![]() Yet the Sun King's appetite for glory knows no bounds. By the fiftieth year of his reign, Louis XIV has made France the most powerful state in the western world. From the Hall of Mirrors to the vermin-infested attics of the Chateau at Versailles, courtiers compete to please the king, sacrificing fortune, principles, and even the sacred bond between brother and sister. In his domain, wealth and beauty take all frivolity begets cruelty science and alchemy collide. In seventeenth-century France, Louis XIV rules with flamboyant ambition. ![]() The captive, who has green hair and flaps for legs, sings beautifully and this moves a woman courtier to save her. ![]() Summary A woman from the sea is captured by 17th century French sailors so that King Louis XIV can eat her rejuvenating organs. ![]()
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![]() ![]() From growing up in a Boston homeless shelter to bartending in San Francisco, from smuggling medical supplies into Burma to his lifelong struggle to make peace with his body, Fitzgerald strives to take control of his own story: one that aims to put aside anger, isolation, and entitlement to embrace the idea that one can be generous to oneself by being generous to others. In Dirtbag, Massachusetts, Fitzgerald, with warmth and humor, recounts his ongoing search for forgiveness, a more far-reaching vision of masculinity, and a more expansive definition of family and self.įitzgerald's memoir-in-essays begins with a childhood that moves at breakneck speed from safety to violence, recounting an extraordinary pilgrimage through trauma to self-understanding and, ultimately, acceptance. But before all that, he was a bomb that exploded his parents' lives-or so he was told. He's been an altar boy, a bartender, a fat kid, a smuggler, a biker, a prince of New England. ![]() pulling no punches on the path to truth, but it always finds the capacity for grace and joy." –Esquire, "Best Memoirs of the Year"Ī TIME Must-Read Book of the Year * A Rolling Stone Top Culture Pick * A Publishers Weekly Best Memoir of the Season * A Buzzfeed Book Pick * A Goodreads Readers' Most Anticipated Book * A Chicago Tribune Book Pick * A Book You Should Read * A Los Angeles Times Book to Add to Your Reading List * An Entertainment Weekly Best Book of the Month Winner of the New England Book Award for Nonfiction ![]() ![]() ![]() Toyama's warning resounds: Don't believe the hype! Technology is never the main driver of social progress. So, a golden age of innovation in the world's most advanced country did nothing for our most prominent social ill. But what have our gadgets actually accomplished? Over the last four decades, America saw an explosion of new technologies, but in that same period, the rate of poverty stagnated at a stubborn 13 percent, only to rise in the recent recession. Technologists and policy-makers love to boast about modern innovation, and in their excitement, they exuberantly tout technology's boon to society. ![]() But after a decade of designing technologies for humanitarian causes, Toyama concluded that no technology, however dazzling, could cause social change on its own. Its mission: to explore novel technological solutions to the world's persistent social problems. In 2004, Kentaro Toyama, an award-winning computer scientist, moved to India to start a new research group for Microsoft. ![]() ![]() ![]() She is interested in all forms of art strange, subversive, and scorned by the mainstream - from the gory horror movies you’re afraid to admit you love, to the romance novels you’re embarrassed to mention to your friends. Her poems and essays have been featured in numerous outlets.Ĭlaire’s writing explores stigmatized issues at the intersections of feminism, sexuality, and horror. Her first book of poetry, I Am Not Your Final Girl, is available now. ![]() Claire also enjoys binge-watching horror movies with her husband and her Wheaten Terrier, Chi Claire is an Elgin Award-nominated poet and writer from Philadelphia, currently living in Los Angeles. To that end, she also co-hosts a sex-positive podcast exploring romance novels and healthy sexuality. Claire’s writing explores stigmatized issues at the intersections of feminism, sexuality, and horror. ![]() Her poems and essays have been featured in numerous outlets. Claire is an Elgin Award-nominated poet and writer from Philadelphia, currently living in Los Angeles. ![]() ![]() No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written consent of the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes only. She’s chaos embodied, not his type, and married, but none of that can stop his eyes from following her wherever she goes.Īll along, she doesn’t even know that she’s his-his frustration, his fascination.Īll rights reserved. Nowhere in Christian’s plans had he ever prepared for Gianna. She hates him-his stone-cold demeanor, his arrogance and too-perceptive eye-but over the years, even as their games consist of insulting each other’s looks and intelligence, she begins to live to play with him. One winter night and their lives intertwine. With a proclivity for order and the number three, he’s never been tempted to veer off course. Christian Allister has always followed the life plan he’d envisioned in his youth, beneath the harsh lights of a frigid, damp cell. In the New York underworld, others know him as a hustler, a killer, his nature as cold as the heart of ice in his chest. Most see a paragon of morality a special agent upholding the law. Little do most know it’s just a sparkly disguise, there to hide one panic attack at a time. ![]() She laughs too loudly, eats without decorum, and mixes up most sayings in the book. ![]() Her dresses are too tight, her heels too tall. ![]() ![]() But Aphrodite’s scheming mother has an ulterior motive – one that involves the now widowed Evander, who has also returned to town.