Wild Swans may well be the most depressing book I've ever read. As the story of each generation unfolds, Chang captures in gripping, moving-and ultimately uplifting-detail the cycles of violent drama visited on her own family and millions of others caught in the whirlwind of history. Chang was a Red Guard briefly at the age of fourteen, then worked as a peasant, a “barefoot doctor,” a steelworker, and an electrician. The story of three generations in twentieth-century China that blends the intimacy of memoir and the panoramic sweep of eyewitness history-a bestselling classic in thirty languages with more than ten million copies sold around the world, now with a new introduction from the author.Īn engrossing record of Mao’s impact on China, an unusual window on the female experience in the modern world, and an inspiring tale of courage and love, Jung Chang describes the extraordinary lives and experiences of her family members: her grandmother, a warlord’s concubine her mother’s struggles as a young idealistic Communist and her parents’ experience as members of the Communist elite and their ordeal during the Cultural Revolution.
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It reshapes their lives and the lives of those around them, whether that's Cleo's best friend struggling to embrace his gender identity in the wake of her marriage, or Frank's financially dependent sister arranging sugar daddy dates after being cut off. He is everything she needs right now.Ĭleo and Frank run head-first into a romance that neither of them can quite keep up with. She offers him a life imbued with beauty and art-and, hopefully, a reason to cut back on his drinking. He offers her the chance to be happy, the freedom to paint, and the opportunity to apply for a green card. Twenty years older, Frank's life is full of all the success and excess that Cleo's lacks. Her student visa is running out, and she doesn't even have money for cigarettes. Sure, she's at a different party every other night, but she barely knows anyone. The French secret service, particularly its covert operations directorate (the Action Service), is remarkably effective in infiltrating the terrorist organisation with their own informants, allowing them to seize and interrogate the OAS operations commander, Antoine Argoud. Following the apprehension of Bastien-Thiry and various other conspirators, the French security forces wage a short but extremely vicious underground war with the terrorists of the OAS, a militant right-wing group who believe de Gaulle to be a traitor to France after his grant of independence to Algeria. The book begins in 1962 with the (historical) failed attempt on de Gaulle's life plotted by, among others, Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry in the Paris suburb of Petit-Clamart. Plot summary Part One: Anatomy of a Plot The subsequent plot, however, is fiction. The novel is historical fiction: The OAS, as described did exist and the book opens with an accurate depiction of the attempt to assassinate de Gaulle by Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry on 22 August 1962. The novel remains popular, and in 2003 it was listed on the BBC's survey The Big Read. The novel received admiring reviews and praise when first published in 1971, and it received a 1972 Best Novel Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. The Day of the Jackal (1971) is a political thriller novel by English author Frederick Forsyth about a professional assassin who is contracted by the OAS, a French dissident paramilitary organisation, to kill Charles de Gaulle, the President of France. With pressure mounting from a tough, no-nonsense new sheriff, the media, and the parents of Bayou Breaux, Nick and Annie dig deep into the dual mysteries. When KJ's sometimes babysitter, twelve-year-old Nora Florette, is reported missing the very next day, the town fears a maniac is preying on their children. A mother herself, Annie understands the devastation this woman is going through, but as a detective she's troubled: Who would murder a child and leave the only witness behind? Meanwhile, Nick's wife, Detective Annie Broussard, sits with the grieving Genevieve. Genevieve's seven-year-old son, KJ, has been murdered by an alleged intruder, yet Genevieve is alive and well. When Detective Nick Fourcade enters the home of Genevieve Gauthier outside the sleepy town of Bayou Breaux, Louisiana, the bloody crime scene that awaits him is both the most brutal and the most confusing he's ever seen. An unfathomable loss or an unthinkable crime? #1 New York Times bestselling author Tami Hoag keeps you guessing in her most harrowing thriller yet. McCallan’s books don’t sound contrived, in this case, it was organic to the story and believable. It works really well to maintain the interest and move the plot forward.Īs I said above, the conflicts in Ms. McCallan writes intimate scenes very well and I particularly like the way she sometimes holds back to keep the reader hanging. I loved the chemistry between the main characters, it builds up from cool to combustive. Sawyer, on her part, also has issues to deal with and the reunion with Quinn triggers her own journey of transformation. Her journey back will make her confront unresolved issues of the past, her family and her former best friend, Sawyer Kent. Quinn left the small town of Kings Ford for personal reasons to never return until now. This is a return to hometown romance mixed with a friends-to-lovers trope. What she wasn’t expecting was to meet again with her childhood best friend, Sawyer Kent… She lives in New York where she is a successful estate agent but now she is back searching for the property deal of a lifetime. Quinn McKinley has been away from her small hometown for seventeen years. Previous Lesbian Book Quotes of the Month.40 Best Lesbian Romance Books for Valentine’s.Lex’s Top 13 Best Lesfic Halloween Books 2020.Lex’s Top 13 Best Lesfic Halloween Books 2021.Lex’s Top 13 Best Sapphic Halloween Books 2022.Top 10 Recommended Lesbian Erotica Books. As days pass, the narrator keeps selling papers, until the astonishing day when Ruth himself buys a paper from the boy with a five-dollar bill and tells him to keep the change. They want to hear