6/10/2023 0 Comments Troubadour mary hoffman![]() I love the blend of the modern and the exotic in these stories, which besides being magical fantasies also deal with strong emotional themes of illness and death, bullying and persecution. ![]() Each book is set in a different Talian city, based closely on real Italian cities well known to the author. The ‘Stravaganza’ series, beginning with ‘City of Masks’, is set partly in our modern world and partly in an alternate universe’s 16th century Italy: ‘Talia’, which can be reached by cross-dimensional travellers – ‘Stravaganti’ – who are in possession of certain talismans. ![]() A great deal of careful research goes into her fantasies, the well known ‘Stravaganza’ series – as well as into her YA historical fiction like the highly acclaimed ‘Troubadour’, set in the Languedoc at the time of the Albigensian Crusade. To be convincing, any fantasy world needs roots in reality – and Mary Hoffman’s wonderful books are an excellent example. After all, you don’t have to do any research, do you? You just make it all up out of your own head, don’t you? Well, um, no. Many people imagine that writing fantasy must somehow be easier than writing realistic or historical fiction. ![]()
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![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Will had been abused by his ex-boyfriend and was skittish of all men now - especially if they were twice his size, like Seth.Werewolves Jacob and Seth have found their mates in Kory and Will. Straight Kory ran into Jacob in Seattle several times and found himself having lots of definitely un-straight thoughts about him. And it didn't hurt that the incredible hunks - ex-Navy SEALs Jacob Steele and Seth Ralston - were working there, too. ![]() For college students Kory Maguire and Will Cooper, the camp was a way for them to help abandoned and confused gay kids find their way in life. Enter Camp Pride and its devoted staff of volunteers and backers. For most of them, the torment they received at those schools and at the hands of their own families was enough to make living on the street seem like a better proposition. ~Book 15~This book is part of a series.It contains Graphic language, violence, and homosexual relations.Glory days? If high school was their glory days, the outcast gay teens at the outreach centers run by Caden Fournier were screwed. ![]() 6/9/2023 0 Comments Lin manuel miranda musical![]() ![]() What show/shows are you currently working on? Without further ado, here are Tony Award Winner Lin-Manuel Miranda’s awesome answers to our 10 Questions.Ģ. “How long do my answers have to be?” Sounds like a 12-year-old getting an essay assignment, right? when I ask people to answer my “10 Questions,” the most common answer I get as a reply (when I get a reply) is. In fact, here’s a perfect example of how much he cares about the movers and shakers and the writers to be. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that he invented a flying machine too.Īnd to say he gives back to the community is an understatement. He’s a composer, lyricist, actor, musician, poet, and one of the most beloved guys on the Broadway scene. Miranda does a whole lot of things, and, unlike most, he does a whole lot of them unbelievably well. ![]() To call Lin-Manuel Miranda just a writer is like saying Da Vinci was just a painter. ![]() ![]() ![]() In this witty, engaging book, Twitchell describes his own experiences trying out different churches to discover who knows how to "do church" well. Successful pastors ("pastorpreneurs," Twitchell calls them) know how to speak the language of Madison Avenue as well as the language of the Bible. Filling the pew is an exercise in salesmanship, and as with any marketing campaign, it requires establishing a brand identity. There is more competition among churches than ever in our history. But, says James Twitchell, this isn't because Americans are undergoing another Great Awakening rather, it's a sign that religion providers-that is, churches-have learned how to market themselves. We can wear our religious affiliation like a designer logo. Religion is now celebrated and shown off like a fashion accessory. ![]() Churches that don't know how to do this or don't bother are fading away. Churches that know how to appeal to those shopping for God are thriving. Today, many Americans change their denomination or religion, sometimes several times. A couple of generations ago Americans remained in the faith they were born into. Just as we shop for goods and services, we shop for church. How did this happen? And what does it mean for religion and for our culture? Now religion is marketed and advertised like any other product or service. Today religion is everywhere, from books to movies to television to the internet-to say nothing about politics. Not so long ago religion was a personal matter that was seldom discussed in public. ![]() ![]() In 1812, he participated in Napoleon's Russian retreat. A highly placed relative obtained for Stendhal an administrative position in the army that took him to Germany, with periodic trips back to Paris. Back in Paris, Stendhal resigned from the army, and from 1802 until 1806, he studied the eighteenth-century materialistic philosophers Helvétius and Cabanis, and aspired unsuccessfully to become a playwright. Thirsting for adventure, he went to Paris, and securing a commission in the army, sojourned briefly in Italy, a country he came to love above France. ![]() Stendhal studied at the Ecole Centrale in Grenoble until 1799, excelling in mathematics and art. Of a fiery and rebellious nature, Stendhal declared himself early to be an atheist and "jacobin," or liberal - an expression of revolt, no doubt, against his father. ![]() ![]() Later, he idealized her memory just as he exaggerated the mediocrity of his