Book picks similar to
Eugenics in the Garden: Transatlantic Architecture and the Crafting of Modernity by Fabiola Lopez-Duran
architecture
g-nf-academic
latin-america
read-for-phd
Where You Go, I Go: The Astonishing Life of Dr. Jacob Eisenbach, Holocaust Survivor and 92-year-old Full-Time Dentist
Karen McCartney - 2015
This is the story of two brothers clinging together for survival after their family perished in the wrath of the Third Reich. Younger brother Sam clings to Jacob and voluntarily boards the Nazi death train with his brother when they came for Jacob. They struggled horrifically, and when the dust cleared at war's end, only one of them survived. Dr. Eisenbach is a 92-year old dentist practicing in Southern California. His fascinating and terrifying story is a page-turner. He has shared his longevity secrets and his sunny philosophy, as well as his forgiveness of his Nazi tormentors.
Graveyards of Chicago: The People, History, Art, and Lore of Cook County Cemeteries
Matt Hucke - 1999
The book demonstrates that Chicago's cemeteries are home not only to thousands of individuals who fashioned the city's singular culture and character, but also to impressive displays of art and architecture, landscaping and limestone, egoism and ethnic pride. Mysterious questions such as Where is Al Capone buried? and What really lies beneath home plate at Wrigley Field? are answered in this reminder that although physical life must end, personal notes—and notoriety—last forever. Ever wonder where Al Capone is buried? How about Clarence Darrow? Muddy Waters? Harry Caray? Or maybe Brady Bunch patriarch Robert Reed? And what really lies beneath home plate at Wrigley Field? Graveyards of Chicago answers these and other cryptic questions as it charts the lore and lure of Chicago's ubiquitous burial grounds. Like the livelier neighborhoods that surround them, Chicago's cemeteries are often crowded, sometimes weary, ever-sophisticated, and full of secrets. They are home not only to thousands of individuals who fashioned the city's singular culture and character, but also to impressive displays of art and architecture, landscaping and limestone, egoism and ethnic pride, and the constant reminder that although physical life must end for us all, personal note—and notoriety—last forever. Grab a shovel and tag along as Ursula Bielski and Matt Hucke unearth the legends and legacies that mark Chicago's silent citizens—from larger-than-lifers and local heroes, to clerics and comedians, machine mayors and machine-gunners.
Rick Steves' Provence & the French Riviera
Rick Steves - 2003
Experience Roman history with self-guided tours of the Pont du Gard aqueduct, Roman theater in Orange, and Arena in Arles. Explore sun-soaked Riviera beaches and resort towns, from cosmopolitan Nice to colorful Villefranche-sur-Mer. Get inspired by artistic masterpieces by Renoir, Matisse, Picasso, and Chagall. After a day of sightseeing, relax at a café with a view, dive into a bowl of bouillabaisse, and watch fishermen return to the harbor.Rick's candid, humorous advice will guide you to good-value hotels and restaurants. You'll learn which sights are worth your time and money, and how to get around by train, bus, car, or boat. More than just reviews and directions, a Rick Steves guidebook is a tour guide in your pocket.
Galapagos at the Crossroads: Pirates, Biologists, Tourists, and Creationists Battle for Darwin's Cradle of Evolution
Carol Ann Bassett - 2009
For millions, the Galápagos Islands represent nature at its most unspoiled, an inviolate place famed for its rare flora and fauna. But soon today’s 30,000 human residents could surpass 50,000. Add invasive species, floods of tourists, and unresolved conflicts between Ecuadorian laws and local concerns, and it’s easy to see why the Galápagos were recently added to UNESCO’s World Heritage in Danger list. Each chapter in this provocative, perceptive book focuses on a specific person or group with a stake in the Galápagos’ natural resources—from tour companies whose activities are often illegal and not always green, to creationist guides who lead tours with no mention of evolution, from fishermen up in arms over lobster quotas, to modern-day pirates who poach endangered marine species. Bassett presents a perspective as readable as it is sensible. Told with wit, passion, and grace, the Galápagos story serves as a miniature model of Earth itself, a perfect example of how an environment can be destroyed-- and what is being done to preserve these islands before it's too late.
