Download or read book We Are Attempting to Survive Our Time written by A. L. Kennedy and published by Arrow. This book was released on 2021-04 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book I Know This Much Is True written by Wally Lamb and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1998-06-03 with total page 884 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With his stunning debut novel, She's Come Undone, Wally Lamb won the adulation of critics and readers with his mesmerizing tale of one woman's painful yet triumphant journey of self-discovery. Now, this brilliantly talented writer returns with I Know This Much Is True, a heartbreaking and poignant multigenerational saga of the reproductive bonds of destruction and the powerful force of forgiveness. A masterpiece that breathtakingly tells a story of alienation and connection, power and abuse, devastation and renewal--this novel is a contemporary retelling of an ancient Hindu myth. A proud king must confront his demons to achieve salvation. Change yourself, the myth instructs, and you will inhabit a renovated world. When you're the same brother of a schizophrenic identical twin, the tricky thing about saving yourself is the blood it leaves on your bands--the little inconvenience of the look-alike corpse at your feet. And if you're into both survival of the fittest and being your brother's keeper--if you've promised your dying mother--then say so long to sleep and hello to the middle of the night. Grab a book or a beer. Get used to Letterman's gap-toothed smile of the absurd, or the view of the bedroom ceiling, or the influence of random selection. Take it from a godless insomniac. Take it from the uncrazy twin--the guy who beat the biochemical rap. Dominick Birdsey's entire life has been compromised and constricted by anger and fear, by the paranoid schizophrenic twin brother he both deeply loves and resents, and by the past they shared with their adoptive father, Ray, a spit-and-polish ex-Navy man (the five-foot-six-inch sleeping giant who snoozed upstairs weekdays in the spare room and built submarines at night), and their long-suffering mother, Concettina, a timid woman with a harelip that made her shy and self-conscious: She holds a loose fist to her face to cover her defective mouth--her perpetual apology to the world for a birth defect over which she'd had no control. Born in the waning moments of 1949 and the opening minutes of 1950, the twins are physical mirror images who grow into separate yet connected entities: the seemingly strong and protective yet fearful Dominick, his mother's watchful "monkey"; and the seemingly weak and sweet yet noble Thomas, his mother's gentle "bunny." From childhood, Dominick fights for both separation and wholeness--and ultimately self-protection--in a house of fear dominated by Ray, a bully who abuses his power over these stepsons whose biological father is a mystery. I was still afraid of his anger but saw how he punished weakness--pounced on it. Out of self-preservation I hid my fear, Dominick confesses. As for Thomas, he just never knew how to play defense. He just didn't get it. But Dominick's talent for survival comes at an enormous cost, including the breakup of his marriage to the warm, beautiful Dessa, whom he still loves. And it will be put to the ultimate test when Thomas, a Bible-spouting zealot, commits an unthinkable act that threatens the tenuous balance of both his and Dominick's lives. To save himself, Dominick must confront not only the pain of his past but the dark secrets he has locked deep within himself, and the sins of his ancestors--a quest that will lead him beyond the confines of his blue-collar New England town to the volcanic foothills of Sicily 's Mount Etna, where his ambitious and vengefully proud grandfather and a namesake Domenico Tempesta, the sostegno del famiglia, was born. Each of the stories Ma told us about Papa reinforced the message that he was the boss, that he ruled the roost, that what he said went. Searching for answers, Dominick turns to the whispers of the dead, to the pages of his grandfather's handwritten memoir, The History of Domenico Onofrio Tempesta, a Great Man from Humble Beginnings. Rendered with touches of magic realism, Domenico's fablelike tale--in which monkeys enchant and religious statues weep--becomes the old man's confession--an unwitting legacy of contrition that reveals the truth's of Domenico's life, Dominick learns that power, wrongly used, defeats the oppressor as well as the oppressed, and now, picking through the humble shards of his deconstructed life, he will search for the courage and love to forgive, to expiate his and his ancestors' transgressions, and finally to rebuild himself beyond the haunted shadow of his twin. Set against the vivid panoply of twentieth-century America and filled with richly drawn, memorable characters, this deeply moving and thoroughly satisfying novel brings to light humanity's deepest needs and fears, our aloneness, our desire for love and acceptance, our struggle to survive at all costs. Joyous, mystical, and exquisitely written, I Know This Much Is True is an extraordinary reading experience that will leave no reader untouched.

