I am planning a trip to Ireland in May to be with my great uncle on his 100th birthday. While I’m there, I’ll also make time for a yoga retreat with my dad, visiting sites steeped in folklore, and reconnecting with the land of some of my ancestors. A memoir, a novel, and a witchcraft book are each on my to-read list in preparation. (more…)
just counted 11 books, including sketchbooks and journals, out of my backpack. I am not currently a student… I voluntarily pack around that much weight. The only reason I don’t have more is because they won’t fit in my bag
To historians he is an enigma: he receives us as he did his ambassadors, with the utmost cortesy, listening to us, replying in a low and often unintelligible voice. Never speaking of himself at all. For three whole days just before he died, he confessed the errors of his lifetime. But who could truly imagine these errors, numbered before the tribunal of a conscience whose judgements may or may not have been just, as it searched the recesses of a long life? Here lies one of the great mysteries of his life, the shadow which if we are truthful we must leave across his portrait. Or rather his many portraits. What man does not change in the course of his life? And Philip’s life was a long and disturbed one, from the painting by Titian of the prince in his twentieth year to the terrible and moving portrait by Pantoja de la Cruz which show us the king at the end of his reign, the shadow of what he once had been. — Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean world in the age of Philip II
“Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for?”
Happy Fiction Friday everyone!! Today I want to talk about a book that I have a lot of feelings on… And that is Hank Green’s debut sci-fi novel An Absolutely Remarkable Thing.
Basically my feelings on this book are all personal; with that being said if you love science fiction you will love this book, if you love fiction you will love this book, if you love reading that captures your imagination…
Happy Friday everyone!! Today I wanted to share with you the amazing books I got gifted this year for Christmas and all the books that are now on my list to read, I’m extremely excited to get reading!
~The Next Person You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom
According to commentator and lawyer Elie Mystal, Republicans are wrong when they tell you the First Amendment allows religious fundamentalists to discriminate against gay people who like cake. They’re wrong when they tell you the Second Amendment protects the right to own a private arsenal. They’re wrong when they say the death penalty isn’t cruel or unusual punishment, and they’re wrong when…
Graphic Novel Review: They Called Us Enemy by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott and Harmony Becker
A graphic memoir recounting actor/author/activist George Takei’s childhood imprisoned within American concentration camps during World War II. Experience the forces that shaped an American icon — and America itself.Long before George Takei braved new frontiers in Star Trek, he woke up as a four-year-old boy to find his own birth country at war with his father’s — and their entire family forced…
Book Review: AI 2041 - Ten Visions for Our Future by Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan
Book Review: AI 2041 – Ten Visions for Our Future by Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan
In a groundbreaking blend of science and imagination, the former president of Google China and a leading writer of speculative fiction join forces to answer an urgent question: How will artificial intelligence change our world over the next twenty years?AI will be the defining issue of the twenty-first century, but many people know little about it apart from visions of dystopian robots or flying…
Audiobook Review: Inglorious Empire by Shashi Tharoor
Audiobook Review: Inglorious Empire by Shashi Tharoor
Inglorious Empire tells the real story of the British in India — from the arrival of the East India Company to the end of the Raj — and reveals how Britain’s rise was built upon its plunder of India.In the eighteenth century, India’s share of the world economy was as large as Europe’s. By 1947, after two centuries of British rule, it had decreased six-fold. Beyond conquest and deception, the…
Audiobook Review: The Patient Assassin by Anita Anand
Audiobook Review: The Patient Assassin by Anita Anand
When Sir Michael O’Dwyer, the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab, ordered Brigadier General Reginald Dyer to Amritsar, he wanted Dyer to bring the troublesome city to heel. Sir Michael had become increasingly alarmed at the effect Gandhi was having on his province, as well as recent demonstrations, strikes, and shows of Hindu-Muslim unity. All these things, to Sir Michael, were a precursor to a second…
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