6/26/2023 0 Comments Gold Mask by Edogawa Rampo![]() All detectives need an archenemy, and Akechi is no exception, with many of his later cases involving the cunning Fiend with Twenty Faces, a master of disguise who crosses swords with the famous detective on several occasions. So, was today’s book worth the gamble? Let’s find out…Įdogawa Rampo was a twentieth-century writer known both for tales with rather adult themes and for a series of detective stories, many of which feature the private detective Akechi Kogorō, a Tokyo-based sleuth who has much in common with Sherlock Holmes. However, today’s book is definitely something a little different for me, and that always entails a fair amount of risk, with the chances of being disappointed far higher than usual. The majority of my choices are literary fiction, and I tend to avoid some areas that others are happy to promote, such as diaspora writing and genre fiction. It may look as if I review anything remotely related to Japanese literature here at my site, especially during January in Japan, but that’s not strictly true as I can be rather selective in what I cover. ![]()
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![]() ![]() ![]() How much better of a book this would have been if this were the first paragraph instead of the very last! This constitutes his universal and persistent attraction. Each had to include him in all its theologies, in all its cosmogonies, despite the fact that it realized that he did not fit properly into any of them, for he represents not only the undifferentiated and distant past, but likewise the undifferentiated present within every individual. No generation understands him fully but no generation can do without him. For this reason every generation occupies itself with interpreting Trickster anew. It contains within itself the promise of differentiation, the promise of god and man. For example, late in the book he says: The symbol which Trickster embodies is not a static one. ![]() My main disappointment with the book is that Radin is concerned almost exclusively with the Winnebago tradition, although he appears quite capable of considering further implications of the Trickster archetype. ![]() It was interesting but a little more specific than I had been hoping for (I forget how this got added to my list, but in subsequent research it seems like my interest in the Trickster figure might have been better fulfilled with the farther-reaching Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art This was a pretty dry summary of a few of the most common Trickster myths in Native-American folklore. ![]() 6/26/2023 0 Comments Midnight in peking book![]() ![]() They wandered aimlessly, wondering what tomorrow would bring. This led to a city in turmoil:Ĭhinese Peking was bursting with peasants who had crowded in from the surrounding provinces, fleeing the Japanese, the warlords, poverty and natural disasters. ![]() The book's title is obviously meant to suggest John Berendt's massive 1994 bestseller Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, but readers will find in French's book none of the annoying picaresque pandering that filled Berendt's story the more accurate comparison is Jonathan Spence's great 1978 The Death of Woman Wang.French wisely opens his book with a sweeping description of the perilous state of affairs in China at the time of his story, with the country on the brink of World War II and Peking itself nearly encircled by invading Japanese forces. French, a journalist and prolific expert on all things Chinese, has taken a footnote from nearly a century ago - the unsolved murder of British schoolgirl Pamela Werner in old Peking in January of 1937 - and used it as the focus of a tight little tour de force of fast-paced narrative and dogged research. ![]() ![]() Midnight in Peking by Paul FrenchPenguin Books, 2012Penguin Books begins a new thing with Paul French's sleek and riveting Midnight in Peking: How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted the Last Days of Old China - they commence a line of Penguin Hardcover Originals, and they could scarcely have chosen a better debut for the series. ![]() 6/25/2023 0 Comments Well met series![]() ![]() Yet on the faire grounds he becomes a different person, flirting freely with Emily when she's in her revealing wench's costume. ![]() Emily knew there would be strings attached when she relocated to the small town of Willow Creek, Maryland, for the summer to help her sister recover from an accident, but who could anticipate getting roped into volunteering for the local Renaissance Faire alongside her teenaged niece? Or that the irritating and inscrutable schoolteacher in charge of the volunteers would be so annoying that she finds it impossible to stop thinking about him? The faire is Simon's family legacy and from the start he makes clear he doesn't have time for Emily's lighthearted approach to life, her oddball Shakespeare conspiracy theories, or her endless suggestions for new acts to shake things up. ![]() All's faire in love and war for two sworn enemies who indulge in a harmless flirtation in a laugh-out-loud rom-com from debut author Jen DeLuca. ![]() 6/25/2023 0 Comments Book the train to crystal city![]() Germans, Japanese, and Italians were rounded up on suspicion of subversive activities. Ironically, some Jewish refugees from Germany were snatched from Latin America and placed in the same camps with Germans suspected of Nazi loyalties. German and Japanese citizens were forcibly removed from Latin America and placed in U.S. ![]() Russell writes about the difficult living conditions at the camp, conflicts between foreign-born parents and their American children, and the Government’s efforts to provide education and health services to the internees. Russell centers her book on Crystal City, a family internment camp built in the Texas desert. Eventually, thousands of Japanese and Americans born of Japanese parents were evacuated from the West Coast, resulting in the loss of their farms and businesses and freedom. ![]() Soon to follow was the internment of entire families, including children born as United States citizens. ![]() Within hours of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Government began a round-up of Japanese, German, and Italian aliens without regard to any Constitutional protections. Texas journalist Jan Jarboe Russell offers a disturbing account of the home front during World War II in her new book The Train to Crystal City (Scribner). ![]() 6/25/2023 0 Comments Deborah turbeville valentino![]() She becomes a sought-after photographer in her own right. It isn’t long before she begins working alongside the photographers she used to collaborated with as an editor. Had I been out on my own, I might have had to compromise my work.” “I never could have done that because I was too special. “That helped me, because I didn’t have to earn a living being a photographer at first,” she later recalls. She continues for a time to do both styling and photography. That’s how I built my portfolio at Mademoiselle, shooting my own sittings.”. “I was able to ask them if ever I could do a sitting of my own and take the pictures. In 1967 Deborah becomes an associate fashion editor at Mademoiselle. While working at Diplomat magazine, she begins to shoot her own pictures. Early Fashion Photographs/ Women in The Woods, 1977 In the mean time her love for photography grows on her and when she shows some of her amateur work to Richard Avedon, he invites her to attend some advanced seminars. ![]() ![]() ![]() In 1965 Bazaar’s current editor in chief, Nancy White, tells her she has taken things too far. Having a fond interest in designer clothing, she becomes an editorial assistant at Ladies’ Home Journal in 1960 and two years later moves to Harper’s Bazaar to work as fashion editor. The designer will later introduce her to Diana Vreeland, at this time a fashion editor at Harper’s Bazaar. She moves to New York in 1956, where Deborah becomes a sample model and assistant for Claire McCardell. ![]() 6/24/2023 0 Comments The Kingdom Lights by Steven V.S.![]() Kane A comparative analysis of Dudgeon v. Polikoff Homosexuality and the European Convention on Human Rights : what rights? / Daniel J. Herek Custody rights of lesbian mothers : legal theory and litigation strategy / Nan D. Goldstein Gratuitous language in appellate cases involving gay people : "queer baiting" from the bench / Lawrence Goldyn Permitting prejudice to govern : equal protection, military deference, and the exclusion of lesbians and gay men from the military / Seth Harris Hate crimes against lesbians and gay men : issues for research and policy / Gregory M. Fowler and Leonard Graff History, homosexuality, and political values : searching for the hidden determinants of Bowers v. Carro Judicial homophobia : gay rights biggest roadblock / Joshua Dressler Gay aliens and immigration : resolving the conflict between Hill and Longstaff / Peter N. ![]() Korematsu : minorities in times of crisis / Mark Barnes The legal enforcement of morals and the so-called Hart-Devlin controversy / Yves Caron From constitutional psychopathic inferiority to AIDS : what is in the future for homosexual aliens? / Jorge L. ![]() ![]() Library stamps/marks/labels/slip, otherwise light wear. ![]() 6/24/2023 0 Comments Quichotte book![]() ![]() And with the kind of storytelling magic that is the hallmark of Rushdie’s work, the fully realized lives of DuChamp and Quichotte intertwine in a profoundly human quest for love and a wickedly entertaining portrait of an age in which fact is so often indiscernible from fiction. Just as Cervantes wrote Don Quixote to satirize the culture of his time, Rushdie takes the reader on a wild ride through a country on the verge of moral and spiritual collapse. Together with his (imaginary) son Sancho, Quichotte sets off on a picaresque quest across America to prove worthy of her hand, gallantly braving the tragicomic perils of an age where “Anything-Can-Happen.” Meanwhile, his creator, in a midlife crisis, has equally urgent challenges of his own. ![]() Inspired by the Cervantes classic, Sam DuChamp, mediocre writer of spy thrillers, creates Quichotte, a courtly, addled salesman obsessed with television who falls in impossible love with a TV star. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY TIME AND NPR Love and language.”-Jeanette Winterson, The New York Times Book Review ![]() a remembrance of what holds our human lives in some equilibrium-a way of feeling and a way of telling. 6/24/2023 0 Comments Pride by ibi![]() Ibi presented at the NCTE convention, and she is absolutely brilliant. I love retellings of classics, and I would argue that this retelling is far superior to the original. ![]() In a timely update of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, critically acclaimed author Ibi Zoboi skillfully balances cultural identity, class, and gentrification against the heady magic of first love in her vibrant reimagining of this beloved classic. Yet as Zuri and Darius are forced to find common ground, their initial dislike shifts into an unexpected understanding.īut with four wild sisters pulling her in different directions, cute boy Warren vying for her attention, and college applications hovering on the horizon, Zuri fights to find her place in Bushwick’s changing landscape, or lose it all. She especially can’t stand the judgmental and arrogant Darius. ![]() When the wealthy Darcy family moves in across the street, Zuri wants nothing to do with their two teenage sons, even as her older sister, Janae, starts to fall for the charming Ainsley. But pride might not be enough to save her rapidly gentrifying neighborhood from becoming unrecognizable. Brooklyn pride, family pride, and pride in her Afro-Latino roots. Summary: Pride and Prejudice gets remixed in this smart, funny, gorgeous retelling of the classic, starring all characters of color, from Ibi Zoboi, National Book Award finalist and author of American Street. ![]() ![]() This balanced approach to the debate of pessimism verses optimism (a debate Ligotti says will never be solved) frames his overall position as one striving for balanced discussion rather than a dogmatic assertion of the undeniability of pessimism indeed, Ligotti freely admits that optimism is the preferred school of thought for ‘the crushing majority of philosophers’. However, he goes onto say that as a writer or philosopher: ‘even though you cannot demonstrate the truth of what you think, you can at least put it on show and see what the audience thinks’. Both sets of philosophers, Ligotti says, ‘are equally passionate about what they have to say, which is not to say that they have said anything credible’. ![]() In his non-fiction work Conspiracy Against the Human Race, Thomas Ligotti presents the reader with examples of both optimistic and pessimistic philosophies the optimist, Nicolas Humphrey calls human consciousness ‘a wonderfully good thing in its own right!’ Meanwhile, the contrasting pessimist Peter Wessel Zapffe refers to our conscious minds as ‘a breach in the very unity of life an abomination, an absurdity, an exaggeration of disastrous nature’. ![]() |