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charl08

charl08

Joined October 2016

"Then practice losing farther, losing faster..." Lost without a book. ❤ penguins both ??
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charl08
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Finding this book very dangerous for my own bookshelf.

31 likes1 stack add
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charl08
Nina Hamnett | Alicia Foster
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I love this Eiderdown Books series of short art books, exploring the work of women artists.

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charl08
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It is natural that novels about women in this era would focus on the most critical point in a woman's life...the question of marriage. Those who denigrate courtship novels rarely consider....
When a man has that much control over your life and your children's lives, the kind of man you marry can literally be a question of life or death. The history of English courtship novels is a literary history of women's protest against the femme couverte.

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charl08
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At any one time in the UK, around 7,000 people sit on the combined UK Transplant Waiting List. Of these, around 400 die every year while waiting for a transplant." In the US, the statistics are even more sobering. There are over 100,000 men, women and children on the national transplant list, of whom seventeen die every day while waiting.
----
?

Quick break from reading to remind family def. pro-organ donation.

47 likes2 stack adds
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charl08
No Title | None
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GatheringBooks Thank you for sharing this! Filled out the form! 💕 3d
charl08 @GatheringBooks 🤞🤞🤞 3d
31 likes2 comments
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charl08
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These arrived yesterday!

I'm hoping to read (some of) the books mentioned in Barbara Boswell's study of Black South African women's writing.

And one of Walker's essays (about searching for artist biographies) is mentioned in Jane Austen's Bookshelf.
@Lcsmcat

Lcsmcat Beautiful edition! 4d
52 likes1 comment
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charl08
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Sticking to the shade for lunchtime reading... 🌞

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charl08
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Books are not static things....

When I'm....rereading. I'm remembering the emotions of the last read. I am remembering my past self. Simultaneously, I'm noticing the emotions of this read. I am marking the outlines of my current self. In that way, reading is not a separate act from the rest of my life. It is central to it.

Sace Beautiful 5d
AnneCecilie That is so true. 5d
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charl08
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...there are currently over 60K people alive in Britain... thanks the gift of another person's heart, liver, kidney or lungs...

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charl08
No Title | None
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Well, I wasn't expecting that!
I've only read 3 of these, so 3 more to find.

@squirrelbrain
##WomensPrizeLL25

Leniverse I have very mixed feelings about this. 6d
BarbaraBB I am content. I haven‘t read the whole longlist but of this shortlist I have read five and really enjoyed four of those. 6d
See All 10 Comments
charl08 @BarbaraBB interesting! Which was the one that you've not read yet? 6d
sarahbarnes Same - I‘ve read three. 6d
squirrelbrain Meh, I‘m a bit over the Fiction prize now - I didn‘t love the longlist anyway, and now this hasn‘t helped! 🤷‍♀️ 6d
charl08 @sarahbarnes will you read the others? 6d
charl08 @squirrelbrain ah well, there's always the Booker... 6d
sarahbarnes I‘m not sure…the challenge is they‘re often not at the library here and I don‘t feel invested in any of them enough to buy a copy….How about you? 6d
charl08 @sarahbarnes I'm guessing Fundamentally will come in at the library, as they've got a few copies stll on order (its a big group of libraries in my county). Not sure about the July or Wouden. 5d
47 likes10 comments
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charl08
Dream Hotel | Laila Lalami
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I lifted @squirrelbrain 's graphic and added stickers for the ones I've read. I've got my fingers crossed for Ministry of Time and The Dream Hotel making the shortlist. Still hoping to read some more of the others: found it harder to get hold of all of them this year.

#WomensPrizeLL25

squirrelbrain Ha! When I first glanced at this I thought ‘ooh this looks just like my list!‘ 🤪 7d
40 likes2 comments
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charl08
Amma | Saraid de Silva
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A character in the bar notices that someone is wearing "Pleaser" shoes.
I had no idea this was a thing.

humouress 😲 I'd get foot cramps just trying to put that on. It'd be useful as a weapon, anyway. 1w
30 likes1 stack add1 comment
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charl08
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[On Frances vs "Fanny" Burney] "Let her have her adult name," proclaimed Doody in her 1988 biography....

And yet two major biographies of Burney since Doody's proclamation have named her "Fanny" Burney. The diminutive will not die. It's enough to make one want to call all authors by diminutive nicknames they would never want to be known by. "Chuck Darwin" and "Ernie Hemingway" do have their charm.

