Download or read book The Library Book written by Susan Orlean and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Susan Orlean’s bestseller and New York Times Notable Book is “a sheer delight…as rich in insight and as varied as the treasures contained on the shelves in any local library” (USA TODAY)—a dazzling love letter to a beloved institution and an investigation into one of its greatest mysteries. “Everybody who loves books should check out The Library Book” (The Washington Post). On the morning of April 28, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. The fire was disastrous: it reached two thousand degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished, it had consumed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more. Investigators descended on the scene, but more than thirty years later, the mystery remains: Did someone purposefully set fire to the library—and if so, who? Weaving her lifelong love of books and reading into an investigation of the fire, award-winning New Yorker reporter and New York Times bestselling author Susan Orlean delivers a “delightful…reflection on the past, present, and future of libraries in America” (New York magazine) that manages to tell the broader story of libraries and librarians in a way that has never been done before. In the “exquisitely written, consistently entertaining” (The New York Times) The Library Book, Orlean chronicles the LAPL fire and its aftermath to showcase the larger, crucial role that libraries play in our lives; delves into the evolution of libraries; brings each department of the library to vivid life; studies arson and attempts to burn a copy of a book herself; and reexamines the case of Harry Peak, the blond-haired actor long suspected of setting fire to the LAPL more than thirty years ago. “A book lover’s dream…an ambitiously researched, elegantly written book that serves as a portal into a place of history, drama, culture, and stories” (Star Tribune, Minneapolis), Susan Orlean’s thrilling journey through the stacks reveals how these beloved institutions provide much more than just books—and why they remain an essential part of the heart, mind, and soul of our country.
Download or read book The Routledge Encyclopedia of Jewish Writers of the Twentieth Century written by Sorrel Kerbel and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-11-23 with total page 1394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now available in paperback for the first time, Jewish Writers of the Twentieth Century is both a comprehensive reference resource and a springboard for further study. This volume: examines canonical Jewish writers, less well-known authors of Yiddish and Hebrew, and emerging Israeli writers includes entries on figures as diverse as Marcel Proust, Franz Kafka, Tristan Tzara, Eugene Ionesco, Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard, Arthur Miller, Saul Bellow, Nadine Gordimer, and Woody Allen contains introductory essays on Jewish-American writing, Holocaust literature and memoirs, Yiddish writing, and Anglo-Jewish literature provides a chronology of twentieth-century Jewish writers. Compiled by expert contributors, this book contains over 330 entries on individual authors, each consisting of a biography, a list of selected publications, a scholarly essay on their work and suggestions for further reading.
Download or read book I the Supreme written by Augusto Roa Bastos and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2019-02-26 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I the Supreme imagines a dialogue between the nineteenth-century Paraguayan dictator known as Dr. Francia and Policarpo Patiño, his secretary and only companion. The opening pages present a sign that they had found nailed to the wall of a cathedral, purportedly written by Dr. Francia himself and ordering the execution of all of his servants upon his death. This sign is quickly revealed to be a forgery, which takes leader and secretary into a larger discussion about the nature of truth: “In the light of what Your Eminence says, even the truth appears to be a lie.” Their conversation broadens into an epic journey of the mind, stretching across the colonial history of their nation, filled with surrealist imagery, labyrinthine turns, and footnotes supplied by a mysterious “compiler.” A towering achievement from a foundational author of modern Latin American literature, I the Supreme is a darkly comic, deeply moving meditation on power and its abuse—and on the role of language in making and unmaking whole worlds.
Download or read book The Poet X written by Elizabeth Acevedo and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2018-03-06 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, the Michael L. Printz Award, and the Pura Belpré Award! Fans of Jacqueline Woodson, Meg Medina, and Jason Reynolds will fall hard for this astonishing New York Times-bestselling novel-in-verse by an award-winning slam poet, about an Afro-Latina heroine who tells her story with blazing words and powerful truth. Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking. But Xiomara has plenty she wants to say, and she pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers—especially after she catches feelings for a boy in her bio class named Aman, who her family can never know about. With Mami’s determination to force her daughter to obey the laws of the church, Xiomara understands that her thoughts are best kept to herself. So when she is invited to join her school’s slam poetry club, she doesn’t know how she could ever attend without her mami finding out. But she still can’t stop thinking about performing her poems. Because in the face of a world that may not want to hear her, Xiomara refuses to be silent. “Crackles with energy and snaps with authenticity and voice.” —Justina Ireland, author of Dread Nation “An incredibly potent debut.” —Jason Reynolds, author of the National Book Award Finalist Ghost “Acevedo has amplified the voices of girls en el barrio who are equal parts goddess, saint, warrior, and hero.” —Ibi Zoboi, author of American Street This young adult novel, a selection of the Schomburg Center's Black Liberation Reading List, is an excellent choice for accelerated tween readers in grades 6 to 8. Plus don't miss Elizabeth Acevedo's With the Fire on High and Clap When You Land!
