Movie Review- Honeymoon
Bea & Paul are on their honeymoon and have decided to go to her family’s summer cabin in a remote part of the country surrounded by woods and a lake. At first, the newlyweds are happy and enjoying their stay.
Then, Paul wakes up extra early to go ‘catch a fish’ for their breakfast and realizes the alarm went off too soon. He goes back in the house to find Bea gone. He searches for her, finally finding her naked and cold in the woods.
Taking her home, she tells him she was just sleepwalking and has no recollection of how she got there or why. For a while, things are okay. But soon, Bea starts acting bizarre. She starts forgetting things, refusing to be intimate, and lying.
Paul figures out that something is wrong and confronts her. But Bea is not who she was when they came.
I can’t give away too much. I did feel like this horror movie rushed things – especially the end. Once Paul knows more is wrong with his wife than he thought, he delays. Instead of running and escaping, he hesitates. In the end, he seems way too calm to me.
An interesting tale, but I think the suspense and horror could’ve been slowed down a bit as the ending felt rushed.
My rating 3.4 stars out of 5
Andrea R. Cooper writes fantasy, paranormal, and historical romance.
Her favorite childhood memories revolved around creating vibrant characters for her friends and then acting out their adventures. Inside her fantasy worlds of darkened forests, dragon-filled glades, and iced islands, nothing was banned. From the ethereal Elvin to the most maligned Vampires, all were welcome in her fictional realities, a stark contrast to her home, where the magical and mythical was forbidden.


Ladies and Foreign Guys by Flo Paquet
Many women and overseas men have seen love in Vietnam. Over the years, migration to Vietnam has produced tremendously due to development throughout the economy. There are many posts about ladies https://arkitongrupo.com/2021/01/25/a-relationship-with-a-brave-and-beautiful-ukraine-woman/ and men whom left their home countries to find romance polish brides in Vietnam. Many women move alone or perhaps in organizations to find appreciate in Vietnam.
However , some women and foreign guys in Vietnam fall under the class of ‘trafficked women’ or perhaps ‘asa khom inh’. These types of women of all ages are both married or perhaps live with traditional husbands. In many cases, these types of women will be widows or perhaps left as children to care for their very own elderly husbands. They are therefore forced into marriage by simply all their Western males who assured them monetary support in exchange for relationship.
Like other countries in Southeast Asia, the Philippines has additionally experienced a trend of migration seeing that Asian women and foreign partners have been brought there with a variety of factors. Many people migrate for the Philippines to finish their education. Other folks go there to seek work. Even now others move to the country to be with all their Asian husband(s). The Philippines presents a broad array of choices for ladies from completely different cultures and backdrops.
Moreover to relationship entanglements, there are cases of kidnapping with regards to ransom and also other criminal actions committed simply by Philippine guys against all their Asian female friends and associates. This challenge has made the search for trustworthy sources of help for those in need of help pertaining to staying or perhaps moving in foreign countries increasingly hard for foreign women and Filipino men. There are stories of women who had been abducted and sold into slavery inside the rural countryside of the Philippines. There are also accounts of women who had been raped, jailed, and exposed to a lot of tortures. For such both males and females, there is no for a longer time a safe dreamland.
Many foreign ladies and Filipino https://www.dahua.sk/2020/01/page/6/ men illustrate the process of marital relationship in the Philippines as both equally a blessing and an encumbrance. In some cases, the blessing will involve a good, stressful courtship, while in other instances the responsibility consists of ethnical norms that keep many ladies confined to the domestic part of their comes from the Korea and be subject to abuse as a result of their husbands. These chapters describe different types of marriages, the responsibilities of wives and partners, and the experience of women after matrimony. In addition , these stories allow those readers who are generally not members in the Filipino Diaspora to understand how Filipino ladies and foreign males interact and what the dynamics of marriage really is in the Philippines. Filipino women of all ages are seen not merely as associates in marriage, but as individuals who have become complete members of their families as well.
The book Ladies and Foreign Men describe the challenges and triumphs of the women and Philippine men because they interact in the twenty-first 100 years. While there is usually some criticism of certain aspects of traditional gender jobs, women may still knowledge more power and opportunities than is stereotypical in the country. Various Philippine girls may even business lead traditional people and have children at the age of fourty or 50, which is far younger than the average associated with most traditional western women. During your stay on island is much critique of the establishment of marital life, it is even now prevalent inside the society and there is room for improvement. The publication Women and Foreign Men thus offer a confident reflection of your experiences and perspectives of girls, foreign husbands, and the Filipino communities http://desarrollo.mcvicious.com/alpacine/2019/09/03/solitary-females-looking-for-marriage-partners-will-find-a-bride-designed-for-marriage-via-the-internet/ that pleasant them.


14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Ah, the madeleine dipped in tea,
By A Customer
This review is from: In Search of Lost Time: Swann's Way v. 1 (Modern Library) (Hardcover)
For the longest time, I was too intimidated to read Proust. Then, one day, I dived into this first volume like jumping into the deep end of a swimming pool. My only regret is not having jumped in sooner.
This book is the beginning of one of the greatest novels ever written. The prose and imageries are breathtaking--not at all difficult to read if you take the time to savor each sentence. Proust, like all great writers, makes you read on his terms. But once you've surrendered to the style, what a treasure you find yourself floating in. The themes and characters are universal. It makes me wish I knew French to enjoy Proust untranslated. Swann's Way can be read as its own novel. But once you start, you would surely want to continue on.


I stuck with this book til the bitter end because I kept thinking there must be a satisfying tying-up of myriad loose ends. But no. The book just didn't seem to have a point. If the writing and narration hadn't been as good as they were, I wouldn't have been able to stick it out. There were some interesting characters, too. But in the end, I felt there needed to be a stronger story line.
This is one of the worst Grisham books I've listened to. Very thin storyline, little action, no suspense. Maybe it's because I listened to the abridged version, which is something I never do. Still, I was grateful when it was over. I don't know if I could have listened to the entirety of the unabridged version.
The characters were tired caricatures, especially the cranky judge. No substance to any of them.
This reading also had some loud, obnoxious musical interludes sprinkled in. The music didn't fit the story and was quite annoying.
I'm not a big fan of Blair Brown but she was okay in this instance.
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Children's Literature - Judy ChernakMax hasn't found his dreidel yet, but we can join in the fun of Hanukkah preparations as we help the rest of the family discover their menorah, prayer book, and gelt (coins) and fry up a batch of latkes. Luckily, there's a present waiting for Max, so his quest has a happy ending. This charmingly illustrated, inexpensive book will be a welcome addition to the gift pile for the very young.
Max searches for dreidel and helps his family prepare for the family's Hanukkah celebration. Color illustrations throughout.
Children's Literature - Judy KatshA young boy searches through the sturdy pages of this lift-the-flap book for his lost dreidel. While he does not find his lost toy, he does see his family members all polishing, and otherwise readying different traditional Hanukkah treasures of their own. For young readers unfamiliar with the holiday, this interactive introduction will be informative, as well as entertaining to read. For young readers who have grown up with Hanukkah customs, the fun here will be in guessing what's under each flap. Readers who like their endings happy will be pleased to know that while our young hero really doesn't find his lost dreidel; he does get a new one from his grandma! (Too bad directions for playing the game aren't included).
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This week's Collective Worship theme is 'Fair and Unfair'.
The children will be taken on a journey to reflect on different aspects of God's love.
“See how much the Father loves us. He has made us children of God” – 1 John 3:1
God’s love is unconditional. Sometimes life seems pretty unfair. Often we are treated in a way that makes us feel sad,
hurt and annoyed. God reminds us not to be jealous or annoyed if someone is shown kindness or generosity.
Instead look how generous God is!
Father God, You keep giving and giving and giving. From when we wake up until our head hits the pillow.
And even in between. Thank you that your love doesn’t depend on how I live and what I say and do.
You love me for being me. Amen.


Goodreads: Written in the Stars
Published: March 24, 2015
Naila’s parents have always made her understand that though she may choose her outfits and even her college major–assuming they allow her to go to college–they will choose her husband. Until then, Naila not only cannot date a boy, she cannot even talk to one. But then she falls in love with Saif and her parents, ostensibly to protect her, take her on a trip to Pakistan, where they force her into marriage. Alone and desperate, Naila wonders if her fate is truly written in the stars or if she can escape the path others have chosen and forge her own.
Written in the Stars is a powerful and a heartbreaking book, one that looks unflinchingly at the nightmares faced by girls forced into marriages against their wills. While the story is never graphic, it is honest, and it spares neither its characters nor its readers from unthinkable violence, coercion, and cruelty; the horrors are made all the more disturbing because Aisha Saeed reminds us that, for some, Naila’s story is not fiction, but their reality. Written in the Stars is an important book it many ways–it features diverse characters (the protagonist is the daughter of Pakastani immigrants) and shines a spotlight on the violence perpetrated against unwilling brides. It resonates so strongly, however, because its message never seems forced or didactic. Saeed lets her characters tell the story, inviting readers into their lives, so that we can feel Naila’s pain and desperation, all her fear and betrayal, and make it our own. When we try to imagine walking in Naila’s shoes, that is when to continue reading seems impossible–and when Written in the Stars has its opportunity to leave an indelible mark on our hearts.
Writing a story about a girl forced into marriage in Pakistan could be considered risky. How do you tell a such story without appearing to demonize a culture or a country? Saeed handles her material deftly. All her characters are fully-realized–even Naila’s parents, who could have easily been turned into stereotypes, possess many facets, from overprotective to loving to forceful. And the characters introduced by Naila’s arranged marriage prove just as three-dimensional–her husband, for instance, seems to understand Naila’s position but also feels trapped by the pressures imposed on him by their community. By showing us that these characters are people, all of them dealing with the clash of cultural and society expectations against their personal desires in their own unique ways, Saeed ensures that her story is about individuals and their choices, rather than a blanket critique of any one group of people.
