5/31/2023 0 Comments Between the oceans book![]() ![]() This week’s read includes the Preface and Chapters 1 – 5. ![]() Simon and Schuster Canada’s read-a-long is taking place on Goodreads, and began on July 8. What should Tom and Isabel do? “ I’m her mother,” Isabel tells Tom, in a scene that just about broke my heart, but how can they refuse to give the biological mother the chance to reunite with her daughter? There is no easy answer, no way to give everyone a happy ending, and however the story turns out, I’m definitely planning to bring Kleenex into the theatre. “ would have been your girl’s age by now,” the woman’s sister tells Isabel. Fast forward a few years later and they meet a woman (Rachel Weisz) whose husband and baby daughter were lost at sea years ago. When a baby washes up onshore, it appears that fate has made their dreams of a family come true, and against Tom’s better judgement, they decide to raise the child as their own. Michael Fassbender plays Tom, a lighthouse keeper whose wife Isabel (Alicia Vikander) is unable to bear a child full-term. Stedman’s bestselling book The Light Between Oceans! The book was a bestseller when first published in 2012, and the read-a-long coincides with the movie’s upcoming release in September. Starring Michael Fassbender (OMG heart-eye emoticon!), Alicia Vikander (IMHO the standout performance in The Danish Girl) and Rachel Weisz ( The Lobster, The Mummy), the trailer looks like a major tearjerker about love and family. Join me and Simon and Schuster Canada for a summer read-a-long of M.L. ![]()
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5/31/2023 0 Comments Pirates book celia rees![]() ![]() Would recommend it to my students and my daughters. ![]() "This is a great adventure book for adolescent fiction. A powerful, thrilling, and ultimately inspiring journey of two women who break the bonds of gender, race, and position to find their own way to glory. But in the end, the money, the adventure, the companionship, and the chance to see the world not as women, but as bold and daring pirates, is an opportunity neither can deny. For Minerva, it is an escape from slavery, as well as from the fearsome overseer on Nancy's family plantation. For Nancy, the Deliverance is her escape from an arranged betrothal to a controlling and devilish man. Not just any trading ship, the Deliverance flies black flags from its mast, proclaiming to all that the newly named, hijacked ship is a pirate vessel, striking fear into the hearts of those she approaches. ![]() ![]() But two unusually adventurous girls-a rich merchant's daughter, Nancy Kington, and her former plantation slave, Minerva Sharpe-take to the high seas from Jamaica on a shop the crew renames Deliverance. It is the dawn of the eighteenth century, when girls stay home and sew while men sail the high seas finding adventure, danger, and gold. ![]() 5/31/2023 0 Comments The night watch lukyanenko![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() In the 12th century or so, the Others from both sides realized that conflicts between them, due to their vast power and influence over humans, could destroy the world. Others come in two flavors, Light and Dark, and the Light and Dark have been conflicting since the beginning of time. What distinguishes Others from humans is their innate ability to manipulate "The Twilight", a "mirror world" of magical energy. Vampires, shapeshifters, wizards, prophets, warlocks. Others are non-humans born from humans and have special abilities. The world is pretty much the gritty ex-Communist concrete-a-thon we know and love, with a major difference. Night Watch is set in Moscow in 1998-2007 (book timeline) / circa 2004 (movie timeline). Because of this, the series received much attention internationally and spread Lukyanenko's name and work to the West. ![]() It had two movie adaptations (both movies mixed elements of this book and its sequel) starring Konstantin Khabensky, both of which became the top-grossing Russian movie of all time (Night Watch broke all previous records, was briefly beaten by 9th Company, then Day Watch broke 9th Company's new record). Night Watch ( Ночной Дозор, Nochnoi Dozor) is a book series by Sergey Lukyanenko, a speculative fiction writer internationally acclaimed, especially in the Eastern Bloc. ![]() |