![]() What began as unseen is summoned to light, what began as unfamiliar is familiarised. These stories are about ritual, but more often than not each one is a ritual in itself. The gods await their moment patiently, neither dead nor alive, just outside of Time: Cthulhu, R'lyeh, Yig, Yog-Sothoth and his Shoggoths. ![]() ![]() ![]() The landscapes unroll like metaphysical tourist destinations: Kadath in the Cold Waste, the Plateau of Leng, the Mountains of Madness. The titles roll off the tongue: "The Horror at Red Hook", "The Shadow out of Time", "The Shadow Over Innsmuth", "The Lurker on the Threshold". Their abandoned Cyclopean cities rear up out of the Antarctic ice, or hang off the Himalayan mountainsides as "curious clinging cubes and ramparts". Their monstrous servants, genetically modified from our ancestors, suck and slither in the waste spaces of Tibet. ![]() As an earnest of this the mysterious Old Ones, who "filtered" down from the stars a hundred million years ago, sleep beneath the Pacific, waiting to be woken by "mixed-blooded and mentally aberrant" worshippers. Lovecraft intended these tales to crawl with the unnameable, the meaningless horror that lies behind the world we see. ![]()
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![]() ![]() And I loved that it didn't change him, just. But now I'm just realizing that there was so much more going on. ![]() ![]() I mean, after reading the whole of Hopeless, I really felt like I knew him. ![]() You know, it's funny 'cuz you think you know a character. We see a lot of his past - it's heart breaking and devastating but we live it with him. This isn't just Hopeless from Holder's POV, this is his story during Hopeless, his story before Hopeless, and his story apart from Hopeless. You need to understand just how much I mean those words. Losing Hope took me through all the same emotions of Hopeless but they were magnified because every single thing that happened now carried the weight of the emotion you already knew from Hopeless PLUS the new emotions created by all the new things we learned in Losing Hope about Holder. But if you piece it together with Hopeless, you just get EVERYTHING. It's not just an alternate perspective, it's actually a whole different part of the story entirely. I felt this book with every single part of my heart and soul. Everything he experienced, I went through it with him. I thought I already loved Dean with all my heart, but now I love him more. Losing Hope was just absolute, beautiful perfection. I can't stop living, breathing and feeling this story. ![]() ![]() ![]() Lexie begins to hang out with high-schoolers and desperately wants boys to like her. Danielle’s grandparents are worrying about the farm, while Danielle’s body changes. Jessica turns to movie-making and wants to uncover more about Mr. ![]() Anna wants to know who her father really was, as her mom gets closer to her boyfriend, Charlie. Jeffrey finds a baby abandoned on the side of the road, and works to help repair his broken family. Terupt’s recovery and sleuths out the secrets of everyone in the class, like a private eye. Peter continues to take his class-clown antics to a new level (watch out for another run-in with Principal Williams) while worrying about his future. I was drawn in by the depth of each character and could not stop reading. As someone in her twenties, I am not the target audience for this title, but I found myself laughing out loud at some moments. The sequel surpasses the first book in the series by far. Terupt continues to inspire by taking an interest in the lives of his students, both inside and outside of the classroom. Together again for another year, Peter, Luke, Jeffrey, Anna, Jessica, Danielle, and Lexie learn how to stick together and support one another. The only constant in the lives of these tweens is their beloved teacher, Mr. ![]() It’s now sixth grade at Snow Hill School, and a new year means big changes for the students we got to know from the first Mr. ![]() ![]() ![]() : For discussing your OPINIONS about any aspect of the general world of poetry. : For sharing a link to an ARTICLE from the general world of poetry. (Not for sharing your own amateur poetry.) : For sharing a published or anthologized POEM. ![]() In order for your post to go through, you must use one of the following tags-in brackets-before your title. We moderators reserve the right to remove posts as best serves the community. NEWER ALL Poem submission HEADLINES must include the name of the poem and the author. ![]() NEW If you are sharing a poem in translation, both the original poet and the translator must be credited.To promote something, like publications, be detailed about your product. To sell something, use a self post and offer a sample poem.To ask for homework help, state that you are asking for homework help and show how far you've gotten. ![]()
![]() ![]() ![]() Franzen chronicled his own involvement in a nearly identical outfit in his essay collection The Discomfort Zone. I witnessed a similar group explode out of a Congregational church in Connecticut during the late 1990s. Groups like Crossroads may be relics at this point, but they are not an invention. Crossroads paints a picture of a bygone era, one when cigarettes outnumbered guitars in the church parking lot by a factor of ten. The language of the group (a ministry of the fictional First Reformed Church in New Prospect, Illinois) is more psychological than spiritual, its character more in line with the confrontational self-help ethos of the support groups that were gaining traction at the time than the “Big E” evangelicalism that was emerging alongside. Instead, the group bears a distinctly mainline Protestant character, albeit in its early-1970s incarnation, the period in which the novel is set. There are no Bible studies, no prayer circles, no games of capture the flag, no tracts. Which is not meant as faint praise so much as an acknowledgement of the peculiarity of a work like this coming into existence in the first place, much less in 2021.