Download or read book The Idea of Perfection written by Kate Grenville and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2003-10-28 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Harley Savage is a plain woman, a part-time museum curator and quilting expert with three failed marriages and a heart condition. Douglas Cheeseman is a shy, gawky engineer with jug-handle ears, one marriage gone sour, and a crippling lack of physical courage. They meet in the little Australian town of Karakarook, where Harley has arrived to help the town build a heritage museum and Douglas to demolish the quaint old Bent Bridge. From the beginning they are on a collision course until the unexpected sets them both free. Elegantly and compassionately told, The Idea of Perfection is reminiscent of the work of Carol Shields and Annie Proulx and reveals Kate Grenville as "a writer of extraordinary talent" (The New York Times Book Review).
Download or read book The Idea of Perfection written by Paul Valéry and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2020-04-14 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fresh look into the monumental work of Paul Valéry, one of the major French literary figures of the twentieth century. Heir to Mallarmé and the symbolists, godfather to the modernists, Paul Valéry was a poet with thousands of readers and few followers, great resonance and little echo. Along with Rilke and Eliot, he stands as a bridge between the tradition of the nineteenth century and the novelty of the twentieth. His reputation as a poet rests on three slim volumes published in a span of only ten years. Yet these poems, it turns out, are inseparable from another, much vaster intellectual and artistic enterprise: the Notebooks. Behind the published works, behind the uneventful life of the almost forgotten and then exceedingly famous poet, there hides another story, a private life of the mind, that has its record in 28,000 pages of notes revealed in their entirety only after his death. Their existence had been hinted at, evoked in rumors and literary asides; but once made public it took years for their significance to be fully appreciated. It turned out that the prose fragments published in Valéry’s lifetime were not the after-the-fact musings of an accomplished poet, nor his occasional sketchbook, nor excerpts from his private journal. They were a disfigured glimpse of a vast and fragmentary “exercise of thought,” a restless intellectual quest as unguided and yet as persistent, as rigorous, and as uncontainable as the sea that is so often their subject. The Idea of Perfection shows both sides of Valéry: the craftsman of sublimely refined verse, and the fervent investigator of the limits of human intellect and expression. It intersperses his three essential poetic works—Album of Early Verse, The Young Fate, and Charms—with incisive selections from the Notebooks and finishes with the prose poem “The Angel.” Masterfully translated by Nathaniel Rudavsky-Brody, with careful attention to form and a natural yet metrical contemporary poetic voice, The Idea of Perfection breathes new life into poems that are among the most beautiful in the French language and the most influential of the twentieth century.
Download or read book Dark Places written by Kate Grenville and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2011 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Winner of the Vance Palmer Award for Fiction, Victorian Premier's Literary Prize, 1995. Albion Gidley Singer creates his world as a vast collection of facts, facts he uses to support his own power and status. After an awkward childhood, aware that he is a disappointment to his father, he acquires, the trappings of respectability success in busi...
Download or read book The Impossibility of Perfection written by Michael Slote and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2011-08-18 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book utilizes feminist thought and other philosophical considerations to argue in a unique way for an ethical picture of human life that stands in marked contrast with traditional understandings. Slote here revives Isaiah Berlin's bold views on the impossibility of perfection in ways that no one has previously attempted. The Appendix describes a new kind of philosophical/ethical methodology that combines and balances (traditionally) "feminine" and "masculine" elements.
Download or read book Soulsaver written by James Stevens-Arce and published by Houghton Mifflin. This book was released on 2000 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Juan Bautista and his partner Faiola drive a FreezVan for the Suicide Prevention League in San Juan. Juan is starting to look below the surface at the conflict between the dominate Christian Catholic Church of America and the Twin Messiah cult.
Download or read book The Idea of You written by Robinne Lee and published by St. Martin's Griffin. This book was released on 2017-06-13 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now an original movie on Prime Video starring Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine! When Solène Marchand, the thirty-nine-year-old owner of a prestigious art gallery in Los Angeles, takes her daughter, Isabelle, to meet her favorite boy band, she does so reluctantly and at her ex-husband’s request. The last thing she expects is to make a connection with one of the members of the world-famous August Moon. But Hayes Campbell is clever, winning, confident, and posh, and the attraction is immediate. That he is all of twenty years old further complicates things. What begins as a series of clandestine trysts quickly evolves into a passionate relationship. It is a journey that spans continents as Solène and Hayes navigate each other’s disparate worlds: from stadium tours to international art fairs to secluded hideaways in Paris and Miami. And for Solène, it is as much a reclaiming of self, as it is a rediscovery of happiness and love. When their romance becomes a viral sensation, and both she and her daughter become the target of rabid fans and an insatiable media, Solène must face how her new status has impacted not only her life, but the lives of those closest to her.
