Book picks similar to
The Conduct of Life by Lewis Mumford


anthropology
philosophy
non-fiction
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Caught in the Mix


Candice Dow - 2005
    The smart sister from Baltimore City has looks, brains, a promising job offer, and now, it looks like she's met her dream guy in handsome law student, Devin Patterson. Though their backgrounds couldn't be more different, wealthy, sheltered Devin falls hard for savvy, inner-city Clark. They're more than lovers; they're soul mates, and their storybook romance is the envy of the campus. Caught Up In Love - But out in the real world, their bond will be tested again and again. From the strain of long-distance love and the pull of two high-powered careers to the well-meaning-but-misdirected advice of friends, the prejudices of family, and the strong allure of new passion and players, Clark and Devin are in for a ride that could tear them apart for good. Caught In The Mix Now - for two people caught in the mix of secrets, family drama, lies, career struggles, and the hard truths of growing up and moving on, love is anything but easy- and doing the right thing by yourself is the hardest lesson of all.

The China Challenge: Shaping the Choices of a Rising Power


Thomas J. Christensen - 2015
    leadership in Asia and beyond. Thomas J. Christensen argues against this zero-sum vision. Instead, he describes a new paradigm in which the real challenge lies in dissuading China from regional aggression while encouraging the country to contribute to the global order. Drawing on decades of scholarship and experience as a senior diplomat, Christensen offers a compelling new assessment of U.S.-China relations that is essential reading for anyone interested in the future of the globalized world.The China Challenge shows why China is nowhere near powerful enough to be considered a global “peer competitor” of the United States, but it is already strong enough to destabilize East Asia and to influence economic and political affairs worldwide. Despite China’s impressive achievements, the Chinese Communist Party faces enormous challenges. Christensen shows how nationalism and the threat of domestic instability influence the party’s decisions on issues like maritime sovereignty disputes, global financial management, control of the Internet, climate change, and policies toward Taiwan and Hong Kong.China benefits enormously from the current global order and has no intention of overthrowing it; but that is not enough. China’s active cooperation is essential to global governance. Never before has a developing country like China been asked to contribute so much to ensure international stability. If China obstructs international efforts to confront nuclear proliferation, civil conflicts, financial instability, and climate change, those efforts will falter, but even if China merely declines to support such efforts, the problems will grow vastly more complicated.Analyzing U.S.-China policy since the end of the Cold War, Christensen articulates a balanced strategic approach that explains why we should aim not to block China’s rise but rather to help shape its choices so as to deter regional aggression and encourage China’s active participation in international initiatives that benefit both nations.

Collected Short Stories


Aldous Huxley - 1957
    Twenty-one pieces are here, including "The Gioconda Smile," "Little Mexican," "Young Archimedes," and "Chawdron." Together they offer a complete view of Huxley's work in the genre, in which he established himself as an acknowledged master.

Bible Stories for Adults


James K. Morrow - 1996
    Among the dozen selections is the Nebula Award-winning “Bible Stories for Adults, No. 17: The Deluge.”Contents:Bible Stories for Adults, No. 17: The Deluge (1988)Daughter Earth (1991)Known but to God and Wilbur Hines (1991)Bible Stories for Adults, No. 20: The Tower (1994)Spelling God with the Wrong Blocks (1987)The Assemblage of Kristin (1984)Bible Stories for Adults, No. 31: The Covenant (1989)Abe Lincoln in McDonald's (1989)The Confessions of Ebenezer Scrooge (1989)Bible Stories for Adults No. 46: The Soap Opera (1994)Diary of a Mad Deity (1988)Arms and the Woman (1991)

City of Tiny Lights


Patrick Neate - 2005
     A contemporary murder mystery set in the heart of London, this is the story of Tommy Akhtar, hard-drinking veteran of the Mujahideen, devoted son, sometime private investigator and sometime idol to the thug-lites of the ethnic motley of West London. Hired by a bewitching prostitute, he's to track down the whereabouts of her missing friend, last seen meeting a client in a local dive. But as the search heats up, Tommy's case takes a turn for the sinister, as he's drawn into a murder investigation and the dark side of both the establishment and those who plan to overthrow it. Written with all the energy and vividness that earned Neate a 2004 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2001 Whitbread Novel Award, City of Tiny Lights is poised to find a wide new audience for its talented, charismatic young author.