Suet624 Haha. Love Ernie Hemingway. 1w
47 likes1 comment
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charl08
No Title | None
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An avid reader, Walpole came across an interesting piece of writing titled ‘The Three Princes of Serendip‘, translated into English from an old Persian tale.... How heartwarming it is to know that one of the most inspiring words in the English language has been been created by a writer with the help of a Persian fairy tale, thus connecting East and West....

From Elif Shafak's substack (link in comments)

31 likes1 comment
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charl08
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The new books display at the library has, once again, derailed my reading plans...

humouress Shelves like those ... they have no shame *shakes head sadly* I, too, have been entrapped in my time. 1w
charl08 @humouress 🤣🤣🤣 1w
53 likes2 comments
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charl08
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Among the details I overheard from my post on the porch...

Boyd Ellison was alive and had told the police everything. A man on a motorcycle had attacked him. A man with a beard attacked him. It was a bearded man with a foreign accent, maybe Dutch or Turkish. It was a hippie on drugs. Boyd was in a coma. Boyd had called out his mother's name. He didn't know who his parents were. He was dead. He was alive. He was alive but just barely. He was dead.

38 likes2 stack adds
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charl08
The Dream Hotel | Laila Lalami
This post contains spoilers
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Pickpick

This worried me so much I had to skip to the end to check she got out! (And then could finish the book.)

#WomensPrizeLL25

Ruthiella I do that with particularly intense books too! 😬 2w
squirrelbrain I did think at first the way she‘d got out was a bit of a let down. But then I changed my mind - insubordination works! 2w
ChaoticMissAdventures It was so tense! I rarely talk out loud to the characters, I definitely talked to Sara 😂 2w
tpixie Lovely photo! 2w
16 likes5 comments
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charl08
The Dream Hotel | Laila Lalami

The reflection that meets her in the mirror reminds her of the pandemic of her childhood. Unlike some of her classmates in school she never minded wearing masks: they concealed her bouts of acne, the rage she felt whenever a boy told her she needed to smile more, her impatience with strangers who asked, "So what are you?" She couldn't have known that the skill would come in handy so many years later.

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charl08
Amma | Saraid de Silva
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Moving in to this one...

#WomensPrizeLL25 #Fiction

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charl08
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Pickpick

'She was a very strong lady,' Marzenna recalled. 'For her, nothing was impossible.
---
Recommended history of Polish resistance in WW2.

The descriptions of Agent Zo's personal skills reminded me of my gran. Everyone loved her, but not for her small talk!
Personal gripe: one of those "hidden histories" where actually what the author means/ acknowledges is "*English speakers* didn't know about it...".

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charl08
Good Girl: A Novel | Aria Aber
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Mehso-so

I usually enjoy books about wandering Berlin, but this one not so much.

A bildungsroman featuring a lot of drugs, bad sex and bad choices, I winced for the protagonist as she made one awful decision after another. Lots of interesting individual elements, but I never felt I really understood where the author was going (and in placed desperately just hoped it would all just Stop!)

#WomensPrizeLL25

squirrelbrain It was unremittingly bleak, I thought - too many drugs and bad decisions. 2w
charl08 @squirrelbrain so many bad decisions... 2w
49 likes2 comments
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charl08

As far as possible, the women saved each other.

(Magdeburg camp, 1944)

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charl08
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Pickpick

Loved this first book in a new time-travelling series.

And a map as endpapers. Nice touch!

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charl08
No Title | None
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The new album ‘Between The Covers – 9 Songs For Bibliophiles‘ features 9 songs about books and reading, as the punny title suggests, there are 5 new originals sandwiched between 4 cover version.
The album will be promoted by a solo tour of UK and Europe in May and June, with performances in bookshops, libraries, literary festivals ... (Via the ever fabulous Guy Garvey) https://paularmfield.com/events/upcoming-events/

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charl08
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What did Victorian women do with their time? She hears Elizabeth's voice. You have to be able to make a posset, sew a seam and recite the Lord's Prayer. Can you do any of those things? Whatever your views on praying and sewing, they certainly fill in the time.

Last night, Ali took a book from the shelf...

kspenmoll This author & a posset? Stacked! 2w
charl08 @kspenmoll 🤣🤣 2w
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charl08
No Title | None
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charl08
The Fox Wife: A Novel | Yangsze Choo
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Pickpick

I was supposed to be reading women's prize nominees, but instead I fell into this beautiful story about loss, minority communities - and mythical fox-people.

And I loved the footnotes. (Sidenotes?)

