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Author : Sexton
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 9781118018668
Total Pages : 60 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (186 download)
Download or read book Cliffsnotes Dummy on Krakauer's Into the Wild written by Sexton and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-02-08 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Author : Adam Sexton
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN 13 : 054418226X
Total Pages : 64 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (441 download)
Download or read book CliffsNotes on Krakauer's Into the Wild written by Adam Sexton and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2011-01-06 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The CliffsNotes study guide on Krakauer's Into the Wild supplements the original literary work, giving you background information about the author, an introduction to the work, a graphical character map, critical commentaries, expanded glossaries, and a comprehensive index, all for you to use as an educational tool that will allow you to better understand the work. This study guide was written with the assumption that you have read Into the Wild. Reading a literary work doesn’t mean that you immediately grasp the major themes and devices used by the author; this study guide will help supplement your reading to be sure you get all you can from Krakauer's Into the Wild. CliffsNotes Review tests your comprehension of the original text and reinforces learning with questions and answers, practice projects, and more. For further information on Krakauer's Into the Wild, check out the CliffsNotes Resource Center at www.cliffsnotes.com.
Author : Jon Krakauer
Publisher : Anchor
ISBN 13 : 0307476863
Total Pages : 241 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (74 download)
Download or read book Into the Wild written by Jon Krakauer and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2009-09-22 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter. This is the unforgettable story of how Christopher Johnson McCandless came to die. "It may be nonfiction, but Into the Wild is a mystery of the highest order." —Entertainment Weekly McCandess had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Not long after, he was dead. Into the Wild is the mesmerizing, heartbreaking tale of an enigmatic young man who goes missing in the wild and whose story captured the world’s attention. Immediately after graduating from college in 1991, McCandless had roamed through the West and Southwest on a vision quest like those made by his heroes Jack London and John Muir. In the Mojave Desert he abandoned his car, stripped it of its license plates, and burned all of his cash. He would give himself a new name, Alexander Supertramp, and, unencumbered by money and belongings, he would be free to wallow in the raw, unfiltered experiences that nature presented. Craving a blank spot on the map, McCandless simply threw the maps away. Leaving behind his desperate parents and sister, he vanished into the wild. Jon Krakauer constructs a clarifying prism through which he reassembles the disquieting facts of McCandless's short life. Admitting an interest that borders on obsession, he searches for the clues to the drives and desires that propelled McCandless. When McCandless's innocent mistakes turn out to be irreversible and fatal, he becomes the stuff of tabloid headlines and is dismissed for his naiveté, pretensions, and hubris. He is said to have had a death wish but wanting to die is a very different thing from being compelled to look over the edge. Krakauer brings McCandless's uncompromising pilgrimage out of the shadows, and the peril, adversity, and renunciation sought by this enigmatic young man are illuminated with a rare understanding—and not an ounce of sentimentality. Into the Wild is a tour de force. The power and luminosity of Jon Krakauer's stoytelling blaze through every page.
