![]() He takes his character into the depths of hell and lets him thrive there. Diop realizes the full nature of war - that theater of macabre and violent drama - on the page.
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![]() ![]() Together with her older brother Grant, her mother's son by a previous marriage, Marge Piercy grew up in a working-class neighborhood marked by racial tension. Her mother, Bert Bernice Bunnin, from an observant, working-class Jewish family in Cleveland, received only a tenth-grade education. ![]() Her father, Robert Douglas Piercy, from a working-class Presbyterian family in a coal-mining town in Pennsylvania, installed and repaired heavy machinery for Westinghouse. Piercy was born March 31, 1936, in Detroit, Michigan. Her novels explore “the choices people make, out of their characters and their time and their class and their social circumstances.” Novels persuade readers “to cross those borders of alienation and mistrust” and empathize with “characters whom the reader would refuse to know in ordinary life.” Piercy’s poetry fuses the political, domestic, and autobiographical spheres, with imagery drawn from nature, sensual and dream memories, and Jewish mysticism. By articulating their experiences, poetry gives “validation and dignity” to the disenfranchised. Above all else, Piercy wishes her work to be “useful” to people’s inner and political lives. ![]() Grounded in feminism, political activism, and Jewish spirituality, more than thirty volumes comprise Piercy’s oeuvre. In Parti-Colored Blocks for a Quilt, a collection of autobiographical essays, novelist and poet Marge Piercy admonishes, “Pay sharp attention to that trouble looming but don’t let it taint your Sabbath celebration.” This tension between celebration and disquietude marks Piercy’s life and work. ![]() ![]() ![]() Together, they escape the gruesome realities of battle and travel over mountains and across deserts, from one world to another. In this epic and intimate story set in 1914 Sarajevo, gentle-souled Rafael Pinto pounds herbs in his pharmacy until war explodes with Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination and Pinto finds himself in the trenches, falling in love with fellow soldier Osman. The Center for Fiction welcomes multi-award-winning author Aleksandar Hemon ( The Lazarus Project, The Matrix Resurrections) for the launch of The World and All That It Holds-a grand, tender, sweeping novel that spans decades and continents and cements Hemon’s status as one of the boldest voices in fiction. All registrants will receive a link to livestream the event. The Ticket/Voucher option includes a $10 Bookstore voucher, redeemable toward the featured event book on the night of the event. ![]() ![]() Cara claws her way out of the literal wastelands to become a traverser, someone who travels in time from one world to another. I don’t want to give away the brilliant plot, so I will be a bit cagey with my review. The lead character is Cara, a rough and tumble woman who is clever, resourceful, and, above all, fearless. The book is a haunting sci-fi thriller that has characters who are impossible to forget. It was exactly the kind of read I needed this year. I’ve behind on a lot of my reading this year, too, but I think that’s to be expected in times like these! Nevertheless, I was so happy to pick up and read The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson. Between a cancer scare and the COVID-19 pandemic, I’ve really needed to check out in the late nights and early mornings when I read. This year I’ve been trying to read a lot of escapist fiction. ![]() Sometimes the path to an easy life makes you miserable.” ![]() “They say hunting monsters will turn you into one.” “The universe erases me, but it also remakes me again and again, so there must be something worthwhile in this image.” ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Memorable girls and women-damaged, truculent, curious, stalwart-occupy Diski’s pages, claiming space, agency, and well-deserved attention. A teenager’s mother matter-of-factly talks blow jobs and doing drugs with her 13-year-old. A housewife enjoys a “filthy” affair, even as “life went on as normal.” A toddler’s mother goes on a Caribbean vacation only to realize her husband is a dull disappointment. A woman manifests her lifelong goal of the perfect, all-day bath. A writer has an afternoon tryst with a stranger after discussing the “leaper” who’s disrupted rush-hour subway traffic. A single story, “Strictempo,” gets plainly autobiographical as it portrays a 15-year-old expelled from boarding school and returned to negligent parents. King,” as Diski alchemizes Rumpelstiltskin’s tale into “Shit and Gold,” a wicked feminist reclamation. WITH A PREFACE BY HEIDI JULAVITS, AUTHOR OF THE FOLDED CLOCK. ![]() Another royal becomes “Queen–meaning Mrs. Read 65 reviews from the worlds largest community for readers. readers is her spectacular 1995 collection of bizarre-to-rueful-to-stunning stories, bookended by two princesses living (and reading) in towers: the titular “vanishing” princess, who learns about food, time, and mirrors and the “Old Princess,” whose long life is spent waiting. She spends her days reading books, with the occasional glance through the window at a world which does not interest her. In fact, she has never even considered it. We can’t call her imprisoned as she has never attempted to leave. Although Diski is renowned across the pond, her defiant treatise against her terminal cancer, In Gratitude, published just before her 2016 death is, ironically, what earned her substantial stateside acclaim. Review: The Vanishing Princess by Jenny Diski Meridian A princess lives in a tower. ![]() ![]() This continued through his school years, during which time he discovered comic strips such as Pogo, Krazy Kat, and Charles Schulz' Peanuts which subsequently inspired and influenced his desire to become a professional cartoonist. Watterson drew his first cartoon at age eight, and spent much time in childhood alone, drawing and cartooning. Watterson has a younger brother, Thomas Watterson. In 1965, six-year-old Watterson and his family moved to Chagrin Falls, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. The suburban Midwestern United States setting of Ohio was part of the inspiration for Calvin and Hobbes.