Kathryn's Inbox

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The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.~ Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams

  Flamingos bend their leg at the ankle, not the knee.

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You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming ~ Pablo Neruda

You are enough. That is the ultimate message of What a Time to be Alone a well written guide to finding self-confidence from within by Chidera Eggerue, also known as The Slumflower. Containing beautiful illustrations, lots of colour and some very useful Igbo Proverbs that the author gained from her mother, this is a no bullshit look at how to accept yourself. This is a near perfect guide to self acceptance. Although it is pitched toward younger women, particularly those who are highly sensitive or anxious, many, many people from outside the target audience are bound to find the author's core message of accepting and celebrating your unique self whilst not hurting others to be extremely useful. The author takes a look at how to successfully navigate friendships and relationships. There is also a much needed commentary on the realities of fake friendships, listening to one's gut feelings about people and situations and self acceptance.  The perfect guide for anyone trying to nav...

  In the years prior to The Muppet Show , Kermit the Frog appeared in a number of commercials for instant coffee.

Ahh, Colleen Hoover. Some authors have fan fiction written about them. And some authors write their own fan fiction. Dissatisfied with how the ending of how her 2014 novel Maybe Someday left things up in the air for Maggie, Hoover decided to remedy things first by writing an extra chapter about Maggie and publishing it on the internet. Eventually this led to Maybe Now  ... Maybe now tells the story of what happened to all of the key characters from Maybe Someday and its companion novel Maybe Not after Ridge and Sydney get their happy ending. While the pair are finally free to be together, that relationship has come at a cost. Maggie has a chronic illness and is alone in the world. It's a good thing that she likes her independence. And then along comes Jake, a sexy doctor with a heart of gold ... If I could describe this story as anything, it would be, "what happens after the happily ever after and the reader turns the last page." Much like fan fiction, Hoover addresses...

No One Belongs Here More Than You is a unique little collection of short stories that focus on the bewildering double lives led by seemingly ordinary people. In Majesty , the reader meets a woman who has sexual fantasises about Prince William and blames herself for the tragic passing of a stranger's lost dog. In I Kiss a Door the main character is left bewildered when she discovers the unsavoury truth about a former friend. And that basically sums up each of these stories. Life is odd, icky and full of unwanted discovery. The stories are clever and hold a great deal of insight into the private and internal lives of the characters. They are also uncomfortable and deliberate so. For those who enjoy a dash of dark humour with dysfunction and an insight into other people's lives, this is probably an ideal collection. For those looking for escapism and easy answers however ... Ultimately, No One Belongs Here More Than You is what it is. Literary fiction with a dark humour, dysfun...

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Maybe everyone can live beyond what they’re capable of ~ Markus Zusak, The Messenger

Jessi's Secret Language has always been one of my favourite Baby-Sitters Club novels. For a long time, I have felt that it would make a perfect graphic novel. Well, that graphic novel is here now and I'm thrilled to report that it is everything I wanted it to be--and more. The main story is this--Jessi is the newest, and one of the youngest, members of the BSC. She loves ballet, her family and her friends, though she is still trying to find herself in her new hometown. The other girls at her ballet school are a little suspicious and jealous of her, and at the BSC she wants to prove that she is up to the task. Then Jessi finds herself learning what inclusion really means when she starts sitting for Matthew Braddock and his older sister Haley. Matt is Deaf, which means learning sign language, a task that Jessi embraces. Of course, she learns a number of lessons along the way--and finds a wonderful way to share a lesson about inclusivity at her ballet school. Overall, this one wa...

  Iceland is one of the only countries in the world that does not have mosquitoes. 

