I’m no particular tennis fan, but this book did keep me going.
“The Bitch Is Back,” one of Carrie’s anthems.
It’s simplistically written. Something like a Young Adult novel.
But the pace makes for good storytelling. I do recommend it.
Carrie Soto is the best tennis player in the world, and she knows it. Her father, Javier, is a former tennis champion himself, and he’s dedicated his life to coaching her. By the time she retires in 1989, she holds the record for winning 20 Grand Slam singles titles.
But then, in 1994, Nicki Chan comes along. Nicki is on the verge of breaking Carrie’s record, and Carrie decides she can’t let that happen: She’s coming out of retirement, with her father coaching her, to defend her record…and her reputation.
Kirkus Review
Themes of how women in sport are treated — compared with men.
I hopped on a bus Lisbon ➙ Albufeira because it was the one major Algarve destination I’d not yet visited.
And it is great. More scenic than Faro or Lagos.
First night I found my favourite spot overlooking the OLD town. Below is where young tourists party.
Outdoor escalators make it easier for drunks in the OLD TOWN beach front to get back up to their accommodation. 😀
There’s an elevator as well on the other end of the beach.
This town is normally packed with tourists — but in November (winter!) many of the 100 restaurants on ‘The Strip’ are closed. And the beaches near empty.
My 3 star hotel charged only $30 / night in November.
Janelas do Mar, Albufeira
Here are some beach shots in daylight.
One of my favourite walks was from old town to the marina via these bright white stairs.
As this is primarily a tourist town, walking the rest of the city I found less interesting than — for example — Porto or Lisbon.
It tracks the adventures of 12-year-old Odysseus “Odie” O’Bannion, his older brother Albert, and two of their friends after they flee the brutality of the (fictional) Lincoln residential Indian School, and travel by canoe down the (fictional) Gilead, Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers in hopes of reuniting with their aunt in St. Louis.
At random I downloaded Nora Roberts’ 2020 novel Hideaway.
Wow.
A sprawling multi-generational family drama. Fast paced from the very start
It really reminded me of the entertaining story telling of Jeffrey Archer.
Good vs evil. Compelling and interesting characters.
If this is a romance novel, I’m good with them. The romance makes up perhaps 5%.
In this book, 9-year-old Caitlyn Sullivan is kidnapped from the family home in Big Sur, California. Coming from a long line of Hollywood royalty, they want MONEY.
Some may have considered her a pampered princess, but Cate was in fact a smart, scrappy fighter, and she managed to escape her abductors. Dillon Cooper was shocked to find the bloodied, exhausted girl huddled in his house―
But the one poem that stuck for all these decades is “If—“ by English writer and poet Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936), written circa 1895 …
… written in the form of paternal advice to the poet’s son, John.
If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too: If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master; If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim, If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same: If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss: If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much: If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
A Great Reckoning (2016) is the 12th novel in the Inspector Gamache series. …
Well written and engaging.
As usual, a dumb and impossible-to-believe plot.
At the start of the novel, Gamache begins a new position as the head of the Sûreté Academy, where new cadets are trained for the police force.
Of course a murder mystery is presented. Ganache is one of many suspects.
More interesting to me was finally learning the history of the 3 pines in Three Pines. And finding out why the small village is not on any official Quebec maps.
There’s a film based on these books called “Still Life“.
Yet another great novel in the series featuring Bruno, the beloved chief of police of the idyllic town of St. Denis in the Dordogne,France.
When a woman’s body is found at the foot of a cliff near St. Denis, Bruno suspects a connection to the great ruined Château de Commarque, a long-ago Knights Templar stronghold that stands on the cliff above …
With the help of Amélie, a young Haitian newcomer to the Dordogne, Bruno learns that the dead woman was an archaeologist searching for a religious artifact of incredible importance, the discovery of which could have dramatic repercussions throughout the Middle East–not to mention in St. Denis.
And the woman’s ties to Islamic terrorists can only heighten the pressure on Bruno to unravel the centuries-old mystery. …
It seems self evident that people would be more civil online IF they couldn’t be anonymous.
But research shows that’s not the case.
Perhaps the world expert in governance of online speech, Kate Klonick, concluded that having both public and anonymous options is BEST for reducing hate and increasing the value of social media.
Many, many individuals are unable to speak honestly unless they can be anonymous.
Listen to her interviewed on Pivot.
.@karaswisher and @profgalloway discuss Chief Twit’s hustle culture ultimatum for Twitter 2.0, Facebook’s refusal to fact check, and U.S. News and World Report college rankings, and more. Plus, @Klonick joins to talk social media moderation.https://t.co/RrMW0CYBU4
Once I bought a cheap flight to Lisbon, I found the fuel canister I needed in a hostel FREE BOX. So I know they exist on the Canary Islands.
They MIGHT be for sale from either Leroy Merlin or Decathlon in Santa Cruz, Tenerife. Some have found them at petrol stations and ferreterias, hardware stores.
Rick McCharles 