Download or read book The Social Life of Books written by Abigail Williams and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2017-06-27 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A lively survey…her research and insights make us conscious of how we, today, use books.”—John Sutherland, The New York Times Book Review Two centuries before the advent of radio, television, and motion pictures, books were a cherished form of popular entertainment and an integral component of domestic social life. In this fascinating and vivid history, Abigail Williams explores the ways in which shared reading shaped the lives and literary culture of the eighteenth century, offering new perspectives on how books have been used by their readers, and the part they have played in middle-class homes and families. Drawing on marginalia, letters and diaries, library catalogues, elocution manuals, subscription lists, and more, Williams offers fresh and fascinating insights into reading, performance, and the history of middle-class home life. “Williams’s charming pageant of anecdotes…conjures a world strikingly different from our own but surprisingly similar in many ways, a time when reading was on the rise and whole worlds sprang up around it.”—TheWashington Post

Download or read book Community Life written by Graham Crow and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-06-06 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1994. The sociology of community is currently undergoing something of a revival, and this book has been written with the aim of contributing to this process in a number of ways. First of all, it draws attention to the burgeoning literature on sociological aspects of community life. Secondly, its bring together the various studies considered here into a more coherent whole than they possess as simply a collection of separate pieces of research.

Download or read book Community and Everyday Life written by Graham Day and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-09-27 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Community' continues to be a persistent theme in political, philosophical and policy debates. The idea of community poses fundamental questions about social inclusion and exclusion, particular versus general interests, identity and belonging. As well as extensive theoretical literature in the social sciences, there is a rich body of social research aimed at exploring the nature of community, and evaluating its contribution to people's lives and well-being. Drawing on a wealth of international empirical examples and illustrations, this book reviews debates surrounding the idea of community. It examines changing patterns of community life and evaluates their importance for society and for individuals. As well as urban, rural and class-based communities, it explores other contemporary forms of community, such as social movements, communes and 'virtual' gatherings in cyberspace. Truly multidisciplinary, this book will be of interest to students of sociology, geography, political science and social policy and welfare. Grounded in a wide-ranging review of empirical research, it provides an overview of sociological debates surrounding the idea of community and relating them to the part community plays in people's everyday conceptions of identity.

Download or read book Living into Community written by Christine D. Pohl and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2011-12-20 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every church, every organization, has experienced them: betrayal, deception, grumbling, envy, exclusion. They make life together difficult and prevent congregations from developing the skills, virtues, and practices they need to nurture sturdy, life-giving communities. In Living into Community Christine Pohl explores four specific Christian practices -- gratitude, promise-keeping, truth-telling, and hospitality -- that can counteract those destructive forces and help churches and individuals build and sustain vibrant communities. Drawing on a wealth of personal and professional experience and interacting with the biblical, historical, and moral traditions, Pohl thoughtfully discusses each practice, including its possible complications and deformations, and points to how these essential practices can be better cultivated within communities and families.

Download or read book Voluntarism Community Life and the American Ethic written by Robert S. Ogilvie and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2004-06-18 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This is a major contribution to the literature on social participation and voluntary action. It is the first systematic ethnographic study I know that treats volunteers and the institutions they create." -- John Van Til, author of Growing Civil Society "Students and faculty interested in the issue of homelessness will find the book instructive... Recommended." -- Choice Why do people volunteer, and what motivates them to stick with it? How do local organizations create community? How does voluntary participation foster moral development in volunteers to create a better citizenry? In this fascinating study of volunteers at the Partnership for the Homeless in New York City, Robert S. Ogilvie provides bold and engaging answers to these questions. He describes how volunteer programs such as the Partnership generate ethical development in and among participants and how the Partnership's volunteers have made it such a continued success since the early 1980s. Ogilvie's examination of voluntarism suggests that the American ethic is essential for sustaining community life and to the future well-being of a democratic society.

Download or read book Life in a Farming Community written by Lizann Flatt and published by Crabtree Publishing Company. This book was released on 2009 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes daily life in the farming community of Monticello, Wisconsin.

Download or read book To Build Our Lives Together written by Allison Dorsey and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After Reconstruction, against considerable odds, African Americans in Atlanta went about such self-interested pursuits as finding work and housing. They also built community, says Allison Dorsey. To Build Our Lives Together chronicles the emergence of the network of churches, fraternal organizations, and social clubs through which black Atlantans pursued the goals of adequate schooling, more influence in local politics, and greater access to municipal services. Underpinning these efforts were the notions of racial solidarity and uplift. Yet as Atlanta's black population grew--from two thousand in 1860 to forty thousand at the turn of the century--its community had to struggle not only with the dangers and caprices of white laws and customs but also with internal divisions of status and class. Among other topics, Dorsey discusses the boomtown atmosphere of post-Civil War Atlanta that lent itself so well to black community formation; the diversity of black church life in the city; the role of Atlanta's black colleges in facilitating economic prosperity and upward mobility; and the ways that white political retrenchment across Georgia played itself out in Atlanta. Throughout, Dorsey shows how black Atlantans adapted the cultures, traditions, and survival mechanisms of slavery to the new circumstances of freedom. Although white public opinion endorsed racial uplift, whites inevitably resented black Atlantans who achieved some measure of success. The Atlanta race riot of 1906, which marks the end of this study, was no aberration, Dorsey argues, but the inevitable outcome of years of accumulated white apprehensions about black strivings for social equality and economic success. Denied the benefits of full citizenship, the black elite refocused on building an Atlanta of their own within a sphere of racial exclusion that would remain in force for much of the twentieth century.

