Download or read book FUN written by Paolo Bacilieri and published by SelfMadeHero. This book was released on 2017-06-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In December 1913, the New York World newspaper published the first crossword in history. It appeared in their Sunday supplement, "Fun." A century later, this absorbing puzzle continues to attract (and infuriate) millions of devotees every day. But the world's most popular--and seemingly mundane--pastime has a surprising history, filled with intrigue and adventure. Paolo Bacilieri's FUN transports us from turn-of-the-century New York to present-day Milan, taking in stories of ingenious puzzle makers, ardent solvers, and intellectual luminaries. Part detective story, part docudrama, and interlaced with a fiction of Bacilieri's own imagining, FUN questions the crossword's "harmless" status. Sure, it's fun--but could it also be a form of resistance, of cryptic communication, of espionage?

Download or read book The Brave Bulls written by Tom Lea and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2002-05-15 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of Texas's true renaissance men, Tom Lea (1907-2001) was already a noted artist, muralist, and book illustrator when he published his first novel, The Brave Bulls, in 1949. This suspenseful story of bullfighting in Mexico, elegantly illustrated by the author, spent several weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and was hailed by Time magazine as the best first novel of the year. It also won the Carr P. Collins Award from the Texas Institute of Letters, went through numerous reprints and translations, and became a 1951 movie starring Mel Ferrer and Anthony Quinn.

Download or read book The Penguin Book of English Verse written by Paul Keegan and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2004-09-30 with total page 1424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Celebrating seven centuries of English verse, this definitive anthology reflects the wonderfully diverse voices and concerns of successive generations of poets and the evolving poetic landscape through the ages. Its acclaimed revolutionary structure redefines the idea of the poetry anthology, presenting the works in the order in which they first appeared, rather than divided by poet. Through the words of the well known and the anonymous, in epitaphs, ballads, and folk and nonsense poems, The Penguin Book of English Verse reveals the whole tradition in an exhilarating new light. This edition includes a preface by Paul Keegan, setting out his innovative organizational principles, and indexes of poets, first lines and titles.

Download or read book The Moment Before Drowning written by James Brydon and published by Akashic Books. This book was released on 2018-07-03 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A stunning and intelligent debut novel; powerful, intense and raw . . . an insightful psychological portrait of a man on the edge.” —NB Magazine December 1959: A furious anticolonial war rages in Algeria. Captain Jacques le Garrec, a former detective and French Resistance hero, returns to France in disgrace. Traumatized after two years of working in the army intelligence services, he’s now accused of a brutal crime. As le Garrec awaits trial in the tiny Breton town where he grew up, he is asked to look into a disturbing and unsolved murder committed the previous winter. A local teenage girl was killed and her bizarrely mutilated body was left displayed on the heathland in a way that no one could understand. Le Garrec’s investigations draw him into the dark past of the town, still haunted by memories of the German occupation. As he tries to reconstruct the events of the murder, the violence of this crime and his recollections of Algeria intertwine, threatening to submerge him. “[A] provocative and unsettling first novel . . . a remarkably assured debut by a gifted new writer.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Take a bit of Albert Camus, mix in some Nobel Prize-winning Patrick Modiano, add a dollop of French noir, and voilà, you have James Brydon’s The Moment Before Drowning.” —Denise Hamilton, bestselling author of Damage Control “An exploration of political oppression wrapped in a carefully constructed mystery. In Brydon’s auspicious debut . . . the characters are alive and the mystery is mostly satisfying. An erudite and entertaining addition to the shelf.” —Kirkus Reviews

Download or read book Death and the Penguin written by Andrey Kurkov and published by Melville House. This book was released on 2011-06-07 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "No summary can do justice to the strange appeal of this unusual, short book, which is at once a crime novel, a comic novel and a serious political satire on contemporary Ukraine." —Anne Applebaum, The Wall Street Journal With the collapse of the Soviet Union, newly-free Ukraine is a shell-shocked land . . . In poverty-and-violence-wracked Kyiv, unemployed writer Viktor Zolotaryov leads a down-and-out life with his only friend, Misha, a penguin that he rescued when the local zoo started getting rid of animals it couldn't feed. Even more nerve-wracking for Victor: a local mobster has taken a shine to Misha and wants to borrow him for events. But Viktor thinks he’s finally caught a break when he lands a well-paying job at the Kyiv newspaper writing “living obituaries” of local dignitaries—articles to be filed for use when the time comes. The only thing is, the time always seems to come as soon as Viktor finishes writing the article. Slowly understanding that his own life may be in jeopardy, Viktor also realizes that the only thing that might be keeping him alive is his penguin.

