Download or read book Losing Our Heads written by Regina Janes and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2005-08 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the fascination that decollation holds for us, as individuals and as a culture? Why does the idea make us laugh and the act make us close our eyes? Losing Our Heads explores in both artistic and cultural contexts the role of the chopped-off head. It asks why the practice of decapitation was once so widespread, why it has diminished—but not, as scenes from contemporary Iraq show, completely disappeared—and why we find it so peculiarly repulsive that we use it as a principal marker to separate ourselves from a more “barbaric”or “primitive” past? Although the topic is grim, Regina Janes’s treatment and conclusions are neither grisly nor gruesome, but continuously instructive about the ironies of humanity’s cultural nature. Bringing to bear an array of evidence, the book argues that the human ability to create meaning from the body motivates the practice of decapitation, its diminution, the impossibility of its extirpation, and its continuing fascination. Ranging from antiquity to the late nineteenth-century passion for Salomé and John the Baptist, and from the enlightenment to postcolonial Africa’s challenge to the severed head as sign of barbarism, Losing Our Heads opens new areas of investigation, enabling readers to understand the shock of decapitation and to see the value in moving past shock to analysis. Written with penetrating wit and featuring striking illustrations, it is sure to captivate anyone interested in his or her head.
Download or read book When We Lost Our Heads written by Heather O'Neill and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2022-02-01 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The #1 national bestseller “Marvelous . . . viciously funny and acutely intelligent” (Maclean’s), When We Lost Our Heads is the spellbinding story of two young women whose friendship is so intense it not only threatens to destroy them, it changes the course of history Marie Antoine is the charismatic, spoiled daughter of a sugar baron. At age twelve, with her pile of blond curls and unparalleled sense of whimsy, she’s the leader of all the children in the Golden Mile, the affluent strip of nineteenth-century Montreal where powerful families live. Until one day in 1873, when Sadie Arnett, dark-haired, sly and brilliant, moves to the neighbourhood. Marie and Sadie are immediately inseparable. United by their passion and intensity, they attract and repel each other in ways that set them both on fire. Marie, with her bubbly charm, sees all the pleasure of the world, whereas Sadie’s obsession with darkness is all-consuming. Soon, their childlike games take on the thrill of danger and then become deadly. Forced to separate, the girls spend their teenage years engaging in acts of alternating innocence and depravity, until a singular event unites them once more, with devastating effects. After Marie inherits her father’s sugar empire and Sadie disappears into the city’s gritty underworld, the working class begins to foment a revolution. Each woman will play an unexpected role in the events that upend their city—the only question is whether they will find each other once more. From the beloved Giller Prize-shortlisted author who writes “like a sort of demented angel with an uncanny knack for metaphor” (Toronto Star), When We Lost Our Heads is a page-turning novel that explores gender and power, sex and desire, class and status, and the terrifying strength of the human heart when it can’t let someone go.
Download or read book John Fisher and Thomas More written by Robert J Conrad and published by . This book was released on 2021-06-15 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1929, nearly four hundred years after the deaths of Saints Thomas More and John Fisher, G.K. Chesterton observed in words equally attributable to Fisher, "Blessed Thomas More is more important at this moment than at any moment since his death, even perhaps the great moment of his dying; but he is not quite so important as he will be in a hundred years." Judge Robert J Conrad, Jr. anticipates Chesterton's one-hundred-year mark in a collection of stories from the lives of More and Fisher, demonstrating how their sanctity and integrity carried them and those who loved them through tumultuous and heart-wrenching times which, perhaps surprisingly, bear a striking resemblance to the present epoch. At first blush, nothing could appear more different than the pre-industrial sixteenth century and the tech-centered modern era. But a closer examination presents a similar tale of political maneuvering and hostile hearings, legal corruption, viral pandemics, riots, suppression of speech, loss of religious liberty, and a profound indifference for truth. Judge Conrad effortlessly weaves together tales of both men and what made them who they were--family, faith, friendship, oaths, vocation, detachment, conscience--inviting those who strive for holiness down the same narrow path these two martyrs walked with a clarity founded upon the truth of Christ's Church, and a wit that charmed even their persecutors. Both these men refused to consent to the theological farce that would permit the king's divorce and remarriage and drive a wedge into the unity of the Christian world, and both paid for their convictions with their lives. More died the king's good servant and God's first. Fisher approached his execution with joy befit for a wedding. And yet, both stand today, long after they are gone, as models of courage in a time when it is desperately needed. Discover in this volume of powerful stories two saints whose lives could not be timelier for the present age.
