Princess margaret lady in waiting5/29/2023 On 22 May, she boarded the ritzy SS United States -the largest ocean liner ever constructed in America-just days after her boyfriend, Senator Kennedy, had seriously broached the subject of marriage for the first time. Jackie had traveled around Europe for the first time with Aileen’s younger sister Helen in 1948, and jumped at the chance to do some on-the-ground reporting, promptly pitching and getting sign-off on the idea from her managing editor Sidney Epstein. Rather than a standard assignment from the paper, the trip had been proposed by her friend Aileen Bowdoin’s mother, who thought that a girls’ trip might cheer Aileen up following her recent divorce. Eight years earlier, she had been one of the 40,000 Americans who visited London for the Queen’s coronation in her role as The Washington Times-Herald’s “Inquiring Camera Girl”-sending home regular dispatches about both the Mayfair society set and the patriotic fervor that swept through the city in the run-up to June 2, 1953. In the summer of 1961, seven months after her husband moved into the Oval Office, Jackie Kennedy joined JFK at Buckingham Palace for a dinner given by Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, floating through the gilded state rooms in an ice-blue Chez Ninon gown and elbow-length gloves.
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Summer in Orcus by T. Kingfisher5/29/2023 And suddenly Summer finds herself in a strange, magical world, not at all certain where she’s going or what she’s supposed to do there. Instead, though, Baba Yaga looks deep into Summer’s heart and mind, then hands over a talking weasel to Summer and shoos her out of the house. When Baba Yaga offers Summer her heart’s desire, Summer really isn’t sure what to answer, though shapeshifting or being able to talk to animals do come to her mind. (“Summer’s mother believed that books were safe things that kept you inside, which only shows how little she knew about it, because books are one of the least safe things in the world.”) But Summer’s mother is no match for Baba Yaga! One spring day Summer is found by Baba Yaga ― actually, she’s found by Baba Yaga’s chicken-footed house, which manages to convinces Baba Yaga that Summer is the girl they want for some unstated purpose. Summer is a young girl whose overly protective, clingy mother tries to protect her from every possible danger, although Summer is allowed to read books about magic and shapechanging and such. I had so much fun reading this portal fantasy! Review first posted on Fantasy Literature: All the stars!! One reviewer described this award-nominated novel as "Narnia with teeth," and that's a great summary. The stars beneath our feet5/28/2023 The video component of the installation was made using a combination of TIRF (total internal reflection fluorescence) microscopy, dark field microscopy and a DSLR camera to produce moving images that focus on a perspective of micro-organisms that is other to that commonly used within scientific research. Using Atomic Force Microscopy, disturbances created by the micro-algae in the path of the microscope's laser beam were captured as data, analysed and translated using both sonification and audification techniques into sound files that were used to form the audio component of The Stars Beneath Our Feet. These microscopic organisms helped to create the conditions that enabled all life on earth and have the uncanny quality of resembling a sky filled with stars when viewed at scale. For The Stars Beneath Our Feet, their technology is appropriated to create an ambiguous perception of micro-algae: ancient photosynthetic organisms that absorb light and convert it into oxygen. Advanced microscopy techniques, which use lasers and computers instead of optics alter our sense of perception and might be considered as ‘looking without seeing’ and ‘listening without hearing'. Unfree Speech by Joshua Wong5/28/2023 His mother recalls him babbling like an orator from birth, and dyslexia meant that he learned to be a speechmaker to prove his intelligence. His Christian parents, who married in the weeks after the Tiananmen Square massacre named him Joshua after the Old Testament hero of Jericho, bringing down walls with his trumpet solo. Wong half-believes he was born to the role. It is also a call to arms to that generation that has known nothing but Instagram and Snapchat – a manifesto to “follow news sites for warning signs of political polarisation”, to use “fact-checking media”, to get out from behind their screens “to attend rallies and help organise election campaigns” and to remember, above all, any effort to preserve democracy “starts with one voice, one flyer and one speech”. This book is a memoir of an extraordinary decade in which Wong went from a nerdy obsession with Marvel comics to a Netflix documentary in which he was characterised as a superhero for democracy. Wong’s story is not unlike Thunberg’s to the extent that a stubborn school-based protest that might have once been confined to the human-interest pages of the local newspaper quickly became first a national and then a global concern. In a blurb to this book Thunberg describes him as “the future that has already come”. Wong, now 23, and having spent many months in prisons and detention centres, is the gnarled veteran leader of the “umbrella movement” against creeping Chinese authoritarianism. Creepy creepy carrots5/28/2023 The parents only showed up when there were problems and Jasper asked them for help. He pretty much remained the same size not showing that he was disadvantaged even though he was. There were times where Jasper was to the right of the page when he thought carrots were following him. It is ironic that the book makes carrots scary looking, since it is a children’s book and many children do not like vegetables. There is an outside looking in point of view all of the time. The reader