![]() ![]() There’s no question that this is a remarkable debut. But this is of a piece with the melancholy that permeates the collection, one punctuated by moments of startling insight, grief, and even joy made all the more affecting for how hard-won they are. Sexuality, romance, and even strong marital bonds may have existed in the characters’ pasts, but they are more or less absent from their present-day lives. It’s also true that some fairly major aspects of human experience are noticeably missing from the book’s purview. Readers unfamiliar with recent Korean history will learn something about it by the time they’re done. In crisp, unembellished prose, Eun-young Choi paints intimate portraits of the lives of young women in South Korea, balancing the personal with the political. These stories manage to be both intensely intimate and pointedly political. Choi Eunyoung, Click to preview A bestselling and award-winning debut collection from one of South Korea's most prominent young writers. The result is a powerful eeriness that animates the book. ![]() The reader-and occasionally the characters, as well-is left to puzzle out these gaps and infer as best they can what might belong there. full of silences and absences, things left unacknowledged or unspoken. ![]()
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![]() ![]() l) I surprised myself by tackling Dostoevsky novels and finding them relevant to my own life, psychology, etc. i) Does this make me a pompous girlie-man? j) No. One day, I heard some Stravinsky and burst into tears. h) I spent four years thinking Green Day made the greatest music in the universe. Who cares about all that bulldash, the haw-hawing in ginsenged dining rooms? g) All you have to do is read, watch, listen. You don’t have to speak eloquently about anything with intellectuals. f) It’s not hard to respect difficult art and escape the self-perpetuating loops of populist cliché. After a decade of unbridled virtual hedonism I crushed Sonic the Hedgehog to death with The Brothers Karamazov. d) How did I escape this declension? e) I learned words like declension. I witnessed first hand the slow declension of burgeoning intellects through a routine of television, video games and a fear of reading books. But that’s hardly Beckett, is it? c) I first became an intellectual snob in my late teens. All populist entertainment is repulsive, useless, dangerous and witheringly anti-intellectual. Popular Culture: An Alphabetical Contempt. ![]() ![]() ![]() With that, please enjoy the 30 best biographies of all time - some historical, some recent, but all remarkable, life-giving tributes to their subjects. In this way, biography differs from the rest of nonfiction.Īll the biographies on this list are just as captivating as excellent novels, if not more so. Rather, it should weave a narrative and tell a story in almost the same way a novel does. ![]() A great biography isn’t just a laundry list of events that happened to someone. ![]() Biographer Richard Holmes once wrote that his work was “a kind of pursuit… writing about the pursuit of that fleeting figure, in such a way as to bring them alive in the present.”Īt the risk of sounding cliché, the best biographies do exactly this: bring their subjects to life. ![]() ![]() ![]() "A cerebral and pulse-pounding exploration of what it means to be human. Even worse, Ophelia is inching closer and closer to accomplishing her grand plans of eradicating human existence once and for all.Īs Nami works with a team of rebels to bring down Ophelia and save the humans under her imprisonment, she is forced to reckon with her past, her future, and what it is that truly makes us human.įrom award-winning author Akemi Dawn Bowman comes an incisive, action-packed tale that explores big questions about technology, grief, love, and humanity. She quickly discovers that Ophelia, a virtual assistant widely used by humans on Earth, has taken over the afterlife and is now posing as a queen, forcing humans into servitude the way she’d been forced to serve in the real world. When Nami wakes up, she learns she’s in a place called Infinity, where human consciousness goes when physical bodies die. ![]() The only problem? She’s murdered before she gets there. She has a great family, just graduated high school, and is on her way to a party where her entire class is waiting for her-including, most importantly, the boy she’s been in love with for years. Eighteen-year-old Nami Miyamoto is certain her life is just beginning. ![]() ![]() ![]() With malice in their hearts and vengeance in their veins, they will seek out the ones who hurt and destroyed them.ĭark Contemporary Romance. Time has made Ellis a shell of her former self, a little girl lost in the vastness of her pain.Īs Heathan pulls Ellis out of her mental prison, reviving the essence of who she once was, down the rabbit hole they will go. Time has made Heathan’s soul darker, polluted with hatred and the thirst for blood. ![]() Back to seek revenge on those who wronged them. Back from a place from which he thought there was no return. Until they were ripped apart by the sick cruelty of others, separated for years, both locked in a perpetual hell.Įleven years later, Heathan is back for his girl. The pair forged an unlikely friendship, unique and strange. Heathan was dark and brooding, and obsessed with watching things die. Ellis was loud and beautiful – all blond hair, bright laughs and smiles. When Ellis Earnshaw and Heathan James met as children, they couldn’t have been more different. ![]() ![]() This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. Now widely recognized as Thomas Hardy’s masterpiece, this tragic story of virtue destroyed is one of the most moving and unforgettable novels in English literature. An earnest suitor named Angel Clare offers hope for salvation, but Tess must decide whether to confess her sins to the minister’s son-or bury them forever.