Shipstead is best known for her two previous novels-her bestselling debut, 2012’s Seating Arrangements, and 2014’s Astonish Me, winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize-and says she’d been working loosely on another novel when she had the idea for Great Circle. We feel their closeness as they share similar struggles and ambitions. Even though the two women are separated by time and geography, we come to know more about each one through alternating perspectives: Marian’s story told in third person, Hadley’s in first. It is hardly surprising, then, that I tore through my copy of Maggie Shipstead’s ambitious new novel, Great Circle-our May AFAReads selection-which weaves together the stories of two women: famous aviator Marian Graves, who disappears on a flight to the north and south poles, and actress Hadley Baxter, who is hired a century later to portray Marian in a film. At a time when I wasn’t flying, soaring and spinning through the sky via the escapades of these women was a fitting substitute-no airsickness included. Off I went, full throttle into the achievements and legacies of women pilots like Florence Klingensmith, Amy Johnson, and Katherine Cheung. I’d known of Bessie Coleman and Amelia Earhart, sure, but as I learned more about Bland, I realized how unfamiliar I was with the myriad other women who had made aviation history. In 2020, I spent months researching the life of pioneering aviator Lilian Bland.
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For Charlotte, the truth could cost her Nicole’s friendship, but could also free her to love again. For Nicole, what comes to light could destroy her marriage, but it could also save her husband. Missing a genuine connection, Charlotte agrees.īut what both women don’t know is that they are each holding something back that may change their lives forever. Outgoing and passionate, Charlotte has a gift for talking to people and making friends, and Nicole could use her expertise for interviews with locals. When Nicole is commissioned to write a book about island food, she invites her old friend Charlotte back to Quinnipeague, for a final summer, to help. A successful travel writer, single Charlotte lives on the road, while Nicole, a food blogger, keeps house in Philadelphia with her surgeon-husband, Julian. But many years, and many secrets, have kept the women apart. On Quinnipeague, hearts open under the summer stars and secrets float in the Sweet Salt Air…Ĭharlotte and Nicole were once the best of friends, spending summers together in Nicole’s coastal island house off of Maine. Stripped of its original intro, a verse about celebrating Christmas in sunny Beverly Hills, White Christmas became a song about longing for security and peace and faraway loved ones. By the time Crosby’s song came out, says Rast, “They’re projecting to the sadness they’re going to feel in the coming Christmas.” According to the Gonzaga digital exhibit, Armed Forces Radio played the song so often that Crosby recorded “a special V-Disc version for those on the front lines.” In the summer of 1942, Americans were stationed in Europe or the Pacific, while others at home reorganized their lives around wartime production. The first time Crosby sang it, “it was a little too early to resonate,” says Rast. Over two academic years, his students compiled a digital history exhibit that examines Crosby and Berlin’s role in recasting how America views Christmas. Rast teaches a course in public history at Gonzaga University. It does not take long for both Ida and Beale to mess up their new marriages, cheating on Miss Overmore and Sir Claude. Despite her frumpiness and occasional ridiculousness, she is devoted to Maisie. Maisie ends up with a new governess, Mrs. Ida marries Sir Claude, a likeable but weak-willed man. Beale chooses Maisie’s governess, Miss Overmore, for his second wife. Both Ida and Beale are immoral people, and that along with their frivolity, drives them to use Maisie to exact their hatred on one another. Maisie’s parents, Beale and Ida Farange, divorce, and the court rules that Maisie will split her time between them-six months with each parent. The story follows Maisie in the fallout of her parents’ divorce during her childhood to maturity. It did not appear on the market as a book until a year later. After appearing in The Chap-Book, What Maisie Knew was published in the New Review in 1897. They do not often publish on a regular basis, and they are typically non-commercial. Little magazines are literary publications that often focus on new and emerging writers of experimental fiction. This literary magazine published stories from 1894 through 1898 and was considered one of the first of its kind-little magazines. Henry James’s novel What Maisie Knew was originally published as a work of serial fiction in The Chap-Book. And that’s what he expects to receive when he rescues a seemingly disreputable girl in a colorful bonnet off the side of the road. But could piercingly blue-eyed and well-mannered Francis Kneller turn out to be the most unexpected love of her life?\\\\r\\Īlistair Munro, the Duke of Bridgwater, is looking for love outside the bounds of polite society. Innocent and adrift in a world of beautiful banquets, bejeweled gowns, and snobbish standards, Cora is quickly compromised into a marriage-to a frivolous lord whose interests seem to lie elsewhere. Yet when she gains renown for a daring rescue, she finds herself thrust into high society. Beloved New York Times bestselling author Mary Balogh spins two classic stories of Regency England-splendid novels of mistaken identity and unmistakable passion, where marriage is only the beginning of true love.\\\\r\\Ĭora Downes has beauty, spirit, and money, but no breeding. If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Started Early, Took My Dog?