![]() ![]() ![]() And an unbelievable amount of dick jokes and Toilet Humor. After a run-in with a living hallucinogenic drug at a party, the pair gain the ability to see ghosts, demons, and into other dimensions. ![]() John is a deranged, irresponsible, carefree slacker/rocker/drug enthusiast Dave is an apathetic, bored, snarky, withdrawn young man with a traumatic past and the tendency to get dragged along with whatever John happens to be doing. John Dies at the End is a web serial-turned-published-book by author David Wong (actually Jason Pargin, former head editor of Cracked), written in autobiographical style and narrated by a character named David Wong about him and his best friend's adventures featuring the paranormal.ĭave and John are two college dropouts living in the middle of an "Undisclosed" town in Illinois. ![]()
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![]() ![]() That was even more apparent when a senseless tragedy took the lives of my parents, forcing me to become the sole guardian of our dysfunctional household at the mere age of twenty-three. Growing up poor in small-town California as the oldest of six siblings, I knew I would never ride off into the sunset with anyone. "The Swedish Prince is a romantic comedy that is the perfect blend of humor, sexy and heart, and I loved everything about this endearing story of a prince who meets his queen." - USA TODAY Until a chance encounter with an undercover royal, the charming Prince of Sweden, changed everything. ![]() Working as a motel maid in small-town California, while trying to take care of my five orphaned siblings, I never expected much from my life. ![]() ![]() Earn three units of credit." I thought it over and decided it was a pretty good deal. On campus one day, I saw the unlikely sight of an elementary school girl handing out flyers. I returned to college, this time to the University of California at Berkeley where I majored in Economics. For those of you too young to know what that is, I went door-to-door selling cleaning products. During that time, I had a short but surprisingly successful career as a Fuller Brush man. My father died during my first semester, and I returned to California to be near my mother. Doctorow, Margaret Atwood, E.B White, Richard Price and Kazuo Ishiguro.Īfter high school, I attended Antioch College in Ohio. Some of my other favorite authors include E.L. Salinger and Kurt Vonnegut were the authors who first inspired me. I enjoyed school and was a good student, but it wasn't until high school that I really became an avid reader. ![]() Now most of the orange trees are gone, replaced with fast food restaurants, and big box stores. The "ammo" hung from the trees, although the best ones were the gushy, rotten ones on the ground. ![]() ![]() At that time, there were orange groves all around, and the local kids would often divide up into teams and have orange fights. My dad worked on the 78th floor of the Empire State Building, and maybe that somehow inspired Wayside School, who knows? When I was nine years old, we moved to Tustin California. I was born in East Meadow, New York on Maand lived there until third grade. ![]() ![]() ![]() But reading about her uneasy relationship with this book – and her fondness for her others – piqued my curiosity, and so I thought I'd look at a few more things she's written. Heard of Westwood? I can't say I had either until this month.Ĭold Comfort Farm overshadows most other novels from the 20th century too, so it doesn't seem entirely unfair that it should have had a similar effect on the rest of Gibbons' oeuvre. ![]() Late in life she described it as "some unignorable old uncle, to whom you have to be grateful because he makes you a handsome allowance, but is often an embarrassment and a bore." She also lamented the fact that it had so eclipsed the 20-odd other novels, not to mention various collections of short stories and poetry, that she also published. Her dazzling first novel made her name, but it also became a millstone. Stella Gibbons might not thank us for focusing so completely on this novel, her most famous work. ![]() I'm glad it came out of the hat – and I'm grateful to the readers who nominated it.īut something has been nagging at me as I've come to know more about the book and its author. ![]() Less seriously, but probably more importantly, it's also been highly entertaining and extremely funny: just the book to see us through the darkest month. It's provided - forgive me - fertile ground for discussion about the art of parody, transcending parody and race and class in the 1930s. Cold Comfort Farm has been an excellent choice for this month's Reading Group. ![]() ![]() ![]() He learned new skills, saw interesting sights, and met exotic people who hadn’t run fast enough to get away. Drake sometimes overstates his case, and his constant praise of the Swift 's crew eventually grows stale, but he injects depth into a fast-moving tale to create that most elusive of hybrids: an SF adventure with a conscience.Ĭopyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. David Drake 1945 - The Army took David Drake from Duke Law School and sent him on a motorized tour of Viet Nam and Cambodia with the 11th Cav, the Blackhorse. Vivid, often gruesome battle scenes abound, but the quieter chapters contain the most intriguing episodes, as Ned and his crewmates witness the planetary devastation wreaked by others of their kind. Meanwhile, Ned earns his comrades' respect and Lissea's attention with his combination of sharpshooting and intelligence. The crew deals efficiently with a number of dangerous landings along the way, retrieves the capsule and returns triumphantly to the Swift 's home port of Telaria, where they face their bloodiest battle. Captained by the capable, attractive Lissea Doormann and manned by 20 hired killers, the spaceship Swift sets out for the Lost Colony of Pancahte to retrieve a stolen capsule that will vault Lissea to the head of Doormann Trading, one of the galaxy's most powerful businesses. ![]() Ned Slade wants to make a name for himself, and a voyage on the spaceship Swift provides