Fortunately, the brilliant Belgian inspector Hercule Poirot is also on board, having booked the last available berth. With no escape into the wintery landscape the killer must still be on board. Incredibly, that compartment is locked from the inside. Passengers awake to find the train still stranded and to discover that a wealthy American has been brutally stabbed to death in his private compartment. While en route from Syria to Paris, in the middle of a freezing winter's night, the Orient Express is stopped dead in its tracks by a snowdrift. Poirot, hercule (fictitious character), fiction,įiction, mystery & detective, traditional,Įnglish language, textbooks for foreign speakers,
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There is some speculation near the end about how Oscar could actually know when someone was near death- he never appeared to be wrong- and maybe it was from a scenting a chemical given off by cell death. I found it all very thoughtful and compassionate, a good read even though it's not mainly about the cat, as the cover might lead you to expect. The cat kind of feels like a side note for most of this. Most of the book is actually stories about patients and their families, especially how they come to terms with later stages of Alzheimer's, and make difficult decisions about care and treatment. He couldn't deny there was something unusual- and very comforting- in the cat's behavior. The doctor was skeptical about this at first, until he started asking details and opinions from those who had seen Oscar performing his vigils. One of them, Oscar, caught the attention of visiting family members and staff- he's not a very social cat, but when a patient is within a few hours of death, Oscar enters the room and sits on the bed until the end. The cats provide comfort and distraction to the residents. This nursing home welcomes animals- there are six cats in residence (also a bird, I think but that didn't get much mention). The author is a doctor who works at a nursing home that provides end of life care, where many of the patients have dementia. In spite of it's serious subject matter, this book was a light read- I finished it in two days. And, to her horror, compared to the other bodies strewn about, she’s the lucky one. But when she finally gets a promising assignment, everything goes very wrong, and an encounter with the so-called “hero” leaves her badly injured. But is it really worse than working for an oil conglomerate or an insurance company? In this economy?Īs a temp, she’s just a cog in the machine. Working for a monster lurking beneath the surface of the world isn’t glamorous. The Boys meets My Year of Rest and Relaxation in this smart, imaginative, and evocative novel of love, betrayal, revenge, and redemption, told with razor-sharp wit and affection, in which a young woman discovers the greatest superpower-for good or ill-is a properly executed spreadsheet.Īnna does boring things for terrible people because even criminals need office help and she needs a job. “This book is fast, furious, compelling, and angry as hell." - Seanan McGuire, New York Times bestselling author It’s a dangerous world where cloned dinosaurs have taken over. If you haven’t read these adult and YA novels, I highly recommend them.Įdge of Extinction The Ark Plan by Laura Martin Some of the most famous dystopian fiction books include The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Handmaid’s Tale by Margarette Atwood, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, and The Road by Cormac McCarthy. The Oxford Dictionary defines a dystopia as “ An imagined state or society in which there is great suffering or injustice, typically one that is totalitarian or post-apocalyptic.” In other words, it’s the post-apocalyptic future where things have gone horribly wrong. Since this is one of my favorite sub- genres of science fiction, let me introduce you to the best books for your tween children ages 9 – 12. Although there are more young adult ( YA) dystopian novels than middle-grade, don’t worry– there are many great middle grade choices, too. Remember 1984 and Fahrenheit 451? The dystopian genre gets kids reading a LOT. You’ve probably read a dystopian novel or two in high school. And Ruse is determined to help the villages thrive. But he also has the task of manning the secret mirror used for communication between the various villages. He earns his daily bread by disposing of the dead at the city dump and bringing back news of any new goods Ammet’s powerful wizards have transported there for the benefit of the village. After all, what better way to lay claim to the prairie than to slowly encroach upon it with slowly growing settlements? So far, Ruse has found his place in the village. The prairie is also home to many of Ammet’s criminals and it’s the best way for Ammet to manage its prison population, while slowly building human habitats. The sixth village on the great and dreadful prairie between Ammet and Oshe is as wild as it is free. As Nero grew up, he was raised in an environment of a family at war. If we include Agrippina as regent-empress in a brief intermittent period after Claudius’s murder, her own scheming and politicking isn’t exactly the high watermark of pristine politics. Conflicts with the Senate and assassinations, not to mention