![]() ![]() Nussbaum relentlessly interrogates her own responses to Woody Allen and his movies Roman Polanski and his - along with a fascinating anatomy of her relationship to Louis C.K., the person and the work. She looks at the issue from multiple viewpoints, changes her mind, alters the angle and alters it again. Plopped in the middle is a long, brilliantly executed essay called “Confessions of a Human Shield.” She wrestles with one of the most vexing controversies of the day: “What should we do with the art of terrible men?” The essay is about the dissonance between good art and bad men in the wake of the #MeToo revelations. ![]() They are provocations, springboards from which she plunges into deep waters, the big questions that roil the culture, like the relationships between politics, gender, art and audience. ![]() To call these essays “reviews” doesn’t do them justice. Although this is not a particularly flattering metaphor, Nussbaum is like a ruminant, chewing and digesting her subject, when others are satisfied with gumming and gulping. So much writing on TV confines itself to throat clearing and recapping. She has fashioned them into a sustained argument for both the uniqueness and importance of television as an art form distinct from movies and novels. “I Like to Watch,” a collection of her reviews, essays and blog posts, is no mere miscellany. Not to mince words, the New Yorker’s Emily Nussbaum is one of the best, if not the best, critic writing about TV today. ![]()
0 Comments
![]() ![]() The second volume, Saints, is told from the point of view of a young girl. Along his journey, Little Bao is guided by visions of the spirit of Ch’in Shih-Huang, China’s first emperor (think Chinese George Washington only a tad more genocidal). He also works to protect the beloved stories of his culture from destruction at the hands of foreign Christian missionaries and traitorous Chinese Christian converts. Little does he know that his efforts will fan the flame of one of the bloodiest wars in modern history. The first volume, Boxers, is told from the point of view of Little Bao, a young Chinese peasant grows up to become the leader of a band of Boxer Rebels hoping to take back their country from European Imperial rule. Boxers and Saints is a two-volume graphic novel set during the Boxer Rebellion in China. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() At first, Smita thinks her friend and coworker simply needs some help recovering from an emergency surgery, and Smita, though hesitant to return to the place of her birth, pushes her apprehension aside for her friend. An American journalist who was born in India and hasn’t returned since she left at fourteen, Smita is suddenly summoned to the country by her coworker who is stationed in India. ![]() Backed by a lawyer fighting to change the corrupt legal system in India, Meena presses charges against her two brothers-the men who burned her husband to protect their honor and hers. The woman, Meena, and her unborn child, though, survive the burning. A marriage between a Hindu and Muslim is nothing but dishonorable in their small Indian village. Honor begins with a newspaper clipping: a woman and her husband have been burned alive for their interfaith marriage. ![]() ![]() Owing to the substitution of government paper money for gold, financial insecurity has increased sharply, and we are continually robbed through currency depreciation. Government debt and liabilities have increased without interruption, thus increasing the need for future expropriations. In order to provide us with all this protection, the state managers expropriate more than 40 percent of the incomes of private producers year in and year out. In fact, however, matters are strikingly different. We are supposedly protected from global warming and cooling, from the extinction of animals and plants, from the abuses of husbands and wives, parents and employers, from poverty, disease, disaster, ignorance, prejudice, racism, sexism, homophobia, and countless other public enemies and dangers. ![]() According to the pronouncements of our state rulers and their intellectual bodyguards (of whom there are more than ever before), we are better protected and more secure than ever.1.4 The Economics and Ethics of Private Property (1993).1.3 Democracy: The God That Failed (2001).1.2 A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism (1989). ![]() ![]() ![]() Rumors started to spread almost as soon as we had arrived home. To die on Trial was one thing - to have children assassinated by Mudeaters was another. Finally, they had killed an unprecedented number of our Trial Group. They had obtained a scoutship by some low method and had intended to use it against us. (I don’t like that idea even now.) They might be slavers. The Tinterans were Free Birthers beyond a doubt. Our experiences were shocking to the Ship, and Tintera seemed like a glimpse of the Pit. I came to this conclusion after the Ship’s Assembly that was held as a result of our experiences on Tintera. If you never make the attempt, whatever else you are, you are not mature. It is harder to assess as critically the insanities of your own time, especially if you have accepted them unquestioningly for as long as you can remember, for as long as you have been alive. It is easy now to see the irrelevance of the religious wars of the past, to see that capitalism in itself is not evil, to see that honor is most often a silly thing to kill a man for, to see that national patriotism should have meant nothing in the twenty-first century, to see that a correctly-arranged tie has very little to do with true social worth. ![]() Maturity is the ability to sort the portions of truth from the accepted lies and self-deceptions that you have grown up with. ![]() It was only after I came back from Trial that I came to a notion of my own as to what maturity