Download or read book In the Midst of Things written by Mike Owen Benediktsson and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2022-09-20 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How ordinary urban objects influence our behavior, exacerbate inequality, and encourage social change Assumptions about human behavior lie hidden in plain sight all around us, programmed into the design and regulation of the material objects we encounter on a daily basis. In the Midst of Things takes an in-depth look at the social lives of five objects commonly found in the public spaces of New York City and its suburbs, revealing how our interactions with such material things are our primary point of contact with the social, political, and economic forces that shape city life. Drawing on groundbreaking fieldwork and a wealth of original interviews, Mike Owen Benediktsson shows how we are in the midst of things whose profound social role often goes overlooked. A newly built lawn on the Brooklyn waterfront reflects an increasingly common trade-off between the marketplace and the public good. A cement wall on a New Jersey highway speaks to the demise of the postwar American dream. A metal folding chair on a patch of asphalt in Queens exposes the political obstacles to making the city livable. A subway door expresses the simmering conflict between the city and the desires of riders, while a newsstand bears witness to our increasingly impoverished streetscapes. In the Midst of Things demonstrates how the material realm is one of immediacy, control, inequality, and unpredictability, and how these factors frustrate the ability of designers, planners, and regulators to shape human behavior.
Download or read book In the Midst of Things written by Darrell Calkins and published by . This book was released on 2020-08 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of letters and essays written over 15 years, the thrust of which is a contemplation of the tectonic forces that determine meaning and the quality of our lives, and how we can influence them. Calkins' vocation for the past 40 years has concentrated on personal wellbeing and human potential-disciplines that eventually open into the vaster realms from which they were born: wisdom and spirituality.
Download or read book In the Midst of Things written by Heidi Wong and published by Trafford Publishing. This book was released on 2013 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alexandra DesDemonta is a fourteen-year-old who is not happy with her family situation. Her real father died when she was a child, leaving her nothing but memories and a ring with the inscription, "It always goes on." She has a little brother, Taylor, who seems to be the favorite child now that her mom is remarried. Even worse, Alex is talked into babysitting Taylor on Halloween. It is then that Alex notices a mysterious book on the shelf in her home. It is called The Saga of DesDemonta, and Alex has never seen the book before. She can't help but be interested; she also can't know the damage the book can cause. Before she makes sense of her new discovery, she is forced to move to a new school-but family secrets follow. What really happened to her father, and what does it have to do with Alex's new book? She has a feeling her mother knows the answers, but Joyce is hesitant to tell her daughter the truth; it could bring them lots of trouble. Soon, however, Alex's family history puts her friends in danger, and together they must fight a force much darker than any school exam-a force that threatens to kill.
Download or read book Fewer Better Things written by Glenn Adamson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2018-08-07 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the former director of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, a timely and passionate case for the role of the well-designed object in the digital age. Curator and scholar Glenn Adamson opens Fewer, Better Things by contrasting his beloved childhood teddy bear to the smartphones and digital tablets children have today. He laments that many children and adults are losing touch with the material objects that have nurtured human development for thousands of years. The objects are still here, but we seem to care less and know less about them. In his presentations to groups, he often asks an audience member what he or she knows about the chair the person is sitting in. Few people know much more than whether it's made of wood, plastic, or metal. If we know little about how things are made, it's hard to remain connected to the world around us. Fewer, Better Things explores the history of craft in its many forms, explaining how raw materials, tools, design, and technique come together to produce beauty and utility in handmade or manufactured items. Whether describing the implements used in a traditional Japanese tea ceremony, the use of woodworking tools, or the use of new fabrication technologies, Adamson writes expertly and lovingly about the aesthetics of objects, and the care and attention that goes into producing them. Reading this wise and elegant book is a truly transformative experience.
Download or read book Silently Into the Midst of Things written by A. Sutherland Brown and published by Trafford Publishing. This book was released on 2001 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes the critical and dangerous operations of the twin-engined Beaufighters in interdicting the roads, railways, shipping of the Japanese invaders in Burma based on primary documents and narratives of the air and ground crews.
