Paddle your own canoe book6/10/2023 ![]() Growing a perfect moustache, grilling red meat, wooing a woman-who better to deliver this tutelage than the always charming, always manly Nick Offerman, best known as Parks and Recreation's Ron Swanson? Combining his trademark comic voice and very real expertise in woodworking-he runs his own woodshop- Paddle Your Own Canoe features tales from Offerman's childhood in small-town Minooka, Illinois-"I grew up literally in the middle of a cornfield"-to his theater days in Chicago, beginnings as a carpenter/actor and the hilarious and magnificent seduction of his now-wife Megan Mullally. Parks and Recreation actor and Making It co-host Nick Offerman shares his humorous fulminations on life, manliness, meat, and much more in this New York Times bestseller. ![]()
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Folk of the air books6/10/2023 ![]() Overall, I am in love with this series and I cannot wait to for the final book to come out later this year. Yet, I think older teens would have the maturity to see this red flag and address the issue correctly. When bullying causes almost death, I see a serious red flag. The bullying almost crosses a line when this group of faeries try to drown Jude in a river and later on, they almost kill her by forcing her to eat a fruit that can be fatal to humans like herself. The main character, Jude, is bullied by a group of faeries at school, which includes Prince Cardan (who is another main character in this series). The one thing that bothered me just a bit was the bullying. Violence is typical in fantasy novels a few stabbings are the main violence in this book. The violence is a lot, but I wouldn't describe it as "graphic" or "frightening", especially for older teens. ![]() This book has some great romance, no sex, just some passionate kisses. ![]() Even the main protagonist, Jude, is not necessarily "good". The faeries in this book are manipulative, greedy, deceiving, and some are straight up murderers. This book is full of faeries, but these are not your typical sing-song happy-go-lucky faeries with pixie wings and a little magic. It was very clean, which is actually quite hard to find in a Young Adult fantasy book these days. I am a huge fan of darker fantasy and so this book blessed my life with its gothic vibes. This series is one of my most favorite book series of all time. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() As suspicions mount, Janina inserts herself into the investigation, certain that she knows whodunit. Soon other bodies are discovered, in increasingly strange circumstances. Then a neighbor, Big Foot, turns up dead. ![]() Her reputation as a crank and a recluse is amplified by her not-so-secret preference for the company of animals over humans. My sincere admiration for her brilliant work." -Annie Proulx In a remote Polish village, Janina devotes the dark winter days to studying astrology, translating the poetry of William Blake, and taking care of the summer homes of wealthy Warsaw residents. Tokarczuk's novel is funny, vivid, dangerous, and disturbing, and it raises some fierce questions about human behavior. WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE "A brilliant literary murder mystery." - Chicago Tribune "Extraordinary. ![]() David benioff book6/10/2023 ![]() ![]() Episode after episode sounds like a folk tale: the cannibals are giants with clubs, for instance. Lev and Kolya, thrown together by chance, are sent off on a lunatic mission - to find a dozen eggs by a certain deadline, or face certain death. Benioff structures City of Thieves as a kind of picaresque narrative. The challenge, writing a book like this, must be how to present the horror in a way that readers can take in. “This is the way we decided to talk, free and easy, two young men discussing a boxing match. Escaping narrowly, they discuss their luck. ![]() Later on, when Lev has acquired his improbable friend Kolya, the handsome blonde army officer, the two encounter a pair of cannibals who come close to turning them into meat patties. I said it with authority because I knew it was true and I had no way to prove it.” They speculate about the cause of his death: “‘He froze to death,’ I told them. ![]() He and two friends, on fire-watching duty, find a dead German officer floating toward them in the night sky. The narrator is the grandfather, Lev Beniov, a seventeen-year-old Jewish virgin, burdened by self-doubt. But he also tips us off very early that his book is also about story-telling. David Benioff frames City of Thieves as his grandfather’s story of survival during the Siege of Leningrad, and it may be that. ![]() ![]() Surprisingly for Kyle, he discovers companionship and help from totally unexpected quarters. The family - to the surprise of Kyle - consists of the couple, a dog and a cat. They live on a farm and are deeply involved with the nature and land around them and beyond. Yet, I was immediately drawn into the story and the characters - not only Kyle but also the foster parents, Jill and Scott. Her novel is of a genre that I don't know very much about, I have to admit. ![]() Jan Andrews is a seasoned, internationally recognized author of teen fiction, based near Ottawa, Canada. He needs time he longs to be by himself, work things out in his mind, not having to listen to the Children Aid's counselor, not to the adults or anybody in the house he is taken to. ![]() En route there he decides to stop talking. ![]() Now at sixteen he is weary to move yet to another crowded family and busy place. Kyle McGinley has been a ward of the State for some eight years, being shifted and moved from one foster home to another, after the father abandons him. ![]() Impunity Jane by Rumer Godden6/10/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Later on in her life, she would convert to Roman Catholicism and quite a few of her books began to deal with women in religious communities. She would remarry again in the year 1949, and went back to the United Kingdom in order to concentrate on her writing. It was during this time that she published her first best-seller, called “Black Narcissus” in the year 1939.