Download or read book Elsewhere California written by Dana Johnson and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2012-06-01 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We first met Avery in two of the stories featured in Dana Johnson's award–winning collection Break Any Woman Down. As a young girl, she and her family escape the violent streets of Los Angeles to a more gentrified existence in suburban West Covina. This average life, filled with school, trips to 7–Eleven to gawk at Tiger Beat magazine, and family outings to Dodger Stadium, is soon interrupted by a past she cannot escape, personified in the guise of her violent cousin Keith. When Keith moves in with her family, he triggers a series of events that will follow Avery throughout her life: to her studies at USC, to her burgeoning career as a painter and artist, and into her relationship with a wealthy Italian who sequesters her in his glass–walled house in the Hollywood Hills. The past will intrude upon Avery's first gallery show, proving her mother's adage: Every goodbye aint gone. The dual–narrative of Elsewhere, California illustrates the complicated history of African Americans across the rolling basin of Los Angeles.

Download or read book The Emigrants written by W. G. Sebald and published by New Directions Publishing. This book was released on 2016-11-08 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A masterwork of W. G. Sebald, now with a gorgeous new cover by the famed designer Peter Mendelsund The four long narratives in The Emigrants appear at first to be the straightforward biographies of four Germans in exile. Sebald reconstructs the lives of a painter, a doctor, an elementary-school teacher, and Great Uncle Ambrose. Following (literally) in their footsteps, the narrator retraces routes of exile which lead from Lithuania to London, from Munich to Manchester, from the South German provinces to Switzerland, France, New York, Constantinople, and Jerusalem. Along with memories, documents, and diaries of the Holocaust, he collects photographs—the enigmatic snapshots which stud The Emigrants and bring to mind family photo albums. Sebald combines precise documentary with fictional motifs, and as he puts the question to realism, the four stories merge into one unfathomable requiem.

Download or read book The Friday Night Knitting Club written by Kate Jacobs and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008-01-02 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Once a week, an eclectic group of women comes together at a New York City yarn shop to work on their latest projects—and share the stories of their lives... At the center of Walker and Daughter is the shop’s owner, Georgia, who is overwhelmed with juggling the store and single-handedly raising her teenage daughter. Happy to escape the demands of her life, she looks forward to her Friday Night Knitting Club, where she and her friends—Anita, Peri, Darwin, Lucie, and KC—exchange knitting tips, jokes, and their deepest secrets. But when the man who once broke Georgia’s heart suddenly shows up, demanding a role in their daughter’s life, her world is shattered. Luckily, Georgia’s friends are there for encouragement, sharing their own tales of intimacy, heartbreak, and miracle-making. And when the unthinkable happens, these women will discover that what they’ve created isn’t just a knitting club: it’s a sisterhood.

Download or read book Mary Poppins She Wrote written by Valerie Lawson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-12-03 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of Mary Poppins, the quintessentially English and utterly magical children's nanny, is remarkable enough. She flew into the lives of the unsuspecting Banks family in a children's book that was instantly hailed as a classic, then became a household name when Julie Andrews stepped into the starring role in Walt Disney's hugely successful and equally classic film. Now she is a sensation all over again-both on Broadway and in Disney's upcoming film Saving Mr. Banks. Saving Mr. Banksretells many of the stories in Valerie Lawson's biography Mary Poppins, She Wrote, including P. L. Travers's move from London to Hollywood and her struggles with Walt Disney as he adapted her novel for the big screen. Travers, whom Disney accused of vanity for "thinking she knows more about Mary Poppins than I do," was a poet and world-renowned author as tart and opinionated as Andrews's big-screen Mary Poppins was cheery and porcelain-beautiful. Yet it was a love of mysticism and magic that shaped Travers's life as well as the very character of Mary Poppins. The clipped, strict, and ultimately mysterious nanny who emerged from her pen was the creation of someone who remained inscrutable and enigmatic to the end of her ninety-six years. Valerie Lawson's illuminating biography provides the first full look at the life of the woman and writer whose personal journey is as intriguing as her beloved characters.