Download or read book The Penguin Book of Feminist Writing written by Hannah Dawson and published by Penguin Classics. This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Penguin Book of Feminist Writing selects writing from across time and throughout the world, creating a treasure-trove of the most important feminist thought alongside surprising and delightful fiction, poetry and diaries, celebrating the multiplicity of feminist voices that have emerged over the centuries. Beginning in the fifteenth century with Christine de Pizan, who imagined a City of Ladies that would serve as a refuge from the harassment of men, this book goes beyond the usual white, western story. The writers in this anthology ask questions about class, capitalism and colonialism, and other axes of oppression that intersect with sexism. Inside, we find writers like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who declared in 1848 the self-evident truth 'that all men and women are created equal', alongside Sojourner Truth, born into slavery in New York, who asked in 1851 'and ain't I a woman?' Put together by a world-leading historian of ideas and a feminist, The Penguin Book of Feminist Writing is both a history of thought - readers will find incisive and provocative selections from Mary Wollstonecraft, Virginia Woolf, Susan Sontag, Audre Lorde and over one hundred other pioneering thinkers - and a voyage of discovery, highlighting lesser-anthologised thinkers, like Juana Ines de la Cruz's seventeenth-century philosophical satire of 'misguided men', or the "poet of Palestine" Fadwa Tuqan's mountainous journeys towards self-knowledge and revolution. The product of many years of research and reading, The Penguin Book of Feminist Writing is both a deeply considered introduction to feminist thought and an abundance of riches to read and keep throughout a lifetime.

Download or read book The Crossword Century written by Alan Connor and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-07-10 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A journalist and word aficionado salutes the 100-year history and pleasures of crossword puzzles Since its debut in The New York World on December 21, 1913, the crossword puzzle has enjoyed a rich and surprisingly lively existence. Alan Connor, a comic writer known for his exploration of all things crossword in The Guardian, covers every twist and turn: from the 1920s, when crosswords were considered a menace to productive society; to World War II, when they were used to recruit code breakers; to their starring role in a 2008 episode of The Simpsons. He also profiles the colorful characters who make up the interesting and bizarre subculture of crossword constructors and competitive solvers, including Will Shortz, the iconic New York Times puzzle editor who created a crafty crossword that appeared to predict the outcome of a presidential election, and the legions of competitive puzzle solvers who descend on a Connecticut hotel each year in an attempt to be crowned the American puzzle-solving champion. At a time when the printed word is in decline, Connor marvels at the crossword’s seamless transition onto Kindles and iPads, keeping the puzzle one of America’s favorite pastimes. He also explores the way the human brain processes crosswords versus computers that are largely stumped by clues that require wordplay or a simple grasp of humor. A fascinating examination of our most beloved linguistic amusement—and filled with tantalizing crosswords and clues embedded in the text—The Crossword Century is sure to attract the attention of the readers who made Word Freak and Just My Type bestsellers.

Download or read book The Penguin Modern Classics Book written by Henry Eliot and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2021-11-18 with total page 2282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essential guide to twentieth-century literature around the world For six decades the Penguin Modern Classics series has been an era-defining, ever-evolving series of books, encompassing works by modernist pioneers, avant-garde iconoclasts, radical visionaries and timeless storytellers. This reader's companion showcases every title published in the series so far, with more than 1,800 books and 600 authors, from Achebe and Adonis to Zamyatin and Zweig. It is the essential guide to twentieth-century literature around the world, and the companion volume to The Penguin Classics Book. Bursting with lively descriptions, surprising reading lists, key literary movements and over two thousand cover images, The Penguin Modern Classics Book is an invitation to dive in and explore the greatest literature of the last hundred years.

