Download or read book The Power of the Porch written by Trudier Harris and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In ways that are highly individual, says Harris, yet still within a shared oral tradition, Zora Neale Hurston, Gloria Naylor, and Randall Kenan skillfully use storytelling techniques to define their audiences, reach out and draw them in, and fill them with anticipation. Considering how such dynamics come into play in Hurston's Mules and Men, Naylor's Mama Day, and Kenan's Let the Dead Bury Their Dead, Harris shows how the "power of the porch" resides in readers as well, who, in giving themselves over to a story, confer it on the writer. Against this background of give and take, anticipation and fulfillment, Harris considers Zora Neale Hurston's special challenges as a black woman writer in the thirties, and how her various roles as an anthropologist, folklorist, and novelist intermingle in her work. In Gloria Naylor's writing, Harris finds particularly satisfying themes and characters. A New York native, Naylor came to a knowledge of the South through her parents and during her stay on the Sea Islands she wrote Mama Day. A southerner by birth, Randall Kenan is particularly adept in getting his readers to accept aspects of African American culture that their rational minds might have wanted to reject. Although Kenan is set apart from Hurston and Naylor by his alliances with a new generation of writers intent upon broaching certain taboo subjects (in his case gay life in small southern towns), Kenan's Tims Creek is as rife with the otherworldly and the fantastic as Hurston's New Orleans and Naylor's Willow Springs.
Download or read book The Porch written by Charlie Hailey and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2021-04-01 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Come with us for a moment out onto the porch. Just like that, we’ve entered another world without leaving home. In this liminal space, an endless array of absorbing philosophical questions arises: What does it mean to be in a place? How does one place teach us about the world and ourselves? What do we—and the things we’ve built—mean in this world? In a time when reflections on the nature of society and individual endurance are so paramount, Charlie Hailey’s latest book is both a mental tonic and a welcome provocation. Solidly grounded in ideas, ecology, and architecture, The Porch takes us on a journey along the edges of nature where the outside comes in, hosts meet guests, and imagination runs wild. Hailey writes from a modest porch on the Homosassa River in Florida. He sleeps there, studies the tides, listens for osprey and manatee, welcomes shipwrecked visitors, watches shadows on its screens, reckons with climate change, and reflects on his own acclimation to his environment. The profound connections he unearths anchor an armchair exploration of past porches and those of the future, moving from ancient Greece to contemporary Sweden, from the White House roof to the Anthropocene home. In his ruminations, he links up with other porch dwellers including environmentalist Rachel Carson, poet Wendell Berry, writers Eudora Welty and Zora Neale Hurston, philosopher John Dewey, architect Louis Kahn, and photographer Paul Strand. As close as architecture can bring us to nature, the porch is where we can learn to contemplate anew our evolving place in a changing world—a space we need now more than ever. Timeless and timely, Hailey’s book is a dreamy yet deeply passionate meditation on the joy and gravity of sitting on the porch.
Download or read book The Boy on the Porch written by Sharon Creech and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2013-09-03 with total page 95 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “This quiet novel sings. A graceful profound story for all ages that speaks well beyond its intended audience.” —Kirkus (starred review) Fans of Newbery Medal winner Sharon Creech's Ruby Holler will love this tween novel about opening your heart and finding family when you least expect it. When a young couple finds a boy asleep on their porch, their lives take a surprising turn. Unable to speak, the boy, Jacob, can't explain his history. All John and Marta know is that they have been chosen to care for him. And as their connection and friendship with Jacob grow, they embrace his exuberant spirit and talents. The three of them blossom into an unlikely family and begin to see the world in brand-new ways.
Download or read book The Junk Drawer Corner Store Front Porch Blues written by John R. Powers and published by Signet. This book was released on 1993-06 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Filled with charming and evocative details, this is both a moving account of a middle-aged man's belated coming-of-age and a classic growing-up story for the Baby Boom generation. At turns hilarious and bittersweet, this novel is destined to be a bookshelf classic.
