Showing posts with label Reading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reading. Show all posts

Sunday 12 December 2021

A Novel of Arian - Then The Fish Swallowed Him - Part 1 – Reading 6

It is just a light novel

Hang on!

Please, take a little attention to see the picture above. Is there something that remind you to your childhood book?


Fig 01- A novel “Then the fish swallowed him.”

Or any imagination in your childhood about the story from the biblical scripture?

Absolutely!

It is a story about Jonah, a rebellious prophet. Jonah was swallowed by a giant fish, then he stayed in belly fish for three days.

Many versions about what was going with Jonah in the belly fish.

The story in this book is also about Jonah, Jonah of Iran in the nowadays (I think 😊)!


Fig 02- Illustration only


Fig 03- Peppers, just for illustration


Fig 04- Two fish, made from metal.

The author of this book is Amir Ahmadi Arian, an Iranian journalist and novelist.

He is a lecturer at City College and Baruch College and settling in New York City.

This book is his first novel in English.

Talking about Iran, Iran is one of a few theocracy countries globally which is Islamic Republic.

Iranian call Jonah as Yunus, like other Islamic countries call Yunus as Jonah in western world.

# To be continued to Part 2

## Previous postings:

Saturday 27 November 2021

A Memoir of Chasten Buttigieg – Part 2 – Reading 5

Fig 01- Books for illustration only

You may read previous postings (Part 1):

7) Repairing abandoned houses

- reached target based on schedule within 1,000 days for 1,000 homes.

8) Almost triple permit in term of values.

- in the first term, permits values for construction projects increasing from US$69 millions to US$190 millions.

9) Raising pay

- city workers got increasing pay per hour

10) Growth of Latino population

- from almost zero to 15% of city population.
- Buttigieg able to communicate in Spanish

Then he became a rising star since he decided to enter the Democratic Party Presidential race in the beginning of 2020.


Fig 02- One of old properties

The New York Times revealed about him: “The first openly gay major Presidential Candidate”.


Fig 03- One of resident homes

Exactly. He is millennial. He is gay, and he is married.


Fig 04- Tall tree in the yard of resident home.

In a perfect moment, when he launched his presidential campaign, he introduced his honored husband, Chasten, to the public.


Fig 05- Chasten Buttigieg (Credit: Pete Buttigieg)

Chasten is always ready on his side, embrace him, and hug him.

With Pete, Chasten feels so loved. In this book, he tells us about his life, his love, and his married.

He talks about his personal life and love in a straightforward way, very easy to follow and understand. He confesses about his feeling at the first moment met his husband.

Reading this book, I felt like I am listening my best friend talking to me who is a warm, funny, and honest human being.

# Previous postings:

Wednesday 24 November 2021

A Memoir of Chasten Buttigieg – Part 1 – Reading 5

Fig 01- A memoir of Chasten.

Chasten Buttigieg is husband of Pete Buttigieg.

So, who is Pete Buttigieg?

Pete Buttigieg is US Secretary of Transportation under current Biden’s administration.

He was a US army veteran and former Mayor of South Bend, Indiana.

As a mayor from 2012 to 2020, Pete Buttigieg has succeeded to rebuild the South Bend city.

Some of his legacies are:

1) Stop shrinking city population due to many people fleeing the city

- population has been increased from 101,000 in 2010 to be 109,000 in 2020.

2) Reducing unemployment rate

- from 10% in 2012 to be below 4% in 2020

3) Booster business communities

- city has been developed so fast for business purposes


Fig 02- A city in America


Fig 03- Rose at backyard


Fig 04 – Pumpkins at farmer market


Fig 05- A pet on the street of American community

4) Creating affordable housings

- help poor communities to own a house
- give loan for repairing to whoever own houses

5) Increasing shelter capacity

- help homeless residents

6) Help neighborhood merchants

- these merchants are important, not only to support neighborhood but also big business such as new hotels.