Daily Life In Victorian England


Sally Mitchell - 1996
    Teachers, students, and interested readers can use this resource to examine Victorian life in a multitude of settings, from idyllic country estates to urban slums. Organized for easy reference, the volume provides information about the physical, social, economic, and legal details of daily life in Victorian England. Over sixty illustrations plus excerpts from primary sources enliven the work, which can be used in both the classroom and library to answer questions concerning laws, money, social class, values, morality, and private life.Chapters in the work cover: traditional ways of life in town and country, social class, money, work, crime and punishment, the laws of daily life (marriage, divorce, inheritance, guardians, and bankruptcy), the development of a modern urban world (with railways, electricity, plumbing, and telephones), houses, food, clothing, shopping, the rituals of courtship and funerals, family and social life, education, health and medical care, leisure and pleasure, the importance of religion, and the impact of the Raj and the Empire. Historical contexts are explained and emphasis is placed on groups often invisible in traditional history: children, women both at work and at home, and people who led respectable, ordinary lives. A chronology, glossary, bibliography, and index complete the work. This valuable resource provides students, teachers, and librarians with all the information they need to recreate life in Victorian England.

Country Bride / Woodrose Mountain


Debbie Macomber - 2016
    And Luke, stubborn rancher that he is, refuses to renege on his promise.Kate was devastated when the man she'd always loved married another woman, a newcomer to their Oregon town. But now, not only does Luke refuse to break their engagement, he insists that Kate doesn't love Clay—she actually loves him!Woodrose Mountain by RaeAnne ThayneBrodie Thorne is a man who knows what he wants.And that's Evie Blanchard, a physical therapist from LA who recently moved to Hope's Crossing, Colorado. He wants her to work with his injured daughter, Taryn. A wealthy, self-made man, Brodie will do anything to get Taryn the rehab she needs—and that includes convincing the reluctant Evie to move in with them.Despite her vow to keep an emotional distance between them, Evie starts to fall for Brodie's adorable little girl…and for Brodie himself.www.RaeAnneThayne.comwww.DebbieMacomber.com

Complete Plays 1932–1943


Eugene O'Neill - 1988
    They represent the crowning achievements of his career.O’Neill described Ah, Wilderness! as “the way I would have liked my boyhood to have been.” Set in the summer of 1906, it affectionately depicts the warm, close family of 16-year-old Richard Miller and the innocence with which he faces the trials of first love, strong drink, and sexual temptation.John Loving, hero of Days Without End, is split by his lack of faith into two selves: John and his Mephistophelian double Loving, who wears John’s death mask and plots his destruction. Burdened by guilt but desperately wanting to love, John struggles with Loving’s nihilistic hatred in what O’Neill termed his “modern miracle play.”In A Touch of the Poet, Irish tavern-keeper Con Melody is drawn by his proud past as a Byronic cavalry hero of the Napoleonic Wars toward a fatal confrontation with his wealthy Yankee neighbors, the Harfords.Throughout More Stately Mansions, the idealistic yet cunning Simon Harford, his wife, Sara Melody Harford, and his mother, Deborah, continually shift roles and alliances as they engage in an eerie psychological and sexual battle for possession of each other and their own maddeningly elusive dreams. This volume presents the never-before-published complete text of the revised typescript for this unfinished play.The derelict inhabitants of Harry Hope’s saloon in The Iceman Cometh find solace in their comradeship until their drifting calm is destroyed by the visiting salesman Theodore Hickey, who insists that they abandon all “pipe dreams” and face the truth about their lives. O’Neill carefully orchestrates the voices of over a dozen characters to form a chorus of overwhelming despair and surprising compassion.Hughie is a one-act dialogue between a reminiscing gambler and a weary hotel night clerk about the promise and loneliness of city life.Long Day’s Journey into Night unsparingly dissects the pain, rage, guilt, and love that drive a wounded family apart and bind it together. In their summer home the four Tyrones—James, a proud actor haunted by poverty, his devout, morphine-addicted wife, Mary, and their sons, Jamie, a cynical drunkard, and Edmund, an aspiring poet—slowly unveil the truth about their lives until they can no longer hope either to save or to escape one another. Published and produced posthumously, it won O’Neill his fourth Pulitzer Prize.In its elegiac coda, A Moon for the Misbegotten, Jamie Tyrone seeks the peace that has long eluded him in the arms of sharp-tongued Josie Hogan.The volume concludes with “Tomorrow” (1917), O’Neill’s only published short story.

