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The Lady's Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness
Sarah Ramey - 2020
Worse, as they failed to cure her, they hinted that her devastating symptoms were psychological.The Lady's Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness is a memoir with a mission, to help the millions of (mostly) women who suffer from unnamed or misunderstood conditions.Ramey's pursuit of a diagnosis and cure for her own mysterious illness is a medical mystery that she says reveals a new understanding of today's chronic illnesses as ecological in nature, driven by modern changes to the basic foundations of health, from the quality of our sleep, diet, and social connection to the state of our microbiomes.
Everyday Sexism
Laura Bates - 2014
Astounded by the response she received and the wide range of stories that came pouring in from all over the world, she quickly realised that the situation was far worse than she'd initially thought. Enough was enough. From being leered at and wolf-whistled on the street, to aggravation in the work place and serious sexual assault, it was clear that sexism had been normalised. Bates decided it was time for change. This bold, jaunty and ultimately intelligent book is the first to give a collective online voice to the protest against sexism. This game changing book is a juggernaut of stories, often shocking, sometimes amusing and always poignant - it is a must read for every inquisitive, no-nonsense modern woman.
The Miss Dennis School of Writing: And Other Lessons from a Woman's Life
Alice Steinbach - 1996
These pieces thus explore, with quiet grace, the unexpected pleasures that are gleaned from an appreciation of the ordinary - a sleeping cat, a blooming garden, a well-cooked meal. Such familiar - even ostensibly mundane - details of our lives, Steinbach maintains, play a far more important part in shaping our identities and our sense of our relationship to the world than do the exotic encounters or momentous events to which we attach much significance. Alternately poignant and humorous, sedately contemplative and bristling with emotional energy, Steinbach's various musings on the daily rhythms of her own moods and experiences transform everyday life into a rich and meaningful journey.
On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes
Alexandra Horowitz - 2013
You are missing what is happening in the distance and right in front of you. In reading these words, you are ignoring an unthinkably large amount of information that continues to bombard all of your senses. The hum of the fluorescent lights; the ambient noise in the room; the feeling of the chair against your legs or back; your tongue touching the roof of your mouth; the tension you are holding in your shoulders or jaw; the constant hum of traffic or a distant lawnmower; the blurred view of your own shoulders and torso in your peripheral vision; a chirp of a bug or whine of a kitchen appliance.On Looking begins with inattention. It is not meant to help you focus on your reading of Tolstoy; it is not about how to multitask. Rather, it is about attending to the joys of the unattended, the perceived "ordinary." Horowitz encourages us to rediscover the extraordinary things that we are missing in our ordinary activities. Even when engaged in the simplest of activities - taking a walk around the block - we pay so little attention to most of what is right before us that we are sleepwalkers in our own lives. So turn off the phone and portable electronics and get into the real world, where you'll find there are worlds within worlds within worlds.
Gotham Writers' Workshop: Writing Fiction: The Practical Guide From New York's Acclaimed Creative Writing School
Alexander Steele - 2003
Now the techniques of this renowned school are available in this book.Here you'll find: The fundamental elements of fiction craft—character, plot, point of view, etc.—explained clearly and completely - Key concepts illustrated with passages from great works of fiction - The complete text of "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver—a masterpiece of contemporary short fiction that is analyzed throughout the book - Exercises that let you immediately apply what you learn to your own writing.Written by Gotham Writers' Workshop expert instructors and edited by Dean of Faculty Alexander Steele, Writing Fiction offers the same methods and exercises that have earned the school international acclaim.Once you've read—and written—your way through this book, you'll have a command of craft that will enable you to turn your ideas into effective short stories and novels. You will be a writer.Gotham Writers' Workshop is America's leading private creative writing school, offering classes in New York City and on the web at WritingClasses.com. The school's interactive online classes, selected "Best of the Web" by Forbes, have attracted thousands of aspiring writers from across the United States and more than sixty countries.
Of Mikes and Men: A Lifetime of Braves Baseball
Pete Van Wieren - 2010
Pete Van Wieren’s legacy began in 1976, when he and a young Skip Caray were hired to call Atlanta Braves games. During the next three decades, "the Professor" and Caray became the voices of a team known nationwide as America's Team courtesy of Ted Turner's SuperStation TBS. In this heartfelt autobiography, Van Wieren shares his memories of thrilling moments in Braves history, such as the 1995 season when the Braves won the world championship; the pitching mastery of Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and John Smoltz; the heartbreak of the 1996 World Series loss to the Yankees; and Atlanta's unprecedented run of 14 consecutive division titles.
