Jillionaire Roger claims to abhor Quiller’s politics, but, he intones, “the betrayal of our civil rights is a crime worse than any he’s being held for.” Quiller is a noted inventor, a “natural-born genius,” and a manifesto-penning icon of white nationalism. A man named Alfred Xavier Quiller has been unduly jailed in a secret cell on Rikers Island. Roger asks Joe to investigate what appears to be a government kidnapping. Roger is the boyfriend of Joe’s feisty grandmother, Brenda, whose parents were sharecroppers. The client is Roger Ferris, an enormously rich old white guy. The narrative begins with Joe King Oliver, a Black ex-cop and private detective in New York, driving uptown to meet a client at a palatial estate overlooking the Hudson River. These words - a cry for equality from a bygone era - are a snug fit for Mosley’s novel, which skitters across the spectrum between orthodox and radical like a polygraph needle wired to a nervy accomplice. It was the catchphrase of the firebrand Louisiana populist Huey Long, who might have challenged Franklin Roosevelt from the left in 1936, were he not assassinated first. The title of Walter Mosley’s provocative new novel, “Every Man a King,” is a motto with a violent history.
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Plato, in his Republic, which is considered so stern, teaches the children only through festivals, games, songs, and amusements. What! is it nothing to be happy, nothing to run and jump all day? He will never be so busy again all his life long. You are afraid to see him spending his early years doing nothing. You fail to perceive that it is a greater waste of time to use it ill than to do nothing, and that a child ill taught is further from virtue than a child who has learnt nothing at all. You assert that you know the value of time and are afraid to waste it. Give nature time to work before you take over her business, lest you interfere with her dealings. Leave exceptional cases to show themselves, let their qualities be tested and confirmed, before special methods are adopted. “Hold childhood in reverence, and do not be in any hurry to judge it for good or ill. Frankly, this guy handled all of this really poorly, and his *reasons* are a ridiculous excuse to be mean, if find this true in a lot of books where the guy is mean and they try to explain away the behavior because he struggles with the feels. He was heartless and had zero respect to her situation (even though she was clearly victimized from the beginning) and then he starts to feel bad for his behavior once he figures things out? What about treating all people with respect and care even if they aren’t a victim? You never know what people have gone through. But only because our girl was nice, and defied his expectations. At the end of this novella, he has an internal monologue where he calls himself a cur and heartless for what he did. Her “first Blood” (if you can even call him that) is really disrespectful, and not only is he emotionally blunt and hurtful, but he literally left her to die. So when this one came out and the main character was a grown woman and I hoped we would go back to more of a respect driven relationship dynamic. The Shara series was all about respect, not negging, poor communication, and hurting people because you need to “protect them”. In Princess Takes Unicorns series, the author seems to jump on the bully academy train which I wasn’t a fan of. But my biggest “issue” with this was more of the themes used to create tension. Short but also a bit different from the Shara series In historical novels the past can sometimes feel tamed hindsight, hovering just off the page, tells us that we know what it all added up to and what came of it (the First Opium War, during which British gunboats enforced a treaty opening Chinese ports to international trade, comes shortly after the ending of this novel). The Chinese authorities are trying to prevent illegal imports of the drug, which has inflicted a plague of addiction on the Chinese population while making empire-sized fortunes for the irrepressibly shameless traders, mostly British. River of Smoke follows the story through to Canton in China, where the opium is sold. The first, Sea of Poppies, published in 2008, took us along the Ganges and to Calcutta, where the poppies are grown and the opium processed. River of Smoke is the second volume of a proposed trilogy. A mitav Ghosh's two latest novels carry us deep inside the opium trade in the 1830s. She acted as mediator in the Franco-Spanish War and, in return for financial support, was received into the Roman Catholic Church despite the fierce condemnation of her protestant countrymen. She had also become notorious for her extravagant lifestyle.Leaving the narrow confines of her homeland behind her, Christina cut a remarkable path across Europe. Instrumental in bringing the Thirty Years War to a close at the age of 22, Christina had become one of the most powerful monarchs in Europe. The groundbreaking biography of one of the most progressive, influential and entertaining women of the seventeenth century, Christina Alexandra, Queen of Sweden.In 1654, to the astonishment and dismay of her court, Christina Alexandra announced her abdication in favour of her cousin, Charles. In this edition of How to Be Alone, they have adapted the poem and its compelling illustrations for the page in a beautiful, meditative volume-a keepsake to treasure and to share.