Book picks similar to
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A Hole in the Earth
Robert Bausch - 2000
Henry Porter's summer begins when his daughter Nicole-whom he hasn't seen in five years-shows up on his doorstep. Days later his girlfriend, Elizabeth, announces that she is pregnant. That Henry is speechless at these two events throws into sharp relief his emotional landscape, and this novel charts that landscape's exact contours. Anyone who has ever wondered what a man is saying when he isn't talking will find at least a large part of the answer here. Robert Bausch deciphers with perfect economy and unstinting honesty the code embodied in this man's (and a great many men's) words and actions, and discovers there the world of family legacies, love, and abuse. A Hole in the Earth brilliantly draws the webs that attract us to and repel us from our families, as well as the enduring strength that they can provide.
To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism
Evgeny Morozov - 2013
But how will these be affected once we delegate much of the responsibility for them to technology? The temptation of the digital age is to fix everything—from crime to corruption to pollution to obesity—by digitally quantifying, tracking, or gamifiying behavior. But when we change the motivations for our moral, ethical, and civic behavior, we may also change the very nature of that behavior itself. Technology, Evgeny Morozov proposes, can be a force for improvement—but only if we abandon the idea that it is necessarily revolutionary and instead genuinely interrogate what we are doing with it and what it is doing to us.From urging us to abandon monolithic ideas of “the Internet” to showing how to design more humane and democratic technological solutions, To Save Everything, Click Here is a dazzling tour of our technological future, and a searching investigation into the digital version of an enduring struggle: between man and his machines.
The Information Diet: A Case for Conscious Consumption
Clay A. Johnson - 2011
Not eating, but gorging on information ceaselessly spewed from the screens and speakers we hold dear. Just as we have grown morbidly obese on sugar, fat, and flour—so, too, have we become gluttons for texts, instant messages, emails, RSS feeds, downloads, videos, status updates, and tweets.We're all battling a storm of distractions, buffeted with notifications and tempted by tasty tidbits of information. And just as too much junk food can lead to obesity, too much junk information can lead to cluelessness. The Information Diet shows you how to thrive in this information glut—what to look for, what to avoid, and how to be selective. In the process, author Clay Johnson explains the role information has played throughout history, and why following his prescribed diet is essential for everyone who strives to be smart, productive, and sane.In The Information Diet, you will:Discover why eminent scholars are worried about our state of attention and general intelligenceExamine how today’s media—Big Info—give us exactly what we want: content that confirms our beliefsLearn to take steps to develop data literacy, attention fitness, and a healthy sense of humorBecome engaged in the economics of information by learning how to reward good information providersJust like a normal, healthy food diet, The Information Diet is not about consuming less—it’s about finding a healthy balance that works for you
Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology
Neil Postman - 1992
In this witty, often terrifying work of cultural criticism, the author of Amusing Ourselves to Death chronicles our transformation into a Technopoly: a society that no longer merely uses technology as a support system but instead is shaped by it--with radical consequences for the meanings of politics, art, education, intelligence, and truth.
The Girl in the Box
Sheila Dalton - 2011
Jerry Simpson. Simpson brought the girl, who may be autistic, back to Canada as an act of mercy and to attempt to treat her obvious trauma. Cailin desperately needs to find out why this terrible incident occurred so she can find the strength to forgive and move on with her life.Inez, whose sense of wonder and innocence touches all who meet her, becomes a focal point for many of the Canadians who encounter her. As Caitlin struggles to uncover the truth about Inez's relationship with Jerry, Inez struggles to break free of the projections of others. Each must confront her own anger and despair. The doctors in the north have an iciness that matches their surroundings, a kind of clinical armour that Caitlin must penetrate if she is to reach Inez.The Girl in the Box is a psychological drama of the highest order and a gripping tale of intrigue and passion.
