Download or read book The True History of the First Mrs Meredith and Other Lesser Lives written by Diane Johnson and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2020-06-23 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A classic of alternative biography and feminist writing, this empathetic and witty book gives due to a "lesser" figure of history, Mary Ellen Peacock Meredith, who was brilliant, unconventional, and at odds with the constraints of Victorian life. “Many people have described the Famous Writer presiding at his dinner table. . . . He is famous; everybody remembers his remarks. . . . We forget that there were other family members at the table—a quiet person, now muffled by time, shadowy, whose heart pounded with love, perhaps, or rage.” So begins The True History of the First Mrs. Meredith and Other Lesser Lives, an uncommon biography devoted to one of those “lesser lives.” As the author points out, “A lesser life does not seem lesser to the person who leads one.” Such sympathy and curiosity compelled Diane Johnson to research Mary Ellen Peacock Meredith (1821–1861), the daughter of the famous artist Thomas Love Peacock (1785–1866) and first wife of the equally famous poet George Meredith (1828–1909). Her life, treated perfunctorily and prudishly in biographies of Peacock or Meredith, is here exquisitely and unhurriedly given its due. What emerges is the portrait of a brilliant, well-educated woman, raised unconventionally by her father only to feel more forcefully the constraints of the Victorian era. First published in 1972, Lesser Lives has been a key text for feminists and biographers alike, a book that reimagined what biography might be, both in terms of subject and style. Biographies of other “lesser” lives have since followed in its footsteps, but few have the wit, elegance, and empathy of Johnson’s seminal work.
Download or read book Lesser Lives Stories of Domestic Servants in India written by Nitin Sinha and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2021-08-13 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘Exemplary’ Ravish Kumar 'A wonderful selection’ Rana Safvi For generations, domestic servants in India have been subjected to neglect, apathy and cruelty. Though they are known nowadays as the domestic ‘help’, ‘aid’ or ‘staff’, often merely to meet the requirements of political correctness, their condition remains unchanged for the most part as the country’s privileged classes have failed to truly address the most pervasive inequalities in their households. In Lesser Lives, Nitin Sinha and Prabhat Kumar collect short fiction from the Hindi heartland that turns the gaze onto these continuing disparities. The eleven stories in the book, including Premchand’s ‘Maidservant’, Mahadevi Varma’s ‘Rama’, Saadat Hasan Manto’s ‘Blouse’, Amarkant’s ‘Bahadur’ and Shekhar Joshi’s ‘Dajyu’, offer both timeless classics and little-known literary gems, some of which have never been published in translation before.
Download or read book LIVING A LIFE THAT MATTERS written by Ben Lesser and published by Abbott Press. This book was released on 2012-04-19 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his highly readable, educational and inspiring memoir, Holocaust Survivor Ben Lesser’s warm, grandfatherly tone invites the reader to do more than just visit a time when the world went mad. He also shows how this madness came to be—and the lessons that the world still needs to learn. In this true story, the reader will see how an ordinary human being—an innocent child—not only survived the Nazi Nightmare, but achieved the American Dream.
Download or read book Cassandra Speaks written by Elizabeth Lesser and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What story would Eve have told about picking the apple? Why is Pandora blamed for opening the box? And what about the fate of Cassandra who was blessed with knowing the future but cursed so that no one believed her? What if women had been the storytellers? Elizabeth Lesser believes that if women’s voices had been equally heard and respected throughout history, humankind would have followed different hero myths and guiding stories—stories that value caretaking, champion compassion, and elevate communication over vengeance and violence. Cassandra Speaks is about the stories we tell and how those stories become the culture. It’s about the stories we still blindly cling to, and the ones that cling to us: the origin tales, the guiding myths, the religious parables, the literature and films and fairy tales passed down through the centuries about women and men, power and war, sex and love, and the values we live by. Stories written mostly by men with lessons and laws for all of humanity. We have outgrown so many of them, and still they endure. This book is about what happens when women are the storytellers too—when we speak from our authentic voices, when we flex our values, when we become protagonists in the tales we tell about what it means to be human. Lesser has walked two main paths in her life—the spiritual path and the feminist one—paths that sometimes cross but sometimes feel at cross-purposes. Cassandra Speaks is her extraordinary merging of the two. The bestselling author of Broken Open and Marrow, Lesser is a beloved spiritual writer, as well as a leading feminist thinker. In this book she gives equal voice to the cool water of her meditative self and the fire of her feminist self. With her trademark gifts of both humor and insight, she offers a vision that transcends the either/or ideologies on both sides of the gender debate. Brilliantly structured into three distinct parts, Part One explores how history is carried forward through the stories a culture tells and values, and what we can do to balance the scales. Part Two looks at women and power and expands what it means to be courageous, daring, and strong. And Part Three offers “A Toolbox for Inner Strength.” Lesser argues that change in the culture starts with inner change, and that no one—woman or man—is immune to the corrupting influence of power. She provides inner tools to help us be both strong-willed and kind-hearted. Cassandra Speaks is a beautifully balanced synthesis of storytelling, memoir, and cultural observation. Women, men and all people will find themselves in the pages of this book, and will come away strengthened, opened, and ready to work together to create a better world for all people.
Download or read book My Life and Lesser Catastrophes written by Christina Schofield and published by Chosen Books. This book was released on 2011-07-01 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Just after her thirteenth wedding anniversary, Christina Schofield woke up groggy and disoriented, surrounded by nurses in a hospital. She and her husband had hit a gravel patch while on their motorcycle and crashed into a ditch. With the exception of a concussion, she was fine. But Allen had broken his neck. He was now a quadriplegic. With her entire life flipped upside down, she began an astonishing journey of tenacious faith amid increasing doubt. Full of dark, silent hours and a woman's honest questioning of the God she thought she knew, this is also a story full of miraculous answers to prayer and head-scratching, awe-inspiring encounters with her loving Lord. With candid warmth and transparency, Christina shows readers that even in their darkest hours, God's goodness shines through.
Download or read book A Lesser Life written by Sylvia Ann Hewlett and published by Warner Books (NY). This book was released on 1987 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A noted economist and mother of four combines experience and scholarship in this unprecedented and enlightening work that shows how American women have been stripped of their traditional social supports of the past and thrust into the harsh economic realities of the present.
Download or read book lives of the lesser written by JAX and published by Balboa Press. This book was released on 2024-01-30 with total page 70 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 29year old single mum, jayde, suffering from domestic abuse,finds strength to change the pattern, but not to break the cycle. A old hermit veteran opens his solitary life to the young woman and her 5 yr old daughter, only to be accused of the child's murder, follow jayde's deception and betrayal, nugs grief and dying oath to give the child a voice and make her story heard and to be dragged into the realisation, there is no such things as happy endings .
Download or read book Life s Accessories written by Rachel Levy Lesser and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-11-05 with total page 135 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rachel Levy Lesser can relive almost every significant life event through an accessory. A scarf, a pair of earrings, a bag, even a fleece pair of socks—each contains the elements that put together the story of a life. Life’s Accessories is a funny, sad, touching, relatable, shake-your-head-right-along-as-you-laugh-and-wipe-away-tears, coming-of-age memoir. In fourteen essays, Lesser tackles sensitive issues like anxiety, illness, and loss in a way that feels a bit like having a chat with a good friend. Out of the stories comes solid life—and fashion—advice. About far more than just a hair tie, a bracelet, or a belt, Life’s Accessories is a window into the many ways in which Lesser has come to understand life—in all of its beauty, its joys, its sorrows, its heartaches, its challenges, and its absurdity.
Download or read book Broken Open written by Elizabeth Lesser and published by Villard. This book was released on 2008-10-30 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • This inspiring guide to healing and growth illuminates the richness and potential of every life, even in the face of loss and adversity—now updated with additional toolbox materials and a new preface by the author In the more than twenty-five years since she co-founded Omega Institute—now the world’s largest center for spiritual retreat and personal growth—Elizabeth Lesser has been an intimate witness to the ways in which people weather change and transition. In a beautifully crafted blend of moving stories, humorous insights, practical guidance, and personal memoir, she offers tools to help us make the choice we all face in times of challenge: Will we be broken down and defeated, or broken open and transformed? Lesser shares tales of ordinary people who have risen from the ashes of illness, divorce, loss of a job or a loved one—stronger, wiser, and more in touch with their purpose and passion. And she draws on the world’s great spiritual and psychological traditions to support us as we too learn to break open and blossom into who we were meant to be.
