![]() Several deft episodes and set pieces bring Eilis to convincing life: her timid acts of submission, while still living at home, to her extroverted, vibrant older sister Rose the ordeal of third-class passenger status aboard ship (surely seasickness has never been presented more graphically) her second-class status among postwar Brooklyn’s roiling motley populace, and at the women’s boarding house where she’s virtually a non-person and the exuberant liberation sparked by her romance with handsome plumber Tony Fiorello, whose colorful family contrasts brashly with Eilis’s own dour and scattered one. Tóibín fashions a compelling characterization of a woman caught between two worlds, unsure almost until the novel’s final page where her obligations and affections truly reside. ![]() ![]() But as Eilis both falters and matures abroad, something more interesting takes shape. Tóibín’s treatment of the early adulthood of Eilis Lacey, a quiet girl from the town of Enniscorthy who accepts a kindly priest’s sponsorship to work and live in America, is characterized by a scrupulously precise domestic realism reminiscent of the sentimental bestsellers of Fannie Hurst, Edna Ferber and Betty Smith (in her beloved A Tree Grows in Brooklyn). ![]() ![]() This plaintive sixth novel from the Booker-nominated Irish author ( Mothers and Sons, 2008, etc.) is both akin to his earlier fiction and a somewhat surprising hybrid. ![]()
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![]() He also provides a lavishly detailed portrait of his marriage to Martha and his complex behavior as a slave master.Īt the same time, Washington is an astute and surprising portrait of a canny political genius who knew how to inspire people. Probing his private life, he explores his fraught relationship with his crusty mother, his youthful infatuation with the married Sally Fairfax, and his often conflicted feelings toward his adopted children and grandchildren. Chernow brings to vivid life a dashing, passionate man of fiery opinions and many moods. A strapping six feet, Washington was a celebrated horseman, elegant dancer, and tireless hunter, with a fiercely guarded emotional life. In this groundbreaking work, based on massive research, Chernow dashes forever the stereotype of a stolid, unemotional man. ![]() A laconic man of granite self-control, he often arouses more respect than affection. With a breadth and depth matched by no other one-volume life of Washington, this crisply paced narrative carries the reader through his troubled boyhood, his precocious feats in the French and Indian War, his creation of Mount Vernon, his heroic exploits with the Continental Army, his presiding over the Constitutional Convention, and his magnificent performance as America's first president.ĭespite the reverence his name inspires, Washington remains a lifeless waxwork for many Americans, worthy but dull. ![]() ![]() In Washington: A Life celebrated biographer Ron Chernow provides a richly nuanced portrait of the father of our nation. ![]() ![]() And even though you cannot see Him right now and cannot understand what He is doing, you know Him. Proclaim as Job did, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” ( Job 13:15).įaith is not some weak and pitiful emotion, but is strong and vigorous confidence built on the fact that God is holy love. Is there something in your life for which you need perseverance right now? Maintain your intimate relationship with Jesus Christ through the perseverance of faith. ![]() God is aiming at something the saint cannot see, but our Lord continues to stretch and strain, and every once in a while the saint says, “I can’t take any more.” Yet God pays no attention He goes on stretching until His purpose is in sight, and then He lets the arrow fly. ![]() A saint’s life is in the hands of God like a bow and arrow in the hands of an archer. Perseverance means more than endurance- more than simply holding on until the end. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Pastora is typically the most reserved sister, but Flor’s wake motivates this driven woman to solve her sibling’s problems. Matilde has tried for decades to cover the extent of her husband’s infidelity, but she must now confront the true state of her marriage. Has Flor forseen her own death, or someone else’s? Does she have other motives? She refuses to tell her sisters, Matilde, Pastora, and Camila.īut Flor isn’t the only person with secrets. So when she decides she wants a living wake-a party to bring her family and community together to celebrate the long life she’s led-her sisters are surprised. ![]() From bestselling, National Book Award–winning author Elizabeth Acevedo comes her first novel for adults, the story of one Dominican-American family told through the voices of its women as they await a gathering that will forever change their lives.įlor has a gift: she can predict, to the day, when someone will die. ![]() ![]() ![]() The last Mughal by William Dalrymple is another historical piece of writing covering this dark incident of Indian history and is great in every aspect. Even after the mutiny of 1857, British never had to suppress such a mutiny and rebellion as it never happened anywhere else in any of the colonies of the British. But what they also did not know was the bloody way which they had to cross to achieve India with them as complete sovereign and that they had to face the biggest mutiny India or the world had ever seen. Also, British east India Company had never faced such a rebellion that too by the sepoys who were trained by them, by then. In the May of the year 1857 when British introduced the New cartridges with the cow and pig fat, they did not know that this would not only establish their rule in India as a complete authority but also would end the rule of a dynasty which had hitherto ruled India for 330 years with all its magnificence which had astonished the people and the dynasties all over the globe. ![]() The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi 1857 ![]() ![]() Georgette Heyer achieves what the rest of us only aspire too. Author of over fifty books, Georgette Heyer is the best-known and best-loved of all historical novelists, who made the Regency period her own. 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars. ![]() "Wonderful characters, elegant, witty writing, perfect period detail, and rapturously romantic. Regency Buck (Alastair-Audley, 3) Published March 31st 2011 by Cornerstone Digital. I've read her books to ragged shreds"- Katie Fenton, Daily Telegraph "Reading Georgette Heyer is the next best thing to reading Jane Austen."