Download or read book Never Say You Can t Survive written by Charlie Jane Anders and published by Tordotcom. This book was released on 2021-08-17 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE 2022 HUGO AWARD FOR BEST RELATED WORK From Charlie Jane Anders, the award-winning author of novels such as All the Birds in the Sky and The City in the Middle of the Night, this is one of the most practical guides to storytelling that you will ever read. The world is on fire. So tell your story. Things are scary right now. We’re all being swept along by a tidal wave of history, and it’s easy to feel helpless. But we’re not helpless: we have minds, and imaginations, and the ability to visualize other worlds and valiant struggles. And writing can be an act of resistance that reminds us that other futures and other ways of living are possible. Full of memoir, personal anecdote, and insight about how to flourish during the present emergency, Never Say You Can’t Survive is the perfect manual for creativity in unprecedented times. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Download or read book Modern Astronomy written by Lisa Yount and published by Infobase Publishing. This book was released on 2006 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Illuminates the lives and achievements of 12 innovative scientists whose research and work in new technologies brought about a revolution in the understanding of time and space during the 20th century.

Download or read book Music A Social Experience written by Steven Cornelius and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-01-31 with total page 731 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By taking a thematic approach to the study of music appreciation, Music: A Social Experience, Third Edition demonstrates how music reflects and deepens both individual and cultural understandings. Musical examples are presented within universally experienced social frameworks (ethnicity, gender, spirituality, love, and more) to help students understand how music reflects and advances human experience. Students engage with multiple genres (Western art music, popular music, and world music) through lively narratives and innovative activities. A companion website features streaming audio and instructors' resources. The third edition includes: A chapter on Black American music A revised and developed chapter on gender and sexuality A dozen additional Listening Guides, with an emphasis on contemporary popular music Over 100 new full-color images Updated teacher and student resources on the book’s companion website Expanded content throughout, highlighting the social, cultural, and technological changes since publication of the previous edition The culmination of thirty years of experimentation in the music appreciation classroom, this third edition of Music: A Social Experience continues to empower lifelong musical learning by engaging students and readers on their own terms.

Download or read book The Word for Woman Is Wilderness written by Abi Andrews and published by Two Dollar Radio. This book was released on 2019-03-19 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE OFFICIAL NORTH AMERICAN EDITION "Beguiling, audacious... rises to its own challenges in engaging intellectually as well as wholeheartedly with its questions about gender, genre and the concept of wilderness. The novel displays wide reading, clever writing and amusing dialogue." —The Guardian This is a new kind of nature writing — one that crosses fiction with science writing and puts gender politics at the center of the landscape. Erin, a 19-year-old girl from middle England, is travelling to Alaska on a journey that takes her through Iceland, Greenland, and across Canada. She is making a documentary about how men are allowed to express this kind of individualism and personal freedom more than women are, based on masculinist ideas of survivalism and the shunning of society: the “Mountain Man.” She plans to culminate her journey with an experiment: living in a cabin in the Alaskan wilderness, a la Thoreau, to explore it from a feminist perspective. The book is a fictional time capsule curated by Erin, comprising of personal narrative, fact, anecdote, images and maps, on subjects as diverse as The Golden Records, Voyager 1, the moon landings, the appropriation of Native land and culture, Rachel Carson, The Order of The Dolphin, The Doomsday Clock, Ted Kaczynski, Valentina Tereshkova, Jack London, Thoreau, Darwin, Nuclear war, The Letters of Last Resort and the pill, amongst many other topics. "Refreshingly outward-looking in a literary culture that turns ever inward to the self, although it still has profound moments of introspection. Uplifting, with a thirsty curiosity, the writing is playful and exuberant. Riffing on feminist ideas but unlimited in scope, Andrews focuses our attention on our beautiful, doomed planet, and the astonishing things we have yet to discover." —Ruth McKee, The Irish Times

