Life and Things

Reached AllStar on several of my photo challenges, and moved to the next rank. That was exciting. Read a lot this week. Not much else exciting.

 

Enjoyable posts of the past week from others

The Downside of ARCs/ JamiShelves  

Where Are the YA Characters Who Wear Glasses?/ Cat on the Bookshelf/ Carrie

Negative Reviews and Tips on How to Write Them/ The Book Cover Girl/ Angelica

How Do You Choose What to Read Next?/ Bookidote/ Lashaan

Impact/ Taking on a World of Words/ Sam

 

Posts of the past week ICYMT

Review: Creature by Hunter Shea  

Music Monday: 8/20: Smiling Butterfly  

Blitz: Love, Cutter by Michelle Jester  

WWWWed: August 22, 2018   

Tour: The Devil’s Standoff by VS McGrath  

Cover Reveal: Rekindled by Genevieve Iseult Eldredge  

Review: The Devil’s Revolver by VS McGrath  

Tour: Harbinger by Nicole Conway  

I Love Characters: Fires of Necessity

 

Books read, reviewed, and posted/scheduled the past week

The Dream of the Butterfly Vol 2 by Richard Marazano, 4*

Fingerprints and Phantoms by Paul Rimmasch, 4*

Hanger Vol 2 by Hirotaka Kisaragi, 4*

In the Name of the Children by Jeffrey Rinek & Marilee Strong, 4*

Native American ABC by Lisa & Colten Lechowicz, 4*

Out of the Ice: How Climate Change is Revealing the Past by Claire Eamer & Drew Shannon, 4*

The Devil’s Revolver by VS McGrath, 5*

The Devil’s Standoff by VS McGrath, 5*

Forest Bathing Retreat by Hannah Fries, 5*

Grandad Mandela by Ambassador Zindzi Mandela, Zazi and Ziwelene Mandela, 5*

 

Favourite Read(s) of the Past Week

 

Current Read

‘Born To … Fight?

Ike Rupert Hollingsberry is haunted by the past because complete strangers won’t let him forget when his famous father died on the set of The Fighting Dragons, a cult favorite that still has people talking.

But when he’s attacked by a large locust, like the one that killed his dad, Ike is helped by the geekiest nerd of all, Elmira Hand.

Killing the giant locust was only the beginning of the surprises in store for Ike as he is whisked away from New York City to an isolated Florida compound to assume his role as the next in line to lead the Royal Order of the Fighting Dragons—that are NOT supposed to exist—and learns his dad’s death was a cover-up for a far greater purpose…’

 

‘The supposed extinction of the Indigenous Beothuk people of Newfoundland in the early nineteenth century is a foundational moment in Canadian history. Increasingly under scrutiny, non-Indigenous perceptions of the Beothuk have had especially dire and far-reaching ramifications for contemporary Indigenous people in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Tracing Ochre reassesses popular beliefs about the Beothuk. Placing the group in global context, Fiona Polack and a diverse collection of contributors juxtapose the history of the Beothuk with the experiences of other Indigenous peoples outside of Canada, including those living in former British colonies as diverse as Tasmania, South Africa, and the islands of the Caribbean. Featuring contributions of Indigenous and non-Indigenous thinkers from a wide range of scholarly and community backgrounds, Tracing Ochre aims to definitively shift established perceptions of a people who were among the first to confront European colonialism in North America.’

 

Next Up (maybe)

Building a Trade Empire by Paul E Horsman

High Merchant by Paul E Horsman

Fascinating New Yorkers by Clifford Browder

Hiding by Jenny Morton Potts

Everything Under the Sun by Jessica Redmerski

Burn Up: Secrets of Mylin by Joe Klingler

Reckoning of Fallen Gods by RA Salvatore

The Poppy War by RF Kuang

 

Book Haul

‘Love. Magic. Revolution. It’s Caraval in the world of Marie Antoinette! Enchantée is Gita Trelease’s lush and imaginative debut fantasy about an impoverished girl who must use magic to impersonate an aristocrat in Versailles to provide for her sister as her own political awakening forces her to choose sides in the French Revolution.

Paris is a labryinth of twisted streets filled with beggars and thieves, revolutionaries and magicians. Camille Durbonne is one of them. She wishes she weren’t…

When smallpox kills her parents, Camille must find a way to provide for her younger sister while managing her volatile brother. Relying on magic, Camille painstakingly transforms scraps of metal into money to buy food and medicine they need. But when the coins won’t hold their shape and her brother disappears with the family’s savings, Camille pursues a richer, more dangerous mark: the glittering court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

Using dark magic forbidden by her mother, Camille transforms herself into a baroness and is swept up into life at the Palace of Versailles, where aristocrats both fear and hunger for magic. As she struggles to reconcile her resentment of the rich with the allure of glamour and excess, Camille meets a handsome younge inventor, and begins to believe that love and liberty may both be possible.

But magic has its costs, and soon Camille loses control of her secrets. And when revolution erupts, Camille must choose—love or loyalty, democracy or aristocracy, reality of magic—before Paris burns.’

 

‘Star Trek legend and veteran author William Shatner discusses the meaning of life, finding value in work, and living well whatever your age.

“I have always felt,” William Shatner says early in his newest memoir, that “like the great comedian George Burns, who lived to 100, I couldn’t die as long as I was booked.” And Shatner is always booked.

Still, a brief health scare in 2016 forced him to take stock. After mulling over the lessons he’s learned, the places he’s been, and all the miracles and strange occurrences he’s witnessed over the course of an enduring career in Hollywood and on the stage, he arrived at one simple rule for living a long and good life: don’t die.

It’s the only one-size-fits-all advice, Shatner argues in Live Long and..:What I Learned Along the Way, because everyone has a unique life—but, to help us all out, he’s more than willing to share stories from his unique life. With a combination of pithy humor and thoughtful vulnerability, Shatner lays out his journey from childhood to peak stardom and all the bumps in the road. (Sometimes the literal road, as in the case of his 2,400-mile motorcycle trip across the country with a bike that didn’t function.)

William Shatner is one of our most beloved entertainers, and he intends never to stop entertaining. His funny, provocative, and poignant reflections offer an unforgettable read about a remarkable man.’

 

‘For as long as human societies have existed there have always been people who have always transgressed the laws of their respective societies. It seems that whenever new laws are made, certain people find ways to break them.

This book will introduce you to some of the most notorious figures, from all parts of the world, who have committed heinous crimes such as highway robbery, murder, and forgery. Beginning with Bulla Felix, the Roman highwayman, this book traces the careers of medieval outlaws such as Robin Hood and Adam Bell. Early modern murderers also make an appearance, such as Sawney Beane, whose story inspired the cult horror movie The Hills Have Eyes (1977). Learn also about the crimes and daring escapes of Jack Sheppard, an eighteenth-century criminal who escaped from prison on several occasions, and find out if the ‘gentlemanly’ highwayman, Dick Turpin, was truly a gentleman. the ruffian Dick Turpin.

This book also includes an appendix of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century thieves’ cant, as well as several historical poems, songs, and ballads relating to the subjects discussed, and the work is prefaced with an essay highlighting the significance of crime literature throughout history.’