5/13/2023 0 Comments J bengtsson cake series![]() ![]() ![]() Then he met Casey…and it was as if her light balanced out his darkness. Quick, impersonal romps were the extent of his love life. And really, with the hate that raged through him, Jake truly didn’t believe that he had the capacity to fall in love. He didn’t have the time for a girlfriend. Jake spent the majority of his life on the road, touring and performing. What would they possibly have in common? She was a bubbly talker. When outspoken, vivacious college student, Casey Caldwell, was paired with the famously, reserved rockstar for a friend’s wedding, she was prepared for the worst. And, although he had managed to put the horrors of his youth behind him in order to find success as a musician, the memories of his past still haunted him. In fact, he became famous as a young teen, not for his music, but for surviving a crime so brutal that his name would forever be linked to tragedy. Jake McKallister may have been a rockstar but he was no ordinary one. ![]()
0 Comments
![]() The whole reason people want to read sequels is that they care about the characters and want to know what happens to them. I could go on to the absurdity of the next woman he takes up with, but will stop. The next thing you know, he’s in Paris, he sees Mercedes, falls into her arms, and invites her to join his harem. On their wedding night, Haydee asks him if he still has feelings for Mercedes, the woman who betrayed him long ago. One would think he’d be sensitive to others’ feeling betrayed. Here’s the man whose life was savagely destroyed by betrayal. I see why the author did this, so that the Count (now Sultan) can have a harem. ![]() (You can read all about it in Chapter 86). ![]() To start with, Haydee is a Christian in the original. The book was billed as the sequel to the Count of Monte Cristo, and remained true to the original characters. ![]() 5/13/2023 0 Comments Mcraven book make your bed![]() It was thus that I read with some interest Make Your Bed by William H McRaven. The book was based on the commencement speech she gave to Harvard graduates in which she spoke about the benefits of failure, and the importance of imagination – lessons that have stayed with me, and that I have drawn upon – in the years that have since passed. I read – and adored – J K Rowling’s Very Good Lives a number of years ago. And so, when perusing the shelves of my favourite cafe bookstore in Bondi for some much needed literary inspiration, I saw a copy of the book Make Your Bed, about which I’d heard nothing but good stuff – and so decided to buy a copy and, upon reading, I immediately knew I would write a Make Your Bed review. The second, while an easy and interesting read, didn’t have me reaching for my book each night, and thus it took me longer than usual to get through. ![]() ![]() ![]() Determined to fill the first month of 2018 with nothing but good books, the first I read – despite a promising blurb – left me pretty unmoved so much so that I decided not to review it on here, for lack of much to say about it. ![]() This Make Your Bed book review breaks a bit of a reading funk so far this year. ![]() 5/13/2023 0 Comments Edwin abbott abbott flatland![]() ![]() ![]() In 1885, he published a life of Francis Bacon. His Shakespearian Grammar (1870) is a permanent contribution to English philology. Abbott's open-minded inclinations in theology were prominent both in his educational views and in his books. He retired in 1889, and devoted himself to literary and theological pursuits. There, he oversaw the education of future Prime Minister H. Mortimer as headmaster of the City of London School in 1865, at the early age of 26. After holding masterships at King Edward's School, Birmingham, he succeeded G. In particular, he was 1st Smith's prizeman in 1861. He was born in London and educated at the City of London School and at St John's College, Cambridge, where he took the highest honours of his class in classics, mathematics and theology, and became a fellow of his college. Edwin Abbott Abbott FBA (20 December 1838 – 12 October 1926) was an English schoolmaster, theologian, and Anglican priest, best known as the author of the novella Flatland (1884).Įdwin Abbott Abbott was the eldest son of Edwin Abbott (1808–1882), headmaster of the Philological School, Marylebone, and his wife, Jane Abbott (1806–1882). ![]() ![]() ![]() She had friends in many age groups, and a number of trangressions: "Playing around with other people's husbands when you were 17 was bad news. But it was not all that interested the young Beard. During the summer she participated in archaeological excavations this was initially to earn money for recreational spending, but she began to find the study of antiquity unexpectedly interesting. Mary Beard attended an all-female direct grant school. Her mother Joyce Emily Beard was a headmistress and an enthusiastic reader. She recalled him as "a raffish public-schoolboy type and a complete wastrel, but very engaging". ![]() ![]() Her father, Roy Whitbread Beard, worked as an architect in Shrewsbury. Mary Beard, an only child, was born on 1 January 1955 in Much Wenlock, Shropshire. ![]() Her frequent media appearances and sometimes controversial public statements have led to her being described as "Britain's best-known classicist". She is the Classics editor of the Times Literary Supplement, and author of the blog "A Don's Life", which appears on The Times as a regular column. Winifred Mary Beard (born 1 January 1955) is Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge and is a fellow of Newnham College. ![]() 5/13/2023 0 Comments Pleasure activism brown![]() ![]() It takes effort and attention to break out of reading ruts, which often means using