Download or read book Voyager s Greatest Hits written by Alexandra Siy and published by Charlesbridge Publishing. This book was released on 2017-06-13 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It has been over forty years since the Voyager mission sent the twin space probes into space. They traveled to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune and now they journey beyond our solar system into interstellar space, where no probe has ventured before. Learn the fascinating story of the scientists, how the Voyager probes work, where the probes have been and what they’ve seen, and what they carry on board—including the Golden Record, a recording of sounds and images about life on Earth. Critically acclaimed science writer Alexandra Siy chronicles the ongoing saga of the Voyagers in a lively story full of nail-biting moments, inspiring scientists, and incredible NASA images. An engaging and captivating STEM title that deserves a place in most libraries—School Library Journal STARRED REVIEW A lively, informative, and inspiring story of space exploration—Kirkus Reviews A timely introduction to the Voyager mission—Booklist It's an engaging and readily accessible account of a remarkable—and ongoing—scientific success story—Publisher's Weekly Chicago Public Library’s 2017 Best of the Best Books selection

Download or read book Milestones of Space written by Curators of the National Air and Space Museum and published by Zenith Press. This book was released on 2014-05-15 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Milestones of Space, Michael Neufeld and select curators of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum present a gorgeous illustrated celebration of the groundbreaking spacecraft that gave humanity its first steps into the cosmos.

Download or read book Harpoon written by Andrew Darby and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 2009-04-13 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one-hundred-fifty-ton barnacled Blues to the sleek, embattled Minke, whales have been hunted worldwide to near extinction. Despite efforts to halt the killing, the future of these majestic mammals-known as “mind in the water”-is again in jeopardy. With passion and engaging detail, Andrew Darby profiles each species of whale and its place in this great drama. From the wooden harpoons of aboriginals in “cockleshell” vessels, to the high-tech killing machines of today's lawless Russian whalers and smooth-talking Japanese “scientific” crews, Darby chronicles the evolving pursuit of whales and its significance to our humanity. Fans of well-written history, as well as those fascinated by whales and the fierce international conflict surrounding them, will be swept into the very heart of whaling.

Download or read book The United States of Awesome written by Josh Miller and published by Ulysses Press. This book was released on 2012-12-25 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a collection of facts and trivia about the United States, from the names of George Washington's dogs to Robert E. Lee's presidential pardon over one hundred years after his death.

Download or read book Pregnant Pictures written by Sandra Matthews and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2000-07-26 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this dazzling collection of over 200 photos of pregnant women taken from art libraries, childbirth manuals, maternity ads, contemporary art, and personal albums, the authors explore the paradox between image and reality. The photos illuminate how society creates feminine roles through the institution of pregnancy-and how women resist such roles.

