Rachel Baack
An Inconvenient Sequel
Summary: Al Gore lays out the realities surrounding the climate crisis as of 2017, interspersing this information with stories of climate activists, and ending with practical advice for how ordinary people can get involved in fighting for a healthier planet. Throughout the book, the author makes a point to emphasize the necessity of hope.
This book is at once highly accessible, uncomfortable, and necessary.
Summary: Al Gore lays out the realities surrounding the climate crisis as of 2017, interspersing this information with stories of climate activists, and ending with practical advice for how ordinary people can get involved in fighting for a healthier planet. Throughout the book, the author makes a point to emphasize the necessity of hope.
This book is at once highly accessible, uncomfortable, and necessary.
Added to listRealistic Fictionwith 115 books.
Summary: Pasha is a Ukrainian language teacher who has seen (but attempted to distance himself from the reality of) the impacts of the war going on in his homeland. Now, as battle lines shift, Pasha must travel into the heart of the fighting to retrieve his thirteen-year-old nephew, Sasha, from the orphanage in a now-occupied city.
This novel takes place over the course of just three days as Pasha and the other civilians with whom he finds himself traveling face dangers of every kind on their journeys, and it provides excellent insight into the impacts of war—at turns heartbreakingly predictable and utterly shocking—on a country’s civilian population.
Summary: Pasha is a Ukrainian language teacher who has seen (but attempted to distance himself from the reality of) the impacts of the war going on in his homeland. Now, as battle lines shift, Pasha must travel into the heart of the fighting to retrieve his thirteen-year-old nephew, Sasha, from the orphanage in a now-occupied city.
This novel takes place over the course of just three days as Pasha and the other civilians with whom he finds himself traveling face dangers of every kind on their journeys, and it provides excellent insight into the impacts of war—at turns heartbreakingly predictable and utterly shocking—on a country’s civilian population.
Added to listDefies Categorizationwith 16 books.
Added to listScience Fictionwith 27 books.
Added to listHistorical Fictionwith 29 books.
Added to listRealistic Fictionwith 114 books.
Summary: This reimagining of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is told through the perspective of Jim, Huck’s travelling companion who escaped slavery. Jim’s narration gives voice to his depth of character and feeling, his intelligence, his anger and compassion, and his enduring spirit.
The book is not a one-to-one parallel to Huck Finn and does not claim to be; it is set a little later in time and adds and changes some scenes, but I think those differences strengthen the story. The chapters are also very short, which is helpful because this is a book that invites frequent pausing to process and reflect.
Summary: This reimagining of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is told through the perspective of Jim, Huck’s travelling companion who escaped slavery. Jim’s narration gives voice to his depth of character and feeling, his intelligence, his anger and compassion, and his enduring spirit.
The book is not a one-to-one parallel to Huck Finn and does not claim to be; it is set a little later in time and adds and changes some scenes, but I think those differences strengthen the story. The chapters are also very short, which is helpful because this is a book that invites frequent pausing to process and reflect.
Added to listRealistic Fictionwith 113 books.
Added to listFantasywith 30 books.
Summary: As a teenager, the narrator of this tale falls in love with a girl who tells him about a city with high walls where people live without shadows alongside unicorns. Then, she disappears. For years, the narrator wonders what happened to her and longs to see her again, that is until he finds his way to the strange city the girl told him about. This work, which many might classify as magical realism but the author would not, chronicles the life of this narrator from adolescence through adulthood as he several times, often inexplicably, crosses the boundary between the world readers will recognize as their own and the city with his high walls.
Summary: As a teenager, the narrator of this tale falls in love with a girl who tells him about a city with high walls where people live without shadows alongside unicorns. Then, she disappears. For years, the narrator wonders what happened to her and longs to see her again, that is until he finds his way to the strange city the girl told him about. This work, which many might classify as magical realism but the author would not, chronicles the life of this narrator from adolescence through adulthood as he several times, often inexplicably, crosses the boundary between the world readers will recognize as their own and the city with his high walls.