his opportunity. ![]() The author of Time Safari assembles an entertaining crew for this novel about a young mercenary's entrance into manhood. ![]() ![]() ![]() The 900-page epic traverses multiple continents over eight decades, and its intricate plotlines converge upon a fictional Mexican city resembling, in its horror and decay, Ciudad Juarez, the slum city sprawling endlessly across the border from El Paso. The English translation of 2666 was finally released at the end of 2008. Bolano's writings reflects both his complex cosmopolitanism and his fiery political ideals. ![]() The author journeyed across Europe as a laborer, kicked an addiction to heroin and was imprisoned - briefly - during the military dictatorship of Gen. Born in Chile, but reared in Mexico, Bolano came of age at a time when inspirational political movements were taking place across Latin America. But America's paucity of publishers (and readers) willing to publish (and read) works in translation slowed down our appreciation of Bolano's sterling reputation in Latin America and across the world.Ģ666 was published in 2004, a year after Bolano died at the age of 50 of a rare liver disease. The United States took a while to clue into a writer who's been internationally hailed as one of the very best of our era, if not the second coming of Jorge Luis Borges. Roberto Bolano's 2666 is at once a novel and an international literary event. Each week, we present leading authors of fiction and nonfiction as they read from and discuss their work. ![]() Author Interviews Poets and Gangsters: Discovering Roberto Bolanoīook Tour is a Web feature and podcast. ![]() ![]() ![]() economic protection from abject poverty, including through income supplements and unemployment relief.freedom of opportunity, including freedom to access credit and.political freedoms and transparency in relations between people.Development as Freedom was published one year later and argues that development entails a set of linked freedoms: Knopf.Īmartya Sen was the winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economics. The American edition of the book was published by Alfred A. Development as Freedom is a 1999 book about international development by Indian economist and philosopher Amartya Sen. ![]() ![]() ![]() It is fascinating to see the change in GDP (global share) and population growth through history, and understand the reasons behind them. In terms of history, while it might be arguably selective, the author does cover the Harappa civilisation, the movement of civilisation from the Indus to the Gangetic plains, the Mauryas, Guptas, the dynasties preceding the Mughals, different emperors of the Mughal empire, the British and even the politics and policies of contemporary India that continues to create new contours. He has also covered population influx and exodus at different points in history, and the influences of both, in India as well as in other geographies. But in many contexts, the author has given hat tips to other relevant regions/kingdoms. One reason is probably that, the events and transformation that this region has witnessed is relatively much higher than the rest of the country. As the title suggests, the specific area around the seven rivers gets most of the focus. In trying to unravel the broad contours as well as nuances of an ancient civilisation that continues to thrive, the author covers varying domains – beginning with genetics and tectonics and continuing on to trade, politics, cartography and so on. ![]() ![]() Geography through the lens of history, the other way, or both! Whichever way one interprets it, the perspective it offers simply by traversing the length of time from “Gondwana to Gurgaon” is quite amazing. ![]() ![]() ![]() Her arrest leaves her five-year-old son in the precarious custody of her mother, whom Romy detests. When a Mars Room regular starts stalking her, Romy kills him in what the courts deem a murder rather than self-defense. ![]() ![]() Romy - who spent her neglected San Francisco adolescence drinking, stealing, and getting high - grew up to make her living as a stripper at a seedy club that gives the book its title. In a recent interview with the New Yorker, Rachel Kushner ’01SOA said that most incarcerated men and women she has known “go to prison not on account of their irreducible uniqueness as people but because they are part of a marginalized sector of the population who never had a chance, who were slated for it early on.” Her third novel, The Mars Room, offers a crushing account of one such ordinary life on the margins.Īt twenty-nine, Romy Hall is serving two consecutive life sentences at Stanville Women’s Correctional Facility in California. ![]() ![]() Shakespeare's use of poetic dramatic structure (including effects such as switching between comedy and tragedy to heighten tension, the expansion of minor characters, and numerous sub-plots to embellish the story) has been praised as an early sign of his dramatic skill. The text of the first quarto version was of poor quality, however, and later editions corrected the text to conform more closely with Shakespeare's original. Believed to have been written between 15, the play was first published in a quarto version in 1597. Shakespeare borrowed heavily from both but expanded the plot by developing a number of supporting characters, particularly Mercutio and Paris. The plot is based on an Italian tale written by Matteo Bandello and translated into verse as The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet by Arthur Brooke in 1562 and retold in prose in Palace of Pleasure by William Painter in 1567. ![]() Romeo and Juliet belongs to a tradition of tragic romances stretching back to antiquity. Today, the title characters are regarded as archetypal young lovers. ![]() It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and, along with Hamlet, is one of his most frequently performed plays. ![]() Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare early in his career about the romance between two Italian youths from feuding families. Problems playing this file? See media help. ![]() |