![]() The author appeals to a different kind of comparison by talking about natural phenomena. The pox, which is a disease, is metaphorically implemented and even personified at some level, as it “ had left Ruth and Isabel with scars like tiny stars scattered in the skin” and “ took Momma home to the Maker”, which means that she died because of it. Robert’s personal affairs the metaphor is used: “ he was filled up with trouble from his dirty boots to the brim of his scraggly hat” and the words ‘dirty’ and ‘scraggly’ add to the overall negative perception of this character. ![]() Robert’s mouth tightens like a rope pulled taut”, which means that he tries to collect himself not to burst out with anger to describe the state of Mr. Robert Finch is filled with negative impressions, and the author uses simile and metaphor to maintain this image. ![]() We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own. These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. ![]()
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![]() Author Margot Lee Shetterly's father was a research scientist at NASA who worked with many of the book's main characters. ![]() For the first years of their careers, the workplace was segregated and women were kept in the background as human computers. Hidden Figures explores the biographies of three African-American women who worked as computers to solve problems for engineers and others at NASA. The book was adapted as a film by the same name, released in 2016, that was nominated for three Oscars. The book reached number one on The New York Times Non-Fiction Best Sellers list and got the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Nonfiction in 2017. Also featured is Christine Darden, who was the first African-American woman to be promoted into the Senior Executive Service for her work in researching supersonic flight and sonic booms. They overcame discrimination there, as women and as African Americans. The biographical text follows the lives of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, three mathematicians who worked as computers (then a job description) at NACA and NASA, during the space race. ![]() The book takes place from the 1930s through the 1960s, depicting the particular barriers for Black women in science during this time, thereby providing a lesser-known history of NASA. ![]() Shetterly started working on the book in 2010. Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Who Helped Win the Space Race is a 2016 nonfiction book written by Margot Lee Shetterly. ![]() ![]() ![]() By 1652, Milton was completely blind and wrote Paradise Lost by reciting it to his daughters in their home in England (“SparkNote on Paradise Lost”). It is considered to be Milton’s major work, and it helped solidify his reputation the poem concerns the biblical story of the Fall of Man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. A second edition followed in 1674, arranged into twelve books (in the manner of Virgil’s Aeneid) with minor revisions throughout (“Paradise Lost”). ![]() It is an epic poem in blank verse the first version, published in 1667, consists of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse. Paradise Lost was written by John Milton, who is considered to be one of the greatest English poets of his or any age. ![]() “Watercolor Illustration to Milton’s Paradise Lost” by William Blake, 1807. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() My mother's an artist and I tend to think visually in my own writing. While you were working on the book, did you find there were any points past which words failed you, when you felt an illustrator might explain a concept better? It may seem a bit counterintuitive to turn to visual art when understanding writing. Over email, VanderMeer tells me about his collaboration with Jeremy Zerfoss, the book's principal illustrator, and his unique approach to teaching writing. There's even a talking penguin - but don't get him started on what he thinks of the duck. Dragons butt in from the margins to contradict lessons. Misbegotten fish serve as models for revision. It's a writing guide, sure, but it's unlikely you've seen one like this before. Now, imagine the exact opposite, and you might get Jeff VanderMeer's Wonderbook. When you hear the phrase, "writing guide," unpleasant things may spring to mind: sentence diagrams or even - shudder to think - your high school textbook. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title Wonderbook Subtitle The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction Author Jeff Vandermeer and Jeremy Zerfoss ![]() ![]() If approved, you’ll be automatically refunded on your original payment method. We will notify you once we’ve received and inspected your return, and let you know if the refund was approved or not. The fastest way to ensure you get what you want is to return the item you have, and once the return is accepted, make a separate purchase for the new item. Unfortunately, we cannot accept returns on sale items or gift cards. Please inspect your order upon reception and contact us immediately if the item is defective, damaged or if you receive the wrong item, so that we can evaluate the issue and make it right. You can always contact us for any return question at and issues Items sent back to us without first requesting a return will not be accepted. To start a return, you