The Man With His Head in the Clouds

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Author :
Publisher : Andrews UK Limited
ISBN 13 : 1909930334
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (99 download)

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Book Synopsis The Man With His Head in the Clouds by : Richard O. Smith

Download or read book The Man With His Head in the Clouds written by Richard O. Smith and published by Andrews UK Limited. This book was released on 2015-10-07 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hilarious, enlightening and inspiring The Man with His Head in the Clouds is anything but ordinary. Smith has artfully created a category-defying juxtaposition of historical biography and autobiographical recovery story. . . fun and accessible.' --The Psychologist 'All human life is here, served up with a light touch and keen sense of the ridiculous.' --Dr Lucy Worsley 'Pure pleasure... A brilliant blend of biography and self-help, and a bold book about ballooning, The Man with His Head in the Clouds is nothing less than a trip.' --Frances Wilson This is the story of how an uneducated Oxford pastry cook became the first Englishman to fly, in a self-built balloon powered by primitive, and potentially lethal, hydrogen. Despite taking off in force 8 gales, crashing into hills and plopping into the Irish Sea, James Sadler became a rare pioneering aeronaut to survive such perilous ascents. Good luck was not hereditary; his son's balloon fatally collided with a chimney. Sadler advanced the scientific evolution of lighter-than-air flight, and took part in both of the famous races that so captivated the public in late eighteenth-century Europe: across the Channel, and the Irish Sea. He earned Lord Nelson's endorsement for improving the Royal Navy with applied science, created one of the first--perhaps the very first--mobile steam engines and was revered by fans like Percy Shelley and Dr. Johnson. Yet even the brightest stars one day collapse, as Sadler's name emits virtually no light today. Like Sadler, Richard O. Smith emanates from Oxford's Town not Gown. Like Sadler, he wants to look down on Oxford--literally--and his admiration for the balloonist culminates in him replicating the first ever flight, also over Oxford. But there is a problem. The author suffers from acute acrophobia, a crippling fear of heights. This prevents him from standing on a stool, yet alone dangling at 3,000 feet beneath an oversized party balloon. To overcome his chronic height anxiety, he seeks pre-flight counselling, learning all about current understanding of phobias and anxieties. Here he discovers that he is also bathmophobic--a fully-functioning adult who is afraid of stairs. Inspired by Sadler, Smith sets out to overcome his debilitating fear and ascend in a balloon over Oxford. 'Be positive. You just need a will to do it,' counsels a psychologist. So, taking that advice, he starts positively, by making a will.

Head in the Clouds

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781410434487
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (344 download)

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Book Synopsis Head in the Clouds by : Karen Witemeyer

Download or read book Head in the Clouds written by Karen Witemeyer and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Adelaide Proctor longs to find a real-life storybook hero to claim as her own. But when a husband-hunting debacle leaves her humilated, she interviews for a governess position on a remote Texas sheep ranch and vows to leave her silly romantic yearnings behind. Gideon Wescott left his privileged life in England to make a name for himself in America's wool industry, never expecting to end up with a child. To his dismay, five-year-old Isabella hasn't uttered a word since she lost her mother. The unconventionality of the new governess concerns Gideon--and intrigues him at the same time. But he can't afford distractions. When Isabella's uncle comes to claim the girl--and her inheritance--Gideon and Adelaide must work together to protect Isabella from the man's evil schemes. Soon neither can deny their growing attraction. But after so many heartbreaks, will Adelaide be willing to get her head out of the clouds and put her heart on the line?"--Page 4 of cover.

The Man in the Clouds

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781935954132
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (541 download)

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Book Synopsis The Man in the Clouds by : Koos Meinderts

Download or read book The Man in the Clouds written by Koos Meinderts and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the Man in the Clouds creates a beautiful painting, people begin to make a pilgrimage up his mountain to see it for themselves--the misfits find it especially comforting. An art expert tells the artist that it is very valuable and he begins to think about differently, determined to protect it rather than share it. Finally, he sees that his greed and possessiveness has changed the way he sees the picture so he tosses it into the fire and looks out the window with fresh eyes, seeing again the beauty that enthralled him in the first place.

