![]() ![]() Ben Waddamsįrom the very beginning of this nail-biting adventure the listener is gripped and walking step by frustrating step with Daily Telegraph Africa reporter Tim Butcher who, poor man, feels a need to follow in the footsteps of Stanley (also a Daily Telegraph reporter) down the Congo River. The most depressing fact for me that comes from Tim's account, is that 1200 are murdered every day in the forests of the DRC, that's one September 11th every single day of the year and it continues yesterday, today and tomorrow. Blood River emphasises the horrific point that the Democratic Republic of the Congo is in a state of continual decay, decline and backwardness, unlike anywhere else on Planet Earth. I have never been to 'the heart of darkness', instead I have skirted round it, following Livingstone, not Stanley around the Lake Tanganyika region, but nonetheless the descriptions in 'Blood River' are eerily reminiscent of the stories I heard emanating out of the DRC when I was on the border a few years after Tim. Tim Butcher is obviously a knowledgeable author, but it is the nuances and subtleties in his descriptions of time and place that make this such a pleasure. ![]() I must confess I never managed to finish the last quarter due to the hectic pace of life, but I listened to the entire audiobook and was enthralled. It impressed me then and was/is a riveting read. I first bought 'Blood River' in paperback a couple of years ago. Africa's Broken Heart - a September 11th every day ![]()
0 Comments
![]() ![]() ![]() The penguin's eyes are expressive, revealing his fears and doubts. And, as with a well-meaning New Year's resolution, Penguin can't keep up his cheeriness for long.īefitting a book about penguins, Lane Smith's art is heavy on black and white, so the pages have a bold, graphic feel, with other soft colors to brighten the landscapes. Walrus' full-page inspirational speech seems heavy because it contrasts so starkly with the spare, funny complaints on other pages. Sometimes it's hard to look beyond your own beak to the larger picture, and this book does propose a broader horizon, but it's no rosy cure-all. Sure, Penguin's problems are "Penguin Problems," but humans can relate to a cold, cruel world that stirs up fears and insecurities. ![]() Cranky kids and the irritable grown-ups who live with them might recognize themselves in this wryly funny story about a penguin who looks on the dark side even when it's blindingly bright out. ![]() ![]() The book has been developed and curated by Nick Cave in collaboration with Christina Back. Stranger Than Kindness asks what shapes our lives and makes us who we are, and celebrates the curiosity and power of the creative spirit. It features full colour reproductions of original artwork, handwritten lyrics, photographs and collected personal artefacts along with commentary and meditations from Nick Cave, Janine Barrand and Darcey Steinke. This highly collectible book invites the reader into the innermost core of the creative process and paves the way for an entirely new and intimate meeting with the artist, presenting Cave’s life, work and inspiration and exploring his many real and imagined universes. Stranger Than Kindness is a journey in images and words into the creative world of musician and storyteller Nick Cave. ![]() Stranger Than Kindness the book is available in standard and signed deluxe editions now here. ![]() ![]() ![]() Our goal: to pay tribute to everyone who has died of COVID-19 in Canada, and every Canadian who has died of the disease abroad. They Were Loved is an obituary project to commemorate thousands of coronavirus victims, as well as to mark this historic moment in Canadian history. Public health guidance around social distancing has resulted in restrictions around traditional mourning customs and rituals-heart-wrenchingly, many were unable even to say goodbye. Canada has already lost more than 20,000 people to the pandemic, with the number ticking steadily upwards each of those losses has cascaded through families and communities, leaving many more thousands bereaved. The magnitude of COVID-19's impact on Canadians' lives is difficult to fathom. ![]() ![]() Chronicling a life of extraordinary personal and professional achievement, Blum's intimate and inspiring memoir explores how her childhood fueled her need to climb-and how, in turn, her climbing liberated her from her childhood. Breaking Trail is the story of Blum's journey from her overprotected youth in Chicago to the tops of some of the highest peaks on Earth. In her long, adventurous career, she has played a leading role in more than twenty expeditions and forged a place for women in the perilous arena of high-altitude mountaineering. McKinley and Annapurna, and was the first American woman to attempt Mt. ![]() Defying the climbing establishment of the 1970s, she led the first teams of women on successful ascents of Mt. Arlene Blum is a legendary trailblazer by any measure. From the bestselling author of Annapurna: A Woman's Place, comes a revealing memoir about the mountaineering feats that made Arlene Blum one of America's most famous female climbers and her tumultuous journey to adulthood that inspired her to become the risk-taker she is today. ![]() ![]() I learned to count calories consistently and I prided myself on being able to last longer periods without eating. I was obsessed with how I looked in the mirror. I spent days working out and in my twenties, I even worked out at