īill Watterson was born on July 5, 1958, in Washington, D.C., to Kathryn Watterson (1933-2022) and James Godfrey Watterson. Watterson was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. ![]() Watterson is known for his negative views on comic syndication and licensing, his efforts to expand and elevate the newspaper comic as an art form, and his move back into private life after he stopped drawing Calvin and Hobbes. Watterson stopped drawing Calvin and Hobbes at the end of 1995, with a short statement to newspaper editors and his readers that he felt he had achieved all he could in the medium. ![]() William Boyd Watterson II (born July 5, 1958) is an American cartoonist and the author of the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, which was syndicated from 1985 to 1995. ![]() ![]() ![]() She is sent to live with her older sister, who hasn't seen her in ten years. ![]() With Ruby seven months away from her eighteenth birthday, child services stepped in. She went to work and school and lived alone for months before her landlords realized what was going on. When a week turned into two, then three, then a month, Ruby knew her mom wasn't coming back. Ruby became used to her mom disappearing for a few days now and then. The older Ruby got, the more her mother depended on her - and on substances. Ruby's mother, preferring to drown her sorrows in alcohol than deal with them head-on, made her daughter give her excuses to visitors, landlords, and bosses. Finally, they find a little yellow house to rent. They lived in random places and cramped spaces above other people's garages. Ruby's definition of family is about to change, and she's not quite sure what that means.įor years, Ruby and her mother moved from apartment to apartment. ![]() 7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:ĥ.0 out of 5 stars Lost and Found, April 22, 2008Īsk twenty people to define "family," and you'll get twenty different definitions. ![]() ![]() ![]() Here, too, is a riveting behind-the-scenes look at the varied personalities-Campbell, Ellison, Heinlein, Clarke, del Rey, Silverberg, and others-who along with Asimov helped shape science fiction.Īs unique and irrepressible as the man himself, I. Here are his wide-ranging thoughts and sharp-eyed observations on everything from religion to politics, love and divorce, friendship and Hollywood, fame and mortality. ![]() Here is the story of the paradoxical genius who wrote of travel to the stars yet refused to fly in airplanes who imagined alien universes and vast galactic civilizations while staying home to write who compulsively authored more than 470 books yet still found the time to share his ideas with some of the great minds of our century. Asimov is his personal story-vivid, open, and honest-as only Asimov himself could tell it. His accessible style and far-reaching interests in subjects ranging from science to humor to history earned him the nickname "the Great Explainer." I. Arguably the greatest science fiction writer who ever lived, Isaac Asimov also possessed one of the most brilliant and original minds of our time. ![]() ![]() ![]() SpaceNext50 Britannica presents SpaceNext50, From the race to the Moon to space stewardship, we explore a wide range of subjects that feed our curiosity about space!.Learn about the major environmental problems facing our planet and what can be done about them! Saving Earth Britannica Presents Earth’s To-Do List for the 21st Century.100 Women Britannica celebrates the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment, highlighting suffragists and history-making politicians.COVID-19 Portal While this global health crisis continues to evolve, it can be useful to look to past pandemics to better understand how to respond today.Student Portal Britannica is the ultimate student resource for key school subjects like history, government, literature, and more.This Time in History In these videos, find out what happened this month (or any month!) in history.#WTFact Videos In #WTFact Britannica shares some of the most bizarre facts we can find. ![]() Demystified Videos In Demystified, Britannica has all the answers to your burning questions.Britannica Classics Check out these retro videos from Encyclopedia Britannica’s archives.Britannica Explains In these videos, Britannica explains a variety of topics and answers frequently asked questions. ![]() ![]() ![]() Aster lives on the low-decks of HSS Matilda, a spaceship that is full to the brim with the last members of humanity, in search of the Promised Land. Because of this, she is withdrawn and has few friends, taking comfort in plain stated truths and verbal abuse by virtually everyone. ![]() She is incredibly intelligent, but struggles to figure out how to interact with society and people. SummaryĪster has always been an outsider. It is refreshing and, beyond anything, hopeful, to see this book interrogate these issues in the newly published science fiction world. ![]() I wasn’t sure what I was expecting when I was reading the summary, but the diversity, discussion of race and gender, and characters are stunning. An Unkindness of Ghosts absolutely blew me away. ![]() |