Īs the societal events of the season get underway, Aphrodite finds herself pulled into Evander’s orbit once again. Having hidden herself away from London ever since, Aphrodite is summoned back to aid in her younger sister Hathor’s debut into society. She might be famed for her beauty, beloved by her family, admired by the ton, and a favourite of the Queen, but Aphrodite’s loveliness wasn’t enough to stop the love of her life, Evander Eagleman, from jilting her and marrying another. McAvoy wears her period drama influences firmly on her sleeve, making this a treat of a book for anyone who enjoys the likes of Pride and Prejudice, Sanditon and the great Georgette Heyer.Īphrodite Du Bell has always resented her goddess namesake. Aphrodite and the Duke is a diverting Regency romance with a diverse cast of characters, a sharp heroine who knows her own mind, a dashing love interest haunted by a troubled past, and an antagonist who wouldn’t be out of place in a Jane Austen novel. ![]() ![]() If you’re looking for a book to tide you over whilst you wait for the next season, J. ![]() ![]() ![]() But I think my main issue with this series is the world or lack of world building.įrom all the descriptions throughout the series I picture the Capitol of Ludania to look something like this. There are some really good ideas and plot twists here and rich descriptions. ![]() I'm glad I took a chance on this series but I have no idea if I would dive into it ever again. This book definitely had flaws in my eyes and if characters did things or acted differently than my opinion on this book would probably be a lot better. I was hooked and that trio of people made this book better in my eyes. Those three made me want to know how this book was going to end. Eden, Xander, and Sage were the shit though. Those two character really need to grow the heck up. ![]() Well, except for Brooklyn because she annoyed the shit out of me too. She seriously needs to ask for help every now and then - but she doesn't which honestly annoys the crap out of me.īesides Charlie being a stupid ass Queen and putting everyone in danger, every other character was 200 times better. She never sucks it up and admits that she doesn't know everything. She's still keeping the important stuff to herself when she should be talking to her people. Nope, the first book was probably the best in my eyes (even though I rated the first and third book the same).Ĭharlie, who is still Queen, kind of does her own thing. A little bit better than the second book but not better than the first. ![]() ![]() ![]() The strongest point of The Unquiet is probably its atmosphere. Or even more importantly, how can alternates talk to each other on the phone? Lira is not a scientist, but I would have liked some more insights into this. ![]() It’s never explained why there are two parallel universes, or why the portals between them have formed. ![]() Obviously the version in The Unquiet isn’t a carbon copy, but sometimes I wished it distinguished itself more from its source material, especially because the book provides very little world building in itself. Probably because I love that show so much and have watched it too many times, but still. Everything from the alternates, to one earth falling apart while the other lived on, reminded me of Fringe. Mythology-wise, The Unquiet leans heavily on the parallel-universe concept which was central to the TV show Fringe. Slowly, it becomes clear what their mission truly encompasses. She and other children are being trained as sleepers on a special mission on Earth I. She is from Earth II, the version of earth that is slowly disappearing. In a covert way, The Unquiet condones genocide, and I cannot accept that. Not the story itself, even though the things the main character goes through are terrible, but the ethic implications the book makes. The Unquiet makes me thoroughly uncomfortable. Published September 22nd 2015 by Greenwillow Books ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The novel also contains a number of firsts: there is a reference to the fictional village of St. The Times Literary Supplement said, "The reader will not be disappointed when the distinguished Belgian on psychological grounds builds up inferences almost out of the air, supports them by a masterly array of negative evidence and lands his fish to the surprise of everyone". The story itself, even though derived from the 1923 Poirot short story The Plymouth Express, did not come easily to her and she referred to this novel in her autobiography stating that she "always hated it". stood for Order of the Faithful Dogs and both Carlotta, hired by Christie as a secretary and Rosalind's governess, and Peter, Rosalind's much loved dog were in that camp as opposed to the Order of the Faithless Rats who had turned away from her. Carlotta and Peter" also references this difficult time. The dedication "To the two distinguished members of the O.F.D. ![]() Now separated from Archie and in need of funds, she turned back to writing. The events of 1926 with the death of her mother and her husband's infidelity had left a deep psychological scar on Christie. ![]() The writing of this book (part of which took place on the Canary Islands in early 1927) was an ordeal for Agatha Christie. ![]() ![]() ![]() Whom should she trust? The Order-the group of powerful priestesses of which her mother was a part? Or the creatures in the realms that want to make an alliance and share the power with her? What does she do about the Rakshana who have become jealous of the power of the Order and now seek to grab the power from Gemma? Her visions continue in this volume leading her through more adventures with her friends-beautiful and demanding Felicity and plain and timid Ann-in the realms, the Rakshana court her brother to get back at her for holding all the power, Kartik is back but more distant and cold than ever, and Pippa seems to be becoming more and more a creature of the realms. ![]() This last of the trilogy (A Great and Terrible Beauty and Rebel Angels) finds Gemma Doyle with all the magic of the realms bound to her and a decision to make about her powers. ![]() |