7/6/2023 0 Comments The piano teacher janice lee![]() The plot of The Piano Teacher revolves around two intertwining love stories in 1940’s and 50’s Hong Kong. The Piano Teacher was bought two months before the birth of her twins. Five years after her first notes on the story, and pregnant with twins, Lee decided to finish the novel before she missed the opportunity. She took a break from writing to be a mother, moved back to Hong Kong, and had a second child. Pregnant and living at the famed artists’ colony Yaddo, she began to formulate the basic storyline. Lee decided to return to writing fiction and enrolled in an MFA program at Hunter College, mostly writing short stories. Soon after, she worked in the features department, and later at Mirabella. Despite her dream, her first job out of college was not writing but rather as an assistant to the Elle beauty editor. ![]() ![]() Janice Lee had planned to write a novel since elementary school. ![]()
0 Comments
7/6/2023 0 Comments Kin by Kealan Patrick Burke![]() ![]() ![]() Stitch, a collection of novellas entitled Guests for Suntup Editions , and adapted Sour Candy as a graphic novel for John Carpenter's Night Terrors. Most recently, he completed a new novel, Mr. ![]() Since then, he has written five novels, among them the popular southern gothic slasher Kin, and over two hundred short stories and novellas, including Blanky and The House on Abigail Lane, both of which are currently in development for film and TV.Ī five-time Bram Stoker Award-nominee, Burke won the award in 2005 for his coming-of-age novella The Turtle Boy, the first book in the acclaimed Timmy Quinn series.Īs editor, he helmed the anthologies Night Visions 12, Taverns of the Dead, and Quietly Now, a tribute anthology to one of Burke’s influences, the late Charles L. Hailed by Booklist as “one of the most clever and original talents in contemporary horror,” Kealan Patrick Burke was born and raised in Ireland and emigrated to the United States a few weeks before 9/11. ![]() 7/6/2023 0 Comments The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous by Asa Simon Mittman![]() The film opens with a flashback of a young Eric Lehnsherr (later known as Magneto) using his ability to create magnetic fields to bend metal gates as he and his parents are forced into Auschwitz. The X-Men are humans who have become monstrous through their mutations. Films such as X-Men (2000) play on the idea of mutants as frightening others at risk of being forced to reveal publicly their capacities if a proposed ‘Mutant Registration Act’ becomes US law. The monstrous is a category that has a strong hold on the contemporary imagination. They may be foreign in the sense of coming from overseas, or distant and remote lands but also in the sense of being unfamiliar, curious, weird and marvellous. ![]() Although they may be born of human parents or have some recognisably human attributes there is always something that makes them different or foreign. ![]() ![]() ![]() It takes place in your standard small southern town where, on Halloween night 70 years ago, an old witch couple, Myrantha and Nathaniel Ober, made a pact with a powerful demon using a blood sacrifice. The overall tone and feel of it is similar to something like Ray Garton or early Edward Lee, only not quite as gross and sex-filled as the latter (still pretty gross though). ![]() Actually that sounds a bit like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but trust me, this is much nastier and more depraved. Think of it as a teen soap opera from the era like Beverly Hills 90210 or something, only with black magic, witches, demons, etc. The Devil's End is a slightly more typical early 90s horror novel, but done very well. After reading Debra Fowler's delightfully demented What's Wrong with Valerie? (1991), I knew I wouldn't wait long before digging into this one. ![]() 7/5/2023 0 Comments Sonnets from the portuguese 1![]() As I am looking at those "melancholy" years of learning and poor choices, selfish choices from years 20-24, there seems to be an "opening up" after. ![]() I read this poem last night before I created my own timeline and it was remarkable the similarities. In so many of the poems we have been reading, love seems to be an avenue in which a some sort of crossing over occurs. I read your comment about love being an emotion. A new perspective of life through her love with Robert Browning. She also writes of her timeline- "the sad years, the melancholy years" and how pieces of regret turn into a hope for the future. Why a "silver" answer? A silver bell ringing? Sound of purity? I feel as though there are a lot of references in the Bible about silver bells. In the conclusion she relates back to our wonderful theme- what comes after death? "Not Death, but Love". An emotional reaction of the past and future emotion of the future. This is neat- she is describing her experience and reaction to reading a poem. ![]() ![]() 270 BC), the creator of ancient Greek bucolic poetry, flourished in the 3rd century BC. ![]() 7/5/2023 0 Comments Sea Hearts by Margo Lanagan![]() ![]() ![]() With themes that parallel contemporary issues in today’s world, Sea Hearts is an enthralling read that echoes in the mind long after the book is finished. I needed to know where Sea Hearts would end. There were times when the darkness in Sea Hearts was hard to bear but I couldn’t put the book down. But what secrets lie behind this apparent utopia? What is the cost of forcing creatures of the sea to live on land? A new nirvana is created in which sea women are the only females living in the fishing village of Rollrock, their children, only boys. In Sea Hearts, the legend of seals who shed their skin and walk on land is brought to life through the longing of simple fishermen and Misskaella’s ability. We also get to go beneath the ocean and live as a seal for a while. In Sea Hearts, we feel what it is like to be outcast, but also to have special powers. Margo Lanagan’s way with words takes you into a world that wouldn’t seem possible without her at your side. ![]() ![]() I think her publishers thought her real name was too un-English.