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charl08
Good Girl: A Novel | Aria Aber
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I was home neither in Rosenwald nor in Gropiusstadt. And like so many children before me, I became my own exile.

At school, the girls wore padded down jackets and boots I had seen only in equestrian ads. They knew how to ride horses and drank expensive water and used Dr. Hauschka products, which felt so expensive back then, I believed only millionaires could afford them. Longingly, I used a pump of their creams, inhaling that herbal scent.

BarbaraBB Dr Hauschka. She (somehow I‘ve always thought she‘s a woman) had been around for a long time! I used to love her rose hand cream 2w
33 likes1 comment
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charl08
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Geoff wants me to go back to the 1850s,' says Ali.

'Cool,' says Bud. 'What was happening in the 1850s?' Bud some-times likes to pretend that he's never heard of history.

'Crinolines, horse-drawn carriages, men in beards,' says Ali.

'Sounds like Hoxton,' says Dina.

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charl08
The Fox Wife: A Novel | Yangsze Choo
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The first rule of foxes is that you don't talk about foxes. The second rule is well, I shall tell you when we get to that part, but I was so incensed right then that I almost walked out. And perhaps I should have. Turned around, and vanished into the rain-scented night, leaving Shiro smiling in that ring of rapt faces, the bright oil lamps making a charmed circle against the dark.

But curiosity has always been my weakness.

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charl08
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And now for something completely different...

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charl08
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Can you recommend a book that features neurodiversity? Ideally fictional and something you've actually read?

My work bookgroup is looking for something around this theme - so far suggestions are The Maid, How to Stop Time and Intermezzo...

ravenlee I enjoyed this MGGN that deals with the main character‘s OCD in a unique way. 3w
ChaoticMissAdventures Oh I have a few I really enjoyed was there one area y'all were most interested in? - Interesting Facts About Space by Emily Austin; The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochran; Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman; Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata; Turtles All The Way Down by John Green 3w
See All 15 Comments
Bookwomble Murderbot is coded autistic, without it being said explicitly, and is a generally sympathetic portrayal. I recall finding the tagged interesting, with its explicitly autistic MC, though I read it before I had any proper insight into autism, and before recognising my own autism, so I'm not sure how it would sit with me now. 3w
ShelleyBooksie The Kiss Quotient. It's got very sexy scenes though 3w
Liz_M The only one that comes to mind was much-beloved when I read it more than 20 years ago; it may not have aged well, The main character of the tagged book has Tourettes. 3w
SaunteringVaguelyDownwards I mostly know children's lit - tagged book features ADHD. @Bookwomble - I just saw a play adaptation of Curious Incident that I thought did a brilliant job of staging sensory input overload. 3w
Catsandbooks The FMC has ADHD and the MMC had OCD. Really enjoyed it! 3w
Dragon This is a great book and I loved the movie adaptation 3w
BarbaraBB The Remains of the Day is fantastic. I don‘t remember it being neurodiverse but that can be me. 3w
TieDyeDude I would recommend Flowers for Algernon 😁 3w
charl08 @TieDyeDude another book I haven't read... 3w
38 likes15 comments
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charl08
Good Girl: A Novel | Aria Aber
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She turned on the radio in the mornings, dancing when rock songs filled the kitchen with bygone delight. Recited poetry in an old, formal Persian-lines that I didn't understand but whose cadences imprinted themselves onto my brain-and took me to local libraries, where I was allowed to read as much as I wanted, the weight of the laminated library card like a luxurious treasure in my hand, my own name written in blue ink underneath: Nilab Haddadi.

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charl08
Good Girl: A Novel | Aria Aber
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...as if to signal to us idiots that reality still existed...

(How do you let someone know the party's over?)

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charl08
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"an insane feminist and pioneer of the "liberation" movement and equality of women', the report continued. 'A hysterical woman'.*" '

Got to love the lack of self-censorship in pre-Freedom of Information civil servants' memos.

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charl08
Good Girl: A Novel | Aria Aber
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38 likes1 stack add
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charl08
Tilt | Jean Sprackland
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Pickpick

I didn't realise the author was local until I came to this poem about coastal toads...

Bookwomble I grew up in Southport but have never seen a natterjack toad, other than on TV or in books. As an old school Sandgrounder, that feels something of a deficiency. 3w
charl08 @Bookwomble I've only ever seen the signs/ info boards, apparently you have to go when there are no people... 3w
Bookwomble @charl08 me, too. As they're vulnerable and protected, it's understandable 💚 3w
39 likes3 comments
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charl08
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Zo usually returned from Germany [to Poland] within a few days, bringing back her observations on changing travel regulations, rationing and morale... After one Berlin air raid, Zo was asked to walk around the city and later discreetly mark up a map to help assess the accuracy of the campaign.