Download or read book Faith Family and Filipino American Community Life written by Stephen M. Cherry and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2014-01-03 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stephen M. Cherry draws upon a rich set of ethnographic and survey data, collected over a six-year period, to explore the roles that Catholicism and family play in shaping Filipino American community life. From the planning and construction of community centers, to volunteering at health fairs or protesting against abortion, this book illustrates the powerful ways these forces structure and animate not only how first-generation Filipino Americans think and feel about their community, but how they are compelled to engage it over issues deemed important to the sanctity of the family. Revealing more than intimate accounts of Filipino American lives, Cherry offers a glimpse of the often hidden but vital relationship between religion and community in the lives of new immigrants, and allows speculation on the broader impact of Filipino immigration on the nation. The Filipino American community is the second-largest immigrant community in the United States, and the Philippines is the second-largest source of Catholic immigration to this country. This ground-breaking study outlines how first-generation Filipino Americans have the potential to reshape American Catholicism and are already having an impact on American civic life through the engagement of their faith.

Download or read book The Social Life of Fluids written by Jules David Law and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Analyzing the expression of scientific understanding and the technological manipulation of fluids--blood, breast milk, and water--in Victorian novels, Law traces the culture's growing anxiety about fluids from the 1830s through the 1890s.

Download or read book Community written by Suzanne Keller and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-05 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book tells the story of how a human community comes to be and how aspirations for the good life confront the dilemmas and detours of real life. Suzanne Keller combines penetrating analysis of classic ideas about community with a remarkable and unprecedented thirty-year case study of one of the first "planned unit developments" in America and the first in New Jersey. Twin Rivers, this pioneering venture, featured townhouses and shared spaces for children's play and adult work and play in a society that stresses individual over collective goals and private over public concerns. Hence the timeless questions asked over millennia: How does an aggregate of strangers create an identity of place, shared goals, viable institutions, and a spirit of mutuality and reciprocity? What obstacles stand in the way and how are these overcome? And how does design generate (or deter) community spirit? Inspired by the legacy of Plato, Rousseau, de Tocqueville, and Tönnies, Keller traces the difficult birth and the rich unfolding of Twin Rivers from a former potato field into a vibrant contemporary community. Most community studies remain at a highly descriptive level. This book has both broader and deeper aims, endeavoring to develop principles of the common life as we enter the age of cyberspace. Keller reveals the community of Twin Rivers through a multidimensional social microscope, having monitored the community from the day it opened by participant observation, attitude surveys, the study of collective records, and nearly 1,000 in-depth interviews with homeowners. She offers fascinating insight into how residents maintain privacy, relate to neighbors, cope with social conflict, and develop ideas about the common good. She shows that Twin Rivers residents remain hopeful about the possibility of community despite variable success in achieving their desires. Indeed, she argues that the hard-won experience, more than the utopian ideal, is the true measure of community. Keller concludes that, despite the homogenizing effects of mass communication and globalization, local communities will continue to proliferate in the foreseeable future--due to changing lifestyles and the continuing quest for roots. This important and engaging book will be appreciated by social scientists, architects, physical planners, developers and lenders, and community leaders as well as by the general reader interested in creating a bridge between individualism and community.

Download or read book Bibliostyle written by Nina Freudenberger and published by Clarkson Potter. This book was released on 2019-10-22 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A visual delight and an inspiration for every bibliophile with a growing home library, this dream-and-drool design book features some of the most jaw-dropping book collections of homeowners around the world. NAMED ONE OF JO’S FALL FAVORITES IN MAGNOLIA JOURNAL Interior designer Nina Freudenberger, New Yorker writer Sadie Stein, and Architectural Digest photographer Shade Degges give readers a peek at the private libraries and bookshelves of passionate readers all over the world, including Larry McMurtry, Silvia Whitman of Shakespeare and Co., Gay and Nan Talese, and Emma Straub. Throughout, gorgeous photographs of rooms with rare collections, floor-to-ceiling shelves, and stacks upon stacks of books inspire readers to live better with their own collections. Praise for Bibliostyle “Featuring enviable private libraries and packed floor-to-ceiling shelves, this beautiful volume makes a compelling case for books as décor.”—New York “Freudenberger spotlights the splendid, enviable personal libraries of literary figures whose owners obviously care about their book collections and have actually read them, too.”—The Boston Globe “This is a coffee table book that makes you think as well as admire and desire.”—Sydney Herald “Offers a look into the fabulous homes of book lovers the world over, showcasing how their interior design is built around the tomes they love most.”—CN “The photographs of rooms with rare collections, floor-to-ceiling shelves, and stacks upon stacks of books will inspire readers to live better with their own collections.”—Publishers Weekly “Nina Freudenberger teams with Sadie Stein of The New Yorker and photographer Shade Degges of Architectural Digest to showcase beautiful photographs of the private libraries of book lovers from all over the world.”—BookRiot

