![]() The Greeks understood that History is based on careful research, rather than just plucked out of somebody’s imagination. So History and stories go together pretty well.īut History doesn’t involve just any old sort of stories. ![]() In fact, our word History comes from an Ancient Greek word, ‘historia’ and I think you can hear that we get the word Story from it. So why are we, a story podcast, doing History? Well one reason is that History is chockablock full of great stories. This is Bertie, and I’m here to introduce something that we don’t normally do on Storynory - History. Proofed and audio edited by Jana ElizabethĪnd if you are interested in the ancient world, check out our guide to the Greek gods. ![]() Written and read by Bertie, based on the Histories of Herodotus. ![]()
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![]() ![]() Rundell calls this book, which recently won the 2022 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, “both a biography of Donne and an act of evangelism.” It offers a deeply sensitive and clear-eyed reading of Donne’s work and life. ![]() Some fine biographies of Donne exist, one of which-John Carey’s John Donne: Life, Mind and Art-awakened Rundell as a teen to the possibilities that literary criticism could be “electric.” But Rundell does something brand-new, matching Donne’s energy with her own. ![]() Finally a biography of John Donne that captures his eccentricities, his contradictions, his fabulous twists and turns, his trickiness, and-as one critic has put it-his thinking “awry and squint.” Oxford fellow Katherine Rundell does all of this with an engaging spirit not often seen in academic books. ![]() ![]() ![]() The hurdle in the way of HEA was a good one, the villain was a bit over the top, but not preposterously so, I chuckled out loud several times, I got a good feel for the secondary characters, it had a solid ending. I enjoyed this male lead since meeting him in the first book, (though dude, stop threatening to assault everyone! Not cool.). Together they will discover if love is enough to make dreams come true. And as Derek and Sara surrender to an attraction too powerful to deny, a peril surfaces from his dark past to threaten their happiness. But in a world where secrets lurk behind every shadow, he is the only man who can keep her safe. But Sara senses that beneath Derek's cynical exterior, he is capable of a love more passionate than her deepest fantasies.Īware that he is the last man that an innocent young woman should ever want, Derek is determined to protect Sara from himself, no matter what it takes. His reputation is unsavory, his scruples nonexistent. When shy and secluded author Sara Fielding ventures from her country cottage to research a novel, she inadvertently witnesses a crime in progress-and manages to save the life of the most dangerous man in London.ĭerek Craven is a powerful and near-legendary gambling club owner who was born a bastard and raised in the streets. ![]() ![]() Set in the vast, sparsely populated upper reaches of northern Minnesota in the middle of winter, The Surrogate follows Ruth, Hal, Cally, and her boyfriend through the ice and snow, from the city to the dark, frozen north country as they run away from, and ultimately towards, one other. When Ruth and Hal discover that she and their daughter are gone, a whole series of doubts and secrets are revealed, and it’s no longer clear what’s “right” and what’s “wrong.” ![]() ![]() But within a day of the baby’s birth, Cally has a change of heart – and engineers a harrowing escape from the hospital with the newborn. The arrangement seems perfect for everyone.Īll through the pregnancy, Ruth and Hal look forward to the new baby that will make their family complete. Their hope rests with Cally, a nineteen-year-old who wants to go to college-but doesn’t have the cash. But more than anything he wants Ruth to be happy-to become the mother she’s always wanted to be. ![]() A divorced attorney and the father of two teenage boys, Hal is open to having another child. Ruth is a no-nonsense fortysomething journalist from the Midwest desperate for a child with her new husband, Hal. ![]() November 2021 First Mystery Crime Club PickĪ probing novel about a newly married couple, the surrogate they hire to carry their baby, and the unexpected consequences of their decisions. ![]() ![]() ![]() There are words for types of clothing, domiciles, spirits, and all sorts of things. Speaking of which: those that have read the first two volumes, The Bear and the Nightingale and The Girl in the Tower, know that there are a tremendous number of specialized terms in Arden’s writing. All of these are presented with historical accuracy, according to the author’s note (as well as my occasional perfunctory Google search.) ![]() Varya-Vasilisa Petrovna– is a badass warrior that communes with the chyerti, which are Russian folk spirits these specialize in particular realms, with some guarding the home, others the forest, the river, and so forth. Arden is one of the deftest word smiths to emerge this century, and the tableau laid before us is stark and resonant at the same time, the suspense is palpable, because readers aren’t that deeply concerned about the Grand Prince. The Tatars have attacked the Russians and been driven off an attempt to dethrone Grand Prince Dmitrii has been averted, but all that is left to defend stands in ruin in the late winter snow. ![]() ![]() ![]() Pre-order Learned by Heart, the dazzling new love story from Emma Donoghue. Regretfully, in the end, testing overshadowed her treatment. But in such a place, far from all other humanity, what will survival mean? ‘ Haven is a beautiful, bold blaze of a book’ Rachel Joyce, author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry ‘Beautiful and timely’ - Sarah Moss, author of Summerwater ‘Sinister, heart-wrenching and beautifully written’ The Times ‘Combines pressure-cooker intensity and radical isolation, to stunning effect’ Margaret Atwood via Twitter ‘ Book of the Year ’ pick in The Irish Times, The Guardian, The Irish Post, RTÉ and The Times. growing up in confinement, Room (2010) by Emma Donoghue and The Boy from the Basement. Drifting out into the Atlantic, the three men find an impossibly steep, bare island inhabited by tens of thousands of birds, and claim it for God. Set a few years after the potato famine, Lib has been sent there to keep vigilant watch over Anna, an eleven-year-old girl claiming to have miraculously. Taking two monks with him, he travels down the Shannon in search of an isolated spot on which to found a new place of worship. Haven is Donoghue at her strange, unsettling best.' - Maggie O'Farrell, author of Hamnet In seventh-century Ireland, a priest has a dream telling him to leave the sinful world behind. 