6/12/2023 0 Comments Mcmurtry lonesome doveThe book that had the greatest influence on my writing Naturally, I often find myself wishing that one of my poxy books had sold as many copies as an even poxier one by someone else but, as Walt Whitman put it: “I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones.” Impossible to answer honestly except by saying “None”. It reminds me of that Play for Today from about the same time, Shakespeare or Bust. The nice thing about this story is that my mum and her friend weren’t teachers at the school they both worked in the canteen as dinner ladies. I still know huge chunks of the play off by heart. She lent it to me and that, combined with the lessons by a wonderful teacher at grammar school, led to my becoming swallowed up in the currents and eddies of language. A woman my mum worked with at my old junior school liked Shakespeare and had an LP of an edited version of the play with one of those Hammer horror actors, Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee (I forget which), as Richard. Quite something, to be freshly overwhelmed by the greatness of a book you’ve read twice before: every page, every paragraph, every sentence.Ī play in the form of a book in the form of a record, to be precise: Shakespeare’s Richard III. Just finished Shirley Hazzard’s The Transit of Venus for the third time.
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6/12/2023 0 Comments Dangerous Games by Lynessa Laynebut love is a killer and I've fallen hard for a woman who is now my mortal enemy.", my heart misses a lie.***Someone killed Sara Scott.Were they aiming for Kinsley?She certainly thinks so - MEI think I'll make her believe I'm gunning for her, and I'll use Henley to fan the flames of her fear.This affair was going to end someday.If only I could stay away. There's one problem: I'm number one on Klive's hitlist and my friend may have died in my place.How could Klive do this to her? To me? How could he lie so bad? How to move beyond the betrayal, fear, anger? The yearning for who I believed he was. Now, he and Rustin want me to pull Klive closer, and make him sloppy so he can arrest him. "item_description" : "No one is who they seemed.My friend is dead.Klive King is a hitman A supposed leader of Nightshade who might have killed herRather than being a simple lifeguard and bar-singer, Jase is doing favors for a top-secret agency. 6/12/2023 0 Comments Being Jamie Baker by Kelly OramBut, I can’t tell you how rewarding it is to see all of my hard work come to life. “It has been as frustrating as it has been exciting, and there were more than several times when I wanted to call it quits. Oram’s husband gave them her manuscript, and they wanted to publish it, allowing her to be part of the creative process because they are a smaller publishing house.įrom writing the very first sentence to seeing the book released has taken nearly three years. They were looking to get into book publishing and were seeking mainstream material, preferably aimed at young females-the “Twilight” crowd. Oram was in the writing query letters to publishers and agents phase at a time when her husband was doing some graphics work for a multi-media company called Bluefields. Coming up with a story and its characters were just the beginning of a long writing and publishing process. Her first draft took roughly seven months to write. While you can find hundreds of teen novels about vampires and werewolves, if you want a good old-fashioned superhero story, you pretty much have to look to comic books.” Oram said. “Being Jamie Baker” was born from a desire to write a story about a girl with superpowers. 6/11/2023 0 Comments An abundance of katherines coverBut anyway, do read the rules before you submit. There are a bunch of rules down there about, like, how to submit and how big it should be and I’m already bored talking about it. I don’t think this has ever happened before, but Penguin was so impressed by all the fan designed covers of The Fault in Our Stars that they decided to let you design An Abundance of Katherines and I am extremely excited. And in a stirring turn of events, my publisher, Penguin, has consented to let you design the next cover of An Abundance of Katherines, or at least one of you. By the way, where did he go? You know, just cos you’re out of the frame doesn’t mean you can stop signing.Īn Abundance of Katherines is about a child prodigy named Colin Singleton who speaks eleven languages and anagrams with ease and is able to work with abstract mathematics, but cannot tell a story and also cannot stop getting dumped by girls named Katherine. An Abundance of Katherines, that’s what it is. It’s like A Multitude of Marlenes or A Plethora of Pamelas or A Conflagration of Camilles. My name's John Green, I’m the author of the books Looking for Alaska, Paper Towns, The Fault in Our Stars and the other one. Clones don’t know how to dress for videos. 6/11/2023 0 Comments Big swiss novelAfter quitting her job as a pharmacy tech and leaving her fiance, she moves from Los Angeles to Hudson, New York, and starts working as a transcriptionist for a sex therapist named Om. Beagin’s new main character is literally paid to eavesdrop on the therapy sessions of strangers. Her first two novels starred Mona, a woman whose job cleaning houses affords her a fascinating window into her clients’ lives and an idiosyncratic education in human behavior. The author of Pretend I’m Dead (2018) and Vacuum in the Dark (2019) returns with another wonderfully off-kilter protagonist.