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A Croft in the Hills
Katharine Stewart - 1996
A couple and their young daughter, fresh from life in the town, struggle to get the work done and make ends meet in an environment that is, at times, hard and unforgiving.
The Riddle Chest: 50 Original Riddles to Stump Your Brain
Sef Daystrom - 2013
A word is described atypically, sometimes using metaphors or quirks of language as misdirection, and you must deduce the word. Many of the riddles take a poetic form reminiscent of older, traditional riddles.Revisions to date: added answer links beneath each riddle (March 17, 2014), replaced or improved some riddles (January 8, 2015), added notes for each answer page (July 24, 2015).
The Homecoming
Anna Smith - 2004
Nonetheless in this close community friendships go deep and the pub of an evening is a cheery place, at least until too much drink is taken. Fifteen years ago, Joe McBride left Westerbank under a cloud, and in his absence life has moved on, the secrets he took with him disturbing only occasionally those who were caught up in them. But now Joe McBride is coming home, a changed man, and one who needs to face up to the past before it's too late. The truth about the mysterious death of a young girl fifteen years ago is about to come out, and nothing in Westerbank will ever be quite the same again.
Obedience to Authority
Stanley Milgram - 1974
Some system of authority is a requirement of all communal living, and it is only the man dwelling in isolation who is not forced to respond, through defiance or submission, to the commands of others. Obedience, as a determinant of behavior is of particular relevance to our time. It has been reliably established that from 1933 to 1945 millions of innocent people were systematically slaughtered on command. Gas chambers were built, death camps were guarded, daily quotas of corpses were produced with the same efficiency as the manufacture of appliances. These inhumane policies may have originated in the mind of a single person, but they could only have been carried out on a massive scale if a very large number of people obeyed orders.Obedience is the psychological mechanism that links individual action to political purpose. It is the dispositional cement that binds men to systems of authority. Facts of recent history and observation in daily life suggest that for many people obedience may be a deeply ingrained behavior tendency, indeed, a prepotent impulse overriding training in ethics, sympathy, and moral conduct. C. P. Snow (1961) points to its importance when he writes:When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion. If you doubt that, read William Sbirer's 'Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.' The German Officer Corps were brought up in the most rigorous code of obedience . . . in the name of obedience they were party to, andassisted in, the most wicked large scale actions in the history of the world. (p. 24)The Nazi extermination of European Jews is the most extremeinstance of abhorrent immoral acts carried out by thousands ofpeople in the name of obedience. Yet in lesser degree this type ofthing is constantly recurring: ordinary citizens are ordered todestroy other people, and they do so because they consider ittheir duty to obey orders. Thus, obedience to authority, longpraised as a virtue, takes on a new aspect when it serves amalevolent cause; far from appearing as a virtue, it is transformedinto a heinous sin. Or is it?The moral question of whether one should obey when commands conflict with conscience was argued by Plato, dramatized in "Antigone," and treated to philosophic analysis in every historical epoch Conservative philosophers argue that the very fabric of society is threatened by disobedience, and even when the act prescribed by an authority is an evil one, it is better to carry out the act than to wrench at the structure of authority. Hobbes stated further that an act so executed is in no sense the responsibility of the person who carries it out but only of the authority that orders it. But humanists argue for the primacy of individual conscience in such matters, insisting that the moral judgments of the individual must override authority when the two are in conflict.The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous import, but an empirically grounded scientist eventually comes to the point where he wishes to move from abstract discourse to the careful observation of concrete instances. In order to take a close look at the act of obeying, I set up a simple experimentat Yale University. Eventually, the experiment was to involve more than a thousand participants and would be repeated at several universities, but at the beginning, the conception was simple. A person comes to a psychological laboratory and is told to carry out a series of acts that come increasingly into conflict with conscience. The main question is how far the participant will comply with the experimenter's instructions before refusing to carry out the actions required of him.But the reader needs to know a little more detail about the experiment. Two people come to a psychology laboratory to take part in a study of memory and learning. One of them is designated as a "teacher" and the other a "learner." The experimenter explains that the study is concerned with the effects of punishment on learning. The learner is conducted into a room, seated in a chair, his arms strapped to prevent excessive movement, and an electrode attached to his wrist. He is told that he is to learn a list of word pairs; whenever he makes an error, be will receive electric shocks of increasing intensity.The real focus of the experiment is the teacher. After watching the learner being strapped into place, he is taken into the main experimental room and seated before an impressive shock generator. Its main feature is a horizontal line of thirty switches, ranging from 15 volts to 450 volts, in 15-volt increments. There are also verbal designations which range from Slight SHOCK to Danger--Severe SHOCK. The teacher is told that he is to administer the learning test to the man in the other room. When the learner responds correctly, the teacher moves on to the next item; when the other man gives an incorrectanswer, the teacher is to give him an electric shock. He is to start at the lowest shock level ( 15 volts) and to increase the level each time the man makes an error, going through 30 volts, 45 volts, and so on.The "teacher" is a genuinely naive subject who has come to the laboratory to participate in an experiment. The learner, or victim, is an actor who actually receives no shock at all. The point of the experiment is to see how far a person will proceed in a concrete and measurable situation in which he is ordered to inflict increasing pain on a protesting victim.
The Assistant Principal 50: Critical Questions for Meaningful Leadership and Professional Growth
Baruti K. Kafele - 2020
Whatever your status--the sole AP in your school, one of two or more APs in your school, a career AP, an AP aspiring to the principalship--yours is one of the most misunderstood and underutilized positions in education. Positioned between teachers and the principal, you are an instructional leader. However, you are not the leader of the school. Therefore, you must carefully navigate your way to ensure that you thrive in your role without "stepping on the toes" of your principal.In The Assistant Principal 50, award-winning, four-time principal Baruti Kafele presents reflective questions that encompass the breadth and depth of the assistant principalship--from finding your leadership "lane" to thriving and being an asset to your principal. Kafele infuses the book (which also includes guidance and insights for principals and aspiring assistant principals) from beginning to end with personal anecdotes and accounts of both failures and successes from his years as an assistant principal. He arms you with tools and insights that will drive you to view the assistant principalship as critical to the climate and culture of your school as well as to student achievement.You, assistant principal, play a critical role in your school's success. The questions that Kafele asks you to consider will aid you as you hone your leadership skills toward becoming an effective leader in your school.
Quantum Mechanics: The Theoretical Minimum
Leonard Susskind - 2014
Now, physicist Leonard Susskind has teamed up with data engineer Art Friedman to present the theory and associated mathematics of the strange world of quantum mechanics.In this follow-up to The Theoretical Minimum, Susskind and Friedman provide a lively introduction to this famously difficult field, which attempts to understand the behavior of sub-atomic objects through mathematical abstractions. Unlike other popularizations that shy away from quantum mechanics’ weirdness, Quantum Mechanics embraces the utter strangeness of quantum logic. The authors offer crystal-clear explanations of the principles of quantum states, uncertainty and time dependence, entanglement, and particle and wave states, among other topics, and each chapter includes exercises to ensure mastery of each area. Like The Theoretical Minimum, this volume runs parallel to Susskind’s eponymous Stanford University-hosted continuing education course.An approachable yet rigorous introduction to a famously difficult topic, Quantum Mechanics provides a tool kit for amateur scientists to learn physics at their own pace.
The Trail of the Lonesome Pine
John Fox Jr. - 1908
published this great romantic novel of the Cumberland Mountains of Kentucky and Virginia in 1908, and the book quickly became one of America's favorites. It has all the elements of a good romance -- a superior but natural heroine, a hero who is an agent of progress and enlightenment, a group of supposedly benighted mountaineers to be drawn into the flow of mainstream American culture, a generous dose of social and class struggle, and a setting among the misty coves and cliffs of the blue Cumberlands.Reprinted with a foreword by John Ed Pearce, The Trail of the Lonesome Pine has all the excitement and poignance that caught and held readers' interest when the book first appeared.
Early Poems
Robert Frost - 1988
American poet Robert Frost's first three books, in one collectionThis volume presents Frost’s first three books, masterful and innovative collections that contain some of his best-known poems, including "Mowing," "Mending Wall," "After Apple-Picking," "Home Burial," "The Oven Bird," "Birches," and "The Road Not Taken."
