![]() ![]() In rich and resplendent prose, Yanagihara has fashioned a tragic and transcendent hymn to brotherly love, a masterful depiction of heartbreak, and a dark examination of the tyranny of memory and the limits of human endurance. Finalist for the National Book Awards 2015. Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome-but that will define his life forever. There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their center of gravity. ![]() When four classmates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they're broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. ![]() Truly an amazement-and a great gift for its readers. An epic about love and friendship in the twenty-first century that goes into some of the darkest places fiction has ever traveled and yet somehow improbably breaks through into the light. Brace yourself for the most astonishing, challenging, upsetting, and profoundly moving book in many a season. ![]()
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![]() ![]() He falls down to the iceworld below, where he is captured by Icecarls. Tal tries to steal a Sunstone, but during his act of thievery is thrown off the Castle of Seven Towers by a powerful Spiritshadow Keeper. Without it, Tal cannot enter Aenir and bind himself to a Spiritshadow - a guardian being, both protector and friend. Then his father disappears with the family's Primary Sunstone. Tal is getting ready for the Day of Ascension - a day when all the 13-year-old Chosen from the Castle of Seven Towers enter the spirit world of Aenir. A seven-towered castle built upon a mountain high above the desolate ice lands below. In all the world there is only one place that ever sees the sun. First of a thrilling fantasy adventure series set on the Dark World, where society is ranked according to its colour clan and the most precious commodity is light. ![]() ![]() ![]() Syaf’s art, inked by Sandra Hope, is designed to mimic that of his predecessor Shane Davis, but he’s not as good. It’s also the least compelling of the three books to date, and that has as much to do with a growing sense of familiarity. The pacing here, more so than in the previous books, is very cinematic, with significant concentration on Clark Kent and the human supporting cast as on Superman’s appearances. ![]() Zod himself lacks any real motivation other than evil for evil’s sake, again, oddly empty for Straczynski considering the depth he’s given his characters elsewhere. An eventual saving grace of sorts is a spirited speech later given at the United Nations. The one deviation from this is hardly the peg on which to hang such a plot. The logic is that the US military establishment is more willing to trust an unknown super powered being who claims to be able to defeat Superman than Superman himself, despite most of his actions being benign. ![]() At this point the plot rather collapses, which is unusual for a graphic novel written by J. It might not be, as an alternative solution presents itself, and that’s General Zod, another survivor of Krypton’s destruction. Just in case it’s ever needed, you understand. After three books we’re also presented with the full Lex Luthor, not what you’d expect, working hand in hand with the US government determined to develop a method of killing Superman. ![]() This third tale of Superman on an alternate Earth was a long time coming, and features a new artist, Ardian Syaf. ![]() ![]() The overall feel of this book is reminiscent of the works of Vermeer himself – muted, subtle, calm, but with passion and emotion right beneath the surface. ![]() ![]() The feelings between them develop, though they are never spoken. He asks her to become his painting assistant, and then one of his painting subjects. Early in the story, she is taken into the household of the famous painter Vermeer to be an assistant housekeeper, and eventually Vermeer sees that she is different. She has the imagination and dreams of an artist and a philosopher, though she has never gone to school. Her internal life, however, is another matter. She is ordinary, quiet, of a poor family of famous Delft tile makers, who lives a regular life. Girl with a Pearl Earringis the story of a young woman in 16th century Holland, named Griet. It’s good to expand your worldview to look at something you always viewed in a specific manner, in a different way. ![]() Seeing things in only one way is both boring and limiting. Don’t you love a story told from an unexpected viewpoint, or from a character who has traditionally been portrayed in a certain way? It gives a much-needed shift in perspective, I think. ![]() ![]() “Are you planning to have children?” is a question Statistics Canada has asked since 1990. ![]() “And I’m like, ‘Wow, that’s really going to make me want to change my whole life.’ ” It’s a life the couple enjoys: they work together on her website (he handles the business side), golf together, engage in community volunteer work, and dote on their dog, Marcus.Īs baby refuseniks, Lui and Szenowicz belong to a tiny but growing minority challenging the final frontier of reproductive freedom: the right to say no to children without being labelled social misfits or selfish for something they don’t want. “So everyone says, ‘Oh, it would be so gorgeous!’ ” She laughs. In the ensuing six years, the couple has been barraged with reasons why they should change their minds, from “Your life will have no value if you don’t” to “You’ll be so lonely when you get old” to Lui’s favourite: “Don’t you want to know what your children would look like?” “Any baby we’d have would be of mixed race,” she says. We just looked at each other and said, ‘We don’t want them.’ ” ![]() “It was just an assumption, ‘You get married, you have kids.’ ” Front-line exposure to a close relative’s three young children and the work they required provided a wake-up call, Lui says. “Before that, we didn’t give it a lot of thought,” says the Vancouver-based eTalk reporter who writes the popular celebrity gossip blog. Elaine Lui was 29 years old and had been married for a year when she and her husband, Jacek Szenowicz, decided that they didn’t want children. ![]() |