Download or read book In This World of Wonders written by Nicholas Wolterstorff and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2019-01-16 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World-renowned Christian philosopher. Beloved professor. Author of the classic Lament for a Son. Nicholas Wolterstorff is all of these and more. His memoir, In This World of Wonders, opens a remarkable new window into the life and thought of this remarkable man. Written not as a complete life story but as a series of vignettes, Wolterstorff’s memoir moves from his humble beginnings in a tiny Minnesota village to his education at Calvin College and Harvard University, to his career of teaching philosophy and writing books, to the experiences that prompted some of his writing—particularly his witnessing South African apartheid and Palestinian oppression firsthand. In This World of Wonders is the story of a thoughtful and grateful Christian whose life has been shaped by many loves—love of philosophy, love of family, love of art and architecture, love of nature and gardening, and more. It’s a lovely, wonderful story.

Download or read book The Book that Made Me written by Judith Ridge and published by Candlewick Press. This book was released on 2017-03-14 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essays by popular children's authors reveal the books that shaped their personal and literary lives, explaining how the stories they loved influenced them creatively, politically, and intellectually.

Download or read book Who Will Run the Frog Hospital written by Lorrie Moore and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-02-29 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • In this moving, poignant novel by the bestselling author of Birds of America—and a master of American fiction—we share a grown woman’s bittersweet nostalgia for the wildness of her youth. "An enchanting novel." —The New York Times The summer Berie was fifteen, she and her best friend Sils had jobs at Storyland in upstate New York where Berie sold tickets to see the beautiful Sils portray Cinderella in a strapless evening gown. They spent their breaks smoking, joking, and gossiping. After work they followed their own reckless rules, teasing the fun out of small town life, sleeping in the family station wagon, and drinking borrowed liquor from old mayonnaise jars. But no matter how wild, they always managed to escape any real danger—until the adoring Berie sees that Sils really does need her help—and then everything changes.

Download or read book Words at Work and Play written by Shirley Brice Heath and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-01-12 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A thirty year study tracking the changes in family life and language development in 300 working-class families from 1981 onwards.

Download or read book Social Integration in the Second Half of Life written by Karl Pillemer and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2003-05-01 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Social scientists use the term social integration to refer to individuals' connections with others in their environments. The concept and its consequences have been the subject of considerable study. Many researchers have asserted that meaningful and enduring ties to other persons serve as a buffer against stress, and thereby promote physical and mental health. The results are especially pronounced for older persons. Social Integration in the Second Half of Life presents integrative reviews of theory and research on this topic. The editors and contributors, all currently or previously affiliated with the Cornell Gerontology Research Institute, also present new empirical findings of research done at their center. The first section of the book discusses basic theory and principles of social integration in later life and its implications for health. The second, largest section examines specific issues: retirement, driving, family support, housing, neighbors. The third section addresses interventions to promote social integration: transportation, volunteering, and peer support for dementia caregivers. Throughout, the authors focus on the diverging influences of social integration and its converse, social isolation, in later life.

Download or read book Souls Forgotten written by Francis B. Nyamnjoh and published by African Books Collective. This book was released on 2008 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One day, Mama Ngonsu told her son: "Normally, a child grew up and stayed around to help his parents. The world has changed, and things are no longer as they used to be. Things must not be normal all the time, otherwise life would not be life." When Emmanuel Kwanga gets a University scholarship, he travels from the lake and hills of Abehema to the Great City. Everyone in the village has invested in him their hopes for the good life. When the life they've imagined is cut short by the University guillotine, Emmanuel Kwanga must struggle to make sense of what the good life means - for himself and for Abehema - in a world where things are no longer as they used to be. This novel is about coming of age and coming to terms in Mimboland. It is also about the fragility of life and the strength of the human spirit. The filth and screaming splendor of the city and the perplexed tranquility of the village are juxtaposed, as the tension and conviviality between tradition and modernity are lived and explored. Roads and drivers, dreams and public transport link different geographies. Faltering along or speeding away, these spaces of risk, frustration and solidarity are filled with popular songs as vehicles for understanding events and relationships. With every crossing of the Pont de Maturit the story flows, and its mysteries surge. In this novel, the worlds of the living and the dead intermingle, as do the natural and the supernatural, the visible and the invisible.