5/30/2023 0 Comments Goodreads sorrow and bliss![]() ![]() It’s a pretty heavy story, but there are some moments of humor and I enjoyed Martha’s relationship with her dad and her sister, Ingrid. Though Sorrow and Bliss is a fictional story, I appreciate the seemingly realistic portrayal from Meg Mason in dealing with a mental illness, from both the patient and the support side. ![]() I recognize the need to find answers and seek clarity, but I really felt for her family who tried to be supportive while this emotional rollercoaster also wore on them. ![]() While I felt for the things Martha was going through, I found her actions frustrating at times too. ![]() The story flips back and forth between the past - how Martha and Patrick met, Martha’s earlier memories, and attempts to manage her feelings, and now - where Martha is still trying to manage her feelings and cope without Patrick in her day to day life. Editions for Sorrow and Bliss: (Paperback published in 2021), (Kindle Edition published in 2020), 0063049589 (Hardcover published in 2021), 0063049597 (P. She’s seen countless doctors and therapists but hasn’t ever been able to find the helpful answers she is seeking. Martha suffers from mental illness (unspecified) and has several highs and lows. 118 quotes from Sorrow and Bliss: Everything is broken and messed up and completely fine. He’s reached his breaking point dealing with Martha’s behavior after trying to be a steady, supportive presence for several years. Sorrow and Bliss is the story of Martha, a 40 year old woman who moves back in with her parents after her husband, Patrick, leaves their executive home. ![]()
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5/30/2023 0 Comments Spanking Dee-Dee by Fabian Black![]() ![]() The track in question, an upbeat number called 'Boom-Boom' was by The Animals. ![]() He was dancing and singing along to a track from the album on sales promotion that week - The Sixties Turn Fifty. Not in any official capacity, he hadn’t been hired. The first time I saw Sam he was entertaining an audience in a HMV store. Sam comes back into his life in an unexpected way, turning it upside down.Ĭolin's closest friend Jon turns mentor in a bid to help him sort out his feelings for a man most people love to hate. ![]() However, destiny hasn’t finished with Colin. Sam tries to charm him into a date, but common sense tells Colin not to get involved, in fact to run for the hills and not look back. Sam has a knack for attracting trouble and a gift for rubbing people up the wrong way.Īgainst his better judgement Colin finds himself playing white knight when Sam’s antics get out of hand and he lands in bother with two store security guards. Some people, for whatever reason, are difficult to cope with, but does that mean they're undeserving of love and care?ĭestiny lures Colin Leyton to a HMV music store one fine Saturday morning in March where he stumbles across the young and flamboyant Sam Taylor. ![]() Is Sam boyfriend material, or simply a boy fiend who’s best avoided? ![]() ![]() ![]() The country of Godwin's youth - once one of Africa's great hopes - is struggling under the power of an embattled dictator, spiraling downward into a vortex of brutality and hatred.His father recovers, but over the next few years, Godwin returns often to Zimbabwe, where inflation is rising so fast that the currency can't keep up, and violent land seizures unleash the threat of famine. When Godwin returns to his homeland, he finds that his father's health is not the only thing failing. ![]() His father has suffered a heart attack, and she fears he will soon die. It is the very worst of omens.Peter Godwin is living a comfortable first-world life when he is summoned by his mother to Zimbabwe, his birthplace. This celestial crocodile, they say, briefly consumes our life-giving star as a warning that he is much displeased with the behavior of man below. In some remote villages of Zimbabwe, it is believed that a solar eclipse occurs when a crocodile eats the sun. ![]() ![]() ![]() Intelligent, charming, and utterly readable, Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen marks the debut of a talented new literary voice. As a series of extraordinary events alter her perspective-and sweeping changes come to Ringgold itself-Catherine Grace begins to wonder if her place in the world may actually be, against all odds, right where she began. But before things have even begun to get off the ground in Atlanta, tragedy brings Catherine Grace back home. And when, with the help of a family friend, the dream becomes a reality, she immediately packs her bags, leaving her family and the boy she loves to claim the life she’s always imagined. ![]() Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen: A Novel. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. The daughter of Ringgold’s third-generation Baptist preacher, Catherine Grace is quick-witted, more than a little stubborn, and dying to escape her small-town life.Įvery Saturday afternoon, she sits at the Dairy Queen, eating Dilly Bars and plotting her getaway to Atlanta. Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen: A Novel - Kindle edition by Gilmore, Susan Gregg. The town of Ringgold, Georgia, has a population of 1,923, one traffic light, one Dairy Queen, and one Catherine Grace Cline. Sometimes you have to return to the place where you began, to arrive at the place where you belong. ![]() 5/30/2023 0 Comments Amin maalouf origins![]() ![]() The themes of culpability and alienation from a country remain entwined throughout the novel which grapples with the legacy of the Lebanese Civil War.Īt the center of Les Désorientés is the rift between Adam and Mourad, Adam’s best friend from university. Through the title, “The Disoriented,” Malouf links this biblical exile from paradise to the protagonist’s estrangement from his country of origin. In the Bible, Adam and Eve’s sin is the reason humans are banished from the garden of Eden. ![]() In the long term, all the sons of Adam and Eve are lost children.” In the journal entry that opens Les Désorientés, Adam addresses the Biblical origins of his name: “I carry in my name the birth of humanity, but I belong to a humanity that is extinguishing itself . . . . ![]() “I carry in my name the birth of humanity, but I belong to a humanity that is extinguishing itself . . . . ![]() Both of these definitions apply to the protagonist of the story, Adam, a history professor living in France, who is visiting his native Lebanon for the first time in 25 years. The title of Amin Malouf’s novel, Les Désorientés ( The Disoriented), has a double significance: both “lost,” and “removed” from the East. ![]() 5/30/2023 0 Comments Keeping the house by ellen baker![]() We didn’t make it all the way to the state park on Friday night but the five hour drive to Kern County was not all that bad. on Friday rolled around, and I threw my already packed bags (this, a rarity a proud moment indeed) into the car. Done.