Download or read book Impossible Views of the World written by Lucy Ives and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-08-01 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A witty, urbane, and sometimes shocking debut novel, set in a hallowed New York museum, in which a co-worker's disappearance and a mysterious map change a life forever Stella Krakus, a curator at Manhattan's renowned Central Museum of Art, is having the roughest week in approximately ever. Her soon-to-be ex-husband (the perfectly awful Whit Ghiscolmbe) is stalking her, a workplace romance with "a fascinating, hyper-rational narcissist" is in freefall, and a beloved colleague, Paul, has gone missing. Strange things are afoot: CeMArt's current exhibit is sponsored by a Belgian multinational that wants to take over the world's water supply, she unwittingly stars in a viral video that's making the rounds, and her mother--the imperious, impossibly glamorous Caro--wants to have lunch. It's almost more than she can overanalyze. But the appearance of a mysterious map, depicting a 19th-century utopian settlement, sends Stella--a dogged expert in American graphics and fluidomanie (don't ask)--on an all-consuming research mission. As she teases out the links between a haunting poem, several unusual novels, a counterfeiting scheme, and one of the museum's colorful early benefactors, she discovers the unbearable secret that Paul's been keeping, and charts a course out of the chaos of her own life. Pulsing with neurotic humor and dagger-sharp prose, Impossible Views of the World is a dazzling debut novel about how to make it through your early thirties with your brain and heart intact.
Download or read book Impossible Views of the World written by Lucy Ives and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stella Krakus, a curator at Manhattan's renowned Central Museum of Art, is having the roughest week ever. Everything is going wrong, including the fact a beloved colleague, Paul, has gone missing. Strange things are afoot; it's almost more than she can overanalyse. But the appearance of a strange map, depicting a mysterious 19th-century utopian settlement, sends Stella on an all-consuming research mission where she discovers the unbearable secret that Paul's been keeping, and charts a course out of the chaos of her own life.
Download or read book Loudermilk written by Lucy Ives and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2019-05-07 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice, is "hilarious . . . a riotous success. Equal parts campus novel, buddy comedy and meditation on art-making under late capitalism, the novel is a hugely funny portrait of an egomaniac and his nebbish best friend" (The Washington Post). It’s the end of summer 2003. George W. Bush has recently declared the mission in Iraq accomplished, the unemployment rate is at its highest in years, and Martha Stewart has just been indicted for insider trading. Meanwhile, somewhere in the Midwest, Troy Augustus Loudermilk (fair-haired, statuesque, charismatic) and his companion Harry Rego (definitely none of those things) step out of a silver Land Cruiser and onto the campus of The Seminars, America’s most prestigious creative writing program, to which Loudermilk has recently been accepted for his excellence in poetry. Loudermilk, however, has never written a poem in his life. Wickedly entertaining, beguiling, layered, and sly, Loudermilk is a social novel for our time: a comedy of errors that deftly examines class, gender, and inheritance, and subverts our pieties about literature, authorship, art making, and the institutions that sustain them.
Download or read book The Train to Impossible Places A Cursed Delivery written by P. G. Bell and published by Feiwel & Friends. This book was released on 2018-10-02 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A middle-grade fantasy and nonstop adventure, The Train to Impossible Places by debut author P. G. Bell is as fun as it is full of heart, and the first book of a trilogy. A train that travels through impossible places. A boy trapped in a snow globe. And a girl who’s about to go on the adventure of a lifetime. The Impossible Postal Express is no ordinary train. It’s a troll-operated delivery service that runs everywhere from ocean-bottom shipwrecks, to Trollville, to space. But when this impossible train comes roaring through Suzy’s living room, her world turns upside down. After sneaking on board, Suzy suddenly finds herself Deputy Post Master aboard the train, and faced with her first delivery—to the evil Lady Crepuscula. Then, the package itself begs Suzy not to deliver him. A talking snow globe, Frederick has information Crepuscula could use to take over the entire Union of Impossible Places. But when protecting Frederick means putting her friends in danger, Suzy has to make a difficult choice—with the fate of the entire Union at stake.