Download or read book The English is Coming written by Leslie Dunton-Downer and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-09-14 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: English has fast become the number one language for everything from business and science, diplomacy and education, entertainment and environmentalism to socializing and beyond—virtually any human activity unfolding on a global scale. Worldwide, nonnative speakers of English now outnumber natives three to one; and in China alone, more people use English than in the United States—a remarkable feat for a language that got its start as a mongrel tongue on an island fifteen hundred years ago. Through the fascinating stories of thirty English words used and understood in nearly all corners of the globe, The English Is Coming! takes readers on an eye-opening journey across culture and commerce, war and peace, and time and space. These mini-histories shed new light on everyday words: the strange turns of fate by which their meanings evolved and their new roles as the building blocks of the first language ever to forge a global community. Exploring such familiar terms as shampoo (from a Hindi word for scalp and body hygiene long practiced in India); robot (coined by Czech painter Josef Capek for his brother Karel’s 1921 play about man-made creatures); credit (rooted in a prehistoric phrase of sacred significance: "to put heart into"); and dozens of others, Dunton-Downer reveals with clarity and humor how these linguistic artifacts embody the resilience, appeal, adoptability, and wild inclusiveness that English, through a series of historical accidents, gained on its road to worldwide reach. These words explain not only how English has managed to link our distant and often disparate pasts but also how it is propelling humankind to a future that we can, for the first time, talk about and shape in a language that now belongs to all of us: Global English. Perfect for culture buffs, armchair travelers, and language lovers alike, The English Is Coming! is sure to inspire truly global conversations for decades to come.

Download or read book The Psychology of Stupidity written by Jean-Francois Marmion and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "We need books like this one." --Steven Pinker At last, stupidity explained! And by some of the world's smartest people, among them Daniel Kahneman, Dan Ariely, Alison Gopnik, Howard Gardner, Antonio Damasio, Aaron James, and Ryan Holiday. And so I proclaim, o idiots of every stripe and morons of all kinds, this is your moment of glory: this book speaks only to you. But you will not recognize yourselves... Stupidity is all around us, from the coworker who won't stop hitting "reply all" to the former high school classmate posting conspiracy theories on Facebook. But in order to vanquish it, we must first understand it. In The Psychology of Stupidity, some of the world's leading psychologists and thinkers--including a Nobel Prize winner and bestselling authors--will show you... why smart people sometimes believe in utter nonsense; how our lazy brains cause us to make the wrong decisions; why trying to debate fools is a trap; how media manipulation and Internet overstimulation make us dumber; why the stupidest people don't think they're stupid. The wisdom and wit of these experts are a balm for our aggrieved souls and a beacon of hope in a world of morons.

Download or read book Beyond the Score written by Nicholas Cook and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Beyond the Score: Music as Performance, author Nicholas Cook supplants the traditional musicological notion of music as writing, asserting instead that it is as performance that music is loved, understood, and consumed. This book reconceives music as an activity through which meaning is generated in real time, as Cook rethinks familiar assumptions and develops new approaches. Focusing primarily but not exclusively on the Western 'art' tradition, Cook explores perspectives that range from close listening to computational analysis, from ethnography to the study of recordings, and from the social relations constructed through performance to the performing (and listening) body. In doing so, he reveals not only that the notion of music as text has hampered academic understanding of music, but also that it has inhibited performance practices, placing them in a textualist straightjacket. Beyond the Score has a strong historical emphasis, touching on broad developments in twentieth-century performance style and setting them into their larger cultural context. Cook also investigates the relationship between recordings and performance, arguing that we do not experience recordings as mere reproductions of a performance but as performances in their own right. Beyond the Score is a comprehensive exploration of new approaches and methods for the study of music as performance, and will be an invaluable addition to the libraries of music scholars-including musicologists, music theorists, and music cognition scholars-everywhere.

Download or read book Earth the Musical written by Jan St. Louis and published by Dog Ear Publishing. This book was released on 2009-10 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A romantic comedy science fiction reality-questioning adventure musical in 37 acts. Rollie Moon expects nothing more than a full tank of gas when he pulls his Saturn into the Flying J truck stop. Instead, he ends up being conscripted to help the inhabitants of Orion's Belt thwart an invasion by Eridanusans. As much as he resents this uninvited interruption to his life, Rollie falls for Silvie, the alien woman assigned to work with him. Silvie likewise succumbs to Rollie's charms (as well as Earthling consumerism). With cultures literally light years apart and a mission to fulfill, Rollie and Silvie strive to keep their mutual attraction in check. They face a multitude of outside complications as well, including Alfie Omega, a Fornaxian (and thus an Eridanusan henchman) whose goal is to infiltrate the Belters' plans but whose personal interests center around karaoke. Meanwhile, Cash Cracken -- an Alliance hero bitter over being left out of George Lucas' documentaries -- serendipitously lands on Earth. His appearance is fortunate because he has the ability to aid Silvie and Rollie, but unfortunate insofar as Rollie considers him a rival for Silvie's affections. More importantly, Cash knows a secret about Silvie that changes everything. Alas, Rollie must decide whether to let Silvie go for the greater good of the galaxy or do everything within his power to keep her in his life. Of course, Earth itself faces great dangers -- everything from a nanovirus and accelerated decline in its magnetic field to an earlier-than-forecast collision between the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies. Ultimately, it's all about the music.