Download or read book Two Girls One on Each Knee written by Alan Connor and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2013-11-07 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two Girls, One on Each Knee: A History of Cryptic Crosswords is an audaciously constructed book on the pleasures and puzzles of cryptic crosswords and their linguistic wordplay, from Alan Connor, the Guardian's writer on crosswords On 21 December 2013, the crossword puzzle will be 100 years old. In the century since, it has evolved into the world's most popular intellectual pastime: a unique form of wordplay, the codes and conventions of which are open to anyone masochistic enough to get addicted. In Two Girls, One on Each Knee, Alan Connor celebrates the wit, ingenuity and frustration of setting and solving puzzles. From the beaches of D-Day to the imaginary worlds of three-dimensional puzzles, to the British school teachers and journalists who turned the form into the fiendish sport it is today, encompassing the most challenging clues, particular tricks, the world's greatest setters and famous solvers, PG Wodehouse and the torturers of the Spanish Inquisition, this is an ingenious book for lovers of this very particular form of wordplay. Note: The book begins with a puzzle in a standard 15-by-15 grid which incorporates all the basic clue types. The answers are also the chapter titles. Alan Connor writes twice-weekly about crosswords for the Guardian. He has contributed pieces about language for the BBC and the Guardian and works in radio and television, writing for Charlie Brooker, Caitlin Moran and Sue Perkins. His most recent writing was A Young Doctor's Notebook, a TV adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov stories starring Daniel Radcliffe and Jon Hamm.

Download or read book The Worm and the Bird written by Coralie Bickford-Smith and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-10-10 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the award-winning illustrator and author of The Fox and the Star, Coralie Bickford-Smith, a beautifully illustrated tale about a Worm, a Bird, and the importance of being present and appreciating what you have, where you are. Winner of Communication Arts 2018 Illustration Annual Digging through the ground day in and day out, Worm dreams of a better life. Despite having endless paths of dirt to plough, other burrowing creatures to befriend, and underground treasures to discover, Worm wants more—more space to be alone. Too busy to see the world around it, pushing everything aside, Worm learns a hard lesson in appreciating what you have and where you are. This beautifully illustrated tale by award-winning author and illustrator Coralie Bickford-Smith explores themes of hope, curiosity, and the circle of life. Taking inspiration from Seneca’s essay “On the Shortness of Life,” which reads “But life is very short and anxious for those who forget the past, neglect the present and fear the future,” and drawing from the simple wisdom of the natural world, Bickford-Smith reminds readers about the importance of slowing down and engaging in the life around us. Printed in Italy, with a foil-stamped cloth cover, sewn binding, metallic inks, and high-quality paper, Bickford-Smith's new illustrated book is for readers of all ages of fables and fairy tales, from gardeners to bird-watchers to design lovers, and for those seeking mindfulness. —and it will be a great companion volume to her first book, The Fox and the Star, named Waterstones Book of the Year in 2015.

Download or read book The Shipping Forecast Puzzle Book written by Alan Connor and published by Random House. This book was released on 2020-11-05 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Attention all Shipping Forecast fans. Set sail on a voyage unlike any other... Each day, millions tune in to hear the Shipping Forecast's unique cadence and poetry, words thatturn our island landscape into something strangeand magical. It's almost like a puzzle to be solved... The Shipping Forecast Puzzle Book tests your general knowledge and lateral thinking through a series of fiendish puzzles, in which all the answers can be found on a map as place names on the coasts or in the seas. For example: · An eagle's under this · What a Komodo Dragon really is · Near where someone was horribly cruel to 343 felines And because your voyages trace the shapes of letters of the alphabet, that's just the beginning... With a foreword by Zeb Soanes, the voice of the Shipping Forecast, and fully illustrated with specially commissioned maps, The Shipping Forecast Puzzle Book will help make you a Master of the quizzing world.