Download or read book In the Midst of Chaos written by Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2019-03-01 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the daily practices of life with children can shape our faith In the Midst of Chaos explores parenting as spiritual practice, building on Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore's fresh conceptions of children from her book Let the Children Come. She questions conventional perceptions that spiritual practices require silence, solitude, and uninterrupted prayer and that assume a life unburdened by care of others. She is both honest about the difficulties and attentive to the blessings present in everyday life and demonstrates that the life of faith encompasses children and the adults who care for them. Miller-McLemore explores how parents might use seven daily practices, such as play, reading, chores, and saying goodbye or goodnight as rich opportunities to shape both parent and child morally and spiritually. Through these experiences, she shows how the very care of children forms and reforms the faith of adults themselves, contrary to the belief that adults must form children. In the Midst of Chaos also goes beyond the typical focus on individual self-fulfillment by tackling difficult questions of social justice and mutuality in the ways families live together. Readers will find in this book an invitation to love those around them in the midst of life's craziness and to live more deeply in grace.
Download or read book When Things Fall Apart written by Pema Chödrön and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2005-01-11 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes a traditional Buddhist approach to suffering and how embracing the painful situation and using communication, negative habits, and challenging experiences leads to emotional growth and happiness.
Download or read book In the Midst of Life written by Ambrose Bierce and published by Standard Ebooks. This book was released on 2022-10-14T01:00:11Z with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first major collection of Ambrose Bierce’s short stories, In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians went through multiple editions and titles, with Bierce adding, removing, and revising the stories each time. The version of the stories as collected here follows the final selection and revisions made by Bierce for his Collected Works, Volume 2, published in 1909, and is broken up into two sections, “Soldiers” and “Civilians.” Bierce fought for the Union in the American Civil War from the very first organized action at Philippi. He went on to fight in some of the deadliest battles of the war, at Shiloh and Chickamauga. He joined Sherman’s army on its march to Atlanta, and was grievously wounded in the head at Kennesaw Mountain. These locations serve as backdrops in his gritty and realist short stories in the “Soldiers” collection, most especially in the surreal story “Chickamauga.” While these stories are set in the war, Bierce covers a wide range of themes, from the fear of death in “Parker Adderson, Philosopher,” the requirements of duty for a soldier in “A Horseman in the Sky,” and what one might do for love in “Killed at Resaca.” Perhaps the most well-known story in “Soldiers” is “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.” Kurt Vonnegut called it “the greatest American short story,” saying “It is a flawless example of American genius, like ‘Sophisticated Lady’ by Duke Ellington or the Franklin stove.” Bierce, much like Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft, was an American pioneer in what he called his “tall tales”—psychological, supernatural, grotesque, and horror fiction. Many stories in “Civilians,” such as “The Man and the Snake,” “A Holy Terror,” and “The Suitable Surroundings,” foreshadow his later and darker works as studies in psychological horror. “The Eyes of the Panther” is a tragic, near-supernatural (though the reader is left guessing) tale of a woman of “feline beauty” and the man seeking her hand. Other stories found in the collection are satirical and ironic, like “The Famous Gilson Bequest” and “The Applicant.” Bierce’s writing earned him the title “Bitter Bierce” from his contemporaries, as one finds precious little hope and compassion in his stories, with death—often cruel—a recurring theme. A very rare exception can be found in “A Lady from Redhorse,” an epistolary romance. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.
