Let My People Vote

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Publisher : Beacon Press
ISBN 13 : 0807062324
Total Pages : 178 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (7 download)

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Book Synopsis Let My People Vote by : Desmond Meade

Download or read book Let My People Vote written by Desmond Meade and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Desmond Meade was chosen as a MacArthur Fellow in 2021 The inspiring and eye-opening true story of one man’s undying belief in the power of a fully enfranchised nation. “You may think the right to vote is a small matter, and if you do, I would bet you have never had it taken away from you.” Thus begins the story of Desmond Meade and his inspiring journey to restore voting rights to roughly 1.4 million returning citizens in Florida—resulting in a stunning victory in 2018 that enfranchised the most people at once in any single initiative since women’s suffrage. Let My People Vote is the deeply moving, personal story of Meade’s life, his political activism, and the movement he spearheaded to restore voting rights to returning citizens who had served their terms. Meade survived a tough childhood only to find himself with a felony conviction. Finding the strength to pull his life together, he graduated summa cum laude from college, graduated from law school, and married. But because of his conviction, he was not even allowed to sit for the bar exam in Florida. And when his wife ran for state office, he was filled with pride—but not permitted to vote for her. Meade takes us on a journey from his time in homeless shelters, to the exhilarating, joyful night in November of 2018, when Amendment 4 passed with 65 percent of the vote. Meade’s story, and his commitment to a fully enfranchised nation, will prove to readers that one person really can make a difference.

This Is a Book

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Author :
Publisher : Grand Central Publishing
ISBN 13 : 160941876X
Total Pages : 275 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (94 download)

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Book Synopsis This Is a Book by : Demetri Martin

Download or read book This Is a Book written by Demetri Martin and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2011-04-25 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the renowned comedian, creator, star and executive producer/multiple title-holder of Comedy Central's Important Things with Demetri Martin comes a bold, original, and rectangular kind of humor book. Demetri's first literary foray features longer-form essays and conceptual pieces (such as Protagonists' Hospital, a melodrama about the clinic doctors who treat only the flesh wounds and minor head scratches of Hollywood action heroes), as well as his trademark charts, doodles, drawings, one-liners, and lists (i.e., the world views of optimists, pessimists and contortionists), Martin's material is varied, but his unique voice and brilliant mind will keep readers in stitches from beginning to end.

Dancing With Life

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Publisher : Rodale Books
ISBN 13 : 1605298964
Total Pages : 371 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (52 download)

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Book Synopsis Dancing With Life by : Phillip Moffitt

Download or read book Dancing With Life written by Phillip Moffitt and published by Rodale Books. This book was released on 2012-03-27 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do we suffer? Is there a purpose to our pain? Noting that human beings have wrestled with such questions for thousands of years, Phillip Moffitt has found answers for his own life in Buddhist philosophy and meditation. Reflecting on his own journey from Esquire magazine editor-in-chief to Buddhist meditation teacher, Moffitt provides a fresh perspective on the Buddha's ancient wisdom, showing how to move from suffering to new awareness and unanticipated joy. In this deeply spiritual book that is sure to become a Buddhist classic, Moffitt explores the twelve insights that underlie the Buddha's core teaching--the Four Noble Truths--and uses these often neglected ideas to guide readers to a more meaningful relationship to suffering. Moffitt write: "These twelve insights teach you to dance with both the joy and pain, finding peace in a balanced mind and calm spirit. As the most specific, practical life instructions I have ever encountered, they serve as an invaluable tool for anyone who seeks a life filled with meaning and well-being." Practicing these twelve insights, as Moffitt suggests, will help readers experience life's difficulties without being filled with stress and anguish, and they will enhance their moments of happiness. With engaging writing and a strong message of self-empowerment, Dancing with Life offers a prescriptive path for finding joy and peace that will appeal to meditation students and readers of "Dharma Wisdom," Moffitt's column in Yoga Journal, as well as anyone searching for a more authentic life.

Awakening through the Nine Bodies

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Publisher : North Atlantic Books
ISBN 13 : 1623171903
Total Pages : 257 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (231 download)

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Book Synopsis Awakening through the Nine Bodies by : Phillip Moffitt

Download or read book Awakening through the Nine Bodies written by Phillip Moffitt and published by North Atlantic Books. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This “beautiful” illustrated guide for meditation and yoga students of all spiritual traditions “offers subtle and vast teachings on the mystery of the body and mind” (Jack Kornfield, author of No Time Like the Present). Based on meditation practices Phillip Moffitt learned twenty years ago from Himalayan yoga master Sri Swami Balyogi Premvarni, this beautifully illustrated book is a guide to exploring the nature of mind and gaining a better understanding of experiences that arise during meditation. The Nine Bodies teachings map out a journey that starts with consciousness that arises in the physical body and is directly observable, and then travels through ever more subtle levels of consciousness to that which is not manifest and is only potential, and therefore has to be inferred. The book includes a series of mysterious illustrations that Balyogi created during his time of intense Samadhi explorations. Each illustration is a rich composition of symbols that express aspects of inner experiences that are almost impossible to express with language. Moffitt makes these teachings available for meditation students from all spiritual traditions to use as gateways for exploring the nature of mind and as additional means for tracking and classifying meditative experiences. Students of yoga will also find value in the teachings of the Nine Bodies as they provide a means for contextualizing and connecting with yogic teachings on chakras, koshas, gunas, and the Three Bodies.

The Life and Posthumous Writings of William Cowper, Esq

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 268 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (321 download)

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Book Synopsis The Life and Posthumous Writings of William Cowper, Esq by : William Hayley

Download or read book The Life and Posthumous Writings of William Cowper, Esq written by William Hayley and published by . This book was released on 1803 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

World of Wonders

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Publisher : Milkweed Editions
ISBN 13 : 157131959X
Total Pages : 146 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (713 download)

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Book Synopsis World of Wonders by : Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Download or read book World of Wonders written by Aimee Nezhukumatathil and published by Milkweed Editions. This book was released on 2020-09-08 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A poet celebrates the wonders of nature in a collection of essays that could almost serve as a coming-of-age memoir.” —Kirkus Reviews As a child, Nezhukumatathil called many places home: the grounds of a Kansas mental institution, where her Filipina mother was a doctor; the open skies and tall mountains of Arizona, where she hiked with her Indian father; and the chillier climes of western New York and Ohio. But no matter where she was transplanted—no matter how awkward the fit or forbidding the landscape—she was able to turn to our world’s fierce and funny creatures for guidance. “What the peacock can do,” she tells us, “is remind you of a home you will run away from and run back to all your life.” The axolotl teaches us to smile, even in the face of unkindness; the touch-me-not plant shows us how to shake off unwanted advances; the narwhal demonstrates how to survive in hostile environments. Even in the strange and the unlovely, Nezhukumatathil finds beauty and kinship. For it is this way with wonder: it requires that we are curious enough to look past the distractions in order to fully appreciate the world’s gifts. Warm, lyrical, and gorgeously illustrated by Fumi Nakamura, World of Wonders is a book of sustenance and joy. Praise for World of Wonders Barnes & Noble 2020 Book of the Year An NPR Best Book of 2020 An Esquire Best Book of 2020 A Publishers Weekly “Big Indie Book of Fall 2020” A BuzzFeed Best Book of Fall 2020 “Hands-down one of the most beautiful books of the year.” —NPR “A timely story about love, identity and belonging.” —New York Times Book Review “A truly wonderous essay collection.” —Roxane Gay, The Audacity

A Little Devil in America

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Author :
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 198480121X
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (848 download)

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Book Synopsis A Little Devil in America by : Hanif Abdurraqib

