![]() The "Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Khaki," tartan was designed for the man known as "Lawrence of Arabia." His extraordinary life and skill as a superb tactician and a highly influential theoretician of guerrilla warfare served to create the mythos of "Lawrence of Arabia" and has been much chronicled.□ 7️⃣□ However, that original work was abandoned, and although there are no direct references to the metaphorical pillars in this work, it is believed that the decision to repurpose the title may have been influenced by John Ruskin’s treatise Seven Lamps of Architecture, a biblical allusion from Proverbs, and a reference from the book's dedication poem, possibly co-edited in literary collaboration with author and war poet Robert Graves. ![]() Seven Pillars of Wisdom is his autobiographical account of his experiences and takes its title from a manuscript that Lawrence had intended to publish before the war - a scholarly work about the seven greatest cities of the Middle East: Cairo, Smyrna, Constantinople, Beirut, Aleppo, Damascus, and Medina. He died May 19, 1935, as a retired Royal Air Force mechanic living under an assumed name following a motorcycle accident six days prior. Lawrence, a British/Welsh archaeologist, army officer, diplomat, and writer, became renowned for his role in the Arab Revolt (1916–1918) and the Sinai and Palestine Campaign (1915–1918) against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. ![]()
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![]() I love that your first two novels retell the stories of Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast. ![]() I’m a sucker for a happy ending, so even though I change and adapt fairy tales to become completely different stories, mine usually end with some sort of happy ending as well. I also love happy endings, and fairy tales are very often full of them (though not always!). They’re full of truth (like ugly isn’t always evil, and beautiful isn’t always good). ![]() They’re loved because they resonate with us. What is it about fairy tales that makes you want to incorporate them in to your writing? Today, Dorian joins us here on The Book Rat to talk about what got her into fairy tale writing, what mashups she's currently working on, and setting Beauty & the Beast in feudal Japan! And stick around til the bottom, because there's also a chance to win a prize pack of Dorian's books! Yesterday over on A Backwards Story, Bonnie hosted a guest post called " Who's the Fairest of Them All," from author Dorian Tsukioka. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() I was only nine years old and more than a little too However, now that I think about it, the first time I saw Flowers in The Attic wasĪt my friend’s house, and it was her mother’s copy, and I may have started Where was my mother when I was reading these? I was in elementary school! Sweet Audrina, and some of the Casteel series (which is now also on Lifetime!). To read the other books in the series, a stand-alone novel, My The same way as I did before, but that’s a whole other story…. I can also never look at a powdered doughnut That book about three or four times and couldn’t get enough about theĭollangangers and their flaxen hair. You’ve watched the Lifetime movie) about incest. I’m not giving any spoilers out because if you haven’t read the book, you know The book was so scandalous because it was (spoiler alert, even though you know Playground, passages read out loud in hushed tones, as with Judy Blume’s Forever. It was one of those books that was passed around on the I was wondering how I got my hands on my first V.C. ![]() ![]() That's not all, though: evil is lurking in the charming streets of St. Turns out, Emerson’s friends are all witches. When Emerson failed a power test years ago, she was stripped of her magical memories. Cyprian isn't your average Midwestern river town-it’s a haven for witches. Cyprian history, successful indie bookstore owner, and lucky enough to have her best friends as found family? Done.īut when Emerson is attacked by creatures that shouldn’t be real, and kills them with what can only be called magic, Emerson finds that the past decade of her life has been…a lie. Youngest Chamber of Commerce president in St. ![]() ![]() Emerson Wilde has built the life of her dreams. ![]() ![]() ![]() Everyone comes and goes, except for Penelope Featherington. She’s already left her mark on screen, but as a fan of Julia Quinn’s eight-novel Bridgerton book series, the show’s spicy source material, I know there’s so much more in store for her.Įach Bridgerton novel follows one of the eight Bridgertons as they meet their match, fall in love, and fade into the background, leaving the next sibling to their own devices for their own story. While most eyes and ears may have been on Anthony and Kate’s longing looks, sexy whispers, and that time he saw her bare knee, I found myself more interested in the B-plot surrounding Lady Whistledown herself, Penelope Featherington. ![]() ![]() Is that an instrumental arrangement of a modern pop song I hear? Yep, Bridgerton is back for Season 2. ![]() ![]() ![]() And we read nearly as often of Washington’s rotting teeth and clumsy dentists. Washington’s flirtations with stylish, younger, but married women also get far more play than they warrant, given that they never transcended “some saucy banter and teasing pleasantries.” Instead