5/30/2023 0 Comments Dogsbody by Diana Wynne Jones![]() ![]() Wynne Jones represents the stellar luminaries as nearly incomprehensible beings of unimaginable power and majesty. ![]() ![]() Right from the start therefore, Dogsbody involves one of the most contrasting themes possible. His only hope is to find the Zoi, an object of amazing power lost on earth. When I found the book is recommended by both Garth Nix and Neil Gaiman, which clinched the matter, especially with Dogsbody’s truly unique premise.ĭogsbody follows the adventures of Sirius the dog star, who, after being accused of losing his temper and killing another stellar being (a luminary), is condemned to be born on earth as a dog. After all, we're both hard core dog lovers, each of us having a "big black furry thing" (as my lady puts it), and I have always loved Diana Wynne Jones, although Dogsbody was one of hers I'd not yet read. Dark suggested reading a book that was new to both of us, Dogsbody was an obvious choice. When for our next cooperative reading venture Mrs. ![]()
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5/30/2023 0 Comments The quiet ones brandon massey![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The MTO study randomly assigned poor residents of public housing projects in five metropolitan areas to experimental and control groups. Although analyses of multilevel survey data and nonexperimental results derived from static group comparisons generally produced results consistent with Wilson’s hypothesis (see Rubinowitz and Rosenbaum 2000 Sampson, Morenoff, and Gannon-Rowley 2002 Massey and Clampet-Lundquist 2008), experimental findings from the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) Study were initially less supportive ( Kling, Lieberman, and Katz 2007). Since that time, a large body of research has sought to establish the existence of “neighborhood effects” on individual social, economic, and health outcomes. In his seminal book, The Truly Disadvantaged, William Julius Wilson (1987) notes the growing concentration of poverty within black inner city neighborhoods and hypothesized that long-term exposure to spatially concentrated disadvantage was central to the perpetuation of poverty among African Americans. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() McMahon’s skills in crafting captivating plots and building suspense shine as the connection between the two threads slowly becomes clear, but the story ends with more fizzle than bang. Interwoven with this contemporary story line is one beginning in 1929: 37-year-old Ethel Monroe struggles with infertility, but finds hope in stories of the healing powers of a natural spring attached to a Vermont hotel, despite locals’ warnings about the spring’s dark powers. When Lexie drowns in the house’s pool-just as their aunt had decades before-everyone suspects she took her own life, but Jackie soon learns the situation is much more complicated. Jackie Metcalf has worked hard to distance herself from her family, especially after her grandmother left her Vermont estate to Jackie’s mercurial sister, Lexie. Tired mental health stereotypes and a dispiriting ending mar McMahon’s latest taut supernatural thriller (after The Invited). ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Browning became Lincoln’s confidant, and eventually his strongest supporter in Congress. Herndon – whom he called Billy – is well documented by Donald, as was Lincoln’s friendship with Illinois Senator Orville Browning. Lincoln’s long law partnership with William H. Some have suggested that the Lincoln/Speed friendship was more than just friends, but Donald dispels this notion and puts us within the context of the times. Donald then spends some time parsing the one man with whom Lincoln probably had his most intense friendship, Joshua F. He begins with a review of Lincoln’s upbringing, one which really didn’t see him build any real long lasting friendships. Somewhat surprisingly given his amicability and story telling powers, Lincoln did not have many close friendships in his life. With “We Are Lincoln Men,” Donald takes us through the rather short list of people that Abraham Lincoln could have considered to be friends. David Herbert Donald, is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and author of “Lincoln,” which won the Lincoln Prize for its run on the New York Times bestseller list. ![]() 5/30/2023 0 Comments Hard Wood by Lauren Blakely![]() ![]() Blakely often finds clever ways to portray a bit of the female’s POV in her male POV stories. ![]() The character you didn’t meet before, however, kind of stole the show, and that’s Zeus, the hiking cat. ![]() We have met two of the main characters, Patrick & Mia, in previous books in the series, but it isn’t necessary to remember them. This is rare in a genre where you often find the woman in a subservient position. Lauren Blakey’s male POV characters are so perfect! My favorite thing about them (besides them all being hot, dirty and dominant in bed) is that they all feature men who respect women-they respect career women and take their jobs as seriously as their own. See the Series Reading Order for the Big Rock series and related books, and how they are related. I have loved every single one of these male POV stories and the dual POV ones that relate to it. I am so sad to see this top favorite “series” end (Lauren just admitted it’s a series before this release). Hard Wood (Big Rock 6) by Lauren Blakely Narrated by Sebastian York Male POV Romantic Comedy. ![]() 5/30/2023 0 Comments Otherbound by Corinne Duyvis![]() ![]() ![]() Life-affirming science fiction with spaceships, optimism in the apocalypse, and a diverse cast that reflects the real world." , ***STARRED REVIEW*** "Insightful, suspenseful, and unsettling in its plausibility, this novel is sure to stick with readers long after the last page has been turned. Life-affirming science fiction with spaceships, optimism in the apocalypse, and a diverse cast that reflects the real world.", **STARRED REVIEW** ".what makes this a winner is the nerve-racking adventure. Duyvis' attention to detail and strong descriptions will recommend this to fans of the genre., **STARRED REVIEW** ".what makes this a winner is the nerve-racking adventure. ![]() Denise's fear is palpable throughout, which helps to push this sci-fi novel into thriller territory. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Cursing her grisly imagination (why, oh, why did she have to pick the ax?), Sophie engages in some real-life gumshoe tactics. If she doesn't solve the mystery, her own bestseller will spell out her doom. When a filmmaker friend is brutally murdered in the manner of a death scene in one of his movies, Sophie becomes convinced that a copycat killer is on the loose -and that she's the next target. The police, however, can't tell a good plot from an unmarked grave. So Sophie knows it's not paranoia or post-divorce, living-alone-again jitters, when she becomes convinced that a crazed reader is sneaking into her apartment to reenact scenes from her books. Thriller scribe Sophie Katz is as hard-boiled as a woman who drinks Grande Caramel Brownie Frappuccinos can be. When a mystery writer cries bloody murder, everyone blames her overactive imagination. ![]() 5/29/2023 0 Comments Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult![]() ![]() "Joey was the one to start the bullying I'm glad he's dead " (Picoult 186). Surprising enough a pale boy with freckles and wire-rimmed glasses, nerd-like, was the cause of this shooting, Peter Houghton. People don't truly consider him anything, just a strange boy, until the shooting tragedy in Sterling High School occurs. ![]() Unlike all other teenage boys, Peter grieves from bullying and the loss of his brother. Peter Houghton, he is an average 17 year old boy. You may think you know someone, but discover an outrageous action they have done that changes your opinion forever. Peter's loneliness lead him to the unexpected. Peter seems to be pleased with his decision in preparing for a shooting at Sterling High School, however he had no one to be by his side he was alone. ![]() Peter's father taught him how to use a gun, a controversial question would be, is it really his father's fault? If his father had never taught him would he be able to handle such a shooting crime? Peter's pain resulted in having no true friends through part of his elementary school and his high school year. People act as if they know Peter, especially his family but in reality they do not know how he feels under any circumstances. In Jodi Picoult's novel, Nineteen Minutes, Peter Houghton a 17 year old suffers from the society around him. Feeling alone but having no one there to comfort you may be one of the worst feelings to experience. ![]() 5/29/2023 0 Comments The reason to stay alive![]() ![]() ![]() Until the panic moment hit, he was consuming too much alcohol and occasionally felt anxious contemplating what he will do in life, however, he wasn’t still especially depressed. This happened at his 24 and he was staying in a nice villa with his girlfriend and had a job at a nightclub during the summer. It was a warm bright day in Ibiza, Spain when Matt Haig felt a charge of such a severe panic that he wasn’t able to move out of bed. You are going to find out the way books helped him like a lifeline, being a friend for him if was feeling very lonely and providing him with a language to comprehend what he went through.Ĭhapter 1 – Matt Haig abruptly started to feel severe anxiety, and it impacted each point of his life. ![]() This summary recounts the way Haig created a technique of challenging fear with fear and declined to make himself stay in his comfort zone. ![]() Instead of staying away from what makes him stressful, or taking drugs or other soothing medicaments to ease his fear, he let himself feel he was complete, which had never happened in his life before. The solutions he found are not only inspired but also inspiring. When he was about twenty-year-old, when struck by a too acute panic attack that made it impossible for him to go out of the hose, Matt Haig needed to deal with exactly these questions. Were you to find yourself not being unable to grasp the world around you anymore, what would be the thing you’d do? If the fabric of your mind looked as if it was unwinding, and you could all of a sudden no longer to think? ![]() 5/29/2023 0 Comments Judith guest books![]() Then, however, with the realization that she is ""completely alone,"" Cat sells her antiseptic mansion for a run-down handyman's special, diving into a muddle of messy painting and carpentry, wriggling out from under. ![]() ![]() Catherine ""Cat"" Holzman, mother of a grown daughter, coolly dumped by doctor-husband Alex for a young lover, is at first resigned to be the victim of injustice: she blames her ""sallow, parasitical"" lifestyle for her situation she drifts through funks and drunks she feels helpless against Alex's dirty tricks. The principal grownups this time are two insular people, both recovering (with each other's eventual help) from divorce. Ordinary People was no fluke: Guest's second Detroit-based novel again expertly catches middle-class loners in the first crackles of seismic rebellion against closet miseries-and again zooms in close on adolescent terror. ![]() |