Life and Things

It’s been a rather up and down week. Drs are now looking into a parathyroid tumour or Sjogren’s disease to explain everything going wrong. Me, I’m hoping for a tumour, and I never thought that’s something I’d say…  But Sjogren’s is autoimmune and the tumour is removable. Once removed, things reset themselves pretty quickly.

I’m still waiting for my glasses to come in. Fingers crossed it’s soon! And my next ocularist visit is this week upcoming. He’ll fit the prototype, match my pupil, and we will pick colours. That’s a yay!

 

Updated Posts

The After War by Brandon Zenner   

The Phoenix Cycle by Bob Collopy

 

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

30 Animals That Share Our World collated by InkThinkTank, 4*

Charlie the Caterpillar by Andy Gutman, 4*

Creature Files: Sharks by LJ Tracosas, 4*

The Creature Garden by Zanna and Harry Goldhawk, 4*

Purrfection by Sophie Macheteau, 4*

Yellow Locust by Justin Joschko, May 24, 4*

Angus All Aglow by Heather Smith/ Alice Carter, 5*

The Elements of San Joaquin by Gary Soto, 5*

Wolf Sanctuary by Chuck Rineer, 5*

The Yark by Bertrand Santini, 5*

 

Favourite Read(s) of the Week

 

Current Read

 

Next Up (maybe)

Building a Trade Empire by Paul E Horsman

High Merchant by Paul E Horsman

Island of the Mad by Laurie R King

 

Book Haul

‘Journey with twenty-one speculative fiction authors through the fractured borders of human migration to examine assumptions and catch a glimpse of the dreams, struggles, and triumphs of those who choose–or are forced–to leave home and familiar places. Who straddle borders within our worlds–and within us.

Migration. A transformation of time, place, and being . . .

Who are the SHADES WITHIN US?

We are called drifters, nomads. We are expatriates, evacuees, and pilgrims. We are colonists, aliens, explorers; strangers, visitors–intruders, conquerors–exiles, asylum seekers, and . . . outsiders.

An American father shields his son from Irish discrimination. A Chinese foreign student wrestles to safeguard her family at the expense of her soul. A college graduate is displaced by technology. A Nigerian high school student chooses between revenge and redemption. A bureaucrat parses the mystery of Taiwanese time travellers. A defeated alien struggles to assimilate into human culture. A Czechoslovakian actress confronts the German WWII invasion. A child crosses an invisible border wall. And many more.

Stories that transcend borders, generations, and cultures. Each is a glimpse into our human need in face of change: to hold fast to home, to tradition, to family; and yet to reach out, to strive for a better life.

AUTHORS:  Vanessa Cardui, Elsie Chapman, Kate Heartfield, S.L. Huang, Tyler Keevil, Matthew Kressel, Rich Larson, Tonya Liburd, Karin Lowachee, Seanan McGuire, Brent Nichols, Julie Nováková, Heather Osborne, Sarah Raughley, Alex Shvartsman, Amanda Sun, Jeremy Szal, Hayden Trenholm, Liz Westbrook-Trenholm, Christie Yant & Alvaro Zinos-Amaro
With Introduction by Eric Choi & Gillian Clinton’

 

‘A fearless memoir about tribal life in Pakistan–and the act of violence that inspired one ambitious young woman to pursue a life of activism and female empowerment.

From a young age, Khalida Brohi was raised to believe in the sanctity of arranged marriage. Her mother was betrothed to a thirteen-year old boy when she was only nine; Khalida herself was promised as a bride before she was even born. But against the odds, her father was a man who believed in education, not just for himself but for his daughters, and Brohi grew up thinking she would become the first female doctor in her small village. Her father refused to let her be given away as a child bride, when the time came for him to do that. Brohi thought her life was proceeding on an unusual track for a woman of her circumstances, but one whose path was orderly and straightforward. Everything shifted for Brohi the year she was sixteen, when she found out her beloved cousin had just been murdered by her own uncle, in a tradition known as an honor killing. Her cousin’s crime? She had fallen in love with a man who was not her betrothed. This moment ignited the spark in Brohi that has led to a globe-spanning career as an activist and social entrepreneur, working to change the lives of women in Pakistan, and to eduate others worldwide about women’s rights. From a tiny cement-roofed room in Karachi where she was allowed ten minutes of computer use per day, Brohi created a Facebook campaign that went viral. This led to the creation of a foundation focused on empowering the lives of women in rural communities through education and employment opportunities, but more crucially working to change the minds of the men who are their partners, fathers, and brothers. This book is the story of how Brohi, while only a girl herself, shined her light on the women and girls of Pakistan, despite the hurdles and threats she faced along the way. And ultimately, it is the story of how she learned that the only way to eradicate the parts of a culture she despised was to fully embrace the parts of it that she loved.’

 

‘A bold and ghostly stand-alone from New York Times bestselling author Colleen Houck, with all the moodiness of Sleepy Hollow and all the romance her fans love.

Welcome to a world where nightmarish creatures reign supreme.

Five hundred years ago, Jack made a deal with the devil. It’s difficult for him to remember much about his mortal days. So he focuses on fulfilling his sentence as a Lantern–one of the watchmen who guard the portals to the Otherworld, a realm crawling with every nightmarish creature imaginable. Jack has spent centuries jumping from town to town, ensuring that nary a mortal–or not-so-mortal–soul slips past him. That is, until he meets beautiful Ember O’Dare.

Seventeen, stubborn, and a natural-born witch, Ember feels a strong pull to the Otherworld. Undeterred by Jack’s warnings, she crosses into the forbidden plane with the help of a mysterious and debonair vampire–and the chase through a dazzling, dangerous world is on. Jack must do everything in his power to get Ember back where she belongs before both the earthly and unearthly worlds descend into chaos.

Colleen Houck, the New York Times bestselling author of the Tigers Curse series and Reawakened series, breathes new life into classic folklore in this wild, twisting adventure propelled by the spirit of Halloween.’