Download or read book Notes on Grief written by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2021-05-11 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the globally acclaimed, best-selling novelist and author of We Should All Be Feminists, a timely and deeply personal account of the loss of her father: “With raw eloquence, Notes on Grief … captures the bewildering messiness of loss in a society that requires serenity, when you’d rather just scream. Grief is impolite ... Adichie’s words put welcome, authentic voice to this most universal of emotions, which is also one of the most universally avoided” (The Washington Post). Notes on Grief is an exquisite work of meditation, remembrance, and hope, written in the wake of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's beloved father’s death in the summer of 2020. As the COVID-19 pandemic raged around the world, and kept Adichie and her family members separated from one another, her father succumbed unexpectedly to complications of kidney failure. Expanding on her original New Yorker piece, Adichie shares how this loss shook her to her core. She writes about being one of the millions of people grieving this year; about the familial and cultural dimensions of grief and also about the loneliness and anger that are unavoidable in it. With signature precision of language, and glittering, devastating detail on the page—and never without touches of rich, honest humor—Adichie weaves together her own experience of her father’s death with threads of his life story, from his remarkable survival during the Biafran war, through a long career as a statistics professor, into the days of the pandemic in which he’d stay connected with his children and grandchildren over video chat from the family home in Abba, Nigeria. In the compact format of We Should All Be Feminists and Dear Ijeawele, Adichie delivers a gem of a book—a book that fundamentally connects us to one another as it probes one of the most universal human experiences. Notes on Grief is a book for this moment—a work readers will treasure and share now more than ever—and yet will prove durable and timeless, an indispensable addition to Adichie's canon.

Download or read book Heads in Beds written by Jacob Tomsky and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2012-11-20 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the tradition of Kitchen Confidential and Waiter Rant, a rollicking, eye-opening, fantastically indiscreet memoir of a life spent (and misspent) in the hotel industry. “Highly amusing."—New York Times Jacob Tomsky never intended to go into the hotel business. As a new college graduate, armed only with a philosophy degree and a singular lack of career direction, he became a valet parker for a large luxury hotel in New Orleans. Yet, rising fast through the ranks, he ended up working in “hospitality” for more than a decade, doing everything from supervising the housekeeping department to manning the front desk at an upscale Manhattan hotel. He’s checked you in, checked you out, separated your white panties from the white bed sheets, parked your car, tasted your room-service meals, cleaned your toilet, denied you a late checkout, given you a wake-up call, eaten M&Ms out of your minibar, laughed at your jokes, and taken your money. In Heads in Beds he pulls back the curtain to expose the crazy and compelling reality of a multi-billion-dollar industry we think we know. Heads in Beds is a funny, authentic, and irreverent chronicle of the highs and lows of hotel life, told by a keenly observant insider who’s seen it all. Prepare to be amused, shocked, and amazed as he spills the unwritten code of the bellhops, the antics that go on in the valet parking garage, the housekeeping department’s dirty little secrets—not to mention the shameless activities of the guests, who are rarely on their best behavior. Prepare to be moved, too, by his candor about what it’s like to toil in a highly demanding service industry at the luxury level, where people expect to get what they pay for (and often a whole lot more). Employees are poorly paid and frequently abused by coworkers and guests alike, and maintaining a semblance of sanity is a daily challenge. Along his journey Tomsky also reveals the secrets of the industry, offering easy ways to get what you need from your hotel without any hassle. This book (and a timely proffered twenty-dollar bill) will help you score late checkouts and upgrades, get free stuff galore, and make that pay-per-view charge magically disappear. Thanks to him you’ll know how to get the very best service from any business that makes its money from putting heads in beds. Or, at the very least, you will keep the bellmen from taking your luggage into the camera-free back office and bashing it against the wall repeatedly.

Download or read book The Pull of the Stars written by Emma Donoghue and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2020-07-21 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Dublin, 1918, a maternity ward at the height of the Great Flu is a small world of work, risk, death, and unlooked-for love, in "Donoghue's best novel since Room" (Kirkus Reviews). In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city center, where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new Flu are quarantined together. Into Julia's regimented world step two outsiders—Doctor Kathleen Lynn, a rumoured Rebel on the run from the police, and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney. In the darkness and intensity of this tiny ward, over three days, these women change each other's lives in unexpected ways. They lose patients to this baffling pandemic, but they also shepherd new life into a fearful world. With tireless tenderness and humanity, carers and mothers alike somehow do their impossible work. In The Pull of the Stars, Emma Donoghue once again finds the light in the darkness in this new classic of hope and survival against all odds.

