Download or read book Survival of the City written by Edward Glaeser and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of our great urbanists and one of our great public health experts join forces to reckon with how cities are changing in the face of existential threats the pandemic has only accelerated Cities can make us sick. They always have—diseases spread more easily when more people are close to one another. And disease is hardly the only ill that accompanies urban density. Cities have been demonized as breeding grounds for vice and crime from Sodom and Gomorrah on. But cities have flourished nonetheless because they are humanity’s greatest invention, indispensable engines for creativity, innovation, wealth, and connection, the loom on which the fabric of civilization is woven. But cities now stand at a crossroads. During the global COVID crisis, cities grew silent as people worked from home—if they could work at all. The normal forms of socializing ground to a halt. How permanent are these changes? Advances in digital technology mean that many people can opt out of city life as never before. Will they? Are we on the brink of a post-urban world? City life will survive but individual cities face terrible risks, argue Edward Glaeser and David Cutler, and a wave of urban failure would be absolutely disastrous. In terms of intimacy and inspiration, nothing can replace what cities offer. Great cities have always demanded great management, and our current crisis has exposed fearful gaps in our capacity for good governance. It is possible to drive a city into the ground, pandemic or not. Glaeser and Cutler examine the evolution that is already happening, and describe the possible futures that lie before us: What will distinguish the cities that will flourish from the ones that won’t? In America, they argue, deep inequities in health care and education are a particular blight on the future of our cities; solving them will be the difference between our collective good health and a downward spiral to a much darker place.

Download or read book The Gardens of Mars written by John Gimlette and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-01-07 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A journey – both historical and contemporary – among the fantastical landscapes, resourceful inhabitants and isolated tribes of the world's fourth-largest island of enduring fascination for its rich biodiversity: Madagascar. 'A beautifully written depiction of the history of this beguiling island' Literary Review 'Courageous, exploratory, humane and with a wry sense of humour' Spectator 'A feat of journalism, observation and determination' Dr Alyson Hitch 'Wonderfully witty and wry' Benedict Allen We think we know Madagascar but it's too big, too eccentric, and too impenetrable to be truly understood. As well as visiting every corner of the island, John Gimlette journeys deep into Madagascar's past. Along the way, he meets politicians, sorcerers, gem prospectors, militiamen, rioters, lepers and the descendants of seventeenth-century pirates. Insightful and wryly humorous, here's an encounter with the people, landscapes, politics and history of one of the most remarkable places on Earth.

Download or read book Lands of Lost Borders written by Kate Harris and published by Knopf Canada. This book was released on 2018-01-30 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE RBC TAYLOR PRIZE WINNER OF THE EDNA STAEBLER AWARD FOR CREATIVE NON-FICTION "Every day on a bike trip is like the one before--but it is also completely different, or perhaps you are different, woken up in new ways by the mile." As a teenager, Kate Harris realized that the career she most craved--that of a generalist explorer, equal parts swashbuckler and philosopher--had gone extinct. From her small-town home in Ontario, it seemed as if Marco Polo, Magellan and their like had long ago mapped the whole earth. So she vowed to become a scientist and go to Mars. To pass the time before she could launch into outer space, Kate set off by bicycle down a short section of the fabled Silk Road with her childhood friend Mel Yule, then settled down to study at Oxford and MIT. Eventually the truth dawned on her: an explorer, in any day and age, is by definition the kind of person who refuses to live between the lines. And Harris had soared most fully out of bounds right here on Earth, travelling a bygone trading route on her bicycle. So she quit the laboratory and hit the Silk Road again with Mel, this time determined to bike it from the beginning to end. Like Rebecca Solnit and Pico Iyer before her, Kate Harris offers a travel narrative at once exuberant and meditative, wry and rapturous. Weaving adventure and deep reflection with the history of science and exploration, Lands of Lost Borders explores the nature of limits and the wildness of a world that, like the self and like the stars, can never be fully mapped.

