Download or read book Reading the Signs and other itinerant essays written by Stephen Benz and published by Etruscan Press. This book was released on 2022-05-17 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These essays travel near and far to explore landscapes of personal and cultural significance and the communities that inhabit them. At a time when we reexamine how policies of yesteryear shape equities in the present, award-winning writer Stephen Benz challenges readers to delve beyond whitewashed versions of history and reassess our treatment of native people and the environment with fresh, critical eyes. From westward expansion and Manifest Destiny to the Cold War and the Global War on Terror, Reading the Signs prods myths and provides missing context around events touched by the American impulse to grab land and harvest resources—both within and beyond our shores. These essays challenge us to search for missing layers of truth and decide which versions of history should prevail. With a wandering spirit and an inquisitive mind, Benz ventures around town, across country, and overseas in search of forgotten, overlooked, or misunderstood stories. From rock concerts and courthouses to farm towns, battlegrounds, historical sites, and quirky museums, these “itinerant essays” revel in discovering “new wonders every mile.” Along with Topographies (Etruscan Press) and two books of travel essays—Guatemalan Journey (University of Texas Press) and Green Dreams: Travels in Central America (Lonely Planet)—Stephen Benz has published essays in Creative Nonfiction, River Teeth, TriQuarterly, New England Review, and other journals. Three of his essays have been selected for Best American Travel Writing (2003, 2015, 2019). His poems have appeared in journals such as Nimrod, Shenandoah, and Confrontation as well as in a full-length collection, Americana Motel, published by Main Street Rag Press. Benz now teaches professional writing at the University of New Mexico.
Download or read book Bon Courage written by Ru Freeman and published by Etruscan Press. This book was released on 2023-08-29 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bon Courage is a fierce, eclectic, and intimate collection that encompasses the big questions of our time: what we mean by courage, how we define our world, how we choose to exist in it. Bon Courage is an exhilarating journey through a layered intellectual landscape textured with a range of political and personal enthusiasms, and emboldened by a passionate defense of the disregarded. Wide ranging and inclusive in the essay mode, deep and revealing as a memoir, with the dynamics and layering of great fiction. As if that’s not enough, it sings. Ru Freeman participates intimately while bringing global perspectives to subjects as diverse as Bowie and Dylan, Palestine, 9/11, hairstyles, personal and cultural identity, motherhood and #MeToo. A resplendent and compendious exploration of great empathy, insight, and bon courage indeed. This is a book that is going to make a difference.
Download or read book Don t Mind Me written by Brian Coughlan and published by Etruscan Press. This book was released on 2024-05-14 with total page 111 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The short stories in Brian Coughlan’s Don’t Mind Me dig deep into what it means to live in an increasingly connected, but isolated modern world that demands far more than we can possibly hope to provide. A couple with financial problems encounter an over-bearing madam in her hell-hole bed & breakfast; an aged wastrel must travel across the country to the aid of his ailing guardian angel; a hurrying man falls inexplicably and is forced to confront the fragility of his body and the choices that were made for him. What begins as tragedy trips into farce, the realistic somehow turns mystical, and viewed through a prism of irony these delightfully off kilter stories offer surprising, often skewed and witfully unsettling impressions. Don’t Mind Me is a collection that follows no rules and leaves no tracks.
Download or read book The Waw written by Jacqueline Gay Walley and published by Etruscan Press. This book was released on 2024-05-10 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A creative, individualistic woman risks following a vision to a place that ends up changing her to a new, true, risky, loving self. Dostoyevsky said, "Beauty saves," and, in Jacqueline Gay Walley’s The Waw, a woman leaves her New York life to follow an image she has seen of a small town of great beauty by the sea in England. She does not quite know why she does this and is frequently asked and gives different answers. There she encounters remarkable people of strength with whom she explores music, love, dignity, and the gifts of solitude coupled with the gifts of community. She, in addition, is having a collection of her writings published which is daunting to her since she knows she will now be revealed, and not so pleasantly, and this unglues her. Along the way, the reader gets a wry look at publishing. The narrator is also wrestling with how the world’s changing is being reported in such a vituperative manner. She also has a boyfriend in New York who visits and reveals himself in ways unforeseen. At the same time, she meets two men on the island, who astound her in their lack of artifice and sly profundity. She finds herself in love and more open than ever before. All of this put together strips her down to her essence, where the beauty of the place and people are able to transform her to a better self. The book is written in an inventive style: novelistic, seemingly memoir, often poetic, sometimes with a touch of magic realism. "
Download or read book Americana Motel written by Stephen Connely Benz and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The White Horse written by Diane Thiel and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What a beautiful book. I knew it was going to be poetic, but I was knocked over twice by its compelling narrative drive and quiet sense of humor.-Sherman AlexieDiane Thiel's The White Horse: A Colombian Journey takes us on a magically real journey into the Pacific coast rain forests of Colombia. Equal parts travel narrative, ecological essay, historical account, and memoir, this book allows us to experience a reality stranger than fiction.
