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![]() They each get a small amount of character growth but not a lot. At the end of the day Audrey and Clarke are rich people with no awareness of their privilege and no particular urge to use their advantages to help others. ![]() The book succeeds largely on the fact that they really are good friends, with a nice lived-in relationship makes a good bedrock for a romantic relationship. The failure of Audrey and Clarke to communicate is frustrating but also, given the high stakes of their eternal friendship, plausible. Materialism aside I have to say that this book is very fun, with good dialogue, a focus on friendship, and likeable - if exasperating - characters. ![]() This book happened to catch me in peak escapist mode so I enjoyed it, and yet in a different frame of mind, I could just as easily have wanted to throw it across the room. If you don’t want to read about someone’s Louboutins and how well they match said individual’s Stella McCarthy cocktail dress, then read something else. an unapologetic celebration of materialism and name brands. ![]()
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![]() ![]() ![]() The peacemakers, so it has been said, failed dismally above all they failed to prevent another war. They struggled with the problems of Kosovo, of the Kurds, and of a homeland for the Jews. ![]() They pushed Russia to the sidelines, alienated China, and dismissed the Arabs. This book brings to life the personalities, ideals, and prejudices of the men who shaped the settlement. For six months, Paris was effectively the center of the world as the peacemakers carved up bankrupt empires and created new countries. Ho Chi Minh, a kitchen assistant at the Ritz, submitted a petition for an independent Vietnam. Lawrence of Arabia joined the Arab delegation. David Lloyd George, the gregarious and wily British prime minister, brought Winston Churchill and John Maynard Keynes. Stern, intransigent, impatient when it came to security concerns and wildly idealistic in his dream of a League of Nations that would resolve all future conflict peacefully, Wilson is only one of the larger-than-life characters who fill the pages of this extraordinary book. ![]() Center stage, for the first time in history, was an American president, Woodrow Wilson, who with his Fourteen Points seemed to promise to so many people the fulfillment of their dreams. Winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize Winner of the PEN Hessell Tiltman Prize Winner of the Duff Cooper Prize Between January and July 1919, after "the war to end all wars," men and women from around the world converged on Paris to shape the peace. ![]()
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The family upstairs pages5/31/2023 ![]() ![]() And the four other children reported to live at Cheyne Walk were gone. Downstairs in the kitchen lay three dead bodies, all dressed in black, next to a hastily scrawled note. ![]() When they arrived, they found a healthy ten-month-old happily cooing in her crib in the bedroom. ![]() Twenty-five years ago, police were called to 16 Cheyne Walk with reports of a baby crying. But what she can’t possibly know is that others have been waiting for this day as well-and she is on a collision course to meet them. Everything in Libby’s life is about to change. She soon learns not only the identity of her birth parents, but also that she is the sole inheritor of their abandoned mansion on the banks of the Thames in London’s fashionable Chelsea neighborhood, worth millions. She rips it open with one driving thought: I am finally going to know who I am. Soon after her twenty-fifth birthday, Libby Jones returns home from work to find the letter she’s been waiting for her entire life. You can see our thoughts on Jewell’s other books: THEN SHE WAS GONE ( here) and WATCHING YOU ( here)įrom the New York Times bestselling author of Then She Was Goneand Watching You comes another page-turning look inside one family’s past as buried secrets threaten to come to light. THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS – Lisa Jewell (Releasing November 5th, 2019) Thanks to Atria Books for the free early copies in exchange for our honest reviews The final #allthebookreviews October book! ![]()
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The after life of holly chase5/31/2023 ![]() ![]() BUT if you were looking for a good one, this would be a great story to start with. ![]() In other words, I've not read many re-imaginings of stories for fear of being let down either way. I was hoping it would both stick-to and break the traditional Christmas Carol format so I wouldn't experience anything that was too copy 'n pasted or too alien. Obviously, this was a re-envisioning of A Christmas Carol which I have seen film adaptations of time and time again. What other book might you compare The Afterlife of Holly Chase to and why? I watch A Christmas Carol in its various formats every year and this book, I believe, had the same type of annual 'replayability' vibe as any other adaptation. The characters were unique and intriguing, I've never read/listened to such a selfish main character such as Holly Chase and I loved every minute of it. The story was light, meaningful, and completely unexpected. Yes! I could easily slide this into my personal yearly Christmas traditions. Would you listen to The Afterlife of Holly Chase again? Why? ![]()
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God of Tarot by Piers Anthony5/31/2023 ![]() ![]() Chthon ( 1967), his first, is a complexly structured adventure of self-discovery partially set in a vast Underground Prison, and making ambitious though sometimes over-baroque use of Pastoral and other parallels its sequel, Phthor ( 1975), is less far-reaching, less irritating, but also less involving. His two most ambitious sf novels came early in his career. He has written large amounts of both sf and fantasy though there is no clear demarcation, it is certainly the case that he has more and more concentrated his energies on the latter form. Born in England, he was educated in the USA and took out US citizenship in 1958, beginning to publish short stories with "Possible to Rue" for Fantastic in April 1963, and for the next decade appearing fairly frequently in the magazines, though he has more and more concentrated on longer forms early work is fairly represented in Anthonology (coll 1985). Working name of US author Piers Anthony Dillingham Jacob (1934- ) for all his published work. ![]() |