Search results for ""author jack"

As Americans, we believe there ought to be a level playing field for everyone. Even if we don’t expect to finish first, we do expect a fair start. Only in sports have African Americans actually found that elusive level ground. But at the same time, black players offer an ironic perspective on the athlete-hero, for they represent a group historically held to be without social honor.In his first new collection of sports essays since Tuxedo Junction (1989), the noted cultural critic Gerald Early investigates these contradictions as they play out in the sports world and in our deeper attitudes toward the athletes we glorify. Early addresses a half-century of heated cultural issues ranging from integration to the use of performance-enhancing drugs. Writing about Jackie Robinson and Curt Flood, he reconstructs pivotal moments in their lives and explains how the culture, politics, and economics of sport turned with them. Taking on the subtexts, racial and otherwise, of the controversy over remarks Rush Limbaugh made about quarterback Donovan McNabb, Early restores the political consequence to an event most commentators at the time approached with predictable bluster. The essays in this book circle around two perennial questions: What other, invisible contests unfold when we watch a sporting event? What desires and anxieties are encoded in our worship of (or disdain for) high-performance athletes?These essays are based on the Alain Locke lectures at Harvard University’s Du Bois Institute.

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Caroline Bancroft History Prize 2021, Denver Public Library Armitage-Jameson Prize 2021, Coalition of Western Women's History David J. Weber Prize 2021, Western History Association W. Turrentine Jackson Prize 2021, Western History AssociationTiny You tells the story of one of the most successful political movements of the twentieth century: the grassroots campaign against legalized abortion. While Americans have rapidly changed their minds about sex education, pornography, arts funding, gay teachers, and ultimately gay marriage, opposition to legalized abortion has only grown. As other socially conservative movements have lost young activists, the pro-life movement has successfully recruited more young people to its cause. Jennifer L. Holland explores why abortion dominates conservative politics like no other cultural issue. Looking at anti-abortion movements in four western states since the 1960s—turning to the fetal pins passed around church services, the graphic images exchanged between friends, and the fetus dolls given to children in school—she argues that activists made fetal life feel personal to many Americans. Pro-life activists persuaded people to see themselves in the pins, images, and dolls they held in their hands and made the fight against abortion the primary bread-and-butter issue for social conservatives. Holland ultimately demonstrates that the success of the pro-life movement lies in the borrowed logic and emotional power of leftist activism.

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A fascinating historical account of a largely forgotten statesman, who pioneered a form of patriotism that left an indelible mark on the early United States. Joel Roberts Poinsett’s (1779–1851) brand of self-interested patriotism illuminates the paradoxes of the antebellum United States. He was a South Carolina investor and enslaver, a confidant of Andrew Jackson, and a secret agent in South America who fought surreptitiously in Chile’s War for Independence. He was an ambitious Congressman and Secretary of War who oversaw the ignominy of the Trail of Tears and orchestrated America’s longest and costliest war against Native Americans, yet also helped found the Smithsonian. In addition, he was a naturalist, after whom the poinsettia—which he appropriated while he was serving as the first US ambassador to Mexico—is now named. As Lindsay Schakenbach Regele shows in Flowers, Guns, and Money, Poinsett personified a type of patriotism that emerged following the American Revolution, one in which statesmen served the nation by serving themselves, securing economic prosperity and military security while often prioritizing their own ambitions and financial interests. Whether waging war, opposing states’ rights yet supporting slavery, or pushing for agricultural and infrastructural improvements in his native South Carolina, Poinsett consistently acted in his own self-interest. By examining the man and his actions, Schakenbach Regele reveals an America defined by opportunity and violence, freedom and slavery, and nationalism and self-interest.

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Telescopes aim to observe the light of the cosmos, but Christopher Brean Murray turns his powerful lens toward the strange darkness of human existence in Black Observatory, selected by Dana Levin as winner of the Jake Adam York Prize. With speakers set adrift in mysterious settings—a motel in the middle of a white-sand desert, a house haunted by the ghost of a dead writer, an abandoned settlement high in the mountains, a city that might give way to riotous forest—Black Observatory upends the world we think we know. Here, an accident with a squirrel proves the least bizarre moment of a day that is ordinary in outline only. The future is revealed in a list of odd crimes-to-be. And in a field of grasses, a narrator loses himself in a past and present “human conflagration / of desire and doubt,” the “path to a field of unraveling.”Unraveling lies at the heart of these poems. Murray picks at the frayed edges of everyday life, spinning new threads and weaving an uncanny and at times unnerving tapestry in its place. He arranges and rearranges images until the mundane becomes distorted: a cloud “stretches and coils and becomes an intestine / embracing the anxious protagonist,” thoughts “leap from sagebrush / like jackrabbits into your high beams,” a hot black coffee tastes “like runoff from a glacier.” In the process, our world emerges in surprising, disquieting relief.Simultaneously comic and tragic, playful and deeply serious, Black Observatory is a singular debut collection, a portrait of reality in penumbra.

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Julia Goodfellow-Smith has chosen 15 of the best short walks in the Malvern Hills for you to explore. Our guide comes with easy-to-read Ordnance Survey maps and clear route descriptions, perfect if you're new to walking or are looking for something you can enjoy with the whole family.We've included information on local beauty spots and tasty refreshment stops, and most of the walks can be completed in under 3 hours.We haven't included any walks with challenging terrain or complicated navigation, and all you'll need to take with you are a waterproof jacket and a pair of comfortable trainers.

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Sean Rooney, psychosleuth, and his wife Jackie Kaminski move to the highlands of Scotland to escape the past, but has the past caught up with them, when their young son, Calum, is tragically murdered. Set in the north-west coast of Scotland in the village of Storaig, with a population of two hundred souls - where murder is unheard of. When the formal police investigation is shown to be fatally flawed, Rooney decides to pursue his son's killer. His search takes him back to Glasgow, where, as crime lord The Father he made many enemies. The plot is thick, the pursuit is tortuous and the payoff is terrifying.

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So You Think You’re a Kansas City Royals Fan? will test and expand your knowledge of one of Major League Baseball’s most successful expansion franchises. Rather than merely posing questions and providing answers, you’ll get details behind each—stories that bring to life the history of the Kansas City Royals.This book, part of a new series, is divided into four parts, with progressively more difficult questions in each new section. The first three-inning section contains the most basic questions. Next come the middle innings, then the late innings, and finally the Hall of Fame.Also, you’ll learn more about the great players and names in Royals history both past and present, from George Brett to Eric Hosmer, Amos Otis and Willie Wilson to Lorenzo Cain, Dan Quisenberry, Jeff Montgomery, Frank White, Mike Sweeney, Mike Moustakas, Bret Saberhagen, Paul Splittorff, Dennis Leonard, Whitey Herzog, Dick Howser, Ned Yost, Denny Matthews, Alex Gordon, and so many more—even Bo Jackson, of course. The many questions this book answers include:• Who was the first player inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame with the Royals listed on his plaque?• What special first in World Series history was the 2015 match-up between the Mets and Royals?• Which two Royals players worked on crews that helped build Royals Stadium?• Who was the first hitter to record a multi–home run game for the Royals?This book makes the perfect gift for any fan of the 2015 World Champion Royals!

