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![]() ![]() His fans tend to be drawn to either his massive, bafflingly complex efforts - the iconic, National Book Award-winning “Gravity’s Rainbow,” “Mason & Dixon” and “Against the Day” - or to the more constrained, plot-driven narratives of “Vineland” or “The Crying of Lot 49.” It is the big books, with their parades of gloriously obtuse set pieces, full of slapstick and conspiracy and minutely researched ephemera, that established Pynchon as a writer worthy of intense inquiry. ![]() This, of course, is exactly the kind of layered meaning that readers expect of Pynchon. What could easily be mistaken as a paean to 1960s Southern California is also a sly herald of that era’s end. “Inherent Vice” is Thomas Pynchon doing Raymond Chandler through a Jim Rockford looking glass, starring Cheech Marin (or maybe Tommy Chong). ![]() ![]() Pickering was unusual in his fervour to engage women, not only as “computers” in his observatory, but as an early form of citizen scientist too.īut it was a woman, Anna Palmer Draper, who set the course for their research. ![]() That the women were employed at all was due to the initiative of Edward Pickering, who was director of the Harvard College Observatory from 1877. The result is a biographical orrery – intricate, complex and fascinating. “Even before they won the right to vote, several of them made contributions of such significance that their names gained honoured places in the history of astronomy,” writes Sobel. At a time when men dominated not only astronomy but every branch of science, these industrious star-hunters were women.ĭava Sobel’s latest dive into the past (she is best known for Longitude and Galileo’s Daughter), The Glass Universe, explores these women’s lives and work, revealing their grit, tenacity and brilliance in classifying the stars. But if the ramifications were extraordinary, so too were the researchers. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice-for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Are we not men? We are-well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z (2006).Ī zombie apocalypse is one thing. ![]() ![]() Reader Note: I hear you enjoy too-hot to handle, off the charts hot sex, dirty talking, humor, violence and lots of roaring fights, you say? Then you've come to the right place. However, if you like sarcasm and hot sex with no filter, this is just your thing. If this is not the kind of stuff you like to read, skip this book. There's crazy people, ass kicking and sex so hot you're going to need batteries. This book is all about a sassy plus-sized gal and a bear-shifter alien who rocks her world. Even if he has to learn what groveling means. Good thing this bear isn't letting his woman go. With a brother wreaking havoc in his clan and his pregnant mate thinking she's a one-night stand, Talen has his work cut out for him. ![]() Now if only he could figure out how to convince her to return to his planet with him without offending her.again. ![]() ![]() What's a bear to do when his mate leaves him after he's mated her? Talen Arctos goes to earth to claim sassy and curvy Cassie. Who would say no to orgasms and aliens? Not this curvy girl! But when Gerri offers to prove aliens are real and multiple orgasms exist, Cassie can't help but be curious. Cassandra Grimaldi's boss has lost her mind. ![]() ![]() ![]() Under Chuck Smith’s direction, Eli begins the production by cleaning his rifle, so the violence to follow is a foregone conclusion. ![]() Mary’s brother Caesar (Kelvin Roston Jr.) is the power-hungry police officer who hassles everyone over that crime and more. Pittsburgh is in turmoil due to the recent theft of a bucket of nails from the town’s mill, and a resulting death during the chase. Lisa Gaye Dixon as Aunt Ester and James A. ![]() Williams), a former conductor on the Underground Railroad, aging white go-fer Rutherford Selig (Gary Houston), and troubled young everyman Citizen Barlow (Sharif Atkins). At Ester’s house, the trio interact with Eli’s friend and Ester’s flirt Solly Two Kings (James A. Smith, reprising this role from the 2015 Court Theatre production). Gem of the Ocean was written in 2003 and set in 1904 in the working class Hill District, where 285-year-old Ester Tyler (Lisa Gaye Dixon) lives with her helper and protegee Black Mary (Sydney Charles) and Eli (A.C. Playwright August Wilson’s body of work chronicled the history of Black lives and the impact of systemic racism in his Century Cycle, ten plays set in his hometown of Pittsburgh during each decade of the 20th century. Some jurisdictions and politicians are busily banning books and curriculums that even mention America’s original sin of slavery. Black history is continuously under attack, even during Black History Month. ![]() ![]() ![]() The inner workings of the closed country, Shara, are revealed, as is the existence of a hitherto unknown continent called The Land of the Madmen. ![]() The reader will learn about the exotic beasts used by the Seanchan, witness the rise and fall of Artur Hawking, peruse the deeper story of the War of the Shadow, and discover the tale of the founding of the White Tower, and the creation of the Ajahs. In this series companion book, over eighty full color paintings include maps of the world, portraits of the central characters, landscapes, objects of Power, and national flags. The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time is bursting with full-color art, legends, and stories from the iconic series. Since its debut in 1990, The Wheel of Time® by Robert Jordan has captivated millions of readers around the globe with its scope, originality, and compelling characters. The Wheel of Time is now an original series on Prime Video, starring Rosamund Pike as Moiraine! ![]() ![]() ![]() Told in an enchanting and unforgettable voice, The Teahouse Fire is a lively, provocative, and lushly detailed historical novel of epic scope and compulsive readability. Aurelia becomes Yukako’s closest companion, and they, the Shin family, and all of Japan face a time of great challenges and uncertainty. We see it all through the eyes of Aurelia, an American orphan adopted by the Shin family, proprietors of a tea ceremony school, after their daughter, Yukako, finds her hiding on their grounds. more Get A Copy Kindle Store 9. It was a period when wearing a different color kimono could make a political statement, when women stopped blackening their teeth to profess an allegiance to Western ideas, and when Japan’s most mysterious rite-the tea ceremony-became not just a sacramental meal, but a ritual battlefield. The story of two women whose lives intersect in late-nineteenth-century Japan, The Teahouse Fire is also a portrait of one of the most fascinating places and times in all of historyJapan as it opens its doors to the West. The story of two women whose lives intersect in late-nineteenth-century Japan, The Teahouse Fire is also a portrait of one of the most fascinating places and times in all of history-Japan as it opens its doors to the West. “Like attending seasons of elegant tea parties-each one resplendent with character and drama. ![]() ![]() This episode also includes a discussion about financial markets, digital assets, and the health of Western economies. At the top of this list is an emerging cold war between the United States and a coalition of authoritarian powers led by China and Russia, two nations that are increasingly cooperating on matters of national and economic security. While Doom is mainly a history of disaster, its lessons apply most urgently in our own time, which provided us an opportunity to explore some of the contemporary challenges that we face in western society with someone who thinks and writes about such risks and opportunities regularly. What all these catastrophes share in common is a striking combination of operator and managerial error resulting from systemic problems that became calamities in the face of predictable, though unimaginable crises. In Episode 189 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with historian Niall Ferguson about his latest book, “Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe.” The book is a historical tour de force of epic disasters ranging from pandemics to botched military responses, to nuclear accidents. ![]() ![]() ![]() Shana wakes up one morning to discover her little sister in the grip of a strange malady. a story about survival that’s not just about you and me, but all of us, together” ( Kirkus Reviews, starred review). From the mind of Chuck Wendig comes “a magnum opus. And a teenage girl who may be the world’s last hope. ![]() ![]() This, of course, leads to Chuck Wendig’s Wanderers, the latest (and an instant classic) entry in the apocalyptic novel category.Ī decadent rock star. Coming up closer to our times, there’s the quiet, almost humane apocalypse of George Stewart’s Earth Abides, and of course, the big elephant in the room, the codifier of the Epic Apocalyptic novel, Stephen King’s The Stand as well as Swan Song by Robert R. Going forward several centuries, Mary Shelley’s The Last Man (1826) specifies a plague as the cause of humanity’s downfall. The apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic novel…one of the mainstays of Science Fiction for almost as long as the genre has been around and before, with some consideration given to the Epic of Gilgamesh as an apocalyptic epic. ![]() |