While I found the focus on societal expectations relevant, however, the most powerful part of Written in the Stars for me was Naila’s struggle with how much control she has over her own fate. She is a victim of abuse and violence and she has absolutely no one to whom she can turn. Even those who sympathize with her urge her to give up, to accept that life is a struggle and a nightmare and that she has no way out–the best she can hope for is acceptance. Without a phone, money, or transportation, she is literally trapped. And she knows that if she ever tries to escape, she will probably die. If Naila were to give up, I thought, I would not blame her. She would only be choosing to protect the little she has left. And I wondered what I would do if I were in her place.
Written in the Stars never pretends that there are any easy answers, not to how one should choose to respond to outside pressures or to whether or not anyone should risk everything for their freedom. It simply acknowledges the tragedies that so many experience and celebrates the resilience of the human spirit. That kind of hard look at reality presented to a teen audience is rare and beautiful. And it makes this book one of the must-read releases of 2015.
Bilbo Baggins lives a comfortable life in the Shire, one full of predictability and devoid of any adventure. Then one day the wizard Gandalf appears on his doorstep and suddenly Bilbo’s life is turned upside down. Enlisted as a burglar to steal back the treasure of a band of Dwarves, Bilbo sets out on a journey across Middle-earth–a journey that will end in dragon fire.
In 1799, an event known as the Great Disruption threw time off across the world, plunging some countries back into the Dark Ages and throwing others far into the future. Fractured by the different ages, the world began a new age of exploration and mapmakers gained new prestige. Sophia’s parents were explorers but never returned from an expedition, so she lives now with her uncle, the famed cartologer Shadrack. When Shadrack is kidnapped, however, it is up to Sophia and her new ally Theo to travel the world and bring him home. The first in the Mapmakers Trilogy.
The Map to Everywhere by Carrie Ryan and John Parke Davis
A legendary map exists that can take the bearer wherever he or she wishes to go. Marrill hopes it can take her back home to Arizona. Master Thief Fin longs to use it to find his mother. But though the two ally themselves with a powerful wizard and the world’s best captain in a quest to join all the pieces of the map together, another seeks the map as well–the Oracle, a wizard gone mad who seeks to bring about the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy, a prophecy that foretells the end of the world. The first book in the Pirate Stream series.
The mysterious death of a professor draws together three strangers from Oxford, John, Jack, and Charles. Informed by a friend of the professor’s that they are now the Caretakers of an atlas of imaginary lands called the Imaginarium Geographic, the three set sail for the Archipelago of Dreams, where all the places of myth and literature exist. There the Winter King covers the lands with shadow and enslaves the people. But before the Caretakers can defeat the darkness, they will first have to battle the monsters within themselves. The first in the Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica.
When J.R.R. Tolkien was creating Middle Earth, he decided to build his world upon language. He used his knowledge as a philologist and his familiarity with over twenty languages to create unique languages for his races, and then to craft each people’s stories around those languages. While readers are familiar with the resulting Elvish dialects and the Dwarvish runic alphabet, Tolkien’s attention to his own language, the language of his novels, is perhaps less recognized. Yet the way Tolkien’s stories are written are just as important as the characters and actions they are written about. Tolkien’s work draws on Old and Middle English vocabulary and sentence structure to very deliberately create a sense of the old.
By combining older English words with modern ones, and sometimes by creating his own pseudo-archaic word forms, Tolkien gives reader a sense both that the stories of Middle Earth (The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion) happened in the past and that they happened in an English past. Tolkien’s novels are very closely tied to his country, and his readers can close their eyes and imagine that maybe these stories really happened, sometime long ago. The language encourages a connection between the readers and the stories, and help them imagine the stories are real.
Although the task seems challenging, Tolkien’s work has, of course, already been translated into numerous languages, and while I have not yet had the privilege to read any of those editions, I do know what I would be looking for in a translation: fidelity not just to the meaning of Tolkien’s words, but also to their feel—their sense of being steeped in history. A great translation of The Lord of the Rings would feature archaic vocabulary and syntax, while still maintaining enough of a connection to the modern form of the language that the book did not feel too foreign or difficult. It would be capture all the subtle shifts in tone between each race of people, from the whimsy of the Hobbits to the seriousness of the Dwarves and the formality of the Elves. It would use language to bring Tolkien’s world to life.
Good stories impact people—move them, inspire them, and challenge them. Good translations help make those stories available to a larger audience, so more of us can be inspired. Translation services like Smartling can help do that.
Goodreads: The Tolkien Reader
Niggle longs to complete his final painting before going on a journey he knows he must take, but his neighbor Parish constantly interrupts his work with requests for help. As Niggle fears, he at length has to depart with his work still unfinished and with nothing to help him on his way except the record of his past conduct.
Briana has touched before on the allegorical underpinnings of Leaf by Niggle, most notably the connection to J. R. R. Tolkien’s own creative process and the obvious parallels between Niggle’s journey and the Christian afterlife. Though it is, indeed, impossible to read Niggle without reflecting upon both these aspects, the story is so much more than the sum of its elements. Niggle invites readers, whether artists or not, to participate in the story and go along with its characters to the afterlife, much as The Divine Comedy works by asking readers to identify with Dante-Pilgrim and take a part in his salvific journey. The result is a powerful reflection, not merely on the role of art in society or the need to do good works or on what we might expect after death, but on how all of these aspects touch us in our own lives. Reading Leaf by Niggle is an intensely personal experience, one of those kind felt too deeply for words to do it justice.
Not everyone, of course, may relate at first to Niggle. He is an artist and one apparently modeled on Tolkien himself, with his reputation for getting lost in details and taking too much time to complete any given work. However, even those who don’t feel creative or think they lack artistic talent can identify with other aspects of Niggle’s personality–his feeling of under-appreciation, his desire to spend more time on the things that matter to him rather than on the things he ought to be doing, his annoyance over the inopportunities created by his friends and neighbors. Niggle has things that are important to him, but that are not important to anyone else, and he feels alone and he dreads lost dreams. Such experiences are not limited to the artistic.
The resolution of Niggle’s story will prove especially powerful for anyone who, like him, had a dream left unfulfilled. It promises everything–help and appreciation and beauty and fulfillment. It is an especially moving moment because it illustrates so perfectly how the vision of others can complement our own and how our own work can become part of something greater than we ever imagined. Leaf by Niggle is, above all, a story of hope–a story that it says we, too, can share.
Originally written for presentation at the 1939 Andrew Lang Lecture and later published in 1947, this essay describes J. R. R. Tolkien’s views on what makes a fairy tale distinct from other literary forms and explains his artistic philosophy, arguing that fairy tales are unique in their ability to offer readers the consolation and joy of the happy ending–an effect he calls “eucatastophe”.
“On Fairy-Stories” will prove a treasure mine for any serious fan of Tolkien as it illuminates his views on the genre of the fairy story and details his understanding not only of what makes a fairy tale work (that is, what makes it believable and a work of Art) but also of what makes fairy stories valuable. However, his words, coming as they do from one of the fantasy genre’s most influential writers, will also hold weight for anyone interested in fairy stories either as a reader or as a writer. Though written over 70 years ago, they remain timely and pertinent as fantasy and fairy stories continue to struggle to be recognized as legitimate literary forms in certain circles, being labelled derisively as “escapist” or “not real.” But as Tolkien reminds us, it is fantasy above all that calls attention to our true reality, giving us a glimpse of things beyond our seeing and fulfilling our heart’s desire for joy.
The beginning of the essay may strike some as a little dull, necessarily having to lay the groundwork for the essay as a whole and thus dealing in such matters such as Tolkien’s fitness to speak on the topic (not having studied fairy stories), the definition of a fairy story, etc. These concerns may seem silly to some–after all, if Tolkien the great writer of fantasy cannot speak on what makes a good fairy story, who can? And again, do we really need to differentiate among the dream story, the folk tale, the beast fable, and the fairy story? Indeed we do, for, as Tolkien points out, these genres often get thrown together indiscriminately in anthologies as if they were all the same. But if we do not exclude genres like the beast fable, then Tolkien’s vision of what makes fairy stories unique falls apart.
His vision is rooted in his Catholic Christian faith, arguing that fairy stories provide a certain kind of “joy” that gives readers a glimpse of “the underlying reality or truth”. He points to the Birth of Christ and the Resurrection as real-life examples of the sudden turn in a story such as we sometimes glimpse in Faerie, the turn that turns sorrow into gladness against all the odds. This joy, he says, is special because it does not diminish the sorrow or explain it away or promise that sorrow will all cease. It is, essentially, a miracle, a moment of grace. A happy ending that did not have to be, but was.
However, even those who do not follow the Christian faith will, I think, find much of value in Tolkien’s words. His joy can be recognized by all readers, even if they do not admit the same source. And his defense of fantasy will resound, I suspect, with all lovers of that genre. For he takes the main criticisms levelled at Faerie and claims them as positives, arguing that “escape” is not an evil but a sanity and that it is ludicrous to suggest that factories and bombs are more “real” than horses and castles. Tolkien powerfully asserts that when one sees the evil in this world, it is no wonder that he or she might wish to escape–and that “the Escape of the Prisoner” is not to be confused with “the Flight of the Deserter.” Indeed, he goes so far as to suggest that critics of fantasy might actually be fearful that readers of fairy stories might get dangerous ideas from their tales–the idea that things could be different and that they can enact change.
