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Sahih Al Bukhari ( Sayings Of Prophet MOHAMMED (PBUH ) - ( Islam Quran Hadith - Ramadan Islamic Apps )
Education and Book
App
*****One of TOP Ranking Islamic Apps on APPLE APPSTORE ! ***** COMPLETE SAHIH BUKHARI ...
The Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World
Book
A visionary exploration of the life and times of Joseph Conrad, his turbulent age of globalization...
history
The Last Bookaneer
Book
book′a-neer′ (bŏŏk′kȧ-nēr′), n. a literary pirate; an individual capable of doing all...
Charlotte's Web
7.9
Rate It
Book
A Puffin Book - stories that last a lifetime. Puffin Modern Classics are relaunched under a new...
ClareR (5996 KP) rated Amazing Grace Adams in Books
Feb 27, 2023
Grace Adams has had enough, and frankly I don’t blame her. She’s gone from being “Polyglot of the Year”, to the mother of a 16 year old who won’t speak to her, and her husband (Ben) has just served her with divorce papers. She feels like she’s losing her mind.
As she rushes to get her daughters very expensive and very tiny birthday cake to her ex’s house (where she’s living), she abandons her car in a traffic jam and decides to walk there - and it’s a very hot day.
The story alternates between the present day, and the events leading up to when she met Ben and back to the present day. Within these flashbacks are the reasons why Grace is struggling with her life. None of these events are helped by the fact that she’s clearly not medically in a good place. Peri-menopause has a large part to play in her interactions with others, and how she’s coping at work and home. And other factors are revealed along the way.
Grace isn’t having an easy time of it, and all those things that could go wrong, have. I seriously felt like dragging her along to the chemist, forcing her to wait for her prescription (she has got one!), and slapping that HRT patch on for her myself! Not a solution, but a big help!
It’s so good to see more women being represented in literature in their mid to late forties now. And talking about the fun and games that is the perimenopause! Grace’s complete loss of self-confidence could be put down to it - although all the things going on with her daughter and husband could also be contributing factors!
I rather liked Grace, and I did a silent cheer every time she stood up to someone who deserved it! There are some really funny bits in amongst the more sombre parts.
This book is well worth a read!!
As she rushes to get her daughters very expensive and very tiny birthday cake to her ex’s house (where she’s living), she abandons her car in a traffic jam and decides to walk there - and it’s a very hot day.
The story alternates between the present day, and the events leading up to when she met Ben and back to the present day. Within these flashbacks are the reasons why Grace is struggling with her life. None of these events are helped by the fact that she’s clearly not medically in a good place. Peri-menopause has a large part to play in her interactions with others, and how she’s coping at work and home. And other factors are revealed along the way.
Grace isn’t having an easy time of it, and all those things that could go wrong, have. I seriously felt like dragging her along to the chemist, forcing her to wait for her prescription (she has got one!), and slapping that HRT patch on for her myself! Not a solution, but a big help!
It’s so good to see more women being represented in literature in their mid to late forties now. And talking about the fun and games that is the perimenopause! Grace’s complete loss of self-confidence could be put down to it - although all the things going on with her daughter and husband could also be contributing factors!
I rather liked Grace, and I did a silent cheer every time she stood up to someone who deserved it! There are some really funny bits in amongst the more sombre parts.
This book is well worth a read!!
Duas of Prophet (Sallallahu alayhi wasallam) ( Islam Quran Hadith - Ramadan Islamic Apps ) )
Book and Education
App
Al-Khawarizmi is a trusted name in Islamic Apps development for years. We have sold thousands of...
Haley Mathiot (9 KP) rated A Christmas Carol in Books
Apr 27, 2018
We all, at one point or another, have heard the story of A Christmas Carol, whether we read the book in school, watched a movie with the family, or saw the Muppets version on youtube (which, by the way, is my favorite. I heartily recommend it.). But there is so much more to the story that we don’t grasp because of how our culture has changed. This is the way it is with every classic book. But A Christmas Carol is a story that needs to be understood in it’s full impact because of the story it tells and the lessons it teaches. Stephen Skelton has made it possible.