Download or read book Seeking Security written by G R Sullivan and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-04-13 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many academic criminal lawyers and criminal law theorists seek to resolve the optimum conditions for a criminal law fit to serve a liberal democracy. Typical wish lists include a criminal law that intervenes against any given individual only when there is a reasonable suspicion that s/he has caused harm to the legally protected interests of another or was on the brink of doing so. Until there is conduct that gives rise to a reasonable suspicion of criminal conduct by an individual, s/he should be allowed to go about his or her business free from covert surveillance or other forms of intrusion. All elements of crimes should be proved beyond any reasonable doubt. Any punishment should be proportionate to the gravity of the wrongdoing and when the offender has served this punishment the account should be cleared and good standing recovered. Seeking Security explores the gap between the normative aspirations of liberal, criminal law scholarship and the current criminal law and practice of Anglophone jurisdictions. The concern with security and risk, which in large part explains the disconnection between theory and practice, seems set to stay and is a major challenge to the form and relevance of a large part of criminal law scholarship.
Download or read book The Patron Saint of Used Cars and Second Chances written by Mark Millhone and published by Rodale. This book was released on 2009-07-07 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the course of one nine-month period, filmmaker Mark Millhone's youngest son nearly died from birth complications, his father was diagnosed with prostate cancer, his mother had a heart attack and passed away, a freak illness claimed the life of one of his friends, and his career imploded. As a result of his membership in what he calls the "tragedy-of-the-month club," his marriage also began to fray. Millhone responded to the chaos as many men might: Late one night, he logged on to eBay and bid on a vintage BMW—his fantasy car, but not exactly what the doctor ordered when it came to his family's finances. As if sharing the news that he'd won the auction with his already-peeved wife weren't bad enough, it turned out that he had to travel from New York to Texas to collect the car. His estranged dad joined him, and together they embarked upon a dysfunctional road trip—a comedy of errors that would lend Millhone the perspective he needed to save his marriage and to understand what was really important in his life: his family. Acerbic and hilarious but with heart, this memoir will appeal to readers of Chuck Klosterman, David Sedaris, and Nick Hornby, as well as readers of Millhone's "Guy Wisdom" column in Men's Health. His male perspective on a troubled marriage, raising children, coping with loss, and rejuvenating a relationship with a parent will appeal equally to both sexes.
Download or read book The Places in Between written by Rory Stewart and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2006 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the author's 2002 journey by foot across Afghanistan, during which he survived the harsh elements through the kindness of tribal elders, teen soldiers, Taliban commanders, and foreign-aid workers whose stories he collected along his way. By the author of The Prince of the Marshes. Original. 20,000 first printing.
Download or read book The Forty Rules of Love written by Elif Shafak and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2010-02-18 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this lyrical, exuberant tale, acclaimed Turkish author Elif Shafak, author of The Island of Missing Trees (a Reese's Book Club Pick), incarnates Rumi's timeless message of love The Forty Rules of Love unfolds two tantalizing parallel narratives—one contemporary and the other set in the thirteenth century, when Rumi encountered his spiritual mentor, the whirling dervish known as Shams of Tabriz—that together explore the enduring power of Rumi's work. Ella Rubenstein is forty years old and unhappily married when she takes a job as a reader for a literary agent. Her first assignment is to read and report on Sweet Blasphemy, a novel written by a man named Aziz Zahara. Ella is mesmerized by his tale of Shams's search for Rumi and the dervish's role in transforming the successful but unhappy cleric into a committed mystic, passionate poet, and advocate of love. She is also taken with Shams's lessons, or rules, that offer insight into an ancient philosophy based on the unity of all people and religions, and the presence of love in each and every one of us. As she reads on, she realizes that Rumi's story mirrors her own and that Zahara—like Shams—has come to set her free.
Download or read book To Start an Orchard written by Michael Hettich and published by . This book was released on 2019-09-06 with total page 78 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In these stunning, fable-like poems, humans turn into animals in transformations that seem utterly natural, if not necessary. Michael Hettich is one of our best and most necessary poets because his dreamlike stories remind us how little we truly see and how often we sleep through the day's deep revelations.
Download or read book Rough Ideas written by Stephen Hough and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2020-02-04 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of essays on music and life by the famed classical pianist and composer Stephen Hough is one of the world’s leading pianists, winning global acclaim and numerous awards, both for his concerts and his recordings. He is also a writer, composer, and painter, and has been described by The Economist as one of “Twenty Living Polymaths.” Hough writes informally and engagingly about music and the life of a musician, from the broader aspects of what it is to walk out onto a stage or to make a recording, to specialist tips from deep inside the practice room: how to trill, how to pedal, how to practice. He also writes vividly about people he’s known, places he’s traveled to, books he’s read, paintings he’s seen; and he touches on more controversial subjects, such as assisted suicide and abortion. Even religion is there—the possibility of the existence of God, problems with some biblical texts, and the challenges involved in being a gay Catholic. Rough Ideas is an illuminating, constantly surprising introduction to the life and mind of one of our great cultural figures.
Download or read book Beyond Vision written by Pavel Florensky and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2006-08-15 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beyond Vision is the first English-language collection of essays on art by Pavel Florensky (1882–1937), Russian philosopher, priest, linguist, scientist, mathematician – and art historian. In addition to seven essays by Florensky, the book includes a biographical introduction and an examination of Florensky’s contribution as an art historian by Nicoletta Misler. Beyond Vision reveals Florensky’s fundamental attitudes to the vital questions of construction, composition, chronology, function and destination in the fields of painting, sculpture and design. His reputation as a theologian and philosopher is already established in the English-speaking world, but this first collection in English of his art essays (translated by Wendy Salmond) will be a revelation to those in the field. Pavel Florensky was a true polymath: trained in mathematics and philosophy at Moscow University, he rejected a scholarship in advanced mathematics in order to study theology at the Moscow Theological Academy. He was also an expert linguist, scientist and art historian. A victim of the Soviet government’s animosity towards religion, he was condemned to a Siberian labor camp in 1933 where he continued his work under increasingly difficult circumstances. He was executed in 1937.
Download or read book Tengo Sed written by James Fleming and published by UNM Press. This book was released on 2010-10-16 with total page 117 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Trauma ICU of a Level 1 trauma center is the setting for this thought-provoking novel, which reveals the ruthlessness of medical education and practice. James Fleming recounts a day in the life of a resident in emergency medicine at an urban teaching hospital. The novel’s title, which translates loosely as “I thirst” echoes the Christ of St. John. Tengo Sed’s protagonist, however, known only as Hovercraft because he is “always around, always feeling on edge,” is not a savior but a hapless resident with a tendency toward mysticism. Through Hovercraftâ€TMs sleep-deprived eyes we see patients and their families, doctors, and nurses, and we share Hovercraft’s increasingly nightmarish perceptions of a world in which things are not going right. “The story is remarkably raw and honest, full of mystery instead of certainty, failure instead of success, and humanity instead of science.”--Frank Huyler, author of Right of Thirst “A brutal and beautiful book. I read it straight through in one sitting, totally absorbed, deeply touched and frightened at the same time. The writing is taut, edgy, and original with not a wasted word . . . James Fleming has written a small, tough masterpiece.”--John Nichols, author of The Milagro Beanfield War “Stripped-down, elemental, and willing to explore feelings of alienation and rebellion felt by a significant minority of medical students, interns, and residents.”--Paul Linde, author of Danger to Self: On the Front Line with an ER Psychiatrist
Download or read book Sophie s World written by Jostein Gaarder and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2007-03-20 with total page 735 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.
Download or read book Text as Revelation written by Hanna Tervanotko and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-12-28 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Text as Revelation analyses the shift of revelatory experiences from oral to written that is described in ancient Jewish literature, including rabbinic texts. The individual essays seek to understand how, why, and for whom texts became the locus of revelation. While the majority of the contributors analyze ancient Jewish literature for depictions of oral and written revelation, such as the Hebrew Bible and the literature of the Second Temple era, a number of articles also investigate textualization of revelation in cognate cultures, analyzing Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Greek sources. With subjects ranging from Ancient Egyptian and Sibylline oracles to Hellenistic writings and the books of Isaiah, Deuteronomy and Jeremiah, the studies in this volume bring together established and new voices reflecting on the issues raised by the interplay between writing and (divinatory) revelation.
Download or read book Things I Like About America written by Poe Ballantine and published by Hawthorne Books. This book was released on 2011-03-01 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: POE BALLANTINE’S RISKY PERSONAL ESSAYS are populated with odd jobs, eccentric characters, boarding houses, buses, and beer. He takes us along on his Greyhound bus journey through small town America (including a detour to Mexico) exploring what it means to be human. Written with piercing intimacy and self-effacing humor, Ballantine’stories provide entertainment, social commentary, and completely compelling slices of life.
