![]() Narrated with spirit and warmth by Jenny Sterlin, Gregory Maguire’s vision of Cinderella is a sweeping story of love and deception, where a ball, a handsome prince and the betrayal of a daughter can lead to everyone living happily ever after. Allegory of children bending over a crate In the allegory, there is a crate that has arrived from China. When the merchant’s wife dies, Margarethe seizes the moment, and a wicked stepmother is born. The symbolism used where people are represented as rats is coherent with the book, ‘Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister’ whereby the narrator paints human beings are unappreciative, not loyal and unhelpful. Margarethe is hired as the housekeeper and Iris as a companion to the merchant’s stunningly beautiful but troubled daughter. Arriving destitute, the family becomes employed in the home of a wealthy tulip merchant. Forced to flee England with her recently widowed mother, Margarethe, and her older sister, she finds herself swept into a life that becomes a legend. ![]() Iris is a plain but intelligent young girl. ![]() ![]() Using a dazzling reincarnation of the Cinderella story set in 17th century Holland, Maguire deftly weaves together stories of inner and outer beauty. Gregory Maguire, critically acclaimed author of Wicked, returns with his eagerly anticipated second novel. ![]()
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![]() ![]() The playwright doesn’t deal with those things, or if the playwright does deal with those characteristics or those elements of human identity, they’ll release them through the things that people do. I think Mark Haddon’s book is rich in thought and feeling and memory and observation. It’s a fascinating thing Novelists and playwrights deal with different subjects, fundamentally we deal with consideration of what humanity is, but I think novelists can deal with the consideration of what human beings think, feel, remember or observe. What do you think the play is really about?Ī. Simon Stephens, playwright of the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time discusses what the play means to him and how he went about adapting the book for the stage. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Down in steerage, you’ll follow the journey of émigré Maria Riffelmacher as she escapes poverty in Europe. In first class you’ll meet A-listers like Marlene Dietrich, Wallis Simpson, and Josephine Baker the second class carried a new generation of professional and independent women, like pioneering interior designer Sibyl Colefax. The ocean liner was a microcosm of contemporary society, divided by class: from the luxury of the upper deck, playground for the rich and famous, to the cramped conditions of steerage or third class travel. Maiden Voyages is a fascinating portrait of the era, the ships themselves, and these women as they crossed the Atlantic. They were celebrities, migrants and millionaires, refugees, aristocrats and crew members whose stories have mostly remained untold-until now. Some traveled for leisure, some for work others to reinvent themselves or find new opportunities. It was an extraordinary undertaking made by many women, whose lives were changed forever by their journeys between the Old World and the New. Media Issues, Communication & Journalismĭuring the early twentieth century, transatlantic travel was the province of the great ocean liners. ![]() Computer Science & Information Technology. ![]() ![]() ![]() I don’t even think to try- it will be years before I realize the oddness of that- and no one offers to help me. It’s August and the sky is dark from the storm. The gym guy insists it’s not necessary, but Or calls. He looks like a pirate and says he’s going to call. He stands over me now in a tank top with a bandana tied low across his forehead. We’d planned to run together along the country roads that morning, but a crack of thunder had sent us to the gym instead. I’ve seen her at these conferences over the last couple of years, and we’ve shared meals, but that’s all. I’m at a graduate student conference in Stowe, Vermont, a town wedged deep in the valley between the Green Mountains and the Worcester Range. He bends at the waist and wags the bottle over my face for me to take it. “A banana,” I tell him, and he nods as though he suspected as much. He wants to know if I’ve had any breakfast. He is tall and waxy with a bird face and dark hair that’s more thin than thinning. ![]() The hotel gym guy comes with orange Gatorade. “Jessica, it’s Ilana.” She says it the Canadian way, with a flat first a. ![]() Someone is holding my head at the temples. My back is flat against the ground, and so are the soles of my feet, and my knees are up and swaying. ![]() ![]() I like writing that sort of rough-hewn, barely literate, Huckleberry Finn-ish kind of voice. But in this case, the short story was a million miles away from where the novels landed, and it wasn’t even science fiction, it was a fantasy! It was set in a sort of medieval world with magic, and really the only things that survive are the voice in some aspects of the protagonist. It was a weird process in this case because it was a short story that came first. We sat down with M.R Carey to discuss the series and what dystopian fiction looks like during a real life global pandemic… How did you first come up with the idea for Koli’s adventures? With killer trees, impressive tech and