Christmas Romance Collection: 3 Contemporary Romances
Jennifer Youngblood - 2018
Love on the Rebound Add a little Aloha to your Christmas this year! When Everly Watson takes her young son Jordan to Hawaii, she’s not just celebrating Christmas but also searching for answers surrounding a tragedy from her past. She doesn’t expect to be faced with a tsunami threat her second day on the island. Nor does she count on meeting the famous Christian Ross, superstar of a hit action-movie series. Sparks fly as Everly and Christian have an instant attraction. But things spiral out of control when Everly realizes someone is following her and watching her every move. Christian soon finds himself drawn into Everly’s complicated world of betrayal and deceit and feels the need to protect her from a perilous threat. Can Christian and Everly’s newfound love withstand the growing obstacles? Or are they doomed to keep reliving the heartaches of the past? Loving the Movie Star Actor Blade Sloan gets the opportunity of a lifetime when he lands a leading role in the new Jase Scott action movie, co-starring with Hollywood megastar Christian Ross. Too bad Blade’s having stress issues brought on by a longtime stalker who’s getting more aggressive. If Blade can’t find a way to loosen up on set and perform to the best of his ability, he’ll lose everything he’s worked so hard to achieve. Dani Fairchild is trying hard to turn over a new leaf and transcend into adulthood. Yes, she may have been irresponsible in the past when she jilted billionaire Liam Barclay and ran off with a surfer, but that’s all behind her. Dani has a food blog she wants to take to the next level, and she’s holding down a full-time job. Granted, being a receptionist isn’t her dream job by any means, but hey, it’s a start. Too bad she can’t keep her big mouth shut and gets fired when the boss acts like a jerk. An unlikely encounter on the public bus brings Blade and Dani together where sparks fly and attraction sizzles. But Dani isn’t having it. No matter how charismatic Blade is or how good he looks with his chiseled abs and piercing blue eyes she’s vowed to never again get involved with someone who doesn’t live on the island permanently. Long distance relationships are a kick in the pants, and she’s tired of being hurt. Home alone for Christmas while Samantha and her family go to the mainland, Dani settles in for a quiet, predictable holiday. But fate has other plans when Dani and Blade are unwittingly thrown into a cycle of events that lead to a heart-pounding climax. Can Dani and Blade find a strong enough love to sustain them in the face of danger? Or will the stalker win in the end? False Identity Believe in miracles … believe in hope … believe in love. It's Christmastime, and Chancy Hamilton can’t bear the thought of spending the holidays without her late husband Max who died in a plane crash. When Chancy and her teenage son, Travis, have an argument, Travis storms out of the house and ends up in the wrong part of town where he is attacked by a group of thugs. When a homeless man comes to his rescue, he invites the man home to have a meal with his mom and little sister. Gabe Jones is not like any other homeless man Chancy has ever seen—he’s confident, intelligent, and devastatingly handsome. Jake, Chancy’s boyfriend, takes an instant dislike to Gabe and warns Chancy to stay away from him.
How to Read Lacan
Slavoj Žižek - 2006
These books use excerpts from the major texts to explain essential topics, such as Jacques Lacan's core ideas about enjoyment, which re-created our concept of psychoanalysis.Lacan’s motto of the ethics of psychoanalysis involves a profound paradox. Traditionally, psychoanalysis was expected to allow the patient to overcome the obstacles which prevented access to "normal" sexual enjoyment; today, however, we are bombarded by different versions of the injunction "Enjoy!" Psychoanalysis is the only discourse in which you are allowed not to enjoy.Slavoj Žižek’s passionate defense of Lacan reasserts Lacan’s ethical urgency. For Lacan, psychoanalysis is a procedure of reading and each chapter reads a passage from Lacan as a tool to interpret another text from philosophy, art or popular ideology.
Things I Know to be True
Andrew Bovell - 2016
Now, with the kids ready to make lives of their own, it's time to sit back and smell the roses. But the change of the seasons reveals some shattering truths, leaving us asking whether it's possible to love too much.Things I Know To Be True is Andrew Bovell's complex and intense portrait of the mechanics of a family - and a marriage - through the eyes of four siblings struggling to define themselves beyond their parents' love and expectations.Beautifully touching, funny and bold, the play was premiered in Adelaide, Australia, as a co-production between Frantic Assembly and the State Theatre Company of South Australia. It received its British premiere in 2016, co-produced with Warwick Arts Centre in association with Chichester Festival Theatre and the Lyric Hammersmith.