random times like two in the morning. ![]() I had a borderline eating disorder and I wanted to be a bulimic so bad but it just didn’t work out for me thankfully. I lived my teenage years in the same way. ![]() I think I have a short attention span so this was really saying something for me. I read this book fairly quickly in comparison to other books that I’ve checked out. The novel is a beautiful representation of finding yourself, love, hunger, and desire. In the end she gets betrayed by the same co-worker resulting in her firing. ![]() She also craved acceptance from her co-worker, who served as a mother like figure. She has been chasing acceptance her whole life, first from her mother who believed that her size and the number on the scale was directly representative of her value as a human being. ![]() She meets a girl who teaches her that there is more to life than restriction, without even knowing about her history. She has lived her life through caloric restriction, partly to please her mother, and partly because this is the only life she’s known. The story follows the main character, Rachel into a self-actualization journey. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Instead of claiming that a "military revolution" transformed warfare, Lynn stresses evolutionary change. The portrait that emerges differs from what current scholarship might have predicted. ![]() Combining social and cultural emphases with more traditional institutional and operational concerns, this book examines the army in depth, studying recruitment, composition, discipline, motivation, selection of officers, leadership, administration, logistics, weaponry, tactics, field warfare, and siegecraft. Giant of the Grand Siècle: The French Army, 1610-1715Īn "invisible giant," the seventeeth-century French army was the largest and hungriest institution of the Bourbon monarchy yet it has received incomplete treatment and is poorly understood. ![]() ![]() By AUTHOR Jane Austen Eric Carle Lewis Carroll Roald Dahl Charles Dickens Sydney Hanson C.Indestructubles Little Golden Books Magic School Bus Magic Tree House Pete the Cat Step Into Reading Book The Hunger Games By POPULAR SERIES Chronicles of Narnia Curious Geoge Diary of a Wimpy Kid Fancy Nancy Harry Potter I Survived If You Give.By TOPIC Award Winning Books African American Children's Books Biography & Autobiography Diversity & Inclusion Foreign Language & Bilingual Books Hispanic & Latino Children's Books Holidays & Celebrations Holocaust Books Juvenile Nonfiction New York Times Bestsellers Professional Development Reference Books Test Prep.By GRADE Elementary School Middle School High Schoolīy AGE Board Books (newborn to age 3) Early Childhood Readers (ages 4-8) Children's Picture Books (ages 3-8) Juvenile Fiction (ages 8-12) Young Adult Fiction (ages 12+). ![]() BESTSELLERS in EDUCATION Shop All Education Books. ![]() ![]() He has picked these particular stories because they offer a means of talking about “the short story form itself” (10). He has long taught the stories as a graduate writing instructor at Syracuse University “or a young writer, reading the Russian stories of this period is akin to a young composer studying Bach” (10). ![]() “We Begin” describes how Saunders came to these stories, what he has learned from them and what he hopes to teach the reader. The book is framed by two essays by Saunders. ![]() The stories are followed by Saunders's commentary, analyzing the stories and offering related advice for writers. He has published five short story collections, a collection of essays entitled The Braindead Megaphone, and a novel, Lincoln in the Bardo, which won the Man Booker Prize in 2017.Ī Swim in the Pond in the Rain discusses eight stories by four 19th century Russian writers: three by Anton Chekhov, two by Nikolai Gogol, and one each by Ivan Turgenev and Leo Tolstoy. ![]() George Saunders is an American novelist, essayist and short story writer. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Maybe I am in a curmudgeonly mood this morning, but I honestly have been more than a trifle disappointed with Margaret Wise Brown's 1947 The Golden Egg Book. Margaret saw herself as something else - a writer of songs and nonsense. They say she was a creative genius who made a room come to life with her excitement. ![]() Margaret died after surgery for a bursting appendix while in France. The puppies had licked all the paint off the paper. When he woke up, the papers he painted on were bare. The illustrator painted many pictures one day and then fell asleep. One time she gave two puppies to someone who was going to draw a book with that kind of dog. She also taught illustrators to draw the way a child saw things. She tried to write the way children wanted to hear a story, which often isn't the same way an adult would tell a story. She said she dreamed stories and then had to write them down in the morning before she forgot them. There are many scraps of paper where she quickly wrote down a story idea or a poem. She thought this made children think harder when they are reading. Sometimes she would put a hard word into the story or poem. She liked to write books that had a rhythm to them. Most of her books have animals as characters in the story. Even though she died nearly 70 years ago, her books still sell very well. ![]() Margaret Wise Brown wrote hundreds of books and stories during her life, but she is best known for Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny. ![]() |