Īfter she was married for eight unhappy years, she moved back to Kashmir with her two daughters. ![]() With the help of her sister Nancy, she ran the school for twenty years. In 1930, she went to Calcutta to open up a dance school for Indian and English kids. She went back to the United Kingdom with her sisters while she was in her early twenties, training as a dance teacher. She died at the age of ninety on November 8, 1998, just over a month before her 91st birthday. In her seventies, she retired to Moniaive in Dumfriesshire. She was born Decemin Sussex, England and grew up with her three sisters in Narayananj, which was then part of colonial India. Margaret Rumer Godden, writing under the name Rumer Godden, wrote over sixty books. The Old Woman Who Lived in a Vinegar Bottle ![]() Jack vance eyes of the overworld6/10/2023 ![]() Cugel is what he is and doesn't seem to care for changing.īTW, he is also an interesting character in D&D terms - chaotic to the core and with abilities that would fit thieves, wizards and bards, he seems to be the prototypical "rogue", maybe even more than the Gray Mouser. ![]() There are not even hints of damnation, redemption, tragedy, etc. ![]() Cugel is arrogant, selfish, often smart but always unwise, and never seems to learn anything from his misadventures (at least in this book, and the ending might be a symbol of that) - but he is not quite the villain, since many of the characters in the story are equal or worse than him. The Eyes of the Overworld, and its protagonist, Cugel, are firmly entrenched in the picaresque tradition. It never takes itself too seriously - but is is not entirely comedy or satire as well. Vance's style, it seems, must have been a huge influence on Gygax prose it is certainly sesquipedalian, a word I learned form Appendix N reading.Īnd the book is definitely funny at times. Each chapter reads like an adventure, and Cugel always seem to find a clever, if often immoral, way through his problems. ![]() The author is amazingly clever in both creativity and styles. The book is definitely well-written and full of ideas for any D&D game. The Eyes of the Overworld tell a story of Cugel the Clever, a roguish anti-hero that must travel back home after being forcibly transported to distant, unknown lands by a rival magician. ![]() Wishing for Tomorrow by Hilary McKay6/8/2023 ![]() In this follow-up to 2020’s The One and Only Bob, Ruby the elephant is still living at Wildworld Zoological Park and Sanctuary. ![]() Her signature charm and light touch, echoed in Maland’s illustrations, complement Burnett’s renowned creation. These characters, including Sara in a small but key role, are more nuanced than their originals, and McKay is never didactic. Struggling to fill Sara’s shoes, caring for Lottie and feeding the rat Melchisedec, sturdy Ermengarde discovers her own strength. The discovery that girls can attend Oxford prompts Lavinia to put her strong will to use she vows to go herself, an opportunity she recognizes was denied to the young Miss Minchin. ![]() Alice, Becky’s assertive replacement, refuses to sleep in the attic she’s no doormat. Miss Minchin is shattered, Lavinia bored, Ermengarde and Lottie bereft-and bigger changes are afoot. Sara Crewe and Becky have left Miss Minchin’s academy for girls. As such, this slyly engaging follow-up to A Little Princess is a welcome surprise. Sequels to beloved classics penned by contemporary authors have at best a mixed track record, and the author of the quirky Casson family novels makes an unlikely successor to Frances Hodgson Burnett. ![]() Oversight by Santino Hassell6/8/2023 ![]() ![]() I’m also going to add what the ownvoices rep within the book is in parenthesis. I’m going to list them in alphabetical order by title. I also decided to provide the list for y’all in a way that allows everyone to see it all put together. I got together with a few amazing people and we decided to host an Instagram challenge. I was initially asking so that I could use the books for myself for reading and pictures for my own bookstagram account, but the overwhelming number of books that came at me that I had no idea existed before made me want to do more with it. ![]() And WOW did y’all deliver! I had people responding, quote retweeting, and DMing me on both Twitter AND Instagram to tell me their favourite ownvoices LGBT+ books. No matter! A couple weeks ago, I had a post on Twitter asking for any and all books y’all could think of that are ownvoices for the LGBT+ aspects. ![]() Fear street goodnight kiss6/8/2023 ![]() Tropes for Ghosts of Fear Street go here. It was then brought back again in 2014 for another ongoing series, although there hasn't been a new one since 2019. ![]() After the Seniors series, the series lay dormant until the Nights trilogy in 2005. Over 150 books have been published, either written by R. ![]() Since most of the books all take place in the same town, it isn't unusual for characters from one book to be mentioned in passing in another. The protagonists of the books are usually well-to-do teenagers who deal with threats both supernatural and completely human. And by 'people', that is every teenager who ever lived in Shadyside, and anyone who comes in contact with the Fear family. That's right, a curse! Years ago, the Fear family was cursed during the Witch Trials, and that curse has lived on through the ages, destroying lives and driving people insane. The town consists of your regular teen hangouts, including Pete's Pizza, Fear Lake, and the Division Street Mall. ![]() Welcome to Shadyside, a nice, seemingly normal town. Fear Street, where your worst nightmares live ![]() |