![]() And no, not the latest masterpiece by Kenneth Branagh. Thankfully wisdom comes with age, or is it with adaptations? My very first introduction to Agatha Christie adaptations, was Death on the Nile. Too scared to try to read them, Agatha Christie remained a name on a well-known bookshelf until I was practically an adult. ![]() I remember how frightful some of those paperback covers were (why on earth did they ever do that? Did people honestly appealed to those?). Some of my fondest childhood memories, is visiting my Granny and my aunt over Summer Holidays and to this day can recall exactly where their vast Agatha Christie Collection was on the shelf. He recalls an earlier outburst by a fellow passenger: ‘I’d like to put my dear little pistol against her head and just press the trigger.’ Despite the exotic setting, nothing is ever quite what it seems… Who's also on board? Christie's great detective Hercule Poirot. ![]() She was young, stylish and beautiful, a girl who had everything – until she lost her life. ![]() The tranquility of a lovely cruise along the Nile is shattered by the discovery that Linnet Ridgeway has been shot through the head. Agatha Christie's most daring travel mystery. ![]()
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![]() ![]() “A Vision of Light” is the first of a trilogy and I am looking forward to the next two. ![]() While it is true there really isn’t a traditional “ending,” for readers who want to know more about her story, it is an appropriate stopping point on a long journey. Some have mentioned that they hated the ending. It ends as the next big chapter in her life begins. The book begins when she is a child and follows her through a horrific marriage, a Vision and Gift from God, her life and training as a midwife, her brush with a charge of heresy in front of a church tribunal, and a loving second marriage. This look at the lives of people in the Middle Ages, and the power of the Catholic church, was fascinating. I have rarely read a book with such a strong female character. I am so glad I gave it a chance! I was enthralled with Margaret, her life, the times, her friends and enemies. ![]() Although I love British history, I’ve never been all that interested in Medieval times. I decided to give it a try based on its reviews. I wasn’t sure I would like “A Vision of Light, A Margaret of Ashbury Novel” the first book in a trilogy about Margaret of Ashbury by Judith Merkle Riley. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() And as Ward notes, it became easy for the nation to move on from this localized disaster. Those affected by Hurricane Katrina sometimes had their stories mediated by racially biased news reporting survivors were even shamed for seeking assistance after their lives were swept away. Finally, I wrote about the storm because I was dissatisfied with the way it had receded from public consciousness.” Jesmyn Ward, Paris Review I was also angry at the people who blamed survivors for staying and for choosing to return to the Mississippi Gulf Coast after the storm. It was terrifying and I needed to write about that. In each chapter, a single day unfolds in the lead-up to the arrival of Hurricane Katrina. And her brother Skeetah’s pitbull China–a cherished, porcelain-white fighting dog–gives birth to a litter of puppies. The novel opens with two promises of life: Esch discovers she is pregnant. It’s a fictionalized version of DeLisle, Mississippi, where Ward grew up and now lives. Set in late 2005, the story follows Esch, a 15-year-old girl who lives with her father and three brothers in Bois Sauvage (translation: Wild Wood), a rural, impoverished Gulf Coast town. This novel demands that you dwell in each of its days. I planned to speed-read in time for the event. When I learned that Jesmyn Ward would speak during Amherst College’s LitFest 2020, I scooped up Salvage the Bones from the library. ![]() ![]() Offering an examination of the existing legal, institutional and policy framework which governs the UK Exchequer in particular, it examines how the central claims of MMT map onto the financial activities of the UK government. This innovative book analyses key economic issues from a wide set of regions including the UK, Europe and the Global South, addressing previous concerns that MMT is too US-focused.Īlongside ground-breaking research written by MMT’s original developers and leading academics, the book also includes contributions from economic historians and public policy campaigners, highlighting how MMT contributes to challenging neoliberalism and the hegemony of mainstream macroeconomics. ![]() ![]() ![]() Providing an up-to-date account of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) with contributions from the world’s leading experts, each chapter offers new insights on the topic, building upon MMT’s established body of work. ![]() ![]() But with him in the picture, I’m struggling to keep it intact. Let it be known, denying myself and dominating this role is my default setting. He has no business luring me into something that will get everyone hurt. Rook… with his green eyes and country boy smile… Flipping me upside down, using my own hidden desires to tempt me. ![]() It’s the two of us against this wicked, secluded world.