![]() Nonetheless, in the week of publication, Bingham has appeared on page and screen to discuss contemporary politics as well as historical fact. ![]() Though most of her 100 interviewees are the “radicals, resisters, vets hippies” who tell the story of a time in which “America lost its mind and found its soul”, she also spoke to law enforcement agents and staffers from the Nixon White House. Nixon looms large over Bingham’s new book, Witness to the Revolution, an oral history of 1969-70. “I’ve no idea if Donald Trump even knows this,” says the writer Clara Bingham, “but many of the signs at his rallies say: ‘The silent majority stands with Trump.’ I don’t know if Trump needs to identify with Nixon.” Now, in a bitter election year, the phrase is back. In the 1980s and 2000s, Ronald Reagan and George W Bush looked in the same direction. Nixon had created a cultural shibboleth: the silent majority, the conservative masses, appalled at the cultural and political advances of the 1960s, ready to reel them back in. “So tonight,” he said, “to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans, I ask for your support.” ![]()
0 Comments
5/22/2023 0 Comments Push and shove by cl stone![]() ![]() As soon as he could go to school, he was hard at work and when he wasn't, he was working at the hospital. He spent his childhood and every spare moment beside them, quiet as they worked. His father, Mr Midori, also worked at the hospital, but as a tech. She felt he was her responsibility from then on. She brought him to the hospital administration, but wouldn't let social services take him. She found him behind a trash can, near a back door. She worked as a translator, and was at the hospital that day to translate for foreign patients. The woman who found him, Mrs Midori, later adopted him. There was no note, no clue where he'd come from. When Sean was a baby, he was found abandoned in a battered car seat at the hospital. His dazzling light green eyes have a hazel ring closer to the pupil He has sandy blond hair with gentle curls to the middle of his ears, and a kind heart-shaped face. ![]() He is a head taller than Sang, with tapered shoulders and a trim body. ![]() ![]() ![]() ‘Oh, she’s gone’ (he pronounces it gorne), ‘I hope she’s going to come back. ‘And she has a broomstick’ says Clare, before disappearing to loiter outside and keep track of the time. ‘I have visited concentric circles in my time,’ says Terry and laughs. And you’re more used to witches than the average author, I believe.’ I can hear him laughing outside in the corridor, and Clare introduces us, ‘Terry, here is Ann.’ Clare brings a jug of water and looks round and then beats the cushion in the chair I’m intending for Terry. All furnished by IKEA, as is the norm these days. While Random’s Clare fumes over the late running interview in an adjoining room, I’m setting my stuff up in the stark little room where I’m waiting for Terry. Although, as you will have to admit, a photographer would have been a good thing. But other than that, I’m happy to be doing this. To make my feelings of guilt even worse, the meeting is taking place on his 21st birthday. Here I am at the National Theatre in London, waiting to speak to Terry Pratchett, a favourite of the son who’s unable to come along and be my photographer. I’ve never felt so guilty over interviewing someone before. ![]() ![]() ![]() If you’ve ever wondered how Netflix recommends movies or why books often see a sudden decline in Amazon ratings after they win a major prize, Tom Vanderbilt has answers to these questions and many more that you’ve probably never thought to ask. ![]() Why do we get so embarrassed when a colleague. With a voracious curiosity, Vanderbilt stalks the elusive beast of taste, probing research in psychology, marketing, and neuroscience to answer myriad complex and fascinating questions. Read You May Also Like Taste in an Age of Endless Choice by Tom Vanderbilt available from Rakuten Kobo. ![]() Our preferences and opinions are constantly being shaped by countless forces – especially in the digital age with its nonstop procession of “thumbs up” and “likes” and “stars.” Tom Vanderbilt, bestselling author of Traffic, explains why we like the things we like, why we hate the things we hate, and what all this tell us about ourselves. Why do we get so embarrassed when a colleague wears the same shirt? Why do we eat the same thing for breakfast every day, but seek out novelty at lunch and dinner? How has streaming changed the way Netflix makes recommendations? Why do people think the music of their youth is the best? How can you spot a fake review on Yelp? ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() This moving homage to black life and culture and its sharp economic and historical critique are more important than ever, resonating with today's unequivocal demand that Black Lives Matter in the twenty-first century. The Souls of Black Folk, Essays and Sketches by Du Bois W E B PH.D. Unlike Du Bois's more scholarly work, Souls blends narrative and autobiographical essays, and it continues to reach a wide domestic and international readership. The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches. ![]() Originally published in 1903, Souls introduced a number of now-canonical terms into the American conversation about race, among them double-consciousness, and it sounded the ominous warning that "the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line." In a new introduction, Shawn Leigh Alexander outlines the historical context of this critical work and provides rare documents from the special collections archive at the Du Bois Library at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Du Bois's birth in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, the University of Massachusetts Library has prepared a new edition of Du Bois's classic, The Souls of Black Folk. ![]() 5/22/2023 0 Comments Helen from wait till helen comes![]() ![]() It isn’t until Molly sees Helen for herself that she really begins to worry for her safety, and for the