![]() ![]() Picking and choosing from the thousands of years of advice assembled by the world's great religions, Alain de Botton presents a range of fascinating ideas and practical insights on art, community, love, friendship, work, life and death. And he suggests that non-believers can learn and steal from them. And in this wise and life-affirming book, non-believer Alain de Botton both rejects the supernatural claims of the major religions and points out just how many good ideas they sometimes have about how we should live. All of us, whether religious, agnostic or atheist, are searching for meaning. A timely and perceptive appreciation of how much wisdom is embodied in religious traditions and how we godless moderns might learn from it' Financial Times 'There isn't a page in this book that doesn't contain a striking idea or a stimulating parallel' Mail on Sunday Alain de Botton takes us one step further than Dawkins or Hitchens ventured - into a world of ideas beyond the God debate. offering a glimpse of a more enlightened path' Sunday Telegraph 'Smart, stimulating, sensitive. ![]() SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER NUMBER ONE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER From one of our greatest voices in modern philosophy, author of The Course of Love, The Consolations of Philosophy, The Art of Travel and The School of Life 'A serious and optimistic set of practical ideas that could improve and alter the way we live' Jeanette Winterson, The Times 'A beautiful, inspiring book. ![]()
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![]() He would spout off rock facts and pull Skunk into all types of conversations involving his collection.Īnd Skunk's hilariously strong chicken connection really lightened the book. Skunk and Badger had such a fun way of interacting with each other and the illustrations completely captured their personalities.īadger's rock obsession was infectious. Perhaps having a roommate wouldn't be so bad after all? ![]() But okay."But.having a roommate also means someone to split the chores, to make food with and to talk about Important Rock Things. The Skunk is always There and Present and In-The-Way. ![]() "I am here!"įollowed by another pause.Aunt Lula owns the brownstone, so Badger has to agree to her.but this skunk. But there was too much slick in this one's stripe.Badger lives in a little brownstone home thanks to the generosity of Aunt Lula, a pine martin.Īll Badger wants is to be left alone to do his Important Rock Work but then.Aunt Lula invites a roommate to the brownstone. ![]() Badger didn't normally shut the door on animals that knocked. ![]() ![]() ![]() Bacon is keen to have Emmie back, as when she turns fourteen she may leave school and start bringing home a wage.) ![]() She staunchly confronts and turns away Emmie’s horrid mother when she comes looking for her offspring. Straight to Miss Stanton flees Emmie, and Miss Stanton does her best for her protegé. Luckily (or perhaps unluckily?) Emmie is an intelligent child, a natural scholar, and she catches the eye and attention of one of her school teachers, which comes in handy when the thirteen-year-old flees the maternal home to escape a brutal attempted rape by her mother’s boyfriend. She’s not a “wanted” child, nor are her numerous siblings. ![]() Her mother tries to abort her, and that pretty well sets the scene for Emmie’s childhood years. ![]() Our young protagonist, Emmie Bacon, starts out in life with all the disadvantages possible, being raised in the rural country cottage equivalent of a dismal slum. Let me say right now, this is a fantastic little novel, and it’s worth getting past that awful title. White Hell of Pity went off on another tangent, that of contemporary realism, with a splash of the darkly gothic which was to show up so very often in Lofts’ subsequent 40+ books. This was Norah Lofts’ third published book, after a book of connected short stories, I Met a Gypsy (1935), and a historical fiction, Here Was a Man: A Romantic History of Sir Walter Raleigh (1936). White Hell of Pity by Norah Lofts ~ 1937. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() We don’t know why at first but, by the end of the story, the portentous meaning in all her brief comments becomes painfully clear. Subtle moments make it clear that Gan’s mother is afraid of T’Gatoi and for Gan. One Tlic, named T’Gatoi, lives with Gan’s family. Gan lives with other Terrans in “the Preserve,” an area that functions as a gigantic cage. As Butler gradually doles out information at the perfect pace, we learn that the narrator, Gan, lives on an alien planet where humans (Terrans) live alongside a race called the Tlic. ![]() The justly famous title story, “Bloodchild,” is fascinating. Some might characterize these works as escapist-personally, I think they’re as confrontational as literature can get. Yet for all their fantastical elements, every single story in this collection is rooted in dilemmas we face as individuals, societies, and a species. Some of the stories involve aliens, post-apocalyptic wastelands, imaginary diseases, or even feature god. Similarly, Butler reminded me that science-fiction can not only stimulate the imagination and raise intriguing questions but have as forceful an impact as any work of literature out there. I certainly didn’t need a reminder that books can be powerful, but Morrison’s works demonstrate just how much books can accomplish on a visceral level and how deeply they can expand you as a person. Butler’s masterful collection, Bloodchild and Other Stories, reminded me of when I read Toni Morrison’s first three novels. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() "The series offers another fine option for the adult horror-comic fan." "Perhaps the brainiest and scariest horror narrative of the '80s." - ROLLING STONE In this second collection of the Swamp Thing hardcover featuring SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING #28-34 and SWAMP THING ANNUAL #2, the Earth Elemental says goodbye to the illusion of his own humanity after learning that he is 100 percent plant, meets a crew of benevolent alien invaders inspired by the classic swamp-based comic strip Pogo, and consummates his relationship with Abigail Arcane as only he could. His deconstruction of the classic monster stretched the creative boundaries of the medium and became one of the most spectacular series in comic book history. comic book industry with the revitalization of the horror comic book THE SWAMP THING. Before WATCHMEN, Alan Moore made his debut in the U.S. ![]() ![]() ![]() Samantha Towle is a New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author.Ī native of Hull, she lives in East Yorkshire with her husband, their son and daughter, and three large furbabies. Is Tru strong enough to resist the delectable bad boy who once held her heart so completely, or will she willingly risk it all for one night with the world's most notorious womanizer? But taking the job means leaving Will behind, and being on the road with the band means spending an inordinate amount of time with Jake. Then Jake makes Tru a job offer she can't refuse-travelling the world with him and his band. Only, there’s a complication to their instant feelings for one another-Will, Tru’s boyfriend of two years. ![]() Sent to interview Jake for her music column by the magazine she works for, they are both unprepared for the sparks that fly the instant they reconnect. Jake Wethers, sexy, tattooed and deliciously bad lead singer, and brains behind The Mighty Storm, one of the biggest bands in the world, left Tru with a broken heart when he moved from England to America with his family when they were both fourteen. ![]() It's been twelve years since Tru Bennett last saw Jake Wethers, her former best friend and boy she once loved. ![]() ![]() ![]() I can firmly say I will now be joining other reviewers in singing Jen Williams’ praises too, as this book was simply spectacular. ![]() This was my first novel by Williams, and I dived into it with high expectations, as many friends of mine have expressed much love for her books. The Ninth Rain by Jen Williams is the first book in The Winnowing Flame trilogy. Once armies had marched from this place and swept down across the plains, massacring her people as they went, drinking their blood and worse, according to the stories. Here were the homes of the rich and important pale marble glinted in the peach fire of the sunset, and she saw pieces of richly carved architecture, cracked or covered in ivy. The ancient city of Ebora, for centuries largely forbidden to humans, was now passing beneath her feet. ![]() ‘Noon felt her heart begin to beat faster in her chest. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Hence, Buddhists approached them as living entities in their own right-that is, as awakened icons with whom they could interact religiously.ĭobbins begins by reflecting on art museums, where many non-Buddhists first encounter images of the Buddha, before outlining the complex Western response to them in previous centuries. Although widely portrayed in the last century as visual emblems of great religious truths or as exquisite works of Asian art, Buddhist images were traditionally treated as the very embodiment of the Buddha, his palpable presence among people. In Behold the Buddha, James Dobbins invites readers to imagine how premodern Japanese Buddhists understood and experienced icons in temple settings long before the advent of museums and the internet. more Images of the Buddha are everywhere-not just in temples but also in museums and homes and online-but what these images mean largely depends on the background and circumstance of those viewing them. Images of the Buddha are everywhere-not just in temples but also in museums and homes and online. ![]() ![]() ![]() However, this late date doesn’t make as much sense because Edom fell in 553 BC. Others have placed the date of the book as far as 400 BC, long after the Babylonians took over, and the Israelites returned to their land. ![]() They have argued for this because the Edomites rebelled against Jerusalem in that time period ( 2 Chronicles 21:16–17). Some have put this book in 840 BC, long before the destruction of Jerusalem (or the fall of the Northern Kingdom to Assyria in 722 BC). ![]() Context and Background of ObadiahĪs far as dates go, scholars’ opinions vary. He spares no words on background details about himself or his family, and dives right into the meat, the impending destruction of Edom. The minor prophet who penned this book likely did so after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BC. In fact, 12 men by the name of Obadiah, “one who serves Yahweh,” appear in Scripture. Although one prophet named Obadiah was an official during King Ahab’s reign ( 1 Kings 18:3-16), this Obadiah was not the same. Not much is known about the specific prophet Obadiah who received a vision to write this short 21-verse book. ![]() ![]() ![]() Well, not actually as one of the three hundred. Instead, it starts when Xeones was a child, living happily, and his town gets sacked by some other Greeks, but he escapes to eventually wind up as a slave-squire to one of the Spartans who gets sent to Thermopylae as one of the three hundred. Of course, it’s not that simple, otherwise the book would be about fifty pages long and would end most likely on the down note of Xeones getting put out of his misery after telling all. In order to better understand the Greeks, especially the Spartans, Xerxes has the one survivor of the battle, a dying slave to the Spartans named Xeones, tell them everything he knows about the Spartans. The story is that of the battle of Thermopylae, otherwise known as the Hot Gates, a conflict between the invading Persian armies of King Xerxes and the defending Greeks who decided that the Hot Gates were the best place to die the best place to attempt to hold back the masses of Persians and their slaves who are in love with the idea of world domination. Considering I have a healthy appreciation for the Spartans when they show up at Dragon*Con, I figured it was the least I could do. ![]() |