Download or read book A Very Large Expanse of Sea written by Tahereh Mafi and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2018-10-16 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Longlisted for the National Book Award for Young People's Literature! From the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Shatter Me series comes a powerful, heartrending contemporary novel about fear, first love, and the devastating impact of prejudice. It’s 2002, a year after 9/11. It’s an extremely turbulent time politically, but especially so for someone like Shirin, a sixteen-year-old Muslim girl who’s tired of being stereotyped. Shirin is never surprised by how horrible people can be. She’s tired of the rude stares, the degrading comments—even the physical violence—she endures as a result of her race, her religion, and the hijab she wears every day. So she’s built up protective walls and refuses to let anyone close enough to hurt her. Instead, she drowns her frustrations in music and spends her afternoons break-dancing with her brother. But then she meets Ocean James. He’s the first person in forever who really seems to want to get to know Shirin. It terrifies her—they seem to come from two irreconcilable worlds—and Shirin has had her guard up for so long that she’s not sure she’ll ever be able to let it down.
Download or read book The Lost Art of Reading written by David L. Ulin and published by Sasquatch Books. This book was released on 2010-06-01 with total page 89 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reading is a revolutionary act, an act of engagement in a culture that wants us to disengage. In The Lost Art of Reading, David L. Ulin asks a number of timely questions - why is literature important? What does it offer, especially now? Blending commentary with memoir, Ulin addresses the importance of the simple act of reading in an increasingly digital culture. Reading a book, flipping through hard pages, or shuffling them on screen - it doesn't matter. The key is the act of reading, and it's seriousness and depth. Ulin emphasizes the importance of reflection and pause allowed by stopping to read a book, and the accompanying focus required to let the mind run free in a world that is not one's own. Are we willing to risk our collective interest in contemplation, nuanced thinking, and empathy? Far from preaching to the choir, The Lost Art of Reading is a call to arms, or rather, to pages.
Download or read book When They Come for Us We ll Be Gone written by Gal Beckerman and published by HMH. This book was released on 2010-09-23 with total page 801 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The “remarkable” story of the grass-roots movement that freed millions of Jews from the Soviet Union (The Plain Dealer). At the end of World War II, nearly three million Jews were trapped inside the USSR. They lived a paradox—unwanted by a repressive Stalinist state, yet forbidden to leave. When They Come for Us, We’ll Be Gone is the astonishing and inspiring story of their rescue. Journalist Gal Beckerman draws on newly released Soviet government documents as well as hundreds of oral interviews with refuseniks, activists, Zionist “hooligans,” and Congressional staffers. He shows not only how the movement led to a mass exodus in 1989, but also how it shaped the American Jewish community, giving it a renewed sense of spiritual purpose and teaching it to flex its political muscle. Beckerman also makes a convincing case that the effort put human rights at the center of American foreign policy for the very first time, helping to end the Cold War. This “wide-ranging and often moving” book introduces us to all the major players, from the flamboyant Meir Kahane, head of the paramilitary Jewish Defense League, to Soviet refusenik Natan Sharansky, who labored in a Siberian prison camp for over a decade, to Lynn Singer, the small, fiery Long Island housewife who went from organizing local rallies to strong-arming Soviet diplomats (The New Yorker). This “excellent” multigenerational saga, filled with suspense and packed with revelations, provides an essential missing piece of Cold War and Jewish history (The Washington Post).