Download or read book Less written by Marc Lesser and published by New World Library. This book was released on 2010-10-04 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A certain kind of busyness is crucial to life, allowing us to earn a living, create art, and achieve success. But too often it consumes us and we become crazy busy, nonstop busy, and we expend extraneous effort that gets us nowhere. Marc Lesser’s new book shows us the benefits of doing less in a world that has increasingly embraced more — more desire, more activity, more things, more exhaustion. Less is about stopping, about the possibility of finding composure in the midst of activity. The ideas and practices that Lesser outlines offer a radical yet simple approach to transforming a lifestyle based on endless to-do lists into a more meaningful approach that is truly more productive in every sense.
Download or read book You Say to Brick written by Wendy Lesser and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2017-03-14 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Born in Estonia 1901 and brought to America in 1906, the architect Louis Kahn grew up in poverty in Philadelphia. By the time of his mysterious death in 1974, he was widely recognized as one of the greatest architects of his era. Yet this enormous reputation was based on only a handful of masterpieces, all built during the last fifteen years of his life. Wendy Lesser’s You Say to Brick: The Life of Louis Kahn is a major exploration of the architect’s life and work. Kahn, perhaps more than any other twentieth-century American architect, was a “public” architect. Rather than focusing on corporate commissions, he devoted himself to designing research facilities, government centers, museums, libraries, and other structures that would serve the public good. But this warm, captivating person, beloved by students and admired by colleagues, was also a secretive man hiding under a series of masks. Kahn himself, however, is not the only complex subject that comes vividly to life in these pages. His signature achievements—like the Salk Institute in La Jolla, the National Assembly Building of Bangladesh, and the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad—can at first seem as enigmatic and beguiling as the man who designed them. In attempts to describe these structures, we are often forced to speak in contradictions and paradoxes: structures that seem at once unmistakably modern and ancient; enormous built spaces that offer a sense of intimate containment; designs in which light itself seems tangible, a raw material as tactile as travertine or Kahn’s beloved concrete. This is where Lesser’s talents as one of our most original and gifted cultural critics come into play. Interspersed throughout her account of Kahn’s life and career are exhilarating “in situ” descriptions of what it feels like to move through his built structures. Drawing on extensive original research, lengthy interviews with his children, his colleagues, and his students, and travel to the far-flung sites of his career-defining buildings, Lesser has written a landmark biography of this elusive genius, revealing the mind behind some of the twentieth century’s most celebrated architecture.
Download or read book Among the Lesser Gods written by Margo Catts and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-05-09 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For fans of authors like Barbara Kingsolver and Leif Enger, a stunning new voice in contemporary literary fiction. "Tragedy and blessing. Leave them alone long enough, and it gets real hard to tell them apart." Elena Alvarez is living a cursed life. From the deadly fire she accidentally set as a child, to her mother's abandonment, and now to an unwanted pregnancy, she knows better than most that small actions can have terrible consequences. Driven to the high mountains surrounding Leadville, Colorado by her latest bad decision, she's intent on putting off the future. Perhaps there she can just hide in her grandmother's isolated cabin and wait for something–anything–to make her next choice for her. But instead of escape, she finds reminders of her own troubles reflected from every side–the recent widower and his two children adrift in a changed world, Elena's own mysterious family history, and the interwoven lives within the town itself. Bit by bit, Elena begins to reconsider her role in the tragedies she's held on to and the wounds she's refused to let heal. But then, in a single afternoon, when threads of cause and effect tangle, Elena's fragile new peace is torn apart. It's only at the prospect of fresh loss and blame that she will discover the truth of the terrible burdens we take upon ourselves, the way tragedy and redemption are inevitably bound together–and how curses can sometimes lead to blessings, however disguised.
