![]() ![]() ![]() The pine trees colour in a different way to the local trees, so in the autumn, if you took a private plane, which of course you could do if you were May-Ling, you see this spectacular necklace. The chains of the necklace are made of French pine trees which Chiang had imported to China and planted like a real necklace around the whole mountain. The roof of this villa has blue-green tiles which sparkle in the sun, and made it look like a real jewel. It encircled a whole mountain, and the jewel of the necklace was a villa, called the May-Ling Palace outside Nanjing. ![]() For many years after her marriage to Chiang Kai-shek, May-Ling was in a deep depression, and he wanted to get her out of it, so he gave her this present, which was a “necklace,” for her birthday in 1932. I was surprised about the relationship between Chiang Kai-shek and Madame Chiang Kai-shek. ![]()
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![]() Am I Making Myself Clear? shows scientists how to speak to the public, handle the media, and describe their work to a lay audience on paper, online, and over the airwaves. By offering useful hints for improving their interactions with policymakers, the public, and her fellow journalists, Dean aims to change the attitude of scientists who scorn the mass media as an arena where important work is too often misrepresented or hyped.Įven more important, she seeks to convince them of the value and urgency of communicating to the public. In Am I Making Myself Clear? Cornelia Dean, a distinguished science editor and reporter, urges scientists to overcome their institutional reticence and let their voices be heard beyond the forum of scholarly publication. To convey the facts, Am I Making Myself Clear? suggests, scientists must take a more active role in making their work accessible to the media, and thus to the public. But unless we understand the science behind these issues, we cannot make reasonable decisions and worse, we are susceptible to propaganda cloaked in scientific rhetoric. ![]() Climate change, health care policy, weapons of mass destruction, an aging infrastructure, stem cell research, endangered species, space exploration all affect our lives as citizens and human beings in practical and profound ways. ![]() ![]() What we don't know can hurt us and does so every day. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() An older me knows better the very unsustainability (irresponsability?) of the house's society in microcosm kept me from becoming fully invested in it. ![]() A younger me might not have had as much respect for the logistics of allowing 59 people to grow roots in a mansion. A younger me would have liked this better. And once you realized where it was going, there couldn't be any other way for it to get there. The plot didn't feel realistic, which irked me a little, but the characters did. You don't really get a visual of what is happening beyond the wall - you are one of them, the kidnapped you are all of them. After awhile it became clear that nobody was going anywhere our set was almost claustrophobically small. As the book began I didn't care much for the characters, and I was in a hurry to get past the kidnapping, out of the house and (hopefully) into the Jungle, where it would becomes about survivalism. ![]() ![]() Tessa's father had been a fallen angel, one of the kings of demons. So the boy had inherited something from his mother as well as his father, then. Magnus saw a shadow coalescing once more into flesh. What he did see was white fingers suddenly clenched on the brim of the policeman's helmet, the turn of James Herondale's head, darkness replaced with the tilt of his slowly appearing grin. Magnus heard the sound of its rushing swiftness rather than saw it, the dark waters at one with the night. They ran down street after street, Magnus and the darkness, until the Thames barred their path. ![]() A Shadowhunter who could turn into a shadow? Magnus turned and bolted after the bobbing policeman's helmet, held aloft only by a taunting darkness. Magnus considered pausing to help him, but there was being a soft touch, and then there was being ridiculous enough to not pursue a most enticing mystery. "You can find far more flattering headgear at any shop in Bond Street." He stumbled forward, hands fumbling blindly in the air to retrieve what was long gone. The policeman gave a shout of surprise as his helmet was whisked away by unseen hands. Magnus was able to discern a shadow falling where there was nothing to cast it, a surge of dark within the greater darkness of the night. Magnus saw the buttons on the man's uniform cease their gleaming, even though he was under a streetlamp. ![]() It was not Magnus the man had to watch out for. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() I hadn’t seen that before, and all I wanted to know was why can’t she touch anyone? Once that question was answered, all I wanted to know was how is Juliette going to get out of this prison and save herself - and oh, who is this incredibly hot guy, Adam? Every time one of my questions was answered, there was another question waiting. KG: When Shatter Me opens, Juliette is in a cell, and she hasn’t spoken to or touched another person in 264 days. What made the Shatter Me series stand out in the crowd for you? It seems like a new dystopian novel is published every day now. RR: Let’s get serious – at least as serious as the two of us can get. RR: Tahereh, because she has an amazing collection of shoes, and I’m pretty sure at least one pair has rocket engines in the heels. KG: Between you and Tahereh, who would win in a race? ![]() ![]() People will have to read Unravel Me to find out why. KG: Describe Tahereh’s novels in one word. For your book, it would have to be Miss Peregrine’s Home for Shattered Children. Kami Garcia: I would have to go with Beautiful Unraveled Creatures or Unbreakable Me. Ransom Riggs: You are doing a mash-up of your book/series and the Shatter Me series. Kami and Ransom got together to talk about Tahereh Mafi, and her new novel Unravel Me. Ransom Riggs is the author of the bestselling Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. Kami Garcia is the co-author of the bestselling Beautiful Creatures Novels and Unbreakable. ![]() ![]() ![]() The story becomes mythical and destined for retelling for new audiences, new challenges, and new generations. Young man grows up in poverty on the frontier, splits rails, self-educates, and becomes a lawyer and the statesman who saved the union before a dastardly actor assassinated him during the play Our American Friend. In many ways Meacham tells an oft-told story. ![]() Who was where when? Who wrote what letter to whom, residing in an obscure library? The insights made the story more complex and compelling than the old-method historical narratives.