The Special Edition of A Christmas Carol is a small book, perfect to fit in a small handbag (or a stocking!) with a beautiful cover. The book itself is printed with Dickens’ story in the main section of the pages, and the notes, subtext, and annotations printed in the outer margins. After every “Chapter” (called a Stave in the text) there is a discussion section, perfect for any age group, either young children or mature Christians. The discussion features Bible verses and questions, and relates events, topics, and themes from A Christmas Carol to our everyday Christian walk with God. Extra verses and topics follow the end of every discussion section for those older individuals who wish to go further into studying the themes targeted in the book: Selfishness, Regret, Repentance, Salvation, and Rebirth. At the end of the book is a list of resources for further study.
The story of A Christmas Carol remains, to this day, a classic in literature because it is a wonderful story of sin and greed turned around to Christianity and charity through allegory and parable. It has proved itself a wonderful story to every reader, and will continue to do so forever. Hopefully, this will be the edition that becomes the standard.
Recommendation: All ages. Wonderful for family discussions or group Bible studies. Perfect Christmas gift or stocking stuffer!
**Thank you to FSB Associates for providing my review copy!**
The Special Edition of A Christmas Carol is a small book, perfect to fit in a small handbag (or a stocking!) with a beautiful cover. The book itself is printed with Dickens’ story in the main section of the pages, and the notes, subtext, and annotations printed in the outer margins. After every “Chapter” (called a Stave in the text) there is a discussion section, perfect for any age group, either young children or mature Christians. The discussion features Bible verses and questions, and relates events, topics, and themes from A Christmas Carol to our everyday Christian walk with God. Extra verses and topics follow the end of every discussion section for those older individuals who wish to go further into studying the themes targeted in the book: Selfishness, Regret, Repentance, Salvation, and Rebirth. At the end of the book is a list of resources for further study.
The story of A Christmas Carol remains, to this day, a classic in literature because it is a wonderful story of sin and greed turned around to Christianity and charity through allegory and parable. It has proved itself a wonderful story to every reader, and will continue to do so forever. Hopefully, this will be the edition that becomes the standard.
Recommendation: All ages. Wonderful for family discussions or group Bible studies. Perfect Christmas gift or stocking stuffer!
**Thank you to FSB Associates for providing my review copy!**
Hazel (1853 KP) rated Shadow Fall (Shadow Fall, #1) in Books
Dec 7, 2018
Rating 1.5 stars
<i>This ARC was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review </i>
For almost a decade, dystopian literature has become mainstream amongst the young adult community, and it appears set to stay as another debut author joins the bandwagon. <i>Shadow Fall</i> by Audrey Grey encompasses ideas from popular series, such as<i> The Hunger Games</i> and <i>The Maze Runner</i>, to create an original apocalyptic story. In barely more than a fortnight the Earth is doomed to be destroyed by a passing asteroid, only a handful of humans can survive. The question is who?
Maia Graystone, a fugitive, has been given the opportunity to win a place on Hyperion space station – a castle in the stars – and safety from the asteroid, Pandora. However in a game of life and death it is not going to be easy to get through the trials. Posing, quite literally, as the Lady Everly March, Maia hopes not to be recognized by the tyrannous Emperor, nor by the mother who abandoned her. Yet Maia’s supporters have an ulterior motive – kill the Emperor.
To be brutally honest, <i>Shadow Fall</i> was a rather tedious book to read. Granted there was a lot of action – mostly unnecessary, bloodthirsty murder – however the confusing storyline, rude characters and the inability to evoke a visual idea of the setting, resulted in a painstakingly uninspiring story.
With so many dystopian novels to compete against, it is going to be hard for a new writer to stand out from the crowd. Audrey Grey used a lot of Greek mythological references as the basis of her ideas, something that appealed to me, but may be lost on other readers.
On the other hand,<i> Shadow Fall </i>contains a couple of scenes that will conjure emotion up in the majority of readers, and mildly excite and engage. Yet, for me, this was not enough to save it from a negative review. I really wanted to like this book but I struggled to get into the story and appreciate the author’s hard work.