City 2.0: The Habitat of the Future and How to Get There
TED Books - 2013
As a result, we face both a dire emergency and a tremendous opportunity. At their best, our modern cities are hubs of human connection, fountains of creativity, and exemplars of green living. Yet at the same time, they still suffer the symptoms of industrial urbanization: pollution, crowding, crime, social fragmentation, and dehumanization. Now is the time to envision what cities can be and to transform them. This book, produced in partnership with the Atlantic Cities, celebrates 12 promising, provocative responses to this challenge, in realms ranging from transportation to food to art. It asks and begins to answer: How can we transform cities to be sustainable, efficient, beautiful, and invigorating to the human soul? And practically speaking, how do we get from here to there?
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson Summary & Study Guide
BookRags - 2010
70 pages of summaries and analysis on The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson.This study guide includes the following sections: Plot Summary, Chapter Summaries & Analysis, Characters, Objects/Places, Themes, Style, Quotes, and Topics for Discussion.
Dead by Sunset/Lincoln/So that Others May Live/Home Again, Home Again (Today's Best Nonfiction, Vol 2, 1996)
Ann Rule - 1996
Fishers of Men
Adam Elenbaas - 2010
After hitting rock bottom at his grandfather's house in rural Michigan, a chance experience with psychedelic mushrooms convinces him that he must change his ways to achieve the sense of peace that he has always desired. Several subsequent psychedelic experiences inspire him to embark on a quest to South America and take part in a shamanic ceremony, where he consumes ayahuasca, a jungle vine revered for its spiritual properties. Over the course of nearly forty ayahuasca ceremonies during four years, Elenbaas discovers the truth about his own life and past, and begins to mend himself from the inside out. "Fishers of Men" is the gripping, heartbreaking, and yet ultimately
Tony Accardo is Joe Batters
Neil Gordon - 2018
Throw in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and the murders of John F. Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, Marilyn Monroe, Bugsy Siegel, Sam Giancana, Lucky Luciano, Tony the Ant Spilotro, Johnny Roselli and Jimmy Hoffa. Toss in Hollywood scandal and the mobbed up career of Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack. Now you can begin to grasp the epic story of Tony Accardo. Why has this story never been told? Accardo killed everyone in his path: family, friends, cops, reporters, movie stars, and politicians. Operating from deep within the shadows Tony influenced national policy, exploited the FBI, owned politicians, and fixed presidential elections. Connected to every gangster from Al Capone to Lucky Luciano to John Gotti, Joe Batters is the must-read that every Godfather fan is craving.
Spanish: 201 Easy Spanish Phrases: Increase Your Vocabulary With New Spanish Phrases & Words Explained. Includes Access to a Spanish Audio Book
J.G. Jimenez - 2015
These are phrases that you hear almost every day in Spanish speaking countries, on TV, in movies, and when talking with friends in Spanish. Included in this book is FREE Access to Downloadable Mp3's of this book. Spanish Audio book is available by clicking link in book. This book is very basic Spanish. It is for beginning Spanish learners or students that want to review basic Spanish phrases. Some Topics Covered in this book are: Greetings Music What are you doing? Phrases about the Present (right now) Phrases about the Past Hotels Restaurants And Many More! Are you ready to learn some Spanish phrases you can use right away? GREAT! Download the book now and start learning Spanish.
A Miracle, A Universe: Settling Accounts with Torturers
Lawrence Weschler - 1990
In this now-classic and profoundly influential study, the New Yorker's Lawrence Weschler probes these dilemmas across two gripping narratives (set in Brazil and Uruguay, among the first places to face such concerns), true-life thrillers in which torture victims, faced with the paralysis of the new regime, themselves band together to settle accounts with their former tormentors. "Disturbing and often enthralling."—New York Times Book Review"Extraordinarily moving. . . . Weschler writes brilliantly."—Newsday"Implausible, intricate and dazzling."—Times Literary Supplement"As Weschler's interviewees told their tales, I paced agitatedly, choked back tears. . . . Weschler narrates these two episodes with skill and tact. . . . An inspiring book."—George Scialabba, Los Angeles Weekly
Far Away and Long Ago
William H. Hudson - 1918
For at some period of a man's life; at all events of some lives; in some rare state of the mind, it is all at once revealed to him as by a miracle that nothing is ever blotted out.