Download or read book A Little Devil in America written by Hanif Abdurraqib and published by Random House. This book was released on 2021-03-30 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • A sweeping, genre-bending “masterpiece” (Minneapolis Star Tribune) exploring Black art, music, and culture in all their glory and complexity—from Soul Train, Aretha Franklin, and James Brown to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Whitney Houston, and Beyoncé ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Chicago Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Dallas Morning News, Publishers Weekly “Gorgeous essays that reveal the resilience, heartbreak, and joy within Black performance.”—Brit Bennett, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Vanishing Half “I was a devil in other countries, and I was a little devil in America, too.” Inspired by these few words, spoken by Josephine Baker at the 1963 March on Washington, MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellow and bestselling author Hanif Abdurraqib has written a profound and lasting reflection on how Black performance is inextricably woven into the fabric of American culture. Each moment in every performance he examines—whether it’s the twenty-seven seconds in “Gimme Shelter” in which Merry Clayton wails the words “rape, murder,” a schoolyard fistfight, a dance marathon, or the instant in a game of spades right after the cards are dealt—has layers of resonance in Black and white cultures, the politics of American empire, and Abdurraqib’s own personal history of love, grief, and performance. Touching on Michael Jackson, Patti LaBelle, Billy Dee Williams, the Wu-Tan Clan, Dave Chappelle, and more, Abdurraqib writes prose brimming with jubilation and pain. With care and generosity, he explains the poignancy of performances big and small, each one feeling intensely familiar and vital, both timeless and desperately urgent. Filled with sharp insight, humor, and heart, A Little Devil in America exalts the Black performance that unfolds in specific moments in time and space—from midcentury Paris to the moon, and back down again to a cramped living room in Columbus, Ohio. WINNER OF THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL AND THE GORDON BURN PRIZE • FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD AND THE PEN/DIAMONSTEIN-SPIELVOGEL AWARD ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, Time, The Boston Globe, NPR, Rolling Stone, Esquire, BuzzFeed, Thrillist, She Reads, BookRiot, BookPage, Electric Lit, The Rumpus, LitHub, Library Journal, Booklist

The Crack-Up

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Author :
Publisher : New Directions Publishing
ISBN 13 : 0811219712
Total Pages : 356 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (112 download)

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Book Synopsis The Crack-Up by : F. Scott Fitzgerald

Download or read book The Crack-Up written by F. Scott Fitzgerald and published by New Directions Publishing. This book was released on 2009-02-27 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A self-portrait of a great writer 's rise and fall, intensely personal and etched with Fitzgerald's signature blend of romance and realism. The Crack-Up tells the story of Fitzgerald's sudden descent at the age of thirty-nine from glamorous success to empty despair, and his determined recovery. Compiled and edited by Edmund Wilson shortly after F. Scott Fitzgerald's death, this revealing collection of his essays—as well as letters to and from Gertrude Stein, Edith Wharton, T.S. Eliot, John Dos Passos—tells of a man with charm and talent to burn, whose gaiety and genius made him a living symbol of the Jazz Age, and whose recklessness brought him grief and loss. "Fitzgerald's physical and spiritual exhaustion is described brilliantly," noted The New York Review of Books: "the essays are amazing for the candor."

Creativity, Inc. (The Expanded Edition)

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Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 0679644504
Total Pages : 367 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (796 download)

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Book Synopsis Creativity, Inc. (The Expanded Edition) by : Ed Catmull

Download or read book Creativity, Inc. (The Expanded Edition) written by Ed Catmull and published by Random House. This book was released on 2014-04-08 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The co-founder and longtime president of Pixar updates and expands his 2014 New York Times bestseller on creative leadership, reflecting on the management principles that built Pixar’s singularly successful culture, and on all he learned during the past nine years that allowed Pixar to retain its creative culture while continuing to evolve. “Might be the most thoughtful management book ever.”—Fast Company For nearly thirty years, Pixar has dominated the world of animation, producing such beloved films as the Toy Story trilogy, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Up, and WALL-E, which have gone on to set box-office records and garner eighteen Academy Awards. The joyous storytelling, the inventive plots, the emotional authenticity: In some ways, Pixar movies are an object lesson in what creativity really is. Here, Catmull reveals the ideals and techniques that have made Pixar so widely admired—and so profitable. As a young man, Ed Catmull had a dream: to make the first computer-animated movie. He nurtured that dream as a Ph.D. student, and then forged a partnership with George Lucas that led, indirectly, to his founding Pixar with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter in 1986. Nine years later, Toy Story was released, changing animation forever. The essential ingredient in that movie’s success—and in the twenty-five movies that followed—was the unique environment that Catmull and his colleagues built at Pixar, based on philosophies that protect the creative process and defy convention, such as: • Give a good idea to a mediocre team and they will screw it up. But give a mediocre idea to a great team and they will either fix it or come up with something better. • It’s not the manager’s job to prevent risks. It’s the manager’s job to make it safe for others to take them. • The cost of preventing errors is often far greater than the cost of fixing them. • A company’s communication structure should not mirror its organizational structure. Everybody should be able to talk to anybody. Creativity, Inc. has been significantly expanded to illuminate the continuing development of the unique culture at Pixar. It features a new introduction, two entirely new chapters, four new chapter postscripts, and changes and updates throughout. Pursuing excellence isn’t a one-off assignment but an ongoing, day-in, day-out, full-time job. And Creativity, Inc. explores how it is done.

Chasing Miracles

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Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 1557049270
Total Pages : 142 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (57 download)

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Book Synopsis Chasing Miracles by : John Crowley

Download or read book Chasing Miracles written by John Crowley and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2010-01-12 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When John and Aileen Crowley learned that their two youngest children had a rare and little understood genetic disorder, they didn't hope for miracles: they made them happen. In 1998, 15-month-old Megan and 4-month-old Patrick were diagnosed with Pompe disease, a rare and fatal neuromuscular disorder that affects only a few thousand children worldwide, usually leaving them with little to no muscle function, enlarged hearts, and severe difficulty breathing. The Crowleys were told to take their children home and "enjoy their short time together...there is nothing that can be done." Raised in a blue-collar neighborhood in northern New Jersey, John Crowley, a recent Harvard MBA graduate working at Bristol-Myers Squibb, was just beginning to taste success in corporate America. But now he was absolutely determined to find a treatment to save his children's lives. Frustrated with the pace of Pompe research, Crowley walked away from the corporate world at the age of 31 to help co-found a start-up biotech company, focused exclusively on producing a lifesaving medicine. In Chasing Miracles, John Crowley writes from his heart about how he and his wife set out to do "whatever it takes" against phenomenal odds to help Megan and Patrick first to survive, and then to thrive—and to keep their family, including oldest son John Jr., together and their marriage strong. He tells about learning to ask for help, about not losing faith, about coping with adversity, about the generosity and kindness of others, and, most importantly, about what it means to never, never quit. As Aileen Crowley writes in her foreword, "This book is our family's attempt to share much of what we have learned, especially from our children, who have taught us more about life and love than we have ever taught them."

The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Esquire, F. R. S.

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 930 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (321 download)

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Book Synopsis The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Esquire, F. R. S. by : Samuel Pepys

Download or read book The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Esquire, F. R. S. written by Samuel Pepys and published by . This book was released on 1902 with total page 930 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Born to Run

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Author :
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 150114152X
Total Pages : 528 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (11 download)

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Book Synopsis Born to Run by : Bruce Springsteen

Download or read book Born to Run written by Bruce Springsteen and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2009, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performed at the Super Bowl's half-time show. The experience was so exhilarating that Bruce decided to write about it. That's how this extraordinary autobiography began. Over the past seven years, Bruce Springsteen has privately devoted himself to writing the story of his life, bringing to these pages the same honesty, humour, and originality found in his songs. He describes growing up Catholic in Freehold, New Jersey, amid the poetry, danger, and darkness that fueled his imagination, leading up to the moment he refers to as "The Big Bang": seeing Elvis Presley's debut on The Ed Sullivan Show. He vividly recounts his relentless drive to become a musician, his early days as a bar band king in Asbury Park, and the rise of the E Street Band. With disarming candour, he also tells for the first time the story of the personal struggles that inspired his best work, and shows us why the song "Born to Run" reveals more than we previously realized.

