Dragon Ride by Grace Jacob5/21/2023 ![]() Is Jesus powerful enough to protect me from them?" In the kick-off meeting of a discussion group Grace was leading for atheist university students, Carol burst out laughing. "If I believe in Jesus, the gods I worship are going to retaliate. With tears in her eyes, she told Grace and Justin, "I'll never betray you two, no matter what they do to me!" Leah, an idol-worshipper, longed to become a Christian, but she was afraid. This will be our secret!" The police were interrogating 19-year-old Hope every few days-pressuring her to disclose Grace and Justin's ministry to university students. "If leaving me in the mental institution will further the gospel, then leave me there!" The first time Doris, an orthodox Buddhist, heard about Jesus, she whispered to Grace, "Don't tell anyone that Jesus died for us. ![]() Twenty-year-old Peter, when threatened with incarceration in a mental institution for his faith, refused to let Grace fight for his release. ![]()
0 Comments
Shady hollow by juneau black5/21/2023 ![]() As she stirs up the still waters, the fox exposes more than one mystery, and the folks in Shady Hollow learn that some of their neighbours are lying, while others are downright dangerous. She has a nose for news and catches the scent of a story, one that leads her to dark places. ![]() It’s something this village haven’t seen before: a murder. until the town’s querulous toad shows up dead. Shady Hollow has a coffee shop and a bookshop, a haberdasher and a bank. Moose and mice, owls and bears live side by side in civilized harmony. In the woodland community of Shady Hollow, you’ll discover a secret. ![]() A REPORTER ON THE CASE.ĬAN YOU SPOT THE SECRETS IN SHADY HOLLOW? a perfect long weekend binge-read ‘ Culture FlyĪ MURDER TO SOLVE. Sometimes you just need an entertaining, escapist read to while away the hours, and Juneau Black (the pen name of authors Jocelyn Cole and Sharon Nagel) certainly delivers all the small-town cosy crime vibes, with the animal quirkiness of Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr Fox. ![]() ‘Billed as Agatha Christie meets Beatrix Potter. ![]() ![]() ![]() I endured more than two hundred pages of bland writing. While the author may have learned alongside her mother, even helping to write a few short stories with her, there is something missing. If you are a long time fan, then you know that not everything was always perfect, but for the most part, I love the setting, the tales, and the twists that helped bridge it all together, including through time! But sometimes, regardless of our love for something, we must let it go. So many amazing characters have emerged over the years from the distant world of Pern. ![]() A new generation of readers could potentially experience what I did!īut I fear that is not to be. ![]() In fact, Dragon’s Code, as it was titled, was to be a new expansion on this previously massive universe of man, dragon, and threat. Therefore, I was elated when I discovered Gigi McCaffrey, daughter of the legendary wordsmith herself, was writing a new book. I will not claim to have read everything in the series, but I consumed them year after year as they released, with few exceptions. My first foray into the world of Pern was The White Dragon, the pivotal third book that resonated deeply with me. Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern books were, beyond a doubt, extremely influential to me and others as a source of world building and empathetic writing. ![]() Burn for burn by jenny han5/21/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The three novels, The Summer I Turned Pretty, It's Not Summer Without You, and We'll Always Have Summer, were published from 2009 to 2011 by Simon & Schuster and quickly became New York Times Best Sellers. Her next project was a young adult romance trilogy about a girl's coming-of-age during her summer breaks. ![]() Shug was published in 2006 and is about Annemarie Wilcox, a twelve-year-old trying to navigate the perils of junior high school. Han wrote her first book, the children's novel Shug, while she was in college. Han has never been married and has no children, she resides in Brooklyn, New York. In 2006, she received her Master of Fine Arts in creative writing at The New School. She graduated from Governor's School for Government and International Studies in 1998, then attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Han was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia, to Korean-American parents. She is best known for writing the To All the Boys series and The Summer I Turned Pretty trilogy, which were adapted into a film series and TV series, respectively. Jenny Han is an American author of young adult fiction and children's fiction. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (BFA) ![]() Kingbird Highway by Kenn Kaufman5/20/2023 ![]() ![]() The book is titled Kingbird Highway, and is about how the author, Kenn Kaufman, came to be the youngest person to see over 600 birds in a single year. Normally this would have sparked a program about how birds are so much more evolved than us mere humans, never bound by airport schedules and pilot strikes and radar systems, but I had just started a book that was so absorbing that the time flew, and by the time I was finishing the book the plane was in the sky. ![]() ![]() A couple of weeks ago I was stuck in the Cleveland airport when first my one o’clock flight got cancelled, putting me on a 5 o’clock one, and then, after we boarded that plane a half hour late, we waited out on the runway for over an hour and a half while the Cleveland radar system was