![]() ![]() ![]() Instead, she drowns her frustrations in music and spends her afternoons break-dancing with her brother.īut then she meets Ocean James. So she’s built up protective walls and refuses to let anyone close enough to hurt her. She’s tired of the rude stares, the degrading comments-even the physical violence-she endures as a result of her race, her religion, and the hijab she wears every day. Shirin is never surprised by how horrible people can be. It’s an extremely turbulent time politically, but especially so for someone like Shirin, a sixteen-year-old Muslim girl who’s tired of being stereotyped. Spoiler alert: I loved it very much.īefore I delve into my review, here’s the cover and synopsis: I am so ecstatic for today’s post, as I will finally be sharing my thoughts on Tahereh Mafi’s YA contemporary debut, A Very Large Expanse of Sea, which I read for The Reading Rush two weeks and fell head over heels with. Hello there, speedsters! Welcome back to my blog! ![]()
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![]() One of Marilynne Robinson’s primary influences in the composition of Housekeeping seems to be Henry David Thoreau. She lectures regularly around the country, and is rumored to be at work on a fourth installment in the Gilead saga. She received a 2012 National Humanities Medal from President Barack Obama, and currently lives in Iowa City, where she is Professor Emeritus and a former faculty member at the distinguished Iowa Writers’ Workshop. In 2005, Gilead won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and Robinson wrote two follow-up novels, which follow the characters from Gilead over the course of the next ten years. After the publication of Housekeeping, Robinson turned to nonfiction and completed several books of critical work-she would not release her next novel, Gilead, for over twenty years. She penned Housekeeping in the late 1970s, and though she expected it to receive little attention, it became an object of national acclaim and the winner of the prestigious PEN/Hemingway Award for best first novel. After studying American Literature at Pembroke College (the former women’s college at Brown University), she went on to earn a doctorate in English from the University of Washington, where she wrote her dissertation on Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part 2. She was close with her brother, who also grew up to become a writer and an art historian. ![]() Marilynne Robinson was born Marilynne Summers in Sandpoint, Idaho in 1943. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() “The logic of advertising and clicks dictates the media experience, which is exploitative by design,” she claims, although she offers no particular evidence that this is, in fact, the intention of the designers and engineers behind such platforms. Odell places more of the blame on technology and social media than I would. Why? How did we get to this place of maximum distraction? She offers a much-needed critique of our modern, connected lives: “There is nothing to be admired about being constantly connected, constantly potentially productive the second you open your eyes in the morning,” she proclaims early on, “and in my opinion, no one should accept this, not now, not ever.” And yet, of course, so many of us do accept exactly that. Her book is a call to arms against the myriad temptations of distraction. What unifies the bold (though occasionally meandering) prose is Odell’s refusal to surrender her attention to the highest bidder. The various chapters cover topics as diverse as bird-watching and context collapse, progressive politics and industrial design. The resulting volume is closer to a loosely connected collection of erudite essays than to a singular manifesto. How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy ![]() ![]() ![]() House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said in a letter to Democratic colleagues that administration officials would brief House Democrats on the agreement at 5 p.m. There are no new taxes and no new government programs.”īiden told reporters at the White House on Sunday: "I’m going to call McCarthy now at 3 o’clock to make sure all the T’s are crossed and the I’s are dotted. Speaking to reporters in the Capitol late Saturday, McCarthy said the bill has “historic reductions in spending, consequential reforms that will lift people out of poverty into the workforce and rein in government overreach. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said the United States could default on its debt obligations by June 5 if lawmakers do not act in time to raise the federal debt ceiling.Ī look at what’s next as Congress rushes to pass an agreement: It also expands some work requirements for food-stamp recipients and tweaks an environmental law to try to streamline reviews to build new energy projects. That's in exchange for raising the debt limit for two years, until after the next election. To reduce spending, as Republicans had insisted, the package includes a two-year budget deal that would hold spending flat for 2024 and impose limits for 2025. ![]() ![]() The agreement includes spending cuts demanded by Republicans, but it is short of the reductions in the sweeping legislation passed by the Republican-led House last month. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The Neil Gaiman Library Volume 1 hits comic shops on May 27, 2020, and bookstores on June 9, 2020. The collection features new cover art from Fábio Moon. Craig Russell, Rafael Albuquerque, Fábio Moon, Gabriel Bá Rafael Albuquerque, Shane Oakley, Lovern Kindzierski, Dave Stewart, and Nick Filardi, alongside amazing letterers Galen Showman and Todd Klein. The compendium features work from fabulous artists and colorists including P. The Neil Gaiman Library Volume 1 will collect A Study in Emerald, Murder Mysteries, How to Talk to Girls at Parties, and Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire. ![]() Dark Horse Comics is releasing hardcover compendiums of Neil Gaiman graphic novel adaptations. ![]() ![]() ![]() In towns and cities the cemeteries were unable to provide space for all the dead, and violence and crime spiraled. One third of England's population died between the years 13, and over one thousand villages were deserted, never to be repopulated. ![]() By the autumn of 1347 the Black Death had reached the shores of the eastern Mediterranean, and the years that followed were to witness a horrifying and apparently relentless epidemic. When first published in 1969, this study was described by the Guardian as …as exciting and readable an account as you could wish." This new edition of the major study on the subject is illustrated by over seventy contemporary black and white illustrations and eight pages of color.Ī series of natural disasters in the furthest reaches of the Orient during the third of the fourteenth century heralded what was, for the population of Europe, the most devastating period of death and destruction in its history. Philip Ziegler follows the course of the black plague as it swept from Asia into Italy and then into the rest of Europe. ![]() ![]() Everything hinges on keeping Washington alive-not the easiest task protecting someone famous for leading battles on the front lines while perched on a horse. Right?Īfter learning Washington was killed thirty years earlier during the French and Indian War, John realizes the only way he can return home is to ensure there's a United States to return to. John always knew history could change on a dime, but not after it already happened. Few people have even heard of George Washington, and the short-lived American Revolution failed-presumably because Washington wasn't alive to lead it. Accompanying Casanova to the opening night of Mozart's opera, Don Giovanni, was even better.īut being stranded in the British Colony of New York isn't what he signed up for. ![]() Getting relationship advice from the legendary lover, Casanova, was valuable. ![]() ![]() Until this point, the time-travel job has had its perks. There's just one problem: When he arrives in 1789, there is no inauguration-and no United States. Former history professor John Curry has been recruited by a time-travel company to scout the best vantage point for clients to witness the inauguration of the first President of the United States. ![]() ![]() ![]() At least, that’s one conclusion to be drawn from the book that finally has been published, Robert and Arabella (Harmony, $14.95), which may yet cause Winsor to live up to her legend as a sexy writer. In the unlikely event that it had been published during that censorious era, there would have been so many ellipses the novel might have been mistaken for a Morse code handbook. The problems with her second book, however, weren’t so easily solved. ![]() ![]() Winsor insisted at the time that her story of a hot-blooded courtesan in Restoration England had only two sexy passages, both of which her publisher had replaced with ellipses. mails for obscenity, among a multitude of other sins real or imagined. She finished a first draft, then set it aside during the uproar over Amber, which, as expected, turned out to be 1944’s wickedest best seller - banned from the U.S. Forty years ago, while waiting for her cautious publisher to bring out Forever Amber, Kathleen Winsor started to work on a second novel. ![]() ![]() ![]() The experience is as imaginative as it is engaging.įor people who think this point of view can be alienating, it can be. This is because the novel is written in the second person - the reader is not a distant observer but a character playing along. They dip and down we go with them they turn round and round, and the dizziness hits us too. But the reader feels like a part of the dance too, as if they are being escorted to the floor - a hand cupped over their shoulder blade, and the other in a firm clasp. In under 200 pages, Nelson places us in London and in the middle of a slow-dance romance between two Black British artists - a photographer and a dancer. Caleb Azumah Nelson certainly delivers these goods in Open Water, but he encases his core story in a more significant tale of violence and crippling racial trauma. In the beginning, there is some hesitation, but when love takes two tender hearts hostage, it is almost impossible to run from it. YOU’VE HEARD THIS story before - two friends fall in love with each other. ![]() ![]() ![]() In his latest book series, The Survivalist, he shares how ordinary citizens can learn to survive anything and everything that gets thrown at them, from natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes to man-made catastrophes like an EMP attack or nuclear war. American, is the author of multiple books that lay out what you need to know about surviving life-threatening situations, both in and out of a disaster zone. American, Alan KayĬhris Weatherman, better known by his pen name A. American in Publication Order Cry Havoc by A. American, Walt BrowningĬharlie’s Requiem Series Books Other Books by A. American, Walt BrowningĬharlie’s Requiem: Retribution (#4) by A. American, Walt BrowningĬharlie’s Requiem: Resistance (#3) by A. ![]() American, Walt BrowningĬharlie’s Requiem: Democide (#2) by A. ![]() ![]() The Survivalist Series Books Charlie’s Requiem Series Books in Publication Order Charlie’s Requiem: A Going Home (#1) by A. AmericanĬonflicted Home (The Survivalist #9) Paperback by A American AmericanĮnforcing Home (The Survivalist #6) by A AmericanĪvenging Home (The Survivalist #7) by A. Resurrecting Home (The Survivalist #5) by A. Americanįorsaking Home (The Survivalist #4) by A. AmericanĮscaping Home (The Survivalist #3) by A. Surviving Home (The Survivalist #2) by A. The Survivalist Series Books in Publication Order A. ![]() |