Author : Vivian Wagner
Publisher : Hyperink Inc
ISBN 13 : 1614649855
Total Pages : 22 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (146 download)
Download or read book Quicklet on Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air (CliffsNotes-like Book Summary) written by Vivian Wagner and published by Hyperink Inc. This book was released on 2012-02-24 with total page 22 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ABOUT THE BOOK When I first read Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster, I was enthralled and amazed. The story he tells about a doomed Mt. Everest expedition in 1996 is both thrilling and terrifying, and it also has a lot to say about the problems with the commercialization of adventure expeditions on the highest mountain in the world. It’s a well-researched and extraordinarily well-written first-hand account of the tragic expedition, and Krakauer’s excellent storytelling makes for gripping reading. Not only was he a member of this expedition, but he knows how to tell a story - how to introduce characters, build drama, and describe situations. He also has a gift for researching and writing history. When I first read Into Thin Air, I was prompted to read everything I could get my hands on about Mt. Everest. You could spend several years reading through this material, since there have been many books published about Mt. Everest, including several about this same disaster. Reading as many as you can will throw you into a fascinating, complex, and sometimes contradictory world of adventurers, scientists, business people, Tibetan and Nepalese guides, socialites, swindlers, politicians, artists, dreamers, and many other characters - as well as the frigid and challenging character of the mountain itself. Whether this is your first or fiftieth foray into the literature of Mt. Everest, you won’t be disappointed by Into Thin Air, and it will certainly draw you into its subzero spell. MEET THE AUTHOR professional writer Vivian Wagner has wide-ranging interests, from technology and business to music and motorcycles. She writes features regularly for ECT News Network, and her work has also appeared in American Profile, Entrepreneur, Bluegrass Unlimited, and many other publications. She is also the author of Fiddle: One Woman, Four Strings, and 8,000 Miles of Music (Citadel 2010). For more about her, visit her website at www.vivianwagner.net. EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK Into Thin Air (1997) began as a 1996 article for Outside Magazine. Krakauer wanted to develop the story more fully, however, and thus was the book was born. He’d originally been assigned to examine the commercialization of Mt. Everest for the Outside article. That ended up being the focus of the story after all, but with a much more tragic outcome than he or his editors could have imagined. For the article and subsequent book, Krakauer joined an expedition led by Rob Hall’s Adventure Consultants. During that season, a number of other expeditions were also on the mountain along with Krakauer and Hall, including Scott Fischer’s Mountain Madness. Both Hall and Fischer were killed in the May 1996 disaster, along with six other climbers. Since its publication, Into Thin Air has been at the center of controversy surrounding Krakauer’s account of events, particularly in regards to questions about who was responsible for tragic errors made on the mountain. Much of the initial criticism of the book came from the Russian climbing guide Anatoli Boukreev, who disputed Krakauer’s depiction of him as neglecting his mountain guide duties. In response to Krakauer’s book, Boukreev published his own account of the tragedy, co-authored by G. Weston DeWalt, called The Climb (1997). In postscript to a later edition of Into Thin Air, Krakauer took up this debate and defended his account of the tragedy against Boukreev’s criticism. Buy a copy to keep reading!
Author : Tyler Lacoma
Publisher : Hyperink Inc
ISBN 13 : 1614648573
Total Pages : 27 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (146 download)
Download or read book Quicklet on Jon Krakauer's Three Cups of Deceit (CliffsNotes-like Book Summary) written by Tyler Lacoma and published by Hyperink Inc. This book was released on 2012-03-02 with total page 27 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ABOUT THE BOOK Like so many others, I remember reading Greg Mortenson’s revolutionary Three Cups of Tea for a college class. The book was an instant hit, both in the media and in my own mind. No one could resist its tale of compassion, adventure, and triumph, set in the exotic Far-Middle East but offering an uplifting tale in sharp contrast to news about war and conflict. Greg Mortenson himself appealed to me greatly. Who could not like a mountain-climbing humanitarian who escaped near-death to fall in love, all while creating a series of schools throughout impoverished Afghanistan and Pakistan? It was movie magic... And then it really was movie magic. Three Cups of Deceit pulled back the veil on Three Cups of Tea, revealing the lies, fabrications, and dishonesty Mortenson appears to have used when creating his adventure tale. What Three Cups of Deceit offers is a mixture of both argument and evidence. It does not come across as a separate story, but as a painful analysis of Tea and the sequel Stones into Schools. MEET THE AUTHOR Tyler Lacoma writes on business, environmental, and fitness topics, but squeezes in some time for fiction, too. He graduated from George Fox University and lives in beautiful Oregon, where he fills spaces between writing with outdoor fun, loud music, and time with family and friends. EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK The text goes on to reveal how such actions damaged the causes the CAI has tried to advance and how the organization is not as successful as Mortenson would like its supporters to believe. Krakauer also takes time to analyze Mortenson’s own mistakes, financial sloppiness, and possible motives for fictionalizing what could have been an honest account of conditions in the Himalayas. The reason, according to Deceit, is only, “To inflate the myth of Greg Mortenson.” Krakauer divides his text into three different sections, eschewing chapters for a more organic flow. At less than 80 pages long, the bulk of the book does not require frequent headings to stay readable. The first section section, titled The Creation Myth, examines the account Greg Mortenson gives in Three Cups of Tea when he first came across Haji Ali and the village of Korphe, where he was inspired to build the first school. Krakauer frequently moves back and forth between his own exposition and quotes from Tea and other pieces written by or about Mortenson to highlight the differences in fact... Buy a copy to keep reading!
