6/30/2023 0 Comments Sounder william armstrong![]() ![]() ![]() While looking for his father one day, a guard whacks the boy’s fingers with a piece of iron. Meanwhile, they learn that their father has been convicted and forced into hard labor. The family takes care of the dog, and he becomes stronger each day. ![]() He can only use three of his legs, and half of his face has been mangled from being shot. The next day, Sounder returns, but he is in very poor shape. His father suggests that Sounder is most likely still alive and tells his son this must be his last visit. When mother makes a cake for father at Christmas, the boy brings it to the jail and visits his father. His dreams of learning to read and going to school are set aside, as he is now the man of the house. The boy continues searching for Sounder, but he must also take care of his younger siblings. With their father in jail, the family must survive on the money that mother makes shelling walnuts. The boy goes after Sounder, but only finds a trail of blood and part of Sounder’s ear. When the sheriff arrives to take him away, Sounder chases them, gets shot, and runs away. When hunting no longer brings in enough food, the sharecropper steals ham and is caught.
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6/30/2023 0 Comments December park by ronald malfi![]() ![]() Shrink wrap, dust covers, or boxed set case may be missing. May include "From the library of" labels. Pages may include limited notes and highlighting. Used - Good: All pages and cover are intact (including the dust cover, if applicable).Books with markings of any kind on the cover or pages, books marked as "Bargain" or "Remainder," or with any other labels attached, may not be listed as New condition. New: A brand-new copy with cover and original protective wrapping intact.Horror and crime fans will find much to like here. Malfi is a man of many voices, a sort of literary version of Mel Blanc (the “man of a thousand voices”), but all of his voices are captivating, though none of them quite the same. He has his own voice, and he’s telling his own story, one that begins with some disappearances, segues into murder, and ends with a violent confrontation. But, just as Lehane doesn’t sound very much like King, so Malfi doesn’t sound much like either of them. This one, about a group of teenage friends living in a Maryland beach community from which some children have gone missing, feels a bit like Stephen King crossed with Dennis Lehane-specifically, the early portions of King’s It melded with Lehane’s Mystic River. Although most of his novels fall into the thriller, horror, or sf genre, they are stylistically quite different. ![]() Some novelists find something that works and stick with it for years others like to jump around, experimenting with genres and writing styles. ![]() ![]() ![]() Columbia Pictures purchased film rights in 2007, and a theatrical adaptation of the book premiered on February 1, 2017, at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, California. During its first week on sale, it sold over one million copies. It continues some of the themes used in his previous work, such as familial dynamics, but instead focusing primarily on female characters and their roles in contemporary Afghan society.Ī Thousand Splendid Suns was released on May 22, 2007, and received favorable widespread critical acclaim from Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Booklist, and became a number one New York Times Best Seller for fifteen weeks following its release. Hosseini has remarked that he regards the novel as a "mother-daughter story" in contrast to The Kite Runner, which he considers a "father-son story". Laila, born a generation later, lives a relatively privileged life, but her life intersects with Mariam's when a similar tragedy forces her to accept a marriage proposal from Mariam's husband. ![]() Mariam, an illegitimate teenager from Herat, is forced to marry a shoemaker from Kabul after a family tragedy. A Thousand Splendid Suns is a 2007 novel by Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini, following the huge success of his bestselling 2003 debut The Kite Runner. ![]() 6/30/2023 0 Comments Slouching to bethlehem![]() I still am, and in rereading one of her essays, came upon Couéism, and wondered what the devil she was referencing, and why in that particular essay. You will be driven to a dictionary and/or an encyclopedia. You cannot be a casual reader, and you cannot skim over her essays. I have been rereading four of Didion’s books: Slouching Towards Bethlehem The White Album Political Fictions South and West. ![]() ![]() I am all in favor of reading the original works first, form your own opinion, and then see what someone else has to say. If you have not read any of Didion’s books, then do yourself a favor and put off reading this new book, which is a collection of critical and personal essays about many of her books. The collection of criticism is not being reviewed. A new book, Slouching Towards Los Angeles: Living and Writing by Joan Didion’s Light, has brought me back to her work. The subject matter was timely and the writing style was clear with underlying layers of complexity, and like nothing else I had read. It may have been assigned in a high school English class, or I found it in a small local bookstore. Long ago, in the last century, the first book of hers that I read was Slouching Towards Bethlehem, a collection of essays. ![]() ![]() When it was published, I could not finish reading it, and still have not. During this century, Joan Didion has become somewhat better known for personal tragedies, which she wrote about in The Year of Magical Thinking. ![]() |