Download or read book The Year of Sitting Dangerously written by Simon Barnes and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2023-04-13 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the acclaimed author of Rewild Yourself comes a brilliant new book that reveals the natural joys to be discovered on your doorstep. In the autumn of 2020, Simon Barnes should have been leading a safari in Zambia, but Covid restrictions meant his plans had to be put on hold. Instead, he embarked on the only voyage of discovery that was still open to him. He walked to a folding chair at the bottom of his garden, and sat down. His itinerary: to sit in that very same spot every day for a year and to see - and hear - what happened all around him. It would be a stationary garden safari; his year of sitting dangerously had begun. For the next twelve months, he would watch as the world around him changed day by day. Gradually, he began to see his surroundings in a new way; by restricting himself, he opened up new horizons, growing even closer to a world he thought he already knew so well. The Year of Sitting Dangerously is a wonderfully evocative read; it inspires the reader to pay closer attention to the marvels that surround us all, and is packed with handy tips to help bring nature even closer to us.
Download or read book The Year of Reading Dangerously written by Andy Miller and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2014-12-09 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “[A] fanciful, endearing account of his experiences tackling classic works of fiction. . . . There is plenty of hilarity in [this] intimate literary memoir.” —Publishers Weekly Nearing his fortieth birthday, author and critic Andy Miller realized he’s not nearly as well read as he’d like to be. A devout book lover who somehow fell out of the habit of reading, he began to ponder the power of books to change an individual life—including his own—and to the define the sort of person he would like to be. Beginning with a copy of Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita, he embarks on a literary odyssey of mindful reading and wry introspection. From Middlemarch to Anna Karenina to A Confederacy of Dunces, these are books Miller felt he should read; books he’d always wanted to read; books he’d previously started but hadn’t finished; and books he’d lied about having read to impress people. Combining memoir and literary criticism, The Year of Reading Dangerously is Miller’s heartfelt, humorous examination of what it means to be a reader. Passionately believing that books deserve to be read, enjoyed, and debated in the real world, Miller documents his reading experiences and how they resonated in his daily life and ultimately his very sense of self. The result is a witty and insightful journey of discovery and soul-searching that celebrates the abiding miracle of the power of reading. “An affecting tale of the rediscovery of great books . . . [by] a friendly, funny Brit.” —Boston Globe “Funny and engaging.” —Kirkus Reviews “Amiable, circumstantial, amusing, charming. . . . [Miller’s] style owes something . . . to Joe Brainard and David Foster Wallace.” —The Times (London)
Download or read book On the Marsh written by Simon Barnes and published by . This book was released on 2021-04 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How writer Simon Barnes rewilded the marshland next to his garden to attract new species and to bring inspiration to his family
Download or read book The Friend National Book Award Winner written by Sigrid Nunez and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-02-06 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES’S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING NAOMI WATTS “A beautiful book . . . a world of insight into death, grief, art, and love.” —Wall Street Journal “A penetrating, moving meditation on loss, comfort, memory . . . Nunez has a wry, withering wit.” —NPR “Dry, allusive and charming . . . the comedy here writes itself.” —The New York Times The New York Times bestselling story of love, friendship, grief, healing, and the magical bond between a woman and her dog. When a woman unexpectedly loses her lifelong best friend and mentor, she finds herself burdened with the unwanted dog he has left behind. Her own battle against grief is intensified by the mute suffering of the dog, a huge Great Dane traumatized by the inexplicable disappearance of its master, and by the threat of eviction: dogs are prohibited in her apartment building. While others worry that grief has made her a victim of magical thinking, the woman refuses to be separated from the dog except for brief periods of time. Isolated from the rest of the world, increasingly obsessed with the dog's care, determined to read its mind and fathom its heart, she comes dangerously close to unraveling. But while troubles abound, rich and surprising rewards lie in store for both of them. Elegiac and searching, The Friend is both a meditation on loss and a celebration of human-canine devotion.
Download or read book Sorry I m Late I Didn t Want to Come written by Jessica Pan and published by Black Swan Books, Limited. This book was released on 2020-02-20 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Extroverts have all the fun. Or so Jessica Pan thought. When she found herself jobless and friendless, sitting in the familiar Jess-shaped crease on her sofa, she couldn't help but wonder what life might have looked like if she had been a little more open to new experiences and new people, a little less attached to going home instead of going to the pub. So, she made a vow - to push herself to live the life of an extrovert for a year. She wrote a list - improv, a solo holiday and... talking to strangers on the tube. She regretted it instantly. Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come follows Jess's hilarious and painful year of misadventures in extroverting, reporting back from the frontlines for all the introverts out there. But is life actually better or easier for the extroverts? Do they really have all the fun?
