![]() ![]() But there are gaps between the bars: whispers of long-forgotten gods, scarlet where the white paint on the walls of the Ward had chipped, an Elysium bird sailing high over the Ward like an omen. Nirrim worked to fit herself inside the narrow confines of this life, the words “it is what it is” like a mantra, like fingers reaching into her mouth, pinching her tongue and keeping her from crying out. ![]() They drip with perfume and are corrupt from soft living, and the best our protagonist, Nirrim, can hope for is a life spent creeping in their generous shadows. The High Kith wear their wealth as comfortably as the expensive leather that is forbidden in the Ward. A world that lays itself open for only one faction: the High Kith. ![]() “It is what it is.” With such a simple yet foreboding line, Rutkoski paints a vivid portrait of an intriguing, deadly world in the first installment of The Midnight Lie series. ![]()
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![]() It was an engrossing read that left him caught between the thawing Appalachian winter he'd just left behind and the artificial warmth of his Manhattan apartment, mercifully spared by Superstorm Sandy. He'd just finished reading Flight Behavior, Barbara Kingsolver's latest novel of love, loss and climate change, the story of a young woman's derailed ambitions and the millions of monarch butterflies that found themselves on her in-laws' struggling Tennessee farm, their typical winter migration disrupted by a warming planet. ![]() A Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) in Costa RicaĪlan turned off his Kindle, slightly nostalgic for the satisfying slap of a hardcover firmly closed and stowed as a souvenir of some imagined world. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Eventually Sarat is befriended by a mysterious functionary, under whose influence she is turned into a deadly instrument of war. But not everyone at Camp Patience is who they claim to be. ![]() When her father is killed and her family is forced into Camp Patience for displaced persons, she begins to grow up shaped by her particular time and place. But even she knows that oil is outlawed, that Louisiana is half underwater, and that unmanned drones fill the sky. Sarat Chestnut, born in Louisiana, is only six when the Second American Civil War breaks out in 2074. Omar El Akkad’s debut novel, American War, is an unlikely mash-up of unsparing war reporting and plot elements familiar to readers of the recent young-adult dystopian series The Hunger Games and Divergent.”Īn audacious and powerful debut novel: a second American Civil War, a devastating plague, and one family caught deep in the middle-a story that asks what might happen if America were to turn its most devastating policies and deadly weapons upon itself. As haunting a postapocalyptic universe as Cormac McCarthy in The Road, and as devastating a look as the fallout that national events have on an American family as Philip Roth did in The Plot Against America. . ![]() ![]()
![]() ![]() ![]() And its goal is the Christ-exalting glorification of God through the gladness of a redeemed people in a new world.ĭrawing on a lifetime of theological reflection, biblical study, and practical ministry, pastor and author John Piper leads us on a stunning tour of the sightings of God’s providence-from Genesis to Revelation-to discover the allencompassing reality of God’s purposeful sovereignty over all of creation and all of history. Providence is “God’s purposeful sovereignty.” Its extent reaches down to the flight of electrons, up to the movements of galaxies, and into the heart of man. ![]() From Genesis to Revelation, the providence of God directs the entire course of redemptive history. ![]() ![]() ![]() Her moral nihilism and thus her murders are a way of life-the only way of life she has ever known.īut when a letter appears in the mailbox that will have the power to topple Kit’s convictions as perfectly as she commits her murders, she must make a decision: follow the only rules she has ever known, or challenge Rule One, and go from there. ![]() Every letter she receives begins with “Dear Killer,” and every time Kit murders, she leaves a letter with the dead body. The letters and cash that come to her via a secret mailbox are not a game choosing who to kill is not an impulse decision. ![]() Kit takes her role as London’s notorious “Perfect Killer” seriously. The first blow should be the last, if at all possible. Rule Three-Fight using your legs whenever possible, because they’re the strongest part of your body. Rule One-Nothing is right, nothing is wrong. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Now, a new, four-part series on Netflix called Unorthodox explores what it means for a Jewish American woman to seek redemption in the city. Yet the rise of anti-Semitic hate crimes and the far right means Germany is still a very fraught place to be Jewish. Germany's capital has secured its place as one of the cultural hubs of Europe. "You have politicians who are relativizing the Holocaust, relativizing the Nazi period who are actively calling for forgetting," Angelos explains. īut despite Germany's memorials, there's been a backlash with the rise of the far-right populist Alternative for Germany party. "Germany is seen around the world as a model for how a country can face its past - and it has done that in a way few countries have," says journalist James Angelos. Somber monuments, museums, stumbling stones and plaques dot nearly every block. In Berlin, reminders of the city's violent past are everywhere. Shira Haas plays Esther Shapiro in Unorthodox, a four-part Netflix adaptation of Deborah Feldman's 2012 memoir. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Arturo grows up largely on his own, in the spacious, unkempt Casa dei Guaglioni, or the Boys' House. His mother died while giving birth to him, and his father, Wilhelm, leaves the island for weeks at a time. Set on the small island of Procida, in the Bay of Naples, the story is a fictional memoir in which Arturo, the central character, recounts the years of his adolescence. Ann Goldstein's new version, which has merits of a different kind, is the first to appear since then. It soon attracted the attention of Isabel Quigly, whose remarkably fluid translation, Arturo 's Island, appeared in 1959. L'isola di Arturo, however, was an inspired work of fiction. Once, he suggested, it was given to a writer who needed the money for his daughter's wedding. Her husband, Alberto Moravia, who had won the prize in 1952, said in an interview that it had not always been decided on fairly. ![]() With the publication of L'isola di Arturo in 1957, Elsa Morante became the first woman to be awarded the Premio Strega, Italy's most coveted literary prize. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() While Selene is learning more of the past, representatives from the other Houses meet at the Ravenwood Home, Rook Castle, to discuss an alliance against the Dominia Empire. In the background of Selene's tale is that of the ever-encroaching Dominia Empire which had attacked the Seven Houses hundreds of years ago. This realization – of the dark job that the dreamwalkers perform – does not sit well with Selene. They actually are hired by others to gather information and sometimes as assassins. Sadly Selene is informed by her mother that the Ravenwood women do not use their gifts of entering another person's dreams for good. ![]() The story starts with a special ceremony in which the heir to the House of Ravenwood, Lady Selene, receives a special mark and eventually awakens with her new power – that of a dreamwalker. ![]() ![]() His journey to find his place in a world that's drastically changed takes him through mythical worlds to retrieve his old heirlooms, the back roads of America for a twisted reunion, and even Hell itself-to receive the dubious honor of picking the next Devil. Upon his escape from an embarrassing captivity at the hands of a mere mortal, Morpheus finds himself at a crossroads, forced to deal with the enormous changes within both himself and his realm. Regardless of cultures or historical eras, all dreamers visit Morpheus' realm-be they gods, demons, muses, mythical creatures, or simply humans who teach Morpheus some surprising lessons. The Sandman is the universally lauded masterwork following Morpheus, Lord of the Dreaming-a vast hallucinatory landscape housing all the dreams of any and everyone who's ever existed. ![]() |