![]() Drawing on extensive first-hand accounts, it brings to life the exploits of an extraordinary band of conquerors - men such as Afonso de Albuquerque, the first European since Alexander the Great to found an Asian empire - who set in motion five hundred years of European colonisation and unleashed the forces of globalisation. Told with Roger Crowley's customary skill and verve, this is narrative history at its most vivid - an epic tale of navigation, trade and technology, money and religious zealotry, political diplomacy and espionage, sea battles and shipwrecks, endurance, courage and terrifying brutality. In an astonishing blitz of thirty years, a handful of visionary and utterly ruthless empire builders, with few resources but breathtaking ambition, attempted to seize the Indian Ocean, destroy Islam and take control of world trade. ![]() But Portugal's navigators cracked the code of the Atlantic winds, launched the expedition of Vasco da Gama to India and beat the Spanish to the spice kingdoms of the East - then set about creating the first long-range maritime empire. ![]() As remarkable as Columbus and the conquistador expeditions, the history of Portuguese exploration is now almost forgotten. ![]()
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![]() ![]() ![]() A thought occurred to me, in relation to this story, that nobody dreams like this, with such tedious detail. I feel that I am always oblivious to these small details in the day to day. Off topic here, but one thing I love about David Foster Wallace is his ability to key in on details and minutiae without losing the purpose of the narrative. The confusion could simply be a component of the waking state. Maybe Audrey is just a projection of herself and her relationship with her family, specifically her stepfather. ![]() On the other hand, maybe there is no Audrey. That could be an interpretation of the whole sleep lab scenario and the comment by ¿Randall? about the appointment at the end. She seems confused about who she is, possibly suffering from some mental deterioration. The questions about Audrey, the marriage and Daddy lead me to an even darker impression. Randall's tediousness comes off as more of a criticism of Randall, potentially, by the dreaming Hope who is harboring the common animosity the sleeper has towards one attempting to awaken them. Sipe's Saab early on, then, as the meeting with the sleep clinicians began, the surreal background, "the sound of a hand-held hammer. The thunderstorm in the beginning and Hope questioning if it was raining at the end seems relevant. I think you're correct that this was all Hope's dream. ![]() I'm similarly flummoxed, but enjoyably so. ![]() ![]() ![]() As she goes deeper into the lives of the women in her family, she learns that heartbreak and tragedy are not the only things she has in common with her ancestors.īecause the crying woman was with them, too. ![]() When Alejandra visits a therapist, she begins exploring her family’s history, starting with the biological mother she never knew. Nor can they see what Alejandra sees. In times of despair, a ghostly vision appears to her, the apparition of a crying woman in a ragged white gown. But they cannot see who Alejandra has become: a woman struggling with a darkness that threatens to consume her. To her own adoptive mother, she is a daughter. To her husband, she is a wife, and to her children, a mother. ”- Paste (Most Anticipated Horror Novels of 2023)Īlejandra no longer knows who she is. “Castro is one of the most exciting genre authors on the scene right now, and this might be her most powerful book yet. story about generational trauma, colonization, systemic oppression, and the horror at the heart of motherhood” ( Library Journal, starred review). A woman is haunted by the Mexican folk demon La Llorona in this “utterly terrifying and wholly immersive. ![]() ![]() ![]() As their feelings get more serious, Charlie and Nick will need each other more than ever before.īy Alice Oseman, winner of the YA Book Prize, Heartstopper is about love, friendship, loyalty and mental illness. Nick's even found the courage to come out to his mum.īut coming out isn't just something that happens once - there's Nick's older brother, and a school trip to Paris, not to mention all the other friends and family - and life can be hard, even with someone who loves you by your side. I loved this book.' RAINBOW ROWELL, author of Carry OnĬharlie didn't think Nick could ever like him back, but now they're officially boyfriends. *Includes exclusive Tao/Elle mini-comic!* An LGBTQ+ graphic novel about life, love, and everything that happens in between: this is the third volume of the bestselling HEARTSTOPPER series. ![]() *Now an acclaimed live-action Netflix series!* Boy meets boy. ![]() ![]() There is no single cause that can entirely explain it. ![]() ![]() This complexity is important for understanding the origins of the present crisis. “One should insist on the basic unity of the three domains”, he argues. First, the real nature of this emergency is, according to Žižek, a “crucial ideological and political battle” across three domains-the pandemic, an ecological crisis, and racism. Several themes deserve discussion outside the philosophy classroom. He now has a new book of reflections about the events of the past year- Pandemic! 2 Chronicles of a Time Lost. The story of COVID-19 vaccines is one example. But Žižek was correct to suggest that “even horrible events can have unpredictable positive consequences”. On the contrary, COVID-19 has sharpened rivalries, weakened alliances, and intensified nationalisms. He was sadly wrong to suggest that the pandemic would precipitate the birth of a new global solidarity “based on trust in the people and in science”. A philosopher's way of saying that absence might make the heart grow fonder. Žižek wondered if physical distancing might “strengthen the intensity of our link with others”. ![]() It would be a mistake to search for a deeper meaning to COVID-19 (“it just happened”). The pandemic would not make us any wiser. In Pandemic! COVID-19 Shakes the World, he offered some provisional predictions. Slavoj Žižek was one of the first philosophers to write about COVID-19. ![]() ![]() The Flamethrowers packs an impressive punch, and Kushner’s writing is fantastically