Īlthough we need him, the rookie is a problem. Together we rule Alabaster Isle like Bonnie and Clyde, only prettier and far more dangerous. Joy Jameson is my partner in crime, and my ex. ![]() Hands dirtier than my mind, I have no qualms with staying ruthless to keep these creatures in line. If these walls could talk, I’m telling you… they’d scream. Prisoners ourselves on an island of manipulation, we’ve spent years drowning in vices to dull reality. ![]() As twisted as the inmates we patrol, courtesy of the monster who created us. ![]() ![]() ![]() The story follows Fox, a fisherman whose playboy reputation has followed him around since high school. I loved the intimacy, the level of trust and determination, and this slow burn to SIZZLE romance had the kind of sexual tension that heats up the pages. Fox is more broken than anyone knew, and he’s got to piece himself back together if he’s got any hope of a future with his girl. It’s angstier and more emotional than I anticipated, with a focus on self-worth, expectations, reputations, and doubt. I’ll admit to being a little worried about this playboy of a hero, but I shouldn’t have been – he’s the best part. We met this couple in It Happened One Summer, the first stellar book in this interconnected series, and I’ve been impatiently waiting for their love story ever since. I devoured it in one sitting, and I was hooked the whole way through. Yeah, I might’ve swooned over this book – and this beautifully broken hero – in a big way. ![]() ![]() ![]() Recounting her past experiences as part of her journey toward recovery, Sue William Silverman explores her skewed belief that sex is love, a belief that began with her father's sexual abuse from early childhood into adolescence. In this powerful, often lyrical memoir, a woman learns to value herself-as a whole person rather than as a sexual object. Silverman's message is relevant to anyone suffering from addictions.Ī deeply personal story of a woman's addiction to and recovery from the high of dangerous encounters. A powerful, deeply personal and often lyrical memoir of a woman learning to value herself as a person rather than a sex object, after years of sexual abuse by her father. ![]() ![]() Much later, as an adult, I took a trip to the United Arab Emirates and was fascinated by the culture, the people, the landscape and the food. My grade three teacher taught us about faraway places which sparked my interest in traveling the world and experiencing these places myself. I had a wonderful rural upbringing but my world was limited and I was bored. ![]() Her book series for children follows the heroine Amanda Ross as she travels throughout the world and learns the history and culture of faraway places.ĭarlene, thank you so much for being a guest on “ A Better World of Books!” Please tells us a little about the inspiration for your character Amanda Ross.Īmanda Ross is the twelve-year-old I would have liked to be. Her grandson once gave her the nickname “super-mega-woman-supreme.” Darlene was brought up on a ranch near Medicine Hat, Alberta, where she dreamt of traveling the world and meeting interesting people. ![]() ![]() Darlene Foster is a writer of children’s stories, a retired employment counsellor, an ESL tutor, a wife, mother and grandmother. ![]() ![]() In these pages, Campbell outlines the Hero’s Journey, a universal motif of adventure and transformation that runs through virtually all of the world’s mythic traditions. Since its release in 1949, The Hero with a Thousand Faceshas influenced millions of readers by combining the insights of modern psychology with Joseph Campbell’s revolutionary understanding of comparative mythology. ![]() The latest incarnation of Oedipus, the continued romance of Beauty and the Beast, stand this afternoon on the corner of 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, waiting for the traffic light to change. ![]() Explore the Hero's Journey in stories as old as humanity and as new as last night's dream ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The voice is the first-person speaker, the poet, addressing the second-person ‘thee’, his lover. The metre is iambic tetrameter, that is, four metric feet per line, a iamb being one unstressed followed by one stressed syllable. There is a structured rhyme-scheme, couplets of mainly perfect rhyme though just one consonant rhyme, ‘her’ and ‘ever’, in stanza two. The poem comprises three eight-lined stanzas. Burns' poetry is characterised by musicality rhythm and repetition that have resulted in so many of his poems being set to music. Burns conveys the finality of this parting and the effect it is having upon him, by paying tribute to Nancy, declaring that ‘Naething could resist my Nancy!’ There is certainly an element of irony in the use of ‘my’, and given the sense of loss he is experiencing.įinally Burns writes with passion, though also resignation and generosity, even though he talks of ‘heart-wrung tears’ and ‘sighs and groans’. In 1791, Agnes, referred to as Nancy in the poem, left Scotland to travel to Jamaica to attempt a reconciliation with her husband. The woman is believed to be Agnes Macelhose, married but separated from her husband, so the relationship was kept secret. ![]() Burns’s poem explores the pain of parting and lost love. ![]() |