Author : Carolyn Jessop
Publisher : Crown
ISBN 13 : 0767928474
Total Pages : 442 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (679 download)
Download or read book Escape written by Carolyn Jessop and published by Crown. This book was released on 2007-10-16 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The dramatic true story of one woman’s life inside the ultra-fundamentalist American religious sect featured in Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey—and her courageous flight to freedom with her eight children With a new epilogue by the author • “Escape provides an astonishing look behind the tightly drawn curtains of the FLDS church, one of the most secretive religious groups in the United States. A courageous, heart-wrenching account.”—Jon Krakauer When she was eighteen years old, Carolyn Jessop was coerced into an arranged marriage with a total stranger: a man thirty-two years her senior. Merril Jessop already had three wives. But arranged plural marriages were an integral part of Carolyn’s heritage: She was born into and raised in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), the radical offshoot of the Mormon Church. Over the next fifteen years, Carolyn had eight children and withstood her husband’s psychological abuse and the watchful eyes of his other wives, who were locked in a constant battle for supremacy. Carolyn was miserable for years and wanted out, but she knew that if she tried to leave and got caught, her children would be taken away from her. In 2003, Carolyn chose freedom over fear and fled her home with her eight children. She had $20 to her name. Escape exposes a world tantamount to a prison camp, created by religious fanatics who, in the name of God, deprive the followers the right to make choices, brainwash children in church-run schools, and force women to be totally subservient to men. Against this background, Carolyn’s flight takes on an extraordinary, inspiring power. Not only did Carolyn manage a daring escape from a brutal environment, she became the first woman ever granted full custody of her children in a contested suit involving the FLDS. And in 2006, her reports to the Utah attorney general on church abuses formed a crucial part of the case that led to the arrest, and later the conviction and sentence, of their notorious leader, Warren Jeffs.
Author : Jon Krakauer
Publisher : Anchor
ISBN 13 : 0679462716
Total Pages : 318 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (794 download)
Download or read book Into Thin Air written by Jon Krakauer and published by Anchor. This book was released on 1998-11-12 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The epic account of the storm on the summit of Mt. Everest that claimed five lives and left countless more—including Krakauer's—in guilt-ridden disarray. "A harrowing tale of the perils of high-altitude climbing, a story of bad luck and worse judgment and of heartbreaking heroism." —PEOPLE A bank of clouds was assembling on the not-so-distant horizon, but journalist-mountaineer Jon Krakauer, standing on the summit of Mt. Everest, saw nothing that "suggested that a murderous storm was bearing down." He was wrong. By writing Into Thin Air, Krakauer may have hoped to exorcise some of his own demons and lay to rest some of the painful questions that still surround the event. He takes great pains to provide a balanced picture of the people and events he witnessed and gives due credit to the tireless and dedicated Sherpas. He also avoids blasting easy targets such as Sandy Pittman, the wealthy socialite who brought an espresso maker along on the expedition. Krakauer's highly personal inquiry into the catastrophe provides a great deal of insight into what went wrong. But for Krakauer himself, further interviews and investigations only lead him to the conclusion that his perceived failures were directly responsible for a fellow climber's death. Clearly, Krakauer remains haunted by the disaster, and although he relates a number of incidents in which he acted selflessly and even heroically, he seems unable to view those instances objectively. In the end, despite his evenhanded and even generous assessment of others' actions, he reserves a full measure of vitriol for himself. This updated trade paperback edition of Into Thin Air includes an extensive new postscript that sheds fascinating light on the acrimonious debate that flared between Krakauer and Everest guide Anatoli Boukreev in the wake of the tragedy. "I have no doubt that Boukreev's intentions were good on summit day," writes Krakauer in the postscript, dated August 1999. "What disturbs me, though, was Boukreev's refusal to acknowledge the possibility that he made even a single poor decision. Never did he indicate that perhaps it wasn't the best choice to climb without gas or go down ahead of his clients." As usual, Krakauer supports his points with dogged research and a good dose of humility. But rather than continue the heated discourse that has raged since Into Thin Air's denouncement of guide Boukreev, Krakauer's tone is conciliatory; he points most of his criticism at G. Weston De Walt, who coauthored The Climb, Boukreev's version of events. And in a touching conclusion, Krakauer recounts his last conversation with the late Boukreev, in which the two weathered climbers agreed to disagree about certain points. Krakauer had great hopes to patch things up with Boukreev, but the Russian later died in an avalanche on another Himalayan peak, Annapurna I. In 1999, Krakauer received an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters--a prestigious prize intended "to honor writers of exceptional accomplishment." According to the Academy's citation, "Krakauer combines the tenacity and courage of the finest tradition of investigative journalism with the stylish subtlety and profound insight of the born writer. His account of an ascent of Mount Everest has led to a general reevaluation of climbing and of the commercialization of what was once a romantic, solitary sport; while his account of the life and death of Christopher McCandless, who died of starvation after challenging the Alaskan wilderness, delves even more deeply and disturbingly into the fascination of nature and the devastating effects of its lure on a young and curious mind."
Author : Ava Barry
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1643136275
Total Pages : 376 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (431 download)
Download or read book Windhall written by Ava Barry and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-03-02 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A stunning literary thriller in which an investigative journalist in modern Los Angeles attempts to solve the Golden Age murder of a Hollywood starlet. 1940s Hollywood was an era of decadence and director Theodore Langley was its king. Paired with Eleanor Hayes as his lead actress, Theo ruled the Golden Age of Hollywood. That ended when Eleanor’s mangled body was discovered in Theo’s rose garden and he was charged with her murder. The case was thrown out before it went to trial and Theo fled L.A., leaving his crawling estate, Windhall, to fall into ruin. He hasn’t been seen since. Decades later, investigative journalist Max Hailey, raised by his gran on stories of old Hollywood, is sure that if he could meet Theo, he could prove once and for all that the famed director killed his leading lady. When a copycat murder takes place near Windhall, the long reclusive Theo returns to L.A., and it seems Hailey finally has his chance. When Hailey gets his hands on Theo’s long-missing journals, he reads about Eleanor’s stalkers and her role in Theo’s final film, The Last Train to Avalon, a film so controversial it was never released to the public. In the months leading up to her death, something had left her so terrified she stopped coming to work. The more Hailey learns about Avalon, the more convinced he becomes that the film could tell him who killed Eleanor and why she had to die. But the implications of Avalon reach far beyond Eleanor’s murder, and Hailey must race to piece together the murders of the past and present before it’s too late.
Author : Shane Safir
Publisher : Corwin
ISBN 13 : 1071812661
Total Pages : 281 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (718 download)
Download or read book Street Data written by Shane Safir and published by Corwin. This book was released on 2021-02-12 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Radically reimagine our ways of being, learning, and doing Education can be transformed if we eradicate our fixation on big data like standardized test scores as the supreme measure of equity and learning. Instead of the focus being on "fixing" and "filling" academic gaps, we must envision and rebuild the system from the student up—with classrooms, schools and systems built around students’ brilliance, cultural wealth, and intellectual potential. Street data reminds us that what is measurable is not the same as what is valuable and that data can be humanizing, liberatory and healing. By breaking down street data fundamentals: what it is, how to gather it, and how it can complement other forms of data to guide a school or district’s equity journey, Safir and Dugan offer an actionable framework for school transformation. Written for educators and policymakers, this book · Offers fresh ideas and innovative tools to apply immediately · Provides an asset-based model to help educators look for what’s right in our students and communities instead of seeking what’s wrong · Explores a different application of data, from its capacity to help us diagnose root causes of inequity, to its potential to transform learning, and its power to reshape adult culture Now is the time to take an antiracist stance, interrogate our assumptions about knowledge, measurement, and what really matters when it comes to educating young people.
