![]() ![]() I watched him with both curiosity and trepidation he’d get back to the rear after we’d been out in the field a week or more and relax with booze, poker, cigarettes, sometimes a cigar. What was he about? He never hinted in all the time I was around him. And as he had clearly once been a handsome man, the scars perversely heightened his visage into a Phantom of the Opera echo - a man distorted, perhaps, by anger or revenge, or really a question mark. You hear things in the army, as in all society, and some kind of narrative emerges in this case, the story was that he’d been literally shot or sustained shrapnel in the face, skull, head, requiring a major reconstruction job as the scar branched deeply around his eye, nose, and cheek even his lips were affected. ![]() He was a great soldier, probably on his second or third tour - but why? Why would he come back after a facial wound like he had? I never asked, and he never told. Whereas some of us were not looking forward to such an encounter, the thought excited Barnes. Having reported the incident, and stripping the dead men, he soon had us under way, no credit taken, looking for further action ahead considering there had already been contact, the likelihood of more that day was in the air. But Barnes was cool, so cool, no big displays ever. Most of us were pretty excited whenever we actually, but rarely, saw the enemy, much less killed them. “Viet Cong, young men carelessly eating their breakfast, never suspecting the Americans would be out so early. ![]()
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![]() In Bring Up the Bodies, the second book in the planned Wolf Hall trilogy, the king lets Cromwell know that he's fallen out of love with his second wife, and now favors Jane Seymour, the shy lady-in-waiting to Anne. Unfortunately, constancy was rather famously not among Henry's gifts. Wolf Hall ended with Henry (mostly) happily married to Anne Boleyn, the beautiful young daughter of an English nobleman. The book followed Thomas Cromwell, the ambitious son of a blacksmith who rose to be Henry's chief minister, as he helped the king scheme for an annulment from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. ![]() No artist in recent history, though, has done as well with the subject matter as Hilary Mantel, the English author who won the Man Booker Prize for her brilliant 2009 novel Wolf Hall. For centuries, novelists, playwrights and filmmakers have been mining the Tudor family for dramatic gold, and with good reason: It's hard not to tell an interesting story about the monarch's parade of severely dysfunctional families. If you grew up in England, or just had a world history teacher who was weirdly obsessed with Henry VIII, you've probably heard the rhyme explaining the fates of each of the king's wives. ![]() How?ĭivorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. ![]() Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title Bring Up The Bodies Author Hilary Mantel ![]() ![]() ![]() The studio is known to always pack an impressive presentation at CinemaCon, so all eyes are on Warner Bros. Last year theater owners and CinemaCon attendees got the very first exclusive looks at The Flash, Don’t Worry Darling, Elvis, and more. releases like Barbie, Meg 2: The Trench, Blue Beetle, Dune: Part II, and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is to be expected. News related to major upcoming Warner Bros. Pictures is the next studio to give its presentation at CinemaCon and fans can expect a lot of exciting updates as their presentations always pack plenty of surprises. CinemaCon is not open to the public but fear not because DiscussingFilm is on the ground this year reporting the biggest announcements and reveals. ![]() This is where big names like Walt Disney Studios, Universal Pictures, and Paramount Pictures present their upcoming slate of theatrical releases to actual theater owners. Every year studios, distributors, exhibitors, industry professionals, and more unite at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas to celebrate the communal moviegoing experience on the big screen and discuss the future. ![]() The official convention of the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO), CinemaCon has risen in great notoriety since it debuted in 2011. is looking to keep that momentum flowing. CinemaCon 2023 is off to an exciting start thanks to yesterday’s Sony Pictures presentation, and now Warner Bros. ![]() ![]() “A love letter to Paris, the power of books, and the beauty of intergenerational friendship” ( Booklist), The Paris Library shows that extraordinary heroism can sometimes be found in the quietest places. As Lily uncovers more about her neighbor’s mysterious past, she finds that they share a love of language, the same longings, and the same intense jealousy, never suspecting that a dark secret from the past connects them. Her interest is piqued by her solitary, elderly neighbor. Montana, 1983: Lily is a lonely teenager looking for adventure in small-town Montana. But when the war finally ends, instead of freedom, Odile tastes the bitter sting of unspeakable betrayal. Together with her fellow librarians, Odile joins the Resistance with the best weapons she has: books. When the Nazis march into the city, Odile stands to lose everything she holds dear, including her beloved library. Paris, 1939: Young and ambitious Odile Souchet seems to have the perfect life with her handsome police officer beau and a dream job at the American Library in Paris. ![]() An instant New York Times, Washington Post, and USA TODAY bestseller-based on the true story of the heroic librarians at the American Library in Paris during World War II- The Paris Library is a moving and unforgettable “ ode to the importance of libraries, books, and the human connections we find within both” (Kristin Harmel, New York Times bestselling author). ![]() ![]() ![]() This discovery launches Connie on a quest to find out who this woman was, and to unearth a rare colonial artifact of singular power: a physick book, its pages a secret repository for lost knowledge of herbs and other, stranger things. The key contains a yellowing fragment of parchment with a name written upon it: Deliverance Dane. As she is drawn deeper into the mysteries of the family house, Connie discovers an ancient key secreted within a seventeenth-century Bible. But when her mother asks her to handle the sale of Connie’s grandmother’s abandoned home near Salem, she can’t refuse. Summary from the publisher: Harvard graduate student Connie Goodwin needs to spend her summer doing research for her doctoral dissertation. This isn’t going to be a negative review. ![]() I’m going to confess right now that this is one of my favorite books of the year. My problem was that I didn’t want to stop reading and then I got to a point where I wanted to go in slow motion. It is suggested that members stay with the schedule and read just so much each week. With this bookclub we read the book over a four week period. I read it as part of the First Look Book Club with Barnes and Noble. ![]() I’ve had the most amazing experience in reading this book. ![]() ![]() Translated from the Romanian by Sean Cotter Translated from the English and Russian by Eugene Ostashevsky Yevgenia Belorusets, “The Complaint Against Language” in Wartime Ukraine.Translated from the Russian by Jane Ann Miller Translated from the Lithuanian by Delija Valiukenas Translated from the Norwegian by Francesca M. Gunnhild Øyehaug, But Out There-Out There–.Translated from the Russian by Kotryna Garanasvili Marius Ivaškevičius, from Russian Romance.Translated from the Spanish by Paul Filev Translated from the German by Aaron Sayne Leif Randt, from The Haze over Coby County.Translated from the Spanish by James Terry Translated from the Catalan by Laia Sales Merino Antònia Vicens i Picornell, from Lovely. ![]() ![]() Translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa and Patricio Ferrari Fernando Pessoa, from The Complete Works of Álvaro de Campos.Translated from the Spanish by Elena Barcia Translated from the Spanish by Forrest Gander Mariana Berenice Bredow Vargas, Let it Go.Translated from the Armenian by Antranik Cassem ![]() ![]() ![]() He states he has to push his images further, further, until they become warped, grotesque, yet truly visceral. Let’s be clear, Maruo has claimed his pictures are fantasies of his desires, of the pleasure and pain which binds all relationships through intimacy and sex. One that suggests a grotesque penetration. Licking an eyeball is an act of perverse intimacy. And it could be presumed such pictures stem from Maruo’s observation (obsession?) taken from the pleasure and pain gained from intimacy. For me, both pictures raise questions about the meaning of tongues probing eyeballs or tongues licking an eye out of its socket. ![]() Her pose suggests she is both enraptured and horrified, unable to move.īoth pictures are the work of Japanese artist Suehiro Maruo. ![]() In another picture, a skull’s head, with a Clockwork Orange bowler, thrusts a serpentine tongue into another girl’s eye. Who knows? The image is grotesque, macabre, disturbing but charged with a deep and let’s be honest, warped eroticism. His hand opens her face like a ripe fruit or a swollen pudendum. ![]() “The world is a freakshow for my peeping eye’s delight” – Suehiro Maruo, Ultra-Gash InfernoĪ soldier sticks his tongue in a young girl’s eye. ![]() ![]() ![]() Sometimes we, as readers, lament not visiting the Neverland of our own, and other times we are shocked at Peter’s terrible behavior. However revisiting this familiar tale in its original form at an age slightly beyond Pan’s – mid to late teens, early adulthood, late adulthood – provides a different perspective on Pan’s actions. There is literary magic in Pan’s whimsical character and his eternal youth as he is forever in the heart of a childhood adventure. One of my favorites for this comparative adventure is Peter Pan by J.M. My Library copy of Peter Pan – it has lots of colorful illustrations, making it seem like a quick, easy read. These modern retellings provide an opportunity for teachers and librarians to expose students to the original texts and the authors who masterminded such intricate stories that linger in our canon today. Instead, the students are well versed in the various cinematic adaptations, particularly those of the Disney animated variety. but have not read them in their original format. I find that most of my students are familiar with the stories of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Alice in Wonderland, etc. Recently, there has been a surge of fairy-tale retellings in YA literature, and I think it offers an excellent opportunity for students to explore the originals. Big Ben, London, England – taken on a side trip to London during my Gilder-Lehrman Summer Teacher Seminar in 2014 ![]() ![]() In describing the manners a type of a primate the natives called "ngina," which later fought several of his dogs, the author writes: Recounting his adventures in the great African forest the author declares that he could write many more volumes dealing with the wild men and "savage tribes" which he encountered there. It is full of slaves and slave hunters, crocodiles and lions and tigers and elephants and snakes and gorillas, with plenty of exciting adventure and hair-breadth 'scapes. ![]() In narrating a white man's adventures in the great African rain forest Du Chaillu in his 1902 book "King Mombo" throws a vivid glare of light into those dense, dark African rain forests and reveals their strange life and fearful scenes. Landing near the equator in Africa, the author plunged into the jungle and lived with King Mombo and his people, sharing their adventures and dangers. "Equal to his best stories." -New-York Observer, 1903 "Admirable, an authentic story of personal adventure in Africa." - The Athenaeum, 1903 "Plenty of exciting adventure and hair-breadth 'scapes." - Presbyterian Banner, 1902 "Thrilling experiences in hunting elephants crocodiles gorillas and a number of other wild beasts." - The Book Buyer, 1902 "One of the most delightful and instructive of writers of travel and adventure." - The Christian Work & Evangelist, 1902 "Savage tribes and stirring encounters with wild beasts." - Saturday Review, 1903 ![]() ![]() And yet, from a remove of more than a half century, we can see that the 1950s were in fact a high point for American culture-a period when many in the vast middle class aspired to elevate their tastes and were given the means and opportunity to do so. Whatever the excesses of the 1960s might have been, so the argument goes, that decade represented the necessary struggle to free America’s mind-damaged automatons from their captivity at the hands of the Lords of Conformity and Kitsch. It is one of the foundational myths of contemporary liberalism: the idea that American culture in the 1950s was not only stifling in its banality but a subtle form of fascism that constituted a danger to the Republic. ![]() |