7/8/2023 0 Comments A little life description![]() ![]() The flaws, to get them out of the way first, are numerous but somehow not sufficient to completely derail this current favorite for the Booker Prize. Nevertheless, the question of what exactly we are left with except the voyeuristic and rather ghoulish intrusion into the misery of one of modern literature’s most unfortunate characters is not easily answered. ![]() ![]() The ecstatic response to Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life meant I was excited from the moment an email arrived to tell me it had arrived for collection from my local bookshop until I was presented with a 720-page hardback monster weighing more than our family dog. At least this bombshell put me in mind of a most amusing Kingsley Amis review in which he commented that handling a similarly proportioned behemoth “so that it will lie open on desk or lap is impossible to one of normal muscular power. This might matter less if closing it on purpose were not such a constantly attractive option.” No such worries for A Little Life, which is overly ambitious, significantly overlong, at times irritating and unintentionally self-satirising, profoundly unfunny even when it tries to be the opposite - and at times almost hypnotically readable, relentlessly harrowing, and compelling in the extreme. ![]()
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![]() ![]() ![]() While a "maximally complete" record of the Dukha's life is beyond the scope of this thesis, the aim here is to provide a concise ethnohistory of the Dukha with a specific focus on their reindeer-herding populace so as to create a basis for future research. Memory, and Jim CrowJennifer Jensen Wallach, Collins Pocket Japanese. According to the Finnish ethnographer and linguist Juha Janhunen's brief description, the Dukha "can probably be regarded as the most 'primitive' reindeer people presently living." Moreover, "creating a maximally complete recording of their life, as it still continues today, is one of the most urgent tasks of North Asian ethnography" (1983: 76). Jennifer Jensen Wallach is Assistant Professor of History at the University of North Texas and the author of Closer to the Truth Than Any Fact: Memoir, Memory, and Jim Crow and Richard. Books by Jennifer Jensen Wallach American Appetites: A Documentary Reader Dethroning the Deceitful Pork Chop: Rethinking African. Jensen and Swifts Diseases of SheepCleon V. Significant works on the Dukha's history are rare at best in Western literature and basically nonexistent in English. For centuries unknown to the Western world, the history and culture of the Dukha have remained largely a mystery. ![]() Tucked away in the northernmost district of Mongolia is a small group of approximately thirty reindeer-herding families who call themselves the Dukha. ![]() ![]() He feels guilty about lying, but still, he doesn’t say anything g until the last minute and that makes him a real scoundrel I think. That don’t even explain why he can’t consummate the marriage, leaving the bride feeling unwanted and confused because even though they have only known each other for a short time she has feelings for him. Because in my opinion, it’s hard to like a man that tricks you into marriage and then don’t explain why he did it. Then something happened, the humor disappeared and instead, the story took a more, “serious” tone, I can’t even say it was especially romantic. I was really happy to read a book that started off that great. But I just loved the humor at the beginning of this book. ![]() Most romance books I usually read tend to be not to my liking. This book surprised me quite a lot how good it was in the beginning. ![]() ![]() ![]() One hundred years later, scientists searching for new particles like the Higgs boson use a supercollider - a 17-mile-long machine that costs several billion dollars and will produce data to be analyzed by the most powerful supercomputer in the world. Science has come a long way in the last 150 years! We now have more powerful data analysis techniques, more sophisticated equipment for making observations and running experiments, and a much greater breadth and depth of scientific knowledge. Thomson discovered a new particle of matter - the electron - at the turn of the century, his lab equipment mainly consisted of vacuum tubes, magnets, and some simple wiring. ![]() One hundred and fifty years later, modern plant genetics laboratories, like Chelsea Specht’s below, look a lot more diverse and employ the latest DNA sequencing techniques. When Gregor Mendel began his investigations of plant genetics in the 1800s, he worked alone - a middle-aged European monk counting peas in the abbey garden. Thomson photo © the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge University Large Hadron Collider photo © CERN. Photo credit: Mendel image courtesy of the American Philosophical Society/permission to publish required Specht lab photo courtesy of Chelsea Specht J.J. Thomson’s primitive equipment to today’s Large Hadron Collider - science has indeed come a long way. From Gregor Mendel’s experiments with peas to the work on plant evolution in a modern lab, and from J.J. ![]() ![]() “The Weaver Takes a Wife”, her first Regency romance, was released in the year 1999, to critical acclaim. After honing her craft on five young adult books for Bantam’s Sweet Dreams series, she tried her hand at the genre that she had loved for quite some time. South came to the conclusion that she would have to just do it herself. Since Georgette Heyer was dead and therefore unable to write any more Regencies, Ms. Even though she doubtless would have been somebody’s chambermaid had she actually lived in Regency England, that never stopped her from fantasizing about waltzing the night away in a wealthy, handsome, and titled gentleman’s arms. ![]() When Sheri Cobb South was sixteen, she