![]() ![]() ![]() The author is an economist who has spent much of his life in Japan, so his insight into the "Japanese miracle" - the economic recovery after the devastation of the war was especially fascinating. Part of what was fascinating was how some of those early traditions affected Japan after its defeat in WWII. The first few chapters do provide a quick look at the last 1500 years or so of Japanese history, but the remaining chapters spend much more time on the last 200. It wasn't quite what I was looking for, but it was fascinating in its own way. Then I came across this recently published book and decided to check it out. I wanted to start this challenge with an overview of Japanese history since I know so little of ancient times in Japan. I read this book as the first in a challenge on the History Book Club's pages here on Goodreads. ![]()
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![]() ![]() Indoctrinated into the church as a child while living with her mother and sister in New York, Remini eventually moved to Los Angeles, where her dreams of becoming an actress and advancing Scientology's causes grew increasingly intertwined. ![]() Now, in this frank, funny, poignant memoir, the former King of Queens star opens up about that experience for the first time, revealing the in-depth details of her painful split with the church and its controversial practices. That was never more evident than in 2013, when Remini loudly and publicly broke with the Church of Scientology. But being a troublemaker has come at a cost. That willingness to speak her mind, stand her ground, and rattle the occasional cage has enabled this tough-talking girl from Brooklyn to forge an enduring and successful career in Hollywood. #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - An eye-opening, no-holds-barred memoir about life in the Church of Scientology, now with a new afterword by the author-the outspoken actress and star of the A&E docuseries Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath Leah Remini has never been the type to hold her tongue. ![]() ![]() ![]() There are fights galore and many messy deaths, including a suicide in the first chapter: The combination manifests throughout the book, like with the corporealization of an artificial intelligence that slowly dissects a body while discussing its provision of information. The All-Consuming World is biopunk at its most visceral and languorous. Solo, each member scattered throughout the galaxy to hide not only from the authorities but also from the murderous Maya and the manipulative Rita. The team broke up when a big job went terribly wrong. Forty years have passed since the Dirty Dozen worked together. The other members of Rita’s team, her Dirty Dozen mercenaries, are clones, too, but without the forced devotion. Neurological additives mean Maya is devoted to Rita, whose touch leaves Maya “unmoored” but still able to memorize “the vexation of fugitive hairs radiating from Rita’s skull, haloed and holy as decay in the glare of the lamp overhead.” In the process, Rita has enhanced more than just Maya’s desire to cut conversations short with gunfire. Clones emerge fully grown as “osseocartilaginous structure blooms into shrapnel, calcium spalling knifing into new tissue.” Rita did it - with a mix of chemicals each time she regrew Maya. ![]() Being a clone isn’t what made Maya this way. She loves to swear and prefers a firefight to a negotiation. Maya never met a situation she trusted or a person she wouldn’t just as soon kill. ![]() ![]() ![]()
![]() ![]() Sa ul Indian Horse’s story is one that needs to be shared with all Canadians - settler and Indigenous people alike. Forced to confront painful memories and revelations, he draws on the strength of his ancestors and the understanding of his friends to gain the compassion he sorely needs to begin healing. Saul’s talent leads him away from the misery of the Residential School to a Norther n Ontario Ind igenous league and eventually to the pros - but the terrors of Saul’s past seem to follow him. ![]() It’s as if he has eyes in the back of his head and can see the game in a way no other player can. Fascinated by the game, he secretly teaches himself how to play, and develops a unique and rare skill. Despite this, Saul finds salvation in the unlik eliest of places and the most favourite of Canadian pastimes - hockey. In this oppressive environment, Saul is denied the freedom to speak his language or embrace his Indigenous culture and he witnesses and experiences all kinds of abuse at the hands of the very people who were entrusted with his care. The story takes place in late 1950s Ontario, where eight-year-old Saul Indian Horse is torn from his Oji bway family and committed to one of Canada’s notorious Catholic Residential Schools. About the Book Winner of Canada Reads People's Choice award A Globe and Mail top 100 book of 2012 2013-2014 First Nation Communities Read Selection CODE's Burt Award for First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Literature ![]() ![]() ![]() But when a family history project gets assigned at school, new memories come rushing to the surface, memories that make Theo question what he really knows about his family, the night of the fire, and if he can trust anyone-including himself. ![]() ![]() As captain of the Ellis Hollow Diving Team, with straight A's and solid friends, he's only one semester away from securing a scholarship, and leaving his past behind. Everything else about that fateful night is full of gaping holes in Theo's mind, for good reason. But the blaze killed his mom and set his dad on a path to self-destruction. Dive Smack is dedicated to the Monarch Butterfly she once saved from the brink of death. from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and lives in Southern California with her family of four and two lovable rescue dogs. Theo Mackey only remembers one thing for certain about the fire that destroyed his home: he lit the match. From Demetra Brodsky comes Dive Smack, a riveting new audiobook that will have listeners hooked.Theo Mackey only remembers one thing for certain about the. Demetra Brodsky is an award-winning art director and designer turned writer. Science & Technology: General & ReferenceĪ tense psychological drama with a voice that pulls you in and a twist you won't see coming.