![]() ![]() This was one of the smartest murder mysteries I’ve read in years and certainly one of the oddest.ĩ. Eleven Prague Corpses by Kirill Kobrin, translated by Veronika Lakatova (Dalkey Archive Press) – All praise to the folks at Dalkey Archive for taking a chance at bringing out this intensely strange, slim set of ten linked stories sketching in a series of murders in Prague and featuring a pair of unlikely narrators gradually filling in a larger plot that may or may not have happened at all. A sub-standard year for mysteries, in other words, but there were still highlights:ġ0. ![]() ![]() After all, YOU aren’t the one getting murdered, nor are you (except for a few particularly unlucky souls, one imagines) the one tasked with solving a murder as an old friend of mine used to chuckle when asked why he loved the genre: “What I like most about whodunnits is that I’m not the who and I don’t have to sniff out the dunnit.” And in 2016, that guilty-pleasure aspect of the genre was its saving grace, because most of the other good bits you might find in a murder mystery – good writing, original plotting, stuff like that – were conspicuously absent. Despite their separate category here in the Stevereads year-end roundup, murder mysteries are always guilty pleasures at heart. ![]()
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![]() My parents took me to the Caribbean as a small child. As we grow older, water also becomes the matrix for sport, relaxation, and romance. In between, I've been fascinated by and privileged to know many ponds, tanks, rivers, bottles, pools, lakes, streams, buckets, waterfalls, quarries, tubs, mists, oceans, downpours, and puddles.Īs children we delight in water. ![]() ![]() And the last-at least as I now imagine it-will be in the form of ashes, cast over the Pacific. My first body of water, of course, was experienced as a zygote in my mother's womb. Time spent in, on, under, or near water interspersed with the periods spent thinking about where, when, and how to reach it next. ![]() One of the many possible ways to describe a life would be as a series of encounters with various bodies of water. ![]() ![]() ![]() Repeatedly hospitalized during high school, she studied briefly at American University while also working as a journalist, until the final crisis, when her weight dropped to 52 pounds and doctors gave her a week to live. The only child of the troubled union between a former theater director and his actress-turned-school-administrator wife, Hornbacher was bulimic by the age of nine and anorexic by 15, finding in masochistic self-denial a seemingly dependable-and quickly indispensable-way to control the anxiety that wracked her. ""Eating disorders have the centripetal force of black holes,"" states Hornbacher, 23, midway through this riveting, startlingly assured account of her bout with anorexia and bulimia, a decade-long struggle that brought her to the brink of death at age 18 and left her with chronic physical ailments. ![]() ![]() Right from the beginning, aquagenic urticaria was as baffling to scientists as it is to the rest of us. “When I meet people there’s always a lot of confusion and all the usual questions – ‘how do you eat?’ ‘How do you drink?’ ‘How do you wash?’ The truth is you just have to suck it up and get on with it,” says Rachel. Even bona fide, chemical-free, many-times distilled water will set it off. The reaction is triggered by skin contact and occurs regardless of temperature, purity or salt content. For a start, the water in our bodies is apparently not a problem. At least 60% of the human body is water the average 70 kg adult contains around 40 litres. ![]() We’re reminded on almost a daily basis that water is life’s most basic necessity – so much so that NASA’s motto on the hunt for alien life is simply “follow the water”. It’s certainly unpleasant, but at this point you’re probably wondering how Rachel is able to survive at all. Otherwise known as aquagenic urticaria, the condition is like being stung by a bush of particularly pernicious nettles, combined with the malaise of hay fever, every single day. ![]() ![]() “It’s horrible, but if I cry my face swells up”. I feel really tired afterwards so I have to go and sit down for quite a while,” she says. “The reaction makes me feel as if I’ve run a marathon. Any contact with water whatsoever – even her own sweat – leaves Rachel with a painful, swollen and intensely itchy rash which can last for several hours. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many user’s needs. If you’d like to retain your premium access and save 20%, you can opt to pay annually at the end of the trial. If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for $69 per month.įor cost savings, you can change your plan at any time online in the “Settings & Account” section. For a full comparison of Standard and Premium Digital, click here.Ĭhange the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. ![]() Premium Digital includes access to our premier business column, Lex, as well as 15 curated newsletters covering key business themes with original, in-depth reporting. Standard Digital includes access to a wealth of global news, analysis and expert opinion. During your trial you will have complete digital access to FT.com with everything in both of our Standard Digital and Premium Digital packages. ![]() ![]() ![]() Too bad the trains don't stop there anymore. The book's best character, perhaps, is the town of Whistle Stop itself. ![]() Admirers of the wise child in Flagg's first novel, Coming Attractions, will find her grown-up successor, Idgie, equally appealing. ![]() Though Flagg's characters tend to be sweet as candied yams or mean clear through, she manages to infuse their story with enough tartness to avoid sentimentality. Her tale includes two more womenthe irrepressibly daredevilish tomboy Idgie and her friend. Threadgoode, who’s telling her life story. How their love for each other and just