Author : Julie Bogart
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0593542711
Total Pages : 353 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (935 download)
Download or read book Raising Critical Thinkers written by Julie Bogart and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2023-08-01 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A guide for parents to help children of all ages process the onslaught of unfiltered information in the digital age. Education is not solely about acquiring information and skills across subject areas, but also about understanding how and why we believe what we do. At a time when online media has created a virtual firehose of information and opinions, parents and teachers worry how students will interpret what they read and see. Amid the noise, it has become increasingly important to examine different perspectives with both curiosity and discernment. But how do parents teach these skills to their children? Drawing on more than twenty years’ experience homeschooling and developing curricula, Julie Bogart offers practical tools to help children at every stage of development to grow in their ability to explore the world around them, examine how their loyalties and biases affect their beliefs, and generate fresh insight rather than simply recycling what they’ve been taught. Full of accessible stories and activities for children of all ages, Raising Critical Thinkers helps parents to nurture passionate learners with thoughtful minds and empathetic hearts.
Author : Solomon Northup
Publisher : Lindhardt og Ringhof
ISBN 13 : 8726609053
Total Pages : 266 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (266 download)
Download or read book Twelve Years a Slave written by Solomon Northup and published by Lindhardt og Ringhof. This book was released on 2024-01-04 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Filmatized in 2013 and the official recipient of three Oscars, Solomon Northup's powerful slave narrative 'Twelve Years a Slave' depicts Nortup's life as he is sold into slavery after having spent 32 years of his life living as a free man in New York. Working as a travelling musician, Northup goes to Washington D.C, where he is kidnapped, sent to New Orleans, and sold to a planter to suffer the relentless and brutal life of a slave. After a dozen years, Northup escapes to return to his family and pulls no punches, as he describes his fate and that of so many other black people at the time. It is a harrowing but vitally important book, even today. For further reading on this subject, try 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Solomon Northup (c.1807-c.1875) was an American abolitionist and writer, best remembered for his powerful race memoir 'Twelve Years a Slave'. At the age of 32, when he was a married farmer, father-of-three, violinist and free-born man, he was kidnapped in Washington D.C and shipped to New Orleans, sold to a planter and enslaved for a dozen years. When he gained his freedom, he wrote his famous memoir and spent some years lecturing across the US,on behalf of the abolitionist movement. 'Twelve Years a Slave' was published a year after 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' by Harriet Beecher Stowe and built on the anti-slavery momentum it had developed. Northup's final years are something of a mystery, though it is thought that he struggled to cope with family life after being freed.
Author : Cherie Bennett
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 110107583X
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (1 download)
Download or read book Anne Frank and Me written by Cherie Bennett and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2002-11-11 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In one moment Nicole Burns's life changes forever. The sound of gunfire at an Anne Frank exhibit, the panic, the crowd, and Nicole is no longer Nicole. Whiplashed through time and space, she wakes to find herself a privileged Jewish girl living in Nazi-occupied Paris during World War II. No more Internet diaries and boy troubles for Nicole-now she's a carefree Jewish girl, with wonderful friends and a charming boyfriend. But when the Nazi death grip tightens over France, Nicole is forced into hiding, and begins a struggle for survival that brings her face to face with Anne Frank. "This is a powerful and affecting story." (KLIATT)
Author : Patrick Ness
Publisher : Candlewick Press
ISBN 13 : 0763652164
Total Pages : 496 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (636 download)
Download or read book The Knife of Never Letting Go written by Patrick Ness and published by Candlewick Press. This book was released on 2010-10-18 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dystopian thriller follows a boy and girl on the run from a town where all thoughts can be heard – and the passage to manhood embodies a horrible secret. Todd Hewitt is the only boy in a town of men. Ever since the settlers were infected with the Noise germ, Todd can hear everything the men think, and they hear everything he thinks. Todd is just a month away from becoming a man, but in the midst of the cacophony, he knows that the town is hiding something from him -- something so awful Todd is forced to flee with only his dog, whose simple, loyal voice he hears too. With hostile men from the town in pursuit, the two stumble upon a strange and eerily silent creature: a girl. Who is she? Why wasn't she killed by the germ like all the females on New World? Propelled by Todd's gritty narration, readers are in for a white-knuckle journey in which a boy on the cusp of manhood must unlearn everything he knows in order to figure out who he truly is.
Author : Nathan Ballingrud
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1534453318
Total Pages : 84 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (344 download)
Download or read book The Visible Filth written by Nathan Ballingrud and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-01-15 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Elegant and troublingly, wonderfully disturbing.” —Victor LaValle, award-winning author of The Changeling This gripping novella of terror by Shirley Jackson Award–winning author Nathan Ballingrud is the basis for the film Wounds starring Dakota Johnson, Armie Hammer, and Zazie Beetz! An eerie dread descends upon a New Orleans dive bartender after a cell phone is left behind in a rollicking bar fight in the novella “The Visible Filth,” which has been adapted for film by director Babak Anvari—premiering at the Sundance film festival!—and starring Armie Hammer, Dakota Johnson, and Zazie Beetz. Wounds will release on April 12th, 2019.
Author : Wally Lamb
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780060391621
Total Pages : 884 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (916 download)
Download or read book I Know This Much Is True written by Wally Lamb and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1998-06-03 with total page 884 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With his stunning debut novel, She's Come Undone, Wally Lamb won the adulation of critics and readers with his mesmerizing tale of one woman's painful yet triumphant journey of self-discovery. Now, this brilliantly talented writer returns with I Know This Much Is True, a heartbreaking and poignant multigenerational saga of the reproductive bonds of destruction and the powerful force of forgiveness. A masterpiece that breathtakingly tells a story of alienation and connection, power and abuse, devastation and renewal--this novel is a contemporary retelling of an ancient Hindu myth. A proud king must confront his demons to achieve salvation. Change yourself, the myth instructs, and you will inhabit a renovated world. When you're the same brother of a schizophrenic identical twin, the tricky thing about saving yourself is the blood it leaves on your bands--the little inconvenience of the look-alike corpse at your feet. And if you're into both survival of the fittest and being your brother's keeper--if you've promised your dying mother--then say so long to sleep and hello to the middle of the night. Grab a book or a beer. Get used to Letterman's gap-toothed smile of the absurd, or the view of the bedroom ceiling, or the influence of random selection. Take it from a godless insomniac. Take it from the uncrazy twin--the guy who beat the biochemical rap. Dominick Birdsey's entire life has been compromised and constricted by anger and fear, by the paranoid schizophrenic twin brother he both deeply loves and resents, and by the past they shared with their adoptive father, Ray, a spit-and-polish ex-Navy man (the five-foot-six-inch sleeping giant who snoozed upstairs weekdays in the spare room and built submarines at night), and their long-suffering mother, Concettina, a timid woman with a harelip that made her shy and self-conscious: She holds a loose fist to her face to cover her defective mouth--her perpetual apology to the world for a birth defect over which she'd had no control. Born in the waning moments of 1949 and the opening minutes of 1950, the twins are physical mirror images who grow into separate yet connected entities: the seemingly strong and protective yet fearful Dominick, his mother's watchful "monkey"; and the seemingly weak and sweet yet noble Thomas, his mother's gentle "bunny." From childhood, Dominick fights for both separation and wholeness--and ultimately self-protection--in a house of fear dominated by Ray, a bully who abuses his power over these stepsons whose biological father is a mystery. I was still afraid of his anger but saw how he punished weakness--pounced on it. Out of self-preservation I hid my fear, Dominick confesses. As for Thomas, he just never knew how to play defense. He just didn't get it. But Dominick's talent for survival comes at an enormous cost, including the breakup of his marriage to the warm, beautiful Dessa, whom he still loves. And it will be put to the ultimate test when Thomas, a Bible-spouting zealot, commits an unthinkable act that threatens the tenuous balance of both his and Dominick's lives. To save