Download or read book Addiction to Perfection written by Marion Woodman and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book is about taking the head off an evil witch". With these words Marion Woodman begins her spiral journey, a powerful and authoritative look at the psychology and attitudes of modern women. Marion Woodman continues her remarkable exploration of women's mysteries through case material, dreams, literature and mythology, in food rituals, rape symbolism, Christianity, imagery in the body, sexuality, creativity and relationships.
Download or read book Everybody Else Is Perfect written by Gabrielle Korn and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-01-26 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the former editor-in-chief of Nylon comes a provocative and intimate collection of personal and cultural essays featuring eye-opening explorations of hot button topics for modern women, including internet feminism, impossible beauty standards in social media, shifting ideals about sexuality, and much more. Gabrielle Korn starts her professional life with all the right credentials. Prestigious college degree? Check. A loving, accepting family? Check. Instagram-worthy offices and a tight-knit group of friends? Check, check. Gabrielle’s life seems to reach the crescendo of perfect when she gets named the youngest editor-in-chief in the history of one of fashion’s most influential publication. Suddenly she’s invited to the world’s most epic parties, comped beautiful clothes and shoes from trendy designers, and asked to weigh in on everything from gay rights to lip gloss on one of the most influential digital platforms. But behind the scenes, things are far from perfect. In fact, just a few months before landing her dream job, Gabrielle’s health and wellbeing are on the line, and her promotion to editor-in-chief becomes the ultimate test of strength. In this collection of inspirational and searing essays, Gabrielle reveals exactly what it’s truly like in the fashion world, trying to find love as a young lesbian in New York City, battling with anorexia, and trying not to lose herself in a mirage of women’s empowerment and Instagram perfection. Through deeply personal essays, Gabrielle recounts her struggles to reconcile her long-held insecurities about her body while coming out in the era of The L Word, where swoon-worthy lesbians are portrayed as skinny, fashion-perfect, and power-hungry. She takes us with her everywhere from New York Fashion Week to the doctor’s office, revealing that the forces that try to keep women small are more pervasive than anyone wants to admit, especially in a world that’s been newly branded as woke. From #MeToo to commercialized body positivity, Korn’s biting, darkly funny analysis turns feminist commentary on its head. Both an in-your-face take on impossible beauty standards and entrenched media ideals and an inspiring call for personal authenticity, this powerful collection is ideal for fans of Roxane Gay and Rebecca Solnit.
Download or read book Perfect written by Ellen Hopkins and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-12-03 with total page 656 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this riveting and startling companion to "Impulse," northern Nevada teenagers Cara, Kendra, Sean, and Andre, tell in their own voices of their very different paths toward perfection and how their goals change when tragedy strikes.
Download or read book The Idea of Love written by Patti Callahan Henry and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2015-06-23 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From New York Times bestselling author Patti Callahan Henry, The Idea of Love asks, "Can two people come together for all the wrong reasons and still make it right?" Ella's life has been completely upended. She's young, beautiful, and deeply in love--until her husband dies in a tragic sailing accident. Or so she'll have everyone believe. Screenwriter Hunter needs a hit, but crippling writers' block and a serious lack of motivation are getting him nowhere. He's on the lookout for a love story. It doesn't matter who it belongs to. When Hunter and Ella meet in Watersend, South Carolina, it feels like the perfect match, something close to fate. In Ella, Hunter finds the perfect love story, full of longing and sacrifice. It's the stuff of epic films. In Hunter, Ella finds possibility. It's an opportunity to live out a fantasy--the life she wishes she had. And more real. Besides--what's a little white lie between strangers? But one lie leads to another, and soon Hunter and Ella find themselves caught in a web of deceit. As they try to untangle their lies and reclaim their lives, they feel something stronger is keeping them together.