Smoking Cigarettes, Eating Glass: A Psychologist’s Memoir
Annita Perez Sawyer - 2015
Discharged in 1966, after finally receiving proper psychiatric care, Sawyer kept her past secret and moved on to graduate from Yale University, raise two children, and become a respected psychotherapist. That is, until 2001, when she reviewed her hospital records and began to remember a broken childhood and the even more broken mental health system of the 1950s and 1960s.
Strange Animals
Chad Kultgen - 2015
When she accidentally gets pregnant, she has the epiphany she's been looking for—a way to transform the situation into an object lesson for mankind.A surprising story of freedom, choice, and desperate measures, Strange Animals is a fiendishly suspenseful and eye-opening novel from one of our most provocative writers.
In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing
Matthew E. May - 2009
May examines the elusive element behind so many innovative breakthroughs in fields ranging from physics and marketing to design and popular culture. Combining unusual simplicity and surprising power, elegance is characterized by four key elements—seduction, subtraction, symmetry, and sustainability. In a compelling, story-driven narrative that sheds light on the need for elegance in design, engineering, art, urban planning, sports, and work, May offers surprising evidence that what’s “not there” often trumps what is.In the bestselling tradition of The Tipping Point, Made to Stick, and The Black Swan, In Pursuit of Elegance will change the way you think about the world.
The Agony of Eros
Byung-Chul Han - 2017
In The Agony of Eros, a bestseller in Germany, Han considers the threat to love and desire in today's society. For Han, love requires the courage to accept self-negation for the sake of discovering the Other. In a world of fetishized individualism and technologically mediated social interaction, it is the Other that is eradicated, not the self. In today's increasingly narcissistic society, we have come to look for love and desire within the “inferno of the same.”Han offers a survey of the threats to Eros, drawing on a wide range of sources—Lars von Trier's film Melancholia, Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, Fifty Shades of Grey, Michel Foucault (providing a scathing critique of Foucault's valorization of power), Martin Buber, Hegel, Baudrillard, Flaubert, Barthes, Plato, and others. Han considers the “pornographication” of society, and shows how pornography profanes eros; addresses capitalism's leveling of essential differences; and discusses the politics of eros in today's “burnout society.” To be dead to love, Han argues, is to be dead to thought itself.Concise in its expression but unsparing in its insight, The Agony of Eros is an important and provocative entry in Han's ongoing analysis of contemporary society.This remarkable essay, an intellectual experience of the first order, affords one of the best ways to gain full awareness of and join in one of the most pressing struggles of the day: the defense, that is to say—as Rimbaud desired it—the “reinvention” of love.—from the foreword by Alain Badiou
Essentials of Sociology
Anthony Giddens - 2001
New features in the Fourth Edition pull together the big questions in each chapter and organize them around a concept map to help students synthesize concepts and see the personal and global applications of a sociological imagination.
Stripping Down: A Memoir
Sheila Hageman - 2012
My heart thumps in my bony chest. I listen for the humming sound of my mother’s car backing into the driveway. I hit again. I listen. The lock pops open.”At twelve years old, everything changed for Sheila with the discovery of her estranged father’s porn collection. Found locked away in a corner of the basement, the glossy images ignite in her an unrelenting desire for attention and adoration. Now, reflections on her past as a stripper permeate her thoughts as she takes on the new roles of mother, caregiver and wife. While helping her baby daughter take her first steps, she nurses her mother through the final stages of breast cancer. This powerful and beautiful story is a moving meditation on a woman’s life through her body, motherhood and loss.Spiraling through memories and torn between the woman she is becoming and the woman she has been, Sheila Hageman is continually Stripping Down.
The Distraction Addiction: Getting the Information You Need and the Communication You Want, Without Enraging Your Family, Annoying Your Colleagues, and Destroying Your Soul
Alex Soojung-Kim Pang - 2013
The Distraction Addiction is packed with fascinating studies, compelling research, and crucial takeaways. Whether it's breathing while Facebook refreshes, or finding creative ways to take a few hours away from the digital crush, this book is about the ways to tune in without tuning out.