about everyone else survived visits from the sheriff, the Ku Klux Klan, a host of hungry hoboes, a murder and the rigors of the Depression makes lively readingthe kind that eventually nourishes Evelyn and the reader as well. Folksy and fresh, endearing and affecting, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe is a now-classic novel about two women: Evelyn, who’s in the sad slump of middle age, and gray-headed Mrs. Most of the town's life centered around its one cafe, whose owners, gentle Ruth and tomboyish Idgie, served up grits (both true and hominy) to anyone who passed by. On the other hand, 86-year-old Cleo is still being nurtured by memories of a lifetime spent in Whistle Stop, a pocket-sized town outside of Birmingham, which flourished in the days of the Great Depression. At 48, Evelyn is falling apart: none of the middle-class values she grew up with seem to signify in today's world. When Cleo Threadgood and Evelyn Couch meet in the visitors lounge of an Alabama nursing home, they find themselves exchanging the sort of confidences that are sometimes only safe to reveal to strangers. ![]() ![]() ![]() The boys get up to a lot of shenanigans, but they always face consequences for their actions and it is very clear that their behavior is unacceptable. ![]() ![]() Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd 224 Page / Published Category: Childrens. Those messages are well done and clear, which makes them easily understandable for kids. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules (Book 2). They also learn the importance of standing up for your sibling and owning up to your mistakes. Greg and Rodrick learn that even though they fight, they still love each other, and they’ll always have each other’s backs. And my super professional, articulate opinion is… it’s fine.Īt its core, the message of the story is sweet and relatable to anyone with a sibling. I was a little too old for it by the time any of the on-screen adaptations came along, so this was my first foray into the animated outputs of this intellectual property. Those books were big when I was a kid, and they’re still one of the highest circulating items at any public library (I know from experience!). Unfortunately, Rodrick has other plans for his parent-free weekend.ĭiary of a Wimpy Kid is a franchise that has stood the test of time. ![]() So, when their parents go away for their anniversary, Greg sees the perfect opportunity for some brotherly bonding. But deep down, Greg really wishes that Rodrick would be a more involved brother and share all his teenage wisdom. Greg Heffley (Brady Noon) and his brother, Rodrick (Hunter Dillon) don’t usually get along. ![]() ![]() ![]() His vision cost many men their lives, including his own father, and severed his relationship to his brother. On the one hand is Kalidasa, the ancient, cruel king of Taprobane, whose vision was for a paradise on Earth, and a palace in the heavens, just to prove to the Gods that he could. The book is really a contrast between two types of ambitions and ambitious people. Clarke set out to give a realistic, but still highly engaging, portrayal of the obstacles and challenges presented to people with bold visions, far ahead of their time. Clarke's tale of two men's ambitions - both fantastical, both in the same revered place, but 2 millennia apart - is exactly what science fiction can really be all about. I am glad The Fountains of Paradise ended up being what I purchased. So when I went to pick out the next book to read, I didn't go with one I particularly was excited to read, but just whatever happened to be the cheapest one on my list. I had just finished The Forever War by Joe Haldeman which I had so been looking forward to, but didn't end up enjoying very much. I was not actually looking forward to reading this book when I got it. ![]() ![]() ![]() To be perfectly honest, I didn’t really think this book sounded that good based on the synopsis. I always get so invested in the characters that I feel like I could just keep reading about them forever. As Claudia’s world starts to expand, she finds that maybe there are some things worth sticking her neck out for.įew things make me sadder than finishing an Emma Mills books. ![]() Now on the wrong side of one of the meanest girls in school, Claudia doesn’t know what to expect when the two are paired up to write a paper-let alone when they’re both forced to try out for the school production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.īut mandatory participation has its upsides-namely, an unexpected friendship, a boy band obsession, and a guy with the best dimpled smile Claudia’s ever seen. ![]() The day of the last party of the summer, Claudia overhears a conversation she wasn’t supposed to. A contemporary novel about a girl whose high school production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream leads her to new friends-and maybe even new love. ![]() ![]() The appeal and success of his work has been enormous in italy, and still there are queues which last up to 12 hours for his signing events. Most of his blog strips have subsequently been collected into books, tied together by a running story, and his first full-length book La Profezia dell’Armadillo (The Armadillo Prophecy) was published in 2012. Zerocalcare started his comics life with an irregularly updated series of strips on his blog,, covering topics and events from his life as a 30-something somewhat-unemployed white Italian living in Rebibbia, the neighbourhood of Rome that houses one of the bigger prisons in the country. ![]() It was with pleasure, then, that I sat down to watch Strappare Lungo i Bordi ( Tear Along the Dotted Line), written and directed by Italian comics superstar Zerocalcare. ![]() The chance to talk about a piece of Italian media that makes it onto the international stage, especially through a platform such as Netflix, is rare to come by even rarer is for that media to be of any actual quality. ![]() |