6/27/2023 0 Comments Night soldiers book![]() The Book of Spies brings us the aristocratic intrigues of The Scarlet Pimpernel, in which French émigrés duel with Robespierre’s secret service the savage political realities of the 1930s in Eric Ambler’s classic A Coffin for Dimitrios the ordinary citizens (well, almost) of John le Carré’s The Russia House, who are drawn into Cold War spy games and the 1950s Vietnam of Graham Greene’s The Quiet American, with its portrait of American idealism and duplicity. We meet diplomats, political police, agents provocateurs, secret operatives, resistance fighters, and assassins-players in the Great Game, or victims of the Cold War. These are not just stories of professional intelligence officers. ![]() Thus Alan Furst offers a diverse array of selections that combine raw excitement and intellectual sophistication in an expertly guided tour of the dark world of clandestine conflict. Inspired by the politics of tyranny or war, each of these writers chose the base elements of spy fiction-highly evolved spy fiction-as the framework for a literary novel. ![]() Here is an extraordinary collection of work from some of the finest novelists of the twentieth century. ![]() An anthology of the world’s best literary espionage, selected by a contemporary master of the genre, Alan Furst. ![]()
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![]() ![]() Book review by Iain Macwhirter, The Herald (March 26, 2022) Liberalism and its Discontents, Francis Fukuyama.Liberalism and Its Discontents - Francis Fukuyama on fixing democracy, Financial Times (March 14, 2022).Liberalism and Its Discontents by Francis Fukuyama review - history didn’t end, so what next for liberals?, The Times (March 12, 2022).Liberalism and Its Discontents by Francis Fukuyama review – a defence of liberalism… from a former neocon, The Guardian (March 8, 2022).Liberalism and Its Discontents, Kirkus Reviews (March 1, 2022). ![]() ![]() In this short, clear account of our current political discontents, Fukuyama offers an essential defense of a revitalized liberalism for the twenty-first century. The result, Fukuyama argues, has been a fracturing of our civil society and an increasing peril to our democracy. As the renowned political philosopher Francis Fukuyama shows in Liberalism and Its Discontents, the principles of liberalism have also, in recent decades, been pushed to new extremes by both the right and the left: neoliberals made a cult of economic freedom, and progressives focused on identity over human universality as central to their political vision. ![]() 6/26/2023 0 Comments Crank palace book buy![]() ![]() Click ‘Customise Cookies’ to decline these cookies, make more detailed choices, or learn more. ![]() Third parties use cookies for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalised ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. This includes using first- and third-party cookies, which store or access standard device information such as a unique identifier. If you agree, we’ll also use cookies to complement your shopping experience across the Amazon stores as described in our Cookie Notice. We also use these cookies to understand how customers use our services (for example, by measuring site visits) so we can make improvements. We use cookies and similar tools that are necessary to enable you to make purchases, to enhance your shopping experiences and to provide our services, as detailed in our Cookie Notice. ![]() 6/26/2023 0 Comments The tough guide to fantasyland![]() ![]() In an extended metaphor, the readers (or viewers or players) are tourists authors are tour guides, and their stories are sight-seeing tours or package holidays to this Fantasyland. Its conceit is that the fantasy worlds depicted in many fantasy novels, games, and films are identical, although tours visit different places such as provinces of Finland. Unusually, the book presents itself as a tourist guidebook its title alludes to the Rough Guide series, The Rough Guide to Finland and so on. ![]() "Our job was to decide whether each entry was necessary, to suggest new ones, to discuss whether some of the entries made sense (many didn't), and to provide examples in support of what each entry said." Description While hospitalized in 1994, she and Chris Bell worked on projected entries for the The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (Clute & Grant, Orbit Books, 1997). ![]() The inside back cover of the revised edition is a 2006 postscript by Jones, "How I Came to Write This Guidebook". ![]() 6/26/2023 0 Comments Lincoln book gore vidal![]() ![]() ![]() We were not taught about the regular and disastrous tactical failures of the Union Army under Southron-sympathising generals like McClellan in the early years of the war, nor of how close many of those battles came to completely undermining Northern confidence in the Greenback dollars that seem to have largely funded the war. Surprisingly, battles bored the younger me (now, they terrify me), so the litany of learning around the American Civil War (Bull Run, Second Bull Run, Vicksburg, Gettysburg, Atlanta, et cetera) didn’t do much for me. That is no doubt due to the fact that in the 70s and 80s, when I completed much of my schooling, public school curricula still bent in the