'The English know almost everything about the results of their attacks on Germany', Joseph Goebbels... sullenly complained to his diary."

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charl08
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During the Great War the Dutch dancer Margaretha Zelle, better known as Mata Hari, had lodged the idea of femme fatale spies in some romantic minds Although women serving in the resistance deployed whatever skills and resources they had, their distinguishing superpower was not, in fact, irresistible sexual allure, but simply their ability to be consistently overlooked and underestimated.

39 likes1 comment
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charl08
No Title | None
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Ebb and Flo bookshop has reopened in Chorley! Now on two floors, packed out for the official opening.

Bookwomble I haven't been there since before the pandemic. Good to hear they're still going, and from strength to strength it appears 😊 3w
charl08 @Bookwomble definitely worth a visit if you're in the area. New address is St Thomas' St. 3w
47 likes2 comments
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charl08
The Persians | Sanam Mahloudji

A funeral is when the truth comes out, when everyone comes out of the wood-work. All the secret lovers, all the people the dead cheated with, or on. It's spectacular! A real shit show, as they say, and it's only a shame that the dead aren't there to witness. But I suppose that's the whole reason it happens. Nobody has any shame once you're a corpse. The shame melts away.

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charl08
The Persians | Sanam Mahloudji
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Behind the scenes in Iran...

They were plain-dressed, the women not wearing scarves, and for the first time in my memory I saw a large group of women with all their hair hanging freely. It was breathtaking. I was in awe, as if seeing a scene out of a Romantic painting of sea nymphs, like the ones Maman Elizabeth once told me about at bedtime. All textures and weights, dark, wavy, flying carpet-like. I loved these women and their powerful hair.

Suet624 I can just imagine how that must feel. Beautiful. 4w
42 likes1 comment
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charl08
The Persians | Sanam Mahloudji
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7 weeks! I don't think so...?

There's definitely a reason I turn these 'insights' off for kindle! Haven't worked out how to do it on Libby...

#WPLL25
#WomensPrize

Sace I‘m never a fan of “insights” like these. Just let me read/listen in peace. I really don‘t care how fast (or not) it takes me to get through a book. 1mo
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charl08
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You, the gentrifier, have now been gentrified.... once every ten years, you should have a reunion and bitterly reminisce, clutching your paper cups of Moscow mule and growling about how this town's landlords and businesses put cash before community. At the end of the evening you should stand in a long line, in the order that your spending powers evolved to claim the city

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charl08
No Title | None
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Always the art explored uncharted terrains, and managed to get him outside his comfort zone. Almost every time he was left enthralled by this new generation of artists that were conscious and produced art that was not only beautiful but also effective in its own transgressive way.

[No title in db]

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charl08
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Andzani woke up with a babalas the following day...

[Book not in the database https://wisaniirvin.com/]

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charl08
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Failed attempt to take a picture of beautiful brunch and book...

Book not in the db yet

Cathythoughts Lovely picture 🥰 👍🏻 (edited) 1mo
charl08 @cathythoughts Aw, thanks! 1mo
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charl08
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This is a café, they sell food, but it's also a hardware, see the timber? You can see it all the way from school, it's so long. This is the fastest route to get to the school, after passing this cafe you will find this passage. And out of this passage you are met by that big house with the red tile roofing. It is one of the few houses that have tile roofing around here as you can see. After you have passed the house you will see these boulders.

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charl08
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Before he fled, he ran through the stable blocks and loosed the horses rather than leave them to burn or to starve to death locked in their pens.

Sometimes when I think of Iran, the summer of 1979 before a people's hard-won freedom was scattered by the wind, I imagine the Arab horses galloping through the suburbs of the city, past the houses and the factories towards the desert--and pray that they at least never were recaptured.

charl08 (Image from Wikipedia of Iran 1979) 1mo
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charl08
Ootlin | Jenni Fagan

Running at full pelt across the farm field then climbing up onto the top of a hay bale. I feel strong and invincible and like the sky is blue because it loves me. When I get home I am going to read a book under my covers by glow-worm. The library van stops outside our caravan once a week. It is loaning me everything it has to read and the librarian is always so nice to me. I have found a way to escape my world every night.