Download or read book Experiencing the Impossible written by Gustav Kuhn and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2019-03-12 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the scientific study of magic reveals intriguing—and often unsettling—insights into the mysteries of the human mind. What do we see when we watch a magician pull a rabbit out of a hat or read a person's mind? We are captivated by an illusion; we applaud the fact that we have been fooled. Why do we enjoy experiencing what seems clearly impossible, or at least beyond our powers of explanation? In Experiencing the Impossible, Gustav Kuhn examines the psychological processes that underpin our experience of magic. Kuhn, a psychologist and a magician, reveals the intriguing—and often unsettling—insights into the human mind that the scientific study of magic provides.Magic, Kuhn explains, creates a cognitive conflict between what we believe to be true (for example, a rabbit could not be in that hat) and what we experience (a rabbit has just come out of that hat!). Drawing on the latest psychological, neurological, and philosophical research, he suggests that misdirection is at the heart of all magic tricks, and he offers a scientific theory of misdirection. He explores, among other topics, our propensity for magical thinking, the malleability of our perceptual experiences, forgetting and misremembering, free will and mind control, and how magic is applied outside entertaiment—the use of illusion in human-computer interaction, politics, warfare, and elsewhere. We may be surprised to learn how little of the world we actually perceive, how little we can trust what we see and remember, and how little we are in charge of our thoughts and actions. Exploring magic, Kuhn illuminates the complex—and almost magical—mechanisms underlying our daily activities.
Download or read book Brief Candles Four Stories written by Aldous Huxley and published by Wildside Press LLC. This book was released on 2021-03-12 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brief Candles (1930), Aldous Huxley's fifth collection of short fiction, consists of the following four short stories: "Chawdron" "The Rest Cure" "The Claxtons" "After the Fireworks" Brief Candles takes its title from a line in William Shakespeare's Macbeth, from Macbeth's famous soliloquy: "Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
Download or read book The Impossible Presidency written by Jeremi Suri and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2017-09-12 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bold new history of the American presidency, arguing that the successful presidents of the past created unrealistic expectations for every president since JFK, with enormously problematic implications for American politics In The Impossible Presidency, celebrated historian Jeremi Suri charts the rise and fall of the American presidency, from the limited role envisaged by the Founding Fathers to its current status as the most powerful job in the world. He argues that the presidency is a victim of its own success-the vastness of the job makes it almost impossible to fulfill the expectations placed upon it. As managers of the world's largest economy and military, contemporary presidents must react to a truly globalized world in a twenty-four-hour news cycle. There is little room left for bold vision. Suri traces America's disenchantment with our recent presidents to the inevitable mismatch between presidential promises and the structural limitations of the office. A masterful reassessment of presidential history, this book is essential reading for anyone trying to understand America's fraught political climate.
Download or read book The Impossible Fortress written by Jason Rekulak and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2017-02-02 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's 1987. Billy Marvin, the tallest boy in ninth grade, has just witnessed history.Wheel of Fortune presenter Vanna White is on the cover of Playboy.Billy and his friends, Alf and Clark, know that if they can get hold of the magazine, their world will change. For ever.But as Billy says, 'No shopkeeper in America was going to sell Playboy to a fourteen-year-old boy.'As they set out on their mission to find the most wanted images in America, they're blissfully unaware of the dangers, dramas and garbage dumpsters that lie ahead. And of how a girl called Mary might just change one of their lives. For ever.
Download or read book This Impossible Light written by Lily Myers and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-06-06 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the YouTube slam poetry star of "Shrinking Women" (more than 5 million views!) comes a novel in verse about body image, eating disorders, self-worth, mothers and daughters, and the psychological scars we inherit from our parents. Fifteen-year-old Ivy's world is in flux. Her dad has moved out, her mother is withdrawn, her brother is off at college, and her best friend, Anna, has grown distant. Worst of all, Ivy's body won’t stop expanding. She's getting taller and curvier, with no end in sight. Even her beloved math class offers no clear solution to the imbalanced equation that has become Ivy’s life. Everything feels off-kilter until a skipped meal leads to a boost in confidence and reminds Ivy that her life is her own. If Ivy can just limit what she eats—the way her mother seems to—she can stop herself from growing, focus on the upcoming math competition, and reclaim control of her life. But when her disordered eating leads to missed opportunities and a devastating health scare, Ivy realizes that she must weigh her mother's issues against her own, and discover what it means to be a part of—and apart from—her family. This Impossible Light explores the powerful reality that identity and self-worth must be taught before they are learned. Perfect for fans of Laurie Halse Anderson and Ellen Hopkins. Praise for This Impossible Light: ★ "In an exceptional novel in verse, slam poet Myers debuts with a powerful commentary on maternal inheritance and eating disorders....striking use of the flexibility of free verse...absorbing and evocative." —Publishers Weekly, starred review "Every YA library needs this book." —VOYA "Written in evocative verse, with notes of wonder and despair, the cadence flows across and down the pages with grace. Lifted beyond the confines of the problem novel with its lyricism and resonance." —Kirkus Reviews "This verse novel’s form perfectly mirrors its content as readers move from poem to poem, from thought to thought, following Ivy through the false logic that triggers and sustains her disordered eating—and into the beginning of the much more difficult steps of grief and recovery." —Horn Book "The undeniable teen appeal makes it a first purchase for any YA collection." —School Library Journal "More than a touching debut, this is a surefire coping companion, too." —Booklist
Download or read book When We Cease to Understand the World written by Benjamin Labatut and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2021-09-28 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of The New York Times Book Review’s 10 Best Books of 2021 Shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize and the 2021 National Book Award for Translated Literature A fictional examination of the lives of real-life scientists and thinkers whose discoveries resulted in moral consequences beyond their imagining. When We Cease to Understand the World is a book about the complicated links between scientific and mathematical discovery, madness, and destruction. Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger—these are some of luminaries into whose troubled lives Benjamín Labatut thrusts the reader, showing us how they grappled with the most profound questions of existence. They have strokes of unparalleled genius, alienate friends and lovers, descend into isolation and insanity. Some of their discoveries reshape human life for the better; others pave the way to chaos and unimaginable suffering. The lines are never clear. At a breakneck pace and with a wealth of disturbing detail, Labatut uses the imaginative resources of fiction to tell the stories of the scientists and mathematicians who expanded our notions of the possible.