Head in the Clouds

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Author :
Publisher : Bethany House
ISBN 13 : 1441213236
Total Pages : 368 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (412 download)

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Book Synopsis Head in the Clouds by : Karen Witemeyer

Download or read book Head in the Clouds written by Karen Witemeyer and published by Bethany House. This book was released on 2010-10-01 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Adelaide Proctor is a young woman with her head in the clouds, longing for a real-life storybook hero to claim as her own. But when a husband-hunting debacle leaves her humiliated, she interviews for a staid governess position on a central Texas sheep ranch and vows to leave her romantic yearnings behind. When Gideon Westcott left his privileged life in England to make a name for himself in America's wool industry, he never expected to become a father overnight. And five-year-old Isabella hasn't uttered a word since she lost her mother. The unconventionality of the new governess concerns Gideon--and intrigues him at the same time. But he can't afford distractions. He has a ranch to run, a shearing to oversee, and a suspicious fence-cutting to investigate. When Isabella's uncle comes to claim the child--and her inheritance--Gideon and Adelaide must work together to protect Isabella from the man's evil schemes. And soon neither can deny their growing attraction. But after so many heartbreaks, will Adelaide be willing to get her head out of the clouds and put her heart on the line?

Feet in the Clouds

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Author :
Publisher : Aurum
ISBN 13 : 1845136497
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (451 download)

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Book Synopsis Feet in the Clouds by : Richard Askwith

Download or read book Feet in the Clouds written by Richard Askwith and published by Aurum. This book was released on 2013-05-09 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nearly 10 years after its first publication, Aurum are re-issuing this classic running book which has defined a genre. It includes an introduction from bestselling author Robert Macfarlane and an epilogue from Richard Askwith. The concept of fell-running is simple: it’s a sport that involves running over mountains – sometimes one, sometimes many. It’s also immensely demanding. While running uphill is a stamina-sapping slog, running pell-mell down the other side requires the agility – and even recklessness – of a mountain goat. And there’s the weather to contend with. It may make the sports pages only rarely, but in areas like the Lake District and Snowdonia fell-running is the basis of a whole culture – indeed, race organisers sometimes have to turn competitors away so that fragile mountain uplands are not irrevocably damaged by too many thundering feet. Fixtures like the annual Ben Nevis and Snowdon races attract runners from all over Britain, and beyond. Others, such as the Wasdale and Ennerdale fell runs in the Lakeland valleys – gruelling marathons of more than 20 miles – remain truly local events for which the whole community turns out, with many of the runners back on the same fells the next day tending sheep. Now, Richard Askwith explores the world of fell-running in the only legitimate way: by donning his Ron Hill vest and studded shoes to spend a season running as many of the great fell races as he can, from Borrowdale to Ben Nevis: an arduous schedule that tests the very limits of one’s stamina and courage. Over the months he also meets the greats of fell-running – like the remarkable Joss Naylor, who to celebrate his fiftieth birthday ran all 214 major Lakeland fells in a single week; Billy Bland, the combative Borrowdale man whose astounding records still stand for many of the top races; and Bill Teasdale, a hero of the sport’s earlier, professional days, whom he tracks down to his tiny cottage in the northern Lakes. And ultimately Askwith’s obsession drives him to attempt the ultimate challenge: the Bob Graham Round – a non-stop circuit of 42 of the Lake District’s highest peaks to be completed within 24 hours. This is a portrait of one of the few sports to have remained utterly true to its roots – in which the point is not fame or fortune but to run the ancient, wild landscape, and to be a hero, if at all, within one’s own valley. Feet in the Clouds is a chronicle of a masochistic but admirable sporting obsession, an insight into one of the oldest extreme sports, and a lyrical tribute to Britain’s mountains and the men and women who live among them.

With My Head in the Clouds -

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780992643324
Total Pages : 398 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (433 download)

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Book Synopsis With My Head in the Clouds - by : Gwyn Mullett

Download or read book With My Head in the Clouds - written by Gwyn Mullett and published by . This book was released on 2013-12 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Super VC-10 G-ASGC, now preserved at Duxford Air Museum, hurtled across the North Atlantic at a speed that was just below the maximum the aircraft was allowed. The Flight Engineer was in his element and spent the night fine-tuning the engines to keep the speed spot on. After a short time the Chief Steward came onto the flight deck and announced that the dinner service was complete and that the passengers were now all bedded down for the night. "I am sorry to spoil your rest break but we will be landing in just over two hours," I said. "What are we flying? A bloody Concorde or something! I will have to wake them up for a full English breakfast in one hour," he replied. "Scrub the breakfast and give them champagne for landing," was my response. We landed at Prestwick on the Scottish west coast after just five hours and one minute from take-off at JFK. The scheduled time was six hours and twenty minutes so this was some achievement and to this day has never been beaten by a scheduled aircraft.

The Man Who Could Move Clouds

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Author :
Publisher : Anchor
ISBN 13 : 0593311167
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (933 download)

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Book Synopsis The Man Who Could Move Clouds by : Ingrid Rojas Contreras

Download or read book The Man Who Could Move Clouds written by Ingrid Rojas Contreras and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2023-07-11 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • From the bestselling author of Fruit of the Drunken Tree, comes a dazzling, kaleidoscopic memoir reclaiming her family's otherworldly legacy. A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: TIME, NPR, VULTURE, PEOPLE, BOSTON GLOBE, VANITY FAIR, ESQUIRE, & MORE “Rojas Contreras reacquaints herself with her family’s past, weaving their stories with personal narrative, unraveling legacies of violence, machismo and colonialism… In the process, she has written a spellbinding and genre-defying ancestral history.”—New York Times Book Review For Ingrid Rojas Contreras, magic runs in the family. Raised amid the political violence of 1980s and '90s Colombia, in a house bustling with her mother’s fortune-telling clients, she was a hard child to surprise. Her maternal grandfather, Nono, was a renowned curandero, a community healer gifted with what the family called “the secrets”: the power to talk to the dead, tell the future, treat the sick, and move the clouds. And as the first woman to inherit “the secrets,” Rojas Contreras’ mother was just as powerful. Mami delighted in her ability to appear in two places at once, and she could cast out even the most persistent spirits with nothing more than a glass of water. This legacy had always felt like it belonged to her mother and grandfather, until, while living in the U.S. in her twenties, Rojas Contreras suffered a head injury that left her with amnesia. As she regained partial memory, her family was excited to tell her that this had happened before: Decades ago Mami had taken a fall that left her with amnesia, too. And when she recovered, she had gained access to “the secrets.” In 2012, spurred by a shared dream among Mami and her sisters, and her own powerful urge to relearn her family history in the aftermath of her memory loss, Rojas Contreras joins her mother on a journey to Colombia to disinter Nono’s remains. With Mami as her unpredictable, stubborn, and often amusing guide, Rojas Contreras traces her lineage back to her Indigenous and Spanish roots, uncovering the violent and rigid colonial narrative that would eventually break her mestizo family into two camps: those who believe “the secrets” are a gift, and those who are convinced they are a curse. Interweaving family stories more enchanting than those in any novel, resurrected Colombian history, and her own deeply personal reckonings with the bounds of reality, Rojas Contreras writes her way through the incomprehensible and into her inheritance. The result is a luminous testament to the power of storytelling as a healing art and an invitation to embrace the extraordinary.

Men Against the Clouds

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 354 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (5 download)

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Book Synopsis Men Against the Clouds by : Richard Lloyd Burdsall

Download or read book Men Against the Clouds written by Richard Lloyd Burdsall and published by . This book was released on 1935 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Dory Fantasmagory

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Publisher : Faber & Faber
ISBN 13 : 0571325599
Total Pages : 163 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (713 download)

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Book Synopsis Dory Fantasmagory by : Abby Hanlon

Download or read book Dory Fantasmagory written by Abby Hanlon and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2017-02-28 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: My name is Dory, but everyone calls me Rascal. This is my family. And I'm the littlest. Meet Dory - an irresistible scamp with a huge imagination. Dory's the youngest in her family, which STINKS because it means everyone's always too busy to play with her. Or worse! They call her too little to join in. Luckily Dory has plenty of friends to keep her company - even if everyone else says they're just imaginary. And Dory has a lot to do: outsmarting the monsters that live in her house, escaping from prison (aka time-out) and exacting revenge on her sister's favourite doll... Fully illustrated throughout, and with perfect-for-bedtime length chapters, this adorable little mischief-maker is sure to capture your heart.

