5/10/2023 0 Comments Slocum sailing around the world![]() ![]() It already was a rotting derelict, beached in a field, when Slocum took it on as a restoration project in 1892. The Spray was 37 feet long and 14 feet wide (“in the beam”) and had a draft (the part of it underwater) of about four feet. It has been classified as a sloop, bark or yawl. That’s why his disappearance raised suggestions that something supernatural must have happened to him. He proved he could handle himself in all weathers and situations. In the estimation of almost nautical historians, he was one of the very ablest and most skilled mariners of his time. ![]() For decades, Slocum endured hardships at sea, including shipwreck and stranding. He then became part owner and skipper of several sailing vessels. ![]() ![]() By the time he was 25, he was a sailing ship captain, commanding voyages between California and the Orient. His career took him to ports near and far. At 16, he became a transatlantic merchant seaman. At 14, he got a berth as cook aboard a fishing vessel. Slocum was born beside the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, 20 February 1844. Slocum’s Life at Sea Joshua Slocum was the first man to sail single-handedly around the world. In November 1909, Slocum in his famous old sloop the Spray sailed from his New England home into the North Atlantic. Among other feats, he became the first person to sail alone around the world. Joshua Slocum (1844-1909) has been called the greatest sailor of the 19th Century. Eleven years later, in 1909, he sailed into oblivion. He was the first to sail solo around the world, earning fame and fortune as an author and lecturer. ![]()
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5/10/2023 0 Comments Ian rankin noughts and crosses![]() ![]() Libraries are always involved in the consultation process.Ģ. They are also members of the collaborative group. The libraries – both national and public – have representatives on the City of Literature board. The office works with libraries in three ways:ġ. Ali describes librarians as ‘super heroes of the literary world’ They are fundamental without them the literary network would die. ![]() ![]() They are the ‘heart’ of the literary network. Libraries pump the blood (books) out to the community. Public libraries are the only community outreach posts the office has across the city. How does the City of Literature office work with public libraries in Edinburgh? The current vision for Edinburgh, City of Literature, is ‘Literature to the Streets’. The Board develop the vision the collaborative group works on the business plan. It works with a Collaborative Group made up of key literature organisations in Scotland, such as Edinburgh International Book Festival and the Scottish Book Trust. The Trust is an independent body with a Board of Trustees. Had a lovely morning at the Scottish Storytelling Centre with the awesome Ali Bowden, Director of Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature Trust. ![]() 5/10/2023 0 Comments Just so stories animals![]() Evolutionary biologists have noted that what Kipling did in fiction in a Lamarckian way, they have done in reality, providing Darwinian explanations for the evolutionary development of animal features. The stories have appeared in a variety of adaptations including a musical and animated films. ![]() ![]() For the book, Kipling illustrated the stories himself. The stories illustrate how animals acquired their distinctive features, such as how the leopard got his spots. These had to be told "just so" (exactly in the words she was used to) or she would complain. Kipling began working on the book by telling the first three chapters as bedtime stories to his daughter Josephine. Considered a classic of children's literature, the book is among Kipling's best known works. ![]() Just So Stories for Little Children is a 1902 collection of origin stories by the British author Rudyard Kipling. ![]() ![]() ![]() Sinister forces gather as the gods themselves prepare to play their hand. However, it seems the empire is not alone in this great game. ![]() But Darujhistan, last of the Free Cities of Genabackis, still holds out - and Empress Lasseen's ambition knows no bounds. For Sergeant Whiskeyjack and his Bridgeburners and for Tattersail, sole surviving sorceress of the Second Legion, the aftermath of the siege of Pale should have been a time to mourn the dead. ![]() The opening chapter in an epic fantasy masterpiece.Bled dry by interminable warfare, infighting and bloody confrontations with Lord Anomander Rake and his Tiste Andii, the vast, sprawling Malazan empire simmers with discontent.Even its imperial legions yearn for some respite. ![]() ![]() Raw and honest are the words I'd use to describe this book. Now Samantha must decide if she should get back on the field or if she prefers the sidelines. While Samantha is doing her best to learn and even make up some of the rules of single life and being a semi-celebrity, Reed comes in and changes the game. But, Samantha isn’t keen on dating anyone, much less a younger man that used to booby trap her bedroom with firecrackers. Unbeknownst to Samantha, Reed has harbored a crush for his old babysitter all these years. To make matters more interesting, her younger brother’s best friend, Reed Cassidy, who was a thorn in Samantha’s adolescent side, moves back to town as the new head football coach for her son’s high school team. ![]() When the post goes viral, she finds