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May 2023
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![]() Tragedy controls the primeval force of music by presenting us with beautiful illusory forms of gods, demons, men and women, through whom apprehension is bearable and possible. ![]() Nietzsche, in The Birth of Tragedy, sees myths as dreamlike shapes and tales constructed by the Apollonian principle of order and form to protect humans against the apprehension of the Dionysian states of formlessness, chaos and gleeful destruction. Karen Armstrong writes in A Short History of Myths that myths are ways of making things comprehensible and meaningful in human terms (the sun as a chariot driven by a woman through the firmament) and that they are almost all "rooted in death and the fear of extinction". We think of them loosely as tales that explain, or embody, the origins of our world. We think of myths as stories, although, as Heather O'Donoghue says in her book From Asgard to Valhalla, there are myths that are not essentially narratives at all. M yth comes from muthos in Greek, something said, as opposed to something done. ![]()
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The going to bed book5/30/2023 ![]() ![]() He’s gonna be in a world of pain in 0.83 seconds! My second point of concern is just for this poor little fella sliding down the stair stringer. I don’t want my girl thinking she can share a bath with sub-Saharan animals or even domesticated one’s (guinea pigs, Pomeranians etc.). Aside from the dangers of the co-mingling of creatures with such wildly varying temperaments, hygiene is a massive concern here. ![]() The problem is, the participants are an Elephant, a Hippopotamus, a Moose and a Lion. The wishful thinking that is, that reading to your child about the routine of preparing for bed might actually make them more susceptible to sleep, *lol*, the naivety.Īt one stage, “everybody goes below to take a bath in one big tub, with soap all over-SCRUB SCRUB SCRUB!”. ![]() The rhymes are smooth in this English edition and I found it humorous. If you drag it out like you’re reading to a lobotomy patient or, you know, a newborn, you could probably wring out a couple of minutes. Tell me Children’s books aren’t where the money’s at! 24.96 seconds! I timed it, that’s approximately how long it takes an adult to get through this book. ![]()
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Defend the dawn brigid kemmerer5/30/2023 ![]() But they're shocked to discover that a craven betrayal may be much closer than they think. But with tensions brewing on deck and the sea swirling below, Tessa and Corrick must decide who they can trust-including each other. When an emissary from a neighboring kingdom arrives with an intriguing offer, Tessa and Corrick set out on an uncertain journey to find a new source of the lifesaving elixir. Prince Corrick is trying to find a new way to lead, but it isn't easy to repair the rift between the royals and the people-or the one growing between himself and Tessa. And the kingdom's supply of Moonflower elixir dwindles all the while. ![]() ![]() What will they sacrifice to save their kingdom? Their honor? Their love? Their lives? Tessa Cade has gone from masked outlaw to palace advisor, but even with her newfound power, she can't stop the sickness still raging. In the eagerly anticipated sequel to the New York Times bestseller Defy The Night author Brigid Kemmerer continues her electrifying series with more royal intrigue, more sizzling romance, and shocking twists that will leave readers breathless. ![]()
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Clay by David Almond5/30/2023 ![]() ![]() Paul Wilson, author of An Enemy of the State, a book in which there had been an error during the process of converting to Kindle format. Amazon's ability to update books on its Kindle e-book reader "could be used both for good and bad purposes," the Wall Street Journal's Digits blog suggested, noting that the company occasionally sends Kindle customers messages "letting them know that an e-book they had purchased 'contained some errors that have been corrected.' The notes come with an offer from Amazon to wirelessly download an updated version of the book-with the owners' permission." "I've had goofs in my hardcovers in the past, but we were never able to fix them until the next printing or edition, and no way to get the changes to people who had already bought the book,” said F. ![]()
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The Kitáb-i-Íqán by Bahá'u'lláh5/30/2023 ![]() The original last chapter of the author’s Master’s thesis: Symbolic Quranic Exegesis in Baha’u’llah’s Book of Certitude: The Exegetical Creation of the Baha’i Faith. *** Award for Excellence in Baha’i Studies. “Buck offers insightful analysis of Baha’u’llah’s exegetical technique.” Middle East Studies Association (MESA) Bulletin 30.1 (July 1996): 70–71. “The first extended analysis of the Islamic context and content of Baha'u'llah’s thought and writing. Symbol and Secret is a ground-breaking study, setting a standard for and describing the agenda of the exegesis of Bahai texts for some time to come.” “Christopher Buck’s book represents the first book-length attempt in the English language to analyse one of the major works of Bahā’u’llāh.” ![]() Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (Third Series) 7.2 (July 1997): 290–291. (“Christopher Buck’s book represents the first book-length attempt in the English language to analyse one of the major works of Bahā’u’llāh.”) Reviews Symbol and Secret: Qur’an Commentary in Baha’u’llah’s Kitab-i Iqan. ![]()
