![]() Why, Shapland asks, are the stories of women paved over by others' narratives? What happens when constant revision is required of queer women trying to navigate and self-actualize in straight spaces? And what might the tracing of McCullers's life?her history, her secrets, her legacy?reveal to Shapland about herself? In smart, illuminating prose, Shapland interweaves her own story with McCullers's to create a vital new portrait of one of our nation's greatest literary treasures, and shows us how the writers we love and the stories we tell about ourselves make us who we are. Her curiosity gives way to fixation, not just with this newly discovered side of McCullers's life, but with how we tell queer love stories. Though Shapland recognizes herself in the letters, which are intimate and unabashed in their feelings, she does not see McCullers as history has portrayed her. Shapland is a graduate student when she first uncovers letters written to Carson McCullers by a woman named Annemarie. ![]() Shapland writes that it exists in the fluid distance between the writer and her subject, in the fashioning of a self on the page, which sounds exciting Katie Roiphe’s recent The Power Notebooks is on this. FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Non-fiction How do you tell the real story of someone misremembered - an icon and idol - alongside your own? Jenn Shapland's celebrated debut is both question and answer: an immersive, surprising exploration of one of America's most beloved writers, alongside a genre-defying examination of identity, queerness, memory, obsession, and love. My Autobiography of Carson McCullers, as its too-clever-by-half-sounding title implies, is neither memoir nor biography. ![]()
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![]() ![]() The Atlantic slave trade began in earnest in the early 16th century as European powers, specifically Portugal and Spain, colonized the coasts of West Africa and shipped abducted Africans to South American colonies. ![]() Many of Draper’s books focus on the experience of Black Americans or of racial tensions in the U.S. Several of her books have won local and regional awards as well. She’s won five Coretta Scott King Book Awards (one of which was for Copper Sun) and has had several of her novels listed as ALA Best Books. Over the course of her career, she’s won awards both for her teaching and for her writing. A decade later, Draper retired from teaching to focus on writing instead. The resulting short story, “One Small Torch,” won a writing contest sponsored by Ebony magazine. ![]() In 1990, one of her students challenged her to write something of her own. Following the completion of her education, she began teaching high school in Cincinnati. She earned a bachelor’s in English from Pepperdine University and went on to pursue a master’s in English from Miami University of Ohio. She was an avid reader as a child, devouring almost every book in her library’s children’s section by age 11. ![]() Draper, the oldest of three children, was born in Cleveland, Ohio. ![]() ![]() ![]() Cooper and Park are on their honeymoon and Eli has recently moved to the retreat for runaways they’ve set up in remote Maudit Falls, which they’ve asked him to run. Pack of Lies opens just a couple of weeks so after the end of Cry Wolf. ![]() Plus – they’re marvelous reads and I assure you, you won’t regret backtracking! While this is the first in a new series, I really would recommend reading the previous books first so as to gain an understanding of how this world works pack politics and how wolves interact (or don’t) with humans are key elements in these stories, and you’ll get a bit of background information on Eli. He’s my book catnip – complex, flawed and damaged with a sharp tongue and attitude for miles. Eli was introduced in Thrown to the Wolves, where we learned he’d had a very troubled past, running with rebel packs who used and betrayed him until he was rescued and taken in by the Parks. ![]() I was delighted when I learned the author would be writing more books set in this world and that we’d get to spend more time with the snarky, enigmatic Elias Smith – a major secondary character in the earlier series. With clever plotting, excellent world building, fantastic characterization and a beautifully developed central relationship, those books had it all, and were always going to be a tough act to follow. Charlie Adhara’s paranormal/romantic suspense Big Bad Wolf series is one of my all-time favorites. ![]() ![]() At the same time, there’s something happening with Agent Fox…everybody is confused! In episode twelve, Snake appears to have terrifying powers, and the other bad guys don’t know what to do about it – but Snake is determined to convince them otherwise. The Bad Guys are a crew of animals who are trying to reverse their bad deeds by doing good deeds. It’s an episodic series, almost like a television show, and told in a comic book style, using lots of illustrations. ![]() It will melt your brain…Īaron Blabey has been writing the Bad Guys series, published by Scholastic, for the past five years. Synopsis: Seriously, what is going on with Snake? Terrifying powers! Evil allies! Interdimensional Doorways! What is his deal? And that’s not all! Why is Agent Fox suddenly so mysterious? Who IS she, exactly?! Dang it! We need answers! Wolf and the gang are back. ![]() ![]() ![]() His description of the conflagration terrifies, but it is his battle with words, his effort to turn the story of the 13 men into tragedy that makes this book a classic."-from New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice, Best Books of 1992 ![]() Maclean's search for the truth, which becomes an exploration of his own mortality, is more compelling even than his journey into the heart of the fire. "A magnificent drama of writing, a tragedy that pays tribute to the dead and offers rescue to the living. Young Men and Fire won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1992. Haunted by these deaths for forty years, Norman Maclean puts back together the scattered pieces of the Mann Gulch tragedy. Two hours after their jump, all but three of these men were dead or mortally burned. On August 5, 1949, a crew of fifteen of the United States Forest Service's elite airborne firefighters, the Smokejumpers, stepped into the sky above a remote forest fire in the Montana wilderness. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() (You can thank me later, is what I’m saying.) Don’t believe me? Well, you can see what the author herself has to say about her new fairytale retelling, its complex characters, and the message at its core. With the news that the book is getting a sequel, you’ve really got no excuse not to dive into this series ASAP. ![]() Throw in a bunch of literal gods with their own agendas, an enemies-to-lovers romance, and several complex female friendships, and you’ve easily got one of the best fantasy books of the year. ![]() Little Thievesputs a unique spin on the Grimm’s fairytale, “The Goose Girl,” using the story’s familiar framework to turn the story of the character who stole her mistress’s life on its head and explore the lived experiences that might drive her to make such a desperate choice. (And by “world of YA fantasy,” I also mean “my personal reading list”.) From her debut duology comprised of The Merciful Crow and The Faithless Hawk to her new novel Little Thieves, her books are full of unexpected surprises, from their complex worldbuilding to their unconventional heroines. Margaret Owen has become quite a buzzy name in the world YA fantasy of late. ![]() ![]() ![]() Chloe Carmichael outlines nine tools with step-by-step instructions that can help you harness your Nervous Energy in order to live a more productive and fulfilling life. The somewhat OCD tendencies we pride ourselves on, or rather, the "Nervous Energy" we possess, can become mismanaged, and lead us down a rabbit hole of excessive self-criticism, anxiety, and pessimism. ![]() ![]() This is when the old tools no longer suffice. Meanwhile, you may have become so good at putting your emotions aside in certain situations that its hard to reconnect with them. The higher you climb, the more complex projects and issues in your life become. The problems arise once you advance beyond school and early career stages. This strategy is seductive because it does work, at least up to a certain point. Many people reach success by deliberately being their own worst critic and obsessively double-checking their work or by pushing their feelings aside. A roadmap for high achievers to harness restlessness, roadblocks, and distractions into a productive drive towards personal and professional fulfillment. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() TRENT SHIFTED in his seat as the plane taxied toward the Kochi airport. ![]() When she isn’t writing, knitting, or poking at her orchids, she spends her time marveling at her two teenagers, who never cease to amaze her with their capacity for love and acceptance and sports-they certainly didn’t get that from her!-and their refusal to accept injustice of any kind-she hopes they got that from her. Her orchid collection has outgrown her office and spilled over into the rest of her house (much to her children’s dismay), but that hasn’t stopped her from adding to her collection or from resuscitating any unhappy ones she finds. ![]() Her passion for yarn has resulted in an overflowing stash and more projects than she’ll probably finish in a lifetime, but that has yet to stop her from buying more. The rich history and culture of France, the flavors and scents of India, and the sunrise over Machu Picchu in particular have left indelible impressions and show up regularly in her writing. She has explored 45 states and 13 countries. Ariel Tachna is a polyglot linguaphile with a passion for travel, yarn, orchids, and romance. ![]() ![]() ![]() At the same time, he caused devastation in New York with a rogue Red Ronin robot, and while the authorities and the heroes were scrambling, he sent his gang to do whatever they wanted, while he stole the Scorpio Key. off the scent, then use the helicarrier's connections to H.A.M.M.E.R.'s mainframe to simulate an attack on New York by Galactus. agents and leave their bodies in a remote farmhouse to throw H.A.M.M.E.R. ![]() From here, he made his plan - hospitalize a superhero, blow up the hospital he's admitted when his relatives come to visit, kill 100 H.A.M.M.E.R. With a group of underlings - Manslaughter Marsdale, the Clown II, the Trapster and Death Reaper - he made his headquarters in a crashed Helicarrier in a scrapyard in New York. However, when the Secret Invasion left Norman Osborn's cabal of supervillains in charge of law enforcement, he was outraged and made it his personal mission to make Norman Osborn look like a fool. ![]() In preparation for this, he placed a listening device in the meeting room at Avengers Tower. A young man chose to become an anarchist and fight against the government and the Avengers. ![]() ![]() ![]() The strongest of the three lifeboats, the James Caird, was selected for the journey. It meant a 1,500km long boat journey through perilous seas. Knowing that the island was far from any shipping routes and was an inhospitable place, Shackleton decided their only hope was to reach the whaling stations of South Georgia. As the ice began to break up, the crew took the boats on a dangerous journey to Elephant Island, their new home. The crew had managed to salvage three lifeboats from the ship, which they named Stancomb Wills, Dudley Docker and James Caird, after the three major backers of the expedition. ![]() Shackleton’s crew set up camp on an ice floe while they made a plan for survival. After some eight months adrift in an ice-floe, Endurance was crushed by the pressure of the ice, finally sinking on 21 November 1915. However, en route it was beset in ice in the Weddell Sea. The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, led by Sir Ernest Shackleton, set sail for Antarctica in late 1914 in Shackleton’s ship Endurance. ![]() The James Caird leaves Elephant Island (Frank Hurley – public domain). ![]() |