down. ![]() Open season by cj box5/20/2023 ![]() As Joe digs deeper into the murders, he soon discovers that the outfitter brought more than death to his backdoor: he brought Joe an endangered species, thought to be extinct, which is now living in his woodpile. ![]() His young daughter finds secret pets, and contributes to the dialog. Even after the "outfitter murders," as they have been dubbed by the local press after the discovery of the two more bodies, are solved, Joe continues to investigate, uneasy with the easy explanation offered by the local police. There had to be a reason that the outfitter, with whom he's had run-ins before, chose his backyard, his woodpile to die in. When he finds a local hunting outfitter dead, splayed out on the woodpile behind his state-owned home, he takes it personally. Joe Pickett is the new game warden in Twelve Sleep, Wyoming, a town where nearly everyone hunts and the game warden-especially one like Joe who won't take bribes or look the other way-is far from popular. ![]() Published by Recorded Books on February 11, 2014Īmazon, Audible, Audiobook, Barnes & Noble, Apple ![]() ![]() ![]() The Holy War is the name of the great host called by Maithanet, the Shriah of the Thousand Temples, to liberate Shimeh from the heathen Fanim of Kian. The Major Languages and Dialects of Eärwa The Darkness That Comes Before is a history of this great Holy War, and like all histories, the survivours write its conclusion. Among them, two men and two women are ensnared by a mysterious traveller, Anasûrimbor Kellhus-part warrior, part philosopher, part sorcerous, charismatic presence-from lands long thought dead. It’s a world scarred by an apocalyptic past, evoking a time both two thousand years past and two thousand years into the future, as untold thousands gather for a crusade. Scott Bakker’s Prince of Nothing series creates a remarkable world from whole cloth-its language and classes of people, its cities, religions, mysteries, taboos, and rituals-the kind of all-embracing universe Tolkien and Herbert created unforgettably in the epic fantasies The Lord of the Rings and Dune. ![]() Strikingly original in its conception, ambitious in scope, with characters engrossingly and vividly drawn, the first book in R. ![]() Alone together by sherry turkle5/20/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() They're both taking care, which is enough. Some people don't think there's an important difference between a real person and a robot performing caregiving tasks. Speaking of a machine that cuts people's toenails, one attendee said, “That is a caring computer. In 2005, the International Symposium for Contemplative Studies discussed the potential uses of caregiving robots. Speaking about Wandakun, one 74-year-old man said, “I fell in love after years of being quite lonely.I swore to protect and care for the little animal.”įor many people, robots have changed the very notion of “care.” We used to think “care” meant caring about someone, but now it often means taking care of someone – something a robot may be able to do. It can serve as a companion to the elderly. ![]() Wandakun is a fuzzy koala that purrs, sings and speaks a few phrases when it's touched. So they began developing a robot called Wandakun that would be able to help. Some 25 years ago, Japanese demographers concluded that Japan wouldn’t have enough young people to take care of the elderly in the future. In some places like Japan, they may even be a necessity. ![]() Well, many people believe that robots will eventually become our caretakers. Have you ever wondered who'll take care of your parents as they get older? You? Your siblings? Someone else? ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() It features cameos from David Bowie, Jerry Garcia, Leonard Cohen, Syd Barrett, Jackson Browne, John Lennon, Allen Ginsberg, Francis Bacon, Joni Mitchell, Steve Winwood, Keith Moon, Frank Zappa, Rick Wakeman, Cass Elliot, Sandy Denny and Marc Bolan, as well as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, Jim Morrison, and Brian Jones the latter five, coincidentally, all members of the 27 Club. Each chapter name is the title of a song and focuses on one of the members of the band. They were assembled by their Canadian manager Levon Frankland as a "psychedelic-folk-rock" supergroup. The novel follows the fictional rock band Utopia Avenue, formed in Soho, London, in 1967. ![]() The novel tells the story of the fictional 1960s British psychedelic rock band Utopia Avenue. It was published by Sceptre on 14 July 2020. It is his eighth published novel, and his first since Slade House (2015). Utopia Avenue is a 2020 novel by David Mitchell. ![]() An annihilation of caste5/20/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() Ambedkar in his “Annihilation of Caste” wrote about the need to rid India of the caste system not only as a superficial reform, but to be through and out with it in order to achieve political reform. However, the caste system is not a mere division of labour – but a division of labourers ranked one above the other, weighing the worth of humans based on the accident of birth.Īlthough reassuring to think that practices such as untouchability linked to the purity-pollution notions of the caste system have been eradicated in the 21st century, the accuracy of the statement is not just questionable, but veils the reality behind the ever-existing relevance that the caste system still holds over the lives of a large number of people.ĭr. ![]() Caste as a social construct has prevailed in India since ancient times, hierarchically dividing the status and occupations of people. ![]() |