is both far and up close sometimes. His parents are confused because they do not know what is going on with him. The story almost makes it seem like he is going crazy. Jasper, the main character, is represented as happy at first and scared and worried towards the end. There is one family through the whole book. Three carrots haunted and made him go crazy to the point he built a fence around them so they could never get out. The carrots, who are portrayed with human characteristics, were fed up with it so, they came up with a diabolical plan to make him hate them. Publisher and Year: Simon & Schuster Books 2012Īnalysis: Each analysis should be about 350 to 500 words and include the following information:Ī rabbit named Jasper ate carrots every chance he could, breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. Humphrey carpenter the inklings5/28/2023 Then suddenly his life changed dramatically. Lewis and the other writers known as The Inklings. After the war he returned to the academic life, achieving high repute as a scholar and university teacher, eventually becoming Merton Professor of English at Oxford where he was a close friend of C.S. He served in the first World War, surviving the Battle of the Somme, where he lost many of the closest friends he'd ever had. Born in South Africa in January 1892, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was orphaned in childhood and brought up in near-poverty. In the decades since his death in September 1973, millions have read THE HOBBIT, THE LORD OF THE RINGS, and THE SILMARILLION and become fascinated about the very private man behind the books. The authorized biography of the creator of Middle-earth. Axton Landing by Tony Holtzman5/28/2023 It is when prominent people were asked “are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party,” and to sign a loyalty oath to the United States. The year is 1953, the time of the House Un-American Activities investigations and the ascendency of Senator Joseph McCarthy. Springer has come to New York to warn the FBI that the Trudeau Foundation is under the influence of Communists. Arnold Springer, the director of the Trudeau Foundation’s Saranac Laboratory in Saranac Lake. Holtzman begins his story in the New York City office of FBI agent Larry Crane, who is meeting with Dr. A decade later, Bethune became a well-known Communist, working, and dying, in China. Holtzman’s new novel, “The Bethune Murals,” focuses on Norman Bethune, a physician who was a tuberculosis patient at Trudeau Sanatorium in the 1920s. Still life with crows5/28/2023 He gave the Evisceration floor a once-over, snaking the jet here and there to catch a few stray strings and wattles, the odd beak, causing the stragglers to jump and dance under the play of the hose. Stott worked the jet like an artist works a brush, teasing everything into a long bloody rope before giving it one final signature blast that propelled it down the drain with a wet swallow. With the expertise of years, Stott flicked his hose hand left and right, sending additional strings of offal skidding away under the force of the cleanser, rolling them all up neatly together as they were forced toward the center. Willie Stott moved across the slick concrete floor, sweeping the hot mixture of bleach and water back and forth, propelling stray gizzards, heads, crests, guts, and all the other poultry effluvia- collectively known as "gibs" by the line workers- toward the huge stainless-steel sink in the center of the Evisceration Area floor. Just another bucolic evening at Gro-Bain, the turkey processing plant on the outskirts of Medicine Creek, Kansas. Warning: This novel contains profanity and graphic violence. McRaven, a former SEAL and commander of the United States Special Operations Command, said he intended this book to encourage young readers to become their best selves. "In this picture-book version, Skipper the Seal embarks on Navy SEAL training, where he and his fellow recruits learn perseverance, dealing with failure, and of course, to make their beds. The key concept he emphasizes is the importance of using your mistakes to spur better self-discipline. "This new book teaches kids about perseverance and dealing with failure."- CBS This Morning McRaven uses Make Your Bedbased on his commencement speech to the 2014 graduating class of the University of Texasto turn his military experience into civilian tips for improving your life. As Skipper the seal embarks on Navy SEAL training, he and his hardworking friends learn much more than how to pass a swimming test, including the need to take risks and persevere through tough times."- Publishers Weekly, Fall 2021 Young Readers Editions "In this children’s adaptation, McRaven shares life lessons from Navy SEAL training and encourages young readers to become their best selves. "Life lessons are learned as Skipper the seal trains to become a Navy SEAL."- The New York Times Bestsellers Children's Invisible man ralph ellison sparknotes5/27/2023 “The myriad problems faced by the nameless narrator of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man: the cruel disillusionments he undergoes with Dr. Stealing electricity from the city, he lives underground invisible to the rest of the world. In the beginning of the book he is figuratively invisible, by the end of the book he is literally invisible. Despite the places he goes and relationships he builds, the world continues to ignore him. The audience is able to watch events unfold as he interacts with society and the people around him. This is because the main character –the invisible man- is Black. The invisibility is also figurative, “I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me” (Ellison 3). Invisibility is literal because he is ignored by mainstream society. He is invisible both literal and physical. It tells the story of a nameless man who is invisible. Invisible Man is an American literary classic. |