![]() ![]() ![]() After creating a narrative whereby Sergeant Shaw saved his fellow G.I.s, he is sent back stateside and wins the Medal of Honor. During their incarceration, they are brainwashed and Shaw is utilised as a ‘sleeper agent’ to wreak havoc back home. While serving in the Korean War, Sergeant Raymond Shaw is one of a number of America soldiers who are captured by the Chinese. As apt today as at first publication, Condon gives readers something about which to think, much as Trump does today. There is an element of brilliance in the concept that a ‘sleeper’ could be put into the American political system with the sole purpose of bringing the country to its knees. Somewhat satirical in its delivery, it may leave some scratching their heads as to what this has to do with anything. This is Book #14 in my 2020 US Election Preparation Challenge.Īt a time when politics is up in the air and no one seems to know who’s in which column, Richard Condon presents this riveting political thriller that has all the key elements to the early Cold War years. ![]() I am, as always, open to serious recommendations from anyone who has a book I might like to include in the process. Many of these will focus on actors intricately involved in the process, in hopes that I can understand them better and, perhaps, educate others with the power to cast a ballot. I have decided to embark on a mission to read a number of books on subjects that will be of great importance to the upcoming 2020 US Presidential Election. ![]()
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![]() ![]() ![]() The premise of the novel, as we said, intrigued us: a story about the formation of the Jane Austen Society around the purchase of Chawton Cottage as a museum dedicated to Jane Austen’s life and work. We have broken the review into two parts: the story itself, and the audiobook performance. We usually listen to audiobooks during our daily train commute, which of course is not happening right now, so we weren’t sure if we would have the time but then realized we could listen to the audiobook on our daily ten turns in the shrubbery around the parking lot, and signed on. However, we weren’t sure if we would be able to participate at first, as we have been working extremely long days at le travail de jour during the current Interesting Times (safely home at AustenBlog HQ, thankfully, and we fully recognize our privilege). Armitage in the past, and they were all wonderful performances, which made the offer difficult to turn down. ![]() We love audiobooks and have listened to several read by Mr. ![]() We were even more excited to be offered the opportunity to review the audiobook, read by Richard Armitage. We were intrigued by the story description back when the book was first announced and have been excited to read it ever since. We were so pleased to be asked to participate in the blog tour for Natalie Jenner’s debut novel, The Jane Austen Society. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Famed Magizoologist Newt Scamander's years of adventure and exploration have yielded a work of unparalleled importance, admired by scholars, devoured by young witches and wizards, and even made available to Muggles in the early years of this century. ![]() This is another paragraph Book Description: This glorious new edition of Newt Scamander's Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (considered a classic throughout the wizarding world) features an extraordinary array of magical creatures, from Acromantula to Yeti via ten different breeds of dragon - all beautifully illustrated in full colour by the brilliantly inventive, Greenaway Medal shortlisted Olivia Lomenech Gill. The book is new.150pp including Foreword by the Author, an A-Z of Fantastic Beasts, list of beasts.Please note: This is oversized and heavy book (approx. First UK edition-5th printing (5 7 9 10 8 6).Large format pictorial hardback in mint condition, no Dj cover as issued.Illustrated with many colour drawings. Mint condition.Bloomsbury Children's Books,2017. ![]() ![]() ![]() "Lo's writing, restrained yet luscious, shimmers with the thrills of youthful desire. ![]() "A vivid historical document of midcentury queer life."- Wall Street Journal "Lo beckons readers, sentence by restrained sentence, into this incandescent novel of queer possibility."-National Book Award Winner Citation Winner of the Asian/Pacific American Award for LiteratureĪ We Need Diverse Books Walter Dean Myers Honor Book Reviews Winner of the National Book Award *This audiobook includes a PDF of the bibliography and acknowledgments from the book. With deportation looming over her father-despite his hard-won citizenship-Lily and Kath risk everything to let their love see the light of day. ![]() Red-Scare paranoia threatens everyone, including Chinese Americans like Lily. Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can't remember exactly when the question took root, but the answer was in full bloom the moment she and Kathleen Miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club.Īmerica in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love, especially not in Chinatown. It was about two women, and they fell in love with each other." And then Lily asked the question that had taken root in her, that was even now unfurling its leaves and demanding to be shown the sun: "Have you ever heard of such a thing?" Acclaimed author of Ash Malinda Lo returns with her most personal and ambitious novel yet, a gripping story of love and duty set in San Francisco's Chinatown during the 1950s. ![]() ![]() ![]() This story takes place just after Arthur is crowned emperor so he's still uniting Britain, making it a nice change of pace since most stories have Camelot already established and Arthur more as scenery than a character. He can feel his heartbreak when Medraut goes down the dark path, as well as when Arthur mistrusts him. ![]() ![]() His journey from outcast to young sorcerer to berserker warrior is well done, an interesting metamorphosis. Gwalchmai, Gawain in most tales, is an interesting character, close to his