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Data Science at Flipkart helps them to identify their loyal customers.Data science helps to increase the sales at Flipkart through the recommendation system
Data Science at Flipkart helps them to identify their loyal customers.Data science helps to increase the sales at Flipkart through the recommendation system
Movie Recommendation system project in Data science using R will guide you how can you build your own recommendation system in machine learning
Netflix is using Data Science to improve its recommendation system. How Netflix uses context based filtering to provide movie recommendation
The Glass Sentence & The Golden Specific are the most inventive MG fantasy novels that I've read since Harry Potter. I don't read a lot of MG, true, but they are also much more inventive than a lot of YA I've read. Highly, highly, HIGHLY recommended.
The eagerly-awaited sequel to the best-selling The Glass Sentence -- a historical, fantastical adventure perfect for fans of Philip Pullman!
It is the summer of 1892, one year since Sophia Tims and her friend Theo embarked upon the dangerous adventure that rewrote the map of the world. Since their return home to Boston, she has continued searching for clues to her parents’ disappearance, combing archives and libraries, grasping at even the most slender leads. Theo has apprenticed himself to an explorer in order to follow those leads across the country—but one after another proves to be a dead end.
Then Sophia discovers that a crucial piece of the puzzle exists in a foreign Age. At the same time, Theo discovers that his old life outside the law threatens to destroy the new one he has built with Sophia and her uncle Shadrack. What he and Sophia do not know is that their separate discoveries are intertwined, and that one remarkable person is part of both.
There is a city that holds all of the answers—but it cannot be found on any map. Surrounded by plague, it can only be reached by a journey through darkness and chaos, which is at the same time the plague’s cure: The Golden Specific.
And the cover for The Crimson Skew, the third and final book in the Mapmakers Trilogy, was recently released as well. That book will be releasing July 12, 2016. You can read my initial thoughts up to page 85 of The Golden Specific as well.
Note: this is categorized, I think, as middle grade, but the characters are 13-14 years old. You could just as well categorize them as young adult, if you're hesitant to read them because of the label.
WHY YOU NEED TO READ THIS TRILOGY*:
*The Crimson Skew may not have been released yet but yes yes yes it is making my 2016 list...
1) This trilogy is not just for kids. I like to think of the quote I have on my about page: "A children's story which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children's story. The good ones last." (From Lewis, C.S. "On Three Ways of Writing for Children." On Stories: And Other Essays in Literature. New York: Harcourt Inc., 1982: 31-43.). The best kind of MG and YA stories are the ones with themes so resonant that adults can identify with them as well, and with recognizable yet colorful characters, complex world-building and plotting. When I read The Glass Sentence and The Golden Specific, my first thought was that I would recommend these books to readers of all ages. As I stated in my review of The Glass Sentence, the books focus on making of time what you want. The books focus on family, belonging, history, myth, and story-telling.
2) This trilogy is also perfect for kids. The Golden Specific would be excellent to facilitate discussion among kids about immigration policies and the founding of the United States, what happened to Native Americans. The trilogy is, in many ways, a discussion on historical constructs: this is what happened in our past (Age of Verity); need we repeat these events in the future? Who is telling the story - the people we're destined to become or the ones we're choosing to be every day, or the people empowered by their Age? It has these very deep embedded questions that a teacher or parent could use to ask questions of the kid, and for the kid? This series also has all the magical adventure, fun, wit, and sheer imagination that something as famous as Harry Potter does (note: I haven't read His Dark Materials, so I can't speak to the Phillip Pullman comparison). I have the sense that S.E. Grove can do anything; her imagination is truly remarkable.
3) Sophia, and the other characters, are as adorable as ever. I love that these books are clearly led by Sophia. Theo becomes a hero with his own character arc in The Golden Specific, but to me the books are still centered around Sophia, who is one of my favorite heroines for her resourcefulness, loyalty, and determination. I love that S.E. Grove has created a female lead who doesn't give up her willingness to trust other people, even in the face of dangerous and frightening circumstances. I love that she comes across her own realizations in the appropriate amount of time, and I love that her flaw, time and time again, is what helps her to succeed -- in accepting herself, she becomes stronger with each book. As for the other characters, my original complaint from The Glass Sentence was that they didn't pop for me as much as I'd liked. No such complaint for The Golden Specific! Because you get other points of view besides Sophia's, the characters feel more complex. They have their own agendas, and seeing the characters through more than just Sophia's perspective allowed for added shades to their character. Additionally, The Golden Specific did a wonderful job highlighting how the characters are both their own people and defined by the world and Ages in which they live.
4) The world-building is phenomenal. If I expanded on this category, it would be incoherent fangirly rambles in which I praise S.E. Grove's imagination and all the remarkable little details that she adds to make the atmospheres and settings palpable, imaginable, and within our reach. So, I'll just have to curtail my discussion; also check my review of the first book for more on that note.
In comparing The Glass Sentence to The Golden Specific, I'd say that The Golden Specific picks up the stakes; the other points of view (besides Sophia's) allow for additional complexity in the plot but sacrifice a little of the thematic emphasis that The Glass Sentence had on making of time what you want. I think that also hints at how dynamic this series is. While The Glass Sentence had a whole heap of magic and enchanted me with this grand world, The Golden Specific pushed my imagination as a reader, because I could not predict where the plot was headed; there were so, so many details, and the world-building is so expansive that I didn't know where the book would take me next. Reading was an adventure of its own! One last thing I will also say is that if you've read The Glass Sentence, I would suggest rereading before reading The Golden Specific. Because the world-building is so expansive, I had a harder time remembering certain aspects of the plot and world that turned out to be crucial to The Golden Specific.
A wonderfully well-written, timeless adventure through Ages and worlds both marvelous and dangerous, with colorful and developed characters at the forefront. You cannot miss out on The Mapmaker's trilogy by S.E. Grove.
Readers offer tips and recommendations on extraordinary undiscovered sights in unusual destinations, following the launch of our new series Tales of the Unexpected
Power of the poster
The taxi driver left us in a quiet residential area. There were no signs to indicate the existence of the Propaganda Poster Art Centre in Shanghai. We entered a block of flats, walked down long corridors, past front doors and a windowless flight of stairs to a plain wooden door with a tattered handwritten sign on it. The furtiveness of it made it feel illegal. The small museum was packed with more than 5,000 posters which, up to 1979, were a very powerful tool for propaganda.
The power of the exaggeratedly happy facial features in the early posters and the presence of red-and-black art style, promoting Chairman Mao and the Cultural Revolution in the later ones, were evocative. Photographs showed the posters and political slogans daubed over buildings. It was surreal to be in a secretive, windowless basement in China and actually see and imagine the ways that public opinion had been moulded in former times.
Creative Corner
Queenstown, New Zealand – on every street corner it seems there is an opportunity to buy an adventure: rafting, bungee-jumping, zip wire, jetboat - the list seems endless in the macho atmosphere of the adrenalin capital of the world. But turn the corner into Beach Street and at No 45 you find a complete contrast. For this is the gallery of New Zealand’s leading landscape artist, Tim Wilson, who paints the spectacular world of the Southern Alps and Fiordland on a grand scale. Huge panels, diptychs, triptychs, all painted with up to 30 layers of paint, which produce a dramatic three-dimensional effect that mesmerises the senses. State-of-the-art lighting can be adjusted to completely alter the visual effect, bringing out features that were hardly noticed at first. If you’re lucky, Tim will be there, working on one of his creations, but not too busy to speak to admirers of his work. What a gem.
Down under in Brighton
Let us go to Brighton beach and watch surf rolling and hear the seagulls squawking. Take a breath. Hold that breath. In fact, take another and keep it spare. You’ll wish you had. We’re going underground, 40 feet to be precise; and back in time, a hundred years and more. We’re going to admire some Victorian handiwork – in Brighton’s sewers. Brickwork, lots of it; much beloved of Victorians. You get to see, admire and coo at 400 yards of close curvature.
It’s quite clean down there. Not the best for claustrophobes, though surprisingly spacious between the tunnels.Dark and dank; darker if the lights fail; which they do through half of the experience. You have to do it once.Now, back to the beach, waves breaking, seagulls and breathe. -Neil Kenning, Gloucs
Another time
In a small corner of far western France we discovered an ancient medieval tower known as the Donjon presiding over a tranquil stone village called Bazoges-en-Pareds. The honey-coloured stone tower and surrounding buildings look as if they belong in Spain or Italy. Black crows circle above the watchtower, their harsh cawing cries echoing around the village.
Inside, the Donjon has been restored and a climb to the top rewards you with stunning views of the Vendée countryside. A barn houses a small museum and a beautiful dovecote sits beside a peaceful medieval garden, planted with herbs, medicinal plants, and a pair of chickens who shared our picnic lunch.
In the summer there are fairs and torchlit evenings, but on the day we visited we were the only ones there and it seemed as if we had been transported back to another time. -Jill Ellis, Essex
Entertained and educated
Walking the White Rose Way, a 100-mile walking trail from Leeds to Scarborough takes you through some surprisingly interesting areas. These include Louis le Prince’s workshops where he produced the world’s first moving images on film, ruined mills which prompted the building of the world’s largest single room (two acres), two battle sites centuries apart, which saw 28,000 men killed in a single day, and the site of the Vikings’ last defeat on English soil.
An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty as well as the delights of the North York Moors National Park is encountered before reaching Britain’s first seaside resort in Scarborough. Enough to keep any history buff entertained and educated! - Paul Brown, Yorkshire