Download or read book A Lesser Mortal written by Kimberly Hess and published by . This book was released on 2021-05-18 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Lesser Dead written by Christopher Buehlman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-10-07 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION’S BEST HORROR NOVEL OF THE YEAR “As much F. Scott Fitzgerald as Dean Koontz” (#1 New York Times bestselling author Patricia Briggs), Christopher Buehlman excels in twisting the familiar into newfound dread in his “genre-bending” (California Literary Review) novels. Now the acclaimed author of Those Across the River delivers his most disquieting tale yet... The secret is, vampires are real and I am one. The secret is, I’m stealing from you what is most truly yours and I’m not sorry... New York City in 1978 is a dirty, dangerous place to live. And die. Joey Peacock knows this as well as anybody—he has spent the last forty years as an adolescent vampire, perfecting the routine he now enjoys: womanizing in punk clubs and discotheques, feeding by night, and sleeping by day with others of his kind in the macabre labyrinth under the city’s sidewalks. The subways are his playground and his highway, shuttling him throughout Manhattan to bleed the unsuspecting in the Sheep Meadow of Central Park or in the backseats of Checker cabs, or even those in their own apartments who are too hypnotized by sitcoms to notice him opening their windows. It’s almost too easy. Until one night he sees them hunting on his beloved subway. The children with the merry eyes. Vampires, like him…or not like him. Whatever they are, whatever their appearance means, the undead in the tunnels of Manhattan are not as safe as they once were. And neither are the rest of us.
Download or read book Lesser Living Creatures of the Renaissance written by Keith Botelho and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2023-01-06 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lesser Living Creatures examines literary and cultural texts from early modern England in order to understand how people in that era thought about—and with—insect and arachnid life. Designed for the classroom, the book comprises two volumes—Insects and Concepts—that can be used together or independently. Each addresses the collaborative, multigenerational research that produced early modern natural history and provides new insights into the old question of what it means to be human in a world populated by beasts large and small. Volume 1, Insects, examines how insects burrowed into the literal and symbolic economies of the era. The contributors consider diminutive creatures—such as bees and beetles, flies and fleas, silkworms and spiders—and their depictions in plays, poetry, fables, natural histories, and more. In doing so, they illuminate how early modern science and literature worked as intersecting systems of knowledge production about the natural world and show definitively how insect life was, and remains, intimately entangled with human life. In addition to the editors, contributors to this volume include Chris Barrett, Roya Biggie, Bruce Boehrer, Gary Bouchard, Dan Brayton, Eric Brown, Mary Baine Campbell, Perry Guevara, Shannon Kelley, Emily King, Karen Raber, Kathryn Vomero Santos, Donovan Sherman, and Steven Swarbrick.
Download or read book Marrow written by Elizabeth Lesser and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2016-09-20 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of the New York Times bestseller Broken Open returns with a visceral and profound memoir of two sisters who, in the face of a bone marrow transplant—one the donor and one the recipient—begin a quest for acceptance, authenticity, and most of all, love. A mesmerizing and courageous memoir: the story of two sisters uncovering the depth of their love through the life-and-death experience of a bone marrow transplant. Throughout her life, Elizabeth Lesser has sought understanding about what it means to be true to oneself and, at the same time, truly connected to the ones we love. But when her sister Maggie needs a bone marrow transplant to save her life, and Lesser learns that she is the perfect match, she faces a far more immediate and complex question about what it really means to love—honestly, generously, and authentically. Hoping to give Maggie the best chance possible for a successful transplant, the sisters dig deep into the marrow of their relationship to clear a path to unconditional acceptance. They leave the bone marrow transplant up to the doctors, but take on what Lesser calls a "soul marrow transplant," examining their family history, having difficult conversations, examining old assumptions, and offering forgiveness until all that is left is love for each other’s true selves. Their process—before, during, and after the transplant—encourages them to take risks of authenticity in other aspects their lives. But life does not follow the storylines we plan for it. Maggie’s body is ultimately too weak to fight the relentless illness. As she and Lesser prepare for the inevitable, they grow ever closer as their shared blood cells become a symbol of the enduring bond they share. Told with suspense and humor, Marrow is joyous and heartbreaking, incandescent and profound. The story reveals how even our most difficult experiences can offer unexpected spiritual growth. Reflecting on the multifaceted nature of love—love of other, love of self, love of the world—Marrow is an unflinching and beautiful memoir about getting to the very center of ourselves.
Download or read book Laws Appendix Lesser Hippias First Alcibiades Menexenus Index written by Plato and published by . This book was released on 1873 with total page 612 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
