From Red's parents, newly arrived in Baltimore in the 1920s, to the grandchildren carrying the Whitshank legacy boisterously into the twenty-first century, here are four generations of lives unfolding in and around the sprawling, lovingly worn house that has always been their anchor. The Whitshanks are one of those families that radiate an indefinable kind of specialness, but like all families, their stories reveal only part of the picture: Abby and Red and their four grown children have accumulated not only tender moments, laughter, and celebrations, but also jealousies, disappointments, and carefully guarded secrets. " This is how Abby Whitshank always describes the day she fell in love with Red in July 1959. "It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon. NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE
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On top of all that, Peggy has a hard time at school, and gets taunted by her classmates. Peggy is scared: She's struggling to recover from polio and needs crutches to walk, and she and her neighbors are worried about the rumors of Communist spies doing bad things. Action, history, and a tiny bit of fantasy collide in eye-popping panels, loaded with heart." - Max Brallier, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Last Kids on Earth series " Red Scare is a brilliant, fast-paced adventure. The New York Times Book Review calls Red Scare a “masterly graphic novel debut… tightly wrought, intense, unpredictable… breathtaking action sequences… pacing is remarkable… a virtuosic performance.” A page-turning sci-fi adventure set in 1953, featuring a clever girl who, against all odds, must outsmart bullies, the FBI, and alien invaders during the height of the communist Red Scare. We get to wade through his formative years, seeing how and where he cultivated the brilliance, passion and demons which marked his all-too-short life for evermore. The book essentially tells the story of the man’s life, from his birth all the way to his tragic passing. Where there are gaps, he fills them in with his imagination. Irving Stone doesn’t seek to change the facts of his existence to suit his story, rather approaching it the other way around. In Irving Stone’s Lust for Life, we see his life recounted as a novel.įirst of all, I do need to clarify, this is indeed a novel and it is fictional in its nature, despite much of it being based on what is known about Vincent Van Gogh’s life. Few lives exemplify this as well as Vincent Van Gogh‘s, the famous Dutch painter and one of the most influential figures in the history of art. Being considered a one-of-a-kind genius in any area of life often entails some sort of sacrifice the brightest and most creative among us are often tortured by elements most of us will never understand. He takes great pains to provide a balanced picture of the people and events he witnessed and gives due credit to the tireless and dedicated Sherpas. The storm, which claimed five lives and left countless more-including Krakauer's-in guilt-ridden disarray, would also provide the impetus for Into Thin Air, Krakauer's epic account of the May 1996 disaster.īy writing Into Thin Air, Krakauer may have hoped to exorcise some of his own demons and lay to rest some of the painful questions that still surround the event. Everest, saw nothing that "suggested that a murderous storm was bearing down." He was wrong. "A harrowing tale of the perils of high-altitude climbing, a story of bad luck and worse judgment and of heartbreaking heroism." - PEOPLEĪ bank of clouds was assembling on the not-so-distant horizon, but journalist-mountaineer Jon Krakauer, standing on the summit of Mt. In this deeply moving book of quotes and essays, Maggie writes about new beginnings as opportunities for transformation. When Maggie Smith, the award-winning author of the viral poem "Good Bones," started writing inspirational daily Twitter posts in the wake of her divorce, they unexpectedly caught fire. The Washington Post's "What to Read in 2020 Based on the Books You Loved in 2019"įor fans of Anne Lamott and Cleo Wade, a collection of quotes and essays on facing life's challenges with creativity, courage, and resilience. Parade's "25 Self-Help Books To Get Your 2020 Off On The Right Foot" Marie Claire's "2020 Books You Should Pre-Order Now" "Powerful essays on loss, endurance, and renewal." - PeopleĬosmopolitan's "Best Nonfiction Books of 2020" "A shining reminder to learn all we can from this moment, rebuilding ourselves in the darkness so that we may come out wiser, kinder, and stronger on the other side." - The Boston Globe "A meditation on kindness and hope, and how to move forward through grief." -NPR I don't like that, and that intangibility will make this a story that does not stick with me very long, like a dream that already starts disappearing and not making sense as soon as you wake up. I feel like there was a lot of "Because, fairies" and not much else of substance provided. I don't feel like I have a firm explanation on why some things happened the way they did, or even on what exactly happened in a few cases. I'm not a reader who likes the "dreamscape" feeling, so I really didn't like McKillip's foggy, dreamy wanderings into the vague fairy world. It is on one hand evocative and mood-setting, while on the other hand bloated and annoying. DNF Explanation: The Vanishing Island by Barry Wol.