Tolkien’s defense of fairy stories is by turns rousing, inspiring, reflective, and moving. Reading his words is like meeting a kindred spirit, for he touches upon the reasons I love fairy stories and manages to express them in just the way I wish I would be able to express them myself. Even in his nonfiction, Tolkien somehow weaves an enchantment.
Top Ten Tuesdays is a meme hosted by the Broke and the Bookish. This week’s topic is
Top Ten Books from My Childhood I’d Love to Revisit.
Of course, I revisit many of these from time to time–they are some of my favorite stories!–but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to revisit them even more.
1. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott: I know some readers find it preachy, but I was willing to overlook that as a child and, my interest in the sisters is so strong, that I can overlook it even now.
2. Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery: I reread this probably three months ago and I already miss Anne.
3. Emily of New Moon by L. M. Montgomery: I haven’t reread Emily for awhile, I’m afraid to say.
4. Jack and Jill by Louisa May Alcott: I was always fond of this one because it’s overlooked in Alcott’s oeuvre, but apparently that disinterest led to my library’s decision to get rid of it.
5. Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink: I remember really liking this book, though I don’t recall any plot details.
6. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis: My favorite Narnia book.
7. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle: The ending always makes me cry, though.
8. The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy: I’ve been trying to go through the sequels, but it’s been some time since I’ve read the original adventure.
9. The Scottish Chiefs by Jane Porter: Classic romance featuring a very fictionalized account of the life of William Wallace.
10. The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch: My favorite feminist fairy tale.
Series: Penryn and the End of Days #1
Published: May 21, 2011
It’s been six weeks since the angels of the apocalypse destroyed the world as we know it. Only pockets of humanity remain.
Savage street gangs rule the day while fear and superstition rule the night.
When angels fly away with a helpless girl, her seventeen-year-old sister Penryn will do anything to get her back…
Angelfall captivatingly blends angelic myth and apocalyptic scenarios to result in a book that is nearly impossible to put down. A strong heroine, noble hero, and unrelentingly urgent plot guide readers through a world ridden with chaos and a few bright spots of hope. Most other angel books cannot compare.
Admittedly, Angelfall begins a bit slowly. The prose is clunky, repetitive and sometimes too self-aware. The post-apocalyptic elements, the decrepit town where gangs rule the street and no one can go out at night, seem unremarkable and familiar. Then the angels come, and everything changes. Penryn doesn’t just have to face street gangs with guns; she has to befriend one of the enemy and go on an epic quest to save her little sister. Whether the prose also improves at this point or its awkwardness is just less noticeable as the plot of the novels picks up, I can’t say for certain, but suddenly the story seems fresh. Even as other tropes of the genre pop up—the rebel alliance, the streams of people seeking haven in large cities—Ee manages to put a supernatural spin on them and make them new again.
Penryn is a particularly well-drawn character for this genre. She isn’t just harsh and she isn’t just disillusioned. The end of the world scenario has certainly toughened her, but she has always been tough and bears the trait well. And beneath that, she has a genuinely good heart, which seems like just the right thing if you’re going to have to deal with angels. Raffe is a great companion for her. The two work well together, a true team, and there’s just enough romantic tension in the novel to make readers swoony and leave them hoping for more in the sequels.
The cast of side characters is equally nuanced, including the kidnapped younger sister, Penryn’s mentally unstable mother, and a whole rebel army. I admit, however, I can do without the twins-who-are-perfectly-interchangeable trope. Seriously, they call themselves Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum, which is absurd enough, but eventually they just get called Dee-Dum because, you see, when you’re dealing with twins it doesn’t actually matter which one you’re talking to; they’re just the same person anyway. This is pretty insulting to twins and I do wish it would stop being portrayed in media as cute or the norm.
Parts of the backstory could also use more explanation, but the plot is so engrossing this is practically unnoticeable until the story is over. Then the questions—Wait, how exactly did angels take over the world? And when?—start coming to light. I’m hoping more of this will be answered in the sequels because, as in-depth as Ee describes the present-day world, it all seems a bit hazy when you can’t tell yourself a complete narrative about how it came to be that way.
In the end, however, Angelfall stands out as an imaginative and captivating take on both post-apocalyptic stories and on the angel/supernatural romance. I’ve seen a lot of hype for this book, and it really deserves it.
Directors: Isao Takahata
Writer: Isao Takahata, Riko Sakaguchi
A bamboo cutter witnesses a tiny girl appear in a bamboo shoot and, believing she shows the favor of heaven, takes her home to raise as his own. Her exquisite beauty captures the hearts of all who look at her, but she harbors a secret and must one day face her past. A retelling of The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter.
Studio Ghibli has a reputation for creating films of breathtaking beauty and wonder and The Tale of Princess Kaguya continues in that tradition. From the opening scene where a miniature girl appears within a glowing bamboo stalk to the final moments when the truth about her past is revealed, the film radiates with all the joy, the mystery, the poignancy of life. It is one of those stories that touches your heart, the kind that stays with you.
Though the story possesses an intriguing plot–who is this girl? from where does she come? whom will she marry?–the most memorable moments, to me, are the small ones, the simple depictions of everyday life in Kaguya’s village, the joyous days she spends with her friends. These scenes, while doing little to forward the plot, are key; they illustrate exactly what life is to Kaguya and what, to her, constitutes happiness. Of course, life is not fair and Kaguya is still too young to know that, so over her idyllic days suspends a sense of foreboding of which only viewers are aware. These darkness makes those moments even more precious.
The plot itself is absolutely lovely, if you enjoy fairy tales in the traditional vein. It may not be convoluted, but it possesses its own complexities in its honest look at human nature–greed, falseness, ambition, lust, and more all are represented. More rarely are kindness and understanding shown. This makes the second half of the film sometimes unbearably sad, but it also imparts to the film a unique honesty. Even fairy tales, it says, do not always turn out happily ever after.
The most striking aspect of the film, however, may not be the story but the artwork. Exquisitely hand-drawn with watercolor and ink, it sometimes delicately depicts the beauty of the natural world or the intricacy of material wealth, but, at other times, seems to break down into impressionism. This gives the film raw power, allowing the narrative at key moments to play out silently, all emotion expressed through line and form. This is the first “breathtaking” piece of art that literally made me catch my breath.
The Tale of Princess Kaguya is a wonderful, beautiful, heartbreaking story. It has already made my list of the most powerful films I have ever seen.
This Wednesday, Krysta wrote about the pros and cons of required reading in schools. She noted that we all have horror stories of immensely dull novels we had to read for class, but also asked: what about the required reading we loved? To continue the conversation, here is a list of some great books I first encountered as class assignments.
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
One of the local high school teachers was furious when she discovered our eighth grade teacher had assigned this to our class. She huffed and puffed about how it was too complex and too long, how it would take her half a year to even begin to get her students to understand it. Personally, I think she blew things way out of proportion. I read this book, unabridged, with zeal. And though I probably didn’t get everything there is to get out of the book, I did go on to reread it a few more times, which certainly helped.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
I read this one in high school and instantly fell in love with the characters and the beautiful writing. It’s still one of my favorite books, and I’ve been able to re-read it a few times and still love it just as much; no re-reading disappointment here! Hopefully Go Set a Watchman will live up to it.
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
My third grade teacher read this aloud to us in class, and I couldn’t get enough. I spent the next several weeks checking out the rest of the series from the school library. And then checking them out all over again. I’m so pleased I was able to encounter these books as a child because, as much as I still like them, I just don’t have the same experience reading them as an adult.
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
This one was also assigned by my eighth grade teacher. He was very explicit about assigning books he thought were interesting, instead of assigning ones that fit some recommended grade level. I’m still surprised he got away with this one, due to all the cursing, but I’m so glad he did. I’ve gone on to read several other Steinbeck novels and like most of them, as well.
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
My high school English teacher was no longer to officially assign this book because of the cursing…so he gave away the old classroom copies of the novel to anyone who would take one. I think more students probably read this book than if it had actually been required; the lure of banned books is irresistible. And while I don’t think I was ever really an angsty teen, Holden’s disgust with anyone and anything he found “phoney” really resonated with me.
What great books did you discover from required reading?
Goodreads: Story Thieves
Series: Story Thieves #1
Published: Jan. 2015
Owen finds life incredibly boring and escapes every chance he can get into one of his favorite books. Learning that his classmate Bethany can actually jump into stories and experience them, then, is just about the greatest revelation ever. Bethany warns him they cannot interfere with any plots, but Owen longs to change the course of his favorite series and become a literary hero. But Owen’s actions have unintended consequences and soon he finds himself starring in what could be his first and only adventure.
Story Thieves seems to promise a winning middle-grade fantasy from the start. After all, its premise, that of characters jumping through various books, allows this book to have it all–magicians, dragons, cyborgs, lasers, zombies, and more. It’s a bunch of genres flamboyantly gallivanting across the page and rejoicing in their own sometimes silly combinations. However, though the plot is fast and James Riley keeps the surprises coming, I found in the end that Story Thieves lacks a little bit of heart.
I admit I formed a slight personal bias against the book from the start, as I found both the protagonists annoying. Owen is Norton Juster’s Milo–but far worse. He does nothing but spend all day contemplating how boring life is. Apparently no joy mars his days, no friendships or family make it worthwhile, no hobbies can distract him from his boredom. He simply can’t be bothered to try to take an interest in anything. Plus he reveals later that he’s willing to deceive others to get his own way and he has an unhealthy obsession with getting others to hero worship him.
Bethany, meanwhile, is angry. Just angry. She seems to harbor guilt from an accident she caused at the tender age of four and that leads her to lash out at anyone who crosses her path. Or tries to talk to her. Or offers her friendship. She would really just like to be alone and angry. Of course she and Owen both grow as individuals during the course of the story, but neither of them is a joy to be around for the first fourth of the book or so. In fact, they seem to spend most of it yelling, which is hilarious as they think they’re being secretive.
I could overlook the characters since, by the end, Bethany loosens up and Owen learns that being a hero requires one to do more than wave a wand around and look cool. However, the ending disappointed me. The story talks about sacrifice and having a selfless heart, but the ultimate message is muddled in various ways. [Spoiler Warning] Owen, for instance, shows reluctance about sacrificing himself and thus receives an “out” from a friend–a friend who would have let him sacrifice himself as long as he seemed happy about it. What are readers to make of this? Sacrifices should only be made by people who want to do them? Are they, then, sacrifices? [End Warning]
Bethany, meanwhile, seems not to understand the significance of sacrifice–she wants to rewrite stories so that the characters do not have to suffer. But isn’t that the point of the story? That readers can look up to someone willing to suffer, maybe even give up life itself, so that others might live? By arguing that the sacrifice is not fair and would make her sad, Bethany is saying she wants to rewrite the story so it possesses less power and loses its guiding principles. No one wants to see their favorite characters suffer, but there are things that are bigger than one’s self. That idea gets lost in Bethany’s insistence that pain be avoided (not that one should allow one’s friends to suffer if it can be avoided, of course!)
Whether or not pain should be avoided in stories, however, proves a tricky issue since, in this case, the characters seem to be real. That is, once they escape the book they are in, they have the ability to make choices not determined by the author who wrote them. Bethany and her friends never really resolve the issue of how much agency book characters have or should have, Bethany in the end just saying that the tribulations the characters suffer are not unknown and that readers are rooting for characters when they read their stories. It’s a nice sentiment, but it sidesteps the ethical questions raised about authors having characters experience pain and seems to contradict Bethany’s own desire not to see any character suffer too much (a limitation apparently decided by her own personal feelings toward various characters).
The plot of Story Thieves held me largely spellbound–it’s fast, crammed with action, and manages a plot twist or two. However, I would have enjoyed it more had I found the characters less annoying and I would have found it more powerful and more moving if it had reflected that, even in fantasy worlds, good sometimes comes with a price.


The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood Audible Audiobook – Unabridged
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A beloved legend of all time, Pyle's The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood tells the compelling tale of the brave, good-humored outlaw and his cohorts Friar Tuck, Little John, and Will Scarlet, as they cavort about Sherwood Forest.
However, it is not all sport. Robin Hood and his band must also outwit the villainous Sheriff of Nottingham, who will stop at nothing to rid the forest of the outlaw.
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|Listening Length||11 hours and 47 minutes|
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|Audible.com Release Date||December 10, 2004|
|Best Sellers Rank|| #276,790 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) |
#744 in Teen & Young Adult Fiction about Values & Virtues (Books)
#1,691 in Fiction Classics for Children
#2,924 in Teen & Young Adult Classic Literature
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If you are going to buy the classic Howard Pyle version of the legend, I strongly encourage you to only buy an edition with Howard Pyle as the illustrator.
John Lee does a great job with the narration, voicing everybody from the evil Guy of Gisbourne to the shifty Sheriff of Nottingham with fine distinction. He even sings all the many songs in the book in character very well. According to the section in the Kindle book about the author (this part was not in the audiobook version) Howard Pyle based his version of the Robin Hood stories on a 1795 collection of ballads, so nearly every tale, especially in the first part of the book, has a merry song or two in it.
Apparently, there is no original manuscript to base a rendition of the Robin Hood stories on so this collection of ballads may be as close to an original source as we are likely to get. In consequence, while the language of these stories has a suitably Medieval cast to it, it is nevertheless reasonably easy to understand. It’s not like trying to read Middle English or anything.
And yet, the stories are set in a time when Middle English would not have been so far off the mark. This collection actually focuses on a time period somewhat earlier than the more recent popular renditions of Robin Hood in the movies. Throughout most of the book, the King is King Henry II. In fact, Henry and his Queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, appear in a couple of the stories. Queen Eleanor sponsors Robin Hood and some of his men in a tournament, and King Henry, upset that they have beaten some of his favorites, hunts them all over the north of England. This must have been during the time Henry and Eleanor weren’t getting along so well.
There were many stories in this book that I had not heard before, or barely heard references to somewhere. And a lot of the stories found in recent renditions of Robin Hood are not there. For instance, Maid Marian is mentioned about three times as the girl Robin Hood loves best, but her story is not told at all. Instead, we have the story of Allan A Dale and his true love, Ellen, and how Robin Hood saved fair Ellen from marrying an old knight so that she could marry the minstrel instead. Guy of Gisbourne is not a knight but another outlaw with an evil reputation whom the Sheriff of Nottingham has hired to kill Robin Hood. And it is King Richard who, after his father’s death and his own accession to the throne, finally catches Robin Hood – and takes him into his personal service.
Don't waste your money on this version of the book. There are other versions available. I would recommend downloading a sample first, though.
The stories are funny, light and easy to read (only some old English to contend with). If you're looking for a break from the violent, blood, serious or supernatural, here is a good choice.
Top reviews from other countries
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 10, 2021
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 21, 2018


BLUE BLOOD OF THE BIG ASTANA
By: Ibrahim Jubaira (1941)
“Although the heart may care no more, the mind can always recall.” Ibrahim Jubaira started with that. The main character, Jafaar, recalled all the bittersweet memories he had with the blue blooded girl of the big astana, whom he loved a long time ago. The story tells us the life of a Muslim when this short story is written because of the different symbols used in the story like the blue blood and the big astana, the bittersweet memories of Jafaar and the appearance of the Christian Government. These symbols used in the story define the life of a Muslim in 1941 on the eve of World War II where Christians migrated to Mindanao. (“Blue Blood of the Big Astana”, 5)
The blue blood and the big astana are used to define the life of a Muslim. The Muslim community is showed in the story because of the appearance of the words usually associated to the Muslims like Ramadan, Quran, and Mohammedan. In my reading, the blue blood represents the superiority of the Muslims before the migration of the Christian Society. In the text, it says that the daughter of the datu has blue blood and the datu is the leader of the society. He is the superior of the Muslims at that time. While the big astana represents the community of the Muslims. The astana shows that the Muslims have their own community and they consider themselves as an individual or separated from the others. One text in the story when the astana was made bigger by the time that Dayang-Dayang, the daughter of the datu, was married shows that the Muslims widen their community and they wanted to spread their religion.
These symbols show how independent the Muslims were before the Christians went to Mindanao to migrate. Another thing showed in the story is the rich traditions of the Muslims like the wedding of Dayang-Dayang and the young datu. It showed how they give importance to their traditions and culture. We can say that their way of celebrating occasions...
Professor Ned Johnson
18 March 2013
Actor, Singer, Songwriter
Marshall Bruce Mathers III was born on October 17, 1972 in St. Joseph, MO. He began life rough and that is how it stayed. As a child he frequently moved around from place to place because his mother could not secure a home to stay in and/or could not keep up with the payments and would be evicted. He did not always want to be a rapper, in fact, as a child he wanted to be a comic book writer. At the age of twelve he heard one of his first rap songs, Ice-T’s Reckless and fell in love with it. Marshall went by two nicknames in high school, Matrix and M&M, from M&M came Eminem and that is what has stuck ever since. At the age of sixteen he worked as a cook in a restaurant named Gilbert’s Lounge. If he was ever working and thought of a few lyrics to write but had nothing to write on he would take an old receipt and jot it down. Also when his friends would come in to fetch something to eat he would often rap them the menu. He attempted to pass ninth grade three times but failed every time so he just decided to drop out. Around this age is when he started on his infamous rap career. The piece of literature that I chose from him is his song Stan.
Eminem released Stan on December 9, 2000 as a single to his album The Marshall Mathers LP. The song boomed everywhere as his songs usually do, but this song topped the charts in Britain and Australia because it features British singer Dido....
Literary Criticism of Murders in the Rue Morgue
Some of the greatest analytic minds in history have made discoveries that started within their imagination. For instance Albert Einstein remembered riding in a streetcar in Bern and looking back at the famous clock tower that dominated the city. He then imagined what would happen if his streetcar raced away from the clock tower at the speed of light. He quickly realized that the clock would appear stopped, since light could not catch up to the streetcar, but his own clock in the streetcar would beat normally. This eureka moment is what eventually led to his formation of his famous equation E=mc. In Murders in the Rue Morgue the reader embarks on a detective journey with an unnamed narrator and C. Auguste Dupin, a man of remarkable cunning. Throughout the story, Poe challenges the minds of the characters as well as the reader. Poe wants the reader to understand that true genius is not solely based on having a strong analytic mind, one must also possess ingenuity.
Poe begins the story with an unnamed narrator describing the analytic mind. While at first read this may seem unimportant to the story, however, Poe is essentially preparing the reader for what is to come. He tells exactly how one would have to think in order to solve the mysteries that lay ahead. When the narrator describes Dupin he does so like an admirer. He is amazed by Dupin’s ability to observe the importance of seemingly insignificant details in order...
...“plain folks,” as well as the use of the Big Brother posters to achieve the idea of suppressing freedom. By utilizing propaganda techniques, introducing new language concepts and using literary devices, Orwell successfully warns us about the potential dangers of totalitarian control in our society today.
Orwell uses the phrase “Big Brother is watching you” to instill fear in the people. An inevitable motif in Nineteen Eighty-Four is the “Big Brother Is Watching You” poster, which is first introduced when Winston enters the Victory Mansion. The elevators in the Victory Mansion are broken, meaning that the inhabitants have to walk many flights of stairs day in and day out. The more they walk, the more posters they see, further enforcing the oppression free thought and action; the posters are omnipresent and boundless. This poster is propaganda; it is used to disseminate the idea that Big Brother tracks your every move. The purpose of this campaign is to induce fear into the proles. Instead of watching out for them, the Party watches over them, apprehends and condemns any thought of opposition that could enter their minds. There are two main elements in this poster: The first is the face of Big Brother, and the second is the phrase “Big Brother is watching you” (Orwell, 2). Big brother’s poster is an example of a “plain folks” propagandistic technique. Propagandists use this...
