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Category Archives: Female Writers
Creativity, Elizabeth Gilbert, Favorites, Female Writers, India, Memoir, must read, Nonfiction, Spiritual Journey, Travel Writing
Eat, Pray, Love
December 10, 2016 Joanna Hofer 3 Comments
One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia
By Elizabeth Gilbert
@2006, 12 hours, 49 minutes.
Audible version read by Elizabeth Gilbert.
Back in 2008 a coworker said, "You really gotta read this book!" She described it to me fairly accurately, and I didn't think it would be for me. I didn't want to read about some blond lady's spiritual journey. I didn't want to read about her travels across Italy, India, and Indonesia. Eating? I was on a diet!
So it's fair to say it took me a little time to get around to this book, but it kept showing up here and there. People kept trying to give it to me. And I don't really know what my problem was. It seemed, well, so "girly."
The first book by Elizabeth Gilbert I "read" was her Audible version of Big Magic, and I probably would not have listened to that if it hadn't been for her 2009 TED Talk on Creativity (which hit me like a ton of bricks) and yet another coworker sending me her podcast on Magic Lessons.
OK already, I'll read your damn book!
Which wasn't too bad. You know, I liked it. I like Liz's openness to well, everything. Liz is engaging and interesting and sweet and supportive. You get the feeling that she's the kind of person people seek out—all the time. Like she never has a free Saturday night. And this puts me off a little. It's my issue, not hers.
She begins her book talking about how many people she's going to offend by discussing her search for spirituality and healing, and I get that. I can easily think of people in my own life who would be terribly offended by this book. Liz looks for God on her own terms. She isn't too sure about marriage or having children. She wants to claim space for her creativity, her own writing. She puts the breaks on her life and focuses completely on herself.
My mother-in-law would hate this book. In fact, she hates all books except for the Bible. If you're reading a book that isn't the Bible, there's something wrong with you. If you can relate to my mother-in-law on the topic of books, Eat, Pray, Love may not be for you—-and, of course, you should definitely read it.
I'm not so easily offended. People can believe things radically different from what I believe, and it doesn't upset me at all. I just think, hmm, that's interesting. Wonder how they came to that conclusion? Liz does talk about one thing that I think, gee, why Liz? Why did you want to talk about that. TMI. TMI!
That said, Liz has a great reading voice. I think this book was probably better listened to than read.
So, yes. This was an interesting book. Liz's problems are not my problems, though, so I wasn't saying, oh yes, I really get you. Rather I marvel at this woman's life. I marvel at her success and her freedom. I marvel at her ability to travel and her ability to pursue her dream because my dream has always seemed so hard to pursue. The small issue of money has always presented a barrier to me. I am only just conquering it, and even as I say this I'm not terribly sure that's true. I mean "future me" probably is going to hate "past" and "present" me.
But Eat, Pray, Love. Should you read it? Yes, I think so. I think it is an important book of our time. I think it taps into women's issues and gives a picture of the female condition that is very accurate for a large number of people. I think it's historically and culturally significant.
Plus, Liz's contemplation of meditation and yoga is very interesting. Yoga and meditation are becoming more important to me lately. My husband got some really bad news back from a test the other day. His ability to concentrate was judged to be under the 20th percentile with his working verbal memory measured just above the 1 percentile. So yes, I'm talking a range from 1 to 100. Does this mean dementia? We still do not know. But it does confirm brain damage. Well, duh. The 40 plus lesions on his MRI told us that. I mean really, what do we pay these doctors for?
But—I digress.
The point is this. Meditation could help my husband improve his cognitive function as long as he doesn't have dementia. It can help with focus and concentration. Meditation is simple the practice of focusing your attention, of paying attention to what's happening, right now. The act of bringing your mind back once it starts wandering is like lifting a weight and your ability to control your mind becomes stronger just as weight training makes your muscles stronger.
And as Liz discusses, there are all kinds of ways to do it because meditation has been explored by ancient cultures like India for a very long time. And by a long time, I mean for more than five thousand years. These cultures have the information, in other words.
Liz's accounts of her heartaches rang true, but her account of her love story in Bali, while I get her excitement, seemed like she was holding back. So I think Liz nailed the "Eat" part of her story as well as the "Pray" part. But the "Love" part, I think she didn't quite do it. I felt empathy. I felt relaxation. I felt her peacefulness. But I didn't feel love. Love being a very complicated topic indeed.
Liz laments constantly: was Eat, Pray, Love her greatest work? Is her best work behind her?
Here's my advice to her. Explore the concept of "love" and I mean this exploration to go beyond the Western one-word "love." Explore love in Greek terms. Explore love in Middle Eastern terms.
As if I should be giving advice to Liz Gilbert! I should be giving advice to myself! Where's my advice? Where's my journey?
But alas, I have a gift for seeing what others must do, and Liz, your best work is not behind you. Best work does not equal most recognized work. Is your most recognized work behind you? Well, that's anyone's guess.
book reviewEatLoveMemoirPraySpiritualityTravel Writing
Female Writers
Female authors reading list
July 23, 2015 Joanna Hofer Leave a comment
I recently read an article lamenting the absence of female authors on reading lists. The woman who wrote the article cited two lists by prominent men of our day (I won't say who), but these men had not included any women authors on their suggested reading lists. That prompted me to think about my own list of female authors, and there are many.
Here's my list. I am sure I have made some embarrassing omissions.
Ursula LeGuin
Agatha Christi
Cheryl Strayed
Louise Erdrich
Kathleen Alcala
Ahunrati Roy
Octavia E Butler
Nichole Krauss
Nein Cheng
Barbara Tuckman
Barbara Kinsolver
Christina Rosetti
Chimamanda Adichie
Eleanor Catton
Edwidge Danticat
Sheila Heti
A M Holmes
Elliott Holt
Rachel Kushner
Margaret Wrinkle
Alice Munroe
Karen Russell
Jeanette Walls
Sara Gruen
Doris Lessing, Female Writers, Fiction, Short Stories
To Room Nineteen
Cover of To Room Nineteen
By Doris Lessing, @ 28 pages, (1963).
[Spoiler alert] When I see a short story over 20 pages long, I shudder. Will it be that interesting? Will I like it? Or, will it be a trudge?
To Room Nineteen did not disappoint. It held my interest all the way through, and the pages flew by. This, even though I felt myself arguing with the viewpoint of the protagonist, Susan Rawlings, pretty much the whole way through.
One of my problems, I suppose, is that I don't have four children. I don't fully know how draining that can be. But I can imagine. She did have help. She had a cook and later a nanny.
And granted, the personality type of the protagonist Susan Rawlings is not my personality type. I can't imagine having no interests in life. If I had free time at my disposal, I would write, draw, paint, play music, compose, and hike. But I don't, and I'm envious of those who do. It's hard for me to understand those who have time on their hands and waste it.
Susan was restless. It seemed she had the dream in her grasp, and then it disappeared. Some of the uglier parts of marriage materialized and although everyone involved thought they were so intelligent, no one had the common sense to say "no."
With four children, Susan couldn't go to the parties any more. She had to stay home with the children. Why did her husband go? They were his children too.
There seemed to be this unspoken idea in the story that it was better to be unfaithful than to be insane. I don't agree. Being unfaithful is a choice. Being insane is not.
I must have missed the point of this story somewhere. Was it that all marriages are farces? Was it that having four kids and a husband leads to insanity? Was it that people who think they are intelligent can make some pretty stupid decisions? Was it about a woman's need for privacy?
But what about the man? He worked all day. When was he supposed to have any privacy? When was he supposed to have his own life?
So he cheated? So she went insane?
I'm not agreeing with all of these premises. How could Susan's life have been so empty? Why did she not have any art in her life? Music? Something of her own? What about the children?
Maybe the story is about the traps people can fall into while trying to do everything right. Everything that society wants and expects. Then when you do those things, you're in a trap, and society has no sympathy. And you have no life.
But, all my complaining aside, the story kept me turning pages without agony.
Amy Tan, Favorites, Female Writers, Fiction, Short Stories
Amy Tan, author (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
By Amy Tan, @ 10 pages (1989).
Rules of the Game is a story about how a young Chinese girl living in San Francisco's Chinatown discovers something she can take pride in and how to temper that pride.
This story is a breeze to read. It flows and carries you along with it. Its theme and promise are contained in the first sentence: "I was six when my mother taught me the art of invisible strength."
All of a sudden, I want to learn more. What is invisible strength? What is its art? The mother must be very wise. We know that this is a story about a mother-daughter relationship. What a great first line.
Later, we see the protagonist, the daughter, learning how to get what she wants, tapping into invisible strength:
A man who watched me play in the park suggested that my mother allow me to play in local chess tournaments. My mother smiled graciously, an answer that meant nothing. I desperately wanted to go, but I bit back my tongue. I knew she would not let me play among strangers. So as we walked home I said in a small voice that I didn't want to play in the local tournament. They would have American rules. If I lost, I would bring shame on my family.
'Is shame you fall down nobody push you,' said my mother.
During my first tournament…"
I love Amy Tan. Must read more! 🙂
Female Writers, Fiction, Short Stories
Everything That Rises Must Converge
Everything That Rises Must Converge (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
By Flannery O'Connor, @ 14 pages (1965) .
Ok, quick. Flannery O'Connor: male or female? Well, I didn't know. Female. Her first name was Mary. This short story was published after her death.
Everything That Rises Must Converge is a story that illustrates the old degrading habits of racism and the self-delusion that comes hand-in-hand with racist beliefs. Human ugliness, anger, degradation, violence, and what's up with the ending? What is Flannery telling us? What does she want us to think? Are we to be utterly confused? We rejoice at and despise the hateful narrator son. We hate and despise his hateful mother. We get the feeling that they hate each other too. It's all very hateful.
There is the interesting twist with hats. But I even found that annoying.
I disliked the story for purely personal reasons, not because of its merits as a story. I'm sure it meets all the criteria for success. I am caught up on the content; I have met people like these. I grew up with people like these. What callous hateful ignorance. How do people not recognize the evil that lurks behind it. I don't understand.
Female Writers, Fiction, Margaret Atwood, Short Stories
Death by Landscape
By Margaret Atwood, @ 15 pages (1989).
This story took a little while to get going for me. The action of the present is bookended around the actual story. An event from the protagonist's past is at the core of the story, so it makes sense that the author started a little farther away from the action than what we typically experience in contemporary short stories.
After I got to the action, I was glued to the page. The suspense was incredible. The following paragraph was especially suspenseful for me:
"She has gone over and over it in her mind since, so many times that the first, real shout has been obliterated, like a footprint trampled by other footprints. But she is sure (she is almost positive, she is nearly certain) that it was not a shout of fear. Not a scream. More like a cry of surprise, cut off too soon. Short, like a dog's bark."
And a couple of pages back there is foreshadowing:
"Out on the lake there were two loons, calling to each other in their insane, mournful voices. At the time it did not sound like grief. It was just background."
I don't want to ruin the story for anyone who hasn't read it, but this story basically gives us an important event from the protagonist's past and invites us to think about how it may have shaped her whole life.
An interesting story that raises interesting questions.
Margaret AtwoodShort Stories
By Kelli Beck @ 2013, from the short story collection Talking Walls and Cigarettes and Other Dark Tales.
I am still very interested in the short story form, so when I saw that fellow blogger Kelli Beck had just released a collection of short stories written by herself and Erin Beck, I had to get it.
The first story of the collection is "The Salesman." I don't want to give away the story, so I'll just point out a few things that I especially appreciated. This story did a great job of setting a tone and a mood. I was transported into the scene. I had a sense that I was there.
When she was in front of the window a slight breeze slipped up her neck, caressing the small hairs that had fallen from her loose ponytail. She shivered, turned and faced the night. Fog started to wash its way across the street heavy like smoke creeping in from all directions, swallowing up first the hardware store and the small defunct movie theatre, moving in to the center until the entire parking lot was invisible behind the shroud of fog. A childish fear built up in her and she closed the window, securing it in place with the locks. She watched the haze, then, afraid of what might appear out of the mist, closed the shades, and turned her back on it."
I thought the part where the protagonist turned her back on this scene was wonderfully creepy. It captured my attention and built suspense.
I think it's important for stories to have a big idea. One of the big ideas of this story has to do with messes and responsibility. The protagonist ruminates over this and comes to the conclusion:
"Whatever mess you cleaned up, it always ended up somewhere else."
I could identify with the protagonist and the guilt she felt at being put into a difficult situation and having to make some hard choices.
The pacing of the story is very effective, and I enjoyed the surprises that the author threw my way. These really added interest to the story.
"The Salesman" was a great diversion. I'm excited to read the rest of the collection.
Book Reviews, Edith Wharton, Favorites, Female Writers, Fiction
October 7, 2013 Joanna Hofer 1 Comment
Cover of Ethan Frome
By Edith Wharton; @ 2012 by Vintage Books a Division of Random House; First published in 1911; 103 pages.
Oh my goodness. Shocking, simply shocking. Edith Wharton really knew how to create opposing characters. And nice twist at the end. I did not see that coming. Wow.
I had no idea what to expect with Ethan Frome. This is the first time I have read anything by Edith Wharton.
The story begins with the observance of what has happened to Ethan, a man who in our present is broken beyond all repair. We observe him in his fifties, and he is already an old man. Then we travel to his past to when he was 28 years old. He has lost his parents and has inherited the family farm but no money.
Ethan's wife is Zeena. She is seven years older than he and hasn't aged well. At 35, she already has false teeth! She exaggerates her health problems and isn't pleasant to be around. Ethan is miserable. Then Ethan falls in love with Mattie, one of Zeena's relatives who has fallen on hard times and has come to help care for Zeena and the housework.
Even though this novel was published 101 years ago, it is really readable. Not much has changed—it still seems much easier to feel sorry for the man who is mismatched than for the woman. I suppose that things were not too fun for Zeena either.
Edith Wharton was born into high society. I thought I saw a glimpse of this world view in the restrictions Edith places on Mattie, a seemingly vibrant and healthy young girl who could not sustain standing up as a store clerk all day. Since I have had the experience of working while standing all day, and while I didn't like it one little bit, I felt this was an unworthy and perhaps an uneducated excuse for what happened as a result of this "impossibility."
The ending was just chilling—a real testament to the choices that money gives or rather that the lack of money takes away.
Edith Wharton also wrote The Age of Innocence, The Custom of the Country, and the House of Mirth.
Age of InnocenceCustom of the CountryEdithEdith WhartonEthan FromeFictionHouse of MirthRandom House
Favorites, Female Writers, Fiction, Short Stories
September 30, 2013 Joanna Hofer 6 Comments
Kate Chopin in 1894 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
By Kate Chopin (1851–1904), @ 3 pages (1891).
Long before there was flash fiction, Kate Chopin seems to have mastered the form. The Story of an Hour gets a lot done in three pages.
A wife (Mrs. Mallard) learns some terrible news. It turns out she has a heart condition (relevant back story), so her sister is very careful about how she delivers the news. As it turns out, (a little twist) what we might think was horrible news is received as fantastic news by Mrs. Mallard. While everyone is terribly worried about her, she is secretly rejoicing.
But it turns out that there was an error in the news. What we thought happened actually did not (another twist). Mrs. Mallard receives a terrible shock when she finds out, and dies on the spot (twist).
The Story of an Hour is a story worth studying. It's a great example of a short story in that it takes one situation and gives just enough information about the protagonist and supporting characters, so that we understand what's going on. And personally, I love a good twist.
Kate Chopin is most known for her novel The Awakening (1899), which my anthology says ended her writing career because of its scandalous nature. The book is now praised as a portrait of a woman in search of her individuality. Potato/ Potahto.
Favorites, Female Writers, Fiction, Katherine Mansfield, Short Stories
The Garden-Party
September 28, 2013 Joanna Hofer Leave a comment
Alumna, Katherine Mansfield (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
By Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923), @ 13 pages (1922).
There's nothing like a good cry in the morning. Wretched. How wretched!
There are so many things about this story that I just love—for example, the way we are lead into the story. We begin with an opinion on the weather, then ponder the flowers that people are most likely to recognize. When we meet our first character we are transported from the outside world into the home. We learn more about the plot and the characters when we are given insights into how each character feels about participating in the setup of the party. When we learn that one doesn't want to be part of that action, we move to another, who also will not be involved. Finally, we meet the character who will take charge, Laura, and we follow her out of the house and into the garden.
My grandmother used to throw garden parties, so this story transports me back to those days and to thoughts of her. This line, especially, made me think of her:
"Oh impossible. Fancy cream puffs so soon after breakfast. The very idea made one shudder. All the same, two minutes later Jose and Laura were licking their fingers with that absorbed inward look that only comes from whipped cream."
Ah, the good life.
And that's just it. Right outside their massive estate, poverty is just down the lane.
Another reason I like this story is because of its contrasts. Rich, poor. Happiness, sadness. Joy, grief. An man is killed just down the road. The family is practically a neighbor of his widow and five children. Laura asks the question, should we really go ahead with the party?
"'But, my dear child, use your common sense. It's only by accident we've heard of it. If some one had died there normally—and I can't understand how they keep alive in those poky little holes—we should still be having our party, shouldn't we?'"
It's funny (weird) how we can explain things away in order to get what we want.
To her credit Laura does push back and gets this response:
"'You're being very absurd, Laura," she said coldly. 'People like that don't expect sacrifices from us. And it's not very sympathetic to spoil everybody's enjoyment as you're doing now.'"
Upping the stakes, after the party, Laura's mother has the splendid idea of sending the leftovers to the widow and her children. I won't spoil the whole story, but I thought this was a wonderful touch by the author.
Well done Katherine Mansfield. I want to read more from you!
August 29, 2013 Joanna Hofer Leave a comment
By Ursula K. Le Guin
This is one of the most profound stories I have ever read. It does a lot in five pages. I read it first in 2006, and it has stayed with me ever since. Le Guin creates a city called Omelas, a place were people are very happy. But, although they were incredibly happy, they were not simple:
They were no less complex than us. The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pendants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain."
She describes this beautiful city of joy and then asks her readers: Do you believe?
She decides that we can't yet believe, not without one more detail of the life in Omelas.
What she then describes is what I found so incredibly profound because at first the whole story seems like pure fantasy, but after further consideration, it struck me that the second part of the story (be warned this is only my interpretation) accurately describes what is happening to the animals on this planet (other than humans). It struck me so forcefully and so completely. And so sadly. I doubt that Ursula meant for me to take it that way, but once the idea formed in my mind, it's been unshakable.