<i>This ARC was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review </i>
For almost a decade, dystopian literature has become mainstream amongst the young adult community, and it appears set to stay as another debut author joins the bandwagon. <i>Shadow Fall</i> by Audrey Grey encompasses ideas from popular series, such as<i> The Hunger Games</i> and <i>The Maze Runner</i>, to create an original apocalyptic story. In barely more than a fortnight the Earth is doomed to be destroyed by a passing asteroid, only a handful of humans can survive. The question is who?
Maia Graystone, a fugitive, has been given the opportunity to win a place on Hyperion space station – a castle in the stars – and safety from the asteroid, Pandora. However in a game of life and death it is not going to be easy to get through the trials. Posing, quite literally, as the Lady Everly March, Maia hopes not to be recognized by the tyrannous Emperor, nor by the mother who abandoned her. Yet Maia’s supporters have an ulterior motive – kill the Emperor.
To be brutally honest, <i>Shadow Fall</i> was a rather tedious book to read. Granted there was a lot of action – mostly unnecessary, bloodthirsty murder – however the confusing storyline, rude characters and the inability to evoke a visual idea of the setting, resulted in a painstakingly uninspiring story.
With so many dystopian novels to compete against, it is going to be hard for a new writer to stand out from the crowd. Audrey Grey used a lot of Greek mythological references as the basis of her ideas, something that appealed to me, but may be lost on other readers.
On the other hand,<i> Shadow Fall </i>contains a couple of scenes that will conjure emotion up in the majority of readers, and mildly excite and engage. Yet, for me, this was not enough to save it from a negative review. I really wanted to like this book but I struggled to get into the story and appreciate the author’s hard work.
FilmIntuition (33 KP) rated All We Ever Wanted in Books
Jul 6, 2018
Timely & Compelling
Determined to get to the second book in the series that everyone I knew had assured me was "the best," over the years, I must've picked up and earnestly started my paperback copy of Emily Giffin's Something Borrowed dozens of times but just couldn't relate to the characters.
And while I feared the same would be true for Giffin's latest novel All We Ever Wanted, especially considering that the first chapter of the book – which divides the storyline into three alternating first person points-of-view – began from the perspective of the wealthy one percenter wife from Nashville's elite, Giffin quickly replaces first world problems with real world problems.
Shocked to her core upon discovering appalling decision made by her Princeton bound son, in trying to get to the bottom of what exactly happened and what on Earth he was thinking, Nina Browning is forced to take a good hard look at her life and marriage as well as her past when she found herself at the other end of a similar horrific situation.
Continuing the action from the perspective of the two main other parties involved including her son's younger classmate, Lyla and Lyla's protective single father Tom, Giffin deftly balances her richly compelling drama with timely issues of economic inequality, racism, and sexual harassment in the digital age.
Surprising her readers with a few well-earned twists, while despite the narrative roller-coaster, we're pretty sure we know precisely who's to blame, ultimately it's in Lyla and Nina's journey toward accepting and understanding the truth that made the book increasingly hard to stop reading, particularly in its second half.
An ideal property for HBO to look into adapting as part of its annual miniseries exploration of twenty-first century women in literature, All We Ever Wanted might have been my first Emily Giffin work but it's just the right one to make me want to pick up Something Borrowed again for good.
Note: I received an Advanced Reader’s Copy of this title from Bookish First in exchange for an honest opinion.
And while I feared the same would be true for Giffin's latest novel All We Ever Wanted, especially considering that the first chapter of the book – which divides the storyline into three alternating first person points-of-view – began from the perspective of the wealthy one percenter wife from Nashville's elite, Giffin quickly replaces first world problems with real world problems.
Shocked to her core upon discovering appalling decision made by her Princeton bound son, in trying to get to the bottom of what exactly happened and what on Earth he was thinking, Nina Browning is forced to take a good hard look at her life and marriage as well as her past when she found herself at the other end of a similar horrific situation.
Continuing the action from the perspective of the two main other parties involved including her son's younger classmate, Lyla and Lyla's protective single father Tom, Giffin deftly balances her richly compelling drama with timely issues of economic inequality, racism, and sexual harassment in the digital age.