Jorge Luis Borges: Conversations
Richard Burgin - 1969
Never having been awarded the Nobel Prize, which his readers worldwide believed he deserved, this story writer, poet, essayist, and man of letters died at age eighty-six.This anthology of interviews with him features more than a dozen conversations that cover all phases of his life and work.Conducted between 1964 and 1984, the interviews reveal Borges to be a remarkably candid, humorous man, by turns skeptical and enthusiastic, and always a singularly incisive and adventurous thinker.He discusses his blindness, his family and childhood, early travels, literary friends, and struggles to find his literary identity. In depth he examines the meanings and intentions of his own famous stories and poems, and he speaks of the writers whose works he has loved-Dante, Cervantes, Emerson, Dickinson, H. G. Wells, Kafka, Stevenson, Kipling, Whitman, Frost, and Faulkner-and of those whom he disliked, such as Hemingway and Lorca. Borges expresses his contempt for P ron and assesses the tumultuous politics of Argentina. He speaks also of the imagination as a type of dreaming, about issues of collaboration and translation, about philosophy, and about time.Many of the interviews were conducted by notable figures, including Alastair Reid, Willis Barnstone, and Ronald Christ.As Borges speaks in these conversations, readers who have fallen under the spell of his magical prose and poetry will find additional sustenance.Richard Burgin's books include the story collections "Feat of Blue Skies," "Private Fame," and "Man without Memory." In his first book on Borges, "Conversations with Jorge Luis Borges" (now out of print), he was the sole interviewer. Burgin is the editor of "Boulevard" magazine and an associate professor of communication and English at Saint Louis University.
Birthday
César Aira - 2001
and by the way, while you were thinking about other things, the world was also changing. And then, just as suddenly, you are fifty years old. Aira had anticipated his fiftieth—a time when he would not so much recall years past as look forward to what lies ahead—and yet that birthday came and went without much ado. It was only months later, while having a somewhat banal conversation with his wife about the phases of the moon, that he realized how little he really knows about his life. This book consists of a series of short chapters in which Aira searches for and meditates on the events that were significant to him during his first fifty years. Between anecdotes, and memories, the author ponders the origins of his personal truths, and wonders about literature meant as much for the writer as for the reader, about ignorance, knowledge, and death. Finally, Birthday is a little sad, in a serene, crystal-clear kind of way, which makes it even more irresistible.
The Last Playboy: The High Life of Porfirio Rubirosa
Shawn Levy - 2005
Pop songs were written about him. Women whom he had never met offered to leave their husbands for him. The gigantic peppermills brandished in Parisian restaurants became known, for reasons people at the time could only hint at, as "Rubirosas."Porfirio Rubirosa was the last great playboy: the roué par excellence, a symbol of powerful masculinity, ubiquity, and easy-come-easy-go money."Work?" he shot back at an interviewer, scandalized at being asked what he did with his days. "It's impossible for me to work. I just don't have the time."His natural habitat was the polo field, the nightclub, the Formula One racecourse, the bedroom.He had an eye for beautiful women, particularly when they came with great wealth: He managed to marry in turn two of the richest women on the planet. Rumor had him bedding hundreds of famous and infamous women, including Christina Onassis, Eva Perón, and Zsa Zsa Gabor, who gleefully posed for paparazzi after he had blacked her eye in a fit of jealousy on the eve of his marriage to another woman.But he was a man's man, too, a notable polo player and race-car driver with a gift for friendship, chumming around with the likes of Joe Kennedy, Frank Sinatra, Oleg Cassini, Aly Khan, and King Farouk.When above-board, heiress-type income was scarce, he diverted himself with jewel-thievery, shadowy diplomatic errands, and any other illicit scam that came his way.Whatever legitimate power he wielded came to him from the hands of Rafael Trujillo, one of the most bloodthirstily power-mad dictators the New World has ever seen. A nation quivered at Trujillo's name for decades, yet Rubi flouted his strictures without concern, as if Trujillo's iron grip could never crush him. And he was right.When Rubi died at the age of fifty-six, wrapping his sports car around a tree in the Bois de Boulogne, an era went with him -- of white dinner jackets at El Morocco; of celebrity for its own sake when this was still a novelty; of glamour before it was available to the masses.In The Last Playboy, Shawn Levy brings Rubi's giddy, hedonistic story to Technicolor life.