Download or read book The Pursuit of Perfection written by Sheila Rothman and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-04-06 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it mean to live in a time when medical science can not only cure the human body but also reshape it? How should we as individuals and as a society respond to new drugs and genetic technologies? Sheila and David Rothman address these questions with a singular blend of history and analysis, taking us behind the scenes to explain how scientific research, medical practice, drug company policies, and a quest for peak performance combine to exaggerate potential benefits and minimize risks. They present a fascinating and factual story from the rise of estrogen and testosterone use in the 1920s and 1930s to the frenzy around liposuction and growth hormone to the latest research into the genetics of aging. The Rothmans reveal what happens when physicians view patients’ unhappiness and dissatisfaction with their bodies—short stature, thunder thighs, aging—as though they were diseases to be treated. The Pursuit of Perfection takes us from the early days of endocrinology (the belief that you are your hormones) to today’s frontier of genetic enhancements (the idea that you are your genes). It lays bare the always complicated and sometimes compromised positions of science, medicine, and commerce. This is the book to read before signing on for the latest medical fix.
Download or read book Perfection written by Heston Blumenthal and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Acclaimed restaurateur Heston Blumenthal reinvents kitchen classics, such as Fish and Chips, Bangers and Mash and Spag Bol, in his inimitable way.
Download or read book The Case against Perfection written by Michael J Sandel and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Breakthroughs in genetics present us with a promise and a predicament. The promise is that we will soon be able to treat and prevent a host of debilitating diseases. The predicament is that our newfound genetic knowledge may enable us to manipulate our nature—to enhance our genetic traits and those of our children. Although most people find at least some forms of genetic engineering disquieting, it is not easy to articulate why. What is wrong with re-engineering our nature? The Case against Perfection explores these and other moral quandaries connected with the quest to perfect ourselves and our children. Michael Sandel argues that the pursuit of perfection is flawed for reasons that go beyond safety and fairness. The drive to enhance human nature through genetic technologies is objectionable because it represents a bid for mastery and dominion that fails to appreciate the gifted character of human powers and achievements. Carrying us beyond familiar terms of political discourse, this book contends that the genetic revolution will change the way philosophers discuss ethics and will force spiritual questions back onto the political agenda. In order to grapple with the ethics of enhancement, we need to confront questions largely lost from view in the modern world. Since these questions verge on theology, modern philosophers and political theorists tend to shrink from them. But our new powers of biotechnology make these questions unavoidable. Addressing them is the task of this book, by one of America’s preeminent moral and political thinkers.
Download or read book Confessions of a Raging Perfectionist written by Amanda Jenkins and published by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.. This book was released on 2013-04-19 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amanda is a raging perfectionist. She begins each day with a long list. “Keep the house picked up; limit myself to two Diet Cokes; spend special time with each of the kids; work out; pray; avoid sugar; read a chapter in a book about something very important; read my Bible; call my mom.” She determines each day’s worth, and ultimately her own, by keeping track of her stats—pounds gained or lost, stuff accomplished. That is, until God spoke into her life, waking her up to the true costs of her addiction to perfection. Confessions of a Raging Perfectionist is more than Amanda’s confession; it’s a journey of letting go of the subtle but destructive idols of her overactive inner voice and replacing them with God’s truth. Amanda hopes her journey can inspire others to let God dig in to their own lives, uncovering the subtle lies we unconsciously live by.
Download or read book The Perfect Thanksgiving written by Eileen Spinelli and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2007-10-02 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two families—one that is perfect and one that is far from it—celebrate Thanksgiving in their own loving ways.
Download or read book Divine Bodies written by Candida R. Moss and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-23 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A path-breaking scholar's insightful reexamination of the resurrection of the body and the construction of the self When people talk about the resurrection they often assume that the bodies in the afterlife will be perfect. But which version of our bodies gets resurrected--young or old, healthy or sick, real-to-life or idealized? What bodily qualities must be recast in heaven for a body to qualify as both ours and heavenly? The resurrection is one of the foundational statements of Christian theology, but when it comes to the New Testament only a handful of passages helps us answer the question "What will those bodies be like?" More problematically, the selection and interpretation of these texts are grounded in assumptions about the kinds of earthly bodies that are most desirable. Drawing upon previously unexplored evidence in ancient medicine, philosophy, and culture, this illuminating book both revisits central texts--such as the resurrection of Jesus--and mines virtually ignored passages in the Gospels to show how the resurrection of the body addresses larger questions about identity and the self.
Download or read book Our Idea of God written by Thomas V. Morris and published by Regent College Publishing. This book was released on 2002 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: