Posts for 'Other Books' Category

During the last few years of my life, I have been laden with the task of writing critiques and reviews of all sorts of texts, from the ancient and archaic to the contemporary and radical, from Beowulf to Ishiguro, via the requisite copious amounts of Shakespeare. Analysis of many of these texts was an enjoyable pastime, simply because my refusal to accept the superiority of the author's penmanship when compared to my own allowed me to showboat somewhat, to exhibit a sense of denigration that can only originate in complacency.

Conversely, when dissecting the works of classic authors such as Jonathon Swift, or others too numerous and painful to recall with any kind of alacrity when only removed by such a short period of time, the very act of criticizing the text seems disrespectful, reminiscent of an arrogant Anakin seeking to usurp Obi-Wan Kenobi, which we all know is impossible.

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Bored, frustrated computer graduate student Jason Lind chaffing at the constraints of Stanford crafts a new persona as Father Allesandro de Scala in the online role-playing game Fortuna. There, Jason finds the adventure so lacking in real life (RL) and begins spending an increasing amount of time role-playing to the determent of other facets of his life until he is deeply in debt. In an effort to get solvent, Jason leaves Stanford to work for his uncle Frank Stocker, owner of Global Packet Control.

Jason’s father worked for Frank before being killed in a car accident nine years earlier. At work, Jason comes to realize GPC’s business practices are not exactly on the up and up. In a melding of RL and gaming, Jason starts drawing on his identity as Father de Scala to ferret out what’s really going on but in this high stakes game it’s difficult to keep fantasy separate from reality.

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Imagine a world without bird song or any animal noises; where song has disappeared.  For Sylvie Bartram this is just what happened one day as she was about to have her summer holiday. Her dog lost his bark. The birds stopped singing, the fox on the bank became silent and her dad - a maker of unusual instruments has disappeared.  Determined to find him, Sylvie and her friend George set out on a quest which takes them into the nightmare world of the Songman where no one can sing or speak.

Only Sophie can make the choices which will save or damm the world.  This is one of the most enchanting fantasies I have read for a long time.  It is innovative, a different angle on fantasy, with a compelling story line which keeps you reading. There is a wonderful cast of characters from the train loving fox, to the terrifying Woodpecker man in his swan powered balloon.  I loved it.

When passivity and false niceness don't bring the abundant life Jesus promised, some Christian women try even harder to hide behind a fragile façade of pleasant perfection. Paul Coughlin and Jennifer Degler give women the empowering message that they have options far beyond simply acting nice or being mean--if they will emulate the real Jesus Christ and face their fears of conflict, rejection, and criticism.

Brimming with enlightening information, thought-provoking questionnaires, real-life stories, and biblically based teaching from both the male author of the pioneering No More Christian Nice Guy and a female clinical psychologist, this book will motivate women to allow God to transform them into authentic, powerful women of loving faith.

I was sent this book from BethanyHouse Publishing Company to read and review and when I received the book, I was curious to find out what the book was about, even after reading the description of the book on the back. So I opened it up and read it within two hours.

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This is the extraordinary story of Phoolan Devi, who became known as the “Bandit Queen” of India.

She grew up in Uttar Pradesh, was married at 11, and then kidnapped and raped by bandits.

Aware she would be stigmatised for the rest of her life, she went on the run with the bandits and styled herself as a latter-day Robin Hood. After she was captured, she spent years in jail where.

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Aslam Kolsri is self-effacing about his creative ability of writing poetry. In all modesty, he compares his talents to a market of glass having a clay pot that could break anytime. While going through Kolsri’s résumé in the book titled Jadeed Ghazal Aur.

Aslam Kolsri Ka Sheri Sarmaya written by Dr Syed Shabihul Hasan, one discovers that his traits include reticence and hard work. Born in Okara, he worked as an ordinary labourer without feeling any shame.

While working as a laboratory supervisor from 1968 to 1978, he completed his intermediate, bachelor’s and master’s degrees as a private candidate. After moving to Lahore and serving as a sub-editor at the daily Mashriq.

He spent 16 years in the Urdu Science Board, initially as research officer and later on as deputy director. After retiring from this post, Kolsri now works as a director at the Punjab Institute of Languages, Arts and Culture.

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Right from the start, eleven-year-old Olive McMartin just knew there was something strange about the old mansion her math whiz parents moved into on Linden Street. There was the mysterious death of Ms. McMartin for a start and then there were.

Those odd paintings that looked as though the subjects had just moved. Stranger still was the fact that none of the paintings could be budged from their places on the walls to say nothing of the talking cats.

With the discovery of a pair of old spectacles, Olive finds herself able to see what is really going on in the pictures and more then that, she can enter them. As Olive begins exploring, she rescues nine-year-old Morton from one of the pictures thus drawing undue attention to her activities. There is something truly evil lurking in those pictures and in the house, now it wants her.

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All that beach-book buzz you're hearing these days is almost certainly for "The Passage," Justin Cronin's big-as-a-brick apocalyptic vampire saga.

One part Stephen King's "The Stand," one part Cormac McCarthy's "The Road," this dark, humorless, 784-page morality tale is the opening act for Cronin's ambitious trilogy about a military experiment gone horribly bad.

The marketing machine for this thing is in overdrive: $3.7 million for the three-book deal, $1.7 million for the rights to the first movie, over-the-top reviews.

And, of course, a breathless jacket blurb from the "King" of horror himself. And if all that isn't enough, "Passage" has been hyped to the hyperbolic heavens by just about everyone with a book blog as the summer's big "It" blockbuster.

Well, wait. Not so fast. The book does get off to a spectacularly great start. But ultimately, it stumbles and staggers under the weight of all the hype and Cronin's inability to sustain the pace and promise of his first 200 brilliant pages.

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The grit, the grind and the grim realities of wartime Lancashire provide the backdrop for a gripping debut novel.

It is a dark tale of bigotry, lies, betrayal and loss of innocence...but also one of renewal, loyalty and trust.

In March 1944, the war is taking its toll on 22-year-old nursing sister Mary Howarth – rows are tearing her family.

Apart, air raids are hitting nearby Manchester and the darkness of the blackout is smothering her.

Her younger sister Ellen says she should be having a good time while she can, but her job at a prison camp for the housing.

And treatment of German POWs, rewarding as it is, leaves little time for pleasure. And there is the added worry of her much-loved brother.

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Here's an interesting challenge: Take the subject of "The Eternal Creator and Sustainer of the Entire Known Universe" (aka "God") and tell everyone on the planet everything they need to know about this Creator in a series of books.

Apparently, the only one with the temerity to step up to the plate is Eric Metaxas with his smooth-hitting "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About God (But Were Afraid to Ask): The Jesus Edition." Mr. Metaxas has, in fact, been taking on this robust challenge for several years now - and not just in book form.

"Socrates in the City," a speakers forum meeting periodically in several sumptuous New York City locales, examines "Life, God, and other small topics." "Socrates in the City," a Metaxas creation, hosts such interesting and entertaining theological heavyweights as N.T. Wright, Sir John Polkinghorne and Os Guinness.

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