Interior Design


John F. Pile - 1988
    Of the more than 750 photographs and diagrams, over 200-most in color-are new to this lavishly produced third edition and reflect the vision of the most creative professionals working today. John Pile's long-awaited revision of his highly regarded text features: * six new detailed case studies of projects by such noted contemporary designers as Adam Tihany, Maya Lin, and Moneo Brock Studio. * exciting coverage of the new "hot" topics in the field, including "green" design, fiber optic and LED lighting, the reconfigurable workplace, boutique hotels, and digital technology. Every chapter has been updated in organization, content, and visual examples to reflect the newest developments in this exciting field.

How to Architect


Doug Patt - 2012
    Changing the function of a word, or a room, can produce surprise and meaning. In How to Architect, Patt--an architect and the creator of a series of wildly popular online videos about architecture--presents the basics of architecture in A-Z form, starting with A is for Asymmetry (as seen in Chartres Cathedral and Frank Gehry), detouring through N is for Narrative, and ending with Z is for Zeal (a quality that successful architects tend to have, even in fiction--see The Fountainhead's architect-hero Howard Roark.)How to Architect is a book to guide you on the road to architecture. If you are just starting on that journey or thinking about becoming an architect, it is a place to begin. If you are already an architect and want to remind yourself of what drew you to the profession, it is a book of affirmation. And if you are just curious about what goes into the design and construction of buildings, this book tells you how architects think. Patt introduces each entry with a hand-drawn letter, and accompanies the text with illustrations that illuminate the concept discussed: a fallen Humpty Dumpty illustrates the perils of fragile egos; photographs of an X-Acto knife and other hand tools remind us of architecture's nondigital origins.How to Architect offers encouragement to aspiring architects but also mounts a defense of architecture as a profession--by calling out a defiant verb: architect!

Capture Me (Hollywood Dreams)


C.J. Thomas - 2016
     He had a knack for getting women to take off their clothes and light ’em up. Billionaire Liam Rising’s lens was long. He knew just where to point and shoot to make the biggest flash. The first time I heard his sexy European accent pass his sensual lips, I wanted to lift the hem of his shirt up, just so I could kiss my way down. Then my life threw a devastating curve ball no one saw coming. It would be easy to forget about all that went wrong in my life by losing myself in him. The thing was, I never saw myself being a model, but with him around, a man who clearly liked to take charge, maybe I could make an exception. All he had to do was point his long lens and shoot. Mature audience 18+

Impact


David E. Stevens - 2019
    and wakes up in a genetically perfect body. His fighter catches on fire during a routine test flight. Preventing it from hitting a neighborhood, he ejects too late. A year later, he wakes up in a city hospital looking like an omni-racial Olympic athlete. His body wasn’t repaired ... it was replaced. He's GMO, a genetic blend of humanity's best genes with one-in-a-billion abilities, but a voice in his head tells him an apocalyptic disaster will soon erase most life on earth. A Navy pilot brought back from the dead ... to save the world? The most likely explanation is paranoid schizophrenia with delusions of grandeur, but with no identity and few options, he uses his insider knowledge of classified military projects to create a fake black program. Recruiting a brilliant international team, they secretly develop the world’s most powerful weapon to ... protect humanity? The Fuzed Trilogy is Bourne Identity meets Avatar and Interstellar. A USA TODAY Bestseller, winner of the Eric Hoffer Award, Epic eBook Award and ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year, IMPACT is a true story we hope never happens. With a team of advisers that include astrophysicists, astronauts, admirals and intelligence operatives, the science behind the threats is real. These extinction level events are statistically inevitable but also preventable ... if we take action. A portion of the series profits go to non-profits working to protect humanity. Fuzed.org

The Third Coast: When Chicago Built the American Dream


Thomas Dyja - 2012
    Before air travel overtook trains, nearly every coast-to-coast journey included a stop there, and this flow of people and commodities made it America's central clearinghouse, laboratory, and factory. Between the end of World War II and 1960, Mies van der Rohe's glass and steel architecture became the face of corporate America, Ray Kroc's McDonald's changed how we eat, Hugh Hefner unveiled Playboy, and the Chess brothers supercharged rock and roll with Chuck Berry. At the University of Chicago, the atom was split and Western civilization was packaged into the Great Books.Yet even as Chicago led the way in creating mass-market culture, its artists pushed back in their own distinct voices. In literature, it was the outlaw novels of Nelson Algren (then carrying on a passionate affair with Simone de Beauvoir), the poems of Gwendolyn Brooks, and Studs Terkel's oral histories. In music, it was the gospel of Mahalia Jackson, the urban blues of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, and the trippy avant-garde jazz of Sun Ra. In performance, it was the intimacy of Kukla, Fran and Ollie, the Chicago School of Television, and the improvisational Second City whose famous alumni are now everywhere in American entertainment.Despite this diversity, racial divisions informed virtually every aspect of life in Chicago. The chaos—both constructive and destructive—of this period was set into motion by the second migration north of African Americans during World War Two. As whites either fled to the suburbs or violently opposed integration, urban planners tried to design away “blight” with projects that marred a generation of American cities. The election of Mayor Richard J. Daley in 1955 launched a frenzy of new building that came at a terrible cost—monolithic housing projects for the black community and a new kind of self-satisfied provincialism that sped the end of Chicago's role as America's meeting place.In luminous prose, Chicago native Thomas Dyja re-creates the story of the city in its postwar prime and explains its profound impact on modern America.