Added to listRealistic Fictionwith 112 books.
Added to listMystery & Thrillerwith 28 books.
Summary: When author Amanda Bailey starts research for a book about a cult that ended in a mass suicide event eighteen years earlier, she begins to notice holes in the story that the public has been told about the case. According to the press at the time, a group of four men claiming to be angels roped two teenagers into their cult and then convinced them that their baby was the Anti-Christ who must be killed to save the world. The teenage mother of the baby reportedly broke free from the cult’s control and saved her infant, which caused the adult members to despair so deeply that they engaged in a mass suicide, with only one man surviving (and subsequently landing in prison for his involvement in the cult and his conviction for a separate murder). This official story, however, begins to unravel as Amanda dives into her research, and she finds that her digging may just put her in more danger than she bargained for.
I thought that the book was quite compelling, but I was disappointed with the ending.
Summary: When author Amanda Bailey starts research for a book about a cult that ended in a mass suicide event eighteen years earlier, she begins to notice holes in the story that the public has been told about the case. According to the press at the time, a group of four men claiming to be angels roped two teenagers into their cult and then convinced them that their baby was the Anti-Christ who must be killed to save the world. The teenage mother of the baby reportedly broke free from the cult’s control and saved her infant, which caused the adult members to despair so deeply that they engaged in a mass suicide, with only one man surviving (and subsequently landing in prison for his involvement in the cult and his conviction for a separate murder). This official story, however, begins to unravel as Amanda dives into her research, and she finds that her digging may just put her in more danger than she bargained for.
I thought that the book was quite compelling, but I was disappointed with the ending.
In this collection of poems, Brandon Som shares the stories of his parents and grandparents—one side descended from Chinese immigrants and the other from Mexican immigrants—and explores what it means for an individual to hold multiple identities, for a family to relate to one another, and for a people to experience injustice and hardship at the hands of racism.
This is a very intellectually challenging collection to read; you’ll definitely want to have Google translate handy. My favorite poems in the collection were “Teléfono Roto,” “Twin Plant,” “My Father’s Perm,” and “Super Mercado Lee Hou.”
In this collection of poems, Brandon Som shares the stories of his parents and grandparents—one side descended from Chinese immigrants and the other from Mexican immigrants—and explores what it means for an individual to hold multiple identities, for a family to relate to one another, and for a people to experience injustice and hardship at the hands of racism.
This is a very intellectually challenging collection to read; you’ll definitely want to have Google translate handy. My favorite poems in the collection were “Teléfono Roto,” “Twin Plant,” “My Father’s Perm,” and “Super Mercado Lee Hou.”
The Prelude
Summary: Wordsworth recounts several episodes from his life and intersperses them with his thoughts about life and nature.
Summary: Wordsworth recounts several episodes from his life and intersperses them with his thoughts about life and nature.
The Prelude
Summary: Wordsworth recounts several episodes from his life and intersperses them with his thoughts about life and nature.
Summary: Wordsworth recounts several episodes from his life and intersperses them with his thoughts about life and nature.
Added to listDramas/Playswith 21 books.
Added to listRealistic Fictionwith 111 books.
From this opera, I have read "Bunthorne's Song: The Aesthete." What follows is a review of that song:
This poem pokes fun at “men of culture” who speak and act in ways that are so ridiculous that they’re mistaken for being marks of culture. Rating: 4.5/5
From this opera, I have read "Bunthorne's Song: The Aesthete." What follows is a review of that song:
This poem pokes fun at “men of culture” who speak and act in ways that are so ridiculous that they’re mistaken for being marks of culture. Rating: 4.5/5
Romanticism
Summary: Walter Pater claims that classicism and romanticism are not as opposed to each other as people might say. He goes on to define romanticism as a mixture of curiosity and beauty that makes use of strangeness and the grotesque and is present in all ages.
Summary: Walter Pater claims that classicism and romanticism are not as opposed to each other as people might say. He goes on to define romanticism as a mixture of curiosity and beauty that makes use of strangeness and the grotesque and is present in all ages.