Ĭrossroads is not the sort of youth group that most contemporary readers will associate with the term, however. Crossroads, the name of both the book and the group, may even be the finest work of fiction ever written on the subject. The panoramic new novel from Jonathan Franzen is about, among many other things, a church youth group. ![]() ![]() There are so many reasons why “Pride and Prejudice” is so beloved - Lizzie stands on her own two feet and is a refreshing feminist character for her time. ![]() But through a series of miscommunications relating to Lizzie’s sister, Jane, and Darcy’s best friend, Charles, and a more sinister plot line on Darcy’s history with a man named George Wickham, Lizzie and Darcy eventually find their way to each other. Whatever it is that happens between them, it is certainly not love at first sight. She’s prideful, he’s prejudiced … things are bound to go wrong. It begins with Elizabeth and Darcy getting off on the wrong foot - their first impressions of each other could not be more incorrect. Originally released in 1813 and written by Jane Austen, “ Pride and Prejudice” is a beloved romance novel. (It is also a truth universally acknowledged that whenever you’re discussing the masterpiece that is “Pride and Prejudice,” you have to start with some version of the iconic first line. ![]() It is a truth universally acknowledged that Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy’s relationship is one that has gone down in literary ( and cinematic) history. ![]() ![]() The final book in Jason’s YA The Forgotten Chronicles series wraps up the storyline perfectly. Queen Anastasia orders the destruction of the Forgotten and turns her attention to the colonies. Those who are into Fantasy will certainly enjoy this and the other two books – (I’m currently reading Book 3) – along with Palmatier’s other titles and trilogies. Josh does get a bit rambling in this series, which is why it didn’t make it higher on the list, but still a compelling series of story lines and characters to move those plots along just fine. Being such hearty books, Book 2 comes in at 487 pages, there are also a lot of characters which I sometimes had a hard time keeping track of. However, Palmatier has a knack for drawing me in and making me forget that. ![]() These are thick, serious, epic Fantasy tomes, kids, with a somewhat Sci-Fi feel to them – neither of which is really my favored genre. ![]() “Second book in Joshua Palmatier’s epic fantasy trilogy, set in a sprawling city of light and magic fueled by a ley line network.” ![]() Threading the Needle by Joshua Palmatier – ![]() We’re going to skip the crap and get right to the good stuff. I read a lot of great books, some mediocre ones, and frankly, some crap. Now, as the year comes to a close, it’s time to whittle those down to my Top 10. Managed to squeeze in nearly 30 books for the 2018 reading season. ![]() ![]() ![]() Later essays recount Sedaris’ experience of the COVID-19 pandemic, walking New York’s empty streets and wondering if his livelihood-reading works-in-progress to audiences all over the country-is gone for good. The collection progresses somewhat chronologically, beginning with essays that look back to Sedaris’ childhood and to his young adult years when he was writing plays with his sister Amy in New York City. ![]() One of the collection’s delights is a commencement address delivered at Oberlin College that skates along on the surface with funny throwaway lines and ridiculousness while offering slyly sensible life advice underneath. This essay, like several others here, also offers deft, sharp commentary on masculinity. It’s a perfect David Sedaris essay: one that lures you in with funny family anecdotes and self-deprecation, gives a sideways look at some aspect of society, then ends with an unexpected emotional punch. In the book’s opening essay, “Active Shooter,” Sedaris and his sister Lisa visit a firing range in North Carolina, which offers him a chance to plunge into the oddities of gun culture as they learn to shoot pistols. ![]() ![]() David Sedaris’ latest essay collection, Happy-Go-Lucky, finds the author in late midlife, mining his life, the lives of his family-including his longtime boyfriend, Hugh, his siblings and his 98-year-old dad-and their surroundings for comedic stories. ![]() ![]() ![]() I do not make money from this blog or from writing book reviews. I post Amazon links as a courtesy for my readers. I do not have a mailing list and do not send personal emails to any subscriber from this book review blog. This law has to do with handling personal data with respect and privacy. It is called the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR. ![]() And in each small moment, whether in the light or the dark, you can make room for becoming, for breathing, for stumbling, and for simply being-for there is Grace, today and every day. Light will always find you, and even when the sun sets and you sit awaiting the dawn, know you are still blooming in the way you were meant to. ![]() ![]() There is a purpose in every season, and no matter how you want to race through this day or run away from this place, rest assured that you are invited to live fully-right here, right now. Morgan Harper Nichols delivers a striking collection of illustrated poetry and prose, inviting you to “stumble into the sunlight” and delight in the wild and boundless grace you’ve been given. All Along You Were Blooming is the ultimate love letter from the pen of popular Instagram poet Morgan Harper Nichols to your mind, to your heart, to your soul, and to your body. Link to read a sample: All Along You Were Blooming.Ī celebration of hope. I feel this book is written for a younger audience, but I’m certainly not young. January 21, 2020.Īudience: Readers of poetry. Publisher and Publication Date: Zondervan. ![]() ![]() Demonstrates that teachers want to share personal.Teachers demonstrate that content topics have.Facilitates language growth for ELL students. ![]()
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