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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YihTm_zkJfE?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&origin=http://safe.txmblr.com&wmode=opaque&w=500&h=281]
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Tork & Adam: If I Should Stumble – Claire Davis & Al Stewart
Love is sure and timeless and forever. It whispers over the morning coffee and the last thought before sleep. Love is beyond hope, and cruel as life.
Kaz has been in the UK for almost a year, but the days pass by in an endless round of alcohol and nothingness. He has a story but no words good or bad enough to tell it, until one day, he is assigned a new peer mentor who asks him to help train a sponsored running team. Something that was stretched as old parchment breaks inside, and memories begin to re-surface.
Zack is overjoyed when his friend Adam asks him to be part of the sponsored run team trying to make money for the local homeless shelter. All day he makes cakes to lighten people’s load, but something is missing from his life. Then he meets the boy with eyes like the desert, and with every step he runs, Zack’s light burns away the darkness in Kaz’s heart.
As the race heats gets nearer, Tork, Adam, Zack and Jo realise that under Kaz’s careful programme, they have a chance to qualify and set right some of the wrongs of this world.
This book features the characters Tork and Adam from The Invasion of Tork and The Invasion of Adam.
Reading about Kaz feeling guilty about liking boys, I wanted to shake him and tell him, it’s totally OK. Somehow I have taken it for granted because there are gays and lesbians everywhere here in my country, that in other places and other people still find it hard to come to terms with their sexuality. I’m so used to the fact that there is usually no big to-dos about coming out here. What usually happens is that a boy starts to get swishy at an early age, wears shorts that are too short, would more or less join gay beauty pageants and/or date another boy. People might make some insulting comments at first, then get used to the fact and would just treat them normally. I think it really helps that most gay guys have a great sense of humor so people tend to like them.
So I’m sorry Kaz, I wasn’t feeling your pain. But go! GIve Zack a hug, a kiss, whatever…be happy!!! Like Tork and Adam. You all deserve it.
Rating:
3 Stars – not exactly setting my world on fire but I liked it
Soundtrack: Everytime I Thought About It I’d Burst Into Tears
Artist: Hello, Psychaleppo
Album: Gool ‘lah(source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32742275-if-i-should-stumble)
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How wrong to have been so negative, how wrong to have been so gloomy, how wrong to have run away from life, how wrong to have said no, again and again, instead of yes.
Jonathan Franzen -
[spotify id=”spotify%3Atrack%3A7nPcC0URp63cUkIeb02pxs&view=coverart” width=”540″ height=”620″ /]Soundtrack to Tork and Adam: If I Should Stumble by Claire Davis & Al Stewart.
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Hatsukoi – Kazuki Rai
Hirono Yuusa always believed he was special and destined for greatness–until tragedy struck in his final year of middle school. Now, jaded and disillusioned, he’s completely given up on ever trying to be anything more than ordinary. But when he starts to notice classmate Himekawa Ichigo struggling to do his best against all odds, he can’t help but want to cheer him on.
<3<3
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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zunlSRNKIjs?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&origin=http://safe.txmblr.com&wmode=opaque&w=500&h=281]
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Nightingale – Aleksandr Voinov
In Nazi-occupied Paris, most Frenchmen tread warily, but gay nightclub singer Yves Lacroix puts himself in the spotlight with every performance. As a veteran of France’s doomed defense, a survivor of a prison camp, and a “degenerate,” he knows he’s a target. His comic stage persona disguises a shamed, angry heart and gut-wrenching fear for a sister embedded in the Resistance.
Yet Yves ascends the hierarchy of Parisian nightlife to become a star, attracting the attention—and the protection—of the Nazi Oberst Heinrich von Starck. To complicate matters further, young foot soldier Falk Harfner’s naïve adoration of Yves threatens everything he’s worked for. So does Aryan ideologue von Grimmstein, rival to von Starck, who sees something “a bit like a Jew” in Yves.
When an ill-chosen quip can mean torture at the hands of the Gestapo, being the acc;laimed Nightingale of Paris might cost Yves his music and his life.
Damn! I found myself sympathizing with (and rooting for) Yves and his Oberst and finding myself annoyed with Edith as a hassle and Falk as an unnecessary complication. Which is crazy because if this had been Edith’s story, I would be tsking at Yves and his stupid affairs and if Von Starck was not in the picture, I would be OK with Yves and Falk.
Stories really have a way of getting under your skin. Perspective is everything.
P.S.
Coincidentally, the book model above is the same one as on Provoked, the last book I read in 2017.Rating:
3 Stars – not exactly setting my world on fire but I liked it
Soundtrack: L Comme Liaison
Artist: Dandies (feat. Pete Doherty)
Album: Illusion et Imparfait(source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26175490-nightingale)
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… so this is for us.
This is for us who sing, write, dance, act, study, run and love
and this is for doing it even if no one will ever know
because the beauty is in the act of doing it.
Not what it can lead to.
This is for the times I lose myself while writing, singing, playing
and no one is around and they will never know
but I will forever remember
and that shines brighter than any praise or fame or glory I will ever have,
and this is for you who write or play or read or sing
by yourself with the light off and door closed
when the world is asleep and the stars are aligned
and maybe no one will ever hear it
or read your words
or know your thoughts
but it doesn’t make it less glorious.
It makes it ethereal. Mysterious.
Infinite.Charlotte Ericksson -
[spotify id=”spotify%3Atrack%3A5tW5GUEA1IkUmEKnCgxeFt&view=coverart” width=”540″ height=”620″ /]Soundtrack to Nightingale by Aleksandr Voinov.
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Eiyuu to Shounen – Nakamura Asumiko
A young boy remembers meeting his hero during wartime.
Nakamura Asumiko can make you feel more in a one-shot with 19 pages than most manga with a several chapters.
