![]() ![]() ![]() (There are same-sex encounters in Ellis’s previous work, but The Shards might reasonably be described as the author’s gay novel.)īret’s world is superficially glamorous and aspirational, and existentially horrifying and depressing. He has athletic sex with classmates, all of whom are porn star hot. He keeps a record of the movie stars he fantasises about while jerking off: Richard Gere, Mel Gibson, Dennis Quaid. He is an obsessive consumer of movies and pop music and fashion, his tastes for the most part blandly conformist Young Republican: Polo shirts, collars up tennis shorts Topsiders with no socks Wayfarers. He drinks vodka grapefruits, and munches his mother’s Valium, takes bumps of Debbie’s cocaine, and scores Quaaludes by the bag. ![]() He drives a Mercedes 450 SL, when he’s not driving a Jaguar XJ6. His parents are absent, emotionally as well as physically, away on a months-long trip to Europe.īret runs with a fast set. ![]() He has a Latina maid, Rosa, and a dog, Shingy, and a girlfriend, Debbie, all of whom he keeps at a distance. An only child, Bret lives in splendid isolation on Mulholland Drive, in a house overlooking the San Fernando Valley. Bret Ellis is 17, a senior at Buckley, an exclusive prep school for the entitled offspring of wealthy Los Angelenos. ![]()
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![]() The end result has been damage to the surrounding native plant species that can’t endure saline soil. This non-native plant is accused of wasting water and turning soil salty. In a controversial new book WHERE DO CAMELS BELONG? Why Invasive Species Aren’t All Bad (Greystone Books September 9, 2014, $17.95, 978-1-77164-096-1), Ken Thompson investigates an array of invasive and natural species to determine how much we really need to fear alien invaders, such as the tamarisk. If we were to ask, “Where do camels belong today? If we reintroduced camels into the US, would they be considered native or invasive? How would they affect the other native species?” Unfortunately for Titanotylopus, the camels that were living in North America went extinct about 8,000 years ago. ![]() ![]() ![]() They eventually spread to South America, Africa, and Asia-places we think of when we consider where camels thrive today. ![]() “Ken Thompson’s fascinating and highly readable book takes us on a tour of the way that ecologists have made invasive species public enemies without any good basis.”Ĭamels evolved in North America 40 million years ago, and the largest camel that ever lived, the Titanotylopus, made its home in Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, and Arizona. ![]() ![]() You can read my reviews of both The Fifth Seasonand The Obelisk Gate, but do beware of spoilers.Īs in the previous two novels, Jemisin does some really interesting things with point of view, bouncing between three characters and their various timelines to tell the story of struggle and survival as Essun and her daughter unknowingly work against each other. The Stone Sky is the final book in the Hugo award-winning Broken Earth trilogy. It’d been over a year since I read The Obelisk Gate, and though my reviews helped me remember what had happened, picking up the pieces and jumping back in was a bigger job than I was prepared to do.Īnd finally, almost six months later, it’s done. I wasn’t reading much of anything when I first checked out The Stone Sky. ![]() ![]() Finally, after months and months of trying to make time for this book, I’ve finished it.ĭon’t let that be a reflection on the book it’s not its fault. ![]() ![]() ![]() However, during this unit (and especially in the Close Study section) students will be asked to explore more closely the exact nature of the texts in terms of genre, structure and language features. In her introduction to Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia, Heiss refers to the various texts in the book as ‘accounts’. ![]() This will be a focus for students’ reading of various texts. Taken together, the fifty accounts illustrate Dr Anita Heiss’ statement that ‘there is no single or simple way to define what it means to grow up Aboriginal in Australia’ (Heiss, p. The content of each account in this book is a recollection of a significant event in the writer’s life.Therefore, the following introductory activities will have to be handled very positively and tactfully to gain students’ interest and involvement without potentially further alienating them. Whilst it is encouraging that mainstream social attitudes to Indigenous identity and culture are changing positively, it is also possible, unfortunately, that some students may have formed negative views about Aboriginal people based on misinformed social attitudes. It is quite probable, depending on the location of your school, that your English class will not contain any Aboriginal students. Introductory activities A note to the teacher ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() They are a story of magic or alien science, but the connection to Cinnamon's past is unmistakable.When an act of violence wounds her family, Cinnamon and her theatre squad determine to solve the mysteries and bring her worlds crashing together. That won’t necessarily stop her! But her family life is a tangle of mysteries and secrets, and nobody is telling her the whole truth.Before her brother died, he gave Cinnamon The Chronicles of the Great Wanderer―a tale of a Dahomean warrior woman and an alien from another dimension who perform at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. But she’s always been theatrically challenged. Cinnamon Jones dreams of stepping on stage and acting her heart out like her famous grandparents, Redwood and Wildfire. ![]() ![]() ![]() We Ascend Instrumental by Michael Briguglio □ Non-con gaslighting manipulation treacherous body syndrome frank discussion about abortion cheating (not between