Surprising her readers with a few well-earned twists, while despite the narrative roller-coaster, we're pretty sure we know precisely who's to blame, ultimately it's in Lyla and Nina's journey toward accepting and understanding the truth that made the book increasingly hard to stop reading, particularly in its second half.
An ideal property for HBO to look into adapting as part of its annual miniseries exploration of twenty-first century women in literature, All We Ever Wanted might have been my first Emily Giffin work but it's just the right one to make me want to pick up Something Borrowed again for good.
Note: I received an Advanced Reader’s Copy of this title from Bookish First in exchange for an honest opinion.
Ivana A. | Diary of Difference (1171 KP) rated The Plus One in Books
Oct 21, 2018
Did Not Finish it...
Full review can be found on my blog: www.diaryofdifference.com
I love romance, and chick-literature. I love fast reads, and enjoyable nonsense. The cover looked so cute, and when I got approved the ARC on The Plus One from Sophia Money-Coutts on Netgalley, I was excited to read it. And then, it all started going downhill…
The Plus One is a book about Polly Spencer. She is thirty, single and works for Posh! Magazine. I didn’t like the Poly Spencer of now, and I thought, this might be a book where the main character is a lady with no self-respect, gets dumped, doesn’t have any ambition in life, and that’s okay.
People learn, people change, or if people don’t change, they start to be happy in their own world, without bothering what others think about it.
But Polly - she is all of these things, and on top of that she is not a happy bunny. She keeps complaining about things without trying to act on it, and her day consists of her checking if the phone has a message of her ‘crush’, and asking herself eighty-six times whether to send a message first or not.
I usually love these types of books, but not in cases where the character is just so… I don’t even have the words to explain.
And the book is full of words used too often (Shenanigans is such a lovely word, and Sophia destroyed it for me), lame pick up lines (‘I carry farm animals. I can manage you.’ - WHO SAYS THAT?), dialogues and useless waste of pages with people deciding what to eat:
‘So let’s get some onion bhajis to start. And then I’m going to have a butter chicken. And it comes with popadoms, right?’
‘Yes’ - I said, taking the menu from him.
‘And I’ll get the chicken jalfrezi. And plain rice. Mums, do we have any chutney?’
And it goes on…
At 42%, I decided to store this is my DNF stack. I really wish I had loved it, and I am so sad I didn't.
But life is too short to read the books you don’t like...
I love romance, and chick-literature. I love fast reads, and enjoyable nonsense. The cover looked so cute, and when I got approved the ARC on The Plus One from Sophia Money-Coutts on Netgalley, I was excited to read it. And then, it all started going downhill…
The Plus One is a book about Polly Spencer. She is thirty, single and works for Posh! Magazine. I didn’t like the Poly Spencer of now, and I thought, this might be a book where the main character is a lady with no self-respect, gets dumped, doesn’t have any ambition in life, and that’s okay.
People learn, people change, or if people don’t change, they start to be happy in their own world, without bothering what others think about it.
But Polly - she is all of these things, and on top of that she is not a happy bunny. She keeps complaining about things without trying to act on it, and her day consists of her checking if the phone has a message of her ‘crush’, and asking herself eighty-six times whether to send a message first or not.
I usually love these types of books, but not in cases where the character is just so… I don’t even have the words to explain.
And the book is full of words used too often (Shenanigans is such a lovely word, and Sophia destroyed it for me), lame pick up lines (‘I carry farm animals. I can manage you.’ - WHO SAYS THAT?), dialogues and useless waste of pages with people deciding what to eat:
‘So let’s get some onion bhajis to start. And then I’m going to have a butter chicken. And it comes with popadoms, right?’
‘Yes’ - I said, taking the menu from him.
‘And I’ll get the chicken jalfrezi. And plain rice. Mums, do we have any chutney?’
And it goes on…
At 42%, I decided to store this is my DNF stack. I really wish I had loved it, and I am so sad I didn't.
But life is too short to read the books you don’t like...