Download or read book Rewild Yourself written by Simon Barnes and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We're not just losing the wild world. We're forgetting it. We're no longer noticing it. We've lost the habit of looking and seeing and listening and hearing.But we can make hidden things visible, and this book features numerous spellbinding ways to bring the magic of nature much closer to home.Mammals you never knew existed will enter your world. Birds hidden in treetops will shed their cloak of anonymity. With a single movement of your hand you can make reptiles appear before you. Butterflies you never saw before will bring joy to every sunny day. Creatures of the darkness will enter your consciousness. And as you take on new techniques and a little new equipment, you will discover new creatures and, with them, new areas of yourself that had gone dormant. Once put to use, they wake up and start working again. You become wilder in your mind and in your heart. Once you know the tricks, the wild world begins to appear before you.
Download or read book Dangerously Funny written by David Bianculli and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-12-01 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An unprecedented behind-the-scenes look at the rise and fall of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour -- the provocative, politically charged program that shocked the censors, outraged the White House, and forever changed the face of television. Decades before The Daily Show, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour proved there was a place on television for no-holds-barred political comedy with a decidedly antiauthoritarian point of view. In this first-ever all-access history of the show, veteran entertainment journalist David Bianculli tells the fascinating story of its three-year network run -- and the cultural impact that's still being felt today. Before it was suddenly removed from the CBS lineup (reportedly under pressure from the Nixon administration), The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour was a ratings powerhouse. It helped launch the careers of comedy legends such as Steve Martin and Rob Reiner, featured groundbreaking musical acts like the Beatles and the Who, and served as a cultural touchstone for the antiwar movement of the late 1960s. Drawing on extensive original interviews with Tom and Dick Smothers and dozens of other key players -- as well as more than a decade's worth of original research -- Dangerously Funny brings readers behind the scenes for all the battles over censorship, mind-blowing musical performances, and unforgettable sketches that defined the show and its era. David Bianculli delves deep into this never-told story, to find out what really happened and to reveal why this show remains so significant to this day.
Download or read book Sitting Kills Moving Heals written by Joan Vernikos and published by Linden Publishing. This book was released on 2011-11-03 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This groundbreaking new medical work demonstrates how modern sedentary lifestyles contribute to poor health, obesity, and diabetes, and how health can be dramatically improved by continuous, low-intensity, movement that challenges the force of gravity. Citing her original NASA research on how weightlessness weakens astronauts' muscles, bones, and overall health, the author presents a simple and effective plan for maintaining good health throughout life by developing new lifestyle habits of frequent gravity-challenging movement. Written for everyone who spends most of their lives sitting in chairs, at desks, and in cars, this practical, easy-to-follow action plan outlines simple gravity-challenging activities such as standing up frequently, stretching, walking, and dancing that are more healthful and effective than conventional diet and exercise regimens.
Download or read book Read Dangerously written by Azar Nafisi and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2022-03-08 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestselling author of Reading Lolita in Tehran returns with a guide to the power of literature in turbulent times, arming readers with a resistance reading list, ranging from James Baldwin to Zora Neale Hurston to Margaret Atwood. "[A] stunning look at the power of reading. ... Provokes and inspires at every turn." —Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Remarkable. ... Audacious." —The Progressive "Stunningly beautiful and perceptive." —Los Angeles Review of Books What is the role of literature in an era when one political party wages continual war on writers and the press? What is the connection between political strife in our daily lives, and the way we meet our enemies on the page in fiction? How can literature, through its free exchange, affect politics? In this galvanizing guide to literature as resistance, Nafisi seeks to answer these questions. Drawing on her experiences as a woman and voracious reader living in the Islamic Republic of Iran, her life as an immigrant in the United States, and her role as literature professor in both countries, she crafts an argument for why, in a genuine democracy, we must engage with the enemy, and how literature can be a vehicle for doing so. Structured as a series of letters to her father, who taught her as a child about how literature can rescue us in times of trauma, Nafisi explores the most probing questions of our time through the works of Toni Morrison, Salman Rushdie, James Baldwin, Margaret Atwood, and more.
Download or read book The Year of Eating Dangerously written by Tom Parker Bowles and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2013-08-20 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fugu. Dog. Cobra. Bees. Spleen. A 600,000 SCU chili pepper. All considered foods by millions of people around the world. And all objects of great fascination to Tom Parker Bowles, a food journalist who grew up eating his mother's considerably safer roast chicken, shepherd's pie and mushy peas. Intrigued by the food phobias of two friends, Parker Bowles became inspired to examine the cultural divides that make some foods verboten or "dangerous" in the culture he grew up with while being seen as lip-smacking delicacies in others. So began a year-long odyssey through Asia, Europe and America in search of the world's most thrilling, terrifying and odd foods. Parker Bowles is always witty and sometimes downright hilarious in recounting his quest for envelope-pushing meals, ranging from the potentially lethal to the outright disgusting to the merely gluttonous—and he proves in this book that an open mouth and an open mind are the only passports a man needs to truly discover the world.