discovered Georgette Heyer, and came to a startling realization that she was born into the wrong century. ![]() ![]() Machado de Assis: Dom Casmurro – another grumpy old man reminiscing about his life, like Bernhard, and another tragicomic masterpiece Henry James: The American – one of the few James that I’d never read, an earlier one, and much lighter, frothier and funnier than I remembered him Thomas Bernhard: Woodcutters – I sometimes find Bernhard a bit much to take in, too grumpy, but this book is so good at poking holes in the Viennese literary and artistic pretentiousness, that I laughed nearly all the way through ![]() Marghanita Laski: Little Boy Lost – utterly heartbreaking and very thoughtful story of parenthood but also a moving portrait of post-war France, one of my favourite Persephones so far ![]() ![]() Ueda Akinari: Ugetsu Monogatari – it’s been a pleasure reacquainting myself with these very Japanese ghost stories, even though some of them made me furious at the classist and sexist assumptions of the time. ![]() 7/7/2023 0 Comments Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler![]() ![]() I admit that I wanted to like this more than I did simply because I am a big fan of Kindred. Her papers are held in the research collection of the Huntington Library. Butler died of a stroke at the age of 58. She also taught writer's workshops, and eventually relocated to Washington state. Her books and short stories drew the favorable attention of the public and awards judges. She soon sold her first stories and by the late 1970s had become sufficiently successful as an author that she was able to pursue writing full-time. She attended community college during the Black Power movement, and while participating in a local writer's workshop was encouraged to attend the Clarion Workshop, which focused on science fiction. ![]() ![]() She began writing science fiction as a teenager. Extremely shy as a child, Octavia found an outlet at the library reading fantasy, and in writing. In 1995, she became the first science fiction writer to receive the MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Grant.Īfter her father died, Butler was raised by her widowed mother. ![]() Octavia Estelle Butler was an American science fiction writer, one of the best-known among the few African-American women in the field. ![]() 7/6/2023 0 Comments Plato the republic sparknotes![]() The city, and its continuation, will rely on some form of untruth. Curiously, the poets are accused of being untruthful and inaccurate, however the rulers will be called upon to lie. Socrates and Glaucon discuss the regulation of, and eventual banishment, of the poets from the city. Therefore, they must be lied to, for the good of the city. ![]() At any rate, it is established that the rulers will need to lie for the sake of the city, as the truth does not necessarily benefit the gods and the citizens need not be involved with every truth of the city. There is a certain quality of oneness and wholeness to their education, and therefore in the justice of the city which is worth considering in preserving the link between the just individual and the just city, a link that was created by Socrates in Book II. The purpose of their education is to acquire eros of virtue and courage and moderation, for the good of the city. ![]() The guardians must be taught to lack fear and must also be taught to avoid excessive laughter. First, we encounter the education of the guardians of the city. ![]() ![]() At the outset of Book III, Socrates declares the topic will be focused on “the gods”, or the stories, the education of the citizens of the city. ![]() 7/6/2023 0 Comments Magic lessons hoffman![]() ![]() ![]() It’s no secret that love has plagued the Owens family for centuries. You can read this before Magic Lessons (Practical Magic, #0.1) PDF EPUB full Download at the bottom.įrom New York Times bestselling author Alice Hoffman comes the origin story of her beloved novel and basis for the cult classic film Practical Magic-taking us on a captivating journey to the Salem witch trials, featuring the indomitable matriarch of the Owens family, Maria. Here is a quick description and cover image of book Magic Lessons (Practical Magic, #0.1) written by Alice Hoffman which was published in. Brief Summary of Book: Magic Lessons (Practical Magic, #0.1) by Alice Hoffman ![]() 7/6/2023 0 Comments Book us against you![]() ![]() ![]() She writes that her mother forced her to work long and grueling hours even when she was sick “‘pull up the britches and chug the Gatorade,’” McCurdy said to me, mimicking her mother. McCurdy’s mother knew how to raise a little actor - she wanted to be one herself - but she was also wildly abusive to her youngest daughter. Her book tells you why, clearly and unflinchingly. McCurdy has denied her own desires and basic needs for so long, admitting the truth must feel like a necessary victory, even if it results in slightly one-upping me about a game I hate. Nothing is so liberating as being able to tell the truth after decades of holding it in. It is indeed a strange admission to deliver in the middle of an interview, but I get it. But I want to be truthful even in something that small.” It’s so small, and so silly, who cares, I won a fucking round of Jackbox, whatever. “I just felt my people-pleasing, agreeable part come out and say that. “I was actually distracted because…I was not bad at it,” she said. But in the middle of talking about her friendship with a former Nickelodeon costar, she stopped herself and looked down at her hands quietly. “Yeah, me too,” she said, and we promptly moved on. The revelation comes a few beats after we talked about the multiplayer video game - I played a few times in the pandemic and told McCurdy that I was pretty terrible at it and lost every round. Jennette McCurdy is, actually, quite good at Jackbox. ![]() |