![]() ![]() ![]() The conversation below follows weeks 3 and 4: Mayri has posted our conversation for week 1 and 2. This time round Mayri is posting the opening chapters and I will be going with the conclusion – so, ideally you might want to step away and go read Mayri’s post before continuing to read on.Īlso, before I start, I would mention that given the nature of our ongoing conversation during our read this post will contain spoilers so if you’re planning on reading this book you might want to avoid both posts. Similar to our last buddy read this review will take the form of our chat back and forth. ![]() This is a celebration of fantasy It’s a fantastic event and it’s never too late to join in the fun. We decided to post our review during Wyrd and Wonder the details of which can be found here. ![]() It’s a good book for sure and probably a few years ago I would have adored this but at this stage we probably won’t continue with the series but will instead look for a new book to start. Slight spoiler alert – this didn’t really work out as well as we both hoped. Our first buddy read was Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier. If you haven’t visited Mayri before I heartily recommend you do so, she’s a wonderful blogger. This is my second buddy read with Mayri at the Bookforager blog. Today is a slightly different format for a review. ![]()
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![]() ![]() The text and key ideas of Fear and Trembling, including the details of its account of faith and its connection to trust and hope.Kierkegaard’s life and the background to Fear and Trembling, including aspects of its philosophical and theological context.The Routledge Guidebook to Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling introduces and assesses: It combines an arresting narrative, an unorthodox literary structure and a fascinating account of faith and its relation to ‘the ethical’. Fear and Trembling, which investigates the nature of faith through an exploration of the story of Abraham and Isaac, is one of Kierkegaard’s most compelling and widely read works. ![]() Søren Kierkegaard is one of the key figures of nineteenth century thought, whose influence on subsequent philosophy, theology and literature is both extensive and profound. ![]() ![]() ![]() The second overarching thought that I had, beginning around the two-thirds mark, was, “Wow, this is a long and wordy novel.” These two thoughts are not mutually exclusive. You feel comfortable, knowing you are in the hands of a master writer. It may vie for my favourite opening line of a novel. The first line, “Now he blesses the certainty of airports,” is amazing, and sets the tone. ![]() As soon as I started the first chapter, which was a marvellous treatise on the experience of airports, I felt as if I were falling backwards into a warm feather bed of beautiful prose. I must begin this review by revealing one overarching thought while reading John Henry Days: Colson Whitehead is a true wordsmith. Who might like this? If you’re interested in mythic Americana paired with Black history narrative in a winding, sometimes-experimental writing style, this one might be for you. If you put the work into it, it will pay off. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() But as Ilan matures, learns the skills of survival, and struggles to master the inherent magic of her dying race, danger is always close behind. In the shadow of Dimmingwood, she finds temporary protection with a band of forest brigands led by the infamous outlaw Rideon the Red Hand. In the shadow of Dimmingwood, she finds temporary protection with a band of forest brigands led by the infamous outlaw Rideon the Red Hand.In a province where magic is forbidden and its possessors are murdered by the cruel Praetor, young Ilan, born with the powerful gift of her ancestors, has only one hope for survival. In a province where magic is forbidden and its possessors are murdered by the cruel Praetor, young Ilan, born with the powerful gift of her ancestors, has only one hope for survival. ![]() ![]() Their heroic efforts inspired the Renaissance, the golden age of Islamic learning, and Russian Orthodox Christianity, which came complete with a new alphabet, architecture, and one of the world's greatest artistic traditions. In Sailing from Byzantium, Colin Wells tells of the missionaries, mystics, philosophers, and artists who against great odds and often at peril of their own lives spread Greek ideas to the Italians, the Arabs, and the Slavs. The story of Byzantium is a real-life adventure of electrifying ideas, high drama, colorful characters, and inspiring feats of daring. Yet very few of us have any idea of the enormous debt we owe them. Without Byzantium, the works of Homer and Herodotus, Plato and Aristotle, Sophocles and Aeschylus, would never have survived. Read full overviewĪ gripping intellectual adventure story, Sailing from Byzantium sweeps you from the deserts of Arabia to the dark forests of northern Russia, from the colorful towns of Renaissance Italy to the final moments of a millennial city under siege.