MCs)īoys of Bellerose series - Jaymin Eve & Tate JamesĪ list of abbreviations and terms frequently used in relation to dark romance novels can be found at ✅ Contemporary dark stalker romance interracial age 30+ FMC OTT jealous/possessive MMC OTT obsessive MMC blackmail somnophilia Neurodivergent MMC psychopath MMC alphahole psycho MMC spanking captivity ultimate misunderstanding biting non-consensual marking HFN P.S: We apologize for the weird echo on Tori's side of the recording, we've been having some technical difficulties with her microphone and are hoping to have it all fixed for the next episode. ![]() Lots of well researched reasons for that, but we made a mistake so I wanted to address it. We continually use sociopath instead of psychopath when we’re discussing Axel, and the correct term is psychopath. We both read it separately as it just came out, and we loved it so much we just had to talk about it, so why not record the conversation? I do want to make one correction for a mistake in the recording. This week we did an impulse recording on Drethi Anis’s 5,000 Nights of Obsession. ![]() ![]() We’ve missed y’all as well as each other during our hiatus, but baby, we’re back! We hope to maintain a more regular recording schedule over the summer while Tori is out of class. First off, welcome back, Trigger Tribe! We are so excited to be recording once more. ![]() ![]() ![]() This added a very positive outlook to the novel, making it capture my interest even more. He was a good friend of detective Poirot, and narrated the entire book. This added a entire new layer of mystery to the novel. However, after Jane Wilkinson also became a victim of murder my perspective as a reader had been changed. Ět first it seemed very obvious that the first victim of murder, Lord Edgware had been killed by his wife Jane Wilkinson. However, this novel did not fail in to least to capture my full attention after a few pages. I love this aspect.Īs I started reading this book the foreign language, and the old English discouraged me from reading any further. In my opinion, this adds a stronger connection to the characters of the book. With the exception that our favorite detective Hercule Poirot is the main detective in every one. My favorite favorite part of the series is how there is no set story arc, therefore every novel becomes an original. The plot is very consistent and detailed. Every chapter is well developed and captivating. The depth of mystery in every one of your novels, including this one, is astonishing. ![]() ![]() ![]() This was a very entertaining read and I would recommend to all that share my interest in mystery novels.Īgatha Christie, your work is simply put, immortal. ![]() ![]() ![]() Bock takes us inside one of history's most explosively successful businesses to reveal why Google is consistently rated one of the best places to work in the world, distilling 15 years of intensive worker R & D into delightfully counterintuitive principles that are easy to put into action, whether you're a team of one or a team of thousands. Drawing on the latest research in behavioral economics and with a profound grasp of human psychology, Bock also provides teaching examples from a range of industries - including companies that are household names but hideous places to work, and little-known companies that achieve spectacular results by valuing and listening to their employees. This insight is the heart of WORK RULES!, a compelling and surprisingly playful manifesto with the potential to change how we work and live. It's not right that the experience of work should be so demotivating and dehumanizing." So says Laszlo Bock, head of People Operations at the company that transformed how the world interacts with knowledge. ![]() ""We spend more time working than doing anything else in life. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() It also works to balance out the masculine perspective of the earlier work. I wondered whether it made a difference as to whether one had read Oryx and Crake, as this book is something akin to a sequel. ![]() Perhaps (this is just a suggestion!) some male readers can't relate to the experience of most of the earth's women as sexual commodities. As for the characters, I found them believable, engaging and sympathetic. Atwood has always been great at problematising the relationships between religion, science and society, and this could be the real triumph of the book. The production decision to arrange and perform the hymns was COMPLETELY wrong - bad idea, bad arrangements, bad performances! Fortunately, my audio-book reader meant I could listen to them at x2 speed, with the added bonus of making them sound like they were underwater! Aside from that, I loved the book and the reading. Part of what changed my mind was the striking division in customer reviews: female readers loved it, male readers hated it. But the negative reviews meant I didn't buy it immediately. I do like Margaret Atwood, and had read and loved Oryx and Crake. I was both curious and dubious about this book after reading the reviews. ![]() ![]() ![]() Moriarty gives us a main cast of three quirky couples and explores how the events of one Sunday afternoon forces them to reconsider their marriages, their identities, and their parenting skills. ![]() Truly, Madly, Guilty tells the story of an innocent backyard barbecue gone terribly wrong. My book club buddy Caroline found the first half of the novel so frustrating, she removed it from our 2017 reading list. In fact, I know some people who refuse to read it because their friends have hated it. Her latest release, Truly, Madly, Guilty, has gotten mixed reviews. Her books are an appealing mix of humor and reality that touch on every day challenges but also have an intriguing element of mystery. Ever since I listened to Big Little Lies last year, I’ve been a huge Liane Moriarty fan. ![]() |