īeagin loves weirdos-fully and unironically. 6/11/2023 0 Comments Sugarbabe by Holly Hill“My mother was a feminist… I was crossing all of my boundaries. On the brink of bankruptcy, Hill, who comes from a hard-working family and grew up in Sydney, felt more desperation than shame when she opted to become a sugarbabe. Everything was devastated with a single phone call.” It was a dreadful position to find myself (in) spiritually, emotionally, professionally, financially. “I had a mortgage to pay and electricity bills and not a single cent coming in. Six months later, he told his wife of the affair only to have his spouse respond, “If you don’t leave this woman, I’m going to kill myself and your two children.” Hill walked away from the relationship and grieved as one would the death of a loved one. She opted to give up her career as a counselor to pedophiles and the depressed when her well-dressed, wealthy dream man, albeit married, came along and put her on “The Mistress Plan,” paying her rent, treating her to expensive dinners and lavishing gifts upon her. Hill, who uses a pseudonym, didn’t seem to be in a position to call any shots. Veronica doesn’t promote women being paid to have sex because she realizes women get taken advantage of, she notes, “When we can call the shots, maybe we can live the life that we want to live and that includes in relationships and in sex.” Admit it or not, females from high-powered executives to librarians to cleaning ladies share one fantasy: to be a mistress. But those books have begun to whisper to him in the darkness, and as he takes refuge in the myths and fairy tales so beloved of his dead mother, he finds that the real world and his fantasy world have begun to meld. He is angry and he is alone, with only the books on his shelf for company. High in his attic bedroom, twelve-year-old David mourns the loss of his mother. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. This reading group guide for The Book of Lost Things includes an introduction, discussion questions, and ideas for enhancing your book club. 6/10/2023 0 Comments Cathedral by raymond carverBoth men like whiskey and, it turns out, smoking weed. Robert had a wife he was close to but he lost her the narrator has a wife, but in many ways he is more lonely than Robert, despite this. There are obviously some interesting parallels between the two men. His moment of deepest insight comes at the end of the story when he closes his eyes while finishing the drawing of a cathedral. While watching the programme on cathedrals and talking to Robert, who cannot see the images on the screen, the narrator comes to realise how little he has observed of the world around him. Nowhere is this clearer than in the ending to the story, which is where most critics and students of ‘Cathedral’ focus the majority of their analysis (and speculation). And ‘Cathedral’ is as notable for what it doesn’t tell us as for what it does, and the narrator’s account of his evening spent with Robert and his wife invites us to ponder further questions. Carver himself expressed a dislike for this term, but we can certainly see a line between someone like Ernest Hemingway and Carver’s own short stories. Raymond Carver’s work is often associated with the term minimalism, a literary technique marked by a simple descriptive style (often utilising short, clipped sentences) and spare dialogue. 6/10/2023 0 Comments The testing by joelle charbonneauTo survive, Cia must choose: love without truth or life without trustĪccess-restricted-item true Addeddate 00:44:49 Bookplateleaf 0002 Boxid IA40409407 Camera USB PTP Class Camera Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier But surely she can trust Tomas, her handsome childhood friend who offers an alliance? Tomas, who seems to care more about her with the passing of every grueling (and deadly) day of the Testing. But on the eve of her departure, her father's advice hints at a darker side to her upcoming studies - trust no one. Cia Vale is honored to be chosen as a Testing candidate eager to prove her worthiness as a University student and future leader of the United Commonwealth. But to enter this elite group, candidates must first pass The Testing - their one chance at a college education and a rewarding career. The future belongs to the next generation's chosen few who must rebuild it. Isn't that what they say? But how close is too close when they may be one and the same? The Seven Stages War left much of the planet a charred wasteland. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. But the sight also draws the attention of the Memory Thief’s servants, bringing the witch directly up against Rosie. Friendlier ghosts lead her to her mother’s hidden witch hunter’s manual and educate her on her family’s long, tragic quest against the 13 evil witches who counter the good Moon Goddess. Deciding to set aside her childish things, she burns her stories in doing so, she awakens her sight, which allows her to see all the ghosts in her house. But when Rosie’s bold best friend, Germ, starts growing up faster than Rosie, she worries she’ll be left behind. Sixth grader Rosie wishes her cold, neglectful mother loved her-readers know from the prologue that her mother’s under the Memory Thief’s powerful curse-and copes by writing fairy-tale–esque stories. A girl uncovers family secrets and faces off against a witch called the Memory Thief. |