Ở Nơi Yên Ấm - Chuyện Hạnh Phúc tải xuống LIT miễn phí

David Mottet mottet_webdesign — When Oscar-buzz swirled about the movie adaptation of Winter's Bone, I sprung to watch it. The story was alright, the acting was great, but I felt like something was missing. Something in the plot seemed unexplained or under-detailed. So a few months later I took the opportunity to find out what it was when I picked up this book from the library. I quite literally flew through it, all the while hoping it would fill that void I had felt watching the film. I guess because I already knew how the story turned out, I wasn't as entertained as I was hoping to be or probably should have been. That being said, I did enjoy it -- much more than the movie, in fact. Woodrell's poetic speech is captivating and picturesque, defining the backdrop of the story in beautiful metaphors and adjectives rather than for what it really was - rough, tumble, and full of ugliness. Ree is a great protagonist. Her role was developed much more in the writing than was portrayed on-screen and though her attitude is palpable and her choices were not always wise, she is someone to be marveled at and on some level admired. When I saw this was Woodrell's 8th novel, (evidenced in the back sleeve) I was curious to know if all of his writing deals with these mystery-settings. The intrigue was there, but unfortunately I had previously spoiled that for myself. Perhaps another Ozark-themes mystery will satisfy more fully.

Krystal Campioni krystalcampioni — I finished this a while ago. Very enjoyable reading. The author says at the outset that she wants to "present Catherine the woman, the multi-faceted, very eighteenth-century woman, principally through her own words and those of her contemporaries[]." Also? Apparently the horse story is a complete fabrication. Not a big surprise. I can't remember if I knew that before or not. But since this is something of a personal biography with political aspects, it spends a lot of time on Catherine's relationships with her favorites. (They'd be called mistresses if the genders were reversed.) This is something that modern polyfolk might find to be interesting, because for much of her life she had two favorites and had to figure out how to deal with having both of them around. (This is even more complicated when you're being the Empress of Russia, apparently.) Catherine expresses herself well, and her excerpted letters are a lot of fun to read. I'm tempted to see if I can track the originals down, since presumably many of them would have been written in French. (Both because of Francophilia in Russian culture of the period, and because IIRC at this time French was (still) the dominant language of diplomacy.) Here's an excerpt (p.331) from a letter from 11 November 1778, concerning American privateering: Do you know what wrong those American ship owners have done me? They have seized some merchant ships which were setting off from Arkhangelsk; they carried out this delightful business in the months of July, but I sincerely promise you that the first to meddle in the commerce of Arkhangelsk during this coming year will pay me dearly for it, for I am not Brother G. [i.e. King George III]: one doesn't push me around with impunity; they can do what they like to Brother G., but not to me, without getting their fingers burnt; I am angry, very angry indeed. Here's another interesting one - Catherine's reaction upon seeing drawings of some loggias decorated with paintings by Raphael. (Go here for pictures of the originals.) "When Catherine received these drawings on I September [1778] she immediately went into an acquisitive ecstasy over them and determined that she must have replicas of the loggias for herself. ..." I'll die, I'm sure I'll die: there's a strong wind blowing from the sea, the worst kind for the imagination; this morning I went to the baths, which made my blood rise to my head, and this this afternoon the ceilings of the Raphael loggias fell into my hands. I am sustained by absolutely nothing but hope; I beg you to save me: write at once to Reiffenstein, I beg you, to tell him to get these vaults copied life-size, as well as the walls, and I make a vow to Saint Raphael that I will have loggias built whatever the cost and will place the copies in them, for I absolutely must see them as they are. I have such veneration for these loggias, these ceilings, that I am prepared to bear the expense of this building for their sake, and I will have neither peace nor repose until this project is under way. And if someone could make me a little model of the building, the dimensions taken with accuracy in Rome, the city of models, I would get nearer to my aim. Well, the divine Reiffenstein could have this lovely commission as well, if Monsieur the Baron Grimm so desires; I admit that I would rather charge you with this than Monsieur Shuvalov, because the latter is always raising doubts about everything, and doubts are what make people like me suffer more than anything else in the world. One of the Empress's favorites was mentioned as having an apothecary set, which he used to mix and test drugs (!). But I wonder if this was a predecessor of modern chemistry sets. 1789 made the Empress unhappy. Not a big surprise. "Do you still remember," she wrote to Grimm, "how the late King of Prussia claimed that Helvetius had confessed to him that the project of the philosophes was to overturn all thrones and that the Encyclopédie had been made with no other aim than the destruction of all kings and all religions? Do you also remember that you never wanted to be counted among the philosophes? Well, you are right never to have wanted to be included among the illuminati, the enlightened ones, or the philosophes, for their only objective is destruction, as experience has shown." Also the part about the illuminati made me smile. Incidentally, I love Amazon's Search Inside This Book feature, because when I want to excerpt from a book whose publisher has provided the text, well, it saves me a lot of typing.

Enrique Girán giranarquitecto — Man, my mom had to help me read this book...

Xiang Liu mattaaa — When Clary finds out the truth, she goes in search of her father. Her journey there isn't pleasant, as well as what they take from her. But soon shes finds out a horrible truth that she was not expecting.