...Shit Tits McGee
World Lit Paper
"How does the author use literary techniques in order to keep the social stereotypes of the early 1900’s Spanish society intact?"
"Life--that's what they need more than anything else--life." This quote spoken by The Mother is true in Blood Wedding's early spanish society, yet it causes one to question what kind of life is one really living when being succumbed by social stereotypes? In Frederico Garcia Lorca’s tragic play, Blood Wedding, he uses many literary strategies in order to maintain various social stereotypes. Three main techniques the author chooses to incorporate include atmosphere, archetypes, and resolution to further his critique of the social stereotype present in this spanish society.
To begin, Frederico Garcia Lorca uses atmosphere constantly throughout the play. Lorca aimed to create a brooding atmosphere of early 1900’s Spain. This time period was characterized by a patriarchal familial structure as well as a roman catholic worldview. The gender roles of the characters are heavily affected by this religious influence throughout the piece, as shown in how marriage and family life is portrayed in the work. During the 1920’s - 1930’s, the period portrayed in this piece, women had little to no rights and no ability to hold a job, so marriage and birthing children was seen as the main aspect of a womans life. As The Mother condescendingly stated “See if you...
...Hook: Shakespeare undoubtedly uses many literary devices and elements throughout Macbeth. One such element is the characterization of Macbeth.
Thesis: Shakespeare shows how Macbeth is an emotionally and mentally weak character, leading to his downfall.
I. Macbeth is easily swayed
A. Macbeth is easily influenced by Lady Macbeth to murder his first victim.
1. Lady Macbeth taunts Macbeth about his personality traits. Anna Brownell Jameson draws attention to how she sarcastically calls Macbeth a coward—a word a man can’t bear to hear from another man, less from woman, and least of all from the woman he loves (Jameson 2).
2. James Schiffer claims that the Macbeths’ definition of womanly is to be daunted and fearful, powerless and unfulfilled, while to be manly is to be strong and valorous and quick to act, regardless of the action (Schiffer 2). Lady Macbeth uses this against her husband, suggesting that he is more of a woman than a man.
3. William Maginn mentions that Lady Macbeth has persuaded herself that Macbeth is too full of the milk of human kindness to murder the king, and therefore it is her duty to push him into doing so.
II. Macbeth misinterprets what the three witches tell him
A. Macbeth takes everything that the witches say literally
1. James Schiffer identifies that Macbeth believes his initial greeting with the Weird Sisters is a “supernatural soliciting” to murder, even though he is aware that fate may crown him king without his action...
...Ethan Frome Lit. Crit. Essay
Throughout the story of Ethan Frome, Ethan shows how he would give up anything for his responsibilities. Ethan did not want to give up law school. He had to because of his father getting sick. He felt obligated to do things he didn’t want to do. For example his parents getting sick at different times, he felt obligated to take care of them instead of someone else. He had to move back and they money but then his father lost it all and they became poor so now Ethan had to do something to get some money to provided for his family. Marxism is mainly about money and if you don’t have money then your not happy and you will be unhappy because you wont have as much as you would like.
The narrator needed a ride to his work and he couldn’t find anyone someone told him about Ethan, that he will do anything to make a buck. The narrator asked Ethan and he ended up saying yes because he needed the money.
When Ethan came back from law school, for good, his mother hired Zeena to take care of her but then people started talking and he felt obligated to marry Zeena in the end. When Ethan’s mother died she was worried about money and what Ethan’s dad had done. Ethan worked in his lumber limb that he had and did anything to get a few bucks here and there. Since Zeena “always” got sick, since Ethan’s mother died, she would spend most of their money to pay for her medical bills and medication. Instead of paying a...
...1.) After performing any alternative procedures, the auditor should evaluate the combined evidence provided by the confirmations and the alternative procedures to determine whether sufficient evidence has been obtained about all the applicable financial statement assertions. In performing that evaluation, the auditor should consider (a) the reliability of the confirmations and alternative procedures; (b) the nature of any exceptions, including the implications, both quantitative and qualitative, of those exceptions; (c) the evidence provided by other procedures; and (d) whether additional evidence is needed. If the combined evidence provided by the confirmations, alternative procedures, and other procedures is not sufficient, the auditor should request additional confirmations or extend other tests, such as tests of details or analytical procedures. (AU 330)
Paragraph .09 of section 326, Audit Evidence, states that the auditor should consider the reliability of the information to be used as audit evidence. Confirmations obtained electronically can be considered to be reliable audit evidence if the auditor is satisfied that (a) the electronic confirmation process is secure and properly controlled, (b) the information obtained is a direct communication in response to a request, and (c) the information is obtained from a third party who is the intended respondent.
2.) During the performance of confirmation procedures, the auditor should maintain control over the...
...Republic of the Philippines
Tarlac College of Agriculture
Institute of Education
Expanded Course Outline in ENGL04-Philippine Literature in English
Philippine Literature in English
The course is a study of literary genres exemplified by the selected literary texts from different regions of the Philippines written at different periods in the Philippine literary history. It aims to equip students with literary appreciation that may guide them towards wholesome development of the innate potentials and values.
Introduction to Literature
The course has the following objectives:
1. show the relevance of the study of literature in human’s life;
2. link the present to the future based on the thoughts of the past as presented
and preserved in the literary texts;
3. point out the value of reading Philippine literary texts;
4. identify and differentiate the various elements of the different genres like short
5. articulate the importance of each element in the proper understanding of the
6. showcase the meaning and lessons derived from the literary texts;
7. recognize the value the literary prowess of the writers;
8. help students appreciate the richness and value of Philippine literature; and
9. relate literature to human experiences.


By Dr Manish Pandit
In the first and second parts of this essay we saw that the Great Goddess grants Moksha due to Her own sweet will: https://mmpandit.wordpress.com/2021/07/27/devi-as-the-cause-of-moksha/
However, what is the opinion of the Saptashati Durga on the status of the Trimurti who are normally considered to grant Moksha? This is the question which we shall now endeavour to answer.
Let us first consider verse 4 of the Chapter 4 of this Devi Mahatmya:
यस्याः प्रभावमतुलं भगवाननन्तो ब्रह्मा हरश्च न हि वक्तुमलं बलं च । सा चण्डिकाखिलजगत्परिपालनाय नाशाय चाशुभभयस्य मतिं करोतु ॥ ४॥
It says that even Brahma, Vishnu and Maheshwara ( भगवाननन्तो ब्रह्मा हरश् )are unable to describe ( न हि वक्तु na alam) the greatness and impossible courage and valour (प्रभावमतुलं) and strength ( बलं च ). It exhorts the Great Goddess Chandika to direct Her intelligence (मतिं करोतु) to the palana of the entire entire Universe ( चण्डिकाखिलजगत्परिपालनाय) to maintain Dharma and look after the Universe ) and to task Herself with the destruction of the FEAR of evil itself. (नाशाय चाशुभभयस्) . Note the verse does not say “destruction of evil” BUT “destruction even of the fear of evil”… obviously when even the fear does not remain, how can evil survive? It is this sort of impossible task which is given to the Divine Mother Chandika. Thus we see that the role of the Trimurtis is performed here by Chandika and that the Trimurtis are described as not being even able to describe Her deeds.
A similar idea is to be found in verse 6 too.
किं वर्णयाम तव रूपमचिन्त्यमेतत् किञ्चातिवीर्यमसुरक्षयकारि भूरि । किं चाहवेषु चरितानि तवाति यानि सर्वेषु देव्यसुरदेवगणादिकेषु ॥ ६॥
The verse says that it is impossible to even describe the form of the Goddess (किं वर्णयाम तव रूपमचिन्त्यमेतत् ) and it is also impossible to describe ( किं वर्णयाम) her courage when She destroys the great Daityas and Asuras (किञ्चातिवीर्यमसुरक्षयकारि )
Then there is a now growing concept that flows through the chapter about the responsibility on the Great Goddess to perform the role of Palana Karta which we saw earlier in verse 4. This comes forth again in the second part of verse 5 too.
श्रद्धा सतां कुलजनप्रभवस्य लज्जा तां त्वां नताः स्म परिपालय देवि विश्वम् ॥ ५
Here we see that the words “Oh Devi please protect this world” coming forth again ( विश्वम् परिपालय देवि ). Thus we can see that when the Goddess is tasked to protect the world and its inhabitants, it is sure that She will also deliver us from this world and give Moksha or liberation which by the way is one of the 4 Purusharthas enshrined in the Shastras. This sentence appears in the first part of verse 11 of the same chapter thus:
मेधासि देवि विदिताखिलशास्त्रसारा दुर्गासि दुर्गभवसागरनौरसङ्गा ।
Note that the meaning of दुर्गासि दुर्गभवसागरनौरसङ्गा is crystal clear and there is no ambiguity. She is described veritably in this verse as the one who is the BOAT who ferries the devotees across the (terrible/difficult) ocean of Samsara/worldliness.
To read the essay which was the cause of this blog pot you can go to the original post on Moksha:


Top 5 Entrepreneurial Books to Read
There’s no shortage of entrepreneurial advice coming in the form of pithy online articles and—yes—your newest business mantra might even be contained in a 140-character tweet. However, some lessons take time and devotion, and that’s where long-form content comes in. We hope you enjoy these five books as much as we do.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
Even though it was first published back in 1989, this book still ranks highly among entrepreneurs. This is because the advice Stephen gives has a strong focus on universality and timelessness. It’s sold more than 25 million copies worldwide.