"They all know it is there, all the people of Omelas. Some of them have come to see it, others are content merely to know it is there. They all know that it has to be there…"
The end of the story seems to leave us with a choice.
What a fantastic job Ursula has done.
Ones Who Walk Away From OmelasUrsula K Le Guin
Book Reviews, Female Writers, Fiction, Toni Morrison
July 22, 2013 Joanna Hofer 1 Comment
By Toni Morrison; Penguin Books USA @ 1973; 174 pages.
Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Sula is the tale of an independent young black woman who lived before World War II, roughly (1920-1941). The story revolves around her personality, her friendship with her childhood best friend, Nel, and around their town's reaction to Sula's independent attitude.
So how can one friend betray another? I think that's the question here. The answer is disappointingly elusive, for both the betrayer and the one betrayed. It isn't made any easier when the course of a whole life is at stake. Morrison asks the question of who truly is morally wrong or right. It's common knowledge that your friend's lover is off limits, especially if they mean nothing to you. Friends who break that rule are not friends. And yet, there remains that tie. When something significant happens, you want to tell your friend, but now, and forever, they are gone. They can't hear you. Or, you realize that you no longer want to tell them anything. There is that absence. That terrible loss. That forever. And then, who do you miss, really?
This book was loaned to me by a friend at work who found out I was reading Beloved. My friend prefers Sula to Beloved, and I am just the opposite. And while I typically can't stand notes in the margins of a book, I appreciated the marks of my friend, which have added quite a bit to my understanding of the story, for Sula is full of symbolism that I might have otherwise missed.
I love Toni Morrison. She is an excellent writer with tremendously creative ideas and an unflinching ability to write about those hard, messy areas of life. (A little depressing.) Here is a sample from Sula:
In the back of the wagon, supported by sacks of squash and hills of pumpkins, Shadrack began a struggle that was to last for twelve days, a struggle to order and focus experience. It had to do with making a place for fear as a way of controlling it. He knew the smell of death an was terrified by it, for he could not anticipate it. It was not death or dying that frightened him, but the unexpectedness of both. In sorting it all out, he hit on the notion that if one day a year were devoted to it, everybody could get it out of the way and the rest of the year would be safe and free. In this manner he instituted National Suicide Day."
I was all fired up thinking that the story would be about National Suicide Day, but it wasn't. Now that I write this, it seems bad that I was a wee bit disappointed, but what finally happened with this seemed to symbolize what can quickly and without any thought go terribly wrong.
Arundhati Roy, Book Reviews, Female Writers, Fiction
July 15, 2013 Joanna Hofer 3 Comments
Cover of The God of Small Things
By Arundhati Roy; Random House; @ 1997; 321 pages.
Do not give books that you have not read to friends, relatives, strangers, etc.
I could almost stop my little book report here. Literature, it seems, is a beautiful way to talk about horrible things. Take if from me, if you must give a book, give a book of jokes by Reader's Digest.
I first became aware of the book The God of Small Things during a bout of insomnia. Flipping channels at 4 a.m., I landed on PBS and saw Arundhati Roy interviewed. I was so impressed by her that I became obsessed with buying her book.
Following my oh-so-flawed pattern, I purchased the book right away, but did not read it until now. And, so sure was I at how great this book would be that I bought a copy and gave it to an acquaintance/friend several months ago. (Curses/embarrassment.)
Arundhati writes her story using the omniscient narrator. This way she can tell us the thoughts and motivations of all of her characters. The story's theme focuses on the Love Laws of India: "The laws that lay down who should be loved, and how. And how much." This is all very foreign territory for me, since sadly I know next to nothing about India.
Of course, India is not the only country (or culture) that has taboos about love. We all do, and taboos are just that: taboo. It sounds like ewwww, and that's what they are for us, big ewwwwws. Some taboos are larger than others. Some are no longer so taboo. Arundhati starts us out with taboos that are bad for Indian culture, but for Americans, eh, not so much. Her story becomes a gradient of taboos, introduced so gradually, you barely notice what's happening, until you're in her scene where her characters are in the theater watching The Sound of Music, and then blammo. Then it levels off for a while as you are fed information and are trying to figure out what exactly happened, for about 100 pages. The finale features a fireworks of taboos.
Arundhati is one of those authors who delivers hugely in the area of craft, and The God of Small Things could be read as much for the story as for the craft used to tell it. Information is portioned out, like strands of yarn. Strand by strand, she tells us about her characters' problems. We're too close to each strand to really understand what's happening, until eventually everything is woven into place.
The story begins in Ayemenem, India, with Estha and Rahel, dizygotic (two-egg twins), who after a tragic turn of events are separated at the age of seven. Now at 30, Rahel has returned to India to find her brother Estha damaged, changed, broken. To know their story, we find out about their family members.
Their mother Ammu, for instance, made a terrible life-altering mistake and married the wrong man, thus forever ending her chances for societal-sanctioned love:
Ammu watched her husband's mouth move as it formed words. She said nothing. He grew uncomfortable and then infuriated by her silence. Suddenly he lunged at her, grabbed her hair, punched her and then passed out from the effort. Ammu took down the heaviest book she could find in the bookshelf—The Reader's Digest World Atlas—and hit him with it as hard as she could. On his head. His legs. His back and shoulders. When he regained consciousness, he was puzzled by his bruises. He apologized abjectly for the violence, but immediately began to badger her about helping him with his transfer. This fell into a pattern. Drunken violence followed by postdrunken badgering…."
Ammu divorces "the wrong man" and does the best she can. She loves her children terribly:
To Ammu, her twins seemed like a pair of small bewildered frogs engrossed in each other's company, lolloping arm in arm down a highway full of hurtling traffic. Entirely oblivious of what trucks can do to frogs. Ammu watched over them fiercely. Her watchfulness stretched her, made her taut and tense. She was quick to reprimand her children, but even quicker to take offense on their behalf."
Arundhati got off to a wonderful start. Her narrative style and the cadence of her words are poetic, but then from time to time she slaps us around with bad/vulgar words.
OK, I realize that bad words have their place. They can convey feeling, tone, loss of emotional and rational control, and social background. They are valuable. But when one is talking about something sensitive, smooth, and touching, and a four-letter word is tossed down, there's a question. What exactly is the motivation behind this sudden jolt of cold water? Why this smack in the face? If that question can't be answered in terms of advancing the plot (congruence with overall philosophy or tone isn't enough), then I think the bad word needs to go. It's too jarring.
This book, like a person who delivers sensitive information too soon, runs the risk of being cast aside. For me, the foreshadowing was so intense and offensive that I nearly closed the book forever; I nearly discarded the deftly crafted tale, the intricacies, and all the strands of information that would be eventually woven back together and understood. The story seemed like it might be too horrible to read; the characters too innocent; the demons too demonic; then Arundhati coaxes us back in. But don't be fooled, she is determined to make her point.
Did I like the book? Yes and no. Would I read it again? Well, parts of it to help me with my own writing. (Arundhati is so tremendously talented.)
I won't again ignorantly hand a book to someone based on the pretty flower/lily pad theme on the cover or the very charming PBS interview given by the author. Reading books with friends, like sharing art with friends, might not be my thing.
The God of Small Things was wonderful in so many ways, I hate to say anything bad about it. Still, it wasn't the book for me. I wanted something else from this book; I wanted a closer connection to at least one of the characters, and yet, I thought it was very well done.
It was interesting in the end to know that The God of Small Things is The God of Loss.
AmmuArundhati RoyAyemenemGodGod of Small ThingsIndiaRandom HouseUnited States
Book Reviews, China, Favorites, Female Writers, History, Memoir
Life and Death in Shanghai
By Nien Cheng; Grove Press, New York, @1986; 544 pages.
Life and Death in Shanghai (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Life and Death in Shanghai is wonderful—outstanding. Over and over, it made me ask: how could this happen? and Could this happen again?
Life and Death in Shanghai is an account of the Cultural Revolution that took place in China under Chairman Mao. It opens on a summer evening in 1966 when the author, Nien Cheng, is summoned to attend a struggle meeting. A large crowd of her former coworkers has been assembled to struggle against one of her former colleagues from Shell. Since Shell was a foreign firm that had operations in China and because during the Cultural Revolution all things foreign were deemed against the state, anyone who had worked for such a company was automatically suspected of espionage, or so it seemed.
What in fact was going on was a struggle within the Communist Party in China, with people serving as pawns.
As the revolution progressed, everything that reminded the leadership of the old ways was under attack. Art was destroyed; books were destroyed; possessions were confiscated; people who had any educational training were deemed enemies of the state; anyone who could be considered a capitalist was under attack.
Nein Cheng, soon after attending her first struggle meeting, was visited by the Red Guard. The Red Guard amounted to a gang of young people who went house to house and ransacked, pillaged, confiscated, and destroyed.
Not too long after this event, Nien herself was seized and taken to a prison for political prisoners. Armed only with the advice to never give a false confession, her intellect, and her will to survive, Nein endured 6 1/2 years in solitary confinement, subject to temperature extremes, medical emergencies, and torture.
As I read this book, I was stunned by the character of its author, Nien Cheng. Through all that she had to endure, she is the most self-assured personality I have ever encountered. She comes to conclusions about her surroundings and the people who populate her life without question, without any kind of self-reproach or self-doubt. I am amazed. I wish I could have known this woman. To have met her would have been an honor.
Even though English was Nien Cheng's second language, this book is effortless to read. She has great skill for the craft of writing. I looked, and I don't think that she wrote anything else. It's a real pity.
I bought this book on a whim for $3. In it I learned more about courage and perseverance and honesty than I think I have in any other place. Even after she was released from prison, she remained under the watchful eye of the party. Nearly everyone who came in contact with her had an agenda and sought to trick her into saying something that could send her back to jail.
For all the trouble they went to, I found myself often wondering, why they didn't just make up a lie? Why go to the trouble of baiting her to say something against the party and then becoming disgruntled because she didn't?
Maybe I'm revealing my Western way of thinking here. But for a system that wasn't above torture and trickery, why were certain lies off limits?
There is so much in this book. It is probably one of the best books I have ever read. I highly recommend it.
ChinaMemoirNien Cheng
Book Reviews, Female Writers, Katharine Meyer Graham, Memoir, Nonfiction
July 1, 2013 Joanna Hofer Leave a comment
a photograph Katharine Graham (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
By Katharine Graham; @ 1997; Vintage Books, a Division of Random House; 625 pages.
This is the story of Katharine Meyer Graham (1917–2001), the woman who led The Washington Post as its publisher for more than two decades. Personal History is her autobiograhy and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998. It is also a history of The Washington Post, the newspaper that shaped the course of Katharine's life.
Katharine writes in an incredibly straightforward, self-confident style. Reading her makes me think anything is possible with a little organization and planning.
Katharine begins by telling about her parents, who they were and how they met, and how her father acquired his vast fortune. Graham grew up fabulously rich, but she says she never knew she was rich. While her family owned vast assets, property, and huge houses, she and her siblings were not showered with lavish toys or clothes. They seemed to grow up without parents, as they were raised by governesses while their parents attended to business and social matters.
Katharine's father, Eugene Meyer, was a very powerful man and during the Great Depression was appointed by President Hoover to be governor of the Federal Reserve Board. He guided the banking policies of the United States both domestically and abroad from 1930 to 1933. He was also the first president of the World Bank, serving for 6 months in 1946. (She never explains how he shielded or held onto his wealth during this time when the average American was losing everything. That would have been very interesting.)
In 1933 Meyer bought The Washington Post. He had attempted to buy The Post at an earlier time for $5 million and had failed, but during the Depression sale, he was able to anonymously bid and win The Post for $825,000. Knowing nothing about the newspaper business, Meyer stepped in and turned the failing paper around, transforming it into the prestigous paper it is today. A republican in political ideology, Eugene Meyer made it his goal to run an independent nonpartisan paper. To this end, he outlined and followed seven principles:
That the first mission of a newspaper is to tell the truth as nearly as the truth may be ascertained.
That the newspaper shall tell ALL the truth so far as it can learn it, concerning the important affairs of America and the world;
That as a disseminator of news, the paper shall observe the decencies that are obligatory upon a private gentleman;
That what it prints shall be fit reading for the young as well as for the old;
That the newpaper's duty it to its readers and to the public at large, and not to the private interests of its owner;
That in the pursuit of truth, the newspaper shall be prepared to make sacrifice of its material fortunes, if such course be necessary for the public good;
That the newspaper shall not be the ally of any special interest, but shall be fair and free and wholesome in its outlook on public affairs and public men.
What great principles/aspirations for a newspaper! (Though not completely followed by his son-in-law, we find out later.)
Just like the other books I've been reading and writing about, I am paying particular attention to what I can apply to my own writing. Katharine does a great job at reflection. After she shares an incident in her life, she tells us how she felt, why she thought things happened as they did, and what impact they had on her at the time or on her or others moving forward. Anyone struggling with this part of memoir writing should study this book.
I also noticed that the fact that Katharine was born wealthy diminishes my level of sympathy for her. And I think anyone who sets out to write a memoir should be aware of this factor. Maybe it is human nature to want our heros (protagonists) to have truly earned their hero status; we want to know that they have suffered. This is harder to get that across when all basic needs are met with abundance from the beginning.
But I do feel sympathy for Katharine. The fact that her parents were absent during most of her childhood lend greatly to this—her difficult relationship with her self-absorbed mother, her distant relationship with her wildly successful father all help to build my sympathy. The fact that she is so humble as she tells her story and that she tells us about her self doubt. The fact that she wasn't incredibly beautiful and didn't simply get by on her looks. It helps too, that she really did master the skill of writing as evidenced by her career and her autobiography. She is able to laugh at herself in several places.
One example is when Katharine humourously critiques herself as a mother: "One week when she [the nanny] was away, Donny fell out of his crib because I had left the side down, and out of his swing while I was weeding the yard. He ended up looking like Donald Duck, with his swollen upper lip sticking out an inch. That was the same week I put the nipples for his bottles on to boil and forgot them while I took time out to call people for a party. When the smell of burning alerted me, I found flames a foot high shooting out of the pan, threw it into the sink to put out the fire, and turned the water on, only to have the pot explode glass all over the place. I couldn't help wondering how the children would fare if I took care of them all the time."
Also funny is her comparison of childbirth to moving.
Katharine lived through the time in our country where women were expected to put their husbands and their families before themselves, all the time, and it appears that she did this. When her father handed over the management of The Washington Post to her husband, Phil, Katharine said she knew a man was needed to run the publication. It never occurred to her that she had been passed over. And even with all the cushion of her wealth, the values and expectations of the time didn't sheild her from the average woman's martial experience: "It was typical of our marital relationship that Phil conceived the idea of a country house for summers and weekends, and I did the actual work."
And while that statement seems slightly bitter, on the whole, Katharine's account of her husband is very loving and gentle. Looking back on her life, Katharine discovers the clues of her husband's depression, clues she wishes she had understood better at the time. She says that because she had very little knowledge of the disease that she didn't make the best choices to deal with it. And certainly in the whirlwind of their lives, with their relationships with people like Lyndon Johnson and John F. Kennedy, the social pressures must have been enormous for both Katharine and Phil.
For someone like me, who does not have massive wealth at her disposal, it does seem that a different life could have been had. Unbridled ambition and haunting self doubt seem to have been Phil's undoing. But who am I to say. If I were rubbing elbows of the President of the United States and in a position to influence the course of our nation, I'm sure I could be tempted by this trap as well.
I marvel at how kind Katharine remained toward Phil, even after he lost complete control of his manic depressive disorder and even after he had a very open affair during which he wanted to divorce her. When Phil wanted to come back, she accepted him without hesitation, even with all the hurt, even knowing what his future bouts might bring. Even so, she hadn't guessed that he would commit suicide as soon as he had the opportunity. But Phil, I guess, in realizing the enormity of his depression and his utter inability to control it fell into extreme hopelessness. That, coupled with his very public affair which he finally came to realize had hurt the woman who had given him everything, his whole identity at the Post. The fact of these two insolvable problems plus the weight of the depression must have led him to the conclusion that there was only one way out.
Not to appear unsympathetic, but this part made me think of William Styron's Darkness Visible, in which he says that even with all the pain of depression, the one thing that kept him from committing suicide was that he couldn't bare what it would do to his family when they found him. For Phil, this doesn't seem to have been a consideration. He shot himself in their bathroom.
After Phil died, Katharine decided to run The Washington Post. Having grown up with the paper and having watched both her father and husband build it up, she felt she had no other choice. She had hardly worked a day in her life in the business world and recounted that she had much to learn. Her endless questions annoyed some of the people she would rather have befriended, but she perservered.
And it's a good thing she did because life for Katharine Graham only got better. She recounts tales from this exciting new adventure of active participation in the publishing of the Post. Here is one example of her relationship with LBJ:
"As he was yelling at me, he started to undress, flinging his clothes off onto a chair and the floor—his coat, his tie, his shirt. Finally, he was down to his pants. I was frozen with dismay and baffled about what to do. I remember thinking to myself: This can't be me being bawled out by the president of the United States while he's undressing. Suddenly he bellowed, 'Turn around!' I did so obediently and gratefully…"
Katharine tells about the Nixon years, The Post's role in Watergate, the changes in the roles of women over her lifetime, her friendship with Warren Buffett, and the union strike at The Washington Post. It's wonderful to see how strong and confident she became once she became publisher of The Washington Post. It's sad too to think that neither her father nor her husband had any inkling that she could do it. It just goes to show that you should never let anyone judge you or what you can do.
Katharine answers the necessary memoir question of "why am I writing this" towards the end. She has several reasons, but the one that stands out for me is that she hoped to gain some understanding "of how people are formed by the way they grow up and are further molded by the way they spend their days."