direction of a legendary and cinematically simplistic view of history (where any history was taught at all). Lincoln: A Novel, by Gore Vidal (Random House, Inc., 1984)ĭespite having been educated largely in America, I can’t say that I knew much of anything of Abraham Lincoln. ![]() 6/26/2023 0 Comments Why a Duck? by Richard J. Anobile![]() ![]() Anobile selected wonderfully entertaining sequences from the movies, which enable the reader to enjoy these hilarious comedic actors in book form. ![]() Why a Duck? presents photographs made from actual movie-frame blow-ups and printed dialogue from segments of eight Marx Brothers movies. ![]() Their brother Zeppo also appeared in non-comedic roles in the first four movies covered in this book (listed below). Likewise, Groucho’s brother Harpo, who did not speak in the Marx Brothers movies, and his brother Chico, were both gifted comedic actors. To me, Groucho Marx was a comedic genius in both a visual and witty-dialogue sense. For as long as I can remember, I have enjoyed the Marx Brothers. Anobile, in 1973 and I have read it numerous times over the last 39+ years. I bought Why a Duck?: Visual and Verbal Gems from the Marx Brothers Movies, edited by Richard J. ![]() 6/25/2023 0 Comments George by alex gino sparknotes![]() ![]() It might be something you read before starting the first chapter. The Author notes were quite helpful in framing the reasons and connections as to why the story was written. Talking to others about these topics will give readers the chance to reflect and maybe begin to make change-just like Jilly’s family does in a bold way. The story is best read in a classroom or with family. This is where the power of Jilly P resides. What Jilly says will either match what young audience are thinking or make them realize they had never thought about it that way. She also has a liking for a deaf black boy she meets online via a chat room set up for a massively popular fantasy series. Next she witnesses racism in her own family and through the eyes of the deaf community. ![]() She has a new baby sister who is deaf and Jilly has her own ideas about how to deal with the disability. Jilly is a white middle school girl who reflects on the happenings in her life. Wow… a lot of topics to throw into one story-perhaps too many. Racism… Shootings of black youth… Treatment of deaf and deafness… White privilege… First crush. ![]() 6/25/2023 0 Comments Juni ba djeliya![]() ![]() ![]() The process of something like Monkey Meat is usually reserved for original graphic novel territory, smaller presses, or a novelty line. Seeing a creator handle the entirety of a publication for a company like Image is fulfilling in and of itself. There is definitely a different feel to a serialized comic, and it's clear that Monkey Meat benefits from a type of episodic pacing. Initially, I think it's important to recognize how cool it is that we get a series like this from a mainstream publisher. This first issue indicates that Ba is aiming for a mode of satire that will feel like a higher-octane version of Mark Russell. ![]() He feels more pointed, more realized as an auteur. In a mere few months from the release of Djeliya, Ba shows growth as both a visual and narrative storyteller with Monkey Meat. That anticipation culminates this week with the publication of Monkey Meat, Ba's anthology mini-series for Image Comics that is a delightfully bonkers, gonzo satire. Between following Juni Ba on Twitter and reading his 2021 West African fantasy graphic novel, Djeliya, I have been sufficiently hyped for the young cartoonist's next project. 7 min read Monkey Meat #1, by Juni Ba, published by Image Comics. ![]() ![]() I think there was enough of a story here to do that. I probably would have made this book a little longer and fleshed out the main character (Jake Abramson) a little more, provided more background etc. I thought Michael David Axtell did a good job with the whole book. ![]() Which character – as performed by Michael David Axtell – was your favorite? The main character in this is not quite so wreckless but still daring. I would probably compare this tithe Jude Hardin "Nicholas Colt" books. What other book might you compare The Shoulders of Giants to and why? ![]() Good fast pace and can easily be listened to in a day. Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why? This could be the start of a really good series ![]() 6/25/2023 0 Comments The Violent Season by Sara Walters![]() ![]() Everyone in Wolf Ridge accepts that the November sickness is real, and absolutely no one will talk about it. She digs up every past brutal act she can find from Wolf Ridge's past-from car wrecks, suicides, and unnamed victims turning up in rivers-and even reaches out to an out-of-state journalist that seems to believe her. Wyatt is going to prove it, and find her mother's murderer in the process. ![]() After Wyatt Green's mother was brutally murdered last Fall, she's convinced that the November sickness plaguing Wolf Ridge isn't just a town rumor that everyone 's a palpable force infecting her neighbors. Every November, every teen is overwhelmed with a hunger for violence.at least, that's the urban legend. There is something terribly wrong in Wolf Ridge. The unputdownable debut thriller you will never forget. ![]() |