Shoe Dog by Phil Knight
In this memoir, Nike founder and CEO Phil Knight details his entrepreneurial journey into producing one of the most iconic brands ever. Selling shoes from the trunk of his lime green Plymouth Valiant, Knight grossed $8,000 his first year. Today, Nike’s annual sales top $30 billion.
Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth
Psychologist Angela Duckworth claims that the secret to success is a mixture of passion and persistence—what she calls “grit.” In her book, she synthesises her deeply personal experiences into career wisdom that can appeal to everyone. Angela’s also given a famous TED Talk on the topic. Watch it here.
Own It: Oprah Winfrey In Her Own Words, edited by Anjali Becker and Jeanne Engelmann
Oprah Winfrey is undisputedly one of the most influential entrepreneurs of our time. Known as “The Queen of All Media,” Oprah first got her start on Chicago TV in 1983. This book offers an intimate look into the thought processes of one of the most loved and powerful people in the world.
Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World by Adam Grant
In this book, author and professor Adam Grant reveals how originality and creativity are at the heart of meaningful business innovation. He also goes into detail about how to present new ideas persuasively as well as how leaders can reject groupthink.
Which books would you recommend to your fellow entrepreneurs? Share your favourites in the comments!


The escalating clinical application of Positron Emission Tomography results from the novel radiotracers which are available to monitor specific biochemical or physiologic processes. Future developments of the technique will require an increasing availability of additional unique radioligands and radionuclides. Iodine-124, a radionuclide whose potential for both diagnostic and therapeutic applications is widely recognized, has been prepared at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center on a weekly basis for several years (1). With its characteristic 4.18 day half life and complex decay scheme (2) which includes positron emission (22.0 ± 0.5%) and electron capture (78 ± 0.5%), this radionuclide has been shown to be appropriate for radiotracers describing slow physiologic processes with the clearance of non-specific radioactivity. The refinements and modifications being engineered into the cyclotron target system to increase the absolute yield of recoverable radioactivity from each irradiation and its chemical processing of the reusable solid target matrix are described.


NOTE: Due to extremely long name of the series, I will call it by its short name "HakoMari".
I'm on a break from anime for a short time, so I gave a try to some light novels. Currently the one I finished is Utsuro No Hako to Zero no Maria (believe me, I copy/pasted the name from google as it is tough to remember) also known as The Empty Box and the Zeroth Maria or simply HakoMari.
Although I am too busy for a few days that I hardly get any time to watch anime, I still try to read manga and light novels by utilizing an hour or two from my sleeping time.
I could have written this review next month when I would get loads of free time but still, resisting the urge to review this breathtaking light novel is an extremely difficult task.
Now coming to the light novel, HakoMari is a light novel series written by Eiji Mikage. It focuses on a boy Name Kazuki Hoshino, who values his 'everyday life' a lot and will do anything to protect it. He lives his 'everyday life' peacefully until one day, a girl named Aya Otonashi transfers to his school and declares a straight head-on-head war with him.
My description of this series might not be able to give you a clear idea about what HakoMari is, because it is literally impossible to describe this series in words. It is so much complex and deep that describing its plot is more difficult than winning a fight against a tag team of Chuck Norris and Saitama.
HakoMari is no doubt the best work of literature I've ever read. It can be classified as a deep psychological supernatural romantic thriller that beats Deathnote in terms of mind games and leaves Neon Genesis Evangelion behind in terms of depth. I've never read anything similar in my life and all the Light Novels and even the other Novels by famous writers like Dan Brown and Agatha Christie that I've read don't even come close to the intensity of HakoMari.
It is ranked second in Myanimelist manga rankings, and first in the Novel rankings of the same, this alone is enough to prove that HakoMari is in a league of its own.
HakoMari excels in both story progression and Character development. The main plot of HakoMari is really beautiful with outstanding storytelling. The suspense, the drama and all the emotions are such beautifully carved that it will leave you totally breathless. I have watched many animes and read many mangas but still one thing I longed for was a perfect ending. Even the animes I watched were not able to quench my thirst for a perfect end. FMA Brotherhood was really close but I was still not satisfied. But thanks to HakoMari, I have finally achieved my goal as it provided me the perfect ending I had always longed for.
Characters in HakoMari are really complex, they are developed very cleverly and by the end, almost every character is completely changed. Even the Main Character was changed so much by the last 2 volumes that it was really difficult to relate him with his initial self. You will find yourself loving the characters you hated at first and you will empathize with them. The emotional dilemmas faced by characters are so detailed and well explained that you will easily find yourself standing in their shoes. Believe me when I say this, HAKOMARI WILL BREAK YOU AND BUILD YOU UP AGAIN.
From my tone and expressions and also from my weird score, you might be wondering why I didn't give it a perfect 10. If you check my list on MAL, you will find out that I give 10 rating to any anime or manga I find good, but when it comes to my reviews on AnimeSannins, I usually don't go beyond 9. Still, HakoMari is so good that I want to give it a perfect 10 but like every great anime or manga, HakoMari has a small drawback; the beginning. It starts really slow and fails to provoke any interest, but once you get pass a few pages, you will find that it is not what you thought it would be. It happened with me also, but I kept on reading and after around 10 pages, I realized that this was going to be really good.
To sum it all up, HakoMari is doubtlessly a Masterpiece. It has a unique and wonderful story with some of the best characters I've ever seen. The dark theme and setting is very justified and the overall enjoyment factor is very high. You can feel that the author gave his all while writing each and every line and the same goes with the translator. HakoMari will touch your heart like it touched mine. I will read it again to enjoy it once more and re-live those wonderful moments I spent reading it.
If you haven't read HakoMari, please do so as you are missing something great. If you have read it and still don't like it (which I know is impossible), then you are hopeless piece of a large cake made out of total bullsh*t (no offense). Ignore the last statement, I wrote this review an year ago.
Read more: 6 Reasons why HakoMari is the best Light Novel!


Lay low thy head, Beloved, on my breast,
To hear the beat of love gives joy to me,
We need no speech, our thoughts wing words.
We know, and understand, and see.
Visions beyond the range of mortal eye
The inner sight beholds, and wonders and adores!
The heavens are opened, and our hearts rejoice
That Love continues evermore.
Through all the Ages yet to be,
God bless thee, my Beloved.
Bless with His love and joy complete.
Some day beyond this vale we’ll meet,
And all His purposes shall see.


News Articles, with Rus Bowden
Clearly understanding that I was heading toward an F in this class, I took off on a suicide mission. I approached the lit stage where these â€śpoetsâ€? sat warmed by applause and proudly waiting for more compliments.
"Donâ€™t you think,â€? I asked, â€śit is pathetic to perform in this anti-war circus now that Saddam has been captured? How do you feel about his capture?â€?
â€śItâ€™s great that they got him,â€? one of the guys on the stage answered.
â€śBut how,â€? I asked, â€ścould it have happened without a war?â€?
The instructor flew at me like a vulture, â€śTatiana! Stop this immediately!â€?
from FrontPage Magazine: Hate America Poetry Class
The first draft of "Howl" poured out of him. But for nearly a year afterward, Ginsberg revised, reorganized and reshaped it, section by section, word by word. When he was done, he knew he'd created the great American poem he'd set out to write. It was a personal coming-out, and to the hipsters of the 1950s it announced the liberation of an entire generation.
"Howl" was overtly antiwar and anti-capitalist.
from Common Dreams: Something to 'Howl' About: Ginsberg's Icon-Busting Poem Resonates in the Patriot Act Era
Translated into political terms, Yeatsâ€™s tendency is Fascist. Throughout most of his life, and long before Fascism was ever heard of, he had had the outlook of those who reach Fascism by the aristocratic route. He is a great hater of democracy, of the modern world, science, machinery, the concept of progress â€” above all, of the idea of human equality. [--George Orwell]
from Daily Times: Purple Patch: William Butler Yeats --George Orwell
What is it about sex crimes, or charges thereof, which riles not men, defending each other in an old-boy stylie, but other women?
It's partly that the dangerous predator in question is often characterised not as an individual who behaved badly, but as a symptom of the rottenness at the core of all of society. For instance, [Harold] Bloom's behaviour "devastated" [Naomi] Wolf's sense of "being valuable to Yale as a student rather than as a pawn of powerful men".
from The Guardian: Always the victim: Naomi Wolf's belated charges about being sexually harassed as a student don't do feminism any favours
The real Plath, however, strikes out in her poetry. In her 1962 poem â€śThe Applicantâ€?, Plath satirises the institution of marriage:
Here is a hand
To bring teacups and roll away headaches
And do what ever you tell it
Will you marry it?
A living doll, everywhere you look. It can sew, it can cook,
It can talk, talk, talk
My boy, itâ€™s your last resort.
Will you marry it, marry it, marry it?
Plath never shows such insight in the film.
from Green Left Weekly: So who was Sylvia Plath?
All poets are mad
Despite Platoâ€™s warnings, thousands of young men and women have willingly been lured by the muses to follow this â€śill fated, unsoundâ€? profession. And history is an eye-witness to the fact that hundreds and thousands of poets have suffered, both in body and in spirit as they chase after creative mirages. A happy poet thus, is a rarity.
from The Indian Express: Poet, Where Art Thou
Frederick Morgan, a founder and for 55 years the editor of The Hudson Review, one of the nation's most prestigious literary journals, and the author of more than a dozen books of poetry, died on Friday at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. He was 81 and lived in Manhattan.
from The New York Times: Frederick Morgan, 81, Editor and Poet, Dies
And so, with knees pressed painfully on the frayed pati, if you spotted something that caught your fancy, you asked for it, whereupon with a sigh redolent of barely imaginable hardship, of the stinking lanes of the Geneva Red Cross camp, of bootleg liquor in bicycle tires, the Bihari bookman would pull it out from among the stack and hand it to you.