įrom a solitary walk in the woods to sitting unaccompanied on a city park bench to eating a meal and even dancing alone, How to Be Alone, reveals the possibilities and joys waiting to be discovered when we engage in activities on our own. Since its debut on YouTube, Tanya Davis’s beautiful and perceptive poem "How to Be Alone," visually realized by artist and filmmaker Andrea Dorfman, has become an international sensation. Nothing good can come from sneaking around with Jake Connelly. Which means this bad girl is in big trouble. But fate is cruel-I require his help to secure a much-coveted internship, and the sexy jerk isn’t making it easy for me. Harvard’s star forward is arrogant, annoying, and too attractive for his own good. As the daughter of Briar’s head hockey coach, I’d be vilified if I hooked up with a player from a rival team.Īnd that’s who Jake Connelly is. But I draw the line at sleeping with the enemy. They’re only partly right-I don’t let fear rule me, and I certainly don’t care what people think. So if my sexy brooding roomie wises up and realizes what he's missing?Įveryone says I’m a bad girl. I've got my hands full dealing with a new school, a sleazy professor, and an uncertain future. I'm not the kind of girl who chases after a man, though, and I'm not about to start. Fitzy has made it clear he's not interested in me, even though the sparks between us are liable to burn our house down. It doesn't help that he's buddy-buddy with my brother.Īnd that his best friend has a crush on me. His narrow view of me is the first strike against him. I don't usually go for tattoo-covered, video-gaming, hockey-playing nerd-jocks who think I'm flighty and superficial. And they must be right, because there's no logical reason why I'm so drawn to Colin Fitzgerald. Clarke began carving out his reputation as a “scientific” science-fiction writer with his first science-fiction novel, Against the Fall of Night, published as a novella in 1948. For many years Clarke, Robert Heinlein, and Isaac Asimov were known as the “Big Three” of science fiction.Īrthur C. His science-fiction writings in particular earned him a number of Hugo and Nebula awards, which along with a large readership, made him one of the towering figures of the genre. Clarke’s science and science-fiction writings earned him the moniker “Prophet of the Space Age”. In 1961, he received the Kalinga Prize, a UNESCO award for popularising science. He wrote many books and many essays for popular magazines. Clarke was a science fiction writer, an avid populariser of space travel, and a futurist of a distinguished ability. He co-wrote the screenplay for the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, one of the most influential films of all time. Sir Arthur Charles Clarke CBE FRAS (16 December 1917 – 19 March 2008) was an English science-fiction writer, science writer, futurist, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host. Storytellers have used the rich world of fairy tales to examine the nuances of human personality. Hence, this method promotes an empathetic response to the story, as readers embark on the same journey as their fictitious counterparts. This “dialogue with the silence” encourages readers to take part in the story since they have to actively decipher what lies beneath the narration and, thus, think like the characters (Kokkola, 2003, p. In other words, a book that leaves some gaps in information can be more emotionally profound than one that tries to explain everything. For instance, Rosenfeld (1980) focuses on literature of fragmentation, which consists of leaving unsaid what cannot and must not be described or understood. The authors must carefully narrate their stories and follow a series of moral principles since their novels “carry a significant responsibility” (Rachel Dean-Ruzicka, 2017, p. Nevertheless, the literary debate focuses on how situations of this magnitude can be approached in an ethical way (San José Rico & Mezquita Fernández). As time passes, fewer survivors remain to pass down their first-hand experiences, which places literature in a significant position to educate younger generations. 14), “the Holocaust is an integral part of twenty-first-century children’s and young adult literature” and, therefore, the account of the notorious event is not only pertinent but necessary. According to Rachel Dean-Ruzicka (2017, p. Nora uses all her strength to drag this man, Quincy, back to her house and nurses him back to health. Whilst having a dip in the lake on her property, and just 1 week prior to her intended marriage, Nora discovers a man on her property who is unconscious, he is covered in blood, has bruises all over his face and body, his hair is matted and stuck to his face. She is not hopeful of a love match so she feels this is a practical and sensible solution to her problems. Nora accepts this practical deal as she is 22 years of age, has no other marriage prospects or means to pay the debt owing on the bank. She is behind in mortgage repayments, and local man Jake has made her a reasonable offer to pay the bank the money owing in repayments in return for her hand in marriage. Nora is a hard working young woman who works the farm that was left to her by her parents. The book opens with a quote from Jane Austen's Persuasion - "You pierce my sole, I am half agony, half hope, I have loved none but you" This for me set the tone to a well researched, and thought provoking novel. It is such a beautiful story, full of forgiveness, hope, new beginnings, love and new friendships. I loved this book from the very first chapter. Rachel Fordham has written a beautifully, heart warming romantic historical fiction. |