Īnza-Borrego Desert State Park lies two hours northeast of San Diego a long drive for us Sacramentans but a well-worth-it trip, even if only for a mere three-day weekend.ĥ p.m. Reaching a point of acceptance that it would be a wet weekend, a friend mentioned the desert in Southern California: Anza-Borrego. I spent endless minutes on my iPhone weather app typing in arbitrary California towns in search of clear skies for the weekend. The forecast predicted rain in every inch of California. ![]() The weekend was fast-approaching and per usual, my bones ached for some sort of adventure. Let’s prove me right and not turn this place into a shit show like many of my favorite outdoor destinations have become. It’s the best-kept secret that I have discovered recently and I am writing about it in a printed AND online publication-what’s wrong with me? Apparently I really have faith that you Submerge followers are some down-to-earth, cool fucking people. ![]() 5/30/2023 0 Comments Defying Logic by Nicky James![]() ![]() As someone with a mental illness, I’ve struggled with loneliness and wondering if someone will ever want to be with me. I have listened and raved around Nicky James’ audiobooks before, and this one is one of my favourites. It took me three days to get through this book and despite the length, I would have binged and done it all in one day if I could have. But how can you love someone who isn't always themself? It may not be easy, but Vaughn is determined to try. Vaughn's heart defies logic, and he finds himself falling in love with this strange new man. Little does he know, the man he meets during an impromptu decision to return to college is anything but ordinary. When his job doesn't offer the same thrill it once did, he decides it's time to mix-up his stagnant, boring routine. ![]() And Rain, a five-year-old child whose only concern is Batman. Theo, an asexual man of little emotion, whose focus is on maintaining order. Cove, a self-destructive terror, whose past haunts him. Cohen, a flamboyantly gay 19-year-old who is a social butterfly. Oryn shares his life and headspace with five distinctively different alters. He may look like a normal man on the outside, but spend five minutes with him, and his daily struggles begin to show. ![]() Being an extremely shy social introvert is only part of the problem. Twenty-eight-year-old Oryn Patterson isn't like other people. ![]() 5/30/2023 0 Comments Hannibal by Philip Freeman![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() He was a practiced statesman, a skilled diplomat, and a man deeply devoted to his family and country. But Hannibal was much more than just a great general. As a commander in war, Hannibal has few equals in history and has long been held as a model of strategic and tactical genius. As a military leader, like Alexander the Great before him and Julius Caesar after, he understood the hearts of men and had an uncanny ability to read the unseen weaknesses of his enemy. As a boy and then a man, his self-discipline and determination were legendary. Hannibal appeals to many as the ultimate underdog-a Carthaginian David against the Goliath of Rome-but it wasn't just his genius on the battlefield that set him apart. But what kind of person would dare to face the most relentless imperial power of the ancient world? How could Hannibal, consistently outnumbered and always deep in enemy territory, win battle after battle until he held the very fate of Rome within his grasp? Hannibal, a daring African general from the city of Carthage, led an army of warriors and battle elephants over the snowy Alps to invade the very heart of Rome's growing empire. Over two thousand years ago one of the greatest military leaders in history almost destroyed Rome. Telling the story of a man who stood against the overwhelming power of the mighty Roman empire, Hannibal is the biography of a man who, against all odds, dared to change the course of history. ![]() 5/29/2023 0 Comments Spartacus by Howard Fast![]() Yet they died by the thousands fighting the slaves. When these troops went to fight Spartacus, they had less to defend than the slaves. Rome keeps a quarter of a million men under arms. These soldiers must be willing to go to foreign lands, to march their feet off, to live in filth and squalor, to wallow in blood-so that we may be safe and live in comfort and increase our personal fortunes. So the many, many people who have no slaves at all must be willing to die in order for us to have our slaves. We should not fall for the illusion that slaves like their masters. They don’t, and therefore the slaves will not protect us against the slaves. Also, people like ourselves have many slaves. ![]() Not only that, but those who have a great deal must guard their property, and therefore those who have nothing must be willing to die for the property of people like you and me and our good host Antonius. And those who have a great deal must be defended and protected by those who have nothing. You see, we live in a republic. That means that there are a great many people who have nothing and a handful who have a great deal. ![]() In a politician, people confuse it with honesty. ![]() “My one virtue, and an extremely valuable one. ![]() ![]() ![]() He is unmarried, usually well-meaning, accident-prone, and commendably honest about his failures, which include (thanks to another unfortunate experience with time) the entire Universe as we know it. Sometimes he is the protagonist sometimes he merely serves to introduce some other character who has a story to tell. Tichy himself is the narrator in all the stories in which he appears. He also moves in scientific circles on Earth he is invited to the Futurological Congress in Costa Rica, and his endorsement and approval are sought by a number of researchers and inventors on the edge of their field, such as doctor Diagoras, who has developed an artificial intelligence that is independent of mankind, and Decantor, who has invented an immortal soul. Tichy is a space explorer whose interplanetary experiences are chronicled in The Star Diaries. ![]() |