poor family relations, led to his murder (poisoning) by Agrippina who paved the way for the eventual rise of Nero. Claudius, who ascended the purple after being discovering cowering in the palace after Caligula’s murder, was someone who pushed Caesaric rule toward greater autocracy. Caligula was the mad emperor after Tiberius. Nero wasn’t the first of Rome’s notorious emperors cascading into a period of decline in the mid-first century CE. But how bad was Nero? That’s the question that Anthony Everitt and Roddy Ashworth try to address in their new book, Nero: Matricide, Music, and Murder in Imperial Rome. “Everybody has heard of the Roman emperor Nero…He is the image of the bad ruler, cruel, vain, and incompetent.” In our cultural imagination, Nero is wholly bad, the worst example of many bad examples of Rome’s emperors. Nero the persecutor of Christians Nero the brutal tyrant who embodied the worst aspects of Roman imperial despotism Nero the wannabe artist playing the fiddle as Rome burned. When the name Nero is heard, a few things are conjured up in our imagination. Depending on the author, I either adore being thrust into a world I don’t understand or I get progressively agitated trying to figure out who is who and what is what. I have read the first book in this series, which I will evaluate in further detail on my personal review blog. In what I later learned to be a prequel, novella-like series, Summer Lights is book 2. This novel promises love and adorable creatures. The cover and the blurb, which included the phrase “sand kittens,” were what initially piqued my interest in this book. It also establishes the mood for whatever potential expectations I may have going into a story. I believe it’s a fantastic technique for someone who reads my reviews to comprehend my viewpoint and the thinking behind my reading preferences. I always begin my review by describing why I chose a certain book. Here she is offering to lead us in that endeavor. Claudia Rankine wrote recently of Rich in the New Yorker that her poems are a chronicle of “what it means to risk the self in order to give the self”. Rich knows this, and issues instead a disquieting warning. Here she cites Berthold Brecht’s line “What kind of times are these, when to speak of trees is almost a crime, for it is a kind of silence about so many horrors!” The bald hue and cry of Brecht’s politics is unfashionable now – as it was when Rich wrote this poem in the 1990s. Read more Adrienne Rich – What Kind of Times Are TheseĪdrienne Rich devoted her life’s work to investigating the relationship between poetry and politics. One restless in the exotic time! and ever, Yesterday, I thought of her the same way, in our need for emotion and action, “remedial fears” and “muscular tears”. In her characteristic condensed brilliance, Brooks pays tribute to a guide who was both a fighter and who danced. Against horrific violence and discrimination in another era, Langston Hughes offered Brooks a “helmsman, hatchet, headlight”. I discovered this poem last summer after watching police and protesters clashing in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and videos of police shootings played on repeat. Gwendolyn Brooks’ brief poems are like talismans to carry close to your skin for protection and comfort. Delivery with Standard Australia Post usually happens within 2-10 business days from time of dispatch.You can track your delivery by going to AusPost tracking and entering your tracking number - your Order Shipped email will contain this information for each parcel. Tracking delivery Saver Delivery: Australia postĪustralia Post deliveries can be tracked on route with eParcel. NB All our estimates are based on business days and assume that shipping and delivery don't occur on holidays and weekends. Order may come in multiple shipments, however you will only be charged a flat fee.ġ-2 days after each item has arrived in the warehouseġ The expected delivery period after the order has been dispatched via your chosen delivery method.ģ Please note this service does not override the status timeframe "Dispatches in", and that the "Usually Dispatches In" timeframe still applies to all orders. Items in order will be sent via Express post as soon as they arrive in the warehouse. Order may come in multiple shipments, however you will only be charged a flat fee.Ģ-10 days after all items have arrived in the warehouse Items in order will be sent as soon as they arrive in the warehouse. They meet once a month to discuss their latest read and enjoy scones and tea. The club is made up of an eclectic group of women who all share a love of books and baking. The Secret, Book & Scone Society is a cozy mystery book club based in a small town in the American South. I highly recommend this series to anyone who enjoys cozy mysteries. The production values are top-notch, and the stories are engaging and well-written. The series is narrated by Kate Rudd, who does a fantastic job of bringing the characters to life. The women are all charming and eccentric, and the mysteries they solve are complex and intriguing. The series follows the adventures of a group of women who meet once a week to discuss books and eat scones. The Secret, Book & Scone Society is a delightful cozy mystery series set in the small town of Morro Bay, California. |