father. ![]() Chérubin Beyle, Stendhal's father, a reactionary in politics, was an industrious, narrow-minded bourgeois, whom Henri detested and to whom he later referred as the "bâtard." Stendhal loved his mother tenderly, but this delightful woman, whose origin Stendhal liked to think was Italian, died when he was only seven. Henri Beyle (Stendhal) was born in 1783, in Grenoble, into a respectable, middle-class family. ![]() ![]() ![]() Through two Ph.D.s, friendships, relationships, a marriage, and the birth of her child, Cooper Jones attempted to be as “normal” as possible. ![]() “But also about the ways that I was complicit - by not learning enough about myself and my community and my history, all the things that can give you a very strong sense of where you belong in the world.” “I had no real critical thought about it because that would require me to actually think about myself and my body and the way that I interacted with the way people saw me,” she says. She was born with a rare congenital condition that shaped her physical self and often left her in acute physical pain. Growing up in Kansas, she learned to manage this pain and evade strangers’ occasionally cruel comments - about her short stature, or the way she walked - by closing herself into a “neutral room” in her mind, where she distracted herself until the physical and mental discomfort passed. Chloé Cooper Jones and her son, Wolfgang, at the Whitney Museum.įor many years, Chloé Cooper Jones tried to ignore her body. ![]() 6/8/2023 0 Comments Miles morales reynolds![]() ![]() Maybe kids like Miles aren’t meant to be superheroes. After all, his dad and uncle were Brooklyn jack-boys with criminal records. When a misunderstanding leads to his suspension from school, Miles begins to question his abilities. ![]() Oh yeah, and he’s Spider Man.īut lately, Miles’s spidey-sense has been on the fritz. He’s even got a scholarship spot at the prestigious Brooklyn Visions Academy. Dinner every Sunday with his parents, chilling out playing old-school video games with his best friend, Ganke, crushing on brainy, beautiful poet Alicia. Miles Morales is just your average teenager. ![]() And Miles knew hustling was in his veins.” “Everyone gets mad at hustlers, especially if you’re on the victim side of the hustle. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The particulars of the killings are so similar to the first set of murders that Amanda is convinced Cardoni is involved. But Cardoni has disappeared, and this time it's his former wife, Justine Castle, who's implicated in the new crimes, and Amanda who's retained as the lead attorney in the case. And when a similar field of mutilated bodies turns up years later, Cardoni is again the primary suspect. In this explosive and fast-paced suspense thriller, the forensic evidence against Cardoni is so convincing that even after his acquittal on a technicality, the reader, like Amanda, is sure of his guilt. The victims have one thing in common: they are missing vital organs, which were clearly harvested by an expert surgeon. Vincent Cardoni when he is charged with multiple counts of murder. Neophyte attorney Amanda Jaffe takes second chair to her father, a successful criminal lawyer retained by Dr. When a killing field is unearthed in the Oregon woods, it's linked to a Portland surgeon whose increasingly aggressive behavior and explosive temper have already drawn the attention of his colleagues. ![]() 6/7/2023 0 Comments The diabetes code diet![]() ![]() Insulin is more importantly a fat storage hormone that blocks the burning of fat and causes excess sugar to be turned into fat through lipogenesis. ![]() 2 With all food consumption, especially carbohydrates, insulin is secreted to drive blood sugar into cells. 1 Fung is a nephrologist by training and runs the Intensive Dietary Management Program at the University of Toronto.įung formulated a new understanding of obesity by developing the argument that obesity is a hormonal illness of excess insulin. He is famous for postulating that with complex problems, the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions is usually correct. William of Ockham (1287-1347) was an English friar and philosopher. Jason Fung, MD uses Ockham’s razor to si mplify the management of type 2 diabetes. Publication Information: Vancouver, Canada, Greystone Books, 2018, 296 pp., $22.95 ![]() ![]() ![]() This title was EC's best seller, and was the inspiration of several feature films and the HBO series of the same name.Īs a devoted fan of EC Archives, it's with no small measure of sadness that I confess my nut-shrinking disappointment with the sad sack stories in the first half of this collection. This volume reprints the first six complete issues (24 stories) of the comic book Tales From the Crypt, originally published in 1950, and features classic horror stories of vampires, werewolves, ghouls and monsters in the vein of hte early Dracula, Frankenstein and Wolf Man movies. ![]() ![]() The subject matter for EC Comics were horror, science fiction/fantasy, crime stories, war stories and stories with a social message that generally had a twist or "shock" ending. EC Comics were superior to other comics of the 1950s because of a higher quality of writing and artwork, and they were widely imitated by other comics publishers. These comic books were accused of having no redeeming value to society and were effectively banned by the actions of these groups in creating the Comics Code. Psychiatrist Fredric Wertham and Senator Estes Kefauver's Committee on Juvenile Delinquency attacked horror comics as causes of the rise in juvenile delinquency and crimes by minors. EC Comics (Entertaining Comics) were all published from the late 1940s until around 1956, when the Comics Code Authority whitewashed all comic books to remove all themes of horror and violence. ![]() |