Book picks similar to
Permission by S.D. Chrostowska


non-fiction
dalkey-archive
epistolary
nonfiction

The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers


Christopher Vogler - 1992
    Provides new insights and observations from Vogler's pioneering work in mythic structure for writers.

Ways of Seeing


John Berger - 1972
    First published in 1972, it was based on the BBC television series about which the (London) Sunday Times critic commented: "This is an eye-opener in more ways than one: by concentrating on how we look at paintings . . . he will almost certainly change the way you look at pictures." By now he has."Berger has the ability to cut right through the mystification of the professional art critics . . . He is a liberator of images: and once we have allowed the paintings to work on us directly, we are in a much better position to make a meaningful evaluation" —Peter Fuller, Arts Review"The influence of the series and the book . . . was enormous . . . It opened up for general attention to areas of cultural study that are now commonplace" —Geoff Dyer in Ways of TellingWinner of the 1972 Booker Prize for his novel, G., John Peter Berger (born November 5th, 1926) is an art critic, painter and author of many novels including A Painter of Our Time, From A to X and Bento’s Sketchbook.

This I Believe: On Love


Dan Gediman - 2010
    Murrow's radio program, This I Believe, gave voice to the feelings and treasured beliefs of Americans around the country. Fifty years later, the popular update of the series, which now continues on Bob Edwards Weekend on public radio, explores the beliefs that people hold dear today. This book brings together essays on love from ordinary people far and wide whose sentiments and stories will surprise, inspire, and move you.Includes extraordinary essays written by ordinary Americans on love in its many manifestations-from romantic love and love of family to love of place and love of animals Paints a compelling portrait of the diverse range of beliefs and experiences related to what is perhaps the most powerful and complex of human emotions-love Based on the popular This I Believe radio series and thisibelieve.org Web site By turns funny and profound, yet always engaging, This I Believe: On Love is a perfect gift to give or to keep.

The Railway Adventures: Places, Trains, People and Stations


Geoff Marshall - 2018
    It is also the best route to enjoying the landscape of Great Britain. Within these pages Vicki Pipe and Geoff Marshall from All the Stations (YouTube transport experts and survivors of a crowd-funded trip to visit all the stations in the UK) help you discover the hidden stories that lie behind branch lines, as well as meeting the people who fix the engines and put the trains to bed. Embark on unknown routes, disembark at unfamiliar stations, explore new places and get to know the communities who keep small stations and remote lines alive.

Coffee: A Guide to Buying, Brewing, and Enjoying


Kenneth Davids - 1976
    It features updated information and definitions, a history of coffee culture, tips on storing and brewing, and other essential advice designed to improve the coffee experience. Coffee lovers everywhere will welcome this lively, complete guide to the fascinating world of America's national beverage.

Art and Lies


Jeanette Winterson - 1994
    Picasso, as she calls herself, is a young artist who has been sexually abused by her brother but whose family thinks she is at fault for her dark moods. Sappho is, indeed, Sappho, the lesbian poet of ancient Greece, who here proclaims herself a sensualist and then proceeds to dissect "the union of language and lust." The three converge in a place that may be England in a not-too-distant future made ugly by pollution and even uglier by greed. This is not a novel but an extended rift on art, sex, religion, social repression, the dangers of patriarchy, and everything that is wrong with the contemporary drift to the right. As such, it will be hard going for most readers, but those with some patience will discover exceptionally evocative writing and a vivifying review of some much-discussed contemporary issues.

A Lifetime of Secrets: A PostSecret Book


Frank Warren - 2007
    He has shared these PostSecrets on his award-winning blog, in an internationally traveling art exhibit, and in three electrifying books: the bestselling PostSecret, My Secret, and The Secret Lives of Men and Women.Now, in his most extraordinary book yet, Warren again delves into our collective confessions, presenting a never-before-seen selection of provocative and moving PostSecrets. A Lifetime of Secrets lays bare our private fears, hopes, regrets, and desires, from people as young as eight and as old as eighty. From painful admissions of infidelity to breathtaking revelations and endearing sentiments, Warren’s latest collection will shock and move readers of every age, revealing secrets that have haunted their creators for a lifetime.

36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction


Rebecca Goldstein - 2009
    At the center: Cass Seltzer, a professor of psychology whose book, The Varieties of Religious Illusion, has become a surprise best seller. He's been dubbed the atheist with a soul, and his sudden celebrity has upended his life. He wins over the stunning Lucinda Mandelbaum-the goddess of game theory-and loses himself in a spiritually expansive infatuation. A former girlfriend appears: an anthropologist who invites him to join in her quest for immortality through biochemistry. But he is haunted by reminders of the two people who ignited his passion to understand religion: his teacher Jonas Elijah Klapper, a renowned literary scholar with a suspicious obsession with messianism, and an angelic six-year-old mathematical genius, heir to the leadership of an exotic Hasidic sect. The rush of events in a single dramatic week plays out Cass's conviction that the religious impulse spills out into life at large. In 36 Arguments for the Existence of God, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein explores the rapture and torments of religious experience in all its variety. Hilarious, heartbreaking, and intellectually captivating, it is a luminous and intoxicating novel.

