Download or read book The Gimmicks written by Chris McCormick and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-01-07 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The Gimmicks is a gorgeous epic that astounds with its scope and beauty. With empathy and humor, McCormick unravels the ties between brotherhood and betrayal, love and abandonment, and the fictions we create to live with the pain of the past. This novel will blow you away.” —Brit Bennett, New York Times bestselling author of The Mothers Set in the waning years of the Cold War, a stunning debut novel about a trio of young Armenians that moves from the Soviet Union, across Europe, to Southern California, and at its center, one of the most tragic cataclysms in twentieth-century history—the Armenian Genocide—whose traumatic reverberations will have unexpected consequences on all three lives. This exuberant, wholly original novel begins in Kirovakan, Armenia, in 1971. Ruben Petrosian is a serious, solitary young man who cares about two things: mastering the game of backgammon to beat his archrival, Mina, and studying the history of his ancestors. Ruben grieves the victims of the 1915 Armenian Genocide, a crime still denied by the descendants of its perpetrators, and dreams of vengeance. When his orphaned cousin, Avo, comes to live with his family, Ruben’s life is transformed. Gregarious and physically enormous, with a distinct unibrow that becomes his signature, Avo is instantly beloved. He is everything Ruben is not, yet the two form a bond they swear never to break. But their paths diverge when Ruben vanishes—drafted into an extremist group that will stop at nothing to make Turkey acknowledge the genocide. Unmoored by Ruben’s disappearance, Avo and Mina grow close in his absence. But fate brings the cousins together once more, when Ruben secretly contacts Avo, convincing him to leave Mina and join the extremists—a choice that will dramatically alter the course of their lives. Left to unravel the threads of this story is Terry “Angel Hair” Krill, a veteran of both the US Navy and the funhouse world of professional wrestling, whose life intersects with Avo, Ruben, and Mina’s in surprising and devastating ways. Told through alternating perspectives, The Gimmicks is a masterpiece of storytelling. Chris McCormick brilliantly illuminates the impact of history and injustice on ordinary lives and challenges us to confront the spectacle of violence and the specter of its aftermath.

Download or read book Hot Gimmick Vol 10 written by Miki Aihara and published by VIZ Media LLC. This book was released on 2005-12-13 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All-out warfare between their families has Hatsumi and Ryoki wondering about their future, forcing Hatsumi to choose between Ryoki and her brother.

Download or read book Theory of the Gimmick written by Sianne Ngai and published by Belknap Press. This book was released on 2020-06-16 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christian Gauss Award Shortlist Winner of the ASAP Book Prize A Literary Hub Book of the Year “Makes the case that the gimmick...is of tremendous critical value...Lies somewhere between critical theory and Sontag’s best work.” —Los Angeles Review of Books “Ngai exposes capitalism’s tricks in her mind-blowing study of the time- and labor-saving devices we call gimmicks.” —New Statesman “One of the most creative humanities scholars working today...My god, it’s so good.” —Literary Hub “Ngai is a keen analyst of overlooked or denigrated categories in art and life...Highly original.” —4Columns “It is undeniable that part of what makes Ngai’s analyses of aesthetic categories so appealing...is simply her capacity to speak about them brilliantly.” —Bookforum “A page turner.” —American Literary History Deeply objectionable and yet strangely attractive, the gimmick comes in many guises: a musical hook, a financial strategy, a striptease, a novel of ideas. Above all, acclaimed theorist Sianne Ngai argues, the gimmick strikes us both as working too little (a labor-saving trick) and working too hard (a strained effort to get our attention). When we call something a gimmick, we register misgivings that suggest broader anxieties about value, money, and time, making the gimmick a hallmark of capitalism. With wit and critical precision, Ngai explores the extravagantly impoverished gimmick across a range of examples: the fiction of Thomas Mann, Helen DeWitt, and Henry James; the video art of Stan Douglas; the theoretical writings of Stanley Cavell and Theodor Adorno. Despite its status as cheap and compromised, the gimmick emerges as a surprisingly powerful tool in this formidable contribution to aesthetic theory.

Download or read book The Squared Circle written by David Shoemaker and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-11-04 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A breakthrough examination of the professional wrestling, its history, its fans, and its wider cultural impact The Squared Circle grows out of David Shoemaker’s writing for Deadspin, where he started the column “Dead Wrestler of the Week” (which boasts more than 1 million page views)—a feature on the many wrestling superstars who died too young because of the abuse they subject their bodies to—and his writing for Grantland, where he covers the pro wrestling world, and its place in the pop culture mainstream. Shoemaker’s sportswriting has since struck a nerve with generations of wrestling fans who—like him—grew up worshipping a sport often derided as “fake” in the wider culture. To them, these professional wrestling superstars are not just heroes but an emotional outlet and the lens through which they learned to see the world. Starting in the early 1900s and exploring the path of pro wrestling in America through the present day, The Squared Circle is the first book to acknowledge both the sport’s broader significance and wrestling fans’ keen intellect and sense of irony. Divided into eras, each section offers a snapshot of the wrestling world, profiles some of the period’s preeminent wrestlers, and the sport’s influence on our broader culture. Through the brawling, bombast, and bloodletting, Shoemaker argues that pro wrestling can teach us about the nature of performance, audience, and, yes, art. Full of unknown history, humor, and self-deprecating reminiscence—but also offering a compelling look at the sport’s rightful place in pop culture—The Squared Circle is the book that legions of wrestling fans have been waiting for. In it, Shoemaker teaches us to look past the spandex and body slams to see an art form that can explain the world.

Download or read book To Live and Drink in L A written by Ben Peller and published by . This book was released on 2011-04-01 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If David Sedaris, Chelsea Handler, and Charles Bukowski had ever consummated a threesome, the result would most likely be Shawn Michals, the protagonist of TO LIVE AND DRINK IN L.A. This series of semi-autobiographical stories follows Shawn as he moves from the Midwest to Los Angeles, and deals with topics such as his stubborn refusal to own either a car or a cellphone, his use of pro wrestling to deal with his manic-depressive mother's suicide, finding meaning in menial jobs, and many other adventures. Like Shawn often does, readers of this work may find themselves in uncharted territory, while at the same time discovering how one can learn lessons and experience growth in the most unlikely of places, even in a city many people believe to be shallower than a puddle. If a phone call from a telemarketer can lead to spearheading a march on the Pentagon, as it does for Shawn, anything is possible in the City of Angels. Cheers. "Ben Peller has a fine eye and a wonderful ear, but most of all and best of all, he writes with his heart." - Bob Greene, best-selling author of BE TRUE TO YOUR SCHOOL

Download or read book A Little Life written by Hanya Yanagihara and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2016-01-26 with total page 833 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century. NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. Look for Hanya Yanagihara’s latest bestselling novel, To Paradise.

Download or read book The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue written by V. E. Schwab and published by Tor Books. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER USA TODAY BESTSELLER NATIONAL INDIE BESTSELLER THE WASHINGTON POST BESTSELLER Recommended by Entertainment Weekly, Real Simple, NPR, Slate, and Oprah Magazine #1 Library Reads Pick—October 2020 #1 Indie Next Pick—October 2020 BOOK OF THE YEAR (2020) FINALIST—Book of The Month Club A “Best Of” Book From: Oprah Mag * CNN * Amazon * Amazon Editors * NPR * Goodreads * Bustle * PopSugar * BuzzFeed * Barnes & Noble * Kirkus Reviews * Lambda Literary * Nerdette * The Nerd Daily * Polygon * Library Reads * io9 * Smart Bitches Trashy Books * LiteraryHub * Medium * BookBub * The Mary Sue * Chicago Tribune * NY Daily News * SyFy Wire * Powells.com * Bookish * Book Riot * Library Reads Voter Favorite * In the vein of The Time Traveler’s Wife and Life After Life, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is New York Times bestselling author V. E. Schwab’s genre-defying tour de force. A Life No One Will Remember. A Story You Will Never Forget. France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever—and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets. Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world. But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name. Also by V. E. Schwab Shades of Magic A Darker Shade of Magic A Gathering of Shadows A Conjuring of Light Villains Vicious Vengeful At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Download or read book John Goblikon s Guide to Living Your Best Life written by John Goblikon and published by . This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a world filled with trolls, we all need to live life more like a goblin. What does it mean to "live life like a goblin"? It means to give no fucks, but also all the fucks in the world at the same time. It means to be constantly anxiety ridden while also eternally optimistic. A goblin's heart, specifically John Goblikon's, is filled with love, joy, angst, constant quandary, Chili's Southwestern Egg rolls, metal, and empathy. Through the goblin eyes of being an internet-celebrity-insurance-salesman-rock and roll-mascot for the Goblin Metal outfit NEKROGOBLIKON, we learn about life, death, business, food, music, travel, culture, dating, school, drinking, compassion, and much more! John walks readers through crucial life steps, from becoming internet famous, to getting dates with special someones, to even correct ordering techniques for the perfect meal at Chili's. Have a problem? John Goblikon assumes he knows how to help you solve it...all in this new, for-sure-to-be-a-New-York-Times-bestseller-and-win-like-a-hundred-awards debut book: John Goblikon's Guide to Living Your Best Life.

Download or read book Under the Thumb written by S. A. Cosby and published by Rock & a Hard Place Press. This book was released on 2021-11-20 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Say their names: Sandra Bland. Philando Castile. Daniel Shaver. George Floyd. And too many others. They died, the victims of a justice system which, for many people in our country and around the world, is seldom just. In this anothology, our authors explore the darker side of the badge, where a traffic stop can go one of two ways--bad or worse. Where evidence can and will be forged. Where the Blue Wall of Silence closes ranks, and accountability becomes a four-letter word. At the end, you'll wonder--is the system broken? Or more chillingly, is it operating just the way it was intended, and are we meant to live our lives Under the Thumb? Guest-edited by New York Times Bestseller S.A. Cosby, with stories by: Travid Wade Beaty, Andrew Case, Hilary Davidson, Hector Duarte Jr., Michael Downing, Jeffrey Eaton, Michael A. Gonzales, James D.F. Hannah, Zakariah Johnson, Preston Lang, Bobby Mathews, Mike McHone, Richie Narvaez, Oluseyi Onabanjo, James Queally, Keith Rosson, Jeff Soloway, Joseph S. Walker, and Tim P. Walker.

Download or read book Dark Horse written by Gregg Hurwitz and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2022-02-08 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER* Gregg Hurwitz's New York Times bestselling series returns when Orphan X faces his most challenging mission ever in Dark Horse. Evan Smoak is a man with many identities and a challenging past. As Orphan X, he was a government assassin for the off-the-books Orphan Program. After he broke with the Program, he adopted a new name and a new mission--The Nowhere Man, helping the most desperate in their times of trouble. Having just survived an attack on his life and the complete devastation of his base of operations, as well as his complicated (and deepening) relationship with his neighbor Mia Hall, Evan isn't interested in taking on a new mission. But one finds him anyway. Aragon Urrea is a kingpin of a major drug-dealing operation in South Texas. He's also the patron of the local area--supplying employment in legitimate operations, providing help to the helpless, rough justice to the downtrodden, and a future to a people normally with little hope. He's complicated--a not completely good man, who does bad things for often good reasons. However, for all his money and power, he is helpless when one of the most vicious cartels kidnaps his innocent eighteen year old daughter, spiriting her away into the armored complex that is their headquarters in Mexico. With no other way to rescue his daughter, he turns to The Nowhere Man. Now not only must Evan figure out how to get into the impregnable fortress of a heavily armed, deeply paranoid cartel leader, but he must decide if he should help a very bad man--no matter how just the cause.

Download or read book Self Help written by Al Snow and published by ECW Press. This book was released on 2019-05-07 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Professional wrestler Al Snow delivers highlights from his onscreen antics and never-before-heard tales from the road in this high-flying memoir spanning 30 years in the ring In the late 90s, wrestling journeyman Al Snow looked in the mirror and saw a man who needed help. A man whose reputation within the wrestling industry was excellent but whose career was going nowhere. Channeling his frustration into the gimmick for which he would become best known, Al began talking to (and through) a mannequin head. With Extreme Championship Wrestling, Al reinvented himself as an unhinged neurotic and became one of the hottest acts in the most cutting-edge promotion in America when wrestlingÕs popularity was at its peak. This led to a journey back to the industryÕs main stage, World Wrestling Entertainment, during the wildly popular Attitude Era, and in the central role as a trainer and father figure on the MTV reality show, Tough Enough. Now, after 35 years in the industry, Al Snow tells the stories of the unbelievable yet true events that formed his career, from his in-ring recollections to out-of-ring escapades, including drunken midnight journeys with a vanfull of little people, overuse of Tasers at autograph signings, and continual attempts on his life by assorted members of the animal kingdom. Self Help is Al Snow at his best, delivering what everybody wants and needs.

Download or read book The Year of Living Biblically written by A. J. Jacobs and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-09-09 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bestselling author of The Know-It-All takes on history's most influential book.