And right there in the din of the marketplace, among lungi salesmen and runny pigeon droppings, in between rotting chicken feathers and elaborately hawked-out gobs of rust-red paan spit, I would come upon Pirsig and Penguin New Writing, Isaac Deutsher and Evelyn Waugh, Gogol, Barbara Pym, Ibsen and Henry James.
from The Daily Star: Literary Life in Dhaka: of an anti boi mela and Auden
[St. John] doesn't just say a lot of fish, which is how I'd remembered it, he says 153 fish. Then later he mentions that there was a fire on the beach, which I took to be a kind of barbecue.
Those two details struck me powerfully because this story is profoundly to do with transcendence but in its midst, we have these two very beautiful, practical, humanising and, in a sense, earthing details. Those two things were really the trigger for the poem.
from Independent.co.uk: Andrew Motion: Why I chose to speak of God in the simplest words
In the winter of 1920, Esther Raab decided to undergo her baptism as a poet. To this end, she invited two men - the writers Asher Barash and Yaakov Rabinowitz, the "old men," as she called them - to come for a walk through the Streit brothers' almond grove in Petah Tikva. "It's the month of Shvat and the almond trees are in full bloom," Raab later described it. "We head out. The scents of the flowers and a soft sun, and the virginal white of the almond tree is sweetly intoxicating and the two old men become young, kidding and laughing and finally sitting down on a hilltop covered with groundsels, and I laughingly say, `Do you want to hear a poem?' and I pull out a piece of paper that I'd hidden under my foot in my shoe. They look at me wonderingly and I ask: Shall I read it?[. . . .]"
from Haaretz: Letters of Light and Haaretz: Letters of Light (2 of 2)
The memorial service proved a study in numbed, dignified restraint.
Reetika Vazirani was so warm and open, so brilliant, so beautiful, a procession of mourners said, taking the lectern to share their recollections. Reetika, the gifted, painstaking poet; the encouraging but rigorous teacher; the magnanimous friend. And her son, Jehan, such a captivating 2-year-old. A sprite attending a grown-up friend's party in a wizard's cape. A wonder, learning his colors in Spanish -- azul, amarillo, verde. In the photos displayed at the entrance to the room -- in which he rode a carousel, perched atop a slide, or nestled on Reetika's lap -- he was always beaming.
from The Washington Post: The Failing Light: Why did a rising young poet plunge into despair, taking her own life and the life of her 2-year-old son?
[Elizabeth] Barrettâ€™s father, who for some reason did not want any of his children to marry, was so angry with his daughter that he never spoke with her again.
Elizabeth, however, carried on quite nicely, thriving in Florence and bearing Robert a son. The marriage lasted only 15 years, as Elizabeth died in 1861. But the romance, as immortalized in her poem at right, endures, just as she said it would.
First Minister Jack McConnell told how a short, stark poem by a Scots poet inspired him when he read it at the age of 14.
The poem was by Edwin Morgan, named today by Mr McConnell as Scotlandâ€™s national poet â€“ â€śThe Scots Makarâ€?.
from The Scotsman: Stark Poem That Inspired 14-Year-Old Mcconnell
O hoo can you keep in the air sae lang
Muckle black craw, fleein' dooble like that?
Craw and shadow, no' to lay haud o',
A lass may doot if you'll ever be caught.
Decisions about whether to publish a poet's leavings are tricky. Recently, there has been disagreement over the estates of Philip Larkin and William Empson, with the poet's wishes being ignored in the first instance, and relatives refusing to release an erotic poem in the second. [Hugh] MacDiarmid published a lot of work of debatable quality in his lifetime, yet his disregard of some 300 poems suggests that he aspired to keep his oeuvre trim.
from The Guardian: Lost and found: James Campbell on The Revolutionary Art of the Future, a posthumous collection by the troublesome Hugh MacDiarmid
An excerpt from "Beyond the Masks"
"I walk with you to look beyond the masks,
to see us as we were before The Fall,
before we lost the ears to hear the gods
in everything, before we lost the eyes
to see the gods, the sense to know their worth.
[. . . .--Harvey Stanbrough]
from The Indianapolis Star: Sampling of local poetry
Damascusâ€™ decision to deport Osman, who is known by a single name, came after the Chinese government published a blacklist of what it calls Islamic terror organizations working for independence in the northwestern Muslim region of Xinjiang.
Speaking to RFAâ€™s Mandarin service in Ankara, where he arrived last week, Osman said his prominence in the world of Arabic poetry meant that Beijing was wary of the influence he might exert for the Uyghur cause in the Middle East and among Uyghurs in exile.
from Radio Free Asia: Uyghur Poet Expelled by Syria Seeks Refugee Status: Arab poets protest his deportation after 15 yearsâ€™ residency
Journalist and poet Raul Rivero, 58, perhaps the best known of the dissidents, has lost 71 pounds in the first year of his 20-year sentence, said his wife, Blanca Reyes. "Every day I feel more helpless and indignant," she said.
[Oswalso] Paya said state security agents had threatened other Varela supporters recently. He said 25,000 signatures had been submitted to the government, and Varela supporters are organizing a series of grass-roots meetings around the country to discuss "how the Cuban people can build their own justice, democracy and liberty." He said the government is threatened by growing participation in the Varela Project.
"I would like to make an appeal to the world's conscience," Paya said. "It seems like there is a lot of indifference about the reality of human rights in Cuba."
from The Washington Post: 'They Are Killing These People': Imprisoned Cuban Dissidents Said to Be Seriously Ill, Living in Inhumane Conditions
The weedling thoughts that blossomed in John Clare's madness were often brilliant, in the startlingly direct manner of ''Lines: I Am'' or, perhaps even more disturbingly, ''An Invite to Eternity'': ''Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me / In this strange death of life to be, / To live in death and be the same, / Without this life or home or name.'' This is amazing stuff: gorgeous and heartbreaking and, thanks to the insistent balladlike rhythm (a feature of many of Clare's best poems), unnervingly memorable. It's hard not to feel that in his final years John Clare was a skylark endlessly circling in the air, singing and singing, because he couldn't find his nest in all the weeds.
from The New York Times: 'John Clare': Nature Boy
On the other hand, her [Anne Carson's] impulse to disclose is less a confessional outpouring than an icily penetrating inquiry into the impasse between the mind and the animal life of the body that encloses it: "Everything I know about love and its necessities/ I learned in that one moment/ when I found myself/ thrusting my little burning red backside like a baboon/ at a man who no longer cherished me." What is notable about these lines is the utter absence of complaint. They're not about a search for sympathy or solace.
from Slate: Hermetic Hotties: What is Anne Carson doing on The L Word?
That talent is evident in "Little Brown Brother," a poem in which [Nick] CarbĂł imagines he is the Filipino boy befriended by John Wayne in the 1940s war film Back to Bataan.
CarbĂł seems always to have his radar up for references to Asians in U.S. pop culture -- even when they're not there. For years, he misunderstood the lyrics to the 1960s hit song "Secret Agent Man" --- a mistake that fueled the premise of his second book of poems, Secret Asian Man.
from National Public Radio: Intersections: Nick CarbĂł, 'Secret Asian Man'
To emphasize his point, [Amiri] Baraka writes, in the tone of an owl, "who, who, who."
The piece has raised controversy because of some of Baraka's comments about Israel. Some say the poem is anti-Semitic. It seems, however, as so often happens, that the people complaining the loudest did not read the poem in its entirety, for Baraka writes clearly about terrorism perpetrated on the Jewish people.
from The Virgin Islands Daily News: African-American poet, activist Amiri Baraka visits St. Thomas for Black History Month
While in Spain GĂłmez de Avellaneda is recognised as one of the authentic voices of romanticism and as a precursor to modern feminism, on this Caribbean island where she was born she has been the target of severest criticism.
"She was too much woman for her era, and that fact was assimilated in Spain, where she had greatest success, but not in Cuba," says [Roberto] MĂ©ndez, winner of the NicolĂˇs GuillĂ©n international poetry prize in 2001.
He quotes one of GĂłmez de Avellaneda's contemporaries, who said: "That woman is a lot of man."
from Inter Press Service: Poet's Sullied Reputation Recast
"Mrs. D, do you intend to live under the stairs permanently? Are you listening to me, HillĂ©? Look, I don't want to upset you, but the answer isn't under there, do you hear? It's not under the stairs nor up here, on the top landing, can't you understand there is no answer? No, I didn't understand then and I don't understand now, in someone's wisp of air, in a breath, in a more convulsive eye, in a scream, in a misstep, in the smell who knows of dry things, in cow dung, some day, some day, some day [â€¦.]" [--Hilda Hilst]
from Brazzil: Brazil: Farewell to a Cursed Poet
"First draft is you scribbling it on a notebook, or a paper, or a napkin and you read it there. And if you make mistakes, man, it makes the poem much more interesting and exciting, and thatâ€™s when history started being made. At the time, it was the decline of the Beat Generation, and poetry went back to the universities and became an academic thing, but here come these street poets, man, and we pushed academia out of the way and took over the scene." [--Pedro Pietri]
from New California Media: Battling Cancer, Nuyorican Poet Still Believes in the Power of the Word
For years he [Sinan Antoon] was wrecked with guilt over being in America in the first place. â€śI would look at how much dog and cat food there was, and think, if people in Baghdad could only have the life of dogs here.â€?
It wasnâ€™t until he moved to Cairo in 2002 that Antoon began to feel revived. It was the first time he had lived in an Arab city outside Iraq.