Google to search for books the algorithms (and authors) wouldn’t have otherwise led you to. If you only read book by a certain demographic, and they only quote books by a certain demographic, you’ll get yourself into an echo chamber. The sneaky part about finding books within books is that your sources become increasingly narrowed to the lens of the people you’re currently reading. Quite often, the lists are heavily populated with the same authors, and are often made up of a majority of one specific demographic and background. Every few weeks I see new lists of the best business books, the top business books, and other essential readings lists for entrepreneurs. ![]() 5/13/2023 0 Comments The book ferdinand![]() ![]() The ban was not lifted until his death in 1975. ![]() A surprisingly political bookĪs it was published at the time of the Spanish civil war, General Franco – the man who led the violent uprising – was definitely not amused at the pacifist bull and banned the book. According to one of the reviews on IMDB, the animated bandilleros and picadors were based on the cartoon’s animators and the matador on Walt Disney himself he was reportedly Not Amused by that, though surely he must have vetted it, especially if he voiced part of it that story sounds apocryphal to me. What’s even more surprising than the fact I remember it is that Walt Disney himself voiced Ferdinand’s mother. ![]() What a delightful and illogical tradition! An image from the book, by Robert Lawson When they tried to replace it with something else in the 1980s in Sweden, it came back the following year after a public outcry. In fact, in some countries it is shown every year on Christmas Eve. ![]() It sounded very familiar: was it made into one of those short Disney cartoons? Indeed it was made in 1938, it won an Oscar and was still being shown on television into the 1970s. This is a children’s book with a story about a little Spanish bull who preferred to sit under a tree and smell flowers rather than fight. ![]() 5/13/2023 0 Comments Amphigorey by Edward Gorey![]() It’s easy to get lost in Gorey’s densely cross-hatched illustrations, which are accompanied by descriptions of his characters’ misadventures and certain dooms. These stories are inhabited by swooning ingénues, mysterious men with shifty eyes, and children in all sorts of perilous situations. Gorey is most known for crafting delightfully macabre picture books in his signature pen and ink style. This is an apt description for the work that follows, as Gorey’s books certainly contain their fair share of nonsense. As the author explains in a note at the start of the book, the title comes from the word amphigory, meaning a nonsense verse or composition. Originally published in 1972, “Amphigorey” is a collection of 15 stories written and illustrated by Gorey between 19. If you’ve ever wanted to dive into Gorey’s bibliography, “Amphigorey” is the perfect place to start. There’s really no better way to get into the spooky spirit than with the work of author and illustrator Edward Gorey. ![]() ![]() ![]() Here in the dead of August, I know we’re all dreaming of the cooler, crisper, and- let’s be honest- spookier months of fall ahead of us. ![]() ![]() ![]() In order to save her people, Nor must learn to negotiate the treacherous protocols of a court where lies reign and obsession rules. And as she grows closer to Ceren's brother, the charming Prince Talin, Nor uncovers startling truths about a failing royal bloodline, a murdered queen.and a plot to destroy the home she was once so eager to leave. To Nor's dismay, her future husband, Prince Ceren, is as forbidding and cold as his home-a castle carved into a mountain and devoid of sunlight. ![]() Then Zadie is gravely injured, and Nor is sent to Ilara in her place. But when a childhood accident left her with a permanent scar, it became clear that her identical twin sister, Zadie, would likely be chosen to marry the Crown Prince-while Nor remained behind, unable to ever set foot on land. ![]() Nor once dreamed of seeing the wondrous wealth and beauty of Ilara, the kingdom that's ruled her village for as long as anyone can remember. But though every girl longs to be chosen as the next princess, the cost of becoming royalty is higher than any of them could ever imagine. For generations, the princes of Ilara have married the most beautiful maidens from the ocean village of Varenia. ![]() 5/13/2023 0 Comments Ten rubber duckies book![]() This bad data was typos, accidental entries in the wrong field, plain miscategorization, as well as incomplete patient identifiers, and many other things. When I worked as a software developer in the healthcare industry, the one constant I saw was bad data. I’ll come back and touch on these floating world travelers again in a bit. I loved reading that story years later when reports started coming to the scientists about all the fantastic places these rubber ducks had turned up.Īs the ocean currents spread rubber ducks across the world, I wonder how many years these floating ducks will stay in circulation for years to come. When I was a kid, I read about a shipment of rubber ducks, and a few other types, that had spilled into the ocean in 1992. Rubber ducks are also known for their resilience and travels upon the ocean currents. Rubber duck debugging, as mentioned in the book The Pragmatic Programmer, is a time-honored tradition of explaining problems to inanimate objects in the certainty that explaining it out loud will help yourself, and strangely, it often works. Rubber ducks are well known for their listening skills. ![]() Photo by David Dennis, CC Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic Debugging Rubber ducks and software have a long-standing relationship. ![]() |