# To be continued to Part 2

## Previous postings:

Saturday 16 October 2021

Outlawed - An Epic Western Novel – Part 2 - Reading 4

Red rose in the garden

Previous posting (Part 1):

Her mother begins to worry about Ada.

She finds a man to “help” Ada to get pregnant and said not to think about unfaithful to her husband, but to keep herself safe.

Almost one year is over, and Ada is not pregnant yet.

Then she has been kicked out from her husband and husband’s family where she lives with.

Ada comes back to her mother and younger sisters.

German measles outbreaks and the disease attacks pregnant women and babies.

The folks believe that the deaths and miscarriages caused by witchcrafts, barren women, and one of them is Ada.

Ada must leave the town, then she lives in covenant.


Anna North, the author of Outlawed.

When she was in covenant she learns about the causes of infertility, then learned how to solve it..

She has great knowledge about herbal, frontier medicine and midwifery.

Then she joins a band of outlaws led by a preacher-turned-robber known to all as the Kid, the Hole in the Wall Gang.

Ada learns how to:

- rob highway
- steal cattle
- appear and behave like a binary man.

However, she finds that the gang is the safe place for barren women and gender nonconforming people.

# Previous postings:

Tuesday 12 October 2021

Outlawed - An Epic Western Novel – Part 1 - Reading 4

Cover of Outlawed, a Western fiction

Outlawed is a Western fiction by Anna North.

The writer grown up in Los Angeles and lives in Brooklyn. She was a graduate of Iowa Writer’s Workshop.

Ada is the protagonist in this book. The story is set in the late of nineteenth century.

From the front jacket of this book, “In the year of our Lord 1894, I became an outlaw. Like a lot of things, it didn’t happen all at once.”

The story begins when Ada feels lucky to get married with a handsome boy from the good family.

Ada’s mother is a midwife and Ada always happy to help her mother doing her job.

Like other her peers, she married at seventeen, and she loves her husband.

Their duty is to have children for baby Jesus since God sent the Great Flu (flu pandemic) to cleanse the world of evil.

Several months after they wed, Ada’s womb is still empty. Meanwhile in her town, the barren women are routinely hanged as witches.

# To be continued to Part 2

## Previous posting:

Friday 1 October 2021

Traditional Books versus Electronic Books for Children – Part 2 – Reading 3

Books for children sold out

Better to read previous post (part 1):

It is because reading book able to support their healthy brain development, and important for development of:

- vocabulary
- literacy
- language skill
- then lead to better academic.

Many “busy” parents give tablet or any screen for their children with many books in it, depending to kind of tablets.

Some of interactive e-books can help parents to read the books when busy parents do not have time to read them for their children.

Few other parents give time limit for their kids to access electronic devices, and facilitate them with traditional books.


Wild fruit for birds, just for illustration.

Ms Lynnell is one of them, she always has time for reading the traditional books for Cassie. Cassie' parents also have some times for her bed time reading.

Cassie loves to show all of hers. She like to show her baby dolls, puzzles, and books.

She prefers traditional books because she can show, carry, and pretend to read her books for every body.

She has favorite pages in every single book. Oh-oh she drawn happy faces and little dolls on those pages too.

Finally, what do you think about traditional and e-books?

# Previous postings:

Monday 27 September 2021

Traditional Books versus Electronic Books for Children – Part 1 – Reading 3

A children book

Last weekend, I stopped by for a cup of hot drinks in Barnes and Nobel Cafe, a book store cafe.

There plenty of hot drinks, I usually choose one of these favorite drinks:

- hot latte
- coffee mixed with milk
- or cappuccino

While enjoying a cup of drinks, I reading articles from some magazines, just for fun.

The book’s cart in front of the bookstore building was still standing between two pillars in entrance door.

I saw the books in the cart were getting lower price and there were only few novels and children books left.

One of the books in the cart took my attention, The Noah Ark! The story from holy books, as you know. 