Download or read book The Year of Sitting Dangerously written by Simon Barnes and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2024-03-28 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the acclaimed author of Rewild Yourself comes a brilliant book that reveals the natural joys to be discovered on your doorstep. In the autumn of 2020, Simon Barnes should have been leading a safari in Zambia, but Covid restrictions meant his plans had to be put on hold. Instead, he embarked on the only voyage of discovery that was still open to him. He walked to a folding chair at the bottom of his garden, and sat down. His itinerary: to sit in that very same spot every day for a year and to see - and hear - what happened all around him. It would be a stationary garden safari; his year of sitting dangerously had begun. For the next twelve months, he would watch as the world around him changed day by day. Gradually, he began to see his surroundings in a new way; by restricting himself, he opened up new horizons, growing even closer to a world he thought he already knew so well. The Year of Sitting Dangerously is a wonderfully evocative read; it inspires the reader to pay closer attention to the marvels that surround us all, and is packed with handy tips to help bring nature even closer to us.
Download or read book How to Be a Bad Birdwatcher written by Simon Barnes and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2011-11-03 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE BESTSELLING BIRDWATCHING CLASSIC - 20TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION 'A delightful ode to the wild world outside the kitchen window - leaves you with the warm feeling that a shared love conquers all.' The Daily Telegraph 'A witty, perceptive book; thoughtful, instructive and full of simple wisdom.' The Daily Mail Look out the window. See a bird. Enjoy it. CONGRATULATIONS! You are now a bad birdwatcher. Anyone who has ever gazed up at the sky or stared out of the window knows something about birds. In this fun, eye-opening and inspiring book, award-winning nature writer Simon Barnes paints a riveting picture of how birdwatching has framed his life and can help us all to a better understanding of our place on this planet. How to be a Bad Birdwatcher shows why birdwatching is not the preserve of twitchers, but one of the simplest, cheapest and most rewarding pastimes around.
Download or read book Beauty Queen written by Julia London and published by Julia London. This book was released on 2011-07-09 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Menewood written by Nicola Griffith and published by MCD. This book was released on 2023-10-03 with total page 469 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Named a Best Book of the Year by Vox and Autostraddle Making a much-anticipated return to the world of Hild, Nicola Griffith’s Menewood transports readers back to seventh-century Britain, a land of rival kings and religions poised for epochal change. Hild is no longer the bright child who made a place in Edwin Overking’s court with her seemingly supernatural insight. She is eighteen, honed and tested, the formidable lady of Elmet, now building her personal stronghold in the valley of Menewood. But old alliances are fraying. Younger rivals are snapping at Edwin’s heels. War is brewing—bitter war, winter war. Not knowing whom to trust, Edwin becomes volatile and recalls his young advisor to court. There Hild begins to understand the true extent of the chaos ahead—and realizes she must find a way to navigate the turbulence and fight to protect both the kingdom and her own people. She will face the losses and devastation of total war, and then must summon the determination to forge a radically different path for herself and her people. In the valley, her last redoubt, Hild draws strength from the fierce joy she finds in the natural world, as, slowly, her community takes root. She trains herself and her unexpected allies in new ways of thinking, learning what it means to gather and wield true power. And she prepares for one last wager: risking all on a single throw for a better future. In the last decade, Hild has become a beloved classic of epic storytelling. Menewood exceeds it in every way.
Download or read book How to be a Bad Botanist written by Simon Barnes and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2024-04-25 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can you tell a tomato from a grape? Lawn from an oak tree? Then congratulations - you are a botanist. Self-confessed bad birdwatcher Simon Barnes thought he knew nothing about plants. He didn't object to them: trees are interesting, because birds perch in them; plants are useful as they create habitats and birds live in habitats. But while admiring the tenacity of some sea kale and yellow-horned poppy to thrive on an inhospitable shingle beach, he was struck by a truth - it all begins with plants. In this funny and inspiring book, Simon Barnes tells the story of a lifelong relationship with plants, and the realisation of the fact. Taking us from thinking ourselves ignorant about plants, to gently starting to observe seasons, patterns and places, Barnes guides us on a journey to better observing the beauty and diversity of the natural world. Both a primer on how to appreciate the plants around us and an exploration on how they make our external and interior worlds, How to be a Bad Botanist opens our eyes to the wonders around us. Plants are everywhere, in every part of your life, and you know more than you think.
Download or read book There Can Only Be Six written by Andrea Levesque and published by White Willow Press INC.. This book was released on 2021-08-02 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fire. An expulsion. A new life built on a lie. When Harper Fontaine is wrongly accused of burning down her school gym and expelled from school, Harper is forced to leave behind her life in New York City and move into her father’s mansion in the wealthy town of Newport, Rhode Island. Here, she quickly discovers the small town likes to keep secrets of its own. Invited to join a secret society known as The Order of Six, Harper soon realizes if she wants to survive, she must first pass the trials. With the backup of new friends, including the alluring bad girl next door, Harper begins to get a glimpse into the dark history of the seaside town. This tight-knit community harbors secrets better left uncovered and the more she learns, the more unsettled Harper becomes. As the pretty façade falls away, The Order’s true intentions become clearer, leaving her to come to terms with her family’s past, dark secrets long since buried, and to realize the true danger she’s in—before it’s too late.
Download or read book Annual Report of the State Board of Health of the State of Ohio for the Year Ending written by Ohio. State Board of Health and published by . This book was released on 1887 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: