Book picks similar to
Many Circles: New and Selected Essays by Albert Goldbarth
essays
non-fiction
nonfiction
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Season of the Body: Essays
Brenda Miller - 2002
A memoir in essay form, with the body as its central reference point.
Before We Go: An On-Going Philosophy of Lifting, Living and Learning
Dan John - 2015
Nothing’s changing; you’re not getting stronger or leaner or feeling better, and, heck, maybe you’ll just take a layoff and see what happens.You know what happens. That two-week layoff lasts a year, that’s what happens!Now consider this: Traffic was light and you’re fifteen minutes early for your dental cleaning appointment. You flip open your tablet and bring up your new copy of Before We Go. By the time the dental tech calls you, you’ve read two article chapters and are amped to get to the gym. Your mind is racing through the appointment, and it’s all you can do to stay in that squeaky lounge chair.You get to the gym an hour later and sail through the best workout you’ve had in months, maybe years.That’s what this book can do for you.“I go through one chapter at a time, slowly, and let it percolate.” ~ TC Luoma, Editor-in-Chief, T NationDan John’s Before We Go will spur your training to that exciting level you love. Following the pattern set by his earlier book Never Let Go (230 reviews averaging five stars, still in the top 30 weight training books after five years on Kindle), Before We Go is the second compilation of Dan’s best articles previously published online.
Stuff That Needs to Be Said: Essential Words on Life, Death, Faith, Politics, Love, and Giving a Damn
John Pavlovitz - 2020
This expansive, like-hearted community transcends race, orientation, gender, religious tradition, political affiliation, and nation of origin--and finds its affinity in the deeper place of our shared humanity, which is the True North of his writing. This collection lovingly pulls together some of John's most widely-read and most beloved essays on faith, politics, grief, and the elemental parts of being human. It is an encouraging, inspiring, challenging storehouse of "stuff that needs to be said."
Mindsploitation: Asinine Assignments for the Online Homework Cheating Industry
Vernon Chatman - 2013
But will they write ANY essay you request? Only the WORST of these horrible companies were employed in the composition of Mindsploitation. A GREAT DEAL of money was wasted ACROSS THE GLOBE to commission what may be the dumbest collection of ridiculous assignments in HUMAN HISTORY.What does it say about our society that we can buy a quick custom eulogy for our grandmother, or pay to have a love poem for a mistress prepared by a stranger at the click of a button? How entitled is a culture that keeps these services afloat? Mindsploitation uses such questions as a launching pad for wildly entertaining comedic exchanges. The 50 assignments in this book hilariously explore self-help, spirituality, family, health, diet, pop culture, love, and more.
Ruminations on Twentysomething Life
Aaron Karo - 2005
With hilarious anecdotes and irreverent observations, Karo captures the twentysomething experience like never before and answers the question, "Is there life after college?" Featuring the very best of his world-renowned email column as well as brand-new material published here for the first time, Ruminations on Twentysomething Life details Karo's evolution from frat boy to manhood and explores the frenzied lives of a generation living in the strange and unique gap between college and marriage. With his trademark acerbic wit, Karo ruminates on everything from your first day on the job to the last call at the bar. Perfect for students about to get their first dose of reality, twentysomethings procrastinating at work, or anyone who wants to relive their glory days, this book is sure to have readers laughing out loud and nodding their heads in agreement that there is indeed life after college.
Gift from the Sea
Anne Morrow Lindbergh - 1955
Drawing inspiration from the shells on the shore, Lindbergh’s musings on the shape of a woman’s life bring new understanding to both men and women at any stage of life. A mother of five, an acclaimed writer and a pioneering aviator, Lindbergh casts an unsentimental eye on the trappings of modernity that threaten to overwhelm us: the time-saving gadgets that complicate rather than simplify, the multiple commitments that take us from our families. And by recording her thoughts during a brief escape from everyday demands, she helps readers find a space for contemplation and creativity within their own lives.With great wisdom and insight Lindbergh describes the shifting shapes of relationships and marriage, presenting a vision of life as it is lived in an enduring and evolving partnership. A groundbreaking, best-selling work when it was originally published in 1955, Gift from the Sea continues to be discovered by new generations of readers. With a new introduction by Lindbergh’s daughter Reeve, this fiftieth-anniversary edition will give those who are revisiting the book and those who are coming upon it for the first time fresh insight into the life of this remarkable woman.The sea and the beach are elements that have been woven throughout Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s life. She spent her childhood summers with her family on a Maine island. After her marriage to Charles Lindbergh in 1929, she accompanied him on his survey flights around the North Atlantic to launch the first transoceanic airlines. The Lindberghs eventually established a permanent home on the Connecticut coast, where they lived quietly, wrote books and raised their family.After the children left home for lives of their own, the Lindberghs traveled extensively to Africa and the Pacific for environmental research.
Clandestino: In Search of Manu Chao
Peter Culshaw - 2013
That's Manu in a nutshell. He does everything differently. He is a multi-million selling artist who prefers sleeping on friends' floors to five-star hotels, an anti-globalisation activist who hangs out with prostitute-activists in Madrid and Zapatista leader Comandante Marcos in Chiapas, a recluse who is at home singing in front of 100,000 people in stadiums in Latin America or festivals in Europe.Clandestino has been five years in the writing, as Peter Culshaw followed Manu around the world, invited at a moment's notice to head to the Sahara, or Brazil, or to Buenos Aires, where Manu was making a record with mental asylum inmates. The result is one of the most fascinating music biographies we're ever likely to read.
People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Volume 3
Jen Mann - 2015
This is a collection of original essays that can not be found anywhere else. Each volume is different and you never know what you'll find. They are an assortment of Jen's childhood memories, stories about her family, and rants about everything that make her punchy all told with her usual snarky take. Volume Three of this series includes 3 NEVER BEFORE SEEN essays: HEY DICK, WOULD YOU SEND YOUR MOM THAT PICTURE? LAURA INGALLS WILDER NEVER HAD A SIGNATURE LIPSMACKER FLAVOR MISSED MOM CONNECTION
The Boy Looked at Johnny: The Obituary of Rock and Roll
Julie Burchill - 1978
Book by Julie Burchill, Tony Parsons
The Unexpected Deliverer
David Butler - 2021
We know how it all turns out. But imagine if you were the people living it. If you didn't know He was coming back. If you were Mary and Martha after Lazarus died, you would have thought He came too late. If you were Peter, you would have been appalled that the Master would lower Himself into your mess to wash your feet. If you stood at the foot of the cross and heard it was finished, you would have believed it was.What shifted? What allowed them to discover hope within the hopelessness? The witness of their change in perspective teaches us of an unexpected Christ. One who shows up, turning defeat into victory, and despair into deliverance.If He did it for them, He will do it for you. The story of Easter teaches us the truth of Jesus in every unexpected season. Through Him, you can expect hope in unlikely places.
Start to Finish: Woody Allen and the Art of Moviemaking
Eric Lax - 2017
Eric Lax has been with Woody Allen almost every step of the way. He chronicled Allen's transformation from stand-up comedian to filmmaker in On Being Funny (1975). His international best seller, Woody Allen: A Biography (1991), was a portrait of a director hitting his stride. Conversations with Woody Allen comprised interviews that illustrated Allen's evolution from 1971 to 2008. Now, Lax invites us onto the set--and even further behind the scenes--of Allen's Irrational Man, which was released in 2015, and starred Joaquin Phoenix and Emma Stone. Revealing the intimate details of Allen's filmmaking process, Lax shows us the screenplay being shaped, the scenes being prepared, the actors, cinematographers, other crew members, the editors, all engaged in their work. We hear Allen's colleagues speak candidly about working with him, and Allen speaking with equal openness about his lifetime's work. An unprecedented revelation of one of the foremost filmmakers of our time, Start to Finish is sure to delight not only movie buffs and Allen fans, but everyone who has marveled at the seeming magic of the artistic process.