Download or read book The Myth of Closure Ambiguous Loss in a Time of Pandemic and Change written by Pauline Boss and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2021-12-14 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do we begin to cope with loss that cannot be resolved? The COVID-19 pandemic has left many of us haunted by feelings of anxiety, despair, and even anger. In this book, pioneering therapist Pauline Boss identifies these vague feelings of distress as caused by ambiguous loss, losses that remain unclear and hard to pin down, and thus have no closure. Collectively the world is grieving as the pandemic continues to change our everyday lives. With a loss of trust in the world as a safe place, a loss of certainty about health care, education, employment, lingering anxieties plague many of us, even as parts of the world are opening back up again. Yet after so much loss, our search must be for a sense of meaning, and not something as elusive and impossible as "closure." This book provides many strategies for coping: encouraging us to increase our tolerance of ambiguity and acknowledging our resilience as we express a normal grief, and still look to the future with hope and possibility.

Download or read book The Routledge Companion to Literatures and Crisis written by Silvia Pellicer-Ortín and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-10-22 with total page 689 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge Companion to Literatures and Crisis provides deep insight into a complex and multi-layered phenomenon. The third decade of the twenty-first century is being marked by a polycrisis caused by various world crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, armed conflicts and climate change leading to economic, geopolitical, environmental, health and security crises. Featuring 42 chapters, the collection examines crises through literary texts in relation to the environment, finance, migration and diaspora, war, human rights, values and identity, health, politics, terrorism and technology. It illuminates the many faces of the current permacrisis as well as the multifarious crises of the past and their representation in literatures across ages and cultures—from the Viking wars, Black Death in mediaeval Europe, technology in ancient China and the crisis of power in Elizabethan England to imperial biopower in nineteenth-century India, the genocides in the twentieth century, upsurge of domestic violence during the Covid lockdown in Spain and the development of AI. The Companion connects diverse cultures, disciplines and academic traditions to show how and why literature, media and art can voice all types of crises across times. It will be a key resource for students and researchers in a broad range of areas including literature, film studies, narrative studies, cultural studies, international politics and ecocriticism. Chapters: Chapter 6 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license.

Download or read book Strong Girl Brave Girl written by Kelsey Baldwin and published by Paper + Oats, LLC. This book was released on 2018-09-14 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When life-changing pain is coupled with the welcoming of a new story for yourself, the word bittersweet just doesn't do it justice. You are quite literally in the middle - anchored between where you thought you were headed and where you're going now. In that uncertain middle space is where this story takes place, and maybe where you find yourself, too. The life Kelsey Baldwin had imagined for herself, the one she was right in the middle of, quickly crumbled around her on a single day as she was faced with a looming divorce while staring at a positive pregnancy test. It wasn't the way it was supposed to go. With each uncertain transition she went through - divorce, pregnancy, giving birth, moving cities, dating, raising a child without a partner - she clung to what she knew for sure: she was a strong girl and a brave girl, and the middle was not the ending. (Spoiler: that's why it's called the middle.)My story might look really different than yours, but I'm willing to bet you find threads from my messy middle that are also woven into yours.

Download or read book Vic Lee s Corona Diary written by Vic Lee and published by Frances Lincoln. This book was released on 2021-01-12 with total page 91 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vic Lee's Corona Diary is an exquisitely illustrated graphic novel-style memoir chronicling the dramatic events around the global spread of the coronavirus.

Download or read book Dog Songs written by Mary Oliver and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2021-03-25 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'The popularity of [Dog Songs] feels as inevitable and welcome as a wagging tail upon homecoming' Boston Globe In Dog Songs, Mary Oliver celebrates the special bond between human and dog, as understood through her connection to the dogs who across the years accompanied her on her daily walks, warmed her home and inspired her work. The poems in Dog Songs begin in the small everyday moments familiar to all dog lovers and become, through her extraordinary vision, meditations on the world and our place in it. Dog Songs includes visits with old friends, like Oliver's most beloved dog Percy, and introduces still others in poems of love and laughter, heartbreak and grief. Throughout, the many dogs of Oliver's life merge as fellow travelers and as guides, uniquely able to open our eyes to the lessons of the moment and the joys of nature and connection.