ĭoes any of the character is based on her or someone else of your family? Why did she choose to write under pseudonyms? ![]() He was tall and handsome and she was talk and dark and it was love at first sight. He fought throughout the war and met my mother when he was waiting to cross the English Channel on D-Day landings. He crossed the North Sea and joined the air force in Britain. My father was Norwegian and stole a fishing boat to get away from Norway which was occupied by German forces. Were they telling you stories about that difficult times? I have read that your parents met during the Second World War. ![]() They didn’t succeed, but she was successful at writing for teenage magazines, took a correspondence course in writing novels and never looked back! When my sister and I left home, she set about writing novels. She was great at school at both art and English. If you can choose, which book of Rosalind is your favourite? “To Dance with Kings”, set in the Court of Marie Antoinette it is an amazing story and sold millions in many editions. Sadly not, we are both competent writers, but lack the imagination! Rosalind Laker, the author of “The Golden Tulip”, “To Dance with Kings” etc.ĭid you or your sister inherit your mother’s talent for writing? ![]() The interview with Paul Ovstedal, the son od Barbara Ovstedal, as known as Rosalind Laker. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() He transfered to Harvard University, where he graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics. ![]() Due to prior experience in photography, he worked in a photography unit.Īfter his discharge, Sowell passed the GED examination and enrolled at Howard University. He was drafted in 1951, during the Korean War, and assigned to the US Marine Corps. He applied to enter the Civil Service and was eventually accepted, moving to Washington DC. He worked at various jobs to support himself, including in a machine shop and as a delivery man for Western Union. Sowell went to Stuyvesant High School, but dropped out at 17 because of financial difficulties and a deteriorating home environment. He moved to Harlem, New York City with his mother's sister (whom he believed was his mother) his father had died before he was born. ![]() Sowell was born in North Carolina, where, he recounted in his autobiography, A Personal Odyssey, his encounters with Caucasians were so limited he didn't believe that "yellow" was a hair color. In 2002 he was awarded the National Humanities Medal for prolific scholarship melding history, economics, and political science. In 1990, he won the Francis Boyer Award, presented by the American Enterprise Institute. He is currently a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He often writes from an economically laissez-faire perspective. Thomas Sowell is an American economist, social commentator, and author of dozens of books. ![]() ![]() ![]() Castaneda prepared a report on his experience that was accepted as his master's thesis by UCLA in 1964… A blend of anthropology, allegory, and fantasy, it struck the exact note for the period with its validation of drugs as a ritual element of an ancient and spiritual culture the counterculture of the period embraced it wholeheartedly" (ANB). His four-year apprenticeship included contact with other native holy men and the use of several local psychotropic plants, including peyote and hallucinogenic mushrooms. ![]() ![]() As he subsequently reported, while waiting in a bus station in Arizona he met Juan Matus, an elderly Yaqui Indian shaman who agreed to instruct him in the principles and methods of Yaqui sorcery and introduce him to an alternative perception of reality. Funded in part by the anthropology department, he traveled to the Mexico-Arizona border the next year to study the medicinal use of plants by the local Indians. "In 1959 Castaneda entered the University of California at Los Angeles, where he studied anthropology. $975.įirst edition of one of the most influential books on modern shamanism, in rare first-state dust jacket. ![]() Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. Octavo, original grey cloth, original dust jacket. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968. The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge. ![]() 7/5/2023 0 Comments Amazon the guncle![]() Despite having a set of “Guncle Rules” ready to go, Patrick has no idea what to expect, having spent years barely holding on after the loss of his great love, a somewhat-stalled career, and a lifestyle not-so-suited to a six- and a nine-year-old. So when tragedy strikes and Maisie and Grant lose their mother and Patrick’s brother has a health crisis of his own, Patrick finds himself suddenly taking on the role of primary guardian. But in terms of caretaking and relating to two children, no matter how adorable, Patrick is honestly a bit out of his league. That is, he loves spending time with them when they come out to Palm Springs for weeklong visits, or when he heads home to Connecticut for the holidays. ![]() Patrick, or Gay Uncle Patrick (GUP, for short), has always loved his niece, Maisie, and nephew, Grant. Putnam's Sonsįrom the bestselling author of Lily and the Octopus and The Editor comes a warm and deeply funny novel about a once-famous gay sitcom star whose unexpected family tragedy leaves him with his niece and nephew for the summer. ![]() |