Download or read book Lightning Striking written by Lenny Kaye and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2022-01-11 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “We have performed side-by-side on the global stage through half a century…. In Lightning Striking, Lenny Kaye has illuminated ten facets of the jewel called rock and roll from a uniquely personal and knowledgeable perspective.” –Patti Smith An insider’s take on the evolution and enduring legacy of the music that rocked the twentieth century Memphis 1954. New Orleans 1957. Philadelphia 1959. Liverpool 1962. San Francisco 1967. Detroit 1969. New York, 1975. London 1977. Los Angeles 1984 / Norway 1993. Seattle 1991. Rock and roll was birthed in basements and garages, radio stations and dance halls, in cities where unexpected gatherings of artists and audience changed and charged the way music is heard and celebrated, capturing lightning in a bottle. Musician and writer Lenny Kaye explores ten crossroads of time and place that define rock and roll, its unforgettable flashpoints, characters, and visionaries; how each generation came to be; how it was discovered by the world. Whether describing Elvis Presley’s Memphis, the Beatles’ Liverpool, Patti Smith’s New York, or Kurt Cobain’s Seattle, Lightning Striking reveals the communal energy that creates a scene, a guided tour inside style and performance, to see who’s on stage, along with the movers and shakers, the hustlers and hangers-on--and why everybody is listening. Grandly sweeping and minutely detailed, informed by Kaye’s acclaimed knowledge and experience as a working musician, Lightning Striking is an ear-opening insight into our shared musical and cultural history, a magic carpet ride of rock and roll’s most influential movements and moments.

Download or read book Earth Church written by Jim Blackburn and published by . This book was released on 2021-09-20 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Comforters written by Muriel Spark and published by New Directions Publishing. This book was released on 2014-05-27 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spark’s mind-bogglingly stunning 1957 debut With easy, sunny eeriness, Spark lights up the darkest things: blackmail, a drowning, nervous breakdowns, a ring of smugglers, a loathsome busybody, a diabolic bookseller, human evil.

Download or read book Bathed In Lightning written by Colin Harper and published by Jawbone Press. This book was released on 2014-03-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On February 16 1969, John McLaughlin flew into New York, from London, in a snowstorm. The following day, Miles Davis, his hero, invited him to play on a record. Two years later, on the path of Bengali mystic Sri Chinmoy, John launched The Mahavishnu Orchestra--an evocation in music of spiritual aspiration and extraordinary power, volume and complexity. Curiously, it was also a huge success. John McLaughlin brought rock music to its pinnacle, the end point in an evolution from Mississippi blues through Coltrane, Hendrix and The Beatles. And then, in November 1975, he hung up his electric guitar and walked away from the stadiums of the rock world for an ongoing, restless career in music of other forms. To most of the world, John McLaughlin looked like an overnight success, with a backstory going back only as far as that February in 1969. Yet he had been a professional musician since 1958--a guitar for hire at the centre of 'Swinging London', a bandmate of future members of Cream, Pentangle and Led Zeppelin, but always just under the radar. Drawing on dozens of exclusive interviews and many months of meticulous research, author and music historian Colin Harper brings that unrepeatable era vividly to life. This landmark new work retrieves for the first time the incredible career of John McLaughlin before he conquered the world--and then chronicles how he did so.

Download or read book Paul Smith s Cycling Scrapbook written by Paul Smith and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2016-05-17 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A visual celebration of cycling presented through the passions and personal memorabilia of beloved menswear fashion designer Paul Smith Were it not for a serious crash in his teens, fashion designer Paul Smith might have become known as a successful racing cyclist. His cycling career cut short, and after a six-month spell in the hospital, he opened a small boutique in England in 1970. Today, Paul Smith is one of the UK’s most successful exports, with over 350 shops worldwide. It was only relatively recently, however, that Smith publicly returned to the world of cycling. This lively scrapbook illustrates Smith’s favorite people, races, and places in the cycling world through the images and ephemera that inspired him. From his collection of cycling jerseys and his extensive library of cycling publications and brochures of the 1950s and 1960s to the inspiration he has found in his cycling heroes (Coppi, Anquetil, Bartali) and his collaborations with bike-makers (Mercian and Pinarello) and race organizers, this is a personal and highly visual journey that connects Smith’s love of cycling with his love of design. Paul Smith’s Cycling Scrapbook is a winning combination of design and the world’s most increasingly popular pastime, sure to thrill cycling fans and fashion enthusiasts everywhere.

Download or read book Four Minutes to Save a Life written by Anna Stuart and published by Trapeze. This book was released on 2020-02-20 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When supermarket delivery driver Charlie is assigned the Hope Row street, he realises there are a lot of lonely people out there - and for some, he's their only interaction. The supermarket boss tells Charlie he's a driver, not a social worker - but Charlie's tough exterior begins to soften, and he can't help show a little kindness to the Hope Row residents, helping them find their place in the world once more. But will his helping hand make everything worse? 'I adored this feel good book' Netgalley reviewer 'A book about hope, forgiveness, love and friendship that will touch your heart' Netgalley reviewer 'I couldn't love this book anymore if I tried!' Netgalley reviewer An uplifting novel about community, friends and finding your way. Perfect for fans of Jenny Colgan, Veronica Henry and Beth O'Leary