'Everything a novel should be: compassionate, unpredictable, and questioning. ![]() ![]() ![]() Hide in a corner of her apartment and rock back and forth. (Too drastic, plus she likes her hair.)Ģ. ![]() Completely change her name and appearance. Doesn't he realize what a terrible idea that is?ġ. It's a disaster! And as if that wasn't enough, Tom, her trivia nemesis, has turned out to be cute, funny, and deeply interested in getting to know her. They all live close by! They're all-or mostly all-excited to meet her! She'll have to Speak. When the father Nina never knew existed suddenly dies, leaving behind innumerable sisters, brothers, nieces, and nephews, Nina is horrified. If she sometimes suspects there might be more to life than reading, she just shrugs and picks up a new book. The only child of a single mother, Nina has her life just as she wants it: a job in a bookstore, a kick-butt trivia team, a world-class planner and a cat named Phil. Meet Nina Hill: A young woman supremely confident in her own shell. ![]() ![]() ![]() Very sad how it got to be that way, by the way. ![]() There’s one dog in particular, a yellow puppy, who has his head stuck in a jar. The book ends with my favorite story: about Klam’s experience with a group of people in New Orleans right after Katrina, rescuing dogs left homeless by the flood. Their frantic struggle to find Morris a home brings her and Paul closer together and reminds each what is so amazingly special about the other. She and Paul know they can’t keep him because of the three little dogs they already have, but, happily, a friend who’s seen her constant flow of social media posts about the Morris, comes through. When it was clear no one was coming to get him, they embark on a sadly funny race against time to get the dog checked in to a rescue Klam has found, which it ends up, can’t take him right away anyway. She opens with one about Morris, a sweet pit bull she and her husband, Paul, find tied to a tree outside a museum, all day. There are several wonderful stories here about the endearingly-portrayed dogs Klam has found homes for throughout the years. ![]() It’s by the very funny Julie Klam, about what her experiences rescuing dogs has taught her about herself. Witty Kitty loved this short, sweet memoir she happened to find at a special sale at her favorite bookstore, Changing Hands. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The artist brilliantly illustrates WWI tanks, zeppelins, gas masks, machine guns, and dreary trenches, creating a surreal, almost sci-fi hellscape. There's heroic sacrifice here, but it's rare and always subverted, often undermined by military commanders. Mills, best known for his Judge Dredd work, eschews any romanticism about war and its horrors. ![]() ![]() However, Charley's War lives in its episodes, which are filled with ghastly horrors, usually drawn from real-world facts - some of which were even worse than what's presented here. While some are masterful, not all the episodes are equally worthy. While this entertains, a sense of "one thing after the next" or "how will the writer get out of this one?" can intrude, lessening one's enjoyment. The story can feel trapped in the time of its production and, while it subverts these usually heroic war comics, it clearly retains their trappings, substituting horrors of war for heroic challenges while still thrilling the reader in a way that Americans will no doubt find recalls early 2000AD. Pages are sometimes cramped, there's unnecessary and exclamation-laden dialogue, and chapters repeat information with no thought to collection - all signs of the times. Now more than 40 years old, Charley's War is undoubtedly dated: it owes much to the serialized British war comics of the time, which it deliberately undermined. ![]() ![]() There are so many things I was pleased by in this last book in the series, so I’m just going to list them and leave it at that: I’ve put off writing something about this story because I was having trouble articulating why I liked it so much. Only doing so will mean following the magic to places the shadowshapers have never gone before. But a deal with Death by one of Sierra's ancestors has far-reaching consequences in the battles of the present, and as old fates tangle with new powers, Sierra will have to harness the Deck of Worlds and confront her family's past if she has any hope of saving the future and everyone she loves. Even if that means keeping secrets from them. Sierra is determined to protect her own in the coming conflict. A war is brewing among the houses, and the very magic of the shadowshapers is at stake. ![]() Back in Brooklyn, the other shadowshapers have been getting threatening messages from whisper wraiths, catching strangely shaped figures stalking them, and fending off random spirits. ![]() Juan, Anthony, and Izzy are in jail, anxiously waiting to find out what will become of them. Sierra and the shadowshapers have been split apart. The epic conclusion to the acclaimed Shadowshaper Cypher series! ![]() |