īyzantium: the successor of Greece and Rome, this magnificent empire bridged the ancient and modern worlds for more than a thousand years. ![]() A gripping intellectual adventure story, Sailing from Byzantium sweeps you from the deserts of Arabia to the dark forests of northern Russia, from the colorful towns of Renaissance Italy to the final moments of a millennial city under siege. ![]() ![]() ![]() There is not a dull page in Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion, a book that makes me want to cheer its clarity, intelligence and truth-tellingĪ spirited and exhilarating read. informed throughout by an exhilarating breadth of reference and clarity of thought ![]() joyous, elegant, fair, engaging, and often very funny. If this book doesn't change the world, we're all screwedĪ wonderful book. The God Delusion is smart, compassionate, and true. He is surely one of the finest living writers in the English language Steven Weinberg, Nobel Laureate, Times Literary Supplement Dawkins's latest book deserves multiple readings, not just as important work of science, but as a great work of literature The God Delusion is a runaway bestseller, a marked testimony to the hunger many people have for someone in a position of prestige and power to speak for them in such an eloquent voice. ![]() This paperback edition includes a new Preface on the ironic theme of "I'm an atheist BUT. A preeminent scientist-and the world's most prominent atheist-asserts the irrationality of belief in God and the grievous harm religion has inflicted on society, from the Crusades to 9/11. ![]() ![]() ![]() The bones are there, but the story has some twists that are not in the original. Think you’re reading Beauty and the Beast? Well…this is kind of that story. It doesn’t really seem to slow her down much (is that realistic?), but I do like the inclusion of a perfectly-capable, quick-thinking, disabled protagonist as a love interest. Goal achieved! Despite a few slightly slow parts, I was engrossed in the book and read it in just a couple of days. I read it compulsively! At 500 pages, this whopper of a book needed to grab my interest quickly and keep it. WHAT I LIKED ABOUT A CURSE SO DARK AND LONELY But the ending? Um…I’m not sure what to think about it to be honest. The next minute, she finds herself in a medieval kingdom, trapped inside a gorgeous castle and kept prisoner by a scary royal guard and an arrogant prince. One minute, Harper is on a Washington, DC street. ![]() Harper rushes at the man to stop the kidnapping, and she ends up kidnapped herself instead. Harper is serving as a lookout for her brother’s crimes when she sees a man attempting to kidnap a young woman. ![]() ![]() ![]() Questions like these have long animated Grann’s writing. The result: a genre-defying literary naval-history thriller, part Master and Commander, part Lord of the Flies. ![]() Drawing from ship logs, survivor accounts, and court records-with context and color from the works of Lord Byron, Charles Darwin, and Herman Melville- The Wager zeroes in on the experiences of a handful of central figures, from Captain David Cheap to a 16-year-old midshipman named John Byron (the poet’s grandfather). In The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder (Doubleday), David Grann untangles the dueling narratives, bringing a nearly 300-year-old drama to life. Six months later, three more survivors turned up on the coast of Chile, with an accusation of mutiny. They told a heroic story of survival against all odds: illness, shipwreck, starvation on a desolate island. ![]() Two years later, a glorified raft washed up on Brazil’s shores, carrying only 30 of the original 250-odd crewmen. In 1740, amid an imperial war with Spain, the Wager-a tricked-out merchant ship-set sail from England on a mission to capture a Spanish galleon laden with silver. ![]() ![]() With the network's true scope still unknown, the only way to drive a stake through the heart of the conspiracy is to dispatch a covert crew to Moscow and eliminate the oligarch bankrolling it. They've penetrated corporations that supply crucial technology to the Department of Defense and various intelligence agencies. ![]() The cells aren't just embedded in every level of state and federal government. When CIA officer Helen Gray died, her son, Devin, a countersurveillance expert, inherited her paranoia-and the explosive evidence that gave it weight: a vast, previously undetected Russian sleeper network has operated in the United States since the Cold War. The stakes for America's future have never been higher than in a gripping novel of suspense by the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Deep Sleep. The dawn of an inconceivable act of treason rises. ![]() ![]() ![]() She very much describes that she is attracted to people rather than the gender. I liked the way that Zoe described how she was attracted to Vanessa. Zoe: I think that this concept may be difficult for people to understand, but this story is an interesting account about sexuality and how sexuality is fluid. I can understand how this is alittle much for some people, but to me these were important subjects to think about. These were all important themes throughout the story line. Homophobia, the idea of the modern family, mental health, etc. I really think that Jodi Picoult tackled important subjects in this story. I'm really looking into the idea of looking into more of her books (kind of hoping that some of her books come up in the bookclub I thought). I have come to terms with the fact that I might be trash for the drama in Jodi Picoult's books. ![]() |