Download or read book Wonderful Women of the World written by Laurie Halse Anderson and published by DC Comics. This book was released on 2021-09-28 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Not all heroes wear capes! Wonder Woman has been an inspiration for decades, and while not everyone would choose her star-spangled outfit for themselves, her compassion and fairness are worthy of emulation. This book presents tales of the real-world heroes who take up Diana’s mantle and work in the fields of science, sports, activism, diplomacy, and more! New York Times bestselling author Laurie Halse Anderson brings together an all-star cast of authors and illustrators in this anthology of contemporary Wonder Women-and how they’ve changed our world.

Download or read book Parent Burnout written by Joseph Procaccini and published by Signet Book. This book was released on 1984 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Dr Fauci written by Kate Messner and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-06-29 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive picture book biography of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and one of the most crucial figures in the COVID-19 pandemic. Before he was Dr. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci was a curious boy in Brooklyn, delivering prescriptions from his father’s pharmacy on his blue Schwinn bicycle. His father and immigrant grandfather taught Anthony to ask questions, consider all the data, and never give up—and Anthony’s ability to stay curious and to communicate with people would serve him his entire life. This engaging narrative, which draws from interviews the author did with Dr. Fauci himself, follows Anthony from his Brooklyn beginnings through medical school and his challenging role working with seven US presidents to tackle some of the biggest public health challenges of the past fifty years, including the COVID-19 pandemic. Extensive backmatter rounds out Dr. Fauci’s story with a timeline, recommended reading, a full spread of facts about vaccines and how they work, and Dr. Fauci’s own tips for future scientists.

Download or read book Ambiguous Loss written by Pauline BOSS and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When a loved one dies we mourn our loss. We take comfort in the rituals that mark the passing, and we turn to those around us for support. But what happens when there is no closure, when a family member or a friend who may be still alive is lost to us nonetheless? How, for example, does the mother whose soldier son is missing in action, or the family of an Alzheimer's patient who is suffering from severe dementia, deal with the uncertainty surrounding this kind of loss? In this sensitive and lucid account, Pauline Boss explains that, all too often, those confronted with such ambiguous loss fluctuate between hope and hopelessness. Suffered too long, these emotions can deaden feeling and make it impossible for people to move on with their lives. Yet the central message of this book is that they can move on. Drawing on her research and clinical experience, Boss suggests strategies that can cushion the pain and help families come to terms with their grief. Her work features the heartening narratives of those who cope with ambiguous loss and manage to leave their sadness behind, including those who have lost family members to divorce, immigration, adoption, chronic mental illness, and brain injury. With its message of hope, this eloquent book offers guidance and understanding to those struggling to regain their lives. Table of Contents: 1. Frozen Grief 2. Leaving without Goodbye 3. Goodbye without Leaving 4. Mixed Emotions 5. Ups and Downs 6. The Family Gamble 7. The Turning Point 8. Making Sense out of Ambiguity 9. The Benefit of a Doubt Notes Acknowledgments Reviews of this book: You will find yourself thinking about the issues discussed in this book long after you put it down and perhaps wishing you had extra copies for friends and family members who might benefit from knowing that their sorrows are not unique...This book's value lies in its giving a name to a force many of us will confront--sadly, more than once--and providing personal stories based on 20 years of interviews and research. --Pamela Gerhardt, Washington Post Reviews of this book: A compassionate exploration of the effects of ambiguous loss and how those experiencing it handle this most devastating of losses ... Boss's approach is to encourage families to talk together, to reach a consensus about how to mourn that which has been lost and how to celebrate that which remains. Her simple stories of families doing just that contain lessons for all. Insightful, practical, and refreshingly free of psychobabble. --Kirkus Review Reviews of this book: Engagingly written and richly rewarding, this title presents what Boss has learned from many years of treating individuals and families suffering from uncertain or incomplete loss...The obvious depth of the author's understanding of sufferers of ambiguous loss and the facility with which she communicates that understanding make this a book to be recommended. --R. R. Cornellius, Choice Reviews of this book: Written for a wide readership, the concepts of ambiguous loss take immediate form through the many provocative examples and stories Boss includes, All readers will find stories with which they will relate...Sensitive, grounded and practical, this book should, in my estimation, be required reading for family practitioners. --Ted Bowman, Family Forum Reviews of this book: Dr. Boss describes [the] all-too-common phenomenon [of unresolved grief] as resulting from either of two circumstances: when the lost person is still physically present but emotionally absent or when the lost person is physically absent but still emotionally present. In addition to senility, physical presence but psychological absence may result, for example, when a person is suffering from a serious mental disorder like schizophrenia or depression or debilitating neurological damage from an accident or severe stroke, when a person abuses drugs or alcohol, when a child is autistic or when a spouse is a workaholic who is not really 'there' even when he or she is at home...Cases of physical absence with continuing psychological presence typically occur when a soldier is missing in action, when a child disappears and is not found, when a former lover or spouse is still very much missed, when a child 'loses' a parent to divorce or when people are separated from their loved ones by immigration...Professionals familiar with Dr. Boss's work emphasised that people suffering from ambiguous loss were not mentally ill, but were just stuck and needed help getting past the barrier or unresolved grief so that they could get on with their lives. --Asian Age Combining her talents as a compassionate family therapist and a creative researcher, Pauline Boss eloquently shows the many and complex ways that people can cope with the inevitable losses in contemporary family life. A wise book, and certain to become a classic. --Constance R. Ahrons, author of The Good Divorce A powerful and healing book. Families experiencing ambiguous loss will find strategies for seeing what aspects of their loved ones remain, and for understanding and grieving what they have lost. Pauline Boss offers us both insight and clarity. --Kathy Weingarten, Ph.D, The Family Institute of Cambridge, Harvard Medical School