Book Reviews, Female Writers, History, Memoir, Nonfiction, Political Science, Russian Literature
Twenty Letters to a Friend
March 25, 2013 Joanna Hofer 2 Comments
By Svetlana Alliluyeva; @1967; Harper & Row Publishers; New York and Evanston
Svetlana Alliluyeva was the daughter of Joseph Stalin. In her memoir, Twenty Letters to a Friend, she struggles to come to grips with her childhood and in particular her relationship with her father, who he was a man, father, husband, and leader. According to Wikipedia, Svetlana caused an international stir when she defected from the Soviet Union in 1967. Interesting that this is the same date her memoir was published. Svetlana was born in 1926 and passed away in 2011. (Stalin died in 1953.) Wikipedia says as of 2010, she was living in Wisconsin.
This book came to me from my grandmother. She didn't give it to me, but rather, I inherited it when she died. My grandmother was a member of the Book of the Month Club, and this was one of the books she received. My grandmother was very well read, but I don't think she ever had the same kind of fascination with Russia that I developed.
As I read this book, I felt a wave of compassion for Svetlana. After all, it's hard to top having Stalin for a father. For one, there is the mysterious death of Svetlana's mother. Was it really a suicide? Did Beria do it? Could Stalin have? How culpable was Stalin in the terror? She seems to want to shift the blame, painting Stalin as a man whose passions could be manipulated, a man with tremendous paranoia that worsened over time. What is touching is that she loved him, and I suppose the monster that I have read about in my history classes must have loved her too.
There are a couple of things that could have improved her memoir. She didn't say much about the Soviet gulags that her father worked so hard to populate. She also didn't write much in scenes. Most of her letters were strictly telling, not much showing. The letters she wrote about her mother and her first husband were the most gripping, where I actually forgot I was reading and lost myself in her story.
Svetlana is extremely self-conscious throughout her memoir, always watching what she says, always crafting an impression. And this is certainly understandable given the very public nature of her life. Unfortunately, in this writing, she hasn't unraveled her own denial, even though I have the feeling that she sincerely tried.
Book Reviews, Favorites, Female Writers, Fiction, Horror, Toni Morrison
March 6, 2013 Joanna Hofer 5 Comments
By Toni Morrison; Signet, Penguin Books USA @1987; 338 pages.
I had heard of Toni Morrison, but had never read her books. I won't rehash the story here because I don't want to spoil it for you, not even the first chapter.
Beloved won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Briefly, the story is about Sethe, a woman who escaped from slavery and who continues to be haunted by her past.
Toni Morrison is amazing. She is the most skilled writer I have read in a very long time. I am in awe. The story she tells, the details, her execution, her command of language, suspense, knowledge and understanding of human nature, scene, dialogue, imagination! And while I'm not drawn to sad stories, this one is a must read. This one, that I'm reading so soon after having read Doris Lessing's Prisons That We Choose to Live Inside, strikes me as another example of the horrific behavior of our species.
Slavery is a topic so painful that we still can't talk about it. There is so much I didn't know. So much I need to find out. How terribly awful our past is. But Morrison has created art here. She has brought beauty, humanity, and strength to a situation so horrible, so shameful, so intense that it is just unimaginable to me that it really happened. Of course, this story is fiction, but the details here revive the real-life actions of the past. We know that people, other than the characters of this story, real people, lived through a lot more. Morrison tells a story that must be told, must be read, and must be acknowledged.
Here is an example of Toni Morrison's writing:
Anybody Baby Suggs knew, let along loved, who hadn't run off or been hanged, got rented out, loaned out, bought up, brought back, stored up, mortgaged, won, stolen or seized. So Baby's eight children had six fathers. What she called the nastiness of life was the shock she received upon learning that nobody stopped playing checkers just because the pieces included her children. Halle she was able to keep the longest. Twenty years. A lifetime. Given to her, no doubt, to make up for hearing that her two girls, neither of whom had their adult teeth, were sold and gone and she had not been able to wave goodbye. To make up for coupling with a straw boss for four months in exchange for keeping her third child, a boy, with her—only to have him traded for lumber in the spring of the next year and to find herself pregnant by the man who promised not to and did. That child she could not love and the rest she would not.
I find Baby Suggs' strategy for getting though the final chapter of her life compelling. She decided that she wanted to think about something that didn't have any pain involved, no hurt, no evil. She went to bed and contemplated color. She started with blue, then went on to yellow and then pink.
Was Morrison meaning to be ironic? Because it seems that color does have a lot of pain associated with it.
On the front of my copy, there is a quote from Newsweek:
"A masterpiece … magnificent … astounding … overpowering!"
Yes—All of the above.
——–The BBC World Book Club interviewed Toni Morrison. You can listen to that interview here: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/wbc/wbc_20120407-2006a.mp3
Doris Lessing, Female Writers, Nonfiction, Political Science
Prisons We Choose to Live Inside
English: Doris Lessing, British writer, at lit.cologne, Cologne literature festival 2006, Germany (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
By Doris Lessing; Perennial, An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers; @1987; 78 pages.
This book addresses one of my primary questions about human history and human behavior. How is our species capable of doing the horrible things that it has—and is? Why do we do it? Can we stop?
A few months ago I watched somewhat recently discovered film footage (A Film Unfinished) which documented the living conditions of the Jews in the Warsaw slums during World War II.
Horrified does not begin to approach my reaction. I have seen photos before, but the film footage and the fact that it was filmed, and staged, and shot over and over, was so callously heartless, I guess, I had not conceived of this possibility before.
What horrible evil. How could anyone participate in such a thing?
We know that this kind of behavior is not limited to World War II or to the Germans. It can be found in many societies and at many times in human history, and undoubtedly some iteration of it is happening right now.
Lessing, thankfully, does not go into graphic detail, but does give us anecdotes and references some psychological experiments, including the famous Milgram experiment, in which it takes shockingly little to convince people to torture others and excuse themselves by saying they were just following orders.
Lessing maintains that humans (any of us), because of our psychology, are highly susceptible to acting in horrible ways in certain situations and can be influenced easily in groups. It is very rare for any of us to go against (disagree with, challenge) our groups.
She asks how is it that we have this information about ourselves but have not yet incorporated it into our institutions of government so that we don't repeat these kinds of horrible actions? If we can just admit that we are wired in certain ways, we can put safety measures in place to stop ourselves.
This is a great book and an easy short read. I highly recommend it.
Doris Lessing is a prolific author and is most famous for her novel The Golden Notebook. She won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2007.
Female Writers, Fiction, Horror, Mary Shelley
Frankenstein; Or, the Modern Prometheus
February 25, 2013 Joanna Hofer 12 Comments
By Mary Shelley; Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.; @ 1818; my edition is 2004; 284 pages.
Believe it or not, Frankenstein shows up on many of the "to read" book lists.
I picked up Frankenstein because I'm tired of love stories. The story begins in Russia as our first narrator tells of his ambition to explore the North Pole. While in Archangel, he has a bit of boat and ice trouble and runs into Victor Frankenstein, a man who has a tragic story to tell. The rest of the story takes place in Switzerland.
Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein when she was only 21.
And it appears she was quite scandalous for her time. She and Percy Shelley had an affair while he was still married. His wife, Harriet, not too long afterwards, committed suicide by drowning herself in a lake. Mary and Percy Shelley married soon thereafter. A few years later Percy Shelley also drowned in a boating accident. Quite a lot going on for a young female author of the early 1800s.
Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein as the result of a bet to see who out of Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, and she could write the scariest story. Byron and Shelley never finished a book-length story, and Percy urged Mary to complete what she had started.
At its core, Frankenstein is a story about unchecked ambition and the consequences of disturbing the order of nature. In explanation of the subtitle, in Greek mythology, Prometheus stole fire from the gods to enable human progress and civilization. He is credited with the creation of man from clay. He was punished for his theft by Zeus, who sentenced Prometheus to eternal torment. Prometheus was bound to a rock, where every day an eagle was sent to feed on his liver. His liver would grow back every day, and every day the ordeal would be repeated. Nice, eh?
And while I didn't want to think about love, the story shows the consequences of the deprivation of love. The monster turns evil because there is no one on Earth who can love his hideous form, not even his creator.
I found the structure of the story interesting. We have the first narrator, who has his goal of visiting the North Pole. He meets Victor Frankenstein, who then begins telling his tale in the first person. Then the monster Frankenstein's story is told through Victor and also is portrayed in the first person. Then we come back out as Victor begins speaking again, and finally the first narrator takes over. The monster Frankenstein was very well spoken. That didn't seem to ring true to me, even though it is explained in the story.
I have not seen the Frankenstein movies, so I have nothing to compare this to other than Young Frankenstein with Gene Wilder. So this book is nothing like that. It's a pretty good read. I wasn't scared, but I was intrigued.
FrankensteinGene WilderLord ByronMary ShelleyNorth PolePercy Bysshe ShelleyRussiaVictor Frankenstein
Female Writers, Fiction, Kathleen Alcalá
The Flower in the Skull
February 22, 2013 Joanna Hofer 1 Comment
Sonora Desert, Mexico (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
By Kathleen Alcalá; Harcourt Brace & Company; @ 1998; 180 pages.
This novel was a nice diversion. And what a tear jerker! Oh my goodness. I was so sad to see our main character, Concha, leave the Sonoran desert. Here's a nice description of her homeland as told by the last female narrator in the book:
I realized that I missed the intense light of the Sonoran Desert—light unaccompanied by a proximity to water. The light in Sonora reduced every item on which it fell to its elemental self—light and dark, substance and shadow, reflection and absorption."
Concha, a young girl from the now extinct Opata tribe, is forced to flee with her family from their tribal lands in the Sonoran desert of Mexico. She left everything behind, even her real name. The story follows her journey to Tucson, Arizona, and the course of her life and also the first part of her daughter Rosa's young adult life. This is the story of their "legacy of dislocation."
I loved this book until the last section, which brought the reader into the present. I was so involved with the characters in the first and middle sections that I had really high hopes for the ending. There were elements of magical realism sprinkled around in various places that I just love anyway, but to me, the ending missed its mark. The imagery of the sea could have been brought in and tied to the beginning, and I really wanted a stronger idea of how the last character related to the first two.
I couldn't understand the final female protagonist. She seemed weak. She did things that I didn't want her to do and that I didn't understand. I get where she was coming from (trying not to be a spoiler here), but I guess I needed to understand more about her before I could accept her weakness, her perceived lack of options, and at least one instance of really poor judgement.
The last line threw me too. I didn't understand it. I think I missed a huge point. As I turn it over in my mind, I still don't know for sure.
Kathleen Alcalá creates a interesting structure for this novel. The point of view changes several times and for several reasons throughout the book. I found it interesting and risky, but it works.
Alcalá uses Spanish to make many of her main points. If you don't speak Spanish, get out your dictionary or you'll miss some things. There were only a few words I didn't know, so I got a kick out of it. But for non-Spanish-speaking readers, I'm not sure the context is enough to give the meaning of the Spanish words.
And maybe that's the point, but it's a risk to leave your reader in the dark.
I definitely want to read more from this author. She also wrote Spirits of the Ordinary.
Here is a quote from the beginning of the book that I found interesting, and it seems to directly relate to the relationship between Concha and Rosa:
Amid those internal changes
Your skull fills with a new life,
and instead of thoughts, has flowers."
Manual Acuña, from "Before a Corpse"
Y en medio de esos cambios interiores
tu cráneo lleno de una nueva vida,
en vez de pensamientos dará flores."
Manual Acuña, de "Ante un cadaver"
I think it's prettier in Spanish.
ArizonaConchaMexicoSonoraSonoran DesertSpanishSpanish languageUnited States
Favorites, Female Writers, Memoir, Qanta Ahmed, Saudi Arabia, Travel Writing
In the Land of Invisible Women
By Qanta Ahmed, MD; @2008; Sourcebooks, Inc.; 437 pages.
I came to this book with very little knowledge of Islam or of Saudi Arabia. This was a fascinating read, and I highly recommend the book. While structurally the book reads like a series of ideas that the author felt compelled to cover, the book is loaded with interesting factual information—it is a must read for anyone planning a trip to the Kingdom.
What is certain from the very beginning is that Ahmed did not like to veil. I came away from the book thinking that veiling might be ok if it weren't mandatory. The fact that women can be harrassed if not properly veiled offends my Western sensibilities. Also, what's up with men wearing white (a heat repelling color) in a hot climate and women having to wear black (a heat attracting color)? That ain't right.
I was shocked to learn that women are not allowed to purchase music. I love Arabian music, and I simply can't imagine not being allowed to listen to it or purchase it on my own.
Throughout the book, I was haunted by the question of what does a woman do if she has no male figure in her life to drive her, accompany her, or do all the other things that only men are allowed to do? Women are like possessions.
Ahmed's writing is engaging, and every night I looked forward to sitting down and reading more about her experiences. I was fascinated by her spiritual experiences during Hajj, but also upset that only Muslims are allowed entry. The recurring theme of this book seemed to be: "you're not in the club."
Ahmed's coverage of the relationship between the Muttawa and the Saudi royalty was very interesting.
One thing is certain, I would not do well in the Kingdom. I'd slip up and get into some kind of life-threatening trouble.
In the Land of Invisible Women was a fascinating adventure into a place I will probably never go. I give it two thumbs up and a wiggle.
AhmedHajjIn the Land of Invisible Women: A Female Doctor's Journey in the Saudi KingdomIslamMuslimMutaweenSaudi ArabiaVeil
Female Writers, Fiction, Nicole Krauss
The History of Love
February 10, 2013 Joanna Hofer 2 Comments
The History of Love (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
By Nicole Krauss; @ 2005 by W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 252 pages.
The History of Love is an engaging page turner. I laughed out loud once and cried twice.
Krauss shows incredible skill in handling the different narrators in this book. She writes convincingly as both of her protagonists, Leo Gursky and Alma Singer. Krauss also writes from the point of view of Bird, and for a brief time, I believe, takes on the omniscent narrator.
If the whole thing were written from Leo's point of view, I guess Krauss couldn't have introduced the twists and turns she did, but Leo felt the most authentic to me.
Krauss also has many memorable poetic insights that I found especially interesting:
At times I believed that the last page of my book and the last page of my life were one and the same, that when my book ended I'd end, a great wind would sweep through my rooms carrying the pages away, and when the air cleared of all those fluttering white sheets the room would be silent, the chair where I sat would be empty."
Once upon a time there was a boy. He lived in a village that no longer exists, in a house that no longer exists, on the edge of a field that no longer exists, where everything was discovered and everything was possible. A stick could be a sword. A pebble could be a diamond. A tree a castle."
I recommend The History of Love. I could understand the motivations of the characters, but I also found it frustrating. I had a hard time relating to the choices that Leo made—choices that made him unhappy. I don't think he realized that he was making choices, but he was. Happiness is a choice, and sometimes a hard one. Despair is also a choice, one I'd rather my protagonists not make. Maybe Leo's character had to make the choices he did, but I'm not entirely convinced.
[Re-reading my entry, I find myself a bit preachy above. Happiness is a choice, I say so easily, so knowingly. And, I suppose you can rid yourself of those things/people who make you unhappy. Ground yourself in routine. Put on your blinders and refuse to notice those things that make you think and bring you down. Now, however, I'm more inclined to believe that Unhappiness is the choice, but happiness—well, that is a gift.]
Female Writers, Mental Illness, Sylvia Plath
February 6, 2013 Joanna Hofer 1 Comment
I didn't think I would like this book. It's on the "snob list," so I picked it up. I mean what is a bell jar anyway? But Sylvia surprised me. Her writing, even though the story line didn't really interest me, was so vivid and the details so interesting and original that I really enjoyed spending time on the page.
It also promised a bit on mental illness and shock therapy, which have held a morbid interest for me lately. Sylvia Plath, aside from her poetry, is famous for sticking her head in an oven at the age of 30. Maybe this isn't so remarkable except that she was divorced (separated?) and had guardianship of two small children at the time—and she was becoming a successful writer. Life wasn't easy. It seems she was suffering from depression or possibly schizophrenia.
And it's too bad. I found her writing very accessible and her personality very likable and easy to relate to, at least in the beginning of the story. In the introduction, it says she includes a lot of roman-a-clef elements, which was a new term for me and means The Bell Jar is semi-autobiographical. I related strongly to her protagonist's reactions to her trip to New York and to the structured events she had to attend there and to her social group.
From Sylvia's description of what it was like for a woman to live and work in the late 1950s and early 1960s, I find it understandable that an intelligent woman especially with Sylvia's drive and ambition would be depressed.
Sylvia's, I mean Ester's (the protagonist acting as a straw man for Sylvia), depression begins with a rejection letter from a writing program that she had counted on attending. It was a big let down. Some kind of mis-wired biochemistry must have played a part in that too, or possibly it was all compounded by Sylvia's intelligence and drive in a society that only rewarded women for childbirth.
The way Sylvia eased her story from the tale of a young twenty-something experiencing New York to her rapid decline into fantasies of suicide, unemotionally considering and discarding each method was quite masterful. It is interesting to note here that psychologists have coined the term "Sylvia Plath syndrome" to describe the high incidence of suicides among female poets.
After reading the book, I watched the movie, Sylvia, and it occurs to me that as much as Sylvia railed against the male-dominated culture of that time, in the end she succumbed to it miserably. Had she truly believed in the equal value of women and men, she would not have ended her life over the loss of a man. At the bottom of her tailspin and depression over Ted Hughes, her love or even sense of responsibility for her children did not see her through those dangerous moments.
Ultimately, I came away thinking that Sylvia was extremely self absorbed, so much so that she was unable to consider how her actions affected others, and treated others badly as a result. Granted she wasn't sleeping well or thinking well, but she killed herself while her children were sleeping in the next room!
A spark by those entering the next day to find her could have sent the whole flat in flames. Couldn't she have left the children with friends, claiming to have a date that night? And she locked the children in their room. What if something else had happened that night and the children needed to get out of their room? What if there had been a fire in the building? What if they had woken up and needed to go to the bathroom? What if they had found her dead on the floor?
In the end, Ted Hughes retained publishing rights over all her writing and made money from it. Her suicide seems to have reinforced the ideals of her society, basically that women were worth less.
But of course, she didn't reason her way through all of this, and her biochemistry probably made all rational thought impossible.