he married Martha Dandridge Custis Washington, who reappears as the same genial, saintly companion on page after page. But this joke, funny at first, withers in the retelling, as this one-note harridan appears over and over again in Chernow’s narrative. It is certainly amusing to encounter Washington’s egotistical and berating mother, Mary Ball Washington, who felt neglected no matter how hard her son tried to impress her and attend to her: he may have been first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen, but he ranked last to his own mother. In his long book, though, he digresses too often and sometimes too long. An accomplished biographer, Chernow seeks to enliven the past for a broad readership. ![]() ![]() ![]() The mud of the lake is said to hide an old bell, which flew out of its tower after a nun refused to admit she’d been keeping a lover outside the abbey’s walls. Into this world Dora comes bumbling, upsetting its careful harmony. There’s the married couple seeking a new connection Toby, an 18-year-old student who thinks he wants to be a priest Nick Fawley, the sullen gatekeeper with a dark past and most compellingly Michael, the leader, who is wrestling with an agonising desire. Its inhabitants are all seeking spiritual reform in some way or another. The court is surrounded by verdant woodland and enclosed by a lake. The lay community is set up at Imber Court, a grand-but-decaying house next door to a 12th-century Benedictine abbey where none but nuns are allowed. After a brief fling Dora returns to him, now ensconced in a religious “lay community” in Gloucestershire. He is said to be “violent”, and his violence is enacted through his stifling and jealous behaviour. The story begins with Dora Greenfield, a 21-year-old woman who loves life and acts before thinking, running away from her art historian husband. There may not be identified witches in this book (there are nuns), but the word is significantly deployed twice, and where there is smoke there is fire. But I have a hazy feeling that it had something to do with witches. ![]() ![]() I’m not sure where I found out that I should read The Bell, Iris Murdoch’s 1958 novel about a religious community in western England. ![]() ![]() Those tweets struck such a chord that he soon passed the million followers mark. ![]() ![]() Though he grew up in a large Irish-Catholic family, Jim was satisfied with the nomadic, nocturnal life of a standup comedian, and was content to be "that weird uncle who lives in an apartment by himself in New York that everyone in the family speculates about." But all that changed when he married and found out his wife, Jeannie "is someone who gets pregnant looking at babies."įive kids later, the comedian whose riffs on everything from Hot Pockets to Jesus have scored millions of hits on YouTube, started to tweet about the mistakes and victories of his life as a dad. Jim Gaffigan never imagined he would have his own kids. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The search leads him to war, prison torture, murder, and a series of enigmatic and bloody betrayals. Shantaram is narrated by Lin, an escaped convict with a false passport who flees maximum security prison in Australia for the teeming streets of a city where he can disappear.Īccompanied by his guide and faithful friend, Prabaker, the two enter Bombay's hidden society of beggars and gangsters, prostitutes and holy men, soldiers and actors, and Indians and exiles from other countries, who seek in this remarkable place what they cannot find elsewhere.Īs a hunted man without a home, family, or identity, Lin searches for love and meaning while running a clinic in one of the city's poorest slums, and serving his apprenticeship in the dark arts of the Bombay mafia. So begins this epic, mesmerizing first novel set in the underworld of contemporary Bombay. "It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured." ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() At doing the right thing, at making people happy. Instead, her car hit a patch of ice and slammed into a tree. She’d waited to come home because she didn’t want to risk getting into an accident with a drunk driver. She was in a car accident on New Year’s Day, driving home the morning after a party. And Tess has been in this bed, in this room, in this hospital, for six weeks. I guess “coma” doesn’t sound as good when you’re trying to sell stories where everything ends up okay.Ĭoma. Like a princess in a fairy tale, Tess is asleep. ![]() I used to visit Tess with Mom and Dad, used to wait with them for the doctor, but the news never changed and I got so I couldn’t bear to see my parents’ faces, washed out and exhausted and sad. ![]() Tess’s eyes stay closed, and her body lies limp, punctured with needles and surrounded by machines. “If you don’t do something, Tess, I-I’ll sing for you.” I lean in, so close I can see the tiny blue lines on her eyelids marking where her blood still pumps, still flows. Sunday is a day of prayer after all, isn’t it? So here’s mine: I’ve been here so often that sometimes I think they’re her way of replying. The machines that keep Tess alive beep at me. with her husband and firmly believes you can never own too many books. Elizabeth Scott is the author of Bloom, Perfect You, Living Dead Girl, Something Maybe, The Unwritten Rule, Between Here and Forever, and Miracle, among others. ![]() |