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RESISTING

9/25/2019

RESISTING MOONLIGHT

How can you stay away from the one you can’t resist?

Shayla Winters survives her first frat party…barely. She is introduced to the irresistible lacrosse player Jace Connor, but soon finds herself breaking up a fight between him and football star Owen Ward with strength she never knew she possessed.

Then the mysterious Dex Jagger appears. His announcement that he’s a supernatural hunter, and that she is fae—and in danger—turns her world upside down. Shayla is thrown into a world of vampires and werewolves, all of whom want the light she possesses inside.

Jace can’t resist Shayla. He tells her his deepest, darkest secret—he’s a werewolf. He vows to fight alongside her and destroy the vampires who want to capture her for their own personal gain—especially Owen Ward.

Will Shayla and Jace survive the darkness, or be swallowed up by moonlight?

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RESISTING DARKNESS

How can you destroy the world’s monsters when you’re in love with one?

Supernatural hunter, Dex Jager, will stop at nothing to find the vampire brood that captured his sister, and take them down one by one. After a motorcycle accident lands him in the small town of Whispering Pines, he finds himself in the middle of a murder investigation and partnered with Cora Fisher, the beautiful town coroner. As Dex and Cora grow closer and secrets surface, Dex is faced with the toughest decision of his life. How can you resist the darkness when it’s the one thing you love?

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National Cinnamon Raisin Bread Day

9/16/2019

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Swirled Cinnamon Raisin Bread Recipe

A Taste of Home Recipe

Swirled Cinnamon Raisin Bread Recipe photo by Taste of Home

Total Time
Prep: 25 min. + rising
Bake: 45 min. + cooling

Makes
2 loaves (16 slices each)

Ingredients

2 packages (1/4 ounce each) active dry yeast
2 cups warm water (110° to 115°)
1 cup sugar, divided
1/4 cup canola oil
2 teaspoons salt
2 eggs
6 to 6-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup raisins
Additional canola oil
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Directions

In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add 1/2 cup sugar, oil, salt, eggs and 4 cups flour. Beat until smooth. Stir in enough remaining flour to form a soft dough.
Turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes. Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease top. Cover and let rise in a warm place or until doubled, about 1 hour.
Punch dough down. Turn onto a lightly floured surface; divide in half. Knead 1/2 cup raisins into each; roll each portion into a 15x9-in. rectangle. Brush with additional oil. Combine cinnamon and remaining sugar; sprinkle to within 1/2 in. of edges.
Tightly roll up, jelly-roll style, starting with a short side; pinch seam to seal. Place, seam side down, in two greased 9x5-in. loaf pans. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 375°. Brush with oil. Bake 45-50 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pans to wire racks to cool.

Nutrition Facts
1 slice: 145 calories, 2g fat (0 saturated fat), 13mg cholesterol, 153mg sodium, 28g carbohydrate (9g sugars, 1g fiber), 3g protein. Diabetic Exchanges: 2 starch.

Originally published as Cinnamon Raisin Bread in Best of Country Breads

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Book Spotlight- The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

9/11/2019

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The Handmaid's Tale
Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid's Tale is a novel of such power that the reader will be unable to forget its images and its forecast. Set in the near future, it describes life in what was once the United States and is now called the Republic of Gilead, a monotheocracy that has reacted to social unrest and a sharply declining birthrate by reverting to, and going beyond, the repressive intolerance of the original Puritans. The regime takes the Book of Genesis absolutely at its word, with bizarre consequences for the women and men in its population.

The story is told through the eyes of Offred, one of the unfortunate Handmaids under the new social order. In condensed but eloquent prose, by turns cool-eyed, tender, despairing, passionate, and wry, she reveals to us the dark corners behind the establishment’s calm facade, as certain tendencies now in existence are carried to their logical conclusions. The Handmaid's Tale is funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing. It is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and a tour de force. It is Margaret Atwood at her best.

Editorial Reviews

“A taut thriller, a psychological study, a play on words.…A rich and complex book.”
–New York Times

“Atwood has peered behind the curtain into some of the darkest, most secret, yet oddly erotic corners of the mind, and the result is a fascinating, wonderfully written, and disturbing cautionary tale.”
–Toronto Sun

“A novel that will both chill and caution readers and which may challenge everyday assumptions.…It is an imaginative accomplishment of a high order. . . . ”
–London Free Press

“Moving, vivid and terrifying. I only hope it is not prophetic.”
–Conor Cruise O’Brien

“A novel that brilliantly illuminates some of the darker interconnections of politics and sex.…Satisfying, disturbing and compelling.”
–Washington Post

“The most poetically satisfying and intense of all Atwood’s novels.”
–Maclean’s

“It deserves an honored place on the small shelf of cautionary tales that have entered modern folklore – a place next to, and by no means inferior to, Brave New World and 1984.”
–Publishers Weekly

“Deserves the highest praise.”
–San Francisco Chronicle

“In The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood has written the most chilling cautionary novel of the century.”
–Phoenix Gazette

“Imaginative, even audacious, and conveys a chilling sense of fear and menace.”
–Globe and Mail

About the Author

Margaret's work has been published in over forty countries. She is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry, and critical essays. In addition to The Handmaid's Tale, now a successful MGM-Hulu television series now in its third season, her novels include Cat's Eye, shortlisted for the Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize; Oryx and Crake, shortlisted for the 2003 Booker Prize; The Penelopiad; The Heart Goes Last; Hag-seed; and The Testaments, a sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, forthcoming on Sept. 10, 2019. She lives in Toronto with writer Graeme Gibson.

WEBSITE

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CREDITS:

All pictures and information was obtained from the following:

Margaret Atwood's Website at http://margaretatwood.ca/

Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Margaret-Atwood/e/B000AQTHI0/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1

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Books to Read (September 2019)

9/4/2019

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To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee

Voted America's Best-Loved Novel in PBS's The Great American Read

Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork of honor and injustice in the deep South—and the heroism of one man in the face of blind and violent hatred

One of the most cherished stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture, and was voted one of the best novels of the twentieth century by librarians across the country. A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father—a crusading local lawyer—risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.

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Night
Elie Wiesel

Night is Elie Wiesel's masterpiece, a candid, horrific, and deeply poignant autobiographical account of his survival as a teenager in the Nazi death camps. This new translation by Marion Wiesel, Elie's wife and frequent translator, presents this seminal memoir in the language and spirit truest to the author's original intent. And in a substantive new preface, Elie reflects on the enduring importance of Night and his lifelong, passionate dedication to ensuring that the world never forgets man's capacity for inhumanity to man.

Night offers much more than a litany of the daily terrors, everyday perversions, and rampant sadism at Auschwitz and Buchenwald; it also eloquently addresses many of the philosophical as well as personal questions implicit in any serious consideration of what the Holocaust was, what it meant, and what its legacy is and will be.

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Lord of the Flies
William Golding

Golding’s iconic 1954 novel, now with a new foreword by Lois Lowry, remains one of the greatest books ever written for young adults and an unforgettable classic for readers of any age.

At the dawn of the next world war, a plane crashes on an uncharted island, stranding a group of schoolboys. At first, with no adult supervision, their freedom is something to celebrate. This far from civilization they can do anything they want. Anything. But as order collapses, as strange howls echo in the night, as terror begins its reign, the hope of adventure seems as far removed from reality as the hope of being rescued.

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Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen

Austen's most popular novel, the unforgettable story of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read

Few have failed to be charmed by the witty and independent spirit of Elizabeth Bennet in Austen’s beloved classic Pride and Prejudice. When Elizabeth Bennet first meets eligible bachelor Fitzwilliam Darcy, she thinks him arrogant and conceited; he is indifferent to her good looks and lively mind. When she later discovers that Darcy has involved himself in the troubled relationship between his friend Bingley and her beloved sister Jane, she is determined to dislike him more than ever. In the sparkling comedy of manners that follows, Jane Austen shows us the folly of judging by first impressions and superbly evokes the friendships, gossip and snobberies of provincial middle-class life. This Penguin Classics edition, based on Austen's first edition, contains the original Penguin Classics introduction by Tony Tanner and an updated introduction and notes by Viven Jones.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

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Wuthering Heights
Emily Bronte

Lockwood, the new tenant of Thrushcross Grange, situated on the bleak Yorkshire moors, is forced to seek shelter one night at Wuthering Heights, the home of his landlord. There he discovers the history of the tempestuous events that took place years before. What unfolds is the tale of the intense love between the gypsy foundling Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw. Catherine, forced to choose between passionate, tortured Heathcliff and gentle, well-bred Edgar Linton, surrendered to the expectations of her class. As Heathcliff's bitterness and vengeance at his betrayal is visited upon the next generation, their innocent heirs must struggle to escape the legacy of the past.

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Keeping Up

RESISTING

RESISTING MOONLIGHT

RESISTING DARKNESS

National Cinnamon Raisin Bread Day

Swirled Cinnamon Raisin Bread Recipe

Book Spotlight- The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid's TaleMargaret Atwood

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Books to Read (September 2019)

To Kill a Mockingbird​Harper Lee

Night ​Elie Wiesel

Lord of the Flies ​William Golding

Pride and PrejudiceJane Austen

Wuthering HeightsEmily Bronte

Author

Archives

The Handmaid's Tale
Margaret Atwood

To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee

Night
Elie Wiesel

Lord of the Flies
William Golding

Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen

Wuthering Heights
Emily Bronte