Download or read book The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report written by Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and published by Cosimo, Inc.. This book was released on 2011-05-01 with total page 692 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report, published by the U.S. Government and the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in early 2011, is the official government report on the United States financial collapse and the review of major financial institutions that bankrupted and failed, or would have without help from the government. The commission and the report were implemented after Congress passed an act in 2009 to review and prevent fraudulent activity. The report details, among other things, the periods before, during, and after the crisis, what led up to it, and analyses of subprime mortgage lending, credit expansion and banking policies, the collapse of companies like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the federal bailouts of Lehman and AIG. It also discusses the aftermath of the fallout and our current state. This report should be of interest to anyone concerned about the financial situation in the U.S. and around the world.THE FINANCIAL CRISIS INQUIRY COMMISSION is an independent, bi-partisan, government-appointed panel of 10 people that was created to "examine the causes, domestic and global, of the current financial and economic crisis in the United States." It was established as part of the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009. The commission consisted of private citizens with expertise in economics and finance, banking, housing, market regulation, and consumer protection. They examined and reported on "the collapse of major financial institutions that failed or would have failed if not for exceptional assistance from the government."News Dissector DANNY SCHECHTER is a journalist, blogger and filmmaker. He has been reporting on economic crises since the 1980's when he was with ABC News. His film In Debt We Trust warned of the economic meltdown in 2006. He has since written three books on the subject including Plunder: Investigating Our Economic Calamity (Cosimo Books, 2008), and The Crime Of Our Time: Why Wall Street Is Not Too Big to Jail (Disinfo Books, 2011), a companion to his latest film Plunder The Crime Of Our Time. He can be reached online at www.newsdissector.com.

Download or read book The Post Birthday World written by Lionel Shriver and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-03-17 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Complex and nervy, Shriver’s clever meditation will intrigue anyone who has ever wondered how things might have turned out had they followed, or ignored, a life-changing impulse.” — People (Critic's Choice) This dazzling novel from the Orange Prize–winning author of the international bestseller We Need to Talk About Kevin takes a psychological and deeply human look at love and volition Does the course of life hinge on a single kiss? Whether the American expatriate Irena McGovern does or doesn’t lean into a certain pair of lips in London will determine whether she stays with her smart, disciplined, intellectual American partner Lawrence, or runs off with Ramsey—a wild, exuberant British snooker star the couple has known for years. Employing a parallel-universe structure, Shriver follows Irena’s life as it unfolds under the influence of two drastically different men. In a tour de force that, remarkably, has no villains, Shriver explores the implications, both large and small, of our choice of mate—a subject of timeless, universal fascination for both sexes.

