![]() ![]() At times, I'd even whip out the word hilarious, which I don't do very often. I mean, how could it? A trash-talking crow? Zombies? All wrapped in social commentary and an environmentalist slant? No way.īut, against all odds, Buxton pulls it off.įirst of all, the book is very funny. There was also this nagging feeling that Hollow Kingdom just couldn't possibly work. I was skeptical going in, because I wasn't sure if I'd ever be able to relate to a domesticated crow. sets out to save Big Jim and, perhaps, all of humanity. ![]() With the help of their lovable hound Dennis, S.T. S.T.'s worldview is colored by his owner, Big Jim, a Seattle resident with an affinity for cursing, Big Butts magazine, Tinder hookups, and - now that he's a zombie - standing in a room and scratching at the wall. Most notably by a foul-mouthed domesticated crow named Shit Turd. But the twist here is that the story of humanity's downfall is narrated by the animals left behind. And that's before the entire human race is turned into zombies.īuxton's novel is at its heart a standard apocalypse tale. Thusly named (by the actual fauna of the Earth) for the fact that they go around wrecking the environment like "milky-eyed machines intent on destruction, empty vessels that have lost their inner intelligence." A fair assessment, indeed. In Kira Jane Buxton’s Hollow Kingdom, the Hollows are the humans. ![]()
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![]() “I wonder what little lady made these?” Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch) asks about the paper flowers created by Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee) - the first indication of the initial theme of Jane Campion’s new film, an adaptation of the novel by Thomas Savage. (For more family viewing, try “ Matilda” or “ Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio.”) Watch on Netflix “This rambling, anarchic tale is gratifyingly fresh and eccentric,” our critic raved. But Verbinski also doesn’t alienate the target audience: Children will likewise delight in this visually inventive and frequently funny treat. Thompson in “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” even throwing in visual and verbal nods to that very R-rated adaptation. ![]() And he apparently instructed his leading man, Johnny Depp, to voice the role as a riff on his turn as Hunter S. ![]() First, he constructs it as a kiddie “Chinatown,” with our hero stumbling into a Western town where the battle over water rights is getting ugly. But few have done it as unapologetically (and successfully) as the “Pirates of the Caribbean” director Gore Verbinski, who livens up this story of a desert lizard’s adventure in several surprising ways. Plenty of filmmakers have livened up family movies by sliding in winking gags and pop culture references for the grown-ups. ![]() ![]() ![]() "This is the story of a year in which we made every attempt to feed ourselves animals and vegetables whose provenance we really knew. ![]() ![]() Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle makes a passionate case for putting the kitchen back at the center of family life and diversified farms at the center of the American diet. Their good-humored search yields surprising discoveries about turkey sex life and overly zealous zucchini plants, en route to a food culture that's better for the neighborhood and also better on the table. Hang on for the ride: With characteristic poetry and pluck, Barbara Kingsolver and her family sweep readers along on their journey away from the industrial-food pipeline to a rural life in which they vow to buy only food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it. "Naturally, our first stop was to buy junk food and fossil fuel." ![]() We were about to begin the adventure of realigning our lives with our food chain. population made an unprecedented mad dash for the Sun Belt, one carload of us paddled against the tide, heading for the Promised Land where water falls from the sky and green stuff grows all around. Bestselling author Barbara Kingsolver returns with her first nonfiction narrative that will open your eyes in a hundred new ways to an old truth: You are what you eat. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Until you remember what you’re celebrating the triumph over. Hurston’s book is about a person surviving, despite every attempt made for him not to. ![]() Cudjo ends his story as a full human, beyond the terrors he endured. 'That Zora Neale Hurston should find and befriend Cudjo Lewis, the last living man with firsthand memory of capture in Africa and captivity in Alabama, is nothing shy of a miracle. Barracoon is a difficult read, harsh and brutal at times, with just enough levity to help push a reader through. Her strength in articulating dialogue is something that shines in her later work, but it is seen brilliantly here.Hurston lets his language exist, trusting readers to find their way through it. Hurston writes Cudjo’s voice as it was spoken out loud to her. Holding the book and reading it now, Barracoon seems ahead of its time, largely due to how it makes the story of slavery both intimate and viscerally visual, as Roots did most notably several decades after this manuscript was created. Barracoon, in many ways, pursues the slavery narrative in the same manner as the book and film 12 Years a Slave: it tracks slavery’s violence and aftermath through the words, memories, and history of a single person who survived it. ![]() ![]() ![]() The Western world can be portrayed as a land of milk and honey, where everyone can begin a new life and do better than in the world that one has come from. He sees the betrayal and the guilt, and even though his own love life is broken, it’s as if what he has learned is unthinkable and unimaginable for him to understand. Dav’s secret of having a child with someone other than her husband and it’s as if his eyes open and see a light he has never seen before. He himself is a lonely man with a troubled marriage and has “never seen his own wife fully naked (Lahiri, 122).” His only exposure to the Western world is through tourists and what he sees on television and reads on the news. Dav, a woman from New York, and fantasizes what life would be like with her. Kapasi, who lives in India, has two jobs, one of which is driving foreigners to tour sites. ![]() Kapasi in the story “Interpreter of Maladies.” In the story, Mr. It’s safe to say that the interest is also valid from the people who are living in those faraway places. ![]() Many people do not venture far and one of the best ways to gain knowledge and understanding is to read about those faraway places. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire features the recurring years-long winters and the Night’s Watch to guard against them, Brandon Sanderson’s The Stormlight Archive features the Desolations and the Knights Radiant to rebuild society in between them, and so on. ![]() This basic template, of a fantasy society whose institutions are driven by the need to maintain knowledge of a recurring threat once it has faded from living memory so that the people are not caught offguard when it returns, would become highly influential on the genre. This sets up the template for a fascinating society whose feudal rulers rule from protected ‘Holds’ into which people can retreat for safety, whose harpers and singers are devoted to keeping memory of the Thread and its dangers alive in the two centuries between falls, and which is protected by the Dragonriders, an aloof society apart in their high ‘weyr’ fortresses. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() A chameleon becomes his personal pet, and their relationship later develops into a central theme here. During the day, he follows native housekeeper Marta around as she goes about her chores, and he finds pleasure in watching the exotic wildlife outside his window. In the early years-with his brother absent-young Tim must find his own way. His older brother, Johnathan, is sent off to boarding school at Bingham Academy-the main school for foreign, or ferengi, children and a place that eventually becomes integral to the author’s own experience. The jarring sounds, intoxicating scents and colorful sights all come alive before him like fireworks. Bascom, son of missionaries, illuminates the Ethiopia of his childhood in this Bakeless Prize–winning memoir.Īfter arriving in Addis Ababa as a toddler, Bascom senses the teeming life that surges in the countryside surrounding the capital city. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Finn, a young man without a past, is a prisoner in Incarceron, which has become a hideous dystopia, an “abyss that swallows dreams.” When Claudia and Finn each gain possession of a high-tech “key” to the prison, they exchange messages, and Finn asks Claudia to help him attempt an escape. Claudia, the brilliant daughter of the cold-blooded warden of Incarceron, has been raised from birth to marry and eventually control Caspar, the simpleminded heir to the throne. Simultaneously, all of the world's malcontents and madmen were sealed into an unimaginably vast, sentient prison named Incarceron, where a dedicated group of social engineers intended to create utopia. Fisher (the Oracle Prophesies series) scores a resounding success in this beautifully imagined science fantasy set in a far future where, many years earlier, civilization was artificially frozen at late-medieval levels in order to save the world from dangerous technologies. ![]() ![]() ![]() You saw Adriana in “Pajama Party Punishment”. The lovely Adriana played my daughter and Sarah was my niece. It took us 8 hours to film this video over 2 days so we all put a lot of work into it. I think this will be our best video yet! Sarah spent hours with the editing and some scenes will be shown in black and white with Sarah doing a narration of the scene. ![]() I’ll soon have our latest video “50’s Style Spanking” edited and clipped to post on my site and I can’t wait to watch it myself. Did you watch the “A Not So Happy Spanksgiving” video in my members section during the holiday? Sarah and Paul and I had so much fun filming this scene and Sarah played the spoiled brat as usual and got a good spanking from and me. I am thankful for all my loyal members, clients, and spanking friends. I hope everybody had a wonderful Thanksgiving. ![]() I’m sorry I didn’t get a diary written for last week but I was quite busy preparing for Thanksgiving plus I had out of town company for the week. ![]() ![]() ![]() Yes, it doesn’t happened overnight but Keller tells us to be successful is to do the opposite and Go Small: Thus, these people overload their schedule and to-do list, resulting in being stressed and overwhelmed. Most people think the road to big success is time-consuming and intricate. ![]() Keller was a self-made successful person and started coaching his company’s top performers to use the One Thing in their lives and careers. He stepped down as CEO and found the 14 right people for the right seats, which resulted in extraordinary corporate success and growth. ![]() Keller sought help from a coach, who told him to do the life-altering One Thing of replacing 14 employees. His company was failing, and his life was crumbling around him. Chapter 18: The Journey Of Pursuing The ONE Thingĭownload the PDF Book Summary for The One Thing by Gary Keller Chapter 1: The One ThingĪfter building a successful company, Gary Keller introduces the idea of “The One Thing,” which was the product of his first major entrepreneurial failure.Chapter 17: The Four Thieves Of Productivity.Chapter 10: The Focusing Question: “What’s The ONE Thing?”.Chapter 7: Lie #4: Willpower Is Always On Will-Call.Chapter 4: Lie #1: Everything Matters Equally. ![]() |