![]() ![]() And the audiences who have called us family and come out to all sorts of spaces to watch us and support us … it takes a village to raise dancers and FLATFOOT is so grateful for our village.” “We also honour the hundreds of dancers who have danced with us in township halls, university, and school spaces, and in our various developmental and rural spaces. It’s been a deeply humbling time!” says Loots. ![]() Struggling for funding and survival while simultaneously being in awe of the daily grace of dancers who turn up every day to work, train, teach, and push their craft – often in environments that have not been easy. ![]() “It has been both a slow burn and a blink of an eye getting to 20. Fearlessly led by founder and artistic director, Lliane Loots, FLATFOOT’s 20th anniversary is a landmark worth celebrating. ![]()
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![]() ![]() ![]() Epic Reads Impulse is a digital imprint with new releases each month. ![]() As Abby begins to suspect that Zeke is hiding something, she has to decide if bridging the gap between who she is and who he is is worth the risk. Plus, maybe she can work up the courage to show cute new boy, Yoshi, how much fun snowball fights can be. As this year’s Junior Coordinator, Mia gets a special role in the planning. And Abby can't help but fall for him, hard. Mia can’t wait for the Winter Festivalit’s what her hometown, Flurry, Vermont, is famous for. But Zeke in French is a different person than Zeke in English. 80 hours of conversation practice with someone who seems to wear baseball caps and jerseys every day. Seventeen-year old Abby has only one goal for her. That turns out to be impossible, though, because her French partner is the exact kind of boy she was hoping to avoid. The Distance From A to Z Natalie Blitt HarperCollins Published 12 January 2016. This full-length novel by debut author Natalie Blitt is a pitch-perfect blend of Stephanie Perkins and Miranda Kenneally that proves the age-old adage: opposites attract.Seventeen-year-old Abby has only one goal for her summer: to make sure she is fluent in French-well, that, and to get as far. A summer of culture and language, with no sports in sight. Seventeen-year-old Abby has only one goal for her summer: to make sure she is fluent in French - well, that, and to get as far away from baseball and her Cubs-obsessed family as possible. This full-length novel by debut author Natalie Blitt is a pitch-perfect blend of Stephanie Perkins and Miranda Kenneally that proves the age-old adage: opposites attract. ![]() ![]() ![]() The characters were beautifully flawed and realistic, but I struggled to relate to, and care about any of them. I loved the diverse cast, the concept of the seven deadly sins as a theme for each characters struggle. The formatting of the novel also threw me off big time. I even felt the amazing writing style that I have come to expect had dimmed significantly. It sort of picked up in the second half, but I still didn’t get that hook I was hoping for. I put the book down repeatedly due to lack of interest. I really struggled with this novel, and it’s doubly disappointing because I really loved all her other title. For the seven unlikely allies at the heart of it all, the collision of their seven ordinary-seeming lives results in extraordinary change. When that scandal bubbles over, and rumors of a teacher-student affair surface, everyone starts hunting for someone to blame. ![]() And like every high school, every student has something to hide-from Kat, the thespian who conceals her trust issues onstage, to Valentine, the neurotic genius who’s planted the seed of a school scandal. It’s got the same cliques, the same prejudices, the same suspect cafeteria food. ![]() Paloma High School is ordinary by anyone’s standards. Love the themes and experiment in formatting but the delivery was lacking. ![]() ![]() It is, perhaps, analogous to the different tone of Ridley Scott’s Alien and James Cameron’s Aliens. Our main characters have become militarised. In The Passage, those pockets were struggling to survive in The Twelve, they’re starting to fight back and this gives the sequel a very different feel to the original. ![]() ![]() ![]() So picking up The Twelve again, I stepped back through into Cronin’s world.Īnd it is a dark and twisted world: humanity has been almost wiped out by the vampiric virals from The Passage (for my review of which, see here) and little pockets are all that is left. It’s as if I open a door and step back into their world without a pause. But the strange thing that I mentioned at the beginning if this paragraph is that, however long I leave a book for, once I’ve picked it up again, it’s all just there! No re-reading needed. That happened with me and The Twelve, the second in Cronin’s The Passage trilogy. ![]() Maybe you put it down because work has become hectic or your baby is born and you think I’ll come back to it in a couple of days but you end up never quite having the time. You can start one – particularly a lengthy one like this – and things get in the way of you finishing it. ![]() ![]() ![]() The Victorian Era was one in which all international business was directed in one degree or another to affirming the unquestioned greatness of the British Empire. A large aspect of the motivation behind expeditions commissioned by the Royal Geographical Society was more political in nature than scientific. Poised on the threshold of becoming the most dominant empire on the planet since ancient times, the power players in England foresaw the cache that would come with the discovery finally being made by a British explorer. And, besides, the whole point of the search for the source of the Nile was patriotic propaganda. The ability for either Richard Burton or John Speke to fund this type of endeavor on their own was beyond even consideration. One does not simply charter a boat to sail to Africa and then disembark with backpacks and tents in order to penetrate into unmapped regions of a mysterious continent. ![]() ![]() What organization commissioned the expeditions for British explorers to search for the source of the Nile? ![]() We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own. These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. ![]() ![]() That night, they discover Aunty Pru’s drowned body on the docks. Intrigued by the prospect of a new mystery to write, Poe-who introduces himself to Edmund as Auguste Dupin-agrees to help the child. With the help of a young bank clerk, Randolph Peterson, Rachett devises a plan to kill his wife, which would allow him to remarry, and kidnap Sis so that he and Peterson can use her to rob the vault of gold at the Providence Bank.