Download or read book Empire Antarctica written by Gavin Francis and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2014-08-26 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gavin Francis fulfilled a lifetime's ambition when he spent fourteen months as the basecamp doctor at Halley, a profoundly isolated British research station on the Caird Coast of Antarctica. So remote, it is said to be easier to evacuate a casualty from the International Space Station than it is to bring someone out of Halley in winter. Antarctica offered a year of unparalleled silence and solitude, with few distractions and a very little human history, but also a rare opportunity to live among emperor penguins, the only species truly at home in he Antarctic. Following Penguins throughout the year –– from a summer of perpetual sunshine to months of winter darkness –– Gavin Francis explores the world of great beauty conjured from the simplest of elements, the hardship of living at 50 c below zero and the unexpected comfort that the penguin community bring. Empire Antarctica is the story of one man and his fascination with the world's loneliest continent, as well as the emperor penguins who weather the winter with him. Combining an evocative narrative with a sublime sensitivity to the natural world, this is travel writing at its very best

Download or read book New Approaches to Semiotics and the Human Sciences written by Roberta Kevelson and published by Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers. This book was released on 1998 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Little links the 14 essays beyond an iconoclastic attitude toward the mainstream of a branch of thinking most people have never heard of, and a leaning towards legal matters. Among the topics are constitutive theory, what judges and juries do, class conflict in white America, justice as a iconophobic icon, word play and the challenge of sense, conceptual iconicity and grammatical rules, and the cognitive self and the virtual self. Appended are a conversation with Kevelson and a list of her professional achievements. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Download or read book The Penguin History of Modern Vietnam written by Christopher Goscha and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2016-06-30 with total page 725 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION'S JOHN K. FAIRBANK PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE CUNDHILL HISTORY PRIZE 2017 'This is the finest single-volume history of Vietnam in English. It challenges myths, and raises questions about the socialist republic's political future' Guardian 'Powerful and compelling. Vietnam will be of growing importance in the twenty-first-century world, particularly as China and the US rethink their roles in Asia. Christopher Goscha's book is a brilliant account of that country's history.' - Rana Mitter 'A vigorous, eye-opening account of a country of great importance to the world, past and future' - Kirkus Reviews Over the centuries the Vietnamese have beenboth colonizers themselves and the victims of colonization by others. Their country expanded, shrunk, split and sometimes disappeared, often under circumstances far beyond their control. Despite these often overwhelming pressures, Vietnam has survived as one of Asia's most striking and complex cultures. As more and more visitors come to this extraordinary country, there has been for some years a need for a major history - a book which allows the outsider to understand the many layers left by earlier emperors, rebels, priests and colonizers. Christopher Goscha's new work amply fills this role. Drawing on a lifetime of thinking about Indo-China, he has created a narrative which is consistently seen from 'inside' Vietnam but never loses sight of the connections to the 'outside'. As wave after wave of invaders - whether Chinese, French, Japanese or American - have been ultimately expelled, we see the terrible cost to the Vietnamese themselves. Vietnam's role in one of the Cold War's longest conflicts has meant that its past has been endlessly abused for propaganda purposes and it is perhaps only now that the events which created the modern state can be seen from a truly historical perspective. Christopher Goscha draws on the latest research and discoveries in Vietnamese, French and English. His book is a major achievement, describing both the grand narrative of Vietnam's story but also the byways, curiosities, differences, cultures and peoples that have done so much over the centuries to define the many versions of Vietnam.

Download or read book Lithium for Medea written by Kate Braverman and published by Seven Stories Press. This book was released on 2002-03-05 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lithium for Medea is as much a tale of addiction—to sex, drugs, and dysfunctional family chains—as it is one of mothers and daughters, their mutual rebellion and unconscious mimicry. Here is the story according to Rose—the daughter of a narcissistic, emotionally crippled mother and a father who shadowboxes with death in hospital corridors—as she slips deeply and dangerously into the lair of a cocaine-fed artist in the bohemian squalor of Venice. Lithium for Medea sears us with Rose’s breathless, fierce, visceral flight—like a drug that leaves one’s perceptions forever altered.