Download or read book Creating the Impossible written by Michael Neill and published by Hay House, Inc. This book was released on 2018-01-02 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are you ready to make your dreams come true? Michael Neill is widely recognized as one of the world’s leading life coaches, and his teachings have impacted everyone from housewives to CEOs and from gang members in prison to leaders at the United Nations. For the last decade, he has been sharing the principles that will allow you to create far more than you ever thought possible with far less struggle than you expected. Thousands of people from all over the world have already used the principles behind this 90-day program to reconnect with their creative spark and get their most important ideas and projects out of their head and into the world. Now it’s your turn… What if you could accomplish more than you ever imagined without the constant stress and pressure associated with "high achievement?" What if creating what you want to see in the world isn’t dependent on believing in yourself, or even believing that it’s possible? Whether you want breakthrough results for your business, yourself, or your life, this book will change the way you see yourself as you learn to make the impossible possible!
Download or read book The Summer of Impossible Things written by Rowan Coleman and published by Random House. This book was released on 2017-06-29 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If you could change the past, would you? *As seen on ITV in The Zoe Ball Book Club* 'Beautiful, well-written...I got goosebumps' Alex Jones 'Portrayed 1977 so brilliantly...it would make an amazing movie' Zoe Ball ----------------------------------------------- How far would you go to save the person you love? Luna is about to do everything she can to save her mother's life. Even if it means sacrificing her own. A beautiful novel about family, courage, sacrifice and love in all its guises from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Memory Book ----------------------------------------------- With over 150 5* reviews, this is what readers are saying about this irresistible page-turner: 'Best book of the year for me' 'It's a poignant but ultimately life-affirming journey' 'A wonderful novel, full of love and friendship and vitality' 'This story was magical and I loved it' 'Truly outstanding storytelling' 'A book that really stayed with me'
Download or read book The Way To Impossible Island written by Sophie Kirtley and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-07-08 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Dazzling storytelling' - Hilary McKay Born with a serious heart condition, Dara has been waiting for his Big Operation forever, and this summer it's finally going to happen. The moment his heart is fixed he'll row out to the island in the bay all by himself just like he's always dreamed. But when his op is postponed, Dara snaps. When will he get to live his real life? Maybe the adventures he dreams of are just silly fantasies. And then he finds a girl hiding in the boat shed. She wears animal skins. She has a real live pet wolf. She is, simply, impossible. Could Mothgirl really be from the Stone Age? And what is she seeking on Lathrin Island? As Dara and Mothgirl set out on a wild, windswept sea journey Dara begins to realise that when you stop worrying about what's impossible, you can do anything. A brave, life-affirming middle-grade timeslip adventure about finding your family and finding yourself, from the author of The Wild Way Home.
Download or read book Six Impossible Things written by John Gribbin and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2019-10-08 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An elegant and accessible” investigation of quantum mechanics for non-specialists—“highly recommended” for students of the sciences, sci-fi fans, and anyone interested in the strange world of quantum physics (Forbes) Rules of the quantum world seem to say that a cat can be both alive and dead at the same time and a particle can be in two places at once. And that particle is also a wave; everything in the quantum world can described in terms of waves—or entirely in terms of particles. These interpretations were all established by the end of the 1920s, by Erwin Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg, Paul Dirac, and others. But no one has yet come up with a common sense explanation of what is going on. In this concise and engaging book, astrophysicist John Gribbin offers an overview of six of the leading interpretations of quantum mechanics. Gribbin calls his account “agnostic,” explaining that none of these interpretations is any better—or any worse—than any of the others. Gribbin presents the Copenhagen Interpretation, promoted by Niels Bohr and named by Heisenberg; the Pilot-Wave Interpretation, developed by Louis de Broglie; the Many Worlds Interpretation (termed “excess baggage” by Gribbin); the Decoherence Interpretation (“incoherent”); the Ensemble “Non-Interpretation”; and the Timeless Transactional Interpretation (which theorized waves going both forward and backward in time). All of these interpretations are crazy, Gribbin warns, and some are more crazy than others—but in the quantum world, being more crazy does not necessarily mean more wrong.