A truck of lineman to fix electrical wires.

That is one of my favorite stories.

I bought the book and would give it to Cassie, a three year old granddaughter of Ms Lynnell, a member of group in our community.

This traditional book brought some thoughts about different between traditional book and e-book: which one is better reading media for children's cognitive development.

Lately many suggest to use e-book and interactive e-book for children, especially children in 0 to 5 year-old.

This age is critical for book reading.

Why?

# To be continued to Part 2

Friday 20 August 2021

Like Crazy, “a wild child cares for the wild woman who raised him” - Reading 2

 

Like Crazy, a book cover

The phenomena of mental disorders are about the same. The signs and symptoms are overlapping to get to know the classification of disorders.

When the symptoms are still mild and still toleratable, we think that it just his or her characters and moods.

Many sufferers of mental disorder are not aware that they have kind of disorder. Some of sufferes' acts lead to a danger and a crime.

Since the Covid-19 pandemic takes rule our lives, there are many children ask their parents stay with them instead of in the “nursing home” facilities.

They decide to take care their parents.

Dan Matthews decided to take care for his mother was a decade before pandemic Covid-19.


The author and his mom.

When this book was published by Atria Book in May 2020, this book brings a kind of uplifting for the children who have fragile parents to care for.

This a worth book to read. The astounding book “when a child settles down to care for the wild woman who raised him.”

Good book to read for who cares with his or her mom!

Thursday 29 July 2021

Family Saga and Meaning to be a Good Person – Part 2 - Reading 1

Andrew Ridker, The author of The Altruists.

You may read the first part:

I read all through the book. I did not see any funny and smart.

I just felt piety to those characters, seems they are not mature, not smart and wise about life. “Am I loosing the sense of humor?”

I was thinking that I was stressful, my anxiety level was getting higher. I was about frustrated because I also had to google some terms from this novel that I was doubt about the definitions and the concepts.

This book was wrote by a millennial author, a young man in her twenties. It is his novel.

Since I review another book which is Altruism:

- The Power of Compassion.

Finally, I agree that The Altruists is super funny and super brilliant.


Flowers in the city garden

This novel is ironic and tragicomic about moral life, and the concepts how to be a good person with the naïve thought.

The author fascinated about two differences. We can see how two generation, between baby boomers and millennials, between dysfunctional family and campus life, in this novel. He gives the readers good measurements of compassion.

The author is very smart, even the characters seems kind of un-mature persons, but he created their personality exactly like in the theories or concepts that we learn either in the Sociology Class or in the Psychology of Personality.

The terms in the book are also terms in the textbook, and some concepts might from his faith.

Friday 23 July 2021

Family Saga and Meaning to be a Good Person – Part 1 - Reading 1

The Altruists, a novel

I picked this book with several reasons, some of them because I like:

- the cover with clean white
- the pictures
- and reviews stated, “Super brilliant, Super funny”.

The first chapter I did not see any funny but sad, because this chapter was about their burning house, meanwhile whole family plus a couple client were in the house.

The end of the first chapter, the author put some conversations among them, when they were seeing the fire fighters doing their job from the outside of burning house.

Seemed the author left the clues for readers by putting two words in bold fonts. I kept in my mind those words.

The next chapters jumped back and forward, reminding me to words with bold fonts.

They are the “theme” of this novel.


Fruit from a wild flower

This book is about the a family, Alters. Arthur Alters is a father, “professor at a Midwestern college, he can’t afford his mortgage, he’s exasperated his much-younger girlfriend”.

Maggie is a main characteristic, a daughter, who “a would-be do-gooder trying to fashion herself a noble life of self-imposed poverty”.

Ethan is his son, an introvert gay.

# To be continued to part 2

Is Meat Not a Main Food of Fox? - Nature 129

We have talked briefly about a fox crossing street at our neighborhood recently at previous posting.  Image 01 - A fox, sitting on the stree...