an array of diverse and interesting characters, The Rampart Trilogy is dystopian fiction at its very best. ![]() ![]() The first novel, The Book Of Koli, was released earlier this year and the second book The Trials Of Koli is out now. ![]() Set in a dystopian future where the world has been ravaged due to the catastrophic Unfinished War and complications with climate change, The Rampart Trilogy is written by The Girl With All The Gifts author, M.R. ![]() ![]() ![]() It was Uncle Douglas’s gospel that she never visited a Sherbrooke male, only suggestible, weak-minded ladies. ![]() She didn’t speak-she was dead, after all-but she thought her words. She floated, simply floated, shimmering like nearly colorless veils. Her long pale hair hung loose down her back-beautiful hair, thick, like spun summer clouds. Her young face was as pale as alabaster, smooth and soft looking, just as beautiful and unchanging as it had been when he’d been a boy visiting his cousins so many years before. As always, she made no sound, simply appeared, hovering at the end of his bed. He spun story ideas, wondering what new demon or spirit his manly hero Thomas Straithmore would overcome in his next adventure.īetween one breath and the next, there she was, the resident Northcliffe ghost, the Virgin Bride. Still, he wasn’t about to let himself go to sleep, not yet. Ramsey didn’t find the water cold, which was astounding, and the children did indeed try to drown the both of them, as Uncle Douglas had said. ![]() Grayson was blessedly tired after a full day herding three excited children on the beach below the white cliffs. ![]() ![]() The average wage of animal slaughterers and processors remained comparatively strong from the 1960s through the early 1980s. ![]() Worker at Hormel meatpacking plant, Austin, MN, 1941. ![]() The UPWA was also known for its progressive ideals and its support of the civil rights movement during the 1960s. Over the next 40 years, unions such as the United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA) were able to improve both the pay and working conditions of meat packing employees in the U.S. But some critics say America's meat business has been in decline for decades and that the poor conditions found in slaughterhouses and packing facilities today are often little better than those described by Sinclair a century ago.ĭuring the 1930s, trade union-organized drives led by the newly-created Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) began to organize workers across different industries, including meat packing. ![]() The Pure Food and Drug Act and the Federal Meat Inspection Act were both passed later that year, and labor organizations slowly began to improve the conditions under which the country's meat packers toiled. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress In 1906, Upton Sinclair's novel "The Jungle" uncovered harrowing conditions inside America's meat packing plants and initiated a period of transformation in the nation's meat industry. ![]() ![]() The humor didn’t feel overpowering, and likewise, the more descriptive prose wasn’t overly purple. And I’ve gotta say, I was blown away by her writing! Kingfisher hits the perfect balance between wry sarcasm and beautiful, immersive prose, which is a hard set to juggle. Kingfisher books (the last book of hers I read was Castle Hangnail and that was…oh, seven years ago? remains iconic to this day), so this was my first introduction to her more YA/adult writing. It’s been ages since I’ve read a fairytale retelling quite this wonderful! I came in with no expectations, and close to everything about it blew me away, from Kingfisher’s wry but tender writing style to Gerta’s endearing quest to save her friend. ![]() The “not-like-other-girls” complex to queer awakening pipeline is real and this book is proof. TW/CW: animal death, violence, descriptions of corpses, freezing to death, descriptions of blood/animal skinning ![]() ![]() ![]() We reserve the right to moderate at our own discretion.
![]() ![]() There were very few entrepreneursĪctive among us at that time. Most black migrants from the South usually got jobs for the city or did domestic work or day labor. The police weren't used to a Negro in Watts going into business for himself. I was put out by the roust but not surprised. The freckled and frowning cop used his left hand to take the letter from me. "This letter," I said, "is from the office of the head librarian downtown." I removed a sheet of paper and handed it over slowly. I reached for a paper folder at the far end of the table, and the cop standing over me let his right hand drift toward his holster. "Library throws away thousands of books every year." "Front'a each page marked discarded," I said, editing out all unnecessary words as I spoke. "Stole 'em?" the dark-haired cop asked from across the room. I was sitting in my favorite swivel chair behind the makeshift table-desk that I used for book sales and purchases. ![]() "Where'd you get all these books, son?" the other cop asked, looking down on me. The dark one wandered around the room, flipping through random books, looking, it seemed, for some kind of contraband. ![]() ![]() One had dark hair and the other sported freckles. I hadn't called them, of course a black man has to think twice before calling the cops in Watts. MY USED-BOOK STORE had been open for just about a month when the police showed up. ![]() |