![]() ![]() "This would be so much easier in jeans," I grumbled, tripping over the hem of my skirt as I walked over to the table to set the candlesticks down. But with her blond hair and fair skin, it gave the effect of glowing health. Eileen, like me, was flushed from the heat and exertion, not to mention frizzy from the humidity. I couldn't think of a reasonable answer, so I turned back to the case I was unpacking and lifted out a pair of wrought-iron candlesticks. "Who knew we'd be having weather like this in October?" "It's absolutely crazy in ninety-degree weather." ![]() "I said I'm going to kill Michael's mother for making us do this craft fair in eighteenth-century costume," I said. I rolled my ruffled sleeves higher up on my arms, even though I knew they'd flop down again in two minutes then I hiked my skirts up a foot or so, hoping a stray breeze would cool off my legs. ![]() I scratched two or three places where my authentic colonial-style linsey-woolsey dress was giving me contact dermatitis. I still had several tons of wrought iron to wrestle into place. She had already unpacked about an acre of blue-and-white porcelain and arranged it on her side of our booth. I glanced over at my best friend and fellow craftswoman. "What was that?" Eileen said, looking up and blinking at me. "Quickly, discreetly, and with a minimum of pain and suffering. "I'm going to kill Michael's mother," I announced. Revenge of the Wrought Iron Flamingos Chapter 1 ![]()
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![]() ![]() “Once there was a tree…and she loved a little boy.” All opinions and views are my own.īook review: The Giving Tree and For Love or Music #bookreview #thegivingtree #forloveormusic #shortstories #booktwt #bookaddict #booktwitter Tweet The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein The first book of 2022, Twenty Years Later by Charlie Donlea was amazing and sadly, the last book of the year didn’t live up to the same expectations.ĭISCLAIMER: This review could contain possible spoilers based on my opinions. ![]() While it would be ideal for your first and last book of the year to be a five star read, it doesn’t always end up that way. Why do I put myself through this torture? Now I sit with the worry of exceeding that amount in the new year. I finished off the year with a banging 215 books, so much higher than the expectations I had in mind. These two books were my last reads for 2022! ![]() ![]() ![]() He has spent years curating the various items, including a vast collection of taxidermy, and tends to it with extreme care.Ĭarrot's favorite piece is an elk head, known as Prince, which her Uncle has now placed in her room above the bed to make her feel more comfortable. The museum, think smaller version of Ripley's Believe It or Not, is her Uncle's pride and joy. Recently divorced, Kara, known as Carrot to her family and friends, returns to her beloved Uncle Earl's Museum of Wonders to live, lick her wounds and help him out. With the low-key fangirling out of the way, let's get into the story, shall we? If you haven't read anything by Kingfisher yet, in my opinion, The Hollow Places would be a great place to start. The humor and heart brought to her stories is refreshing in the Horror space. It's hard to nail weird, yet she does, and we love to see it! ![]() The Hollow Places is a super WEIRD, extremely well-written Horror story, penned in Kingfisher's signature quirky style. ![]() ![]() ![]() He achieved popularity with Sternstunden der Menschheit (1928 The Tide of Fortune), five historical portraits in miniature. ![]() Zweig's essays include studies of Honoré de Balzac, Charles Dickens, and Fyodor Dostoevsky ( Drei Meister, 1920 Three Masters) and of Friedrich Hölderlin, Heinrich von Kleist, and Friedrich Nietzsche ( Der Kampf mit dem Dämon, 1925 Master Builders). Zweig's interest in psychology and the teachings of Sigmund Freud led to his most characteristic work, the subtle portrayal of character. Finding only growing loneliness and disillusionment in their new surroundings, he and his second wife committed suicide. In 1934, driven into exile by the Nazis, he emigrated to England and then, in 1940, to Brazil by way of New York. ![]() Zweig studied in Austria, France, and Germany before settling in Salzburg in 1913. He and his second wife committed suicide in 1942. ![]() Among his most famous works are Beware of Pity, Letter from an Unknown Woman, and Mary, Queen of Scotland and the Isles. He produced novels, plays, biographies, and journalist pieces. Stefan Zweig was one of the world's most famous writers during the 1920s and 1930s, especially in the U.S., South America, and Europe. ![]() ![]() ![]() This book is about the dogs, not the people. ![]() Noting what Disney added and subtracted helps identify the qualities that make the book so appealing. ![]() Pondering which is relevant here because the day after I finished the book, I watched Disney’s 1961 cartoon interpretation. Each time I read one of them again, it becomes a little more clear. According to a master storyteller, if it was a good book when I was 10, and is still good now that I’m over 50, it must be a good book.Īs I’ve remarked in other reviews of some of my favorite books from childhood, it’s difficult to put my finger directly on why I was so crazy about animal stories. Though the story-line was fuzzy in my memory, not so the nostalgia for the days home alone, missing school because of a cold couch, blanket, box of Kleenex, reading and rereading this sweet tale.īecause the feeling of reading this one stuck with me longer than the details did, I wondered if it would seem weak and silly now. Monday Morning School was the perfect excuse to read One Hudred and One Dalmatians again. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Since her victory, Nujood has given other young girls the courage to stand up to their society's customs. With the help of a woman lawyer, Chadha Nasser, NGOs and the local press, Nujood finally obtained her freedom, an extraordinary achievement in Yemen, where there is a conspiracy of silence about the fact that almost half the girls are married under the legal age. Instead of going to the market to buy bread, she took a taxi to the court building. With harrowing directness, Nujood tells of abuse at her husband's hands, beginning with the very first night of her married life, and ending the day she slipped away during an errand. At the age of 10, she obtained a divorce, breaking with the. Nujood's childhood came to an abrupt end when her father arranged for her to be married to a man three times her age. Author Bio Nujood Ali, born in 1998, is a figure of Yemens fight against forced marriage. ![]() The true story of a 10-year-old girl who won a divorce from the man she was forced to marry, courageously defying both Yemeni customs and her own family. Author(s): Nujood Ali with Delphine Minoui ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() In late November, Angus attended a hearing in British Parliament in which representatives from nine countries took turns interrogating a Facebook vice president about the company’s proliferating scandals (an empty chair sat before a Mark Zuckerberg nameplate, marking the chief executive’s absence).įor Angus, fake news and data-based manipulation - exemplified by the shadowy work of Cambridge Analytica, whose voter-profiling scheme is often cited as an important factor in Donald Trump’s 2016 victory - were mere symptoms of a larger malady. A member of Canada’s Parliament for the New Democratic Party, Angus is a longtime punk rocker and activist with ties to the Catholic Worker movement he’s also a sharp critic of the growing power of Big Tech. ![]() $38Ĭanadian politicians don’t attract much notice this side of the border, but recently I’ve been heeding the words of Charlie Angus. THE AGE OF SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power By Shoshana Zuboff 691 pp. ![]() ![]() The woman fingered the high collar of Charlie’s black broadcloth coat and the white cambric stock around his neck. Perhaps this would not be so difficult after all. The others at the table let out a roaring laugh of approval. ![]() She gave a yelp more of surprise than pain and slapped playfully at his hand. The time had come for Charlie to prove his manhood, so he slid his hand over the wench’s round hip and gave her a pinch on her upper thigh. ![]() As the recently promoted second mate, he was not likely to get their respect when they thought of him as nothing more than a fledgling boy. By their standards, to be nineteen years old and green was unacceptable. What else could he do? Had his father or he known ahead of time the crew had decided he was long overdue for his first woman, he would not have gone ashore with the rowdy sailors. Following his companions’ lead, Charlie pulled a passing wench into his lap. ![]() ![]() It’s honestly all so perfect that I don’t even have words. The darker highlights surrounding the title are about the darkness surrounding the said house. The beautiful blue shades depict the water, referring to the sea by which their house is situated. ![]() A retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses by the Grimm Brothers, House of Salt and Sorrows is a hauntingly beautiful gothy fairy tale.Īs I said, the cover won me over. I instantly fell in love with this book’s cover, and I am glad I judged the book because I am absolutely floored. You know how they say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover? Well, I would like to plead guilty here. Until she starts feeling her dead sister’s presence in the manor, one that starts to make her believe that she could be the next princess to die. Annaleigh is sure she is diving headfirst into an accident, but while the glamour of this world so enchants her, she really couldn’t care. However, her investigation is put on hold when she and her sisters discover a portal that leads them straight to a magical garden ball. ![]() But when Annaleigh finds some clue about her last sister’s death, she realizes the deaths might not have been natural. And the whole village treats them as cursed. ![]() So now there are only Annaleigh, her eight sisters, her father, and her new stepmother left. Or she used to until her older sisters started dying one by one. Annaleigh lives with her father and eleven sisters at Highmoor by the sea. ![]() ![]() ![]() Amid rising interest rates and after the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank this year, a growing cohort of depositors sought to move their money to banks seen as safer and offering more attractive returns.Īmong medium-sized banks, First Republic was most affected by the trend: As of mid-March, about 70% of its deposits were uninsured, according to Bank of America, meaning they were larger than the FDIC’s $250,000 guaranteed limit. The intervention comes days after First Republic reported losing about 40% of its deposits in the first quarter of the year. just received the Pinnacle Book Achievement Award in the Political category for his ground-breaking and controversial book, The Ailing Nation: Lessons from the Bedside for America's Leaders. ![]() “The banking system remains sound and resilient, and Americans should feel confident in the safety of their deposits and the ability of the banking system to fulfill its essential function of providing credit to businesses and families,” the spokesperson said in a statement. Nate Link, Garners Pinnacle Book Achievement Award New York, NYNate Link, M.D. ![]() ![]() A spokesperson for the Treasury Department sought to reassure the markets and the public after First Republic, with $229.1 billion in total assets at the time of closure, eclipsed Silicon Valley Bank ($209 billion at the time of closure) to become the second-largest bank failure in American history. ![]() |