safety of her family. If they don’t treat her well, when Helen comes they will pay. When confronted, Heather initially denies it, but then begins to threaten Molly & Michael. Then it was gone, and all around me the insects struck up a chorus of cheerful summer sounds.” Molly senses a presence and hears Heather referring to it as “Helen.” ![]() One afternoon Molly finds her in the graveyard, talking to someone. Heather begins to act a little crazier than normal. ![]() When Heather discovers a neglected gravestone, Molly believes she has uncovered the source of the haunting. If moving to the remote country, into a house with a grave yard isn’t bad enough, Molly & Michael discover the cemetery is rumored to be haunted. Their mother & step-father always side with Heather, who lost her mother to a fire when she was a toddler. Heather enjoys getting Molly & Michael in trouble. Over the summer, they are forced to watch over their bratty five-year-old step sister, Heather. Their new home is a converted church with grave yard in the back yard. When twelve-year-old Molly and her brother, Michael, are forced to move out to the country with their mother, step-father, & step-sister, they are devastated. 5/22/2023 0 Comments Winter Harvest by Norah Lofts![]() ![]() ![]() The House at Old Vine, and The House at Sunset) spans 600 years in the history of a house,įrom its beginnings as the home of a medieval wool-merchant to the present day, and Bless This House Occupants lack, although the occupants may leave impressions. Both landscape and houses have a permanency which their Many of her historical romances are set in Suffolk,Įngland and many of them are set around houses. Lofts novels have a strong sense of time and place. Her novels are well known not only for their historicalĪccuracy, but for her vigorous style of storytelling and her sense of history and her capacity to transmit In the nineteenth century or had English history as backgrounds, though other nations and eras-includingīiblical times-were represented in her writings. She was best known for her historical novels, many of which were set Norah Lofts Norah Robinson Lofts (1904 - 1983) (aka Juliet Astley and Peter Curtis) Norah Lofts was a prolific British author who wrote not only historical romances for over 50 years,īut also nonfiction and biographies. ![]() ![]() When Ali is not at work, she can be found running, eating cake pops, or watching sci-fi movies with her two feline overlords (and her slightly-less-feline husband). She recently became a professor, which absolutely terrifies her. A trio of contemporary romance novellas featuring engineers getting their happily-ever-afters. ![]() ![]() ![]() Originally from Italy, she lived in Germany and Japan before moving to the US to pursue a PhD in neuroscience. Story Locale:Houston, TX (NASA campus) About the AuthorĪli Hazelwood is the New York Times bestselling author of The Love Hypothesis, as well as a writer of peer-reviewed articles about brain science, in which no one makes out and the ever after is not always happy. From the New York Times bestselling author of The Love Hypothesis comes a collection of steamy, STEMinist novellas featuring a trio of engineers and their loves in loathingwith a special. From the New York Times bestselling author of The Love Hypothesis comes a collection of steamy, STEMinist novellas and their loves in loathing-with a special bonus chapter!Īn environmental engineer discovers that scientists should never cohabitate when she finds herself stuck with the roommate from hell-a detestable big-oil lawyer who won’t leave the thermostat alone.Ī civil engineer and her nemesis take their rivalry-and love-to the next level when they get stuck in a New York elevator.Ī NASA aerospace engineer's frozen heart melts as she lies injured and stranded at a remote Arctic research station and the only person willing to undertake the dangerous rescue mission is her longtime rival. ![]() 5/22/2023 0 Comments Empire summer moon book![]() White settlers arriving in Texas from the eastern United States were surprised to find the frontier being rolled backward by Comanches incensed by the invasion of their tribal lands. They were so masterful at war and so skillful with their arrows and lances that they stopped the northern drive of colonial Spain from Mexico and halted the French expansion westward from Louisiana. Comanche boys became adept bareback riders by age six full Comanche braves were considered the best horsemen who ever rode. The second entails one of the most remarkable narratives ever to come out of the Old West: the epic saga of the pioneer woman Cynthia Ann Parker and her mixed-blood son Quanah, who became the last and greatest chief of the Comanches.Īlthough readers may be more familiar with the tribal names Apache and Sioux, it was in fact the legendary fighting ability of the Comanches that determined just how and when the American West opened up. The first traces the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history. ![]() ![]() Gwynne’s Empire of the Summer Moon spans two astonishing stories. ![]() In the tradition of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, a stunningly vivid historical account of the forty-year battle between Comanche Indians and white settlers for control of the American West, centering on Quanah, the greatest Comanche chief of them all. ![]() 5/21/2023 0 Comments Enlightenment now![]() ![]() ![]() The theme of Enlightenment Now is contained in its subtitle: it is that reason, science and humanism lead to progress. ![]() It’s a long summary, but the book deserves it. What follows is a summary plus a few thoughts of my own. I’ve recently finished it, and I recommend it to everyone. So when I heard about Steven Pinker’s new book Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress, I knew I had to read it as soon as it came out. When I began this project a year ago, I had no idea that someone was already working on a well-researched but popular book on a theme very close to the central idea of this blog. ![]() |