Armageddon: The Musical


Robert Rankin - 1990
    Elvis on an epic time-travel journey - the Presliad. Buddhavision - a network bigger than God (and more powerful, too). Nasty nuclear leftovers. Naughty sex habits. Dalai Dan (the 153rd reincarnation of the Lama of that ilk) and Barry, the talkative Time Sprout. Even with all this excitement, you wouldn't think a backwater planet like Earth makes much of a splash in the galatic pond.But the soap opera called The Earthers is making big video bucks in the intergalactic ratings race. And alien TV execs know exactly what the old earth drama needs to make the off-world audience sit up and stare: a spectacular Armageddon-type finale. With a cast of millions - including you! DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL - IT'S GONNA BE A HELLUVA SHOW!

Language of Post-Modern Architecture 6


Charles Jencks - 1977
    The buildings of Robert Venturi and Michael Graves, among others, are featured.

Anne Perry's Christmas Crimes: A Christmas Homecoming / A Christmas Garland


Anne Perry - 2014
    . . [Anne Perry is] a modern master.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette   Charlotte Pitt’s mother, Caroline, is spending the holiday with her young husband, Joshua Fielding, in Whitby, the fishing village where Dracula first touches English soil in Bram Stoker’s sensational novel. Joshua has arranged to produce a stage adaptation of Dracula, written by the daughter of millionaire Charles Netheridge, but tempers flare after a disastrous first read-through of the script. As wind and snow swirl around Netheridge’s lonely hilltop mansion, a black-cloaked stranger emerges from the storm. At the same time, a brooding evil makes itself felt, and instead of theatrical triumph, there is murder—shocking and terrifying.  A CHRISTMAS GARLAND  “In Anne Perry’s gifted hands, the puzzle plays out brilliantly.”—Greensboro News & Record  The year is 1857, soon after the violent Siege of Cawnpore, and India is in the midst of rebellion. In the British garrison, a guard is killed, a prisoner escapes, and a luckless medical orderly named John Tallis is arrested as an accomplice simply because he was the only soldier unaccounted for when the crimes were committed. Though chosen to defend Tallis, young Lieutenant Victor Narraway is not encouraged to try very hard. His superiors merely want a show trial. But inspired by a simple Christmas garland, and his own stubborn faith in justice, Narraway is determined to figure out the truth, despite the appalling odds. In an alien world haunted by massacre, he is the accused man’s only hope.

An Imaginary Tale: The Story of the Square Root of Minus One


Paul J. Nahin - 1998
    Addressing readers with both a general and scholarly interest in mathematics, Nahin weaves into this narrative entertaining historical facts, mathematical discussions, and the application of complex numbers and functions to important problems.

To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design


Henry Petroski - 1985
    More than a series of fascinating case studies, To Engineer Is Human is a work that looks at our deepest notions of progress and perfection, tracing the fine connection between the quantifiable realm of science and the chaotic realities of everyday life."Alert, inquisitive, unspecialized, wholly human...refreshingly eclectic." --The Spectator"Henry Petroski is an ardent engineer, and if he writes more good books like this, he might find himself nominated to become the meistersinger of the guild. [This is] a refreshing plunge into the dynamics of the engineering ethos...as straightforward as an I-beam."--Science

How to Be Creative


Hugh MacLeod - 2009
    The book will be divided into 30+ Pearls of Wisdom (based on the original manifesto and wildly successful Web phenomenon, "How to Be Creative"), and will be laced throughout with the author's witty, smart single-frame cartoons.

Venice Observed


Mary McCarthy - 1956
    “Searching observations and astonishing comprehension of the Venetian taste and character” (New York Herald Tribune).

The Returners: Season One Omnibus


Mikey Neumann - 2012
    Alex Heton is living a second life and so is his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend, Chloe. After a man tries to kill both of them in a restaurant, they reveal to each other that they are the reincarnated bodies and minds of Alexander the Great and Joan of Arc.Before long, they find out that there are many out there like themselves, from Eliot Ness to a thirteen-year-old Albert Einstein. As the group tries to band together and figure out how they have returned, they are hunted by a crazed killer who is just like them: a returner. Can they figure out who the killer is in time? Will they find out how they managed to retain all of their memories from a previous life? How many returners are there?

Structural Analysis


Russell C. Hibbeler - 1982
    This book provides students with a clear and thorough presentation of the theory and application of structural analysis as it applies to trusses, beams, and frames. Emphasis is placed on teaching students to both model and analyze a structure. Procedures for Analysis, Hibbeler's problem solving methodologies, provides students with a logical, orderly method to follow when applying theory.