Notes from an Apocalypse

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Author :
Publisher : Anchor
ISBN 13 : 0385543018
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (855 download)

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Book Synopsis Notes from an Apocalypse by : Mark O'Connell

Download or read book Notes from an Apocalypse written by Mark O'Connell and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2020-04-14 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • An absorbing, deeply felt book about our anxious present tense—and coming to grips with the future, by the author of the award-winning To Be a Machine. “Deeply funny and life-affirming, with a warm, generous outlook even on the most challenging of subjects.” —Esquire We’re alive in a time of worst-case scenarios: The weather has gone uncanny. A pandemic draws our global community to a halt. Everywhere you look there’s an omen, a joke whose punchline is the end of the world. How is a person supposed to live in the shadow of such a grim future? What might it be like to live through the worst? And what on earth is anybody doing about it? Dublin-based writer Mark O’Connell is consumed by these questions—and, as the father of two young children, he finds them increasingly urgent. In Notes from an Apocalypse, he crosses the globe in pursuit of answers. He tours survival bunkers in South Dakota. He ventures to New Zealand, a favored retreat of billionaires banking on civilization’s collapse. He engages with would-be Mars colonists, preppers, right-wing conspiracists. And he bears witness to places, like Chernobyl, that the future has already visited—real-life portraits of the end of the world as we know it. What emerges is an absorbing, funny, and deeply felt book about our anxious present tense—and coming to grips with what’s ahead.

Reflections at Journey’s End

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Publisher : Balboa Press
ISBN 13 : 1982214163
Total Pages : 457 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (822 download)

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Book Synopsis Reflections at Journey’s End by : York County Bar Association

Download or read book Reflections at Journey’s End written by York County Bar Association and published by Balboa Press. This book was released on 2018-11-30 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compelling series of insightful biographical sketches of the men and women of the York County Bar commencing eleven years before the start of the Civil War as recounted by contemporaries and colleagues. Candid, sincere, honest, and on occasion with a touch of comic relief, these memorial minutes are tributes to those who have made their rendezvous with mortality. Found within these volumes is the venerable Jeremiah S. Black who walked the corridors of national recognition during the Civil War era; the urbane and brilliant Herbert B. Cohen who wielded substantial political power throughout the commonwealth and rose to become an associate justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court; and the charismatic Harvey Gross whose superb advocacy in the third Hex trial and subsequent twenty-year tenure on the York County Orphans’ Court placed him in the forefront of the princes of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence. This “callout” of the giants in no way diminishes the significance, commitment, and integrity of the many other remarkable individuals who came after and counseled and inspired others to live honestly, to exercise compassion, and to act with prudence and diligence, and above all else made their contribution to the vast and diverse panorama of our humanity. Not a typical memoir or story, these memorial minutes constitute the defining epic of the York County Bar. More than history, more than recitals of character and personality, more than delightful encounters and more somber content, they are about individuals remembered for the richness and power of their hopes, achievements, and commitments to the timeless values of the life of the law.

Stumbling on Happiness

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Publisher : Vintage Canada
ISBN 13 : 0307371360
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (73 download)

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Book Synopsis Stumbling on Happiness by : Daniel Gilbert

Download or read book Stumbling on Happiness written by Daniel Gilbert and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2009-02-24 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A smart and funny book by a prominent Harvard psychologist, which uses groundbreaking research and (often hilarious) anecdotes to show us why we’re so lousy at predicting what will make us happy – and what we can do about it. Most of us spend our lives steering ourselves toward the best of all possible futures, only to find that tomorrow rarely turns out as we had expected. Why? As Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert explains, when people try to imagine what the future will hold, they make some basic and consistent mistakes. Just as memory plays tricks on us when we try to look backward in time, so does imagination play tricks when we try to look forward. Using cutting-edge research, much of it original, Gilbert shakes, cajoles, persuades, tricks and jokes us into accepting the fact that happiness is not really what or where we thought it was. Among the unexpected questions he poses: Why are conjoined twins no less happy than the general population? When you go out to eat, is it better to order your favourite dish every time, or to try something new? If Ingrid Bergman hadn’t gotten on the plane at the end of Casablanca, would she and Bogey have been better off? Smart, witty, accessible and laugh-out-loud funny, Stumbling on Happiness brilliantly describes all that science has to tell us about the uniquely human ability to envision the future, and how likely we are to enjoy it when we get there.