herself with a new title, The Sidelined Wife, and an unbelievable following. While trying to figure out who Samantha Decker is, she writes what she thinks is one final post on her blog, announcing her divorce. ![]() But one conversation later, heard through his Bluetooth, and Samantha is changing her last name. ![]() Samantha Higgins never thought driving her husband’s car would forever change her life. ![]() She’s getting back in the game, one blog post at a time. ![]() 5/9/2023 0 Comments Dominion by S.E. Lund![]() That is until Kate McDermott crosses his path and screws everything up. His weeks are filled with surgeries, music and D/s sex, and none of the well-planned and scheduled parts of his life intersect. Into bondage, D/s and the occasional dungeon scene, Drake keeps every part of his life separate, the divisions between them neat and tidy. He has his surgical slate at New York Presbyterian, he has a charitable foundation providing surgical tools to hospitals in Africa, he has his Brit Invasion cover band, Mersey, and he has his secret life as a Dominant in Manhattan's BDSM community. ![]() ![]() He doesn't do girlfriends, he doesn't do sleepovers, and he certainly doesn't do breakfast in bed the morning after. ![]() Lund comes The Drake Series Complete Collection:ĭrake Morgan, MD, Neurosurgeon, bass player, philanthropist – Dominant. ![]() 5/9/2023 0 Comments Ancillary justice amazon![]() We’re told in parallel the current story (the quest) and past events when Breq was an ancillary (the why for the quest). And she plans to use that ability to seek revenge for what was taken, even from the Lord of the Radch herself.Īnn Leckie takes her time telling Breq’s story in ANCILLARY JUSTICE ( Amazon). The separation from her ship is sometimes disorienting for her, but at the same time what she learned while an ancillary has made her deadly. An ancillary’s mind and identity is wiped when they’re hooked into the ship’s central AI–in essence, an ancillary is the ship.īreq used to be an ancillary to the starship Justice of Toren, but is the only survivor. ![]() While the starship officers are human, the crew is comprised of ancillaries, people who resisted empire annexation of their home planets, taken into custody and stored for future use. Thousands of years in the future humans have created an inter-planetary empire, and they’ve done it by using powerful starships to take over human and alien planets. ![]() ![]() Rosa’s description of Sutpen is dark and foreboding, describing him consistently as a devil or demon. He established a thriving plantation there and seemed poised for wealth and influence. Sutpen arrived in the area in the 1830s and acquired the land on which Sutpen’s Hundred was built through devious and possibly illegal means. The story opens on the night before Quentin is to depart for Harvard he is summoned to the dark, hot home of family friend Rosa Coldfield, who tells him her version of the story of her brother-in-law, Thomas Sutpen. ![]() ![]() In his novel Absalom, Absalom (1936), William Faulkner traces the rise and fall of antebellum Southern culture by following the life story of a single man, using a mixture of equally unreliable narrators. ![]() 5/9/2023 0 Comments Flights book by olga tokarczuk![]() ![]() The novel subtly demonstrates the impossibility of such efforts, but, the essay argues, Books of Jacob continues this project, albeit from the opposite direction, examining the affordances of the third‐person voice. In Flights, the narrator's striving to arrive at a more expansive and synthetic knowledge of the world is accompanied by an effort to go beyond the first‐person voice, to a broader perspective. ![]() Both novels investigate the challenges inherent in the project of providing an image of the world, and alongside various interventions on the level of content, each examines the kind of world‐image that different approaches to narrative voice can produce. This essay argues for the power of free indirect discourse in the third‐person narrative perspective to serve as a collective voice, encompassing a diversity of perspectives, through a reading of two novels by Olga Tokarczuk, Bieguni ( Flights) and Księgi Jakubowe ( Books of Jacob). ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() No, it's not quite at the level of the BDB, but its premise and characters show real potential. ![]() Overall, a credit worthy read.Īs a huge fan of Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood, I thought I would give this new series a try. ![]() I felt Eric Dove did a great job of narrating the story. I believe the author was attempting to make some of the main characters come across as tough and "street smart", but I felt she really overused abbreviated words, cursing, and slang in general to the point that it felt a tad contrived. The only complaint I found with the book overall is the dialogue of some of the characters. The characters were engaging in their roles. However, the book certainly doesn't center around the lovemaking, and when it does occur, it fits into the plot. There are rather graphic sex encounters in this book, and if you are offended by such things then beware. The paranormal parts of the plot were understandable, tied closely to judeo-christian religious mythology most would be at least somewhat familiar with. The action was fast paced and I found it hard to wait to see what would happen next. This book is action packed, with a nice steamy romance thrown in. ![]() |