6/12/2023 0 Comments Nothing to Fear by Juno Rushdan![]() ![]() But it is this duality which breathes life into Willow and makes her complex, human, and ultimately a convincing heroine. But is she truly as smart as she appears? After all, she has a certain naiveté about her and seems completely unaware of how she comes across when dealing with others. Although she writes great action sequences, Rushdan’s real skill is in writing characters who are multi-dimensional and authentic, including Willow, a computer savant with an outrageous IQ. In Nothing to Fear, Rushdan delivers a novel that packs a punch, even as it builds suspense on the international stage. And even as both their loyalties are tested, they must hunt down the mastermind behind it all… a traitor who has both of them in his cross hairs. As a result, the duo is thrust into the midst of an international conspiracy which may pit him against the very agency he works for. But the operative on the case, Gideon Stone, still happens to believe that a person is innocent until proven guilty, and he’s convinced Willow is innocent.ĭetermined to protect her, Gideon knows she’ll be dead by morning if he doesn’t vigilantly remain by her side. ![]() ![]() Gray Box, an off-the-books agency of the United States government, is tasked with finding out the truth about her. Willow Harper is a cryptologist framed for selling deadly bio agents on the black market. ![]()
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6/12/2023 0 Comments Rationality pinker review![]() ![]() The book debuted at number nine on The New York Times nonfiction best-seller list for the week ending October 2, 2021. Pinker explains several concepts underlying rationality, including from the fields of logic, probability theory, statistics, and social choice. It argues that rationality is a key driver of moral and social progress, and it attempts to resolve the apparent conflict between scientific progress and increasing levels of disinformation. The book was published on September 28, 2021, by the Viking imprint of Penguin Random House. Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters is a 2021 book written by Canadian-American cognitive scientist Steven Pinker. ![]() 6/12/2023 0 Comments So Rare a Gift by Amber Lynn Perry![]() ![]() Only time will reveal if this choice will bring the greatest pain he’s ever known. His past taught him that women are not to be trusted and that love can cut deeper than the sword. He’s already changed his name, and when the kind, courageous woman he rescued offers to become his bride, he accepts despite the risks. Without his friends in Sandwich, he would be a dead man. ![]() And now, the British army intends to make him pay with his life. If he is not, her future in America is darker than ever before.Ĭaptain Henry Donaldson aided the colonists too many times. Perhaps the handsome man she accepts is truly as caring as he seems. But when she is nearly captured and forced to return to England, her vow to never marry for anything but love is forgotten when she must marry for protection. A new life in America means safety-and discovering the truth behind her beloved brother’s death. Never again will she be trapped in a loveless marriage. Today I am reviewing Amber Lynn Perry’s book, So Rare A Gift.Īs is my custom, if I could ask Amber one question about So Rare A Gift it would be - “Is it difficult to write a ‘marry for protection’ story line?” And if you want to know why I asked that question, I guess you’ll just have to read the book to find out!Īnd without further ado, onto Rachel’s Back Talk!Įscape is Anna Rone’s only option. ![]() ![]() Welcome back to Rachel’s Back Talk! I’m so glad you could join me again. ![]() 6/12/2023 0 Comments Annihilation by jeff vandermeer![]() ![]() ![]() Since the best novels' stories necessitate the form of a novel, filmmakers have a hard time losing the convention of a narrator because it would come at the cost of essential plot points and explication that sets the stage for the main drama of the piece. ![]() That being said, here are some of the major differences between Garland's 2018 film and VanderMeer's novel, published four years prior to the film's release.įirst of all, there is no "narrator" in the film, which you often find in movie adaptations of novels. Garland, a novelist and screenwriter himself, is more interested in telling a separate story inspired by the world of Jeff VanderMeer rather than retelling Jeff VanderMeer's story in a different medium. You might be able to get away with that for something like The Great Gatsby, where the director is generally faithful to the source material, but for Alex Garland's movie adaptation of Annihilation, it would be like you were talking about a totally different story, because you would be. Say you're walking into a reading quiz, or you need to write a last-minute essay, you might watch the movie to get a general idea of the plot and important themes of a text. Sometimes it's tempting to rely on movie adaptations to get a feel for a book if you're crunched for time. ![]() 6/11/2023 0 Comments The killer angels novel![]() ![]() After Shaara’s death, his son, Jeff Shaara, wrote a prequel to The Killer Angels, Gods and Generals (1996) as well as a sequel, The Last Full Measure (1998). He won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Killer Angels in 1975. ![]() Shaara based The Killer Angels on the recollections of generals and ordinary soldiers instead of on scholarly interpretations of the Civil War. He suffered a serious Vespa accident while teaching in Florence, Italy, which left him unconscious for five weeks and dealing with health repercussions for many years. Over the course of his career, he published more than 70 short stories, many of them science fiction, and several novels, including For Love of the Game, a story about a baseball legend. ![]() Petersburg, Florida, before becoming a professor of creative writing at Florida State University. Since it was first published in 1974, 'The Killer Angels' has become the most beloved, widely-read Civil War novel of the post-World War II era. ![]() Read this book using Google Play Books app on your PC, android, iOS devices. A decorated amateur boxer, Shaara also worked as a police officer in St. The Killer Angels: The Classic Novel of the Civil War - Ebook written by Michael Shaara. He graduated from Rutgers University in 1951 and served as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division. Michael Shaara was born to an Italian immigrant and World War I POW father and a mother descended from Revolutionary War