Jakarta - Toyota Motor Manufacturing Indonesia received the award "The Best Indonesia Green Award 2016" for CSR programs TMMIN that always support the maintenance and preservation of the environment.The Award for "Indonesia Green Awards (IGA) 2016" is organized by The La Tofi School of CSR in cooperation with the Ministry of Forestry Environment and the Ministry of Industry, it was held at Taman Tebet, Jakarta, Saturday (21/05).
Indonesia Green Award 2016 is the 7th year event that organized by La Tofi School of CSR to commemorate Earth Day on April 22. this 2016, it was the first year for TMMIN on receiving the IGA award and straightly won six awards categories.
The 6 categories that achieved are the "Rescuing Water Resources Category" for the conservation of water through the rainwater media on Karawang Plant no. 1 and 2, "Save Energy and Use of New and Renewable Energy Category" for Windmill and Solar Cell, "Developing Biodiversity Category" for Toyota Forest, "Category for pollution Prevention" program to reduce pollution by interacting (babarengan), "Develop Integrated Waste Processing Category and Fire Land Prevention and Response Category" for traffic safety.
The award for "The Best Indonesia Green Awards 2016" was submitted by the Chairman The La Tofi School of CSR La Tofi and the Director General of Social Forestry and Environmental Partnership Forestry Ministry of Environment - which is also the Chairman of the Jury on IGA 2016 - Hadi Daryanto to the Vice President of TMMIN Mr. Warih AT. TMMIN expect to the appreciation of the La Tofi School of CSR to be able to continue to inspire Indonesia in improving environmental quality.


text:
Russia and Central Asia (1)
(-) Italy (6)
Location Surveillance Technology (2)
Public-Private surveillance partnerships (1)
(-) Government Hacking (6)
Privacy International's Analysis Of The Italian Hacking Reform, Under DDL Orlando
Privacy International generally opposes hacking as a tool for surveillance. While the DDL Orlando is an opportunity to fill the current legislative gap in the use of hacking for investigative purposes, PI believes that it falls short of the requirements of existing international human rights law.
Content type: Press release
Privacy International And The Italian Coalition For Civil Liberties And Rights Call To Amend DDL Orlando On Hacking
On 15 March 2017, the Italian Senate voted on a Bill, put forward by Justice Minister Andrea Orlando, that will reform the criminal justice system, including amending the Code of Criminal Procedure. Among the many provisions contained in DDL Orlando, currently pending approval by the Italian House of Representatives, the Government is mandated to regulate, via a legislative decree, the utilisation of malware (commonly referred to as 'Trojans' in Italian discourse) to engage hacking for criminal…
Joint Submission on the Right to Privacy in Italy, Human Rights Committee, 119th Session
Privacy International and the Italian Coalition for Civil Liberties' Joint Submission in Consideration of the Sixth Periodic Report of Italy Human Rights Committee 119th Session (6-29 March 2017). The submission brings to the attention of the Committee the ongoing concern with Italian security agencies' hacking capabilities and intelligence sharing arrangement, with Italian data retention procedures, and its export control regime as it relates to its robust private surveillance technologies…
Italy's Supreme Court decision limits hacking powers and applies safeguards
Privacy International notes a recent ruling issued by Italy's Supreme Court (Corte di Cassazione) that addresses the need to limit government hacking powers for surveillance purposes and articulates required safeguards when hacking is conducted as part of a criminal investigation. The ruling addresses the appeals of several individuals involved in a case of corruption; the appeals challenge irregularities in the collection of data as part of the criminal investigation, which resulted in the…
Hacking Team spyware sold to US DEA, and US Army
Investigations by Privacy International in co-operation with VICE Motherboard, reveal that Hacking Team has sold its Remote Control System to the US Drug Enforcement Agency and US military via a front company based in the US. The investigation catalogues what is known about Hacking Team's intrusive spyware that can remotely switch on the microphone on mobile phones, activate webcams, as well as modify and/or extract data from the computer or phone itself. Whether the export was corrected…
Briefing For The Italian Government On Hacking Team's Surveillance Exports
Privacy International briefing for the Italian Government on Hacking Team's surveillance exports

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Dr Sunitha Srinivas is one of the leading Dentist in Mathikere, Bangalore with years of experience in this field. You can consult with Dr Sunitha Srinivas at Sri Dental Clinic. India Dental World helps you book an online appointment with Dr Sunitha Srinivas. Consult with your dentist today and get a healthy smile!


For those users who don' t know much about Cydia Basically, Cydia is a third- party application its a best available alternative to Apple' s App Store but only for " Jailbroken iOS Devices". List of apps/ tweaks you can acquire with iNoJB: no jb ios 10 cydia, inocydia, cydia ios, cydia no computer, cydia no jailbreak, cydia no jailbreak jailbreak cydia.
The 50 Best Cydia Apps for iPad October 5 iPad Applications No matter how ingenious of a device Apple makes, iOS device, be it a MacBook, iMac there is always scope for improvement. Houdini semi jailbreak and zJailbreak works as Jailbreak alternative for iOS 10. Feb 12, · The cost?
Cydia applications help you upgrade your phone and use it to its optimum capacity. ) distributed through Apple' s online stores: iTunes Store and iBooks Store. If you' re still new to the jailbreak community probably you may have no idea about the terms like jailbreaking Cydia download. Install Cydia iPod Touch devices.
Best apps for cydia ipod touch. Best Cydia Apps for iPod Touch This is actually how a person can delete Cydia apps from your iPod. For iOS devices remove Cydia installer, this helps to install Cydia install third- party apps by sideloading IPA files. Jun 04, · The popular Redsn0w jailbreak utility has been updated to bring untethered jailbreaks to iOS 5.
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Jailbreaking is the process of removing restrictions in iOS allow root access to the iOS file system so that it can run software that has not. 12b1, the tool supports the following hardware on 5. If you are searching for some information related to these apps, the following article will prove to be a technologically intelligent read.
99 is available in Cydia as we speak. Think of Apple' s official App Store so this is similar to the app store that means you can download apps games from the Cydia unes Connect is a service developed by Apple Inc.
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Earlier iTunes Connect was also used for uploading , Mac App Store, managing applications on the App Store , but in June Apple introduced App Store Connect as. 1 on most iDevices. Best apps for cydia ipod touch. Well, it comes in at a rather hefty $ 4. Not only is the tool extremely easy to use, but it is lightning fast. Then again it works well is probably the best solution for Bluetooth sharing. In this article we have compiled a list of the best Cydia sources repos for iOS 11.
Discover the innovative world of Apple entertainment, Mac, plus explore accessories, Apple TV, Apple Watch, shop everything iPhone, iPad expert device support. The following article will help you turn your media device into an iPhone. Oct 22 · Well folks, just a couple hours ago the Spirit jailbreaking tool was released it is truly one extraordinary tool.
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Check out these tutorials and resources to help you master these devices. Top 10 Convicts Who Freaked Out After Given A Life Sentence - Duration: 6: 56. Simply, Cydia installer is a free third party app installer which developed for the iOS devices by Saurik.
You can rock your media player with some of the best Cydia apps. Add any of the below URLs as a source in Installer. Cydia demo is the best Cydia download simulator at the moment. Cydia Impactor is an essential software for both iOS and Android devices. 1 Electra Jailbreak that you can add to your jailbroken iPhone or iPad. 1 running iPhone 7 / 7plus device jailbreak only. In this section you will find the best Cydia sources / repositories and the best Installer 4.
Easy how- to videos and instructions walk you through exactly what to do. App source URLs for installing native apps on your iPhone or iPod touch.
Here I' m share Best jailbreak apps; so many jailbreak users can get easily best apps for its idevice. Aug 05 iPad , · Here are some of the best IPA download sites that will help you install paid iOS apps for free on your jailbroken iPhone iPod Touch. App tweaks, Cydia , themes, discover new mods, apps that you can download install.
We break down the all- time best Cydia apps for your jailbroken iPhone iPad iPod touch. 1: iPhone 3GS iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPad, iPad 2, iPad 3 iPod touch. It consists of thousands of cool Apps & tools that are not available in Apple App Store.
Cydia Guru is the best jailbreak tool ever that allows users to Cydia download on iPhone iPod iPad running any iOS version. What is Jailbreaking? It literally takes just under 30 seconds to jailbreak any iDevice ( iPod Touch/ iPhone/ iPad) running Cydia Pro – the easiest the only way to download Cydia to your iPhone, iPad iPod touch devices. Top 10 Best Cydia AppsModsTweaks of ALL TIME iPhone iPod Touch iPad JanuaryUpdate by Rayeki.
May 11, · How to Cydia download with Cydia demo! Mar 15 · Financial Express - A complete Up- to- date source for business news, world business news, finance news, stock market news stock market. As a iPod user, Cydia is the must have app for your device.