consists of. ![]() ![]() ![]() A Storm of Swords Of the five contenders for power, one is dead, another in disfavor, and still the wars rage as violently as ever, as alliances are made and broken. Martin's stunning series is destined to stand as one of the great achievements of imaginative fiction. Magic, mystery, intrigue, romance, and adventure fill these pages and transport us to a world unlike any we have ever experienced. ![]() As a whole, this series comprises a genuine masterpiece of modern fantasy, bringing together the best the genre has to offer. Martin's magnificent cycle of novels that includes A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings. The Seven Kingdoms are torn by strife as the three surviving contenders for the throne continue their struggle for power, Robb Stark defends his fledgling kingdom from the ravaging Greyjoys, Winterfell lies in ruins, Jon Snow confronts an escalating threat from behind the Wall, and Danerys Stormborn and her dragon allies continue to grow in power. ![]() ![]() ![]() I can't wait to see more of Alec and his family in the future! ![]() I also enjoyed that he worked with Jem and Tessa, because it gave readers the chance to see how far all of them had come. ![]() It is Alec at his finest: protective, in charge, and changing the world for the better. I've reread this story so many time and continue to fall more and more in love with it. Hands down, my favourite novella was "The Land I Lost", the story of Alec Lightwood meeting Rafael, an orphaned Shadowhunter living in the Brazilian Shadow Market. Because there are so many characters, timelines, and stories within this anthology, I'm going to concentrate on what I thought of the novellas as a whole and which stories were my favourite. In the case of Ghosts of Shadow Market, there's an overarching theme in the novellas that make it a bit easier to review as a whole as the stories are basically following Jem's journey to finding the Lost Herondale. I always find it hard to review anthologies because there are so many stories and writers involved that I don't always know how to properly get my thoughts on paper. ![]() ![]() ![]() This cover was too aesthetically pleasing for me.Īnyways, I’ve rambled enough, so let’s get into this book review, shall we?Īn intimate, bracingly intelligent debut novel about a millennial Irish expat who becomes entangled in a love triangle with a male banker and a female lawyerĪva moved to Hong Kong to find happiness, but so far, it isn’t working out. ![]() They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but oh man the psychology of color really gets me over here. I added it to my Goodreads back when the longlist was announced because I was compelled by the cover. I have not read Sally Rooney nor do I particularly care to in my current mindset. I think it was longlisted for some big book prize? I don’t remember which one exactly (editing me now confirms that it was the Women’s Prize in Fiction over in the UK), and it was often compared to the work of Sally Rooney. There’d been a lot of hype around this book. But, to be quite honest, Zauner’s and Ferrante’s works had much greater success in capturing my attention compared to Exciting Times. So while prepping for my vacation to Tennessee, I downloaded the audiobook and added it to my rotation of audiobooks for the week: Exciting Times, Crying in H Mart, and The Lying Life of Adults kept me intellectually fed the entire trip. I found this book through Libby, which, surprisingly considering how new it was, didn’t have a waitlist of people wanting to read it for themselves. ![]() ![]() ![]() Stage credits include originating the role of Sugar in The Public Theater’s Tiny Beautiful Things, directed by Thomas Kail, Jennie in Theatre20’s Company, directed by Gary Griffin, and writer and actor for twelve The Second City’s revues (Chicago’s Jeff Award winner, Best Actress.) Writing and acting film and television credits include My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, Connie and Carla, I Hate Valentine’s Day, My Life in Ruins For a Good Time, Call… The Catch Jane the Virgin Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and Law & Order SVU. ![]() Vardalos wrote and starred in the hit film My Big Fat Greek Wedding which earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay, a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, and an Independent Spirit Award and People’s Choice Award. ![]() ![]() ![]() She was the only one to give the Emperor a son, an heir to china.īefore his death, the Emperor named his 5 year old son, tung chih, as the emperor and Orchid and his first wife Nuharoo as the court members along with the very powerful Su shun, to run China on behalf of his son. With the help of her loyal eunuch servant an-te-hai, she found a way into the emperor’s bed and then gradually his heart. She was chosen as one of the 7 wives of Emperor Hsien Feng, a lower ranking concubine and was to live in The Forbidden city.Ĭonsidering the emperor had hundreds of wives and concubines, she decided to create a place for herself rather than living anonymously like so many of the Emperor’s concubines. Unlike what we think, this was actually a very prestigious position in china. ![]() At age 17 she auditioned to become one of the Emperors concubines or wives. She was born in Rural China to a low ranking government officer. ![]() This is the story of the last Empress of China called Yehonala or Orchid. There were so many details, so many parallel stories and so many emotions in this book I almost did not write this review for the fear of not getting it right. ![]() I didn’t know what to write, from where to start. But the page for this book stayed blank for a very long time. Generally after I finish reading a book, usually on the very day itself, I open a blank word document and start writing my review. ![]() |