Download or read book Epic Lives written by Jessie Carney Smith and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 668 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "After 20 years of research and loving dedication, author Jessie Carney Smith presents this tribute to 100 African-American women of achievement. Their strength, courage, determination, and style have made a tremendous impact in a variety of fields - from aeronautics to civil rights to the arts and entertainment. Many of these women will be familiar to you, but many more are unsung heroes whose stories you will discover for the first time. As Dr. Smith told the Chicago Tribune, "I want people to feel that these are women they can look up to, be inspired by, or remember in some small way.""--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Download or read book Communists and Labour The National Left Wing Movement 1925 1929 written by Lawrence Parker and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2018 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The National Left-Wing Movement (NLWM), set up by the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) in 1925-26 to pull the Labour Party rank and file towards Communist politics, was one in which Marxists worked in a largely open fashion to promote specific programmatic principles. This publication sheds new light on how the early CPGB approached its work inside the Labour Party and points to a more variegated picture of the CPGB in the mid-to-late 1920s as still capable of producing rational and principled responses to the class struggle - albeit, in the case of the NLWM, partially flawed and unsuccessful ones. The NLWM had another goal forced upon it of protecting Communists and their sympathisers from a Labour leadership intent on expelling and disaffiliating such elements in a pursuit of respectability. This monograph seeks to qualitatively measure the impact of that disaffiliation process on the CPGB, the NLWM and Labour sympathisers.
Download or read book The Curie Society written by Heather Einhorn and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2021-04-27 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An action-packed graphic novel for the science lover—“with suspenseful espionage, nerdy humor, and a group of dauntless, eager trailblazers” following in the footsteps of Marie Curie (Shelf Awareness). The brilliant, diverse members of a covert society dedicated to women in STEM undertake high-stakes missions to save the world. An action-adventure original graphic novel, The Curie Society follows a team of young women recruited by an elite secret society—originally founded by Marie Curie—with the mission of supporting the most brilliant female scientists in the world. The heroines of the Curie Society use their smarts, gumption, and cutting-edge technology to protect the world from rogue scientists with nefarious plans. Readers can follow recruits Simone, Taj, and Maya as they decipher secret codes, clone extinct animals, develop autonomous robots, and go on high-stakes missions. “A fun comic starring heroines who find themselves solving one scientific puzzle after the next!” ―Andy Weir, New York Times–bestselling author of The Martian
Download or read book Walt Whitman Quarterly Review written by and published by . This book was released on 1986 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Sicilian Epic and the Marionette Theater written by Michael Buonanno and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-04-04 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study analyzes the folkloric genres that comprise the repertoire of the marionette theater in Sicily. Here, epic, farce, saints' lives, bandits' lives, fairytales, Christian myth, and city legend offer the vehicles by which puppeteers comment upon, critique--perhaps even negotiate--the relationships among the major classes of Sicilian society: the aristocracy, the people, the clergy and the Mafia. The lynchpin of the repertoire is the Carolingian Cycle and, in particular, a contemporary version of The Song of Roland known in Sicily as The Death of the Paladins, a text which illustrates the means by which the Carolingian heroes--Charlemagne, Roland, Renaud, Ganelon, and Angelica--augment saints, bandits, Biblical figures and Sicilian folk heroes to provide the marionette theater its rhetorical function: the articulation and dissemination of the tools of Sicilian identity.
Download or read book Inventing the Electronic Century written by Alfred Dupont Chandler and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2005-04-30 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this chronicle of the trailblazing high-technology companies and products that laid the foundation for the Electronic Century, Chandler shows precisely where, when, how and by whom technical knowledge was initially commercialised.
Download or read book Epic Voices written by Robert Arlett and published by Susquehanna University Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The path of the modern novel has been marked by a dialectic of seemingly rival impulses: while certain novelists have sought to deal with wide-scale social and political dimensions of modern existence, others have concerned themselves primarily with interior sensibility.
Download or read book American Decades 1980 1989 written by Vincent Tompkins and published by American Decades. This book was released on 1996 with total page 794 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Intended as a reference source for American social history, this volume discusses the people, events and ideas of the period 1980-1989. After an introductory overview and chronology, subject chapters follow with subject-specific timelines and alphabetically-arranged entries.
Download or read book Mutiny and Leadership written by Keith Grint and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using contemporary leadership theory to cast a critical light on an array of mutinies throughout history, this book considers the organizational nature of mutinies, explores the contexts in which they can be encouraged or discouraged, and ultimately shows how mutiny can be considered as a permanent possibility.
Download or read book Geographies of the Haitian Diaspora written by Regine O. Jackson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2011-06-27 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited collection examines the diversity of the Haitian experience in diaspora to ask how we might situate and conceptualize community in view of increased scholarly attention to transnational processes.