Download or read book Front Porch Politics written by Michael S. Foley and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2013-09-17 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An on-the-ground history of ordinary Americans who took to the streets when political issues became personal. It is widely believed that Americans of the 1970s and '80s were exhausted by the upheavals of the '60s and eager to retreat to the private realm. When they did take action, it was mainly to express their disillusionment with government by supporting the right. In fact, as Michael Stewart Foley shows, neither of these assumptions is correct. On the community level, the 1970s and '80s saw vibrant new forms of political activity emerge. Tenants challenged landlords, farmers practiced civil disobedience to protect their land, and laid-off workers asserted a right to own their idled factories. Activists fought to defend the traditional family or to expand the rights of women, while entire towns organized to protest the toxic sludge in their basements. In all these arenas, Americans were propelled by their own experiences into the public sphere. Disregarding conventional ideas of "left" and "right," they turned to political action when they perceived an immediate threat to the safety and security of their families, homes, or dreams. Front Porch Politics is a people's history told through on-the-ground experiences. Recalling crusades famous and forgotten, Foley shows how Americans followed their outrage into the streets. Their distinctive style of visceral, local, and highly personal activism remains a vital resource for the renewal of American democracy"--
Download or read book Porch Lights written by Dorothea Benton Frank and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2012-06-12 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times bestselling author Dorothea Benton Frank is back home in the Carolina lowcountry, spinning a tale that brims with the warmth, charm, heart, and humor that has become her trademark. Porch Lights is a stirring, emotionally rich multigenerational story—a poignant tale of life, love, and transformation—as a nurse, returning to Sullivans Island from the Afghanistan War, finds her life has been irrevocably altered by tragedy…and now must rediscover love and purpose with the help of her son and aging mother. An evocative visit to enchanting Sullivans Island with its unique pluff mud beaches, palmetto trees, and colorful local lore—a novel filled with unforgettable characters, and enlivened by tales of the notorious Blackbeard and his bloodthirsty pirate crew and eerie Edgar Allan Poe stories—Porch Lights stands tall among the very best works of not only Dottie Frank, but Anne Rivers Siddons, Rebecca Wells, Pat Conroy, and other masters of the modern Southern novel as well.
Download or read book Solomon s Porch written by Janet Morris Grimes and published by Elk Lake Publishing Incorporated. This book was released on 2021-08-29 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Time. Solomon is running out of it. A broken and forgotten man fighting the demons of dementia, he longs for the past when both he and his beloved military town of Ginger Ridge once thrived. When his stooped body collides with the hardened realities of the present, Solomon lies in a coma as an unidentifiable victim of a hit-and-run accident in a faraway city. With nothing to keep him going but flashbacks of relationships from his past, Solomon has no idea what a difference he will make on the future ...
Download or read book Back From Heaven s Front Porch written by Danny Bader and published by Sound Wisdom. This book was released on 2012-08-21 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "At 3:55 pm, I believed there was a Heaven-at 4:15 pm I knew." This is the story of one man’s struggle to be alive again after an accident claims the life of his friend and nearly his own. After spending a few moments on Heaven’s front porch with God, he is thrust back into his old life. In the months that follow, he struggles to find purpose and meaning in the day to day activities of life. In his quest, he uncovers five principles necessary to move him from just living again...to being fully alive! This inspirational story will grab your attention and hold it to the end as it teaches you foundational principles to living a life fulfilled.
Download or read book Rebuilding the Front Porch of America written by Patrick Overton and published by Revised with Added Material. This book was released on 2016-12-09 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the twenty years since this book was first published, our nation's communities - from urban centers to rural and small communities dotting our landscape - have had their foundations rocked to the core. Yet, despite the economic, social, and cultural challenges they have experienced, communities all across our country are showing their resilience by reinventing themselves. This is especially true for many of rural and small communities whose persistence and self-determination show the same creativity, the same grit, the same shared values that brought them into existence. One of the ways these communities are doing this is by engaging in community making through the arts. The arts invite us to tell our story and listen to the story of others. As we work together and celebrate our community creativity, the arts bring people of all ages, genders, races, religions, and economic backgrounds together for the common good of reconnecting with each other and celebrating who we are as individuals and communities. Community arts provide a new gathering place, a cultural and spiritual touchstone that is a source of community revitalization and neighborhood revival. I believe our rural and small communities are creating the map our nation is searching for that will help us navigate the challenges awaiting all of us as we work together rebuilding the front porch of America.
Download or read book From Miss Ida s Porch written by Sandra Belton and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1998 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the evening the residents of Church Street gather on Miss Ida's porch to share memories and hear stories about events in the past, events significant to them as black people.
Download or read book The Cheer Leader written by Jill McCorkle and published by Algonquin Books. This book was released on 2012-05-07 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jo Spencer is a girl who knows what to be and how to be it-straight-A student, cheerleader, May Queen, popular and cute and virginal, and in perfect control. But halfway through her first year in college in the early seventies, her carefully normal life explodes and she comes completely undone. In The Cheerleader, Jo Spencer looks back, as if she were watching reruns of old syndicated TV shows, to figure out what happened. Ordinary chance has dumped Sam Swett, age twenty-one, in the Marshboro, North Carolina, Quik Pik in the middle of a murder. Sam has shaved his head, given away all his belongings except his typewriter; he's drunker than he's ever been and running as fast as he can from his upper-middle-class upbringing. For the next twenty-four hours, Sam is propelled straight into the very core of this small Southern town as it sorts through the facts.