The American Girls Handy Book: How to Amuse Yourself and Others (Nonpareil Books)
Lina Beard - 1887
As Anne M. Boylan writes in her foreword, "Healthy and spirited, the American Girl thinks nothing of taking a ten-mile 'romp' through woods and fields with a group of friends, and collects flowers and leaves for preservation or presentation to friends and relations.Above all, however, the Beards' girl is handy. She can make a hat rack, a screen, or a bookshelf; fashion a macrame hammock or a cornhusk doll; and draw, paint, sculpt, or decorate a room...By emphasizing what girls can do,
The American Girl's Handy Book
presents a portrait of girlhood that is vigorous, active, and full of possibilities."
The Runaway Skyscraper
Murray Leinster - 1853
He wanted to talk about Wells's "Time Machine" but he knew that'd be no use -- these folks didn't read that sort of thing. "If the earth had settled down, we'd have been lower. If it had settled to one side, we'd have been moved one way or another, but as it's settled back in the Fourth Dimension, we're going back in time." "Then --""We're in a runaway skyscraper, bound for some time back before the discovery of America!
A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy
Miyamoto Musashi - 1645
There he wrote five scrolls describing the "true principles" required for victory in the martial arts and on the battlefield. Instead of relying on religion or theory, Musashi based his writings on his own experience, observation, and reason.
The Hero With a Thousand Faces
Joseph Campbell - 1949
Examining heroic myths in the light of modern psychology, it considers not only the patterns and stages of mythology but also its relevance to our lives today--and to the life of any person seeking a fully realized existence.Myth, according to Campbell, is the projection of a culture's dreams onto a large screen; Campbell's book, like Star Wars, the film it helped inspire, is an exploration of the big-picture moments from the stage that is our world. It is a must-have resource for both experienced students of mythology and the explorer just beginning to approach myth as a source of knowledge.
The Valley of the Moon
Jack London - 1913
A road novel 50 years before Kerouac, The Valley of the Moon traces the odyssey of Billy and Saxon Roberts from the labor strife of Oakland at the turn of the century through central and northern California in search of beautiful land they can farm independently.
The Trees
Conrad Richter - 1940
Toward the close of the eighteenth century, the land west of the Alleghenies and north of the Ohio River was an unbroken sea of trees. Beneath them the forest trails were dark, silent, and lonely, brightened only by a few lost beams of sunlight. Here, in the first novel of Conrad Richter's Awakening Land trilogy, the Lucketts, a wild, woods-faring family, lived their roaming life, pushing ever westward as the frontier advanced and as new settlements threatened their isolation. This novel gives an excellent feel for America's lost woods culture, which was created when most of the eastern midwest was a vast hardwood forest---virtually a jungle. The Trees conveys settler life, including conflicts with Native Americans, illness, hunting, family dynamics, and marriage.
NZ Frenzy: New Zealand South Island
Scott Cook - 2010
This guidebook is not meant to replace a Lonely Planet/Frommers/Rough Guide, but rather to compliment them. In NZ Frenzy you'll find info about all the South's must-see spots, plus detailed info about the lesser-known and unheralded off-the-beaten-path wonder spots. This guidebook goes WAY beyond the vague outdoor info in the mainstream travel guidebooks. NZ Frenzy is about giving you the details you'll need to find the "real" NZ, the one without lines of tour buses, the one without brochures of pay-to-see commercialized natural "attractions". NZ Frenzy, unlike any of the other mainstream guidebooks, will deliver you to the New Zealand that you've been planning for and fantasizing about. I guarantee it. Please read the reviews of NZ Frenzy North Island to see what travelers think of my info. Are you going to NZ to be a tourist at touristy crowded places or do you want to find the "Real" New Zealand that you'll tell stories about?? When you have an NZ Frenzy in hand, you'll leave the other guidebooks in the glove box and you'll leave the tourists behind!! The South Island has natural wonders beyond compare, but the mainstream media only promotes the commercialized stuff. Don't waste your precious time while in NZ waiting in line at the tourist visitor centers...get NZ Frenzy and go experience the Real New Zealand, the Fabled New Zealand. You can have the trip of a lifetime, you will have the trip of a lifetime!!