Download or read book The Little Book of the 1970s written by Orange Hippo! and published by OH. This book was released on 2024-03-14 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The era that taste forgot..." Famous for glam rock, flares and platform shoes, the 1970s also saw the emergence of new ideas, movements and trends that continue to influence our world today. From the Watergate Scandal to the growing feminist and LGBTQ+ movements, the rise of punk and disco, and the release of groundbreaking movies such as Star Wars and Jaws, it was a period marked by brave fashion and innovation, social change and cultural shifts. Packed full of fabulous facts alongside fascinating quotes from the era's movers and shakers, this little book explores the key events, ideas and style that defined this pivotal decade. "I don't think there will be a woman prime minister in my lifetime." Margaret Thatcher, 1973. "If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door." Harvey Milk, a prominent LGBTQ+ rights campaigner who was assassinated in 1978. The iconic Twin Towers – standing 415 metres feet in high and at the time the tallest buildings in the world – were added to the New York skyline in 1973. The "Thrilla in Manila" – perhaps the most famous boxing match of all time in 1975 between Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali. In April 1976, college dropouts Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak – or "the two Steves" – formed Apple Computer, Inc.

Download or read book Cosmosapiens written by John Hands and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2017-10-31 with total page 711 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A critical overview of scientific orthodoxy in an attempt to answer the fundamental questions “what are we?” and “why are we here?” (Kirkus Reviews). Specialist scientific fields are developing at incredibly swift speeds, but what can they really tell us about how the universe began and how we as humans evolved to play such a dominant role on Earth? John Hands’s extraordinarily ambitious book merges scientific knowledge from multiple disciplines and evaluates without bias or preconception all the theories and evidence about the origin and evolution of matter, consciousness, and mankind. The result, a “pearl of dialectical reasoning” (Publishers Weekly, starred review), provides the most comprehensive account yet of current ideas such as cosmic inflation, dark energy, the selfish gene, and neurogenetic determinism. In the clearest possible prose, it differentiates the firmly established from the speculative and examines the claims of various fields to approach a unified theory of everything. In doing so it challenges the orthodox consensus in those branches of cosmology, biology, and neuroscience that have ossified into dogma. Its “shocking and invigorating” analysis (Daily Telegraph, A Best Science Book of 2015) reveals underlying patterns of cooperation, complexification, and convergence that lead to the unique emergence in humans of a self-reflective consciousness that enables us to determine our future evolution. This groundbreaking book is destined to become a classic of scientific thinking. Praise for Cosmosapiens “This is a truly exceptional piece of work.” —Tim Crane, Knightsbridge Professor of Philosophy, The University of Cambridge “A game-changer. In the tradition of Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, this lucidly written, penetrating analysis challenges us to rethink many things we take for granted about ourselves, our society, and our universe. It will become a classic.” —Peter Dreier, E P Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics, Occidental College “Hands is an astute observer of recent trends in scientific ideas bold enough to point out what he sees as sense and nonsense and intelligently explain why. Even in cases where one might disagree, the arguments are thought-provoking.” —Paul Steinhardt, Albert Einstein Professor in Science, Princeton University