(Barkley, get it? Reason alone not to put a golden in my novels. Subaru even put a golden named Auggie behind the wheel with his family of goldens in “The Barkleys” ads. The world of advertising knows the power of the golden: Duke stars in the Bush’s Beans commercial, Cooper in Google’s “Teach a Dog New Tricks” commercial, and Scout in WeatherTech’s 2019 Superbowl commercial. A golden retriever named Finley holds the Guinness Book World Record for most tennis balls held in the mouth by a dog Charlie, a golden in Australia, holds the record for the loudest bark, at 113.1 decibels. Easy to train, they make fine search-and-rescue dogs as well as service dogs. Cheerful, loyal, gentle canines who’d rather cuddle your cat than chase it. From to Air Bud and Golden Winter to Homeward Bound and Marley & Me, the media are gaga about goldens. Only Labrador retrievers and German shepherds are more popular-and you wouldn’t know that by looking at our entertainment, as goldens predominate on TV and film and in books. Goldens are one of America’s favorite dogs, ranking #3 in popularity in the AKC’s list of 195 breeds. Why not? Because everyone writes about golden retrievers.
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This novel at first reads like a sweeping, smartly written biography of an early 20th-century financial titan and the upper-crust society he occupies-a bit like “Downton Abbey,” but rather than an upstairs-downstairs depiction of affairs, this story is solely about the upstairs set. To which he replied: “I’m a guy who read ‘War and Peace’ by the pool.” I can relate to Morrissey last time my toes were in the sand, I had an experimental novel by a 19th-century Brazilian writer in hand, “The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas. “You must be the first person in history to take Henry James to the beach,” author Marlon James said to his editor, Jake Morrissey, on a literary podcast. Whether you want a frothy romance, pulpy thriller, weighty biography, no-holds-barred memoir or a collection of literary short stories, we’re not here to pass judgment. Let’s reclaim the idea of beach reads, shall we? If you read it on a beach, it’s a beach read. Yes, sometimes beach reads get a bad rap: They’re too juicy, too plot-focused, too pedestrian, too predictable. Whether you’re traveling to a picturesque resort or strolling to your local beachfront, it’s nice to have some mesmerizing reading material. Summer is nearly upon us, and with it warmth, sun and that sandy old haunt, the beach. And yet, they cannot stop what feels so incredibly right. They know their relationship is wrong and cannot possibly continue. Their clandestine romance quickly blooms into deep, desperate love. So close, in fact, that they have fallen in love. And the stress of their lives-and the way they understand each other so completely-has also brought them closer than two siblings would ordinarily be. As de facto parents to the little ones, Lochan and Maya have had to grow up fast. Together they have stepped in for their alcoholic, wayward mother to take care of their three younger siblings. Seventeen-year-old Lochan and sixteen-year-old Maya have always felt more like friends than siblings. Perfect for readers who enjoyed Flowers in the Attic, this is a heartbreaking and shocking novel about siblings Lochan and Maya, their tumultuous home life, and the clandestine, and taboo, relationship they form to get through it. In fact, I nearly had my very first literary argument over these books. I know I read some of the books in this series when I was in the eight to ten-year-old age range. Maud once stated that the three couldn’t have been closer if they’d been sisters. Maud, Bick, and Midge became lifelong friends. Tib’s character was based on another playmate, Marjorie (Midge) Gerlach, who lived nearby in a large house designed by her architect father. Among its many children was a girl Maud’s age, Frances, nicknamed Bick, who was to be Maud’s best friend and the model for Tacy Kelly. Shortly before Maud’s fifth birthday a “large merry Irish family" moved into the house directly across the street. When Maud was a few months old, the Hart family moved two blocks up the street to 333 Center. The street, Center Street, dead-ended at one of the town’s many hills. Maud’s birthplace was a small house on a hilly residential street several blocks above Mankato’s center business district. “That dear family" was the model for the fictional Ray family. Her sister, Kathleen, was three years older, and her other sister, Helen, was six years younger. She was the middle of three children born to Thomas and Stella (Palmer) Hart. Maud Hart Lovelace was born on April 25, 1892, in Mankato, Minnesota. Join Taako the elf wizard, Merle the dwarf cleric, and Magnus the human warrior for an adventure they are poorly equipped to handle AT BEST, guided ("guided") by their snarky DM, in a graphic novel that, like the smash-hit podcast it's based on, will tickle your funny bone, tug your heartstrings, and probably pants you if you give it half a chance. MARVEL! At the sheer metafictional chutzpah of a graphic novel based on a story created in a podcast where three dudes and their dad play a tabletop role playing game in real time! READ! Their journey from small-time bodyguards to world-class artifact hunters! SEE! The illustrated exploits of three lovable dummies set loose in a classic fantasy adventure! The copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone that sold for $88,140 in 2023 was a former library book that had been withdrawn and read by library patrons 27 times. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, with beautiful full-colour illustrations and eight interactive paper-engineered elements featuring the Whomping Willow, the Weasleys' Burrow and more. Rowlings classic series take you back to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Paperback first editions of the Philosopher's Stone are also quite scarce and attract five-figure price-tags even though they are often in poor condition. The first editions of the deluxe edition from 1999 are also desirable with prices from $450 to $2,500. Prices for Australian first editions vary between $200 and $2,000. The Harry Potter series is a beloved classic, and the 20th anniversary edition is definitely a collectors item. Prices on AbeBooks vary from $40,000 to $120,000.Ī handful of advance proof copies are available from $7,500 to $13,500. The main characteristics of a 1997 first edition first printing are a print line that reads "10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1" and the crediting of "Joanne Rowling" and not J.K. Only 500 were published and 300 went to libraries. If you find one in the attic, you've hit the jackpot. 8 oz Coke Classic filled 25th Anniversary 10 oz Dr. Hardcover first edition, first printings of the 1997 book Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, have become the 'Holy Grail' for Potter collectors. HARRY POTTER and the CHAMBER OF SECRETS Coca-Cola Classic Coke Glass Bottle 8. I do wonder though if I would have seen the presented dystopic elements all that clearly in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs if I had read this story as a child (probably not). Now I have always enjoyed stories about food getting out of control, and the idea of an El Dorado like food utopia ending up as a dystopia really resonates with me, both tickling my funny bone and also of course making me think a bit. There is thus a strong attitude featured in folklore that free and magical food (and that one does not have to do much in order to receive or eat it) is not only often too good to be true, but that it can easily have adverse effects if one is unable or in some cases, unwilling to control and master it. And in my humble opinion, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs actually seems to combine two European folklore traditions, the legend of the Land of Cockaigne, the so-called Schlaraffenland, a utopian land of milk and honey, where residents do not have to work and where food is not only readily available, but where fish, already cooked, swim in the rivers, and the houses are made of gingerbread and candies, and indeed the many folklore stories presenting uncontrollable cooking and food (often with magic pots that continue cooking porridge etc. While Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is of course first and foremost simply a fun romp, both Judi Barret’s narrative and Ron Barrett’s accompanying artwork also manage to convey rather vividly how food can become a rather massive problem when it is uncontrollable or uncontrolled. But time itself is her enemy, and every second brings her one step closer to disaster. Because this time, it will destroy her and everything she holds dear.Ĭaught in a cat-and-mouse game of lies, betrayal, and unseen foes, Matilda must fight to save the world from utter destruction. The third installment of Monks House Immortal series (after Infinity Bell) finds many familiar faces taking on vastly different roles, forcing heroine. On the run, she must find a way to stop the repeat of the ancient time experiment that gifted her and the other galvanized with immortality. Matilda’s fight to protect the people she loves triggered a chaotic war between the Houses and shattered the world’s peace. And normal people don’t know that they’re going to die in a few days. Normal people’s bodies don’t hold the secret to immortality-something the powerful Houses will kill to possess. Normal people aren’t stitched together, inhumanly strong, and ageless, as she and the other galvanized are. But now, the treaty between them has been broken, and no one-not even the immortal galvanized-is safe. Return to national bestselling author Devon Monk's heartpounding House Immortal series, where eleven powerful Houses control the world and all its resources. This captivating story was praised as "a thrilling, high-stakes saga of self-discovery and forbidden love" by Ransom Riggs, bestselling author of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. The Shatter Me series is perfect for fans who crave action-packed young adult novels with tantalizing romance like Divergent and The Hunger Games. Reveal Me brings readers back to the Shatter Me world one last time before the final novel installment in the series hits shelves in 2020. Things get even more interesting when an unexpected person from Omega Point's past surfaces. Tahereh Mafi is the National Book Award nominated and New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of An Emotion of Great Delight, the This Woven Kingdom series, the Shatter Me series, A Very Large Expanse of Sea, Whichwood, and Furthermore. In Shadow Me, Juliette is still reeling from Warner's betrayal, and Kenji is trying to balance his friendship with her with his responsibilities as a leader of the resistance against the Reestablishment. Summary: Calling all fans of Tahereh Mafi's New York Times bestselling Shatter Me series! This gorgeous paperback bind-up includes Shadow Me and Reveal Me, the third and fourth novellas in the series, both in print for the first time ever. He can fight with any weapon, he can use herbs to heal, he can break into even the most heavily-guarded banks, he knows every fact in history, he knows all the rules of high society and can act more noble than the nobility. This makes for a comical scenario because anytime someone uses the word “friends” Reskin thinks, “Another one? But how will I protect this friend when my other friends are traveling in a different direction?” He thinks his higher ups assigned him a network of friends and that his purpose in life is to find and protect them. When he comes across a girl who casually uses the word “friends” to describe the two of them, he immediately makes it his top priority to protect her and her traveling companion. This book grabbed my interest when Reskin’s delirious, dying master croaked out that the most important rule for him to follow was to “protect and honor your friends” when he was supposed to say “your king.” All of a sudden the cliche fantasy story of a hero trained from birth to become a killing machine and be sent out on a grand mission becomes the story of a trained killer making it his mission to find these friends so he can carry out his purpose and protect and honor them. |