Zinester's Guide to Portland: A Low/No Budget Guide to Living In and Visiting Portland, OR


Shawn Granton - 2005
    (lots of etc.). The newly overhauled and illustrated fifth edition gets shoulder-deep into the history and local lore, providing a well-rounded argument as to why (fill in the blank) deserves your time. It also demystifies the TriMet public transportation system, bike events and culture, outdoorsy stuff, the public libraries—basically anything you need to know as the new kid in town. To the wrong eyes the book's title might imply a guide to Portland zine culture, but as editor Shawn Granton says in the introduction, the Zinester's Guide is not just for zinesters, that "It's always been about sharing the interesting and unique things that make Stumptown great, and also helping people get by that aren't swimming in scads of money." For those of us that can't so much as dogpaddle most days, this is "community" at its mightiest.

The Blue and Brown Books


Ludwig Wittgenstein - 1935
    The 'Blue Book' is a set of notes dictated to Witgenstein's Cambridge students in 1933-34. The 'Brown Book' was a draft for what eventually became the growth of the first part of Philosophical Investigations. This book reveals the germination & growth of the ideas which found their final expression in Witgenstein's later work. It's indispensable therefore to students of Witgenstein's thought & to all those who wish to study at firsthand the mental processes of a thinker who fundamentally changed the course of modern philosophy.PrefaceThe Blue BookThe Brown BookIndex

The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary


Ambrose Bierce - 1911
    There, a bore is "a person who talks when you wish him to listen," and happiness is "an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another." This is the most comprehensive, authoritative edition ever of Ambrose Bierce’s satiric masterpiece. It renders obsolete all other versions that have appeared in the book’s ninety-year history.A virtual onslaught of acerbic, confrontational wordplay, The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary offers some 1,600 wickedly clever definitions to the vocabulary of everyday life. Little is sacred and few are safe, for Bierce targets just about any pursuit, from matrimony to immortality, that allows our willful failings and excesses to shine forth.This new edition is based on David E. Schultz and S. T. Joshi’s exhaustive investigation into the book’s writing and publishing history. All of Bierce’s known satiric definitions are here, including previously uncollected, unpublished, and alternative entries. Definitions dropped from previous editions have been restored while nearly two hundred wrongly attributed to Bierce have been excised. For dedicated Bierce readers, an introduction and notes are also included.Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary is a classic that stands alongside the best work of satirists such as Twain, Mencken, and Thurber. This unabridged edition will be celebrated by humor fans and word lovers everywhere.

The Complete Guide to Prehistoric Life


Tim Haines - 2005
    lifelike detail... this easily readable book should appeal to dinosaur enthusiasts of all ages." -Science NewsThe Complete Guide to Prehistoric Life. The book's concise, jargon-free text and full color illustrations bring the primordial world to vivid photo-realistic life. In-depth profiles of 112 kinds of beasts cover physical characteristics, lifestyle, habitat and behavior. Throughout, "fascinating fact" sidebars offer additional bits of "dinotrivia." But there is more than dinosaurs here. Readers will find creatures from triobites to early human beings. At the heart of the book are 350 richly detailed and lifelike color illustrations -- accompanied by comprehensive text -- which are the result of pioneering work by the Emmy award-winning creative team at Framestore CFC. Using animation, graphic effects and filmmaking, they recreated awe-inspiring prehistoric creatures and the world they lived in. These images are now reproduced to thrill readers.The Complete Guide to Prehistoric Life was published to accompany two BBC TV prime-time programs, Life Before Dinosaurs and Walking with Life, both part of the Discovery Channel's award-winning Walking with Dinosaurs series.

