readers’ favourite villains including Slappy the Dummy and the Lawn Gnomes. The recommended Goosebumps reading level is for Year 4/ 3rd Grade upwards, but plenty of adults and teens also love the books. ![]() The books are scary but not violent, with plenty of twists and lots of humour too, and so can be enjoyed by thrill-seeking readers aged 8+. There are now over 60 Goosebumps books in the original series, now largely out of print, several spin-off Goosebumps series, including the popular Tales to Give you Goosebumps, as well as two movies starring Jack Black as RL Stine.Įach tale of terror features a different child or children in a scary situation, often with supernatural characters or monsters to contend with. ![]() ![]() ![]() The books by RL Stine have sold hundreds of millions of copies since publication of the first Goosebumps book, Welcome to Dead House, in 1992. Goosebumps is a much-loved children’s horror series from the 1990s. ![]() |