Lost in Summerland: Essays
Barrett Swanson - 2021
Traversing the country, Barrett Swanson introduces us to Americans who are contending with the aftermath of political and economic collapse and considers how the end-of-history preoccupation with wellness and consumerism has led to spiritual desolation and new forms of fascism.A trip with his brother to a New York psychic community becomes a rollicking tour through the world of American spiritualism. At a wilderness retreat in Ohio, men seek a cure for toxic masculinity, while in the hinterlands of Wisconsin, anti-war veterans turn to farming when they cannot sustain the heroic myth of service. And when his best friend’s body washes up on the shores of the Mississippi River, he falls into the gullet of true crime discussion boards, exploring the stamina of conspiracy theories along the cankered byways of the Midwest.At a moment when grand unifying narratives have splintered into competing story lines, these essays document the many routes by which Americans are struggling to find stability in their lives, sometimes at dire and disillusioning costs.
Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom
Derecka Purnell - 2021
Derecka Purnell invites us to question why we think we need the police in the first place and imagine a world where the underlying structures that cause violence and harm are dismantled.For more than a century, activists in the United States have tried to reform the police. From community policing initiatives to increasing diversity, none of it has stopped the police from killing about three people a day. Millions of people continue to protest police violence because these "solutions" do not match the problem: the police cannot be reformed. In Becoming Abolitionists, Purnell draws from her experiences as a lawyer, writer, and organizer initially skeptical about police abolition. She saw too much sexual violence and buried too many friends to consider getting rid of police in her hometown of St. Louis, let alone the nation. But the police were a placebo. Calling them felt like something, and something feels like everything when the other option seems like nothing.Purnell details how multi-racial social movements rooted in rebellion, risk-taking, and revolutionary love pushed her and a generation of activists toward abolition. The book travels across geography and time, and offers lessons that activists have learned from Ferguson to South Africa, from Reconstruction to contemporary protests against police shootings. Here, Purnell argues that police can not be reformed and invites readers to envision new systems that work to address the root causes of violence. Becoming Abolitionists shows that abolition is not solely about getting rid of police, but a commitment to create and support different answers to the problem of harm in society, and, most excitingly, an opportunity to reduce and eliminate harm in the first place.
The Jesus I Know: Honest Conversations and Diverse Opinions about Who He Is
Kathie Lee Gifford - 2021
What she discovered early on is most people are very willing to talk about Jesus: atheists, agnostics, Scientologists, Jews, broken-hearted Catholics, confused Baptists, Pentecostals, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Hindus alike.While some of the people Kathie Lee has spoken with do not share her belief that Jesus is the Messiah—as prophesied for centuries by prophets in the Hebrew scriptures—they nonetheless have a universal fascination with Him. This singular man who lived more than two thousand years ago, and never traveled more than one hundred miles from where He was born, managed to change the entire world. Even the way we delineate history (BC/AD) comes from His short thirty-three years of life.In The Jesus I Know, Kathie Lee shares cherished conversations that she’s had with others who find Jesus to be an ancient historical figure who somehow continues to be an undeniably magnetic, relevant presence in the modern world. Those conversations include actors like Kristin Chenoweth and Cynthia Garrett, with stories of Craig Ferguson and Kevin Costner,newsmakers and news personalities like Kris Jenner, Megyn Kelly, Jason Kennedy, and Janice Dean,performers like Chynna Phillips Baldwin, Brian Welch, Jimmie Allen, and Jimmy Wayne,hitmakers like Louis York and David Pomeranzas well as those coming from other faith traditions. Using Kathie Lee’s favorite Scripture passages as scaffolding, these thought-provoking exchanges will bring His teachings to life before your very eyes.
A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future
David Attenborough - 2020
Then make it better.I am 94. I've had an extraordinary life. It's only now that I appreciate how extraordinary.As a young man, I felt I was out there in the wild, experiencing the untouched natural world - but it was an illusion. The tragedy of our time has been happening all around us, barely noticeable from day to day - the loss of our planet's wild places, its biodiversity.I have been witness to this decline. A Life on Our Planet is my witness statement, and my vision for the future. It is the story of how we came to make this, our greatest mistake - and how, if we act now, we can yet put it right.We have one final chance to create the perfect home for ourselves and restore the wonderful world we inherited.All we need is the will to do so.
In Search of Nice Americans
Geoff Steward - 2017
From New York to Alaska, he tries to fend for himself without his trusty PA and life support, the unflappable Charmaine, for whom contentment lies in Jesus Christ and custard creams.With his blend of waspish wit and mischievous charm, Steward seeks out normal Americans, such as Joe le Taxi, the former NYPD officer who was one of the first on the scene at the Twin Towers and now runs an extortionate executive taxi service; Pam and Bob, a paranoid psychiatrist and a failed actor who once saw the back of Meryl Streep s head; Taylor the Alaskan bushwhacker who was raised by wolves and revels in their scat; Jeb the Yosemite inn-sitter who lives his life at the pace of a Ford Model T; Kacey Musgraves, the controversial country music star staying at the farm in Tennessee; and Sheriff Duke of Calhoun County, South Carolina, who reintroduces Steward to the long (and armed) arm of the law.For anyone at a crossroads, contemplating a temporary or permanent career break, this affectionate travel romp is essential reading. Journeying coast-to-coast across the US with Steward might just remind you that, despite the post-Trump hysteria, there are many normal and decent Americans out there
The Heart Is a Little to the Left: Essays on Public Morality
William Sloane Coffin - 1999
William Sloane Coffin offers an antidote to the politics of the religious right with a call to passive intellectuals and dispirited liberals to reenter the fray with a Christian view of social justice.
The Crystal Bucket: Television Criticism from "The Observer," 1976-79
Clive James - 1981
His work is deeply perceptive, often outrageously funny and always compulsively readable.'Thus the judges of the British Press Awards, in naming Clive James Critic of the Year for 1981. The Crystal Bucket offers a further selection of his inimitable 'visions before midnight ...''C.J. didn't get where he is today just by being funny. He is humane, liberal and compassionate ... What he writes is always pertinent and always witty ... We own him a deep debt of gratitude.' —Gavin Ewart, Listener'Few critics have a more unerring ear for woolliness and doubletalk or a more scathing and entertaining way of dealing with it.' —Lesley Garner, Good Housekeeping'He is one of the most remarkable figures in British cultural life at the moment: a poet and gifted literary critic who is also genuinely liked by the mass audience.' —Michael Mason, London Review of Books'One of the few columnists who make you laugh aloud ... if there were angels he would be on their side: and that would certainly include Charlie’s Angels.' —Melvyn Bragg, Sunday Times
From the Top: Brief Transmissions from Tent Show Radio
Michael Perry - 2013
I like to read Harper’s with a chaser of Varmint Hunter Magazine. Maybe that’s why I enjoy a good show under canvas. Here we sit, brain-deep in arts and culture, but we’re also just people hanging out in a tent, some of us wearing boots, a few of us wearing Birkenstocks, but best of all we’re breathing free fresh air filled with music.”From Scandihoovian Spanglish to snickering chickens, New York Times bestselling author and humorist Michael Perry navigates a wide range of topics in this collection of brief essays drawn from his weekly appearances on the nationally syndicated Tent Show Radio program. Fatherhood, dumpster therapy, dangerous wedding rings, Christmas trees, used cars, why you should have bacon in your stock portfolio, loggers in clogs—whatever the subject, Perry has a rare ability to touch both the funny bone and the heart.
The Junket (Kindle Single)
Mike Albo - 2011
He lands an enviable gig writing about shopping and fashion for the city’s major newspaper, but an ill-fated promotional junket gets Albo into hot water. He becomes a gossip item and finds himself caught in an acrimonious war between Old and New Media. Here's a gimlet-eyed account of the back-biting media scene, a glimpse into the inner workings of the fashion crowd, and a candid portrait of what it takes to survive as a writer in today’s chattering and watchful New York City."I was perilously close to exposing a secret underground economy of promotion: favors and junkets and banquets and gifts that keeps the city in motion, and keeps underpaid writers at work. Basically, I became the Silkwood of Swag."