Download or read book Jackie and Maria written by Gill Paul and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-08-18 with total page 527 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the #1 bestselling author of The Secret Wife comes a story of love, passion, and tragedy as the lives of Jackie Kennedy and Maria Callas are intertwined—and they become the ultimate rivals, in love with the same man. The President's Wife; a Glamorous Superstar; the rivalry that shook the world... Jackie Kennedy was beautiful, sophisticated, and contemplating leaving her ambitious young senator husband. Life in the public eye with an overly ambitious--and unfaithful—man who could hardly be coaxed to return from a vacation after the birth of a stillborn child was breaking her spirit. So when she's offered a holiday on the luxurious yacht owned by billionaire Ari Onassis, she says yes...to a meeting that will ultimately change her life. Maria Callas is at the height of her operatic career and widely considered to be the finest soprano in the world. And then she's introduced to Aristotle Onassis, the world’s richest man and her fellow Greek. Stuck in a childless, sexless marriage, and with pressures on all sides from opera house managers and a hostile press, she finds her life being turned upside down by this hyper-intelligent and impeccably charming man... Little by little, Maria’s and Jackie’s lives begin to overlap, and they come closer and closer until everything they know about the world changes on a dime.

Download or read book Hollywood s Eve written by Lili Anolik and published by Scribner. This book was released on 2019-09-03 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The quintessential biography of Eve Babitz (1943-2021), the brilliant chronicler of 1960s and 70s Hollywood hedonism and one of the most original American voices of her time. “I practically snorted this book, stayed up all night with it. Anolik decodes, ruptures, and ultimately intensifies Eve’s singular irresistible glitz.” —Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker “The Eve Babitz book I’ve been waiting for. What emerges isn’t just a portrait of a writer, but also of Los Angeles: sprawling, melancholic, and glamorous.” —Stephanie Danler, author of Sweetbitter Los Angeles in the 1960s and 70s was the pop culture capital of the world—a movie factory, a music factory, a dream factory. Eve Babitz was the ultimate factory girl, a pure product of LA. The goddaughter of Igor Stravinsky and a graduate of Hollywood High, Babitz, age twenty, posed for a photograph with French artist Marcel Duchamp in 1963. They were seated at a chess board, deep in a game. She was naked; he was not. The picture, cheesecake with a Dadaist twist, made her an instant icon of art and sex. She spent the rest of the decade on the Sunset Strip, rocking and rolling, and honing her notoriety. There were the album covers she designed: for Buffalo Springfield and the Byrds, to name but a few. There were the men she seduced: Jim Morrison, Ed Ruscha, Harrison Ford, to name but a very few. Then, at nearly thirty, her It girl days numbered, Babitz was discovered—as a writer—by Joan Didion. She would go on to produce seven books, usually billed as novels or short story collections, always autobiographies and confessionals. Her prose achieved that American ideal: art that stayed loose, maintained its cool; art so sheerly enjoyable as to be mistaken for simple entertainment. Yet somehow the world wasn’t paying attention. Babitz languished. It was almost twenty years after her last book was published, and only a few years before her death in 2021 that Babitz became a literary star, recognized as not just an essential L.A. writer, but the essential. This late-blooming vogue bloomed, in large part, because of a magazine profile by Lili Anolik, who, in 2010, began obsessively pursuing Babitz, a recluse since burning herself up in a fire in the 90s. Anolik’s elegant and provocative book is equal parts biography and detective story. It is also on dangerously intimate terms with its subject: artist, writer, muse, and one-woman zeitgeist, Eve Babitz. “A dazzling, gossip-filled biography of the wayward genius who knew everyone in Seventies LA.” —The Telegraph (UK)

Download or read book 100 First Women Portraits written by Anita Corbin and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Perfume written by Neil Chapman and published by Hardie Grant. This book was released on 2019-04-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A beautifully made scent can encapsulate a particular feeling, transport you to a very specific time in life with clarity, or remind you of a special loved one or friend. And just like wearing your favorite outfit or shoes, your favorite perfume can make you feel invincible. The question is, how do you find such a creation? With the number of new releases steadily increasing, it can be bewildering even attempting to find a perfume you like, let alone love. In Perfume, Neil Chapman guides readers through a world that can at times seem overwhelming. Fragrances of every variety are listed 'note by note' in clearly divided categories that will steer you in the direction of a perfume you not only like, but love and cherish as 'your' signature scent. Chapters explore popular notes (for example, vanilla, sandalwood, jasmine, rose, patchouli, chocolate) or a broader identifiable group (such as 'oceanics', 'green florals' or 'anti-perfume'), giving an insight into that particular category as well as a clear sense of the similarities and differences between the scents described within it. Featuring over 700 scents, from vintage perfumes to department store classics, rarities and niche boutique fragrances, Perfume is a true portal into the beautiful world of perfume. The further you go on this journey, the more you will be amazed by how many beautiful creations do exist if you take the time to look.

Download or read book Rigby Shlept Here written by Juliet Ace and published by . This book was released on 2015-06-08 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An intimate memoir of the late British actor Terence Rigby by notable screenwriter and close friend, Juliet Ace. "I simply regard him as one of the best actors in Britain." The Guardian theatre critic Michael Billington "This book should be read by anyone who likes the theatre." Director and actor Peter Eyre. In a post card, Rigby wrote to Juliet: "Have you made much headway with the scandalizing version of my biography? I've certainly started on yours." But as director and critic Ned Chaillet notes in his foreword, "Juliet Ace has written much more than a 'scandalizing' life of the wonderfully memorable and professionally esteemed actor that was Terence Rigby " He was one of Harold Pinter's favourite actors - memorably creating Joey in The Homecoming and Briggs in No Man's Land - and Terence Rigby's television work ranged from the dog-handler Sergeant Snow in the police series Softly Softly to the rough-hewn spy Roy Bland in the great Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy with Alec Guinness. His performance as the newly created character Albert the Horse in Alan Bennett's version of The Wind in the Willows at the Royal National Theatre was widely praised and gave voice to Rigby's deadpan humour in his native Brummie accent. But this very public and exuberant actor retained a deeply private life, a mystery even to the agent who served him throughout most of his career. In her biographical memoir of Terence Rigby the dramatist Juliet Ace offers a rare glimpse into his private world while exploring his work and artistic process. It is a picture of an actor's life that is at once intimate and professionally revealing, ranging from the privacy of repeated encounters over Juliet's kitchen table to the memories of his contemporaries and colleagues, ranging from Peter Hall and Michael Gambon to fellow students from his RADA days, spiced by Rigby's own notes and letters. "Terence Rigby would be astonished by the sight of himself, I think ... His shade, and his memory, have been fortunate in their chronicler. [Rigby's] almost threatening contradictions speak throughout the whole narrative - no wonder he got on so well with Pinter - but always in a strange harmony with his lovable qualities. As an account of the complexities that can beset an acting life, it's unparalleled, I think. And the way that the bones of the book are allowed to show through, in the progress of its compilation, seems absolutely right. Surely it is destined to be a 'real' book, rather than a virtual book. The sheer solidity of Rigby requires hard covers." Critic and broadcaster Russell Davies.

Download or read book One August Night written by Victoria Hislop and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 25th August 1957. The island of Spinalonga closes its leper colony. And a moment of violence has devastating consequences. When time stops dead for Maria Petrakis and her sister, Anna, two families splinter apart and, for the people of Plaka, the closure of Spinalonga is forever coloured with tragedy. In the aftermath, the question of how to resume life looms large. Stigma and scandal need to be confronted and somehow, for those impacted, a future built from the ruins of the past.

Download or read book Moments Parfaits in Paris written by and published by . This book was released on 2017-11 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part memoir and part visual journey, Moments Parfaits in Paris is a collection of forty vignettes that relates a very personal way of experiencing one of the most photographed cities in the world. Sylvaine Lang travels to her beloved city several times a year; each visit triggers vivid recollections of her childhood and student days, the people who shaped her life and the strangers she met, the amusing episodes and the tribulations of travel, even when the destination is quite familiar.Each story pairs one of her own photographs and an anecdote. Sylvaine¿s photography stays clear of the typical monumental approach and presents ¿her¿ Paris in an intimate way. The Eiffel Tower is seen through her dirty hotel window, the rabbit in the métro station looks at her expectantly, the glass ceiling of a famous brasserie magically appears in her cup of tea¿ Serendipity and old memories mesh and weave yet another perfect moment.All the venues are indicated on a map for easy reference. Each vignette includes historical notes and travel tips to invite future visitors to discover Paris with a new set of eyes.

Download or read book The Subterraneans written by Jack Kerouac and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2011-07-21 with total page 105 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'The tender and achingly poetic account of a love affair' Lester Bangs, Rolling Stone Leo Percepied, aspiring writer and self-styled freewheeling bum, gravitates to the subterraneans, impoverished intellectuals who haunt the bars of San Francisco. One of them is Mardou Fox, beautiful and a little crazy, whose dark eyes, full of suffering and sweetness, find recognition in Leo. But, afraid of his growing involvement, Leo sets out to destroy their love. Written in three days, The Subterraneans is, like all Kerouac's work, closely related to his own life while encapsulating his great vision of America.