![]() ![]() ![]() Language allows us to communicate within society, but it also tells us a lot about the society in which it is used. If you want to get all Sherlock Holmes with a language, you can discover 1) what that language says about a culture's social interactions, and 2) how its speakers use language to describe and understand the world. It may not seem like much in our 140-character world, but Saussure recognized the important cultural meaning of words. It's a truth pretty much universally acknowledged that Saussure is the founder of twentieth-century linguistics, more specifically known as Structural Linguistics. It's all in them words, so get out your toolkit and start taking apart any and every metaphor, symbol, narrative device, and figure of speech that comes your way. ![]() According to Saussure, if you're interested in understanding a culture, you have to start with that culture's language. Saussure and his peeps held the strong conviction that language forms the way we think, and that, in turn, in turn influences culture. ![]() We'll get into the hairy details later, but for now, it helps to know that semiotics studies the social function of language-language as it is spoken by real, live people. Ever heard of words? Well, then you're already interested in the work of Switzerland's very own Ferdinand de Saussure, the granddaddy of linguistics (the science of language) and semiotics (the "science of signs," in case you aren't fluent in Greek). ![]()
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5/21/2023 0 Comments These hollow bonds![]() ![]() “An enchanting story of magic, adventure, and the lengths we will go to for the ones we love. I highly recommend and am in dire need for the next book!" - Carrie Ann Ryan, NYT Bestselling Author of the Elements of Five Series Complete with twisted fae, love triangles that make my heart pound, and exceptional world building, These Hollow Vows is a must read for fans of Sarah J Maas and Jennifer L Armentrout. "Lexi Ryan wrote a beautifully broken and epic fantasy that completely blew me way. Prepare to fall for your newest book boyfriend.” - Lisa Maxwell, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Magician Brie is a smart, capable heroine readers will love to root for in a dazzling new world filled with magic and romance. ![]() “A sexy new take on fae fantasy, THESE HOLLOW VOWS swept me away from the very first page and left me breathless and impatient for the next installment. With two very different love interests, lots of heated moments, and a spectacular ending, this is the fantasy romance I have been craving” - Stephanie Garber, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Caraval series ![]() These Hollow Vows is a lot like the world of Faerie – seductive, enthralling, and dangerous. ![]() Praise for These Hollow Vows “Sexy, surprising, and full of secrets. ![]() 5/21/2023 0 Comments Silberman autism![]() ![]() I’m so impressed by the autistic self-advocates who have taken the lead in many grassroots efforts worldwide. Much progress has been made toward these goals since the book came out, but there’s still a long way to go. ![]() Three years after the publication of NeuroTribes, I’m deeply grateful to readers all over the world who took its message of honoring neurodiversity and fighting for dignity, autonomy, and full inclusion for people with cognitive disabilities to heart. I’m honored to be working with Megan and Suzanne on The Taste of Salt. I also have a new literary agent, Suzanne Gluck of William Morris Endeavor, who has represented some of my favorite writers, including the late neurologist/author Oliver Sacks, who wrote the introduction to NeuroTribes. ![]() The book will be published in 2022 (or so) by Avery/Penguin Random House, and I’m happy to say that I’ll be working with Megan Newman, the astute and insightful editor who whipped NeuroTribes into shape. ![]() I’m happy to announce that I’m hard at work on my next book, The Taste of Salt, which will tell the human stories behind one of the most impressive, but little-known, medical successes of our time: the transformation of cystic fibrosis from an inevitably fatal childhood disease to a chronic and manageable condition of adulthood – a goal that will be within reach in the coming years. ![]() ![]() McNamara memorandum for Kennedy, “Military Planning for a Possible Berlin Crisis,”, NSA ĭepartment of Defense, Annual Report for Fiscal Year 1961 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1962), pp. Lawrence Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1981), pp. Kennedy, 1961 (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office (GPO), 1962), p. Kennedy, “Special Message to the Congress on the Defense Budget,” 28 March 1961, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, John F. Sorensen, Kennedy (New York: Harper and Row, 1965), p. Stromseth, The Origins of Flexible Response: NATO’s Debate over Strategy in the 1960s (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1988), pp. Kennedy, The Strategy of Peace (New York: Harper and Row, 1960), p. ![]() Beschloss, The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1960–1963 (New York: Edward Burlingame, 1991), p. Howard Trivers, Three Crises in American Foreign Affairs and a Continuing Revolution (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1972), pp. Kennedy (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1991), p. Paul Nitze, From Hiroshima to Glasnost (New York: Grove, 1989), p. ![]() ![]() Running her own private investigation agency, Maisie has plenty of work coming in and is busy with current enquiries when she is approached at her home address by a lady known as Dr Francesca Thomas who explains that she wants to employ Maisie and her firm to try to prevent a murder from happening. When Maisie stumbles on the deaths of refugees who may have been more than ordinary people, she is drawn into an investigation that requires all her insight and strength. One of those changes can be seen in the floods of refugees that are arriving in Britain, desperate for sanctuary from the approaching storm of war. Returned from a dangerous mission onto enemy soil and having encountered an old enemy and the Fuhrer himself along the way, Maisie Dobbs is fully aware of the gravity of the current situation and how her world is on the cusp of great change. ![]() (Read more of Terry's reviews for Euro Crime here.)īritain is at war. In This Grave Hour by Jacqueline Winspear, May 2017, 350 pages, Allison and Busby, ISBN: 0749021802 ![]() 5/21/2023 0 Comments The woman in black susan hill book![]() The master of the ghost story, the Cambridge don MR James, used to read his latest compositions out loud to friends before publishing them. Some of the best ghost stories – The Turn of the Screw is the most famous example – begin with this situation: a person telling a story to a group of rapt listeners. For the classic ghost story is a performance. Naturally they begin to tell ghost stories: Christmas is the time for this, when the year is darkest and family or friends are gathered together to be entertained. When the novella opens, he is a man in late middle age, surrounded by adult stepchildren at Christmas. Arthur Kipps is giving us a tale that he is condemned by his own memories to tell. ![]() But when it comes to hauntings this traditional description is fitting. Literary critics rarely use this last term, preferring to talk of the "narrator". T his is a ghost story, so we start with the storyteller. ![]() 5/21/2023 0 Comments The perfume collector reviews![]() I will admit that it was the perfume aspect of the novel that persuaded me to read the book. Ever since I was quite young, I have collected perfume bottles and scents. However, there was one aspect of The Perfume Collector that I found unable to resist: perfume. It just seems as if we are inundated with those these days. ![]() Anything, anything other than a dual narrative. I wanted flash fiction, meta fiction, flashback, flash forward. I wanted a coming-of-age tale in which the protagonist was unreliable. ![]() I wanted to read a story in which the narrator was the setting of the story. Your dull dual narrators yearning to break free…” If it had been closer to Halloween, I would have dressed up like the Statue of Liberty, torch and all, shouting my own version of the Emma Lazarus poem: I read the description and sighed deeply. It was with quite a bit of reluctance that I picked up The Perfume Collector. ![]() The Perfume Collector by Kathleen Tessaro (Harper 464 pages $24.99). ![]() 5/21/2023 0 Comments The marrow thieves pages![]() ![]() ![]() Millions of people have lost their lives, and those who remain have endured trauma that has led to their inability to dream - with the exception of North America’s Indigenous peoples, who carry dreams in webs woven into their bone marrow. Cities have crumbled from the coastlines, “breaking off like crust,” and hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis have wiped out entire communities. In the latest YA novel by Métis writer and editor Cherie Dimaline, the world has been ravaged by global warming. ![]() 5/20/2023 0 Comments Indelicacy amina cain review![]() Perhaps a more drastic solution is necessary? ![]() Not only has she taken up different forms of time-consuming labor-social and erotic-but she is now, however passively, forcing other women to clean up after her. She escapes her lot by marrying a rich man sympathetic to her "hobby," but having gained a husband, a house, high society, and a maid, she finds that her new life of privilege is no less constrained. ![]() She dreams of having the liberty to explore them in writing, and so must find a way to win herself the security and time to use her mind. In "a strangely ageless world somewhere between Emily Dickinson and David Lynch" (Blake Butler), a cleaning woman at a museum of art nurtures aspirations to do more than simply dust the paintings that surround her. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (February 2020)Ī ghostly feminist fable about finding the freedom to live as one desires ![]() 5/20/2023 0 Comments Plated prisoner glow![]() ![]() ![]() When the Fifth King asks for a night with her, Midas agrees on the condition he send his army to Fourth Kingdom to meet with Sixth's army and strike. Auren is extremely lonely in the beginning, musing about the likelihood of turning solid gold like a bird named Coin in the atrium.ĭuring the visit of the king from the Fifth Kingdom (of whom, Midas is allies with), Auren is used to flaunt Midas' power and wealth, parading around each expansion of her cage. However, Auren is kept in a cage that extends the entire length of the top floor of the castle in Highbell. She is considered his "favored saddle" out of his harem. She is living in Sixth Kingdom with King Midas, who found her ten years prior. She meets Midas and spends the next 10 years with him in a gilded cage and castle in the frozen mountains of Sixth Kingdom.Īuren is the main character and sole POV of this book (minus one chapter at the end). She escapes on a ship to Second Kingdom, wandering the desert until her power developed. ![]() She was sold to a flesh trader in Derfort Harbor, forced to beg and steal for 10 years until she was forced to be a street-saddle. She tried to escape with the other children though she was captured and taken to Orea. Though one fateful evening there was a raid. For the first five years of Auren's life, she spent it in Annwyn with her father and mother. ![]() |