vivid. Her beau, the black sheep of his family, resists Reno’s inclusion, but she nonetheless ventures with them to Italy-and there learns more about Sandro and revolution than she cares to know. While beginning an art project on the Salt Flats, Reno crashes a motorcycle and is subsequently adopted by the Valera racing team. The narrative veers and swerves between locations and times, creating a jerky sense of anxiety. Kushner’s focus shifts between Reno’s artistic journey and the Valera family’s rise, rendering locales ranging from the Salt Flats of Utah to the Amazonian rain forest with sterling detail. ![]() Reno’s bridge between the two worlds is her boyfriend, Sandro Valera, an Italian artist living in New York, whose businessman father built a tire and motorcycle empire on the backs of Brazilian slave laborers. The central character, a young artist nicknamed Reno, is almost secondary to the larger-than-life figures she encounters in the late 1970s, including artists and countercultural revolutionaries, who fall into one of two violent categories: the Weather Underground sort and the even more dedicated-to-destruction Italian kind. ![]() ![]() ![]() Youth, art and revolution all demand a body count, or so Rachel Kushner suggests in her bracing, sometimes brutal second novel. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Then you have the crux of the crisis that befalls the protagonist of Italian writer Luigi Pirandello’s classic 1926 novel One, No One, and One Hundred Thousand, newly released by Spurl Editions, the inimitable little US publisher of nearly forgotten literary and photographic treasures. Yet what if that is impossible? What if the image we have of ourselves is at once entirely singular, unverifiable, and at odds to some degree, great or small, with the multitude of images everyone else has of us? But implicit in claiming, or rejecting any identity, is the assumption that we can know our own selves, and have that knowledge accepted and validated by others. ![]() In a world obsessed with identity politics, there seems to be a considerable currency placed on defining and understanding oneself in relation to others. And everything, as long as it lasts, bears the penalty of its form, the penalty of being this way and no longer being able to be otherwise. The being must be trapped in a form, and for some time it has to stay in it, here or there, this way or that. You want to be, eh? There’s this catch: in abstract, you cannot just be. Fate, fortune, chance: all snares of life. And if you lose an eye, it’s a fact and you can even lose both, and if you’re a painter it’s the worst thing that can happen to you. ![]() To be born in one period rather than another, as I’ve already said and of this or that father, and in this or that condition to be male or female in Lapland or in central Africa and handsome or ugly with a hump or without: facts. ![]() ![]() ![]() With a mermaid tail and an entire ocean awaiting her, Emily is eager to meet new friends and swim off on big adventures in this inviting new series for the younger set, based on the best-selling middle-grade series by Liz Kessler. Welcome to Emily’s Big Discovery, the first in a sparkling, charmingly illustrated series of readers. She gets that weird feeling again, but this time she looks down to see that her legs are gone-replaced by a shiny, beautiful tail! Eager to figure out what’s happening, Emily later dives into the sea. ![]() Standing beside the pool, she feels the water calling her, but when she jumps in, she gets a strange, kind of scary sensation. Tail of Emily Windsnap Series the Complete Collection 9 Books Box Set by liz Kessler (Tides of Time, Pirate Price, Falls of Forgotten island,Ship of the Midnight Sun & More) by Liz Kessler, 9780763660208 The Tail of Emily Windsnap By Liz Kessler 978-0763660208, 0763660205, et al. ![]() But it’s hard to make friends at the beach when everyone else is having fun in the waves! So when swimming lessons start at school, Emily is excited to finally have the chance to learn. And, oddly enough, for just as long, her mother has seemed anxious to keep her away from the water. 22,981 Ratings For as long as she can remember, twelve-year-old Emily Windsnap has lived on a boat.Her mother has always cautioned her to stay out of the water. The Tail of Emily Windsnap (Emily Windsnap, 1) by Liz Kessler 3.92 avg. ![]() Introducing an exciting new line of readers that brings half-mermaid Emily Windsnap-star of the New York Times best-selling series-to a younger audience.Įven though she lives in a houseboat, Emily Windsnap doesn’t know how to swim. ![]() ![]() Together the covers portray a divided China. One book cover shows the left half of Bao's face with Qin Shi Huangdi and the other shows the right half of Vibiana's face with Joan of Arc. Saints follows the story of "Four-Girl", a girl from the same village who becomes a Catholic, adopts the name "Vibiana", and hopes to attain the glory of Joan of Arc. īoxers follows the story of Little Bao, a boy from Shan-tung ( Shandong) who becomes a leader of the Boxer Rebellion. Together the two volumes have around 500 pages. The publisher First Second Books released them on September 10, 2013. ![]() ![]() The cover of Boxers (left) and the cover of Saints (right), respectively.īoxers and Saints are two companion graphic novel volumes written and illustrated by Gene Luen Yang, and colored by Lark Pien. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() In 1991, she released the first installment of the ‘Tracy Beaker’ series, ‘The Story of Tracy Beaker.’ The immense success of the first book allowed her to release three sequels. For the next two decades, she wrote many books and achieved moderate success. Jacqueline got married at the age of 19 and started writing books soon after. She bagged a job as a writer at a publishing company. Once out of high school, she started training to become a secretary. She was not interested in any other subject except English and did not really pay attention to academics. She wrote her first short novel at the age of 9. Born and raised in Somerset, England, she was always inclined toward literature and was an avid reader since childhood. Dame Jacqueline Wilson is an English author who is famous for her children’s book series known as the ‘Tracy Beaker’ series. ![]() |