These Precious Days

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Author :
Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 0063092808
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (63 download)

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Book Synopsis These Precious Days by : Ann Patchett

Download or read book These Precious Days written by Ann Patchett and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-11-23 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The beloved New York Times bestselling author reflects on home, family, friendships and writing in this deeply personal collection of essays. "The elegance of Patchett’s prose is seductive and inviting: with Patchett as a guide, readers will really get to grips with the power of struggles, failures, and triumphs alike." —Publisher's Weekly “Any story that starts will also end.” As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart. At the center of These Precious Days is the title essay, a surprising and moving meditation on an unexpected friendship that explores “what it means to be seen, to find someone with whom you can be your best and most complete self.” When Patchett chose an early galley of actor and producer Tom Hanks’ short story collection to read one night before bed, she had no idea that this single choice would be life changing. It would introduce her to a remarkable woman—Tom’s brilliant assistant Sooki—with whom she would form a profound bond that held monumental consequences for them both. A literary alchemist, Patchett plumbs the depths of her experiences to create gold: engaging and moving pieces that are both self-portrait and landscape, each vibrant with emotion and rich in insight. Turning her writer’s eye on her own experiences, she transforms the private into the universal, providing us all a way to look at our own worlds anew, and reminds how fleeting and enigmatic life can be. From the enchantments of Kate DiCamillo’s children’s books (author of The Beatryce Prophecy) to youthful memories of Paris; the cherished life gifts given by her three fathers to the unexpected influence of Charles Schultz’s Snoopy; the expansive vision of Eudora Welty to the importance of knitting, Patchett connects life and art as she illuminates what matters most. Infused with the author’s grace, wit, and warmth, the pieces in These Precious Days resonate deep in the soul, leaving an indelible mark—and demonstrate why Ann Patchett is one of the most celebrated writers of our time.

The Telling Room

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Publisher : Dial Press
ISBN 13 : 081299454X
Total Pages : 369 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (129 download)

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Book Synopsis The Telling Room by : Michael Paterniti

Download or read book The Telling Room written by Michael Paterniti and published by Dial Press. This book was released on 2013-07-30 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR • Entertainment Weekly • Kirkus Reviews • The Christian Science Monitor In the picturesque village of Guzmán, Spain, in a cave dug into a hillside on the edge of town, an ancient door leads to a cramped limestone chamber known as “the telling room.” Containing nothing but a wooden table and two benches, this is where villagers have gathered for centuries to share their stories and secrets—usually accompanied by copious amounts of wine. It was here, in the summer of 2000, that Michael Paterniti found himself listening to a larger-than-life Spanish cheesemaker named Ambrosio Molinos de las Heras as he spun an odd and compelling tale about a piece of cheese. An unusual piece of cheese. Made from an old family recipe, Ambrosio’s cheese was reputed to be among the finest in the world, and was said to hold mystical qualities. Eating it, some claimed, conjured long-lost memories. But then, Ambrosio said, things had gone horribly wrong. . . . By the time the two men exited the telling room that evening, Paterniti was hooked. Soon he was fully embroiled in village life, relocating his young family to Guzmán in order to chase the truth about this cheese and explore the fairy tale–like place where the villagers conversed with farm animals, lived by an ancient Castilian code of honor, and made their wine and food by hand, from the grapes growing on a nearby hill and the flocks of sheep floating over the Meseta. What Paterniti ultimately discovers there in the highlands of Castile is nothing like the idyllic slow-food fable he first imagined. Instead, he’s sucked into the heart of an unfolding mystery, a blood feud that includes accusations of betrayal and theft, death threats, and a murder plot. As the village begins to spill its long-held secrets, Paterniti finds himself implicated in the very story he is writing. Equal parts mystery and memoir, travelogue and history, The Telling Room is an astonishing work of literary nonfiction by one of our most accomplished storytellers. A moving exploration of happiness, friendship, and betrayal, The Telling Room introduces us to Ambrosio Molinos de las Heras, an unforgettable real-life literary hero, while also holding a mirror up to the world, fully alive to the power of stories that define and sustain us. Praise for The Telling Room “Captivating . . . Paterniti’s writing sings, whether he’s talking about how food activates memory, or the joys of watching his children grow.”—NPR