Īlone and afraid, Edmund runs into Poe, who arrived in Providence in search of a new story and in hopes of marrying Helen Whitman, the same woman Rachett wants to marry. When Rachett learns of Pru’s arrival and her intent to find her twin sister, Rachett kidnaps her too. Nevertheless, she manages to get a message to Pru. Not wanting to lose his money or tarnish his image, Rachett-who goes by the alias William Arnold-keeps his wife prisoner for months. ![]() ![]() He stole all his wife’s money and fled to Providence, and a year ago Edmund’s mother traveled there seeking a divorce and the return of her money. ![]() Edmund later explains that following the death of his father, his mother remarried to a man named Mr. For the last month, the family lived in a rented room in Providence, having left England in search of the children’s mother. ![]() The mystery begins with the disappearance of Edmund’s Aunty Pru and several days later, the disappearance of his twin sister, “Sis”. ![]() ![]() ![]() Here is the story of Laurie Odell, a wounded survivor of Dunkirk, who, made slowly aware of his own nature, must come to grips with it and make a choice between awakening it in a yet unaware and idealistic young Quaker hospital attendant, or openly entering into a relationship, whose social traps are suddenly apparent, with a seasoned navy officer alert to complications of the homosexual world. ![]() Today, set against the plethora of books about homosexuality, this novel still demands to be read it is a work of immeasurable compassion, humanity, and breadth, a love story of timeless interest and value. Set in England in the midst of World War II, with characters straight out of English boarding schools and dialogue full of the vernacular of the day, The Charioteer might now be considered only as a model of the liberated wartime fiction which suddenly began to bring out into the open a way of life hitherto ignored or unmentioned in respectable, even popular writing. ![]() ![]() ![]() Sasaki writes about being an alcoholic (he doesn't use the term but, to me, getting drunk every night and going to work hung over the next morning is being an alcoholic) before finding minimalism. Minimalism is the one true religion and you can change your life for the better by converting to minimalism. Reading Goodbye Things, I felt as if I was listening to a combination TV preacher and motivational speaker. In a way, it's the same deal - just going in another direction. However, he's gained an identity as a minimalist by giving things up. ![]() Sasaki writes about people gaining an identity through the things they have. In fact, the book could have almost been condensed to the "55 tips to help you say goodbye to your things" on the last few pages of the book. ![]() A good editor could have cut this book down to the length of a magazine article, added a few of the book's photographs, and nothing much would have been lost. Sasaki writes about minimalism in maximalist manner. ![]() ![]() ![]() These Elysians have (mostly) conquered aging and lead indulgent lives confined only by their rigid social norms.īlackbear Windclan, his "goddess" Raincloud, and their two young children have no stake with the Sharers or the Elysians. ![]() Floating cities dot the ocean moon, filled with millions of people from a long-dead world. ![]() If you prefer to feel an element of tension and compulsion running through a novel, Daughter of Elysium might not match your expectations.Ĭenturies upon centuries after the events of A Door Into Ocean, the Sharers remain much the same. If you like to read for the joy of the world/characters/ideas, no brainer, this is a great book. Whereas A Door Into Ocean drives towards a dramatic problem/conclusion, Daughter of Elysium is much more interested in the incidental, the intellectual, and other asides that string together to build a nuanced narrative. Daughter of Elysium follows in A Door Into Ocean's footsteps when it comes to depth of character, world, and science, but the style of story is markedly different. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The determined and gutsy Marian would seem to have nothing in common with the spoiled and privileged Hadley. Hadley Baxter is a B-list Hollywood actress who grew up in the Nickelodeon age of child stars and landed a starring role in the romantic blockbuster series “Archangel,” kind of a defanged “Twilight” that makes her America’s sweetheart of social media darlings. ![]() By about midway through the novel, the reader gets an urge to stop and Google this colorful figure from history alongside real pilots such as Amelia Earhart. Shipstead writes so convincingly of the fictitious Graves, she even quotes footnotes from a book reportedly based on her flight logbook. Marian Graves is a girl who wants to be a pilot in the early 20th century, a time when women couldn’t even vote much less work in paying jobs where they defied gravity and risked crashing into mountains. This book is richly layered, a joy to read in Shipstead’s colorful and easy style. ![]() Glitz and guts square off in “Great Circle,” the riveting new novel by Los Angeles author Maggie Shipstead.Ĭunningly crafted, Shipstead weaves a tale of two women, set apart by a century, fighting to retain control of their own lives in a society that demands subservience. ![]() |