Svetlana's Reads and Views

  Title of the book: The Critic's daughter, a memoir  Author: Priscilla Gilman Publisher: W.W. Norton and Company Publishing Date: 2023  ISBN: 978-0-393-65132-4 Summary:  Growing up on the Upper West Side of New York City in the 1970s, in an apartment filled with dazzling literary and artistic characters, Priscilla Gilman worshiped her brilliant, adoring, and mercurial father, the writer, theater critic, and Yale School of Drama professor Richard Gilman. But when Priscilla was ten years old, her mother, renowned literary agent Lynn Nesbit, abruptly announced that she was ending the marriage. The resulting cascade of disturbing revelations―about her parents’ hollow marriage, her father’s double life and tortured sexual identity―fundamentally changed Priscilla’s perception of her father, as she attempted to protect him from the depression that had long shadowed him. Author Info: (From goodreads) Priscilla Gilman is a former professor of English literature at both Yale ...

 The Sunday Post The Sunday Post is a blog news meme hosted here @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on your blog for the week ahead. Join in weekly, bi-weekly or for a monthly wrap up. See rules here:  Sunday Post Meme #18 What awaits me in few years... As I learned quite recently, my son has taken interest in military machines and it seems he is kind of gravitating towards learning a bit of WWII. (I did tell him of some basics, of the "good guys" and the "bad guys") I also pointed out the swastika and that its a symbol of evil, and I also mentioned that the leader, Hitler, was a very evil man. What I haven't mentioned nor talked about (my son is six and in first grade) are the stories of German and Japanese atrocities that would have awaited for people like him. I feel anxious for when one day I will have to talk about ...

    Name of Book: Episode Thirteen Author: Craig DiLouie  ISBN: 978-0-316-44310-4 Publisher: Redhook  Type of book: supernatural, ghosts, entity, spirits, haunting, phenomena, science, debunking, haunted house, maze, labyrinth, desires, life or death, epistolary format  Year it was published: 2023  Summary: A ghost-hunting reality TV crew gain unprecedented access to an abandoned and supposedly haunted mansion, which promises a groundbreaking thirteenth episode, but as they uncover the secret history of the house, they learn that “reality” TV might be all too real — in Bram Stoker Award nominated author Craig DiLouie's latest heart pounding novel of horror and psychological suspense. Fade to Black is the newest hit ghost hunting reality TV show. It’s led by husband and wife team Matt and Claire Kirklin and features a dedicated crew of ghost-hunting experts.   Episode Thirteen takes them to Matt's holy grail: the Paranormal Research Foundation. This cru...

  Name of Book: The Tethered Mage Author: Melissa Caruso ISBN: 978-0-316-46687-5 Publisher: Orbit  Part of a Series: Swords and Fire (The Defiant Heir and The Unbound Empire are sequels, as well as Rooks and Ruin Trilogy)  Type of book: fantasy, alternate Italy in 1700s, politics, manipulation, mages, magic, prison, slavery, soldiers, war, mobilizing, nobility  Year it was published: 2017 Summary: In the Raverran Empire, magic is scarce and those born with power are strictly controlled – taken as children and conscripted into the Falcon Army. Zaira has lived her life on the streets to avoid this fate, hiding her mage-mark and thieving to survive. But hers is a rare and dangerous magic, one that threatens the entire empire. Lady Amalia Cornaro was never meant to be a Falconer. Heiress and scholar, she was born into a treacherous world of political machinations. But fate has bound the heir and the mage. War looms on the horizon. A single spark could turn their city in...

 The Sunday Post The Sunday Post is a blog news meme hosted here @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on your blog for the week ahead. Join in weekly, bi-weekly or for a monthly wrap up. See rules here:  Sunday Post Meme #17 Old Music, New Year... Right now in East Asia its Lunar New Years, Year of the Rabbit. (Happy New Years to whoever celebrates it!) In United States the year is just beginning, and while my son and I have plans for celebrating it (which includes H-Mart, bulgogi and a cake roll from Tous Les Jours, as well as him saying hello to his paternal grandma and aunt over Skype, and my son's father is actually Chinese not Korean and no, the father has never told me or guided me how to celebrate Lunar New Years in Chinese style) I am feeling introspective. Its safe to say that in 2025 it will be almost 20 years since I have bega...