Download or read book In the Midst of It All written by Tiffany L. Warren and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2010-02-22 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All her life, Zenovia has struggled with the burden of caring for her schizophrenic mother, Audrey, alone. Until one day, God seems to offer support in the form of two members of a church called the Brethren of the Sacrifice, who knock at the women's door preaching an unconventional version of the Gospel. Despite having questions, Zenovia agrees to join the church along with her mother. Soon afterward, Audrey stops taking her medication when fellow churchgoers deem her illness a demonic possession. Unable to watch her mother's mental deterioration, Zenovia flees town, only to receive a fateful phone call several years later telling her of her mother's suicide. Heartbroken, Zenovia must now make a soul-altering choice: accept "God's will," or return home to confront the demons she's worked so hard to leave behind....
Download or read book In the Midst of Winter written by Isabel Allende and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-10-31 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times and worldwide bestselling author Isabel Allende returns with a sweeping novel that journeys from present-day Brooklyn to Guatemala in the recent past to 1970s Chile and Brazil that offers “a timely message about immigration and the meaning of home” (People). During the biggest Brooklyn snowstorm in living memory, Richard Bowmaster, a lonely university professor in his sixties, hits the car of Evelyn Ortega, a young undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, and what at first seems an inconvenience takes a more serious turn when Evelyn comes to his house, seeking help. At a loss, the professor asks his tenant, Lucia Maraz, a fellow academic from Chile, for her advice. As these three lives intertwine, each will discover truths about how they have been shaped by the tragedies they witnessed, and Richard and Lucia will find unexpected, long overdue love. Allende returns here to themes that have propelled some of her finest work: political injustice, the art of survival, and the essential nature of—and our need for—love.
Download or read book Fictions of Fact and Value written by Michael LeMahieu and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-10 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fictions of Fact and Value looks at logical positivism's major influence on the development of postwar American fiction, charting a literary and philosophical genealogy that has been absent from criticism on the American novel since 1945.
Download or read book In the Midst of Tribulation written by Mary Griggs and published by Bella Books. This book was released on 2013-08-01 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Long suspicious that the world was going to go up in flames, Jay has retreated to remote Northern California and lived off the grid for years. She didn’t want to be right—but she was. When the war ended, it was clear nobody had won. Susan knows only one place where she and her extended family might be safe: with Jay, her ex. Desperate and frightened, the refugees rely heavily on their friend Piper, who agrees to make the journey with them. After a ragged reunion, Jay is willing to take in the newcomers, but the only way they will survive on the land is if they all work and sacrifice. It is easier said than done, especially when old feelings—and new ones—break the fragile peace and threaten them all.
Download or read book Things We Couldn t Say written by Diet Eman and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 1999 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Diary entries that Diet and Hein logged during the war as well as excerpts from personal letters that passed between the two young lovers detail their thoughts and emotions during those years.
Download or read book The Better Mom written by Ruth Schwenk and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2018-04-24 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mothering is messy. Our joy and hope in raising children doesn’t change the reality that being a mom can be frustrating, stressful, and tiring. But just as God is using us to shape our children, God is using our children and motherhood to shape us. In The Better Mom, author Ruth Schwenk, herself a mother of four children, encourages us with the good news that there is more to being a mom than the extremes of striving for perfection or simply embracing the mess. We don’t need to settle for surviving our kids’ childhood. We can grow through it. With refreshing and heartfelt honesty Ruth emboldens moms to: Find freedom and walk confidently in purpose Create a God-honoring home environment Overcome unhealthy and destructive emotions such as anger, anxiety, and more Avoid glorifying the mess of mom-ing or idolizing perfection Cultivate life-giving friendships At the heart of The Better Mom is the message that Jesus calls us to live not a weary life, but a worthy life. We don’t have to settle for either being apathetic or struggling to be perfect. Both visions of motherhood go too far. Ruth offers a better option. She says, “It’s okay to come as we are, but what we’re called to do and be is far too important to stay there! The way to becoming a better mom starts not with what we are doing, but with who God is inviting us to become."