Download or read book Heads You Win written by Jeffrey Archer and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2018-11-06 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Heads You Win is international #1 bestseller Jeffrey Archer’s most ambitious and creative work since Kane and Abel, with a final twist that will shock even his most ardent of fans. Leningrad, Russia, 1968: From an early age it is clear that Alexander Karpenko is destined to lead his countrymen. But when his father is assassinated by the KGB for defying the state, Alexander and his mother will have to escape Russia if they hope to survive. At the docks, they have an irreversible choice: board a container ship bound for America or one bound for Great Britain. Alexander leaves the choice to a toss of a coin... In a single moment, a double twist decides Alexander’s future. During an epic tale, spanning two continents and thirty years, we follow Alexander through triumph and defeat as he sets out on parallel lives as Alex in New York and Sasha in London. As this unique story unfolds, both come to realize that to find their destiny they must face the past they left behind as Alexander in Russia.
Download or read book The Night the Heads Came written by William Sleator and published by Puffin Books. This book was released on 1998-06 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When aliens abduct both Leo and his artist friend Tim, Leo tries to determine why these creatures from outer space want particularly to use his friend's talent.
Download or read book Severed written by Frances Larson and published by Granta Books. This book was released on 2014-11-06 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our history is littered with heads. Over the centuries, they have decorated our churches, festooned our city walls and filled our museums; they have been props for artists and specimens for laboratory scientists, trophies for soldiers and items of barter. Today, as videos of decapitations circulate online and cryonicists promise that our heads may one day live on without our bodies, the severed head is as contentious and compelling as ever. From shrunken heads to trophies of war; from memento mori to Damien Hirst's With Dead Head; from grave-robbing phrenologists to enterprising scientists, Larson explores the bizarre, often gruesome and confounding history of the severed head. Its story is our story.
Download or read book Lost in the Meritocracy written by Walter Kirn and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2010-06-01 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Notable Book A Daily Beast Best Book of the Year A Huffington Post Best Book of the Year From elementary school on, Walter Kirn knew how to stay at the top of his class: He clapped erasers, memorized answer keys, and parroted his teachers’ pet theories. But when he launched himself eastward to an Ivy League university, Kirn discovered that the temple of higher learning he had expected was instead just another arena for more gamesmanship, snobbery, and social climbing. In this whip-smart memoir of kissing-up, cramming, and competition, Lost in the Meritocracy reckons the costs of an educational system where the point is simply to keep accumulating points and never to look back—or within.
Download or read book The Swallowed Man written by Edward Carey and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-01-26 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE “A strange and tender parable . . . All of Edward Carey's work is profound and delightful.” —Max Porter, author of Lanny The ingenious storyteller Edward Carey returns to reimagine a time-honored fable: the story of an impatient father, a rebellious son, and a watery path to forgiveness for the young man known as Pinocchio In the small Tuscan town of Collodi, a lonely woodcarver longs for the companionship of a son. One day, “as if the wood commanded me,” Giuseppe—better known as Geppetto—carves for himself a pinewood boy, a marionette he hopes to take on tour worldwide. But when his handsome new creation comes magically to life, Geppetto screams . . . and the boy, Pinocchio, leaps from his arms and escapes into the night. Though he returns the next day, the wily boy torments his father, challenging his authority and making up stories—whereupon his nose, the very nose his father carved, grows before his eyes like an antler. When the boy disappears after one last fight, the father follows a rumor to the coast and out into the sea, where he is swallowed by a great fish—and consumed by guilt. He hunkers in the creature’s belly awaiting the day when he will reconcile with the son he drove away. With all the charm, atmosphere, and emotional depth for which Edward Carey is known—and featuring his trademark fantastical illustrations—The Swallowed Man is a parable of parenthood, loss, and letting go, from a creative mind on a par with Gregory Maguire, Neil Gaiman, and Tim Burton.
Download or read book On Having No Head written by Douglas Edison Harding and published by . This book was released on 2013-07 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published: The Buddhist Society, 1961.