įirst published in 1891, Tess of the D’Urbervilles scandalized Victorian readers with its frank depictions of female sexuality and its impassioned criticism of social conventions. ![]() The parson addresses the impoverished Durbeyfield as 'Sir John,' and remarks that he has just learned that the Durbeyfields are descended from the d'Urbervilles, a family once renowned in England. Reluctantly, Tess agrees, but when she falls prey to the manipulations of Alec D’Urberville, the widow’s dissolute son, her search for love and happiness takes a disastrous turn. Thomas Hardy 's Tess of the d'Urbervilles begins with the chance meeting between Parson Tringham and John Durbeyfield. ![]() A young woman struggles against tradition and circumstance in this novel of love, class, and deceit from the author of Far from the Madding Crowd.Ĭonvinced that his impoverished family has noble connections, John Durbeyfield implores his daughter, Tess, to visit the wealthy Mrs. ![]() ![]() ![]() Althea and her brothers lost everything except for a handful of things she managed to pack in a small bag when her Duke father was executed as a traitor for attempting to murder the Queen (that’s just not a good idea).Satisfying.Īs I try to consider what pertinent information to provide so you get where I’m coming from, here’s the plot info you need to know: ![]() There were so many opportunities for Beauty Tempts the Beast to fall into common trope traps, and Heath just didn’t go there. Overall: Heath is just a really good storyteller. Plot: Ostracized former aristocratic woman accepts proposition of brothel owner (among other things) to teach the prostitutes refinement so they can get new jobs. Heat Factor: She wears a sexy red corset with black lace for seduction purposes…Ĭharacter Chemistry: The fact that it was in no way based on seduction lessons made it perfect ![]() ![]() The proposed referendum triggered by that campaign would change the part of the 2022 law passed by Portland voters that established 5% as the maximum rent increase a landlord can impose on a new tenant after a previous tenant leaves voluntarily. The group, which unsuccessfully sued the city of Portland over the 2020 rent control referendum, spent the winter gathering the signatures needed to place its measure on the June ballot, even as some residents accused the organization’s signature collectors of using deceptive and misleading tactics. ![]() On June 13, Portland voters will consider another referendum, this one spearheaded by the Rental Housing Alliance of Southern Maine, previously known as the Southern Maine Landlord Association. The latest protection against increasing rents, however, could be short-lived if a group of landlords gets their way. ![]() Proponents say that initiative, along with a referendum passed in 2020 to cap rent increases at the rate of inflation and create a board to consider exceptions to price hikes, has allowed Maine’s largest city to implement some of the best protections for tenants on the East Coast amid a pronounced statewide affordable housing crisis. ![]() In November, Portland voters approved a ballot measure that limits rent increases to a maximum of 5% after a tenant voluntarily leaves a unit and a new resident comes in. ![]() ![]() ![]() She dives into the heart of the subject with courage and shows men that they can love and express emotions, regardless of their ages, cultural persuasion, or ethnicity. The will to change : men, masculinity, and love Author: bell hooks Summary: 'Written in response to the authors in-depth discussions with men who were inspired by her trilogy, All About Love, Salvation, and Communion, bell hooks The Will to Change addresses maleness and masculinity in new and challenging ways. In this book, hooks explores these themes with candor and grace, suggesting that that everyone deserves love, and more importantly, everyone needs to love. The Will to Change brings together these in-depth discussions for an exploration of the deep-rooted fears of men, including concerns about a loss of status in society and a fear of emotional openness. ![]() The Will to Change continues on this provocative path, with a brave and honest attempt to unravel questions and provide answers to questions about love, intimacy and the patriarchy.Īfter the publication of her triology, All About Love, Salvation, and Communion, hooks had conversations with men who were inspired to interrogate their indeas of gender and masculinity. Bell hooks didn't become one of America's foremost voices on modern culture by playing by the rules. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Indeed, to accomplish such a lofty goal, the Romans realized the need for radical transformation, a complete overhauling of one's life through rigorous mental and physical training, like turning base metal into pure gold. The Roman philosophers are not as well known or as highly regarded as Greek philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, or Zeno the Stoic - and for a simple reason: the Roman thinkers were not primarily interested in abstract theory rather, they were concerned with behavior, that is, understanding how to live in the everyday world and putting their understanding into practice,the goal being to live the life of an authentic philosopher, to be a person of high character and integrity and virtue, to develop inner strength and a quiet mind and value such strength and quietude above all else. This little book was written as a diary to himself while emperor fighting a war out on the boarder of the Roman Empire and today this book is known to us as The Meditations. ![]() In many important ways, the reflections of Marcus Aurelius (121 AD-180 AD) crystallize the philosophical wisdom of the Greco-Roman world. ![]() |