Download or read book Zen As F ck written by Zen As F*ck and published by . This book was released on 2020-01-05 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With Zen as F*ck Journal, you'll find moments of profanity-laced catharsis and joy through journaling activities and inspirations that are positive as f*ck. Within these truly charming pages, you'll find ways to let go of the bullsh*t and lift your spirit a little f*cking higher.

Download or read book The Wild One written by Nicholas Petrie and published by G.P. Putnam's Sons. This book was released on 2020 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Struggling with PTSD, veteran Peter Ash has no intention of getting on an airplane - until a grieving woman asks him to find her grandson. The woman's daughter has been murdered. Her husband Erik is the sole suspect. Finding the boy becomes more complicated when Peter is met at the airport by a man from the US Embassy. For unknown reasons Peter's own government doesn't want him in Iceland, and when he refuses to leave they start hunting him. Now Peter must confront his PTSD and amidst a powerful Icelandic snowstorm, find a killer, save a child, and keep himself out of prison...

Download or read book Introduction to Information Retrieval written by Christopher D. Manning and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2008-07-07 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Class-tested and coherent, this textbook teaches classical and web information retrieval, including web search and the related areas of text classification and text clustering from basic concepts. It gives an up-to-date treatment of all aspects of the design and implementation of systems for gathering, indexing, and searching documents; methods for evaluating systems; and an introduction to the use of machine learning methods on text collections. All the important ideas are explained using examples and figures, making it perfect for introductory courses in information retrieval for advanced undergraduates and graduate students in computer science. Based on feedback from extensive classroom experience, the book has been carefully structured in order to make teaching more natural and effective. Slides and additional exercises (with solutions for lecturers) are also available through the book's supporting website to help course instructors prepare their lectures.

Download or read book The Barftastic Life of Louie Burger written by Jenny Meyerhoff and published by . This book was released on 2015-10-13 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With a school Talent Bonanza coming up, there is only one thing that can keep fifth-grader Louie Burger from taking a big step toward his dream of becoming a world-famous comedian--extreme stage fright.

Download or read book Bluesman written by Andre Dubus III and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2001-02-13 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With House of Sand and Fog, his National Book Award-nominated novel, Andre Dubus III demonstrated his mastery of the complexities of character and desire. In this earlier novel he captures a roiling time in American history and the coming-of-age of a boy who must decide between desire, ambition, and duty. In the summer of 1967, Leo Suther has one more year of high school to finish and a lot more to learn. He's in love with the beautiful Allie Donovan who introduces him to her father, Chick — a construction foreman and avowed Communist. Soon Leo finds himself in the midst of a consuming love affair and an intense testing of his political values. Chick's passionate views challenge Leo's perspective on the escalating Vietnam conflict and on just where he stands in relation to the new people in his life. Throughout his — and the nation's — unforgettable "summer of love," Leo is learning the language of the blues, which seem to speak to the mourning he feels for his dead mother, his occasionally distant father, and the youth which is fast giving way to manhood.

Download or read book Wonderworks written by Angus Fletcher and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-03-08 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A brilliant examination of literary invention through the ages, from ancient Mesopotamia to Elena Ferrante, showing how writers created technical breakthroughs as sophisticated and significant as any in science, and in the process, engineered enhancements to the human heart and mind"--

Download or read book The Disappearing Spoon written by Sam Kean and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2010-07-12 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From New York Times bestselling author Sam Kean comes incredible stories of science, history, finance, mythology, the arts, medicine, and more, as told by the Periodic Table. Why did Gandhi hate iodine (I, 53)? How did radium (Ra, 88) nearly ruin Marie Curie's reputation? And why is gallium (Ga, 31) the go-to element for laboratory pranksters? The Periodic Table is a crowning scientific achievement, but it's also a treasure trove of adventure, betrayal, and obsession. These fascinating tales follow every element on the table as they play out their parts in human history, and in the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them. The Disappearing Spoon masterfully fuses science with the classic lore of invention, investigation, and discovery -- from the Big Bang through the end of time. Though solid at room temperature, gallium is a moldable metal that melts at 84 degrees Fahrenheit. A classic science prank is to mold gallium spoons, serve them with tea, and watch guests recoil as their utensils disappear.

Download or read book Making Handmade Books written by Alisa J. Golden and published by Union Square & Company. This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Materials & methods, Folded books, Simply glued, Simply sewn, Scrolls & accordions, Movable books, The codex, Codex variations, Envelopes & portfolios, Cover techniques, Boxes & slipcases, Ideas & concepts - Table des matières

Download or read book I Met a Man written by John Ciardi and published by . This book was released on 1961 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For beginning readers, these poems lead children to new words through rhyme, riddles, context, and word game.

Download or read book Natural Language Processing with Python written by Steven Bird and published by "O'Reilly Media, Inc.". This book was released on 2009-06-12 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a highly accessible introduction to natural language processing, the field that supports a variety of language technologies, from predictive text and email filtering to automatic summarization and translation. With it, you'll learn how to write Python programs that work with large collections of unstructured text. You'll access richly annotated datasets using a comprehensive range of linguistic data structures, and you'll understand the main algorithms for analyzing the content and structure of written communication. Packed with examples and exercises, Natural Language Processing with Python will help you: Extract information from unstructured text, either to guess the topic or identify "named entities" Analyze linguistic structure in text, including parsing and semantic analysis Access popular linguistic databases, including WordNet and treebanks Integrate techniques drawn from fields as diverse as linguistics and artificial intelligence This book will help you gain practical skills in natural language processing using the Python programming language and the Natural Language Toolkit (NLTK) open source library. If you're interested in developing web applications, analyzing multilingual news sources, or documenting endangered languages -- or if you're simply curious to have a programmer's perspective on how human language works -- you'll find Natural Language Processing with Python both fascinating and immensely useful.

Download or read book The Street of a Thousand Blossoms written by Gail Tsukiyama and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2007-09-04 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gail Tsukiyama's The Street of a Thousand Blossoms is a powerfully moving masterpiece about tradition and change, loss and renewal, and love and family from a glorious storyteller at the height of her powers. It is Tokyo in 1939. On the Street of a Thousand Blossoms, two orphaned brothers dream of a future firmly rooted in tradition. The older boy, Hiroshi, shows early signs of promise at the national obsession of sumo wrestling, while Kenji is fascinated by the art of Noh theater masks. But as the ripples of war spread to their quiet neighborhood, the brothers must put their dreams on hold—and forge their own paths in a new Japan. Meanwhile, the two young daughters of a renowned sumo master find their lives increasingly intertwined with the fortunes of their father's star pupil, Hiroshi.

Download or read book Linguistics For Dummies written by Rose-Marie Dechaine and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2012-02-08 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fascinating, fun, and friendly way to understand the science behind human language Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics students study how languages are constructed, how they function, how they affect society, and how humans learn language. From understanding other languages to teaching computers to communicate, linguistics plays a vital role in society. Linguistics For Dummies tracks to a typical college-level introductory linguistics course and arms you with the confidence, knowledge, and know-how to score your highest. Understand the science behind human language Grasp how language is constructed Score your highest in college-level linguistics If you're enrolled in an introductory linguistics course or simply have a love of human language, Linguistics For Dummies is your one-stop resource for unlocking the science of the spoken word.

Download or read book I m Perfect You re Doomed written by Kyria Abrahams and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-11 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I'm Perfect, You're Doomed is the story of Kyria Abrahams's coming-of-age as a Jehovah's Witness -- a doorbell-ringing "Pioneer of the Lord." Her childhood was haunted by the knowledge that her neighbors and schoolmates were doomed to die in an imminent fiery apocalypse; that Smurfs were evil; that just about anything you could buy at a yard sale was infested by demons; and that Ouija boards -- even if they were manufactured by Parker Brothers -- were portals to hell. Never mind how popular you are when you hand out the Watchtower instead of candy at Halloween. When Abrahams turned eighteen, things got even stranger. That's when she found herself married to a man she didn't love, with adultery her only way out. "Disfellowshipped" and exiled from the only world she'd ever known, Abrahams realized that the only people who could save her were the very sinners she had prayed would be smitten by God's wrath. Raucously funny, deeply unsettling, and written with scorching wit and deep compassion, I'm Perfect, You're Doomed explores the ironic absurdity of growing up believing that nothing matters because everything's about to be destroyed.