Download or read book Factfulness written by Hans Rosling and published by Flatiron Books. This book was released on 2018-04-03 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “One of the most important books I’ve ever read—an indispensable guide to thinking clearly about the world.” – Bill Gates “Hans Rosling tells the story of ‘the secret silent miracle of human progress’ as only he can. But Factfulness does much more than that. It also explains why progress is so often secret and silent and teaches readers how to see it clearly.” —Melinda Gates "Factfulness by Hans Rosling, an outstanding international public health expert, is a hopeful book about the potential for human progress when we work off facts rather than our inherent biases." - Former U.S. President Barack Obama Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts. When asked simple questions about global trends—what percentage of the world’s population live in poverty; why the world’s population is increasing; how many girls finish school—we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently outguess teachers, journalists, Nobel laureates, and investment bankers. In Factfulness, Professor of International Health and global TED phenomenon Hans Rosling, together with his two long-time collaborators, Anna and Ola, offers a radical new explanation of why this happens. They reveal the ten instincts that distort our perspective—from our tendency to divide the world into two camps (usually some version of us and them) to the way we consume media (where fear rules) to how we perceive progress (believing that most things are getting worse). Our problem is that we don’t know what we don’t know, and even our guesses are informed by unconscious and predictable biases. It turns out that the world, for all its imperfections, is in a much better state than we might think. That doesn’t mean there aren’t real concerns. But when we worry about everything all the time instead of embracing a worldview based on facts, we can lose our ability to focus on the things that threaten us most. Inspiring and revelatory, filled with lively anecdotes and moving stories, Factfulness is an urgent and essential book that will change the way you see the world and empower you to respond to the crises and opportunities of the future. --- “This book is my last battle in my life-long mission to fight devastating ignorance...Previously I armed myself with huge data sets, eye-opening software, an energetic learning style and a Swedish bayonet for sword-swallowing. It wasn’t enough. But I hope this book will be.” Hans Rosling, February 2017.
Download or read book Nothing Is Impossible 7 Steps to Realize Your True Power and Maximize Your Results written by Tom Oliver and published by McGraw Hill Professional. This book was released on 2013-10-25 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Your 7-step whole-brain plan for improving your business, life, and career--from the man Deepak Chopra hails as “an extraordinary leader” Nothing is Impossible gives you the tools and knowledge to redefine problems and improve business and career performance by drawing on best practices from the creative arts and a wealth of other disciplines. It draws on many dramatic stories, including that of Richard Branson, other top self-made entrepreneurs and CEOs, and world-famous artists and athletes. "Very few business leaders walk the talk as much as Tom does when it comes to ethics in business." -- Professor Michael Luger, Dean, Manchester Business School "Tom is a gateway to millions of next generation trend setters and early adopters. His passion as a speaker is contagious!" -- Jez Frampton, Global Group CEO, Interbrand, world's largest and leading branding consultancy with 40 offices in 25 countries; publisher of Top 100 Global Brands with Bloomberg BusinessWeek "Tom is an incredible force for good in this world. Audacious, passionate, and driven...he lives a mantra, which is incredibly close to our heart at Saatchi & Saatchi, that nothing but nothing is impossible." -- Richard Huntington, Director of Strategy, Saatchi & Saatchi Tom Oliver teaches at Manchester Business School, one of the top-ranked business schools in the world. He speaks regularly at major global business venues.
Download or read book MacArthur Park written by Andrew Durbin and published by Nightboat Books. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After Hurricane Sandy, Nick Fowler, a writer, stranded alone in a Manhattan apartment without power, begins to contemplate disaster. Months later, at an artist residency in upstate New York, Nick finds his subject in disaster itself and the communities shaped by it, where crisis animates both hope and denial, unacknowledged pasts and potential futures. As he travels to Los Angeles and London on assignment, Nick discovers that outsiders - their lives and histories disturbed by sex, loss, and bad weather - are often better understood by what they have hidden from the world than what they have revealed.