Īnd There Was Light, by Jon Meacham, is the latest in this string of “new” histories in my library. Kerns Goodwin made connections regarding the politicking around the formation of Lincoln’s cabinet, connections impossible for a mere card deck. The reality of the impact of this information revolution on historical scholarship became real to me when Doris Kerns Goodwin released her Team of Rivals. ![]() Card catalogs left libraries, and research decks left researchers – all to be replaced by the internet and digitized data. In the intervening years, much has changed. Tales of Egyptian, Greek, and Roman times thrilled me and led me to learn to read and use indexes (my parents had a World Book Encyclopedia whose index pointed me to every entry, and that opened Roman and Greek history to me). I stumbled across ancient history in the sixth grade. In the material world, nothing is done by leaps, all by gradual advance. ![]() ![]() ![]() She’s never felt so intensely for anyone, so exhilarated by someone’s kiss-but is the irrepressible heat between her and Hardin worth all the drama? Love used to be enough to hold them together. This cycle of jealousy, unpredictable anger, and forgiveness is exhausting. Tessa knows Hardin loves her and will do anything to protect her, but there’s a difference between loving someone and being able to have them in your life. And rather than being understanding, he turns to sabotage. The one person she should be able to rely on, Hardin, is furious when he discovers the massive secret she’s been keeping. After We Fell Book 3 of the After series-newly revised and expanded, Anna Todds After fanfiction racked up 1 billion reads online and captivated readers. ![]() Revelations about first her family, and then Hardin’s, throw everything they knew before in doubt and makes their hard-won future together more difficult to claim. Just as Tessa makes the biggest decision of her life, everything changes. AFTER WE FELL…Life will never be the same. Tessa and Hardin’s love was complicated before. Experience the internet’s most talked-about book for yourself from the writer Cosmopolitan called “the biggest literary phenomenon of her generation.” Book 3 of the After series-newly revised and expanded, Anna Todd’s After fanfiction racked up 1 billion reads online and captivated readers across the globe. ![]() ![]() ![]() Next morning, the dolls just stare and smile.īeatrix lost her fiance tragically during a long engagement insisted upon by her parents, to whom she felt duty but little more. After trying and failing to eat the tiny plaster food, they commence making a general mess and then spiriting various objects down their mousehole. One of my favorite tales involved two mice ransacking a dollhouse. inhabiting this world, while engaging in people-like pursuits, keep their respective animal natures about them. The dogs, mice, badgers, frogs, "puddleducks", hens, piglets, etc. Peter Rabbit looks and feels very bunnylike indeed after losing his shoes and coat, lost and disoriented and damp from hiding in the watering can. Apart from the fact that the animals wear clothing, the illustrations and even many of the tales are very true to life. While I was familiar with Peter Rabbit, had read Beatrix's bio, and named a goat after her, I had never read the complete tales until now. We found a complete boxed set at a used book store. This plus 21 other tiny little books of tales served as my bedtime reading this week. Her claim to fame ended up being Peter Rabbit. She was a talented illustrator who wanted to do nature drawings for scientific journals. I will get through this whole review without using the word "charming."īeatrix Potter is a hero of mine. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() In Love on the Brain Levi and Bee were rivals in collage In The Love Hypothesis Adam and Olive fake dated "Rival physicists collide in a vortex of academic feuds and fake dating shenanigans in this delightfully STEMinist romcom" This book looks like an exact carbon copy of Love on the Brain and The Love Hypothesis mashed together ![]() I asked and Miss Hazelwood did not deliver. And that same Jack who now sits on the hiring committee at MIT, right between Elsie and her dream job.Įlsie is prepared for an all-out war of scholarly sabotage but…those long, penetrating looks? Not having to be anything other than her true self when she’s with him? Will falling into an experimentalist’s orbit finally tempt her to put her most guarded theories on love into practice? Because Jack Smith, the annoyingly attractive and broody older brother of her favorite client, turns out to be the cold-hearted experimental physicist who ruined her mentor’s career and undermined the reputation of theorists everywhere. Honestly, it’s a pretty sweet gig-until her carefully constructed Elsie-verse comes crashing down. By other day, Elsie makes up for her non-existent paycheck by offering her services as a fake girlfriend, tapping into her expertly honed people pleasing skills to embody whichever version of herself the client needs. ![]() By day, she’s an adjunct professor, toiling away at grading labs and teaching thermodynamics in the hopes of landing tenure. The many lives of theoretical physicist Elsie Hannaway have finally caught up with her. ![]() ![]() ![]() Perhaps that’s what caused so many of the issues I had with this book.īy the end, I realized there wasn’t really any conflict between Josie and Liam. The plot and everyone’s emotions towards the situation all evolved really fast. ![]() Really, this whole book happened quickly. I thought he might have some conflicting thoughts or something about it, but he just accepted it, fell into the role, and that was that. They just weren’t developed very well.Īlong the same lines, Liam just accepted being a dad so quickly. Also, he would be weirdly aggressive about things and then super sweet and caring about something on the next page. And Liam was this rock star set on success one minute and then wanted to be a dad and stay in the small town the next. One second she hated Liam and then on the next page she would defend him and fall weak to her knees in front of him. I understand she was feeling a lot of conflicting things, but her emotions would change on a whim. ![]() ![]() Josie always showed conflicting emotions. In actuality, it just kept getting worse.įirst, Josie and Liam’s characters were not developed very well. The only reason I didn’t DNF this one was because the ratings were so great and I kept waiting for something to turn this book around. After loving the movie, I sure I would love the book even more, but that wasn’t the case. ![]() |