Download or read book Quit Like a Millionaire written by Kristy Shen and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-07-09 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From two leaders of the FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement, a bold, contrarian guide to retiring at any age, with a reproducible formula to financial independence A bull***t-free guide to growing your wealth, retiring early, and living life on your own terms Kristy Shen retired with a million dollars at the age of thirty-one, and she did it without hitting a home run on the stock market, starting the next Snapchat in her garage, or investing in hot real estate. Learn how to cut down on spending without decreasing your quality of life, build a million-dollar portfolio, fortify your investments to survive bear markets and black-swan events, and use the 4 percent rule and the Yield Shield--so you can quit the rat race forever. Not everyone can become an entrepreneur or a real estate baron; the rest of us need Shen's mathematically proven approach to retire decades before sixty-five.

Download or read book A Fan s Life written by Paul Campos and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2022-09-05 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lifelong sports fanatic plumbs the depths of the fan mindset, tracking the mania from the gridiron to the national political stage and beyond. The Pass. The Curse. The Double Doink. A sports fan’s life is not just defined by intense moments on a field, it’s scarred by them. For a real fan, winning isn’t everything—losing is. The true fans, it’s said, are those who have suffered the most, enduring lives defined by irrational obsession, fervid hopes, and equally gut-wrenching misery. And as Paul Campos shows, those deep feelings are windows not just onto an individual fan’s psychology but onto some of our shared concepts of community, identity, and belonging—not all of which are admirable. In A Fan’s Life, he seeks not to exalt a particular team but to explore fandom’s thorniest depths, excavating the deeper meanings of the fan’s inherently unhappy life. A Fan’s Life dives deep into the experience of being an ardent fan in a world defined more and more by the rhetoric of “winners” and “losers.” In a series of tightly argued chapters that suture together memoir and social critique, Campos chronicles his lifelong passion for University of Michigan football while meditating on fandom in the wake of the unprecedented year of 2020—when, for a time, a global pandemic took away professional and collegiate sports entirely. Fandom isn’t just leisure, he shows; it’s part of who we are, and part of even our politics, which in the age of Donald Trump have become increasingly tribal and bloody. Campos points toward where we might be heading, as our various partisan affiliations—fandoms with a grimly national significance—become all the more intense and bitterly self-defining. As he shows, we’re all fans of something, and making sense of fandom itself might offer a way to wrap our heads around our increasingly divided reality, on and off the field.

Download or read book Stu Hart written by Marsha Erb and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Celebrated weekly on WWF by such superstars and commentators as Y2J, Chris Benoit and Lance Storm, Stu Hart is the father of modern day wrestling. First a pro wrestler himself, and later the living legend who trained some of the most formidable athletes in the sport in his own basement, Hart and his family's story reveals the true triumphs and tragedies of professional wrestling. In this insider's account, readers will learn about the horrific death of Stu's son Owen, the rise and fall of his son Bret, and all of the colourful characters and moments in between.

Download or read book The Walled City written by Ryan Graudin and published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2014-11-04 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 730. That's how many days I've been trapped.18. That's how many days I have left to find a way out. DAI, trying to escape a haunting past, traffics drugs for the most ruthless kingpin in the Walled City. But in order to find the key to his freedom, he needs help from someone with the power to be invisible.... JIN hides under the radar, afraid the wild street gangs will discover her biggest secret: Jin passes as a boy to stay safe. Still, every chance she gets, she searches for her lost sister.... MEI YEE has been trapped in a brothel for the past two years, dreaming of getting out while watching the girls who try fail one by one. She's about to give up, when one day she sees an unexpected face at her window..... In this innovative and adrenaline-fueled novel, they all come together in a desperate attempt to escape a lawless labyrinth before the clock runs out.

Download or read book Corpus written by M. Casper and published by Springer. This book was released on 2011-06-20 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Corpus begins with the argument that traditional disciplines are unable to fully apprehend the body and embodiment and that critical study of these topics urgently demands interdisciplinary approaches. The collection's 14 previously unpublished essays grapple with the place of bodies in a range of twenty-first century knowledge practices, including trauma, surveillance, aging, fat, food, feminist technoscience, death, disability, biopolitics, and race, among others. The book's projected audience includes teachers and scholars of bodies and embodiment, interdisciplinary scholars and practitioners, and scholars interested in the any of the substantive content covered in the book. The collection could be adopted in courses on the body at advanced undergraduate and graduate levels, including: cultural studies; queer, gender and sexuality studies; body and power; biopolitics; intersectional approaches to the body; anthropology of the body; sociology of the body; embodiment and space; digital bodies; anthropology of knowledge production; health, illness, and medicine studies; science, knowledge, and technology studies; and philosophy and social theory.