On April 29th, the Coalition for National Science Funding (CNSF), an alliance of more than 140 professional organizations, universities, and businesses, held their 21st Annual Capitol Hill Exhibition. CNSF supports the goal of increasing the Federal investment in the National Science Foundation's research and education programs, and the exhibition itself is a great way to show members of Congress and their staff what research the American people have funded.
This year the Computing Research Association, a member of CNSF, sponsored three students--two Ph.D. candidates and a defended Ph.D. candidate--from Johns Hopkins University to come to Washington to demonstrate their work. Kelleher Guerin (the defended Ph.D. candidate) and Amanda Edwards demonstrated their collaborative robot for manufacturing, called CoSTAR; while Colin Lea demonstrated a virtual reality interface that can be used to more easily program robots by novice, non-technical users. All three young researchers are advised by Greg Hager, professor and chair of the Department of Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University and Chair of the Computing Community Consortium; Hager was also in attendance at the event and fielded questions.
Read the full article on the CRA's Policy Blog.


Wellingborough Splash Park is not as big as the Leighton Buzzard Splash Park nor does as it have a large playground. But it is free to visit and free to park. It's set next to the River Nene at the Embankment and it's great fun to watch the boats, take a picnic and go for a walk. There are loos, baby change facilities and a couple of food vans there. It's about 35 minutes to drive from MK (use the postcode NN8 1LD) so if you want to make a full day of it whilst you're out that way then Irchester Country Park is literally a couple of minutes away. Stanwick Lakes and Sywell Country Park aren't too far either. You can see all of the places on my map of everywhere that we've visited.
Click this link for opening days and times for the Wellingborough Splash Park in 2018. It is subject to good weather though so bear that in mind before travelling.


Average size cut chicken with skin, without bones suitable for curry or gravy.
Chicken boneless pieces cut into very small pieces suitable for elderly and kids.
Average size cut mutton with skin, without bones suitable for curry or gravy.
Mutton boneless pieces cut into very small pieces suitable for elderly and kids.


text:
namespace HomeCloud.Api.Http
{
	#region Usings

	using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc;

	using ControllerBase = HomeCloud.Api.Mvc.ControllerBase;

	#endregion

	/// <summary>
	/// Implements a contract that represents the result of <see cref="HTTP DELETE"/> method.
	/// </summary>
	/// <seealso cref="HomeCloud.Api.Http.HttpMethodResult" />
	public sealed class HttpDeleteResult : HttpMethodResult
	{
		#region Constructors

		/// <summary>
		/// Initializes a new instance of the <see cref="HttpDeleteResult"/> class.
		/// </summary>
		/// <param name="controller">The controller.</param>
		public HttpDeleteResult(ControllerBase controller)
			: base(controller)
		{
		}

		#endregion

		#region HttpMethodResult Implementations

		/// <summary>
		/// Returns the <see cref="IActionResult" /> that represents the current <see cref="HTTP" /> method.
		/// </summary>
		/// <returns>
		/// The instance of <see cref="IActionResult" />.
		/// </returns>
		public override IActionResult ToActionResult()
		{
			return this.HandleError() ?? this.Controller.NoContent();
		}