about Babe Ruth and his 25th homer. Jacob takes the narrator to Yankee Stadium with the papers, and people don’t want to hear about the Coney Island fire or the boy who stole so he could get something to eat in jail. While helping his friend Jacob sell newspapers, he discovers that his own father, who leaves the house with a briefcase each day, is selling apples on Webster Avenue along with the other unemployed folk. A boy gets a dime for his birthday, instead of the bicycle he longs for, because it is the Great Depression, and everyone who lives in his neighborhood is poor. Adler (also with Widener, Lou Gehrig, 1997, etc.) sets his fictional story during the week of July 14, 1932, in the Bronx, when the news items that figure in this tale happened. The original intent was to turn it into a musical, which would’ve been a better idea as the lack of cohesion causes the pacing to be completely off and never allows the film to build any tension or momentum. The script though by Walter Marks doesn’t seem to know what tone it wants to take as at times it seems like a trenchant drama while at other moments it comes off as a surreal comedy. The story is loosely based on the 1926 poem of the same name by Joseph Moncure March while the Jolly character was inspired by Fatty Arbuckle a famous silent film comic who was accused and the later acquitted of the rape and manslaughter of actress Virginia Rappe in 1921. He holds a lavish party in his mansion inviting many Hollywood elites who he hopes will show an interest in his movie once he screens it to everyone, but instead his guests are more into each other as the party quickly devolves into a wild sex orgy with even Jolly’s faithful girlfriend Queenie (Raquel Welch) cheating on him with a much younger and better looking actor (Perry King). Although his movies once made a killing his style of humor is now considered cliched and with no studio willing to fund his latest pic he’s forced to use his own money to get it made. The year is 1929 and Jolly Grimm (James Coco) the once successful silent film star now finds himself, with the advent of talking pictures, to be in low demand. 4-Word Review: Slumming actor stages comeback. The novel unfolds as a sequence of personal accounts by each of the members of the Herath household, beginning and ending with accounts by Latha, the servant maid, who is perhaps Rajith’s least convincing character. Thomas’ educated children - and its satellites and how they, as players of a domestic web come together and go apart, provides a very well thought out, well articulated storyline delivered through careful craftsmanship. Overall, Rajith’s narrative of the Herath family - middle class working couple and their (what appears as) Ladies’ College and St. Weaved as a narrative that is located in the months that run up to the Sri Lankan government’s military crushing of the LTTE in May 2009, and the months that follow that euphoric climax of violent uncompromising nationalism, Rajith looks at an English speaking, western-exposed, just-off-Colombo middle class space, its ruptures, hiatuses, tensions and anxieties in trying to give shape to a complex family juxtaposed with a complex national space at logger-heads with itself. Rajith Savanadasa’s Ruins, unlike in the case of many writers writing of Lanka from destinations away from it, was refreshing and less of a turn off, as he is mostly successful in his attempt at recovering the spirit, sentiment and the pulse of a nation, a historic climate and a social context through his debut. Responding to queries on the similarity of some of the concepts in his Wheel of Time books with Freemasonry concepts, Jordan admitted that he was a Freemason. He lived with his wife Harriet McDougal, who works as a book editor (currently with Tor Books she was also Jordan's editor) in a house built in 1797. He described himself as a "High Church" Episcopalian and received communion more than once a week. He was a history buff and enjoyed hunting, fishing, sailing, poker, chess, pool, and pipe collecting. After graduating he was employed by the United States Navy as a nuclear engineer. After returning from Vietnam he attended The Citadel where he received an undergraduate degree in physics. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross with bronze oak leaf cluster, the Bronze Star with "V" and bronze oak leaf cluster, and two Vietnamese Gallantry Crosses with palm. He served two tours in Vietnam (from 1968 to 1970) with the United States Army as a helicopter gunner. Jordan was born in Charleston, South Carolina. He also wrote under the names Reagan O'Neal and Jackson O'Reilly. Robert Jordan was the pen name of James Oliver Rigney, Jr., under which he was best known as the author of the bestselling The Wheel of Time fantasy series. Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. This will be the last Colleen Hoover book i'll ever read (and i already didn't even want to read this one, i was asked to) everyone who wanted me to finish: i have nothing to say to you. thank you for everyone who encouraged me to do this: i love you. I hope those two have fun but i'm outta here. Kenna must find a way to absolve the mistakes of her past in order to build a future out of hope and healing.īuddy read with "who is Scotty?" and "why does she judge him for buying one plate?" The two form a connection despite the pressure surrounding them, but as their romance grows, so does the risk. But if anyone were to discover how Ledger is slowly becoming an important part of Kenna’s life, both would risk losing the trust of everyone important to them. The only person who hasn’t closed the door on her completely is Ledger Ward, a local bar owner and one of the few remaining links to Kenna’s daughter. Everyone in her daughter’s life is determined to shut Kenna out, no matter how hard she works to prove herself. But the bridges Kenna burned are proving impossible to rebuild. After serving five years in prison for a tragic mistake, Kenna Rowan returns to the town where it all went wrong, hoping to reunite with her four-year-old daughter. A troubled young mother yearns for a shot at redemption in this heartbreaking yet hopeful story from #1 New York Times bestselling author Colleen Hoover. |