younger brother Medraut and contemptuous of his older brother Agravain. Forget Lancelot and Guinevere, my favorites have always been the boys from Orkney, or Orcades, in this case. I've read a fair bit of Arthurian fantasy over the years. Will Arthur accept him, knowing who his mother is? Before making it to Britain, he stays in Lugh's domain for what ends up being three years, acquiring the sword Caledvwlch and horse Ceincaled. ![]() However, his mother's sorcery is seething with Darkness and Gwalchmai flees the Orcades, set on joining Arthur's warband. Gwalchmai ap Lot, the middle child of Morgawys and Lot, learns sorcery from his mother to make up for his short comings as a warrior. ![]() ![]() ![]() Dalloway's stream-of-consciousness narrative style, which was pioneered by Woolf and James Joyce, in which the flowing thoughts and perceptions of protagonists are depicted as they would occur in real life. ![]() Several other characters in Clarissa Vaughan's story also parallel characters in Woolf's Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway and Clarissa Vaughan also both contrast their histories and past loves with their current lives, which they both perceive as trivial. Dalloway, Clarissa Vaughan goes on a journey to buy flowers while reflecting on the minutiae of the day around her and later prepares to throw a party. Dalloway, with Clarissa Vaughan being a modern-day version of Woolf's character. The situations of all three characters mirror situations experienced by Woolf's own Clarissa Dalloway in Mrs. ![]() In 1999 New York City, Clarissa Vaughan plans a party to celebrate a major literary award received by her good friend and former lover, the poet Richard, who is dying of an AIDS-related illness. Dalloway while planning a birthday party for her husband, a World War II veteran. In 1949 Los Angeles, Laura Brown is reading Mrs. Dalloway and struggling with her mental illness. In 1923 Richmond, outside London, author Virginia Woolf is writing Mrs. The book concerns three generations of women affected by the classic novel Mrs. Portrait of Virginia Woolf, British author and feminist ![]() ![]() ![]() First, the ocean, the steep Atlantic stream. Above all, it is a true story because that is the only kind worth telling. ![]() It has a hundred and fifty men because that is a manageable number of people to tell a story about. It has two ships because one was sunk, and had to be replaced. It is a long story because it deals with a long and brutal battle, the worst of any war. ![]() Nicholas Monsarrat wrote: 'This is the story - the long and true story - of one ocean, two ships, and about a hundred and fifty men. It covers not just the details of the battle of the Atlantic, but deals with the people who fought it - their domestic triumphs, tragedies, worries and ambitions. The film was a smash hit when released and both it and the book continue to enjoy undiminished popularity. The highly acclaimed 'Cruel Sea'is one of the all-time great naval and war thrillers. ![]() ![]() But in time all the interesting things Halberstam learned about new-breed-millionaire owner Larry Weinberg, personnel manager Stu Inman ("Are you really telling me"-to Weinberg-"that you know more than us?"), coach Jack Ramsay ("the system came first"-and the blacks craved more freedom), about Blazer superstars and comers and might-have-beens, do add up-intellectually and emotionally. Halberstam has contrived a narrative as seamless and fluid and intermeshed as basketball itself-with the result, in the first half at least, that lines of development don't stand out (and much has to be reiterated). ![]() (In pro basketball, of some of the best and brightest black lives.) The book has a problem with sprawl-not only because the central chapter, "The Season," goes on for 300 pages. ![]() The game is professional basketball, as represented by the Portland Trail Blazers' 1979-80 season-a microcosm, in Halberstam's wide-angle rendering, of the commercialization of all that was once genuine in American life. ![]() ![]() Donnelly’s masterly creation is richly imagined and moves at an unchecked pace, painting a layer of sumptuous indulgence over a society of corruption, vice, and oppression. ![]() Cyril is comfortable as a dilettante until a mission goes badly, putting his lover, burlesque performer Aristide Makricosta, at risk under a rising conservative regime that aims to consolidate the four diverse nation-states of Gedda into “one tightly controlled entity.” Aristide recruits Cordelia’s help without knowing the mortal danger Cyril has accepted in his effort to protect them both. Cordelia Lehane is content to scrape out a living any way she can, whether by fabulous stage performances or black market dealings. Setting that owes much to pre-WWII Europe but has its own complicated politics, Cyril DePaul is a young man of privilege who’s gotten in over his head as an agent for the Amberlough government. Donnelly blends romance and tragedy, evoking gilded-age glamour and the thrill of a spy adventure, in this impressive debut. ![]() ![]() At home, Cheryl is worried that Razonball is not communicating with them and decides to do something about it. He’s depressed but his friend tells him of a growing movement to disable his emotion chip. Razorball the Walters robot is going through an existential crisis working to live and living to work. Writer: Mark Russellģ0 years in the future humans are nothing more than pets for a robot workforce. ![]() (The Amazing Spider-Man, The Resistance). What could possibly go wrong? Meet the Walters, a human family whose robot, Razorball, ominously spends his free time in the garage working on machines which they’re pretty sure are designed to kill them in this sci-fi satire from Mark Russell (The Flintstones, Second Coming) and Mike Deodato Jr. Every human family is assigned a robot upon whom they are completely reliant. An uneasy co-existence develops between the newly intelligent robots and the ten billion humans living on Earth. ![]() ![]() In the year 2056, robots have replaced human beings in the workforce. ![]() |