patriots. ![]() ![]() Rose and Pierrot first meet in an orphanage run by nuns where they form an instant connection. Reading that back it sounds like this is a depressing novel filled full of gloom, and, although it has its very dark moments there is so much joy and love contained within it that it bursts from every page. Telling the story of Montreal orphans Rose and Pierrot in the 1920s we are taken on a dazzling (and sometimes harrowing) journey from their difficult start in life, to their even more difficult adulthood through extreme poverty during The Great Depression. ![]() I’m not entirely sure where to start reviewing The Lonely Hearts Hotel a novel which opens with an extreme act of cruelty, explores poverty, neglect and drug abuse and yet does so in prose which is both lyrical and beautiful. ![]() 6/11/2023 0 Comments Elizabeth gillespie mcrae![]() ![]() McRae is co-director of “Mountain Lives, Mountain People,” an oral history training program involving students at Smoky Mountain High School. ![]() Her book Mothers of Massive Resistance: White Women and the Politics of Jim Crow will be published in 2017 by Oxford University Press. She has published articles in recent collections on Southern women’s history and in the Georgia Historical Quarterly, Carologue and the North Carolina Historical Review. McRae’s teaching and research interests center on the intersection of race, gender and politics in America and in the modern South. Elizabeth McRae received her master’s degree in history at WCU in 1996. ![]() She joined the WCU faculty in 2000 and previously served as director of the Secondary Social Science Education Program for 10 years. She also holds a master’s degree in secondary social science education from Marymount University in Virginia and a doctorate in American history from the University of Georgia. Elizabeth McRae is an associate professor of history at Western Carolina University, and previously held the universitys Creighton Sossomon Professorship in. McRae is a WCU alumna who received her master’s degree in history at the university in 1996. Elizabeth McRae is an associate professor of history at Western Carolina University, and previously held the university’s Creighton Sossomon Professorship in History from 2016-2019. McRaes project fulfills nearly all the requirements for a feminist history. ![]() ![]() ![]() Their bite transmits the plague from infected rat to man. When this happens, the rat flea, Xenopsylla cheopis, which normally feeds on rodent hosts, turns to people instead. Occasionally, however, the disease becomes endemic, killing off large numbers of rats. Named for Alexander Yersin, the nineteenth-century scientist who first isolated it, the bacillus is found naturally in rodent populations, among which a small number of cases at any given time is common. Plague, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, is usually a disease of rats, not of man. ![]() This scientific observation, in fact, is one reason that the epidemic is often cited as a turning point from the medieval era to the Renaissance. Its rapid spread gave rise to the medical theory of contagion. In the long term, the Black Death may have increased economic opportunities and promoted a higher standard of living for those who survived. Its impact was enormous, not only because of the tremendous loss of life, but because of the pessimism, fear, suspicion, and even persecution of Jews (who were blamed for the disease) that followed. During these years, plague affected the lives of all Europeans, and killed nearly half of them. ![]() The pandemic of bubonic plague that swept across Europe between 13 is known today as the Black Death, though contemporaries called it the "Great Pestilence," and the disease itself was generally known as peste. ![]() ![]() Vicki Delany is currently regarded as one of Canada’s most varied and prolific crime writers due to her exceptional skills.ĭelany started her writing career as a Sunday writer due to various reasons. ![]() Having experienced the politics of power and oppression firsthand for eleven years, unlike other Canadians during her stay in Africa, she returned to Canada together with her children. ![]() ![]() The relationship resulted in her pretty daughters whom she really adores and cherishes. Author Vicki is a family person evident by the fact that she is a mother of three beautiful daughters going by the names Alex, Julia, and Caroline.Īs a young adventurous woman, fresh from quitting Carleton University in the middle of her last year, Delany traveled to South Africa, where she happened to meet a man and got married. Vicki Delany is also an active member of the Capital Crime Writers and the Crime Writers of Canada. Delany is a frequent panelist at various mystery conferences, including the Canadian ‘Bloody Words National Mystery Conference and the American Malice Domestic and Boucheron conferences. ![]() The bestselling author also uses the pen name Eva Gates occasionally in her literally works of fiction. Author Vicki Delany is a famous Canadian mystery novelist who was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba in the year 1951. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The book tells the story of Fusi Mofokeng, a man who spent nineteen years in jail for a murder he didn’t commit. Jonny Steinberg won the Recht Malan Prize for Nonfiction for One Day in Bethlehem. The winners were announced in a virtual awards ceremony last night.Įloise Wessels, managing director of Media24 Books, said in her opening remarks: ‘To be in a position to continue rewarding our authors in these straightened and constricting, almost stifling, times is particularly gratifying.’ ![]() Writer and scholar Jonny Steinberg, debut novelist Trevor Sacks and multi-award-winning Young Adult author Edyth Bulbring are among this year’s recipients. See here for some writers’ reactions to the awards. We will publish a follow-up story addressing this. Update: The JRB has reached out to Media24 Books for a comment on the distinct lack of diversity in this year’s awards. Prizes to a combined value of over R200,000 are awarded in six categories. The annual awards recognise the best work published during the previous year by the Media24 Books division, including NB Publishers (through imprints such as Human and Rousseau, Tafelberg, Kwela Books and Queillerie) as well as Jonathan Ball Publishers. ![]() The winners of the 2020 Media24 Books Literary Prizes have been announced. Header image: Jonny Steinberg, Trevor Sacks, Zirk van den Berg, Loftus Marais, Edyth Bulbring, Fanie Viljoen, Theodore Key ![]() |