![]() ![]() This was not a one-dimensional creature that was meant to make you feel uncomfortable while you read about his life with Reia. ![]() The Wendigo is supposed to be an evil creature (of course) that is always hungry and eats humans.Īnd Opal Reyne managed to incorporate the mythology masterfully in her creation of the Duskwalkers, in general, and Orpheus, the protagonist, specifically. While I was reading it, my son pointed out that the skull-headed creature, Elias, was based on a mythological creature from the First Nations people in North America called a Wendigo. In reading that series, I was intrigued by the different types of mythology represented in the storyline. Last year, I was introduced to a manga series called, The Ancient Magus’ Bride by Kore Yamazaki. The feature that first caught my eye was the cover. ![]() Character Development/Likability Duskwalker/Orpheus ![]()
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![]() ![]() He’s a plumber and she’s a housewife with dreams of being an artist. It takes us through several defining moments in any family’s life: the plight of the empty nesters marriage strife new generations and the loss of relatives.Īt the head of the family are Mercy and Robin, a seemingly mismatched couple who married in their early 20s. We meet the Garrett family and see them grow through the years. It takes us through the history of a typical American family from Baltimore. Tyler is known for her family sagas and French Braid sees her return to the multigenerational ensemble that she is so comfortable with. If there’s one author who’s going to give that to me then it’s Anne Tyler. There’s nothing I like more than a short book that is light on plot and strong on characters. Now I’ve read this one, it might actually inspire me to do it. I’ve got plenty of books on my Kindle and bookshelves. I know that she is one of those writers that everyone recommends but I just haven’t picked anything up. ![]() Whatever the reason, I don’t think I’ve read anything by Anne Tyler before. It’s not something we did at school and I guess I just stuck to what I knew. ![]() When I was younger, I didn’t read much American literature. ![]() ![]() ![]() Timothy Egan offers a stirring and affectionate portrait of an underknown figure in “Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis.” Egan, a Seattle-based author and a writer for The New York Times, asks us to see Curtis as a hero in the mythic Western mode - i.e., outdoorsy, virile, untainted by bourgeois values. Curtis spent his final years holed up in Southern California, living a marginal hand-to-mouth existence and consuming a pound of carrots a day in the hope of warding off blindness. His goal, he said, was to salvage a heritage from oblivion, to document all the tribes in North America that were still intact.The result was his magnum opus, “The North American Indian,” a 20-volume text-and-image extravaganza, published between 19, that was praised and then forgotten in short order. Traveling by rail, wagon and foot, he undertook a project that struck observers as ambitious and possibly insane. ![]() Edward Curtis deserves to be remembered as the American artist who racked up the most miles. ![]() ![]() ![]() Orleanna, their mother, narrates from the future, her narration interspersed with the girls’ stories. Ruth May, the baby, is the most courageous of all, with a contagious vivacity. Adah, Leah’s twin, detaches herself from the rest of the world, hiding behind her crooked body. Leah, next, is idealistic and eager to please. Rachel, the oldest daughter, is shallow and vapid. Orleanna and her four daughters are the narrators, and each infuses her own personality and point of view into her narration, forcing the reader to carefully consider the speaker’s reliability. ![]() The story follows the Price family for about 30 years, beginning with their move from small-town America to the Belgian Congo in 1959, a much-anticipated part of their father Nathan’s missionary work. It continues to be somewhat controversial more than 10 years later. Though the book received critical acclaim, garnering New York Times bestseller status and becoming Editors’ Choice for the New York Times Book Review, it has received mixed popular reviews from the moment it hit stores in 1998. Barbara Kingsolver’s renowned novel “The Poisonwood Bible” is essentially risky. ![]() |