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![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Kundera - who has been living in France, “his second homeland,” since 1975 - returns to many of these same themes. In “The Festival of Insignificance,” his flimsy new novella about a group of friends in Paris, Mr. He added, however, that laughter came in different forms: the laughter of genuine joy versus the laughter of “angel-fanatics,” who are so certain of their own worldview that they are “ready to hang anyone not sharing their joy” the laughter that recognizes the Kafkaesque absurdities of life (particularly in an authoritarian regime) versus the sort of nihilistic laughter “which proclaims that everything has become meaningless.” ![]() In his groundbreaking novels “ The Book of Laughter and Forgetting” (1980) and “ The Unbearable Lightness of Being” (1984), the Czech-born Milan Kundera wrote about his country under the shadow of the Soviet Union, reinventing the form of the novel while examining the osmosis between the personal and the political there, and the subversive roles that humor and irreverence can play in a totalitarian state.ĭuring that time, he recalled in a 1980 interview, a sense of humor was a sign that a person could be trusted. ![]()
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The cave of time edward packard5/29/2023 ![]() ![]() This last makes things feel a bit more constrained: when you’re on a Triangle Trade slave ship or getting caught up in the Mutiny on the Bounty, it’s fairly clear (at least, from an adult’s perspective) that you won’t be able to appreciably change history and that therefore your story is rather tightly determined. Although you’d be hard-pressed to call it educational, the historical content has a bit more actual research behind it - at least, enough that it doesn’t feel totally ad-libbed. Return to the Cave of Time, Choose Your Own Adventure #50, Edward Packard, 1985Ī book aimed at a slightly older audience than the original Cave of Time: the prose is rather more verbose, and the illustrations depict the protagonist as a gangly early-teen. Still, the company seems to have developed and abided by a structural house style, as it did with tone, content and motifs like the Cave. Part of this might have been the natural shape of divergence: Sugarcane Island and The Cave of Time are such strong examples of their type of CYOA that there wasn’t much room for variation in that direction. ![]() ![]() Montgomery (who I should look at separately at some point) in particular seems to have preferred more linear, constrained plots with lots of no-choice jumps. The Cave of Time was among the most beloved of the Choose Your Own Adventure books, but it wasn’t enormously typical of the series. ![]()
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Atatürk by Andrew Mango5/29/2023 ![]() ![]() The Treaty of Sevres which the Sultan's government signed put an end to Ottoman independence. ![]() When the Sultan sent his emissaries to the Paris peace conference they could not win a reprieve. With these two in the lead, the Allies sought to impose partition on the Sultan's state. The chief proponent of partition was Lloyd George, heir to the Turcophobe tradition of British liberals, who fell under the spell of the Greek irredentist politician Venizelos. But Vahdettin and his ministers could not succeed because the victorious Allies had decided on the final partition of the Ottoman state. The last Sultan Mehmet VI Vahdettin thought he could salvage the Ottoman state in something like its old form. ![]() It may have been doomed in any case, but he was the agent of its doom. ![]() Enver's decision to enter the war on the side of Germany destroyed the Ottoman state. Adventurous rulers Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany and Enver Pasha in the Ottoman Empire hastened it. But prudent statesmen could delay the death of empires, rulers such as Emperor Franz Josef II of Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II. The forces of disintegration affected several empires simultaneously. World War I sounded the death knell of empires. ![]()
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Co aytch book5/29/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Watkins was one of those rare individuals who could write exactly the way he talked, and McAllister wisely allows Sam “to do his own talking” by including only his additions and revisions. McAllister dedicated herself to the task of “completing” Watkins’ book, and in so doing she offers a valuable contribution to Civil War history. But as things often occur in life, one’s best intentions go awry-Sam never got around to supplementing his memoir. “Aytch” by inserting important new material and revisions that come directly from Watkins’ worn pencil.Īfter his memoir’s original publication in 1882, Watkins had plenty of time to think about his account, and it occurred to him that he had some additional recollections and improvements to offer. McAllister, who is Watkins’ great-granddaughter, has significantly enhanced Co. “Aytch,” First Tennessee Regiment, published more than 125 years after the original. Fortunately, Ruth Hill Fulton McAllister has mastered this approach in her new release of Co. How do you improve on a classic Civil War memoir? Very carefully and with terrific sensitivity, one would hope. “Aytch,” First Tennessee Regiment Closeīy Sam R. ![]()
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Gessen the future is history5/29/2023 ![]() ![]() Gessen charts their paths against the machinations of the regime that would crush them all, and against the war it waged on understanding itself, which ensured the unobstructed reemergence of the old Soviet order in the form of today’s terrifying and seemingly unstoppable mafia state. ![]() Each of them came of age with unprecedented expectations, some as the children and grandchildren of the very architects of the new Russia, each with newfound aspirations of their own–as entrepreneurs, activists, thinkers, and writers, sexual and social beings. In The Future Is History, Gessen follows the lives of four people born at what promised to be the dawn of democracy. ![]() The essential journalist and bestselling biographer of Vladimir Putin reveals how, in the space of a generation, Russia surrendered to a more virulent and invincible new strain of autocracy.Īward-winning journalist Masha Gessen’s understanding of the events and forces that have wracked Russia in recent times is unparalleled. ![]() |