The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook


Joshua Piven - 1999
    Volcanoes. Sharks. Quicksand. Terrorists. The pilot of the plane blacks out and it's up to you to land the jet. What do you do? The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook is here to help: jam-packed with how-to, hands-on, step-by-step, illustrated instructions on everything you need to know FAST-from defusing a bomb to delivering a baby in the back of a cab. Providing frightening and funny real information in the best-selling tradition of the Paranoid's Pocket Guide and Hypochondriac's Handbook, this indispensable, indestructible pocket-sized guide is the definitive handbook for those times when life takes a sudden turn for the worse. The essential companion for a perilous age. Because you never know...

Starting Point: 1979-1996


Hayao Miyazaki - 1996
    A hefty compilation of essays (both pictorial and prose), notes, concept sketches and interviews by (and with) Hayao Miyazaki. Arguably the most respected animation director in the world, Miyazaki is the genius behind "Howl's Moving Castle," Princess Mononoke" and the Academy Award-winning film, "Spirited Away."

Stalin: Volume I: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928


Stephen Kotkin - 2014
    When the old world is unexpectedly brought down in a total war, the band seizes control of the country, and the new regime it founds as the vanguard of a new world order is ruthlessly dominated from within by the former seminarian until he stands as the absolute ruler of a vast and terrible state apparatus, with dominion over Eurasia. But the largest country in the world is also a poor and backward one, far behind the great capitalist countries in industrial and military power, encircled on all sides. Shortly after seizing total power, Stalin conceives of the largest program of social reengineering ever attempted: the root-and-branch uprooting and collectivization of agriculture and industry across the entire Soviet Union. To stand up to the capitalists he will force into being an industrialized, militarized, collectivized great power is an act of will. Millions will die, and many more will suffer, but Stalin will push through to the end against all resistance and doubts. Where did such power come from? We think we know the story well. Remarkably, Stephen Kotkin’s epic new biography shows us how much we still have to learn. The product of a decade of scrupulous and intrepid research, Stalin contains a host of astonishing revelations. Kotkin gives an intimate first-ever view of the Bolshevik regime’s inner geography, bringing to the fore materials from Soviet military intelligence and the secret police. He details Stalin’s invention of a fabricated trial and mass executions as early as 1918, the technique he would later impose across the whole country. The book places Stalin’s momentous decision for collectivization more deeply than ever in the tragic history of imperial Russia. Above all, Kotkin offers a convincing portrait and explanation of Stalin’s monstrous power and of Russian power in the world. Stalin restores a sense of surprise to the way we think about the former Soviet Union, revolution, dictatorship, the twentieth century, and indeed the art of history itself.

The Lives of the Artists


Giorgio Vasari
    Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

England's Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock, and Beyond


Jon Savage - 1991
    Savage brings to life the sensational story of the meteoric rise and rapid implosion of the Pistols through layers of rich detail, exclusive interviews, and rare photographs. This fully revised and updated edition of the book covers the legacy of punk twenty-five years later and provides an account of the Pistols' 1996 reunion as well as a freshly updated discography and a completely new introduction.

Deadwood: Stories of the Black Hills


David Milch - 2006
    Beautiful, profane, complex, and sublime, the show is dreama at its very best. Entertaining and illuminating, Deadwood: Stories of the Black Hills offers a mesmerizing portrait of the most dangerous settlement in the West. This unprecedented look at the people, places, and history of Deadwood comes straight from the show’s creator, chief writer, and executive producer, David Milch.Through in-depth discussions of the themes and motivations that course through the lawless camp, Milch sheds some light on the characters and events in Deadwood. Fresh interviews with the Deadwood cast, scores of never-before-seen photographs, and historical images and illustrations bring the show and the place to life.Much more than a companion to the series, Deadwood: Stories of the Black Hills is an essential part of the show’s story, and required reading for every fan.