Download or read book Getting Off the Porch written by Alicia Booker and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Getting off the Porch is an intimate portrayal of mastering self-love, managing unspoken expectations, and maneuvering the ups, downs, mess-ups, and clean ups of life. Each chapter exposes why and how Alicia almost lost herself and the courageous process she endured to not only turn things around, but live her life beyond the porch.
Download or read book Porch Stories written by Jewell Parker Rhodes and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-06-15 with total page 123 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Award-winning author of fiction and nonfiction Jewell Parker Rhodes is a master of her craft, under-standing how both real and imagined stories can serve as a pathway to enlightenment. Porch Stories is Rhodes's tribute to her beloved grandmother, a real account of the love she received and the lessons she learned. Jewell Parker Rhodes was left in the care of her father and his mother when her own mother abandoned the family. Grandmother Ernestine's house in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was home to four other grandchildren as well. And while its crumbling bricks, lack of air-conditioning, and neighborhood rodents meant that life was anything but easy, the family house was filled with love. Everyone on their street knew and loved Grandmother Ernestine; men would tip their hats and children would rush up for a hug any time she was outside. No one loved Grandmother Ernestine more than Jewell, who would pass up a movie with her cousins to sit outside on Ernestine's front stoop and listen to her stories and her words of comfort. Jewell would later move out West to live with her mother and father as they reattempted marriage. But that was a short-lived experience. Before long, she was back in the loving arms of her grandmother, whose wisdom and warmth gave all of her children the tools to overcome the ordinary and extraordinary challenges life brings. Porch Stories, described by Rhodes as "an intergenerational love song," is a loving tribute that is at once candid, courageous, and reverent -- a literary portrait of family love that readers from all walks of life can see in themselves.
Download or read book The Boy Who Would Be King written by Ryan Holiday and published by . This book was released on 2021-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "It's one of the most incredible stories in all of history. A young boy, out of nowhere, is chosen to be the emperor of most of the known world. What he learned, what he did, who he was, would echo in eternity. In 138 AD, Hadrian, the emperor of Rome, chose Marcus Aurelius to succeed him. He knew no one was born ready for the job, so he arranged for the young boy's education. The greatest philosophers of the day were assigned to teach him, and all threw themselves at the almost inhuman task of preparing someone for absolute power. It's a parable for life, really. The gods, fate, someone chooses something for us, calls us to something. Will we answer? Will we step up? Will we achieve the greatness within us? Marcus Aurelius did. Absolute power not only didn't corrupt, it made him better. We marvel at him centuries later--this man who thought he would not be remembered, that posthumous fame was worthless--stands today more famous than ever. A hero to millions."--Dailystoic.com
Download or read book The Scary Mason Dixon Line written by Trudier Harris and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2009-06-01 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New Yorker James Baldwin once declared that a black man can look at a map of the United States, contemplate the area south of the Mason-Dixon Line, and thus scare himself to death. In The Scary Mason-Dixon Line, renowned literary scholar Trudier Harris explores why black writers, whether born in Mississippi, New York, or elsewhere, have consistently both loved and hated the South. Harris explains that for these authors the South represents not so much a place or even a culture as a rite of passage. Not one of them can consider himself or herself a true African American writer without confronting the idea of the South in a decisive way. Harris considers native-born black southerners Raymond Andrews, Ernest J. Gaines, Edward P. Jones, Tayari Jones, Yusef Komunyakaa, Randall Kenan, and Phyllis Alesia Perry, and nonsouthern writers James Baldwin, Sherley Anne Williams, and Octavia E. Butler. The works Harris examines date from Baldwin's Blues for Mr. Charlie (1964) to Edward P. Jones's The Known World (2003). By including Komunyakaa's poems and Baldwin's play, as well as male and female authors, Harris demonstrates that the writers' preoccupation with the South cuts across lines of genre and gender. Whether their writings focus on slavery, migration from the South to the North, or violence on southern soil, and whether they celebrate the triumph of black southern heritage over repression or castigate the South for its treatment of blacks, these authors cannot escape the call of the South. Indeed, Harris asserts that creative engagement with the South represents a defining characteristic of African American writing. A singular work by one of the foremost literary scholars writing today, The Scary Mason-Dixon Line superbly demonstrates how history and memory continue to figure powerfully in African American literary creativity.
Download or read book Their Eyes Were Watching God written by Zora Neale Hurston and published by . This book was released on 1937 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Counterinsurgency written by Douglas Porch and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-07-11 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Controversial new history of counterinsurgency which challenges its claims as an effective strategy of waging war.
