![]() I wildly, wholeheartedly disagree with your politics and beliefs. And, honestly, I don’t feel that great about it anymore. You have LGrin to thank–that poster made me realize I’ve been pretty awful about berating you here. I promise to consider any answer you write, and I’ll leave you in peace from now on. Seriously, though, I’m asking for real and trying not to be a jerk for once: How is NK a JSW, but you’re not? I truly don’t understand your beef, and in many era you come across as a right-wing racist. Most people would delete, delete, delete… You could delete all of these negative posts but you keep them up, mainly to help your cause, as you suggested earlier, bit still. Look, I’ve been mean to you–as have others here on your blog. Or are you making a dividing line between religion/politics? If NK Jemisin were politically/religiously aligned with you, would you still have an issue with her? ![]() Doesnt the fact that you now have a voice at the table make you an SJW? ![]() I KNOW, Jon! Look, you’re exactly what the genre needs–minority voices bringing fresh perspectives to these stories! And by all accounts (based on reviews, etc) you’re actually a decent writer, as much as I hate to admit it.Īnd that’s why I don’t understand why you attack other authors of color for being SJWs. ![]()
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![]() One of the twentieth century's greatest spy novels, Night Soldiers is a thrilling portrait of one man's extraordinary adventures and of Europe teetering on the brink of the Second World War. Warned that he is about to become a victim of Stalin's purges, Khristo must again take flight, this time to Paris, where he is a small player on the wrong end of a social scene that is simultaneously decadent and doomed. His first mission is to go to Catalonia, where he is soon caught up in the bloody horrors of the Spanish Civil War. Taking a risk on the promise of Communism, he flees to Moscow and is trained as an agent of the NKVD, the Soviet secret intelligence service. Khristo Stoianev sees his brother kicked to death by a gang of fascist thugs. Includes a preview of Alan Furst’s new novel, Mission to Pariswith movie stars, elite spies, and German political warfareon sale in June. 'Furst never stops astounding me' Tom HanksĬhosen as one of the 50 Best Modern Crime Novels by Marcel Berlins, crime reviewer, The Timesīulgaria, 1934. The three classic spy novels in this read all night eBook bundle will transport you to the dark conflict between fascists, communists, and the people who fought back against them. The Spies of Warsaw (2008) Night Soldiers (1988) Dark Star (1991) The Polish Officer (1995) The World at Night (1996) Red Gold (1999) Kingdom Of Shadows (. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() 'Furst's ability to recreate the terrors of espionage is matchless' Robert Harris 'Complex, intelligent, hugely intriguing - Alan Furst is in a class of his own' William Boyd ![]() ![]() They have more food options and can afford to buy everyday items that are much cheaper than they used to be. People are healthier now than they were in the past. ![]() Over the past 10,000 years, life expectancy has increased and infant mortality has decreased. In fact, an experiment was conducted where an artist tried to make a better version of a cheap toaster using his own hands however, the finished product wasn’t as good as the original he bought at the store for only $5! The ability of humans to combine their intelligence allows them to grow steadily wealthier over time through increased division of labor (the specialization of work). This shows that humans have more power as a group than any individual alone. However, no one person could build a computer mouse from scratch. For example, someone has to drill for oil and make plastic before a computer mouse can be made. Humans are the most advanced species on earth because of their ability to share knowledge and learn from each other. ![]() 1-Page Summary of The Rational Optimist The Rise of Collective Intelligence ![]() ![]() ![]() Others have predicted not only a traducing of the traditional purpose of universities, but a broader intellectual and moral collapse, as the doctrines taught in those succumbing institutions of higher learning leech into the corporate world through those graduates employed in marshalling capital’s human resources. T he state of the youth in America is hardly a new preoccupation, and as long as we have seen the future, some have predicted chaos and doom following on the heels of the next generation.Ĭritics have described it as a “crisis on campus”, and employed language befitting a crisis. Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, Penguin Randomhouse 'The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting up a Generation for Failure' ![]() ![]() ![]() In the hardest times of my life, I can always find meaning in looking for small ways to practice kindness.īut this post isn’t just about my dad. ![]() ![]() And his words have probably been the single piece of advice that most contributed to my own sense of purpose in life. He said, “When you have a chance to help someone, and it’s easy for you to do.just do it.”Īfter years of hearing this every time I saw him writing a check, explaining why he believed in donating anonymously, or every time he advised me on how to-as he might say, “not to be an asshole”-I internalized it. His approach to “doing good” was as practical and logical as you’d expect from an actuary. He was a businessman and philanthropist, though he never would have identified as such. His words were fresh on my mind as I recently celebrated his life on the 11th anniversary of his death from Lewy’s Body dementia. One of my earliest lessons on living a life with meaning came from him. It was one of his top character strengths and he expressed it effortlessly. ![]() ![]() The first Russian edition appeared in the west in 1980 after a copy was smuggled out of the Soviet Union.Īs much as I enjoyed Life and Fate, I didn’t close it wishing it was longer. The manuscript was confiscated by the Soviet authorities and remained unpublished at the time of Grossman’s death in 1964. It was a brave and, as it turned out, reckless book. Its furious commitment to exploring the uniqueness and humanity of a huge cast of characters is a powerful rebuttal to twin ideologies that regarded people primarily as members of races or classes. The book’s size is made less daunting by Grossman’s short chapters, his vivid writing and his engagement with such daring topics as the parallels between Hitler and Stalin, the Soviet penal system, Russian nationalism and official antisemitism. ![]() It centres on the members and associates of a single extended Russian family, the Shaposhnikovs, whose world is torn apart by the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. ![]() Life and Fate has weaknesses and longueurs, but when I did read it, I found it a rewarding experience. ![]() ![]() ![]() Īn epic, sprawling tale beginning with the end of WWII, when then 11-year-old Roland Baines has his life turned upside down. ![]() ![]() ![]() From the big look at history to the details of Roland’s own journey through it, this is a masterful and valuable novel perhaps the lasting word on this particular type of (the British white male of a certain class) Boomer experience. This is a very British novel - from the fall of the Berlin Wall to Brexit, Roland and his friends discuss world events through the lens of their party politics - but Roland himself is a very relatable and sympathetic character: the good-hearted, rational everyman who witnesses and comments on the big and small events of his generation. The protagonist Roland Baines - for whom author Ian McEwan admits he “raided bits of (his) own life” for the first time - is a bit of a loser in middle age as the novel opens (his wife has just left him and their infant son Roland can’t commit to a career beyond a bit of lounge piano playing here, some tennis lessons or freelance journalism there), but as he considers his life and we get to revisit his childhood (and watch him age), it becomes clear that some early trauma “rewired” him for life, setting Roland drifting helplessly against the great tides of historical events. Lessons is an epic of the British white male Baby Boomer experience, from a postwar military base-hopping childhood to solitary COVID-19 lockdowns in old age. ![]() ![]() In “Red as Blood”, Snow White is the daughter of a witch, and her father has married a Christian woman, who drives out the evil witchcraft in her stepdaughter by arranging for her to be confirmed in this new religion. In “The Paid Piper”, the titular character steals not the living children of Hamelin, but the as yet unborn in the town of Lime Tree, where the rat god Raur is worshiped. stretching forward to “Beauty”, set in an unspecified but fairly distant future and an unnamed but northern country. (Many of the fairy tales are disappointingly sparse in their terse setting down of the plotline.) Additionally, the stories diverge from the originals in their settings in locale and period they’re arranged chronologically, according to Lee’s settings, from “The Paid Piper” set in Asia in the first (or last) century B.C. ![]() There are hints of Hans Christian Anderson in some of the religious symbolism, and Edgar Allan Poe and Robert Chambers in the horror/supernatural aspects herein, but all filtered through a modern feminist sensibility and bedded in a vocabulary much lusher than the originals on which Lee’s based her tales. The Frog Prince/The Princess and her Future ![]() Just as a disclaimer at the beginning, Lee’s stories aren’t all based on the Grimm brothers’ collection of folk tales-the ballet Swan Lake is based (so far as I can tell) on several Russian folk tales, and Beauty and the Beast is French, first set down by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve-but in the main, she’s selected fairly well-known tales:Ĥ. ![]() ![]() ![]() Avery is a regular guy who loves vampire movies, books, and TV shows and has always wished that he could be cool and mysterious and powerful (not to mention sexy) like the vampires in his favorite movies and shows. A fast-paced thriller that both re-imagines and pays tribute to the traditional vampire, Ancient Blood is a story of love, ambition, sacrifice, and betrayal that is frighteningly human.Īncient Blood is the story of Avery Doyle getting what he’s always wanted most: to be a vampire. Sebastian, however, has a plan that will change The Order forever and shatter human civilization. In order to survive, Caroline and Avery take their place as servants in Sebastian’s household during a gathering of the most powerful vampires on Earth, the Hegemony, and soon find themselves involved in the myriad schemes, plots, and revenges that form the night-to-night existence of The Order. ![]() Avery Doyle loves vampires when his first one-night-stand, Caroline, turns out to be a true vampire on the run, he jumps at the chance to leave his ordinary life and join her as a “child of the night.” The honeymoon ends, however, when Caroline’s brutal Creator Sebastian enslaves them on his island estate and Avery must confront the dehumanizing reality behind his dreams. ![]() ![]() ![]() No matter the cheering or the direction from the coach, no one is going to propel you down the pool but yourself. Swimming is also sport for the internally driven. My swimming friends were my closest friends because I saw them the most, I suffered with them, I laughed with them, I travelled with them, we saw each other in next to nothing for hours on end. Everyone in the pool is pushing each other and not so secretly competing even on practice days. The majority of the time you compete as an individual but you train as a team. Heck, you really only noticed the bottom of the pool when it marked that you were close to the wall. Swimming, for me, wasn't about staring at the bottom of the pool. But the truth is that it was hard to give an answer. ![]() And only asked by people who could never really understand whatever answer I gave. ![]() It was the most common question I got in twelve years of competitive swimming. "How do you just stare at the bottom of the pool for hours on end?" ![]() |