Download or read book Daydreams of Angels written by Heather O'Neill and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2015-10-06 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inventive, outlandish, and tender fairy tales from a bestselling author The fantastic has always been at the edges of Heather O'Neill's work. In her bestselling novels Lullabies for Little Criminals and The Girl Who Was Saturday Night, she transformed the shabbiest streets of Montreal with her beautiful, freewheeling metaphors. She described the smallest of things—a stray cat or a second-hand coat—with an intensity that made them otherworldly. In Daydreams of Angels, O'Neill's first collection of short stories, she gives free reign to her imaginative gifts. In "The Ugly Ducklings," generations of Nureyev clones live out their lives in a grand Soviet experiment. In "Dear Piglet," a teenaged cult follower writes a letter to explain the motivation behind her crime. And in another tale, a grandmother reveals where babies come from: the beach, where young mothers-to-be hunt for infants in the surf. Each of these beguiling stories twists the beloved narratives of childhood—fairy tales, storybooks, Bible stories—to uncover the deepest truths of family life.
Download or read book Heads I Win Tails I Win written by Spencer Jakab and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Opines that most people lack the skills and knowledge to invest their money but do it anyway, and unsuccessfully. Explains how to invest wisely and how markets really work. Looks at how to double a retirement fund.
Download or read book Losing the Field written by Abbi Glines and published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2019-07-02 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fourth book in the #1 New York Times bestselling Field Party series—a southern soap opera with football, cute boys, and pick-up trucks—from USA TODAY bestselling author Abbi Glines. Tallulah Liddell had been defined by her appearance for as long as she could remember. Overweight and insecure, she preferred to fly under the radar, draw as little attention to herself so no one can hurt her. The only boy who did seem to ever notice her was her longtime crush, Nash Lee. But when he laughs at a joke aimed at Tallulah the summer before their senior year, Tallulah’s love dissipates, and she becomes determined to lose weight, to no longer be an object of her classmates’—and especially Nash’s—ridicule. Nash Lee has it all—he’s the star running back of Lawton’s football team, being scouted by division one colleges, and on track to have a carefree senior year. But when an accident leaves him with a permanent limp, all of Nash’s present and future plans are destroyed, leaving him bitter, angry, and unrecognizable from the person he used to be. Facing a new school year with her new body, Tallulah is out to seek revenge on Nash’s cruelty. All does not go according to plan, though, and Tallulah and Nash unexpectedly find themselves falling for each other. But with all the pain resting in each of their hearts, can their love survive?
Download or read book Your Voice in My Head written by Emma Forrest and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2012-01-19 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dazzling and devastating memoir exploring breakdown and obsessive love, in a voice unlike any other
Download or read book How the Right Lost Its Mind written by Charles J. Sykes and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2017-10-03 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A book on the implosion of the Republican party and the conservative movement, by a bestselling author and radio host who drew national attention after denouncing Donald Trump
Download or read book Counting Heads written by David Marusek and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2007-10-16 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Counting Heads is David Marusek's extraordinary launch as an SF novelist: The year is 2134, and the Information Age has given rise to the Boutique Economy in which mass production and mass consumption are rendered obsolete. Life extension therapies have increased the human lifespan by centuries. Loyal mentars (artificial intelligences) and robots do most of society's work. The Boutique Economy has made redundant ninety-nine percent of the world's fifteen billion human inhabitants. The world would be a much better place if they all simply went away. Eleanor K. Starke, one of the world's leading citizens is assassinated, and her daughter, Ellen, is mortally wounded. Only Ellen, the heir to her mother's financial empire, is capable of saving Earth from complete domination plotted by the cynical, selfish, immortal rich, that is if she survives. Her cryonically frozen head is in the hands of her family's enemies. A ragtag ensemble of unlikely heroes join forces to rescue Ellen's head, all for their own purposes. Counting Heads arrives as a science fiction novel like a bolt of electricity, galvanizing readers with an entirely new vision of the future. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Download or read book Heads I Win Tails You Lose A Financial Strategy to Reignite the American Dream written by Patrick H. Donohoe and published by Lioncrest Publishing. This book was released on 2018-07-23 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conventional financial mindsets are failing too many people. We save, invest, and borrow the way Wall Street, banks, and the financial media tell us, but we are left unprepared for market losses, financial hardships, and retirement. The rules of money and financial well-being have changed, and those who follow them are achieving staggering results. In Heads I Win, Tails You Lose, CEO and financial strategist Patrick Donohoe shows you how to embrace a new way of thinking, sharing with you financial secrets used by the wealthy to navigate the rapidly changing economy as well as financial options to help you win no matter what and reach the true American Dream: financial freedom. Discover a new method of managing your money outside of Wall Street using private mutual insurance companies who are redefining themselves as the heroic steward of American savings to prosper a new generation of wealth-building tools and techniques. With this book, you will learn the financial strategies that typical advisors, typical financial planners, and the financial media don't dare give--advice that will empower you to take back your financial future, exit the rat race, and live a life you love.