can contact us at If your return is accepted, we’ll send you instructions on how and where to send your package. You’ll also need the receipt or proof of purchase. To be eligible for a return, your item must be in the same condition that you received it, unworn or unused, and in its original packaging. ![]() ![]() We have a 2-day return policy, which means you have 2 days after receiving your item to request a return. ![]() ![]() Even at that, our collective Will To Live out our dreams and aspirations can be found represented in those tales of adventure in those stories of how coincidence and spontaneity combine with optimism to produce a certain creative urge. That was how I found the right words to effectively summarize three books, by turning stories of adventure, trials and triumphs into a novel. ![]() ![]() ![]() However, words without deeds cannot just be enough because actions speak louder than words in most cases. In other words, we can become a summation of our thought processes and a product of the words we speak. That was how the biggest movement of change in recent history gained the kind of momentum required to turn the son of a single mother into the President of the United States of America. As human, we often under-estimate the power of words, especially those with the possibility of bringing into existence that which otherwise would not be, or to reinforce destiny. After all, the Scriptures tell us that God created the world with the power of spoken words. Words do matter, regardless of what some folks may want us to believe. ![]() ![]() The future is coming and they will help to usher it in.Ī day after the events at the ranch house which disturbed the Signalman so deeply that he and his government sought out help from ‘other’ sources, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory abruptly loses contact with NASA's interplanetary probe New Horizons. In a ranch house near the shore of the Salton Sea a cult leader gathers up the weak and susceptible - the Children of the Next Level - and offers them something to believe in and a chance for transcendence. Later that day he meets a woman in a diner to exchange information about an event that happened a week earlier for which neither has an explanation, but which haunts the Signalman. ![]() A government special agent known only as the Signalman gets off a train on a stunningly hot morning in Winslow, Arizona. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Her website includes gardening tips and images of some of her favourite animals including the wombats Fudge and Rickie and the rock wallabies Emily and Bounce. It is a rugged habitat that allows rock wallabies to survive because, French says, no hunters can reach the area. That is the reason I am fascinated with wombats."įrench and her husband Bryan Sullivan have converted 93 per cent of their property into a wildlife refuge and are on first-name terms with most of the animals that visit them. "They are entirely and completely at cross purposes, and yet they co-exist, with great enjoyment on both sides. "The human and the wombat never connect," French says. Like all French's wombat stories, Wombat Wins focuses on the unique relationship between human beings and the dozy little marsupial. Her latest picture book, Wombat Wins, follows the escapades of Mothball, a wombat who stumbles upon a school athletics carnival while searching for carrots. Wombat Wins, by Jackie French and Bruce Whatley. ![]() ![]() ![]() One where literary culture was held dear, when Susan Sontag and Gore Vidal were publicly positioned as the celebrated artists we’d look to for perspectives on the big issues of the day, instead, of say, Caitlyn Jenner and that one kid with the haircut from the British boy band that announced a hiatus earlier this week. In the media, Franzen is all too happy to publicly mourn for some other, more golden time. He is chagrined and scandalized by kids today, with our student debt and our start-ups, with our selfies and our Snapchat. ![]() ![]() Franzen, with his noted self-seriousness, his ambivalence about modernity, his anger at the world for turning, always turning, stands in for a character type, one frequently dismissed on Twitter with the ironic (but dead serious) nouning of “old.” Franzen, at 56, is an Old. Please forgive me for being the boorish person who attempts to explain the gag. Manage Print Subscription / Tax Receipt. ![]() ![]() ![]() Nagel is a total stranger to the little town, but he soon makes an unforgettable impression on its inhabitants, and people are taken aback by his unusual opinions and contradictory nature. A stranger by the name of Nagel appeared, a singular character who shook the town by his eccentric behaviour and then vanished as suddenly as he had come”. Translated from the Norwegian by Gerry Bothmer, Mysteries begins with the following lines: “ In the middle of the summer of 1891 the most extraordinary things began happening in a small Norwegian coastal town. ![]() ![]() I previously enjoyed Knut Hamsun’s book Hunger, which I reviewed in May, and, following the recommendation from CakeorDeathSite, I am now reviewing Mysteries by this Nobel Prize winner. “ Is there any way of knowing? There are so many strange things between heaven and earth, beautiful, inexplicable things, presentiments that can’t be explained, terrors that make your blood freeze”. ![]() |