- Publishers Weekly Miss Taverner would have given all she possessed in the world to have been able to rise up and walk away in the opposite direction. 'Beauty in distress again' inquired a familiar voice. Miss Taverner cast a fleeting glance upwards at it, and stiffened. A good introduction to Heyer's period stories." - The Booklist Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer The curricle drew alongside, and checked. ![]() "Light and frothy, in the vein of the author's other Regency novels, this follows the fortunes of Miss Judith Taverner and her brother, Sir Peregrine. "Georgette Heyer is unbeatable."- Sunday Telegraph To their surprise and utter disgust, their guardian is not much older than they are, doesn't want the office of guardian any more than they want him, and is determined to thwart all their interests and return them to the country.īut when Miss Taverner and Peregrine begin to move in the highest social circles, Lord Worth cannot help but entangle himself with his adventuresome wards. After their father's death, Miss Judith Taverner and her brother Peregrine travel to London to meet their guardian, Lord Worth, expecting an elderly gentleman. ![]() ![]() "A stout defense of the right to read." - Kirkus Reviews “Quick paced and with clear, easy-to-read prose, this is a book poised for wide readership and classroom use.”- Booklist ![]() “ Ban This Book is absolutely brilliant and belongs on the shelves of every library in the multiverse.”-Lauren Myracle, author of the bestselling Internet Girls series, the most challenged books of 20 This one’s for you." -Kathi Appelt, author of the Newbery Honor-winning The Underneath ![]() “Readers, librarians, and all those books that have drawn a challenge have a brand new hero…. Let kids know that they can make a difference in their schools, communities, and lives! Amy Anne and her lieutenants wage a battle for the books that will make you laugh and pump your fists as they start a secret banned books locker library, make up ridiculous reasons to ban every single book in the library to make a point, and take a stand against censorship.īan This Book is a stirring defense against censorship that’s perfect for middle grade readers. Amy Anne is shy and soft-spoken, but don’t mess with her when it comes to her favorite book in the whole world. Konigsburg is challenged by a well-meaning parent and taken off the shelves of her school library. In Ban This Book by Alan Gratz, a fourth grader fights back when From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. ![]() ![]() You’re Never Too Young to Fight Censorship! ![]() ![]() ![]() Indeed, having Rowe do a book injects a bit of the NoBrow aesthetic into the Toon Books line: clear, bright and colorful. That makes Rowe's spectacular and varied use of color in particular a crucial part of the storytelling. This is a Level 1 Toon Book, so it's aimed at emerging readers, and thus the dialogue is quite simple and limited. The book consists of her losing her broken heart and chasing a variety of characters who briefly wind up with it, including dolphins, birds, a paper airplane, and a king and queen. Like a film beginning its narrative with credits rolling over it, so does Hearts set up its book-long chase sequence with protagonist Penelope the fox having her heart broken when her friend leaves on a rocketship. ![]() It's an elegant and beautiful approach that compensates for the slight stiffness of its figures with a propulsive, exciting story. ![]() Hearts, which was created by Thereza Rowe, features characters put together with cut paper on the page. Each book is visually distinctive in its own way. The two most recent books from Francoise Mouly's publishing collaboration with Candlewick Press, Hearts and Tippy and the Night Parade, are no exception. ![]() Second, they are rock-solid in terms of comics storytelling fundamentals. First, the design has always been impeccable, making each book its own little unique art object. The hardcover comics aimed at new readers from Toon Books have always uniformly done two things well. ![]() ![]() ![]() It is the story of fighting for your dreams, even as the odds are stacked against you of the struggle to become who you are, and not who everyone expects you to be and of the desperate realities of poor and working class black families.īrilliant, insightful, full of heart, this novel is another modern classic from one of the most influential literary voices of a generation. On the Come Up is Angie Thomas’s homage to hip hop, the art that sparked her passion for storytelling and continues to inspire her to this day. ![]() Kay Oyegun(screenplay by) Angie Thomas(based on the novel by). With bills piling up and homelessness staring her family down, Bri no longer just wants to make it-she has to make it. On the Come Up: Directed by Sanaa Lathan. ![]() But now that her mom has unexpectedly lost her job, food banks and shut off notices are as much a part of Bri’s life as beats and rhymes. As the daughter of an underground rap legend who died before he hit big, Bri’s got big shoes to fill. Or at least make it out of her neighborhood one day. Sixteen-year-old Bri wants to be one of the greatest rappers of all time. This is the highly anticipated second novel by Angie Thomas, the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling, award-winning The Hate U Give. ![]() ![]() Women need to know there are a lot of options out there, and Hill hopes the book will offer them a better way to articulate why one kind of birth control isn’t working and how another one might be a better fit. She wants women to use the book to understand their own bodies and to be able to make well-informed decisions about their health. “This book, hopefully, it's going to give women a lot of self-understanding, and also really an appreciation for how amazingly complex and well functioning our bodies really are,” Hill said. But until recently, most of it has been ignored and gone unstudied, Hill writes in This Is Your Brain on Birth Control: The Surprising Science of Women, Hormones, and the Law of Unintended Consequences. ![]() ![]() Understanding what these influences are, their full range of impact and how to change and manage them is critical to the health of women. Hormone-based birth control has a much more nuanced and widespread effect on women’s brains than we commonly think, according to a new book by Texas Christian University research psychologist Dr. ![]() |