The House of Intellect


Jacques Barzun - 1959
    "Intellect is despised and neglected," Barzun says, "yet intellectuals are well paid and riding high." He details this great betrayal in such areas as public administrations, communications, conversation and home life, education, business, and scholarship.In this edition's new Preface, Jacques Barzun discussess the intense -- and controversial -- reaction the world had to The House of Intellect.

Crime and Punishment in America


Elliott Currie - 1998
    The national incarceration rate in 1997 was twice that in 1985. California's prison system has become the third largest in the world. And despite some limited recent declines in crime rates, we remain by far the most violent industrial society on earth.Though our massive investment in the prison system has not resulted in enduring public safety, politicians and the media continue to insist that America's unique problem of violence is the result of a lenient society "soft" on criminals; that incarcerating an ever-larger proportion of our population is a "social program that works;" and that all other approaches to crime--from prevention to rehabilitation--have failed. Nationally acclaimed criminologist Elliott Currie dissects these myths in a groundbreaking book that is already changing the terms of the current debate.

The Firmament of Time


Loren Eiseley - 1960
    His illuminating and accessible discussion is a characteristically skillful and compelling synthesis of hard scientific theory, factual evidence, personal anecdotes, haunting reflection, and poetic prose.

The Bible in a Nutshell


Casper Rigsby - 2014
    With an estimated word count of well over 700,000 words, the book is not an undertaking for the casual reader. The book can be a very tedious and boring read. This turns many people off from wanting to commit any time to understanding the foundational doctrine of Christianity. However, as atheists we really need to have at least a basic understanding of the Bible if we are going to make a judgment call about the religion. No matter which sect of Christianity someone subscribes to, the Bible is the foundation of Christian belief. This book is a mere 7,000 words to tell a slimmed down version of the basic story of the Bible. This book focused on the narrative rather than any underlying allegory or metaphor inherent in the narrative. The author attempts to challenge the notion of biblical literalism by showing that the story in its most basic form is simply too fantastic for any rational person to believe.

Born to Hate Reborn to Love: A Spiritual Odyssey from Head to Heart


Klaus Kenneth - 2001
    Repelled and repulsed by those who ostensibly represented the Christian faith in his juvenescence, Klaus Kenneth naturally looked elsewhere for the solution to his lonely and tortured existence. In his sincere search for escape from rejection and abuse, Klaus found himself on an odyssey that took him around the world several times, lured him into a vortex of pleasure and power, and initiated him into the great philosophies and religious traditions of our times. Having tried it all, and reaching the very brink of the abyss of despair and the desire for nonexistence, Klaus encounters the One whom he had never thought to look for, the One that he had always discounted: the great I AM, the God of Love and healing, the God of regeneration and eternal life.Klaus KennethKlaus Kenneth was born in a small village west of Prague (Czech Republic), and lives with his wife in Switzerland. In addition to German, his mother tongue, he is fluent in English and French. Desirous to share his remarkable story, Klaus spends most of his time on tour in Europe and the USA, bearing witness to his unexpected discovery of Hope and Love.Published here for the first time in English, Born to Hate, Reborn to Love is already a best seller in several other languages.

Cursed


Jeremy C. Shipp - 2009
    The harder you struggle, the more you suffer. Your words mean nothing, your actions backfire, and one by one everybody you know is sucked down with you. You are: 1) Nick 2) cursed 3) afraid all the time That's because: a) someone or b) something is after you with a vengeance. Even with the help of other cursed people, you don't stand a chance because you're all, you know, cursed. That means you and everyone you know will: 1) suffer 2) die 3) amuse your tormentor That is, unless you figure out how to manipulate the person behind this and turn their power against them. Check your list a second time because they're probably on it. The only thing left to do is scratch them off.

Dianetics 55! The Complete Manual Of Human Communication


L. Ron Hubbard - 1968
    In Dianetics 55!,L. Ron Hubbard takes this technology a step further, giving you basic knowledge you can use to increase understanding and ability in your life. Blocks to communication can destroy a marriage, a business relationship or a family. A person is as alive as he can communicate. Dianetics 55! includes L. Ron Hubbard's incredible basic principles of communication. Discover how you can use the data in this book to: Ensure your communication is easily understood by others so you can get your ideas across. Master the secrets and skills of effective communication. Build and improve lasting personal relationships. Increase your ability and competence for a happier and more successful life Dianetics provides the tools you need to break down the barriers to communication and understanding in your life and realize your true potential and ability.