Download or read book Circles of Seven written by Bryan Davis and published by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.. This book was released on 2021-10-05 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Bryan Davis writes with the scope of Tolkien, the focus of Lewis, the grandeur of Verne, and most of all the heart of Christ.” —Jeremiah F., reader What will Billy do when he’s confronted with an impossible choice? Billy and Bonnie discover seven evil circles in a multidimensional world. Faced with danger at every turn, the two friends must call upon their dragon gifts to defeat the malevolent ruler. When tragedy strikes along the way, Billy has to face the most difficult decision of his life: forsake Bonnie to rescue a group of prisoners or find a way to save her, his best friend in the world. Filled with action, danger, and suspense, Circles of Seven is sure to keep readers on the edge of their seats.
Download or read book The God Diagnosis written by Greg E Viehman and published by Big Mac Publishers. This book was released on 2010-11-17 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The God Diagnosis" is the unique journey of a successful surgeon who finds the fulfillment of all his life dreams empty, lonely, and depressing. Embarking on a quest for truth and the answers to life's basic questions, Dr. Viehman finds himself at the epicenter of the most mind blowing diagnosis of his life. In a riveting journey through investigation, testing, and personal struggles Dr. Viehman recounts his journey from death to life in a way that will resonate with anyone seeking the facts and examining the evidence for themselves. Dr. Viehman uses his medical mind to come at these issues in a profound way that is striking, refreshing and fascinating. He is vulnerable, transparent and has the utmost integrity as he sorts out fact from fantasy. This new author is exciting, enjoyable to read and intriguing in his unique approach to this topic. I believe we will hear much more from him and it will shake up many long held beliefs about Christ, Christians and the Church. --- Big Mac Publishers -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Viehman was born and raised in Wilmington, DE. He attended and graduated magna cum laude from the University of Delaware. He attended medical school at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania graduating number one in his class. He completed an Internship in Internal Medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and a dermatology residency at Duke University Medical Center, where he was chief resident. Dr. Viehman completed his fellowship in skin cancer surgery also at Duke. Dr. Viehman co-founded the Cary Skin Center in Cary, North Carolina, and worked there 1998-2008. He is now in solo private practice at Sea Coast Skin Surgery in Wilmington, NC. Dr. Viehman has lectured nationally on dermatologic surgery and authored several published scientific research articles. He has multiple interests, including, running, cross-fit training, and missionary work for orphans in Ukraine with New Life Ministries, and collecting rare Bibles. Dr. Viehman's family includes his wife Ruth, two sons, Brendan and Cameron, a daughter, Hannah and a border collie named Pepper.
Download or read book The End We Start From written by Megan Hunter and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-11-07 with total page 86 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: **NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING JODIE COMER, EXECUTIVE PRODUCED BY BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH, AND WRITTEN BY ALICE BIRCH (NORMAL PEOPLE)** “The End We Start From by Megan Hunter is a short, concentrated book—a shot of distilled story, like the pulp of a tale boiled to a thick spiced paste. . . . With passages from mythology interspersed with its imagined future, the book is engrossing, compelling and finally hopeful.” —Naomi Alderman, author of The Power “The End We Start From is a beautifully spare, haunting meditation on the persistence of life after catastrophe. I loved it.” —Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven Longlisted for the 2018 Aspen Words Literary Prize Finalist for the Barnes & Noble 2017 Discover Great New Writers Award An indelible and elemental debut—a lyrical vision of the strangeness and beauty of new motherhood, and a tale of endurance in the face of unimaginable change. In the midst of a mysterious environmental crisis, as London is submerged below flood waters, a woman gives birth to her first child, Z. Days later, the family is forced to leave their home in search of safety. As they move from place to place, shelter to shelter, their journey traces both fear and wonder as Z's small fists grasp at the things he sees, as he grows and stretches, thriving and content against all the odds. This is a story of new motherhood in a terrifying setting: a familiar world made dangerous and unstable, its people forced to become refugees. Startlingly beautiful, Megan Hunter's The End We Start From is a gripping novel that paints an imagined future as realistic as it is frightening. And yet, though the country is falling apart around them, this family's world—of new life and new hope—sings with love.