Women Talking


Miriam Toews - 2018
    For the past two years, each of these women, and more than a hundred other girls in their colony, has been repeatedly violated in the night by demons coming to punish them for their sins. Now that the women have learned they were in fact drugged and attacked by a group of men from their own community, they are determined to protect themselves and their daughters from future harm.While the men of the colony are off in the city, attempting to raise enough money to bail out the rapists and bring them home, these women—all illiterate, without any knowledge of the world outside their community and unable even to speak the language of the country they live in—have very little time to make a choice: Should they stay in the only world they’ve ever known or should they dare to escape?Based on real events and told through the “minutes” of the women’s all-female symposium, Toews’s masterful novel uses wry, politically engaged humor to relate this tale of women claiming their own power to decide.

Only as Good as Your Word: Writing Lessons from My Favorite Literary Gurus


Susan Shapiro - 2007
    And so, as soon as she graduated from college, she headed straight to New York City, determined to break into the biz. A few hard knocks later, she learned that it takes more than being a good writer to make a living at it-the most successful professional writers, she discovered, have great mentors to support, promote, advise, admonish, inform, infuriate, and sometimes give them a good kick in the pants along the way. Only As Good As Your Word is a rollicking chronicle of Shapiro's coming of age as a journalist and author. It's also a revealing memoir that proves what Shapiro's been saying all along: The most important lessons about writing really are, at heart, important lessons about life. A must-read for all writers in the publishing trenches, from the very green to the veterans.

The Book on Writing


Paula LaRocque - 2013
    A celebrated writing coach with a sense of humor and a gentle touch, she’s also a master writer herself with a long and distinguished career in both teaching and practicing the art of writing.The Book on Writing contains 25 chapters in three sections: A dozen essential but easy-to-apply guidelines to good writing, from the importance of clarity to the value of a conversational tone. Paula LaRocque believes learning is easier and more successful when we are not only told but also shown. So her Book on Writing is chockfull of actual writing examples that supplement and illustrate principles that apply as naturally to fiction as they do to nonfiction.How to tell a story—from building suspense, to effective description, to the uses of metaphor and literary devices. Paula LaRocque also deals with the narrative “engine” and the value of the archetype in plotting and characterization—as well as with pace and speed and leveling what she terms writing’s “speedbumps.” A clear and concise handbook that deals with common problems in grammar, usage, punctuation, and style—the kind of problems that often trouble even wordsmiths. The handbook also debunks pesky language “rules” that are actually myths. The Book on Writing is one-stop shopping for writers. Read it once, and you’ll be a better writer. Read it often, and you’ll be among the best.

Love Letters of Great Men


Beacon Hill Press - 2009
    Find yourself in the middle of torrid love affairs, undying devotion, and scandalous betrayal as you uncover long-lost correspondences between lovers.From great Kings to War Heroes to Philosophers, spanning a period of five centuries, this collection illustrates that the human desires of sex and love were as powerful then as they are now.

Notorious: The Immortal Legend of the Kray Twins


John George Pearson - 2010
    After they were jailed in 1969 for thirty years for murder, Pearson's biography The Profession of Violence enjoyed a cult following among the young and was said to be the most popular book in H.M.'s prisons, after the Bible. Ron died in 1995. Reg followed him five years later, and both of their funerals drew crowds on a scale unknown for film stars, let alone for two departed murderers. Since then, far from fading with their death, public fascination with the twins has never flagged. Their clothes and memorabilia are sold at auction like religious relics. Ron's childlike prison paintings fetch more money than those of many well-known artists. And people still refer to them like popular celebrities. Why? This is the question Pearson asked himself, and over the past three years he has been re-examining their history, unearthing much previously unknown material, and has come to some fascinating conclusions. The Immortal Murderers reveals new facts about the Krays' tortured relationship as identical twins; a relationship which helped predestine them to a life of crime; a relationship that made them utterly unlike any other major criminals. Pearson has discovered two new and unsuspected murders, along with fresh light on the killings of George Cornell and Jack 'the Hat' McVitie. There are facts about the twins' obsession with publicity, and how far this made them 'actor criminals' murdering for notoriety. Most riveting of all are the chapters which reveal how Ron Kray caused a major sexual scandal in which a prime minister, together with other leading politicians, condoned the most outrageous establishment cover-up in British politics since the war. The Immortal Murderers contains many more surprises, but the one thing that emerges is that the Kray twins were not only stranger but also far more important than anyone ever suspected. Fascination with them will forever remain; they will never lose their role as the immortal murderers.

Agnes Martin: Writings = Schriften


Herausgegeben Von Dieter Schwarz - 2005
    Her "floating abstractions," in which lines and free bands of color emerge almost imperceptibly, can be reproduced only with difficulty. Her writings, on the other hand--although certainly not intended as programmatic statements--offer valuable clarity regarding her own works and poetic insight about art in general. Since its original publication in 1991, this volume of Martin's writings has been a fundamental document for libraries of artists, collectors, and critics. Rather than identifying herself with her Minimalist peers, Martin has aligned herself with the ancient Greeks, Egyptians, and Chinese, asserting that "the function of art work is . . . the renewal of memories of moments of perfection." In combination with illustrations of her works, these texts--including lectures, stories recorded by critic Ann Wilson, passages ostensibly arranged in associative sequences, and "fragmentary ideas"--form an eloquent artist's statement by the creator of "silent paintings."

The Art of Steven Universe: The Movie


Cartoon Network - 2020
     Go behind the scenes of Cartoon Network's highly anticipated film with this unique art book!This magical deep-dive into Steven Universe The Movie is designed by Ryan Sands (Frontier) in conjunction with Steven Universe creator Rebecca Sugar! See preliminary character designs, witness the formation of settings and storyboards, and discover the art that shaped the full-length movie! It's a new kind of artistic adventure with with Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, and--of course--Steven.