The City of Falling Angels


John Berendt - 2005
    Its architectural treasures crumble—foundations shift, marble ornaments fall—even as efforts to preserve them are underway. The City of Falling Angels opens on the evening of January 29, 1996, when a dramatic fire destroys the historic Fenice opera house. The loss of the Fenice, where five of Verdi's operas premiered, is a catastrophe for Venetians. Arriving in Venice three days after the fire, Berendt becomes a kind of detective—inquiring into the nature of life in this remarkable museum-city—while gradually revealing the truth about the fire.In the course of his investigations, Berendt introduces us to a rich cast of characters: a prominent Venetian poet whose shocking "suicide" prompts his skeptical friends to pursue a murder suspect on their own; the first family of American expatriates that loses possession of the family palace after four generations of ownership; an organization of high-society, partygoing Americans who raise money to preserve the art and architecture of Venice, while quarreling in public among themselves, questioning one another's motives and drawing startled Venetians into the fray; a contemporary Venetian surrealist painter and outrageous provocateur; the master glassblower of Venice; and numerous others-stool pigeons, scapegoats, hustlers, sleepwalkers, believers in Martians, the Plant Man, the Rat Man, and Henry James.Berendt tells a tale full of atmosphere and surprise as the stories build, one after the other, ultimately coming together to reveal a world as finely drawn as a still-life painting. The fire and its aftermath serve as a leitmotif that runs throughout, adding the elements of chaos, corruption, and crime and contributing to the ever-mounting suspense of this brilliant book.

Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life


Jon Lee Anderson - 1997
    Jon Lee Anderson's biography traces Che's extraordinary life, from his comfortable Argentine upbringing to the battlefields of the Cuban revolution, from the halls of power in Castro's government to his failed campaign in the Congo and assassination in the Bolivian Jungle.Anderson has had unprecedented access to the personal archives maintained by Guevara's window and carefully guarded Cuban government documents. He has conducted extensive interviews with Che's comarades-some of whom speak here for the first time-and with CIA men and Bolivian officers who hunted him down. Anderson broke the story of where Guevara's body was buried, which led to the exhumation and stat burial of the bones. Many of the details of Che's life have long been cloaked in secrecy and intrigue. Meticulously researched and full of exclusive information, Che Guevara illuminates as never before this mythic figure who embodied the high-water mark of revolutionary communism as a force in history."

Weapon: A Visual History of Arms and Armor


Richard Holmes - 2006
    From the stone axes of the earliest warfare to the heavy artillery of today''s modern armies,this awe-inspiring book portrays for the first time the entire spectrum of weaponry. Illustrations explain key features and working mechanisms of important weapons Beautifully photographed and richly cataloged-often in actual size Details weapons that changed the face of warfare, from the sword to the Gatling gun.

The Gathering Storm


Winston S. Churchill - 1948
    These two factors combine to make The Gathering Storm a unique work. The first volume of Churchill's memoirs, this selection is broken into two parts. The first, From War to War, consists of Churchill's critical observations on the settlement of World War I and its place in the causes of the Second World War. The second volume contains letters and memoranda from the British government--of which Churchill was part--as the country plunged unprepared into war. This stands as the best of history: written as it was made, by the man who made it.

Ten Great Works of Philosophy


Robert Paul WolffAnselm of Canterbury - 1969
    Ranging from ancient Greece to nineteenth-century America, it traces the history of our civilization through the seminal works of its most influential thinkers. Each philosopher in this volume made intellectual history; each created a revolution in ideas; each reaffirmed man’s view of himself as a sentient being capable of creating order out of the baffling contradictions of existence. And the most powerful reflections and speculations of each are represented here.Plato: Apology, Crito and the Death of Socrates, from PhadoAristotle: PoeticsSt. Ansem: The ontological Proof of St. Ansem, from ProslogiumSt. Thomas Aquinas: St. Thomas’ Proofs of God’s Existence, from the SummaTheologicaRené Descartes: Meditations on the First PhilosophyDavid Hume: An Inquiry Concerning Human UnderstandingImmanuel Kant: Prolegomena to Any Future MetaphysicsJohn Stuart Mill: UtilitarianismWilliam James: The Will to Believe