â€śIn Cairo, I could see the world in a poetic way and I was happy. I could see the world in metaphors again,â€? he said.
from The Daily Star: Expatriate Iraqi poet returns home to find his calling: Sinan Antoon emerges as one of the leading poets of his generation, pushing boundaries of the acceptable
"I lived in the United States for many years and among other things I used to translate Polish poetry into English. In doing so, I discovered something that American critics later dubbed 'the Polish school of poetry.' These are mostly writers whose texts embrace a certain historical experience, although they donâ€™t necessarily need to depict any particular historical or political events. For instance, Seamus Heaney, the Irish poet and Nobel Prize winner, found in the poetry of our part of Europe--in Zbigniew Herbertâ€™s and mine, for example--many stimuli for his own work." [--Czeslaw Milosz]
from Central Europe Review: Milosz: Optimistic Catastrophist
When Mangan died of cholera in 1849, he had witnessed a period as darkly turbulent as any other in Ireland's history. The last two decades of his life, when most of his poems were published, saw Catholic Ireland get the vote, saw the revolution of 1848 and saw, most traumatic of all, the great famine. In that time and, to a certain degree, in Mangan's own poems, the roots of the Celtic revival and the modern Irish state can be traced.
from The Guardian: The man in the cloak: John Redmond revels in an introduction to the surprisingly modern poems of the 19th-century Irish nationalist James Clarence Mangan
The change in him [Keats] was wonderful, and continued even after our return to the ship, when he took a volume (which he had a few days before given me) of Shakespeare's poems, and in it he wrote me the subjoined sonnet, which, at the time I thought the most enchanting of all his efforts. [Mr Joseph Severn, 1846]
from The Guardian: Last lines: Keats's last sonnet, from the Guardian, February 7 1846
"It's really important to not disregard your passions, your leanings," [Louise] Gluck said. "If you want to watch videos, watch videos. You don't know really, or determine, what will feed you."
from Yale Daily News: Poet Gluck will guide, inspire students in fall
"Maninbo" ("Ten Thousand Lives"), a work he [Ko Un] vowed to write while in prison, is a series of poems dedicated to making a record of everyone he has ever known. The work has reached 15 volumes so far. "The project itself, just the idea of it, should be enough to put him on the short list for the Nobel Prize," says Robert Hass, former poet laureate of the United States.
from Washington Times: Korean poet-activist 'cries out' for voiceless
The marvellous sonnet "And Change, with hurried hand" shows [Frederick] Tuckerman at his best in its vividness of image and unresolved emotion:
And Change, with hurried hand, has swept these scenes:
The woods have fallen; across the meadow-lot
The hunter's trail and trap-path is forgot;
And fire has drunk the swamps of evergreens!
Yet for a moment let my fancy plant
These autumn hills again, - the wild dove's haunt,
The wild deer's walk. In golden umbrage shut,
The Indian river runs, Quonecktacut!
Here, but a lifetime back, where falls tonight
Behind the curtained pane a sheltered light
On buds of rose, or vase of violet
Aloft upon the marble mantel set, -
Here, in the forest-heart, hung blackening
The wolf-bait on the bush beside the spring.
The attentive reader may have got a hint already of a technical peculiarity, which informs each individual poem but can only be fully appreciated in the abstract.
from The Guardian: Intimacy with a stranger: Reclusive and driven by grief for his dead wife, the 19th-century American poet Frederick Tuckerman offers intriguing glimpses of a curiously modern confessional, writes Alan Hollinghurst
Shaken by criticism of his epic poem Maud, which was published in the same book as the Charge in 1855, Tennyson proposed removing almost half the famous account of the Crimean war tragedy.
Among lines struck out in black ink in the poet's firm hand were "Theirs not to reason why/Theirs but to do and die" and "Someone had blunder'd".
from The Guardian: How Tennyson thought he might have blundered
For [Anne] Carson, what matters is Sappho's poetry, not her gender or her sexual orientation. But Sappho's words themselves are not gender-neutral. Carson's translation of Fragment 31 does not make clear what is clear in the Greek: the beloved and the first-person speaker are both female. "It seems that she knew and loved women as deeply as she did music," Carson remarks in her introduction. "Can we leave the matter there?"
The answer, obviously, is no.
from The Guardian: Lady of Lesbos: Poet, courtesan, bisexual, victim... Emily Wilson looks beyond the labels for the essence of Sappho (Contains "adult" language.)
In 1912, he [Ezra Pound] coined the term ''imagism'' to describe the clean, visual, minimalist poetry he championed, and had the sense to jump ship when the movement got precious. His tart pronouncements -- ''Use no superfluous word,'' ''Go in fear of abstractions,'' ''Don't be descriptive,'' ''Every literaryism, every book word, fritters away a scrap of the reader's patience,'' ''Only emotion endures'' -- still belong on index cards above every writer's desk
from The New York Times: Ezra Pound's Black Jacket
Brutal Imagination, [Cornelius] Eady's most recent collection, begins with a remarkable series of 30 poems in which the poet assumes a fascinating persona: that of the black kidnapper invented by Susan Smith in her unsuccessful attempt to deny responsibility for the 1994 murders of her two sons. Smith's concocted tale fueled racial tensions in Union, S.C.
from Kansas City Star: Riffing on the words: Cornelius Eady inflects poems with Brutal Imagination
Barry from the Bush, the poet "as Australian as a slouch hat", died doing what he loved most.
Barry, christened Fred Homburg, is believed to have had a heart attack at his kitchen table, a pen in one hand and an unfinished poem in the other.
from The Herald Sun: Bush Barry's final verse
"Yemeni women's poetry tends to be very, very personal . . . almost like hanging your dirty linen in public," [Najwa] Adra said. "As a consequence, it's dying out, and with it, a major channel of women's voices is also dying out. We think of modernity as liberating for women, but in the villages of Yemen, it's almost the opposite. You don't hear [poetry] on television sitcoms."
from National Geographic: In Yemen, Fighting Illiteracy Through Poetry
He [BW Vilakazi] is very clear as to what he means by Bantu literature:
'By Bantu drama, I mean a drama written by a Bantu, for the Bantu, in a Bantu language. I do not class English or Afrikaans dramas on Bantu themes, whether these are written by Black people. I do not call them contributions to Bantu literature. It is the same with poetry.' And then follows a statement that is really a celebration of his refusal to be subjected to the linguistic perimeters of European memory: 'I have an unshaken belief in the possibilities of Bantu languages and their dramas, provided the Bantu writers themselves can learn to love their languages, and use them as vehicles for thought, feeling and will.
from allAfrica.com: Consciousness and African Renaissance: South Africa in the Black Imagination (2)
[Nissim Ezekiel's] hilarious, and slightly controversial, poems in Indian English are said to be based on what he actually jotted down of the speech of Gujratis speaking imperfect English, among them the Principal of Mithibai College, the source of "Goodbye Party for Miss Pushpa, T. S." Also somewhat controversial are what I would describe as the poems of womanizing, like "Nudes 1978." Then there are the 'found' poems, derived from newspaper reports, and the 'poster' poems, which are more like collections of aphorisms. All in all, Ezekiel was undoubtedly the first major figure in Indian English poetry who found a resonant, authentic Indian voice.
from The Daily Star: Placing Ezekiel
I met History once, but he ainâ€™t recognize me,
a parchment Creole, with warts
like an old sea bottle, crawling like a crab
through the holes of shadow cast by the net
of a grille balcony; cream linen, cream hat.
I confront him and shout, â€śSir is Shabine!
They say Iâ€™se your grandson. You remember Grandma,
your black cook, at all?â€? The bitch hawk and spat.
A spit like that worth any number of words.
But thatâ€™s all them bastards have left us: words.
from The New Yorker: The Islander
Special Section: Janet Frame Died
The desperately shy and insecure Frame, who had been dreading this moment, greeted the inspector politely, and waited for him to sit down at the back of her hushed classroom of expectant children.
"Then I said to the inspector, 'Will you excuse me a moment please?' I walked out of the room and out of the school, knowing I would never return," she wrote many years later.
Frame ran away from Arthur Street School â€“ and towards a long and brilliantly successful life of literary achievement, turning her life of terrible suffering and shyness into New Zealand's greatest literary legacy.
from The Australian: Nation loses its voice
"I believe there is a reasonable amount of unpublished work . . . I've seen shoeboxes of unpublished poems," Elizabeth Alley, a friend and former Frame literary executor, said.
Frame would have been aware of the interest generated by unpublished work in the event of her death, she said. "One has to remember that Janet didn't publish because she didn't feel she was writing to the standard she wanted to write to. That was her own judgment.
from Stuff: A literary legacy left in shoeboxes
Until the release of Jane Campion's film An Angel at My Table Janet Frame was an enigma to most New Zealanders. That adaptation of her autobiographical work made her a household name where she had once been acclaimed by a more select section of society who had long recognised her worth.
from The New Zealand Herald: Frame's extraordinary talent
In 1952, she was on the surgical list at Seacliff Hospital in Otago for a prefrontal leucotomy (more commonly known as lobotomy) to make her "normal", after she had been wrongly diagnosed as schizophrenic. When told of the decision, made with the support of her confused mother, Frame later said her reaction was a "swamping wave of horror".
She was saved within days of an operation that would have destroyed her creativity by winning a literary prize for her first book, Lagoon and Other Stories.
from The New Zealand Herald: A literary angel mourned
Janet Frame received many honours. She was a Burns Scholar, a Sargeson Fellow and was awarded the New Zealand Scholarship in Letters. A later book, The Carpathians (1989), won the Commonwealth Literature Prize. In 1983 she was appointed CBE. Last year she was shortlisted for the Nobel Prize for Literature.
from www.telegraph.co.uk: Janet Frame
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