		#endregion
	}
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
29 years of helping you with your finances
Absolute return fees soar
Ruth Emery
As the absolute return sector swells in size, concern is growing over the high fees levied by the funds.
In the past few months, Legal & General, Gartmore and AEGON have unveiled funds in this space, and a long list of fund management groups, including Aviva Investors, Old Mutual Asset Managers and Deutsche Bank, are planning to launch absolute return products later this year.
There has been explosive growth in the number of absolute return funds available to private investors: three years ago there were just six, now there are 27.
The concept seems attractive: to always deliver a positive return, so that even when markets look volatile, your investments won't take a tumble. This is often achieved by shorting stocks. The catch is that in a bull market a fund will likely underperform the relevant index.
However, some funds are failing to consistently deliver a positive return and many charge hefty performance fees. In February, the average return for an absolute return fund was 0.1%, while the top fund delivered 2.8%. This means some posted negative returns.
The biggest irritation for many IFAs though is the performance fee. Legal & General's two new funds and AEGON's UK Equity Absolute Return fund have a 20% performance fee on top of initial and annual charges.
Jupiter's popular Absolute Return fund, which launched in December, has a 15% performance fee. The hurdle for these fees is typically the Bank of England base rate or LIBOR.
"The performance fee is a nice income generator for fund management firms," says Patrick Connolly, head of communications at AWD Group.
He adds: "Investors will ask why they are paying the high price if the market shoots up and the fund lags the market. There should be a fee reduction for underperformance."
Martin Bamford, managing director of IFA firm Informed Choice, agrees. "With interest rates so low, this is not a particularly high hurdle for fund managers to cross before they get paid even more of the returns from the fund.
"As with all performance fees, there is no return of fees to the client when the fund performs badly," he says.
It's not just advisers who find the fees hard to stomach. Schroders, which does not run any absolute return funds, agrees that some of its competitors charge "extortionate fees".
Robin Stoakley, head of UK retail, says: "If a fund has a target of 6 to 12% return a year, and it delivers 12%, the total expense ratio could hit 3%. This means a quarter of the return is taken up by fees."
He says part of the reason fees are high is because managers are used to running hedge funds "with very fat fees". Stoakley hopes fees will come down.
Richard Pursglove, head of UK retail at Gartmore, admits that fees are higher than long-only equity funds, but says one of the reasons is because only a few mangers can run such mandates.
According to Pursglove, absolute return funds are "on the same journey that corporate bond funds have been on over the past 10 years". He believes the absolute return space will expand just as the corporate bond fund sector has.
Time will tell how the sector evolves. Research by AXA shows that more than 50% of IFAs expect their clients to invest in absolute return funds this year. However, Bamford has seen little interest from investors and says last year only one client asked about absolute return.
This article was originally published in Money Observer - Moneywise's sister publication - in April 2010
Are absolute return fund managers up to the job?
Ask virtually any investor and they will say that their main aim is to maintain their capital. Traditionally, however, most…
The rise of a sector that promises returns in any market
The absolute return sector was only formed in April 2008, but its success has helped it pull in a lot of new money and an…
Absolute return in name not nature?
An absolute guaranteed success?
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text:
Musk Blasts Claims That Reinstating Banned Twitter Accounts Puts 'Lives At Risk'
Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Twitter's new boss Elon Musk took a swipe at a mainstream media report that cited activists claiming lives were being put at risk by Musk's decision to reinstate a number of banned Twitter accounts, including that of former President Donald Trump.
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk arrives on the red carpet for the Axel Springer media award in Berlin on Dec. 1, 2020. (Hannibal Hanschke/Pool Photo via AP)
"Much Ado About Nothing," Musk said in a tweet Friday, responding to left-leaning Axios' report that carried the caption: "Activists warn lives at risk over Elon Musk's amnesty plans for suspended Twitter accounts."
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 25, 2022
Musk on Thursday announced a "general amnesty" for some suspended Twitter accounts, provided that the accounts weren't engaging in "egregious spam" or hadn't broken the law.
"The people have spoken," Musk wrote on Twitter in response to a poll that showed the vast majority of his followers on the platform voting in favor of a "general amnesty" for banned accounts.
"Amnesty begins next week. Vox Populi, Vox Dei," he added, which translates as "the voice of the people, the voice of God" in Latin.
That came several days after Musk ran a poll asking his Twitter followers to weigh in on whether Trump's suspended account should be reinstated, with most voting in favor.
"The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated. Vox Populi, Vox Dei," Musk said in a post.
But Musk's decision to reinstate suspended accounts has fired up critics who see unfettered speech as a danger.
Axios, a left-leaning media outlet, ran a story in response to Musk's pledge to restore suspended accounts, sharing it on Twitter with the caption: "Activists warn lives at risk over Elon Musk's amnesty plans for suspended Twitter accounts."
The report cited a number of individuals and organizations who had a critical take on Musk's banned account reinstatement.
One of the individuals Axios cited was Alejandra Caraballo, clinical instructor at Harvard Law's cyberlaw clinic, who told The Washington Post that for marginalized communities, the amnesty was "existentially dangerous."
"It's like opening the gates of hell in terms of the havoc it will cause," Caraballo said, adding that "People who engaged in direct targeted harassment can come back and engage in doxing, targeted harassment, vicious bullying, calls for violence, celebration of violence."
She added that both Apple and Google should consider removing Twitter from the respective app store offerings.
The report also cited another opponent of Musks's banned account reinstatement, Imran Ahmed, CEO of campaign group the Center for Countering Digital Hate.
"Superspreaders of hate, abuse, and harassment will be the only people to benefit from this latest decision by Twitter," Axios cited Ahmed as saying, via the Guardian.
Musk's characterization of the claims in Axios' report as little more than a tempest in a teacup drew a range of reactions from Twitter users, both critical and sympathetic.
'Not Freedom of Reach'
When Musk took over Twitter at the end of October, he vowed to dial down the previous management's restrictions on free speech on the platform while pledging to maintain curbs on illegal activity and reduce the number of bots.
He also announced earlier in November that Twitter's new policy is "freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach," adding that Twitter wouldn't demonetize and not promote "hate/negative tweets."
"You won't find the tweet unless you specifically seek it out, which is no different from rest of Internet," Musk said.
Following Musk's takeover at the end of October, there was a spike in "hate speech impressions" on the platform, Musk acknowledged in a tweet on Thursday.
But those impressions have since dropped to levels lower than before the surge in negative posts, he added.
Sun, 11/27/2022 – 11:30
← (READ) CDC's new guidance for prescribing opioids and criticism of it
Power Outside The Matrix: What It Means →
FDA Wants 55 Years To Release Covid Jab Reaction Data
I Read Biden's Build Back Better Plan and…Oh, My Gawd
It "Was Not Made To Be Housing" – NYC Mayor Unveils Crackdown On Homeless "Cancerous Sore" On Subway System


text:
Stay?
Yes. Stay.
And if you think that's only because we want you to "pay and pray" while leaving the real work of missions to religious professionals, think again. We want you to stay and do the same thing we're doing: make disciples.
The 925 Window
Looking for the 10-40 window? Grab a globe. But the 925 window? Check your schedule.
The "9 to 5" window is your daily opportunity to make disciples, wherever life happens for you. Whether you're selling stocks or stocking shelves, where you are now is your divinely appointed place to live and love like Jesus.
And that artificial line between "work" and "ministry"? Outta there.
"When we ask people to abandon their God-given skills and passions to become a full-time religious worker — or when we tell those people to keep doing what they're doing here in North America and just send money — we are doing ourselves and the lost world a great disservice."
– Dale Losch, president of Crossworld and author of A Better Way
Theology of Work
What's your mindset on Monday mornings?
"God, I'm going to worship You and serve You and my neighbor by going to work. Show me how to work creatively, display You well, and make disciples where You have called me to work."
For centuries, the Church has viewed pastoral and missionary work as being the most spiritual way of serving God and others, with "full-time ministry" being an elite category. But all God's people are full-time disciples of Jesus, wherever they live and work.
But how do we do that? How do we live with a seamless connection between Sunday values and Monday jobs? Explore this theology of work as you bring the gospel into every aspect of your life.
He's Staying: read Doug's story. He's Staying: read Doug's story.
She's staying: read Fawn's story. She's staying: read Fawn's story.


connections between verification and synthesis.
Submission to this special issue is completely open and not limited to participants of the SYNT 2014 workshop. We expect original articles (typically 15-30 pages), which present high-quality contributions that have not been previously published in a journal and are not concurrently submitted to any other peer reviewed venue. All submissions should include some theoretical contribution to the area of synthesis. Extended versions of contributions previously published in proceedings need to contain significant new material and should be accompanied by a short description of the extension.
The submission system will open in January 2015 (see http://www.springer.com/computer/theoretical+computer+science/journal/236 and click on "Submit Online" then).


When a tooth is hopelessly damaged, the best replacement option is usually a dental implant in conjunction with a porcelain crown. This solution both looks and functions like a natural tooth.
This procedure normally includes several visits to the dentist. You should expect to be able to work the day after having the implant installed.
The course of treatment described here is one of several options available. Consult Dr. Barbash to find out what the best solution is for you, given your specific condition.


text:
World's 3rd Richest Man Denies Involvement in Belgian Crypto Firm
French billionaire Bernard Arnault has denied reports that he was involved in a Belgium-based cryptocurrency trading firm.
Bernard Arnault, the world's third richest man, denied reports that he was involved with a cryptocurrency trading firm in Belgium
Bernard Arnault, the world's third richest man, has denied his involvement in setting up a new Belgian crypto trading company Abesix Belgique.
Arnault was reported to be a co-founder of Abesix by Belgian business publication De Tijd on Aug. 28. Subsequently after the publication of the article, De Tijd posted an update that Arnault has formally denied the report.
According to De Tijd, Abesix would trade in six major cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ether (ETH), XRP, Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin (LTC) and Dogecoin (DOGE).
According to information acquired by De Tijd, young Brussels entrepreneur Emmanuel Wouters is also involved in the founding of Abesix. Abesix itself declined to disclose more information on the matter to De Tijd.
LVMH is not new to blockchain
Arnault, 70, whose estimated net worth reportedly accounts for $96.6 billion at press time, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, is CEO of the world's largest luxury-goods company Louis Vuitton SE, commonly referred to as LVMH.
France's richest man is not new to blockchain technology though. As first reported in March 2019, LVMH teamed up with major blockchain firm ConsenSys and Microsoft Azure to develop a blockchain platform for tracking its products. The new blockchain product, Aura, is scheduled to initially go live with two major LVMH subsidiaries, Louis Vuitton and Parfums Christian Dior.
#Bill Gates
Why Centralized Exchanges Are Decentralizing
BTC Could Hit $10K, 'Stay Away from North Korea,' Akon City: Hodler's Digest, Jan. 13–19