Īny scene with the ludicrous VoiceOver of "Julia" irritating any sense of a story moving forward, all the contrived scenes of drunken divorced middle age man, all the unrealistic imaginings of how a scene might play out in the memory of an unreliable narrator.the list is endless. His attempts at colouring the reading only served to highlight just how bleak and empty the prose is. Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Nicholas Bell?Ī man less earnest. Why jumble together a book about, " my rambles through the Abbeys of England" with, " my terrible divorce and the sordid aftermath" and " child abduction without preamble" and " ugly musings by an old man" in what might have been a detective novel? What was most disappointing about Kate Atkinson’s story? What a jumbled, grey, damp morass of non events. When I glanced up and saw there was still 7 hours to go, I gave up. It is tedious to the extreme with such a mess of story lines as to be incomprehensible and part way through one is left utterly not caring. Not so! No wonder they were unable or unwilling to make this novel the next contender. Having been tempted by the foreknowledge that the Brodie novels had been the basis for a reasonable TV series, I felt it was safe to try this novel. What disappointed you about Started Early, Took My Dog? This resulted in a conflict that lasted several days in which local Greeks fought alongside Italians but ultimately lost. After the Italian troops on Cephalonia threatened mutiny if they were forced to cooperate with the Germans, General Gandin, the commanding officer of the Acqui Division, agreed to stand and attempt to defeat the Germans. In the fall, however, Italy deposed their fascist dictator Mussolini and surrendered to the Allied forces-though things were complicated by the fact that Italy also promised its troops to the Germans. The formal occupation of Greece began in 1941, and the division headquarters moved to Cephalonia in the spring of 1943. Prior to occupying Cephalonia, the Italians invaded Albania in what was widely considered to be a poorly thought-out plan Carlo and Francisco are involved in this invasion, and they also participate in the invasion of Greece from Albania in the fall of 1940. Captain Corelli's Mandolin is based primarily on the Italian occupation of Cephalonia during World War Two and, specifically, the Massacre of the Acqui Division (also known as the Cephalonia Massacre). So, you think we’ve offered any help this week or just explained to people how they are messed up? ĭennis: I think we have dusted some minds with itching powder. Before we look to God’s Word to see what it has to say to us about us, we ought to be asking, “What does it have to say about God?” Stay tuned.Īnd welcome to FamilyLife Today. Our host is the President of FamilyLife ®, Dennis Rainey, and I’m Bob Lepine. So, when we study, we should be looking for that.īob: This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, March 11 th. Beginning to end, that’s what its job is to do-is to declare, to us, the nature and the character of God. Jen: Most people approach the Bible, wanting to see a vision of themselves-“What is this going to do to change my life?”-but the Bible is a vision of God, high and lifted up. Author and Bible study leader, Jen Wilkin, agrees. Packer, said the problem with the evangelical church was that the gospel had become man-centered instead of being fundamentally God-centered. Alexandria's magically growing hair and tower imprisonment remind one of Rapunzel. There's a wonderful lost fairy tale feel to this story. Bumbling Prince Edmund attempts to come to her rescue, but ultimately Alexandria must rely on her own wits, her magical hair, and her loyal geese to save the day. Soon after making her getaway from her prison tower, Alexandria finds herself enslaved by a family of dim-witted ogresses, Nellie, Lucinda and Tessie. Goose Chase is true to the title - there is a lot of travel, and chasing throughout the story. Have you ever spent time with a flock of geese? The geese in this story - a little bossy, full of personality, mostly loyal, are delightful. (Only desiring her money, of course.) She engineers an escape with the help of her geese, who manage to fly her out of the tower. Now she finds herself locked in a tower as various unsavory princes and kings fight over her hand. 14 year-old Alexandria Aurora Fortunato was a simple goose girl, until the day she kindheartedly helped a ragged old beggar woman, who "rewarded" her with gold dandruff in her hair and diamonds that fall from her tears. As if that weren't bad enough, it looks like the authorities already suspect something is afoot, there's a saboteur aboard, and the Icarus appears to be shaking apart at the seams. The ship, Icarus, turns out to be a ramshackle hulk, the ragtag crew literally picked up off the street, and the cargo so secret, it's sealed in a special container that takes up most of the cramped and ill-designed ship. But this time, he may have taken on more than even he can handle. So when Jordan and his partner, Ixil - an alien with two ferret-like "outhunters" linked to his neural system - are hired by a mysterious gentleman to fly a ship and its special cargo to Earth, they jump at the job.Ĭaution has never been one of Jordan's strong suits. In order to survive, Jordan ekes out a living dabbling in interstellar smuggling for outlaw concerns that represent the last vestiges of free trade in the galaxy. Unfortunately for him, the iron-fisted authority of the powerful Patthaaunutth controls virtually every aspect of galactic shipping. Jordan McKell has a problem with authority. From Timothy Zahn, Hugo Award winner and New York Times best-selling author of two landmark Star Wars® series, comes an original new tale featuring a renegade space pilot, his unusual alien partner, and an unknown cargo that can change the course of galactic history. |