This Water Goes North
Dennis Weidemann - 2008
With leaky tents, little experience, and no TV cameras or big-time sponsors, the lads set out in 1979 to paddle 1,400 miles north to Hudson Bay. Why? Why not! Driven by a youthful sense of adventure, they took the chance of a lifetime just to see what lay around the next turn. Sit in their canoe as they glide through smooth waters and survive rushing rivers. Experience with them the desolation of true wilderness and go on humorous escapades with local characters. With graceful storytelling, Dennis Weidemann weaves this richly diverse tale of near disasters, splendid sunsets, bootleggers, Mounties, polar bears, and the indomitable spirit of youth. Share the dream that still lives, and that will surely inspire others.
In the Spirit
Susan L. Taylor - 1994
When Susan L. Taylor rose to editor in chief of Essence magazine more than a decade ago, she began writing an editorial column in which she shares her thoughts and feelings about how developing one's inner awareness ensures the wisdom and clarity needed to create a deeply satisfying and fulfilling life.The monthly column called "In the Spirit" is one of the most popular in the magazine.Susan L. Taylor connects with the reader in a personal and meaningful way, in a voice that is sisterly, informed, and motivating. She challenges her readers to transcend their fears, to face inevitable challenges in their lives courageously, and to use change as an opportunity to grow. "We limit ourselves because change may well mean dealing with the disapproval of the very people we rely on for support. Often words of inspiration and motivation, but she also suggests specific methods for working through problems and improving our emotional and spiritual health."We are not powerless spectators of life. We are co-creators with God, and all around is are the gifts, the clay, that we can use to shape our world," she says.Susan L. Taylor writes passionately about what she has seen and learned in the course of her travels throughout the United States, Caribbean, and Africa. Her essays have helped many to balance the demanding world of work and business with the personal world of family and friendship. She shares bits of her own life--her loves, her trails, and triumphs--and the lessons she's learned.Many of Susan L. Taylor's readers already collect her editorials and find in them a source of encouragement, self-affirmation, empowerment, and peace of mind. Now they can have new essays and a few previously published favorites elegantly bound in a gift-sized paperback edition to keep for themselves or to give as a gift of love to those who are special to them.
Painted Lives
Charlotte Vale Allen - 1990
Mattie Sylvester, a widow of one of America's most celebrated painters, reveals the sordid truth of the past, and of her husband, to her secretary.
No Path in Darjeeling Is Straight: Memories of a Hill Town
Parimal Bhattacharya - 2017
No Path in Darjeeling Is Straight is a memory of his time in the iconic town, and one of the finest works of Indian non-fiction in recent years.Parimal evocatively describes his arrival, through drizzle and impenetrable fog, at a place that was at odds with the grand picture of it he had painted for himself. And his first night there was spent sleepless in a ramshackle hotel above a butcher's shop. Yet, as he tramped its roads and winding footpaths, Darjeeling grew on him. He sought out its history: a land of incomparable beauty originally inhabited by the Lepchas and other tribes; the British who took it for themselves in the mid-1800s so they could remember home; the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway--once a vital artery, now a quaint toy train--built in 1881; and the vast tea gardens with which the British replaced verdant forests to produce the fabled Orange Pekoe.In the enmeshed lives of his neighbours--of various castes, tribes, religions and cultures--lived at the measured pace of a small town, Parimal discovered a richly cosmopolitan society which endured even under threat from cynical politics and haphazard urbanization. He also found new friends: Benson, a colleague whose death from AIDS showed him the dark underbelly of the hill station; Pratap and Newton, whose homes and lives reflected the irreconcilable pulls of tradition and upward mobility; and Julia and Hemant, with whom he trekked the forests of the Singalila mountains in search of a vanished Lepcha village and a salamander long thought extinct.With empathy, and in shimmering prose, No Path in Darjeeling Is Straight effortlessly merges travel, history, literature, memory, politics and the pleasures of ennui into an unforgettable portrait of a place and its people.