ĭense and dreamy, this book contains a very simplistic and nice fairy tale-like story dressed up with a lot of fancy language and imagery.Book Review: The Lady in the Tower by Jean Plaidy.Book Review: Winter Rose by Patricia McKillip.Book Review: The Art of Disney's Dragons by Tom Ba. ‘Bamie’, as she was nicknamed, had a great deal of energy despite her physical challenges and this proved necessary to her family on several occasions. raised money to found the New York Orthopaedic Hospital with Taylor as its first director. He designed a flexible brace that was so successful in allowing movement that Theodore Sr. Her restricted movement concerned Anna's father who sought the help of a young doctor by the name of Charles Fayette Taylor. Anna was afflicted with a curvature of the spine that led to her being partially crippled and confined by corrective steel braces as a child. She and her three other siblings were born in the home at 28 East 20th Street. Anna Roosevelt was Theodore’s eldest sibling and was born on January 18, 1855. Desperate, she asks to put Stella on the prayer list, not realizing that she is about to create a firestorm. She's frustrated with her daughter Stella's apparent indifference to finding a husband, which had delayed Nancy's chances of being a grandmother. The story opens as Nancy attends a meeting of the "Prayer Angels" at church. I loved going back to Cadillac, Texas, with its friends, family, and fun. But will it wreck Stella's relationship with her mama forever? And what will the church folk think when Stella reveals the identity of her mystery man?įun book. Together, Stella, her best friends Charlotte and Piper, and the loyal customers of the Yellow Rose Beauty Shop hatch a good old-fashioned scheme to sabotage the ball. But nobody can tell redheaded spitfire Stella what to do-not her mama, not Heather, and not even the sexy beau Stella's been seeing in secret. Heather, the bossy leader of the church's Prayer Angels, thinks a summer ball will get Stella and the town's other single gals paired off. But in Cadillac, Texas, where the gossip's hotter than the city's famous jalapeño peppers, it isn't long before all hell breaks loose. Petitioning heaven seems like a surefire way to get it done. With Stella's twenty-seventh birthday coming up fast, Nancy desperately wants to see her daughter married and giving her grandbabies. Stella's mama never should've put Stella on the church prayer list. Her Americanization disconnects her from the people she meets when she returns to the land of her birth to assist Shannon Carpenter, her South Asian correspondent colleague. Umrigar draws on her years as a journalist in creating Smita, an international gender issues reporter who was born in India but has lived in America since she was fourteen. In contrast, a beautiful, unyielding love story forms the backbone that offers power against misogyny. Two stories weave together as tightly as the threads of finest satin-that of the complex Smita Agarwal and the unworldly Meena Mustafa, two women whose dissimilar lives are interrupted by tragedies which, though unrelated, ultimately bind them. The word honor in our daily lives operates as a positive one, yet here, honor also becomes a contranym, an antonym of itself, a quirk of the English language not often acknowledged. Honor, her most powerful novel to date, is no exception, calling out marginalization of a minority and religious tribalism in India, alongside battling the concept of not being able to go home again. Reading a novel by Thrity Umrigar is like experiencing a master class in writing and storytelling. INALIENABLE: REFLECTIONS ON INDEPENDENCE & BELONGING.Voices Column: Desi Roots, Global Wings. Shifter’s Claim, Hunger’s Mate and Primal Heat introduce the Unveiling trilogy that sees the shapeshifters revealed to the human world. In an effort to recruit young shifters to join in their fight against the growing threat of the Rogue shifters, the Shadow Shifters: Damaged Hearts trilogy showcases college-aged shifters navigating college, an introduction to adulthood, and learning to become a powerful shifter. Temptation Rising, Seduction’s Shift and Passion’s Prey cover the Awakening of the Shadow Shifters who’ve walked the earth in secret. Stories of feline shapeshifters battling the humans that fear them, while protecting the same humans from extinction are presented in a series of trilogies. Spinoffs of this series include the Donovan Friends and the Donovan Dynasty.Įnter their world. Sexy, suspenseful, compelling, enlightening, unforgettable.īooks 1 – 9 can be read as standalones, but it is advised that books 10 – 15 be read in order as there is a continuing thread (and cliffhanger endings) throughout each of these last books. The 15 book contemporary romance series includes stories of redemption, jealousy, revenge, but always, in the end, love. The Donovans are an affluent Black family whose reputations and philanthropic efforts span the United States. |