himself, Dominick must confront not only the pain of his past but the dark secrets he has locked deep within himself, and the sins of his ancestors--a quest that will lead him beyond the confines of his blue-collar New England town to the volcanic foothills of Sicily 's Mount Etna, where his ambitious and vengefully proud grandfather and a namesake Domenico Tempesta, the sostegno del famiglia, was born. Each of the stories Ma told us about Papa reinforced the message that he was the boss, that he ruled the roost, that what he said went. Searching for answers, Dominick turns to the whispers of the dead, to the pages of his grandfather's handwritten memoir, The History of Domenico Onofrio Tempesta, a Great Man from Humble Beginnings. Rendered with touches of magic realism, Domenico's fablelike tale--in which monkeys enchant and religious statues weep--becomes the old man's confession--an unwitting legacy of contrition that reveals the truth's of Domenico's life, Dominick learns that power, wrongly used, defeats the oppressor as well as the oppressed, and now, picking through the humble shards of his deconstructed life, he will search for the courage and love to forgive, to expiate his and his ancestors' transgressions, and finally to rebuild himself beyond the haunted shadow of his twin. Set against the vivid panoply of twentieth-century America and filled with richly drawn, memorable characters, this deeply moving and thoroughly satisfying novel brings to light humanity's deepest needs and fears, our aloneness, our desire for love and acceptance, our struggle to survive at all costs. Joyous, mystical, and exquisitely written, I Know This Much Is True is an extraordinary reading experience that will leave no reader untouched.
Author : Sandra Boynton
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 0689870272
Total Pages : 7 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (898 download)
Download or read book Moo, Baa, La La La! written by Sandra Boynton and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2004-06 with total page 7 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Various humorously drawn animals demonstrate the very different, and often amusing sounds they make, in a lap-sized version of a best-selling board book.
Author : Luke Rosiak
Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 0063056739
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (63 download)
Download or read book Race to the Bottom written by Luke Rosiak and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2022-03-08 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Everyone wants: High schoolers to graduate well-prepared for jobs. Improved STEM literacy. Greater achievement for inner-city children. Happiness for all children. So why are liberals spending billions of dollars working against those goals? In Race to the Bottom, Luke Rosiak uncovers the shocking reason why American education is failing: Powerful special interest groups are using our kids as guinea pigs in vast ideological experiments. These groups’ initiatives aren’t focused on making children smarter—but on implementing a radical agenda, no matter the effect on academic standards. Nonprofits pump billions into initiatives meant to redress racial inequities. Rather than fixing the problem, districts with a big gap between white and black test scores hire consultants who claim the tests are meaningless because they are “racist.” These consultants’ judgments allow school districts to ignore their own failures—ultimately hurting minority students and perpetuating racism. That is just one example. Drawing on his years in investigative journalism, Rosiak did a deep dive into school files, financial records, and parents’ stories. What he found is that nonprofit influence has crept into the educational bureaucracy all over America. Corrupt school boards and quack diversity consultants abound. Teachers drawing government pay claim it’s unsafe to return to in-person school, but “double dip” teaching in-person private classes. And amid all this focus on money and equity, academic standards are crumbling, which hurts American kids in ways we’ll be suffering for decades. Race to the Bottom is the first comprehensive exposé of the way radical ideology and self-serving administrators are destroying academic quality in America’s K-12 schools. Rigorous and deeply-researched, this is essential reading for anyone who cares about the future of our kids.
