![]() ![]() ![]() No one had to chop and haul wood any more. The dryer replaced the clothesline the vacuum cleaner replaced the broom the refrigerator replaced the icebox and the root cellar an automatic pump, some piping, and a tap replaced the hand pump, the bucket, and the well. Clothes that had once been scrubbed on a metal washboard were now tossed into a tub and cleansed by an electrically driven agitator. ![]() This is the surprising conclusion reached by a small army of historians, sociologists, and home economists who have undertaken, in recent years, to study the one form of work that has turned out to be most resistant to inquiry and analysis-namely, housework.ĭuring the first half of the twentieth century, the average American household was transformed by the introduction of a group of machines that profoundly altered the daily lives of housewives the forty years between 19 witnessed what might be aptly called the “industrial revolution in the home.” Where once there had been a wood-or coal-burning stove there now was a gas or electric range. And laborsavine household appliances often do not save labor. ![]()
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![]() Not only does the epic stand alone as a fantasy saga, but the seven(ish) Dark Tower titles are actually explicitly intertwined with his horror books. ![]() When I received the books as a gift several years ago, I realized I was totally wrong. The series seemed inaccessible and boring-a sprawling, multimedia slog that I worried wouldn’t be sufficiently compelling as a fantasy story to keep me engaged if it lacked the thrills of King's horror novels. I've loved Stephen King since I found Misery in my own school library at 13, but I avoided The Dark Tower for over a decade. Nearly half a century later, the story of Roland Deschain is still rolling forward. In 1970, a 22-year-old University of Maine sophomore named Stephen King decided to use a ream of green paper he found in his college library to write the story of a determined gunslinger and his quest for a dark tower. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Axelrod also talks with Warren Zanes, author of the new book, "Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen's 'Nebraska'."Ĭopyright ©2023 CBS Interactive Inc. This book is a rare act of creative imagination in which the listener will be equally moved by the warm happy village life Will shares with his large family and the nearly overwhelming danger he encounters, often in other. Will goes home and hangs out with his familywho have been frozen in timeand most things go back to normal. Springsteen talks with correspondent Jim Axelrod about how "Nebraska" spoke to his evolution as a songwriter. And for the twelve days of Christmas, while the Dark is rising, life for Will is full of wonder, terror, and delight. First published in 1973, it doesn't feel dated at all. I pick it up every couple of years or so and always come away with a new feeling of wonder at how good it is. The resulting album, 1982's "Nebraska," would be one of his most personal, and helped solidify his status as one of music's most soulful voices. 'The Dark is Rising' is one of my favourite fantasy stories, and is part 2 of The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper. Bruce Springsteen on his landmark album "Nebraska" In-between his chart-topping album "The River" and his classic "Born in the U.S.A.," Bruce Springsteen recorded a collection of songs on a 4-track cassette recorder in a bedroom at his rented farmhouse - dark, mournful, and rough-hewn songs that reflected the upheaval in his life at a time of rising success. ![]() ![]() ![]() Other recognitions include the Library of Congress Living Legends Award and the 2004 National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. in education from New York University in 1961, which named her a Distinguished Alumna in 1996, the same year the American Library Association honored her with the Margaret A. She receives thousands of letters a year from readers of all ages who share their feelings and concerns with her. More than 80 million copies of her books have been sold, and her work has been translated into thirty-one languages. ![]() ![]() She has also written three novels for adults, Summer Sisters Smart Women and Wifey, all of them New York Times bestsellers. Adults as well as children will recognize such Blume titles as: Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret Blubber Just as Long as We’re Together and the five book series about the irrepressible Fudge. She has spent her adult years in many places doing the same thing, only now she writes her stories down on paper. Judy Blume spent her childhood in Elizabeth, New Jersey, making up stories inside her head. ![]() ![]() Oliver co-founded Glasstown Entertainment with poet and author Lexa Hillyer. Chester. She has written one novel for adults, Rooms. ![]() ![]() White Read-Aloud Award nominee for her middle-grade novel Liesl & Po, as well as author of the middle-grade fantasy novel The Spindlers and The Curiosity House series, co-written with H.C. It debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in 2017, garnering a wide release from Open Road Films that year. Before I Fall was adapted into a major motion picture starring Zoey Deutch. The film rights to both Replica and Lauren's bestselling first novel, Before I Fall, were acquired by Awesomeness Films. ![]() She is also the New York Times bestselling author of the YA novels Replica, Vanishing Girls, Panic, and the Delirium trilogy: Delirium, Pandemonium, and Requiem, which have been translated into more than thirty languages. Lauren Oliver is the cofounder of media and content development company Glasstown Entertainment, where she serves as the President of Production. ![]() ![]() ![]() I said the two works contrast wonderfully, and they do. Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead, on the other hand, is a fairly recent novel – second or third in a contemporary series, which I understand is planned for five installments. Mildred Pierce has been around for decades, but I only met her this past summer-thanks to the group’s introduction. Cain being the writer of classics such as: The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity. Mildred Pierce is probably the more widely known of the two, of course, James M. One a grimly realist work, the other a flight of fancy that still manages to be rather grim yet holds an artistic aspect I don't recall encountering before in literature. Cain’s Mildred Pierce and Sara Gran’s Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead. Of those, the two that stand out as the most wonderfully contrasting works are James M. So, over the past few months I’ve read several noir mysteries. I don’t always manage to get to the meetings, but I usually manage to read the book for the month. In this case, a fellow named Patrick Millikin, who’s worked there for over a decade (and also edited the anthology Phoenix Noir), chairs the group and helps us decide which novels we’ll read for the month I’m sure you understand how such a thing works: everybody in the group reads a certain novel each month, then we meet at the store, after hours, to discuss it. ![]() I’m a member (if you can call being a part of such a loose-knit group a member) of the Hardboiled Discussion Group at the Poisoned Pen bookstore here in Scottsdale. ![]() ![]() ![]() The vampire had said that all he needed was one of them. “No!” Haven screamed, realizing he was going after Katie. “As if I wanted to burden myself with the likes of a troublesome little boy.” It did nothing to alleviate the ugliness of his visage. Then a self-satisfied grin spread over his mouth. The vampire’s head spun toward the hallway. “I’ll kill you!”īut before he could do anything, the cry of a baby filled the house. “Haven,” his mother’s strained voiced cried out. As she tumbled to the floor, blood staining her white apron, Haven scrambled to get closer, but the vampire blocked his approach. When Haven looked up, he only saw the flick of the vamp’s wrist as he released the knife to find its target.Ī startled shriek interrupted his mother’s chants. ![]() Haven launched himself at the vampire from behind, trying to wrestle the knife from his hands, but his opponent jabbed his elbow into the soft muscles of Haven’s untrained stomach and shoved him to the floor. Undeterred, Haven’s mother continued chanting, “… tall, and give them might …” Spinning around, he reached into his jacket and pulled out a knife. It clattered to the floor, rolling out of reach. The vampire twisted Haven’s wrist, wrenching the stake from his clenched fist. “Night bring day, day bring night, help the small, and …” But her face looked determined, and her lips mouthed a spell. Behind him, Haven caught sight of his mother getting up, moans of pain coming from her mouth. Haven clenched his teeth and kicked his leg against the massive creature’s shin, but to no avail. ![]() ![]() ![]() But other town characters are incorporated into the novel from Doug’s family to Mr. The novel mainly focuses on Douglas Spaulding, a twelve-year-old boy with a ten-year-old younger brother and living in a small Midwestern Town in the 1920s. Narrative & Atmosphereĭandelion Wine is in some ways a mix of short stories woven together into one narrative. ![]() Ray Bradbury creates an atmosphere nostalgic for long summer days in the Midwest, reminding the reader all the joy and sorrow of being twelve and truly realizing your alive and realizing you too must die one day. Dandelion Wine is the perfect summer read. ![]() ![]() ![]() And an uncapped boy alone will attract suspicion. He resolves to join the resistance in the White Mountains that he is told about by Ozymandias, but this means a long and hazardous journey to the south. Encountering Ozymandias, seemingly a vagrant, a person whose mind has been broken by the capping process, Will discovers that the cap is the means by which the Tripods control humanity and keep them docile. ![]() ![]() But as his older cousin Jack is capped, and Will notices the changes in his character, he starts to have misgivings. In their fourteenth year all children are 'capped' by the tripods, with a metal cap that becomes fused to their skull: an event that they are taught to look forward to as the start of adulthood. But overall a good adventure story that has lasted well.At an unspecified future date humans live in a society that has reverted to medieval feudalism under the ultimate rule of the tripods, huge three-legged devices that stalk the land. The book was written in 1967 and shows its age just a little: much less teenage angst than you often get in a young adult novel today on the plus side, and an absence of meaningful female characters on the minus. This is the first of John Christopher's tripod trilogy which I vaguely remember from the TV series back in the 1980's. ![]() ![]() ![]() Walton gives them other dragon-like characteristics and rituals too, but at the heart of the story is the grim truth that dragon eats dragon to flourish. It is to Walton’s credit that she makes dragon customs like these feel real but empathetic. And dragons have a singular custom - that of eating dragon flesh of the deceased, because that is the only way they can increase in power and sustenance. Much of the story is about Haner and Selendra being uprooted from their old home and settling down in their new environment: Haner with Berend and her husband, and Selendra with her parson brother Penn. The youngest daughters, Haner and Selendra, are unmarried, and are forced apart when their patriarch dies. His sons, Penn and Avan, are in the clergy and government respectively, and his eldest daughter, Berend, is the matron in a wealthy family. Quiet and unassuming on the surface, yet so utterly charming and thought-provoking.īon Agornin dies one day, leaving behind two sons and three daughters. ![]() |