Download or read book The Pesthouse written by Jim Crace and published by Anchor Canada. This book was released on 2010-06-04 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the years of America’s ascendancy, the great ships brought waves of immigrants to the promised land. In sight of the Statute of Liberty, the huddled masses disembarked in search of the American dream. In the imagined future, the great ships play a different role. In a work of outstanding originality, Jim Crace’s The Pesthouse envisions a future America in ruins and a reversal of history: desperate Americans seeking passage to the promised land of Europe. Crace’s future United States is a lawless wasteland. The economy collapses, industry ceases, and the remaining populace returns to subsistence farming. The only hope rests with reaching the east coast and obtaining passage by ship to Europe. Like many Americans, Franklin Lopez and his brother, Jackson, leave their farm to begin the long trek east. Within sight of their goal, Franklin is forced, by an enflamed knee, to stop. While Jackson continues forward, Franklin seeks rest in a seemingly abandoned stone building in a forest. Inside, Jackson discovers Margaret. Margaret is feverish with a deadly illness and is confined to the Pesthouse with little hope of recovery. Franklin should flee. Instead, he is drawn to Margaret and stays by her side while she sweats out the fever. After her recovery, Margaret joins Franklin on the journey east. This journey is fraught with danger. Rule-of-law no longer exists and the land is plagued by roaming bandits and slave traders. The threat of danger slowly draws Margaret and Franklin closer to each other. A bond of love begins to form. They also draw comfort from joining a group of like-minded pilgrims. The illusion of safety is soon shattered. While resting from a day of travel, the group is taken captive by mounted bandits. Franklin is taken as a slave. On account of her recent illness, Margaret is spared along with an elderly couple and a baby. Margaret must continue on without Franklin. A bewildered Margaret slowly pushes eastward with the elderly couple and the baby. She is eventually separated from them and must take sole responsibility for the baby. With hope fading, Margaret stumbles upon the refuge of the Ark; a religious community which provides food and shelter in exchange for denouncing all metal technologies. Margaret accepts the laws of the Ark and is allowed to enter with her baby. While safe, Margaret secretly hopes to be reunited with Franklin. Their paths cross again under tragic circumstances. The Ark is attacked by the same mounted bandits that enslaved Franklin. While the Ark is looted and the community massacred, Margaret and her baby escape. They are reunited with Franklin by chance following a slave uprising in the vicinity of the Ark. Narrowly escaping their pursuers, Franklin, Margaret and the baby continue the journey to the East coast. Upon finally reaching their destination, the dream is shattered. Margaret discovers there is no room for women with young children on the ships bound to Europe. There is no choice but to turn back. With the end of one dream a new one is born. Inspired by their growing love, Franklin and Margaret decide to return west, with the baby, as a family. Jim Crace concludes “going westward, they would go free.”

Download or read book The Joy of Small Things written by Hannah Jane Parkinson and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2021-10-05 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'This book is a not-so-small joy in itself.' NIGELLA LAWSON 'Parkinson has the gift of making you look with new eyes at everyday things. The perfect daily diversion.' JOJO MOYES 'Always funny and frank and full of insight, I absolutely love Parkinson's writing.' DAVID NICHOLLS 'I loved this book . . . Parkinson's writing transports you to unexpected places of joy and comfort . . . these pages contain happiness.' MARINA HYDE 'The twenty-first century feels a lot more bearable in Parkinson's company.' CHARLOTTE MENDELSON Drawn from the successful Guardian column, these everyday exultations and inspirations will get you through dismal days. Hannah Jane Parkinson is a specialist in savouring the small pleasures of life. She revels in her fluffy dressing gown ('like bathing in marshmallow'), finds calm in solo cinema trips, is charmed by the personalities of fonts ('you'll never see Comic Sans on a funeral notice'), celebrates pockets and gleefully abandons a book she isn't enjoying. Parkinson's everyday exaltations - selected from her immensely successful Guardian column - will utterly delight. FEATURES BRAND NEW MATERIAL 'A compendium of delights.' OBSERVER 'Delightful . . . a love letter to those little moments of bliss that get us through the daily grind.' RED