South Australia author Lyndall Clipstone's debut novel is a haunting dark fairy tale with a hint of gothic romance. Violetta 'Leta' Golding's life so far has been devoted to caring for her younger brother who appears to have some magic inside of him. Orphaned at a young age, they have been taken in by a lonely older women who soon makes up her mind that the pair are a nuisance and that dark magic may be lurking within them ... regardless of how much Violetta tries to conceal it. Then Rowan Sylvanan, the young lord who is rumoured to have murdered his family comes to the house with a strange proposition. He knows about the magic inside Arien and he may be able to help. But what is the cost? And what happens when Leta finds herself falling for Rowan and making a deal with the terrifying Lord Under ... This was an entertaining read, full of romance and magic and a few surprising twists. Clipstone's world building is excellent and that cliffhanger ending really took me ...

Take a pinch of horror, add a dash of magical realism, some dark humour and a lonely, dissatisfied mother and you get Nightbitch, an original and entertaining story of a woman whose life is transforming in the most unexpected of ways. The unnamed woman at the centre of the story is an artist turned stay-at-home mum of a two year old. Her husband can be away a week at a time and the loneliness she is experiencing, along with the erasure of her identity both as an artist and as an academic, is stifling. Then she makes a startling discovery. She is turning into a dog. Of course, no one believes her. She doesn't believe it either.  At first. Then, when the evidence becomes overwhelming, she embraces the role and becomes Nightbitch, part women, part wolf, unafraid and ready to unleash herself on the world ... In many ways, this was a clever look at the inner lives of smart women who find themselves unappreciated and relegated to the sidelines in their roles as wives and mothers. Parts ...

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He receives comfort like cold porridge ~ The Tempest by William Shakespeare

What Baby-Sitters Club fan could ever forget Karen, the imaginative and effervescent stepsister of club president Kristy? After all, Kristy's new family situation and the bond that was quickly forged between the stepsisters was a very important feature of the series. Soon enough, Karen had her own spin-off series pitched at a slightly younger audience, and from then on many fans of the Baby-Sitters Club would discover the series through the Baby-Sitters Little Sister series. Karen's School Picture is the fifth book in the series. Like the previous novels in the series it covers topics and lessons that might be important to a child who is six, almost seven years old. Karen lives her life between two radically different households and families. Along with her four year old brother, Andrew, she spends most of her time living in what she has termed the 'Little House' with her mother, her stepfather Seth and their pets. Every second weekend she stays in what she calls the ...

  7.24619% of people believe that chocolate milk comes from brown cows. 4.41% of people believe strawberry milk comes from pink goats. Bonus fact: 49% of trivia statistics are made up.

Jane Hayes has a secret. She is infatuated with Mr Darcy. Or, at least, the version of Mr Darcy that is played by Colin Firth in the 1995 BBC adaption of Pride and Prejudice. When her wealthy great-aunt stumbles upon this secret, she takes it upon herself to bequeath Jane an all-expenses paid trip to Austenland, a Jane Austen style theme park where visitors can cosplay as regency era women and live out their Jane Austen fantasies.  It is just a pity that Austenland does not quite meet up to expectations. Jane finds herself in the middle of a miserable holiday. And she's no closer to finding her own Mr Darcy. Or is she? Austenland is a short and lightweight read. Although the premise sounded fun, this one failed to match my expectations. All of the characters were fairly one dimensional falling into the very good or very bad stereotype, with little to no reasoning for their actions. In fact, even Jane's embarrassment over her interest in Pride and Prejudice  seems more pitif...

Picture this: Every Thursday morning, inside an ordinary house in Tehran, a group of seven women and one man, overseen by a former university lecturer gather to discuss books that have been banned (or are frowned upon,) in Iran in the years directly following the revolution. That is the surprising true story of Azar Nafisi's memoir. Many names and details have been changed to protect the innocent, but the subject matter--book banning and the lives of the ordinary women (and men,) living in Iran.  The memoir is divided into four sections. Each section is titled with the name of a banned book or author and works as an allegory to describe the conditions in Iran, particularly for women in the late 20th century. There's Lolita, The Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice and the author, Henry James. (I suspect that the author loves Henry James best of all.) We learn first hand some of the humiliations the author's friends and members of the group were subject to, such as imprisonmen...

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  I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant’s faithful one-hundred percent! ~  Horton Hatches the Egg