-Gretchen McNeil, author of TenĪ 2018 Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection. ![]() ![]() Now there's a wall between us, somethin' there's been lost She walked up to me so gracefully and took my crown of thorns With silver bracelets on her wrists and flowers in her hair Suddenly I turned around and she was standin' there Hunted like a crocodile, ravaged in the corn Poisoned in the bushes an' blown out on the trail I was burned out from exhaustion, buried in the hail Try imagining a place where it's always safe and warm Not a word was spoke between us, there was little risk involvedĮverything up to that point had been left unresolved In a world of steel-eyed death, and men who are fighting to be warm I'll always do my best for her, on that I give my word I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of formĪnd if I pass this way again, you can rest assured When blackness was a virtue the road was full of mud 'Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood ![]() ![]() Take an archetypal story out of Renaissance Verona and couch it in relentlessly ordinary present-tense prose, and all that's left is banal chick lit. There might have been an interesting story about friendship under here, but it was buried by the high-concept superstructure. Readers who try to draw correspondences with the play will find themselves frustrated is Len Mercutio? Tybalt? They will also find the tawdry truth behind the Caplet-Monteg feud unconvincing. ![]() ![]() She also gives Rose an antagonist, class outcast Len, who, predictably, becomes more and more attractive as the year progresses and Rob and Juliet play tongue-hockey in public. Serle gives Rose two staunch, beautiful, rich, label-conscious friends, with whom she sits at the top of the high-school food chain. It seems, well, fated-but then her cousin Juliet, daughter of her estranged uncle and aunt, moves back to town and captivates Rob. ![]() "Romeo didn't belong with Juliet he belonged with me." Here Romeo is Rob Monteg, the boy next door, and now, at the beginning of senior year, Rose Caplet hopes her oldest, best friend may be on his way to becoming her boyfriend. ![]() Rosaline the narrator points out in the prologue that "before Juliet ever came into the picture," there was Rosaline, whom Romeo had initially gone to the ill-fated party to see. Romeo and Juliet is recast as a love triangle set at a tony Southern California private school. ![]() ![]() ![]() Soon, Maddie is entangled in a homicide investigation, and more young people disappear and are later found murdered. When the boy goes missing on that exact date, law enforcement turns to Maddie. Her earliest memories are marked by these numbers, but it takes her father's premature death for Maddie and her family to realize that these mysterious digits are actually death dates, and just like birthdays, everyone has one.įorced by her alcoholic mother to use her ability to make extra money, Maddie identifies the quickly approaching death date of one client's young son, but because her ability only allows her to see the when and not the how, she's unable to offer any more insight. ![]() Maddie Fynn is a shy high school junior, cursed with an eerie intuitive ability: she sees a series of unique digits hovering above the foreheads of each person she encounters. Pretty Little Liars meets Medium in this fast-paced thriller and fantastic YA debut from a New York Times bestselling author. Genre: Crime, Mystery, Paranormal, Thriller Published by: Disney Hyperion on January 13, 2015 ![]() ![]() They draft an American, Shears ( William Holden), into their effort (he has two valid excuses which, together, the Brits had already used to get him transferred to them). Meanwhile, the British government is planning a covert mission to blow that bridge up, since its existence will help the Japanese. Nicholson decides to keep everyone's morale up by making sure everyone does as good a job on the bridge as possible, making it the best bridge they can. Saito tries to demoralize the British troops, but fails because of Values Dissonance. The prisoners of war are being forced to build the bridge over the River Kwai, which when finished is supposed to help Japanese expansion. Colonel Nicholson ( Alec Guinness), the battalion's commander, and Major Clipton (James Donald), a medical officer. ![]() The story: a British battalion is captured in Thailand and sent to a Japanese prison camp run by Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa). It's based on the French novel The Bridge over the River Kwai by Pierre Boulle, of Planet of the Apes fame Boulle, who could neither read nor write English, was also credited for the screenplay adaptation due to actual screenwriters Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson being blacklisted. ![]() The Bridge on the River Kwai is a 1957 World War II POW film directed by David Lean, about the construction of the bridges over the River Kwai, although it's heavily fictionalised. ![]() |