Bloodstream

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Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1439140782
Total Pages : 518 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (391 download)

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Book Synopsis Bloodstream by : Tess Gerritsen

Download or read book Bloodstream written by Tess Gerritsen and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-07-20 with total page 518 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With her acclaimed novels Harvest and Life Support, Tess Gerritsen has injected a powerful dose of adrenaline into the medical thriller. Now, Gerritsen melds page-turning suspense with chilling realism as a small-town doctor races to unravel the roots of a violent outbreak—before it destroys everything she loves. Lapped by the gentle waters of Locust Lake, the small resort town of Tranquility, Maine, seems like the perfect spot for Dr. Claire Elliot to shelter her adolescent son, Noah, from the distractions of the big city and the lingering memory of his father's death. But with the first snap of winter comes shocking news that puts her practice on the line: a teenage boy under her care has committed an appalling act of violence. And as Claire and all of Tranquility soon discover, it is just the start of a chain of lethal outbursts among the town's teenagers. As the rash of disturbing behavior grows, Claire uncovers a horrifying secret: this is not the first time it has happened. Twice a century, the children of Tranquility lash out with deadly violence. Claire suspects that there is a biological cause for the epidemic, and she fears that the placid Locust Lake may conceal an insidious danger. As she races to save Tranquility—and her son—from harm, Claire discovers an even greater threat: a shocking conspiracy to manipulate nature and cause innocents to slaughter.

Above the Clouds

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Publisher : Macmillan + ORM
ISBN 13 : 1250097487
Total Pages : 305 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (5 download)

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Book Synopsis Above the Clouds by : Anatoli Boukreev

Download or read book Above the Clouds written by Anatoli Boukreev and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2015-09-08 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A breathtaking and lavishly illustrated autobiography in essays on Anatoli Boukreev, the late world-famous mountaineer and author of The Climb. When Anatoli Boukreev died on the slopes of Annapurna on Christmas day, 1997, the world lost one of the greatest adventurers of our time. In Above the Clouds, both the man and his incredible climbs on Mt. McKinley, K2, Makalu, Manaslu, and Everest-including his diary entries on the infamous 1996 disaster, written shortly after his return-are immortalized. There also are minute technical details about the skill of mountain climbing, as well as personal reflections on what life means to someone who risks it every day. Fully illustrated with gorgeous color photos, Above the Clouds is a unique and breathtaking look at the world from its most remote peaks.

To Reach the Clouds

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Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 0865476519
Total Pages : 241 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (654 download)

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Book Synopsis To Reach the Clouds by : Philippe Petit

Download or read book To Reach the Clouds written by Philippe Petit and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2002 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1974, 100,000 people on the ground watched 24-year-old high wire artist Petit make eight crossings between the World Trade Towers. In this visually and verbally stunning book, Petit tells for the first time the story of his walk, from conception and clandestine planning to the performance and its aftermath. 140 illustrations.

Head in the Cloud

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Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1786072858
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (86 download)

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Book Synopsis Head in the Cloud by : William Poundstone

Download or read book Head in the Cloud written by William Poundstone and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-06-01 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Never before have we had so much information at our fingertips. You might think that we are better-informed than ever, but there’s one thing we can’t ask Google: ‘What should I be googling?’ The way we consume information in the digital age has been blamed for driving political polarisation and leaving us unable to agree on basic facts. It’s also making us stupider. Personalised news feeds and social media echo chambers narrow our potential knowledge base. By now, we don’t even know what we don’t know. In Head in the Cloud, William Poundstone investigates the true worth of knowledge. An entertaining manifesto underpinned by big data analysis and illustrated by eye-opening anecdotes, it reveals the surprising benefits of broadening your horizons and provides an unnerving look at the consequences of being ill-informed.

Faces in the Clouds

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0195356802
Total Pages : 335 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (953 download)

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Book Synopsis Faces in the Clouds by : Stewart Elliott Guthrie

Download or read book Faces in the Clouds written by Stewart Elliott Guthrie and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1995-04-06 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religion is universal human culture. No phenomenon is more widely shared or more intensely studied, yet there is no agreement on what religion is. Now, in Faces in the Clouds, anthropologist Stewart Guthrie provides a provocative definition of religion in a bold and persuasive new theory. Guthrie says religion can best be understood as systematic anthropomorphism--that is, the attribution of human characteristics to nonhuman things and events. Many writers see anthropomorphism as common or even universal in religion, but few think it is central. To Guthrie, however, it is fundamental. Religion, he writes, consists of seeing the world as humanlike. As Guthrie shows, people find a wide range of humanlike beings plausible: Gods, spirits, abominable snowmen, HAL the computer, Chiquita Banana. We find messages in random events such as earthquakes, weather, and traffic accidents. We say a fire "rages," a storm "wreaks vengeance," and waters "lie still." Guthrie says that our tendency to find human characteristics in the nonhuman world stems from a deep-seated perceptual strategy: in the face of pervasive (if mostly unconscious) uncertainty about what we see, we bet on the most meaningful interpretation we can. If we are in the woods and see a dark shape that might be a bear or a boulder, for example, it is good policy to think it is a bear. If we are mistaken, we lose little, and if we are right, we gain much. So, Guthrie writes, in scanning the world we always look for what most concerns us--livings things, and especially, human ones. Even animals watch for human attributes, as when birds avoid scarecrows. In short, we all follow the principle--better safe than sorry. Marshalling a wealth of evidence from anthropology, cognitive science, philosophy, theology, advertising, literature, art, and animal behavior, Guthrie offers a fascinating array of examples to show how this perceptual strategy pervades secular life and how it characterizes religious experience. Challenging the very foundations of religion, Faces in the Clouds forces us to take a new look at this fundamental element of human life.

Red Berries, White Clouds, Blue Sky

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Author :
Publisher : Sleeping Bear Press
ISBN 13 : 1627537724
Total Pages : 252 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (275 download)

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Book Synopsis Red Berries, White Clouds, Blue Sky by : Sandra Dallas

Download or read book Red Berries, White Clouds, Blue Sky written by Sandra Dallas and published by Sleeping Bear Press. This book was released on 2014-09-01 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's 1942: Tomi Itano, 12, is a second-generation Japanese American who lives in California with her family on their strawberry farm. Although her parents came from Japan and her grandparents still live there, Tomi considers herself an American. She doesn't speak Japanese and has never been to Japan. But after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, things change. No Japs Allowed signs hang in store windows and Tomi's family is ostracized. Things get much worse. Suspected as a spy, Tomi's father is taken away. The rest of the Itano family is sent to an internment camp in Colorado. Many other Japanese American families face a similar fate. Tomi becomes bitter, wondering how her country could treat her and her family like the enemy. What does she need to do to prove she is an honorable American? Sandra Dallas shines a light on a dark period of American history in this story of a young Japanese American girl caught up in the prejudices and World War II.

The Theory of Clouds

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Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN 13 : 9780151014286
Total Pages : 284 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (142 download)

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Book Synopsis The Theory of Clouds by : Stéphane Audeguy

Download or read book The Theory of Clouds written by Stéphane Audeguy and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2007 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The novel tells the story of Akira Kumo, a retired couturier living in Paris, owner of the world's largest collection of books about clouds, and Virginie Latour, whom Kumo hires to help catalogue his library. While they work he tells her the story behind three figures in particular, all British, all obsessed by clouds: Luke Howard, a real-life Quaker who in 1802 wrote the first treatise classifying clouds (we still use it today); a painter named Carmichael, clearly based on John Constable, one of the most famous cloud painters of all time, and a fictional amateur meteorologist named Richard Abercrombie, who aspires to write the definitive book on cloud description, which would come to be known in cloud circles as the Abercrombie Protocol. Kumo sends Virginie Latour to London to buy the Protocol. By the end of the novel, we learn the Protocol's great secret; we understand what binds these men together; and and we learn that Kumo himself is a survivor of the Hiroshima blast, in whose cloud his family vanished.

Cloud Atlas

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Publisher : Vintage Canada
ISBN 13 : 0307373576
Total Pages : 596 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (73 download)

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Book Synopsis Cloud Atlas by : David Mitchell

Download or read book Cloud Atlas written by David Mitchell and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2010-07-16 with total page 596 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A timeless, structure-bending classic that explores how actions of individual lives impact the past, present and future—from a postmodern visionary and one of the leading voices in fiction One of the New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century • Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize Cloud Atlas begins in 1850 with Adam Ewing, an American notary voyaging from the Chatham Isles to his home in California. Ewing is befriended by a physician, Dr. Goose, who begins to treat him for a rare species of brain parasite. The novel careens, with dazzling virtuosity, to Belgium in 1931, to the West Coast in the 1970s, to an inglorious present-day England, to a Korean superstate of the near future where neocapitalism has run amok, and, finally, to a postapocalyptic Iron Age Hawaii in the last days of history. But the story doesn’t end even there. The novel boomerangs back through centuries and space, returning by the same route, in reverse, to its starting point. Along the way, David Mitchell reveals how his disparate characters connect, how their fates intertwine, and how their souls drift across time like clouds across the sky. As wild as a video game, as mysterious as a Zen koan, Cloud Atlas is an unforgettable tour de force that, like its incomparable author, has transcended its cult classic status to become a worldwide phenomenon.