Download or read book The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020 written by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2020-07-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Updates for many countries have made it possible to estimate hunger in the world with greater accuracy this year. In particular, newly accessible data enabled the revision of the entire series of undernourishment estimates for China back to 2000, resulting in a substantial downward shift of the series of the number of undernourished in the world. Nevertheless, the revision confirms the trend reported in past editions: the number of people affected by hunger globally has been slowly on the rise since 2014. The report also shows that the burden of malnutrition in all its forms continues to be a challenge. There has been some progress for child stunting, low birthweight and exclusive breastfeeding, but at a pace that is still too slow. Childhood overweight is not improving and adult obesity is on the rise in all regions. The report complements the usual assessment of food security and nutrition with projections of what the world may look like in 2030, if trends of the last decade continue. Projections show that the world is not on track to achieve Zero Hunger by 2030 and, despite some progress, most indicators are also not on track to meet global nutrition targets. The food security and nutritional status of the most vulnerable population groups is likely to deteriorate further due to the health and socio economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The report puts a spotlight on diet quality as a critical link between food security and nutrition. Meeting SDG 2 targets will only be possible if people have enough food to eat and if what they are eating is nutritious and affordable. The report also introduces new analysis of the cost and affordability of healthy diets around the world, by region and in different development contexts. It presents valuations of the health and climate-change costs associated with current food consumption patterns, as well as the potential cost savings if food consumption patterns were to shift towards healthy diets that include sustainability considerations. The report then concludes with a discussion of the policies and strategies to transform food systems to ensure affordable healthy diets, as part of the required efforts to end both hunger and all forms of malnutrition.

Download or read book The Human Capital Index 2020 Update written by World Bank and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2021-05-05 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Human capital—the knowledge, skills, and health that people accumulate over their lives—is a central driver of sustainable growth, poverty reduction, and successful societies. More human capital is associated with higher earnings for people, higher income for countries, and stronger cohesion in societies. Much of the hard-won human capital gains in many economies over the past decade is at risk of being eroded by the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic. Urgent action is needed to protect these advances, particularly among the poor and vulnerable. Designing the needed interventions, targeting them to achieve the highest effectiveness, and navigating difficult trade-offs make investing in better measurement of human capital now more important than ever. The Human Capital Index (HCI)—launched in 2018 as part of the Human Capital Project—is an international metric that benchmarks the key components of human capital across economies. The HCI is a global effort to accelerate progress toward a world where all children can achieve their full potential. Measuring the human capital that children born today can expect to attain by their 18th birthdays, the HCI highlights how current health and education outcomes shape the productivity of the next generation of workers and underscores the importance of government and societal investments in human capital. The Human Capital Index 2020 Update: Human Capital in the Time of COVID-19 presents the first update of the HCI, using health and education data available as of March 2020. It documents new evidence on trends, examples of successes, and analytical work on the utilization of human capital. The new data—collected before the global onset of COVID-19—can act as a baseline to track its effects on health and education outcomes. The report highlights how better measurement is essential for policy makers to design effective interventions and target support. In the immediate term, investments in better measurement and data use will guide pandemic containment strategies and support for those who are most affected. In the medium term, better curation and use of administrative, survey, and identification data can guide policy choices in an environment of limited fiscal space and competing priorities. In the longer term, the hope is that economies will be able to do more than simply recover lost ground. Ambitious, evidence-driven policy measures in health, education, and social protection can pave the way for today’s children to surpass the human capital achievements and quality of life of the generations that preceded them.

Download or read book Years Don t Wait for Them written by Bede Sheppard and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Covid-19 pandemic disrupted the education of an estimated 90 percent of the world's school-aged children. [This report] is based on over 470 interviews with students, parents, and teachers in 60 countries between April 2020 and April 2021. It documents how Covid-related school closures did not affect all children equally, as governments failed to provide all children with the opportunity, tools, or access needed to keep learning during the pandemic. Students from groups already facing discrimination and exclusion from education even before the pandemic were disproportionately adversely affected. Governments' long-term failures to remedy discrimination and inequalities in their education systems, and often to ensure basic government services, such as affordable, reliable electricity in homes, or facilitate affordable internet access, meant schools entered the pandemic ill-prepared to deliver remote education to all students equally. Children from low-income families were more likely to be excluded from online learning because they did not have reliable electricity or sufficient access to the internet or devices. Historically under-resourced schools particularly struggled to reach their students."--Page 4 of cover.