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From the MTV trailblazer, stand-up comedian, and actor, a hilariously candid memoir that is an intimate, entertaining, and heartfelt tour through the exclusive, elusive, and eternally iconic world of ’90s pop culture.Imagine 50 Cent’s Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter written by a nerdy Black kid from Newark, New Jersey, who made it big despite the skepticism of his family. That’s Top Billin'.Bill Bellamy is Carlton Banks’s slightly cooler and comedically inclined alter-ego—a guy who went against the grain and left a promising corporate career path to pursue comedy (much to the dismay of his family). Making the leap paid off—in ways Bill never expected. In Top Billin', he looks back at his time at MTV during the ’90s, when the cable music channel was at the epicenter of pop culture. He recounts his legendary interviews with the biggest pop stars—Tupac, Biggie, and Kurt Cobain—making friends with Janet Jackson, and even coining the infamous term “booty call” on HBO’s Def Comedy Jam. During his time at MTV, Bill broke color and class barriers, appearing four times a week on the network’s various programs, including MTV Jamz and MTV Beach House.Top Billin' is an exclusive, all-access backstage pass to Bill’s career and life. It’s all in here—memories, music, and unforgettable moments, including conversations with some of the decade’s legendary artists, the best of the ’90s celebri-tea, nostalgia, and insights on what it meant to be a tastemaker during one of the most exciting and innovative periods in music and American pop culture history.

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Jeff Miller’s heartbreaking, coming-of-age middle-grade novel—inspired by his personal experience living through his own parent’s heart transplant—invites readers into the world of a twelve-year-old birdwatcher looking for a place to call home and a way to save his mother, even if it means venturing deep into Florida swampland. Twelve-year-old Graham Dodds is no stranger to hospital waiting rooms. Sometimes, he feels like his entire life is one big waiting room. Waiting for the next doctor to tell them what’s wrong with his mom. Waiting to find out what city they’re moving to next. Waiting to see if they will finally get their miracle—a heart transplant to save his mom’s life. When Graham gets stuck in Florida for the summer, he meets a girl named Lou at the hospital, and he finds a friend who needs a distraction as much as he does. She tells him about a contest to find the endangered Snail Kite, which resides in the local gator-filled swamps. Together they embark on an adventure, searching for the rare bird . . . and along the way, Graham might just find something else—himself. Jeff Miller crafts a heartfelt story about what it means to live in this unforgettable middle-grade novel. Rare Birds is a rare find that will resonate with fans of the Carl Hiassen’s Hoot and Melissa Savage’s Lemon. For readers looking for novels with literary appeal and classic themes of family, friendship, and the meaning of life, Rare Birds is a perfect pick. Hardcover with dust jacket; 288 pages; 5.5 x 8.3 in.

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By turns somber and funny but above all provocative, Elizabeth Benedict’s Rewriting Illness: A View of My Own is a most unconventional memoir. With wisdom, self-effacing wit, and the story-telling skills of a seasoned novelist, she brings to life her cancer diagnosis and committed hypochondria. As she discovers multiplying lumps in her armpit, she describes her initial terror, interspersed with moments of self-mocking levity as she indulges in “natural remedies,” among them chanting Tibetan mantras, drinking shots of wheat grass, and finding medicinal properties in chocolate babka. She tracks the progression of her illness from muddled diagnosis to debilitating treatment as she gathers sustenance from her family and an assortment of urbane, ironic friends, including her fearless “cancer guru.” In brief, explosive chapters with startling titles – “Was it the Krazy Glue?” and “Not Everything Scares the Shit out of Me” – Benedict investigates existential questions: Is there a cancer personality? Can trauma be passed on generationally? Can cancer be stripped of its warlike metaphors? How do doctors’ own fears influence their comments to patients? Is there a gendered response to illness? Why isn’t illness one of literature’s great subjects? And delving into her own history, she wonders if having had children would have changed her life as a writer and hypochondriac. Post diagnosis, Benedict asks, “Which fear is worse: the fear of knowing or the reality of knowing? (164)”Throughout, Benedict’s humor, wisdom, and warmth jacket her fears, which are personal, political, and ultimately global, when the world is pitched into a pandemic. Amid weighty concerns and her all-consuming obsession with illness, her story is filled with suspense, secrets, and even the unexpected solace of silence.

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Turn your wardrobe and accessories into a stylish, kaleidoscope of colour, and dip into the world of tie dye! Tie dye has taken the fashion world by storm. Once associated with the hippie movement, tie dye is now chic and edgy, and – in our eco-conscious world – can transform your old clothes into beautifully colourful, patterned pieces. With a few twists, elastic bands and a volume of dye, your once-loved T-shirts, denim jackets, hoodies, skirts and shorts turn into iconic, vibrant pieces that you'll love to wear, whatever the weather! Tie dye is something everyone can do, even beginners. In this book, master both basic and more advanced tie-dye styles project by project, using hand-made or fibre-reactive dyes. Now you can create designs such as bullseye, shibori and mandala patterns without hurting the planet. The beginning of the book includes a chapter on natural dyes and how to make them in your own kitchen, saving not just money but the environment too by avoiding the use of harsh chemicals. It will also discuss some eco-friendly alternatives for those who do not want to make their own dyes, as well as planet-friendly mordants that will ensure your dyed creations hold their colour. Illustrated steps and clear instructions accompany all 11 projects and tie-dye techniques, and each project comes with an alternative colourway to inspire. Thrifted or upcycled garments and accessories are used to make all the projects, so you can see how once-loved or upcycled clothing can easily turn into beautiful, vibrant pieces that you’ll love to wear.

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Robin Sharma believes there are certain skills and attitudes that allow you to rise to extraordinary success. In his powerful new parable, he offers a story designed to help people from all walks of life to achieve great things. Blake DiFranco is down on his luck, trying to make ends meet. His job is unsatisfying, and he is disenchanted with the world around him. One day, an enigmatic family friend offers him a life-altering opportunity: spend a day studying with a mysterious group of teachers and learn the secrets of limitless success. Blake is sceptical, but something compels him to take the opportunity seriously. The next morning, he embarks on a journey to discover the true meaning of the LWT philosophy - Lead Without a Title. He is ushered through the lessons of the four teachers: Anna, a maid who shows him that every job can be done with passion; Ty, a surfer who reminds him how important it is to rise to the riskiest challenges; Jackson, a former CEO who shows him the value of relationships; and Jet, a masseur who proves that greatness begins within. Blake's world changes as the teachers make him realize his own potential to achieve greater things than he'd ever imagined. The book is packed with real-world lessons, catchy aphorisms and inspiring exercises that will help any business person realize extraordinary results. Sharma distils over fifteen years of working with high-performers to deliver real-world strategies and foster a winning mindset. Here are formulas that will build success amidst times of deep change and will help readers to make positive changes both at work and at home.

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A detailed and riveting account of the U.S. Navy's greatest mutiny and its wide-ranging cultural and historical impact The greatest controversy in the history of the U.S. Navy of the early American Republic was the revelation that the son of the Secretary of War had seemingly plotted a bloody mutiny that would have turned the U.S. brig Somers into a pirate ship. The plot discovered, he and his co-conspirators were hastily condemned and hanged at sea. The repercussions of those acts brought headlines, scandal, a fistfight at a cabinet meeting, a court martial, ruined lives, lost reputations, and tales of a haunted ship “bound for the devil” and lost tragically at sea with many of its crew. The “Somers affair” led to the founding of the U.S. Naval Academy and it remains the Navy's only acknowledged mutiny in its history. The story also inspired Herman Melville's White-Jacket and Billy Budd. Others connected to the Somers included Commodore Perry, a relation and defender of the Somers' captain Mackenzie; James Fenimore Cooper, whose feud with the captain, dating back to the War of 1812, resurfaced in his reportage of the affair; and Raphael Semmes, the Somers' last caption who later served in the Confederate Navy. The Curse of the Somers is a thorough recreation of this classic tale, told with the help of recently uncovered evidence. Written by a maritime historian and archaeologist who helped identify the long-lost wreck and subsequently studied its sunken remains, this is a timeless tale of life and death at sea. James P. Delgado re-examines the circumstances, drawing from a rich historical record and from the investigation of the ship's sunken remains. What surfaces is an all-too-human tale that resonates and chills across the centuries.

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How do works from film and literature—Sister Carrie, Native Son, Meet Me in St. Louis, Halloween, and A History of Violence, for example—imagine, reify, and reproduce Midwestern identity? And what are the repercussions of such regional narratives and images circulating in American culture? In The American Midwest in Film and Literature: Nostalgia, Violence, and Regionalism, Adam R. Ochonicky provides a critical overview of the evolution, contestation, and fragmentation of the Midwest's symbolic and often contradictory meanings. Using the frontier writings of Frederick Jackson Turner as a starting point, this book establishes a succession of Midwestern filmic and literary texts stretching from the late-19th century through the beginning of the 21st century and argues that the manifold properties of nostalgia have continually transformed popular understandings and ideological uses of the Midwest's place-identity. Ochonicky identifies three primary modes of nostalgia at play across a set of textual objects: the projection of nostalgia onto physical landscapes and into the cultural sphere (nostalgic spatiality); nostalgia as a cultural force that regulates behaviors, identities, and appearances (nostalgic violence); and the progressive potential of nostalgia to generate an acknowledgment and possible rectification of ways in which the flawed past negatively affects the present (nostalgic atonement). While developing these new conceptions of nostalgia, Ochonicky reveals how an under-examined area of regional study has received critical attention throughout the histories of American film and literature, as well as in related materials and discourses. From the closing of the Western frontier to the polarized political and cultural climate of the 21st century, this book demonstrates how film and literature have been and continue to be vital forums for illuminating the complex interplay of regionalism and nostalgia.

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Waterborne is a preternatural tale of the Atlantic layered with the textures, colours, and voices of the sea. Stella Maris Goulding is the unwanted child of a teenage mother and a usually absent father. She has grown up in Elsinore, a Newfoundland fishing village, loved and cared for only by her grandmother. Her mother clearly hates her, belittling and abusing her without remorse while cultivating her own beauty. Stella adores her mother and blames herself for the failings with which her mother charges her. The legacy of Stella's unhappy childhood is an emptiness that nothing can fill. Unable to transform her inner self, Stella adopts an outer persona. Binding her torso with an elastic bandage, she dons boxer shorts and a singlet, black jeans and a leather biker jacket. The young man who is not her is free to come and go in the world as he pleases, unobserved. On these journeys, she leaves herself behind like a shed skin. Alone at the seashore, Stella discovers a pale young man washed up on the Newfoundland beach. Soon, she begins to recognize his part in the strange heritage passed down through generations of her family. She will never know all of her family's story, but as her mother is dying, she learns what she needs to know about them all: her Scottish great-grandmother, her grandmother, her terrible mother, and herself. With her mother, she also recognizes the true identity of the beautiful young man she has befriended. Waterborne is a compelling and emotionally intense novel about transformation and human desire. JoAnne Soper-Cook has crafted a world steeped in magical realism, where neither time nor betrayal can break the bonds of family.

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UNOFFICIAL AND UNAUTHORIZED Dine like Draper and Drink like Sterling with More Than 70 Recipes from the Kitchens, Bars, and Restaurants Seen on Mad Men Ever wish you could mix an Old Fashioned just the way Don Draper likes it? Or prepare Oysters Rockefeller and a martini the way they did fifty years ago at one of Roger Sterling's favorite haunts, The Grand Central Oyster Bar? Ever wonder how Joan Harris manages to prepare a perfect crown roast in her tiny apartment kitchen? Or about the connection between Jackie Kennedy's 1962 White House tour and Betty Draper's Valentine's Day room service order? The Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook serves up more than 70 recipes to satisfy a Mad Men appetite! From the tables of Manhattan's most legendary restaurants and bars to the Drapers' Around the World dinner, this book is your entree to the culinary world of Man Men-era New York. Packed with period detail, The Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook provides invaluable historical and cultural context for the food and drink featured in the show, tips on throwing a successful '60s cocktail party, and even a guide to favored Mad Men hangouts. Every recipe inside is authentic to the time. Whether you're planning a Mad Men-themed dinner party, need to mix up some authentic Mad Men cocktails, or just can't get enough of the show itself, this is your essential resource, a guide to all foods and drinks Mad Men. So hang up your coat, pour yourself a cocktail, and get ready to dine like Draper and drink like Sterling with The Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook. Includes a color photo insert of 16 dishes, plus additional black and white photos and other images of bars, restaurants, and food advertisements from the 1960s. RECIPES INCLUDE: * Playboy Whiskey Sour * Sardi's Steak Tartar * Connie's Waldorf Salad * Sal's Spaghetti and Meatballs * Pat Nixon's Date Nut Bread * Lindy's Cherry Cheesecake

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Evoking such classics as Elmer Gantry and The Day of the Locust, William Giraldi’s About Face boldly transfers the perennial literary themes of celebrity, ambition, and obsession to twenty-first-century Boston. There we meet Val Face, a charismatic self-help guru who captivates multitudes with his uncanny ability to heal adherents using only the power of his words, the mysterious touch of his hands, and the transcendent beauty of his face. Assigned to write a profile of Val Face during his much-hyped New England tour, thirty-year-old impoverished journalist Seger Jovi pens a brutal hatchet job. But Seger, at once curious and incredulous, is soon sucked into the mystic’s vortex of fame, becoming a devotee himself as he contends with the machinations and absurdities of Face’s many protectors, from beefcake bodyguards to helicoptering handlers to Face’s unwavering spouse, Nimble. At first unwilling to sacrifice his principles to fulfill his own ambition and rise from privation, then touched by Face’s unexpected humanity, Seger oscillates between acting as Face’s cynical foil and becoming his unlikely ally. Just as the exalted guru appears to be reaching the apex of his powers, danger threatens from the periphery in the form of an obsessive stalker who wants Face dead. To curb this stalker before he can do harm, Face’s security team enlists the aid of Jackie Jaworski, an ex-Marine and resourceful Boston detective who moonlights as a novelist of thrillers. And so About Face, building to a denouement that will astonish readers, takes us into the convergence of violence and fame that has come to define so much of American popular culture over the last half-century. With its indelible array of characters, hypnotic pacing, and shocking conclusion—and “a mesmerizing prose style that is downright pyrotechnic in its brilliance” (Andre Dubus III)—About Face is a novel in the grand tradition that dances along the tenuous line between the sacred and the profane.

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Covering a period from the Ancient World to the present day, the book suggests that until very recently, falsettists and counter-tenors have been distinct vocal genres. `The use of high male voices in the past has long been one of the most seriously misunderstood areas of musical scholarship and practice. In opening up this rich subject (to readers of all sorts) with refreshingly clear perspectives and plenty of new material, Simon Ravens' well-researched book goes a very long way to rectifying matters. Ravens writes damnably well, and if the story that emerges is necessarily a complex one, his treatment of it is always engagingly comprehensible.' ANDREW PARROTT Tracing the origins, influences and development of falsetto singing in Western music, Simon Ravens offers a revisionist history of high male singing from the Ancient Greeks to Michael Jackson. This history embraces not just singers of counter-tenor and alto parts up to and including our own time but the castrati of the Ancient world, the male sopranists of late Medieval and Renaissance Europe, and the dual-register tenors of the Baroque and Classical periods. Musical aesthetics aside, to understand the changing ways men have sung high, it is also vital to address extra-musical factors - which are themselves in a state of flux. Tothis end, Ravens illuminates his chronological survey by exploring topics as diverse as human physiology, the stereotyping of national characters, gender identity, and the changing of boys' voices. The result is a complex and fascinating history sure to appeal not only to music scholars but to performers and all those with an interest particularly in early music. Simon Ravens is a performer, writer, and director of Musica Contexta, with whom hehas performed in Britain and Europe, regularly broadcast, and made numerous acclaimed recordings. Ravens had previously founded and directed Australasia's foremost early music choir, the Tudor Consort. Between 2002 and 2007 his regular monthly column Ravens View appeared in the Early Music Review, to which he still regularly contributes.

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The Sunday Times BestsellerNational Book Awards Winner 2018!This is the must-read book that every woman needs. "Brilliant, hysterical, truthful and real. These essays illuminate the path for our future female leaders." - Reese WitherspoonWe asked 52 women: what does the F word mean to you? The result is extraordinary.Curated by journalist and activist Scarlett Curtis, with incredible pieces by:Emma Watson - Zoe Sugg - Keira Knightley - Gemma Arterton - Bridget Jones (by Helen Fielding) - Saoirse Ronan - Liv Little - Dolly Alderton - Karen Gillan - Alicia Garza - Jameela Jamil - Kat Dennings - Nimco Ali - Beanie Feldstein - Olivia Perez - Amika George - Evanna Lynch - Akilah Hughes - Tanya Burr - Grace Campbell - Alison Sudol - Elyse Fox - Charlie Craggs - Rhyannon Styles - Skai Jackson - Tasha Bishop - Lolly Adefope - Bronwen Brenner - Dr Alaa Murabit - Trisha Shetty - Jordan Hewson - Amy Trigg - Em Odesser - Emi Mahmoud - Lydia Wilson - Swati SharmaWarning: contains a lot of feminism and some explicit content!**Published in partnership with Girl Up, the UN women's foundation, royalties will benefit this amazing charity**More praise for Feminists Don't Wear Pink: "As a feminist who loves pink, I give this brilliant book of essays an enthusiastic "YES"" - Mindy Kaling"A refreshing and honest celebration of all that it means to be a woman today." - Fearne Cotton "Wonderfully candid, often funny and absolutely necessary, a triumphant rallying call to young women." - The Observer"Pick it up and read one story from your favourite columnist or actress, but I guarantee you'll end up reading the full, illuminating collection, and you'll possibly finish it knowing more about your own personal stance than you imagined."- Glamour"This collection of essays curated by writer Scarlett Curtis is a call-to-arm that allows us to unpick what it means to be a feminist in a safe space." - Stylist"We advise placing a copy in the hands of every girl (and guy) you know." - Red Magazine"Rousing contemporary essays" - The Observer

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With 100 easy-to-hard puzzles in a smart, striking design, the third volume of The New York Times Classic Crossword Puzzles is the perfect gift for any crossword lover. Its sturdy, journal-style packaging with ribbon marker and removable jacket means you can solve in style wherever you go. Features: - High-quality paper inside allows you to solve with pen or pencil - Cloth ribbon marker helps you keep your place so you can easily return to the puzzle you're working on - Removable cover band leaves a discreet and sophisticated hardcover book with rounded corners and charming crossword grid pattern - All puzzles originally printed in The New York Times and edited by Will Shortz, the top two names in crosswords

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The aim of this book is to provide an account of modernist painting that follows on from the aesthetic theory of Theodor W. Adorno. It offers a materialist account of modernism with detailed discussions of modern aesthetics from Kant to Arthur Danto, Stanley Cavell, and Adorno. It discusses in detail competing accounts of modernism: Clement Greenberg, Michael Fried, Yve-Alain Bois, and Thierry de Duve; and it discusses several painters and artists in detail: Pieter de Hooch, Jackson Pollock, Robert Ryman, Cindy Sherman, and Chaim Soutine. Its central thesis is that modernist painting exemplifies a form of rationality that is an alternative to the instrumental rationality of enlightened modernity. Modernist paintings exemplify how nature and the sociality of meaning can be reconciled.

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The aim of this book is to provide an account of modernist painting that follows on from the aesthetic theory of Theodor W. Adorno. It offers a materialist account of modernism with detailed discussions of modern aesthetics from Kant to Arthur Danto, Stanley Cavell, and Adorno. It discusses in detail competing accounts of modernism: Clement Greenberg, Michael Fried, Yve-Alain Bois, and Thierry de Duve; and it discusses several painters and artists in detail: Pieter de Hooch, Jackson Pollock, Robert Ryman, Cindy Sherman, and Chaim Soutine. Its central thesis is that modernist painting exemplifies a form of rationality that is an alternative to the instrumental rationality of enlightened modernity. Modernist paintings exemplify how nature and the sociality of meaning can be reconciled.

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J.K. Rowling's complete internationally bestselling Harry Potter series brilliantly brought to life by Stephen Fry. From Harry's first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to his final battle with arch-enemy Voldemort, this beautifully packaged CD box set contains over 100 CDs with a total running time of 124 hours 56 minutes, which will keep you enchanted through all seven spellbinding novels in the Harry Potter series, read by Stephen Fry. These new audio editions of the classic and internationally bestselling, multi-award-winning series feature instantly pick-up-able new jackets by Jonny Duddle, with huge child appeal, to bring Harry Potter to the next generation of readers.

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2009 Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2009 Association of American University Presses Award for Jacket Design The stories of 70 women living in the aftermath of breast cancer Chemo brain. Fatigue. Chronic pain. Insomnia. Depression. These are just a few of the ongoing, debilitating symptoms that plague some breast-cancer survivors long after their treatments have officially ended. While there are hundreds of books about breast cancer, ranging from practical medical advice to inspirational stories of survivors, what has been missing until now is testimony from the thousands of women who continue to struggle with persistent health problems. After the Cure is a compelling read filled with fascinating portraits of more than seventy women who are living with the aftermath of breast cancer. Emily K. Abel is one of these women. She and her colleague, Saskia K. Subramanian, whose mother died of cancer, interviewed more than seventy breast cancer survivors who have suffered from post-treatment symptoms. Having heard repeatedly that “the problems are all in your head,” many don't know where to turn for help. The doctors who now refuse to validate their symptoms are often the very ones they depended on to provide life-saving treatments. Sometimes family members who provided essential support through months of chemotherapy and radiation don't believe them. Their work lives, already disrupted by both cancer and its treatment, are further undermined by the lingering symptoms. And every symptom serves as a constant reminder of the trauma of diagnosis, the ordeal of treatment, and the specter of recurrence. Most narratives about surviving breast cancer end with the conclusion of chemotherapy and radiation, painting stereotypical portraits of triumphantly healthy survivors, women who not only survive but emerge better and stronger than before. Here, at last, survivors step out of the shadows and speak compellingly about their “real” stories, giving voice to the complicated, often painful realities of life after the cure. This book received funding from the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

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The Ultimate Collection of Plant-Based Meals for Every Occasion Welcome to your new go-to resource for dependable vegan recipes, complete with more than 200 fuss-free, family-approved and down-right delicious dishes. The sisters behind the popular blog and brand Six Vegan Sisters have pulled out all the stops to bring you their favorite recipes to cover every kind of cooking need you may have- from weeknight dinners to date nights in, holidays and everything in between. Fall in love with flavor-packed eats like: . Cashew Tofu Sweet Potato Lasagna . Broccoli Alfredo Stuffed Shells . "Bacon" and Caramelized Onion Detroit-Style Pizza . BBQ Jackfruit Sliders . Spicy Gochujang Broccoli Wings . Coconut Panko Tofu with Peanut Sauce . Loaded Breakfast Casserole . Mom's Banana Bread . Buttermilk Biscuits . Seitan Fried "Chicken" Nuggets with Sweet BBQ Dipping Sauce . Triple-Layer Cookie Brownies . Raspberry Crumble Bars . Cookie Dough Dip You'll also learn to make affordable staples such as vegan cheeses, sauces, meat substitutes and more. Packed with vibrant full-page photography, this is the ultimate cookbook for simple yet drool-worthy plant-based food you'll crave all year long!

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Sojourning for Freedom portrays pioneering black women activists from the early twentieth century through the 1970s, focusing on their participation in the U.S. Communist Party (CPUSA) between 1919 and 1956. Erik S. McDuffie considers how women from diverse locales and backgrounds became radicalized, joined the CPUSA, and advocated a pathbreaking politics committed to black liberation, women’s rights, decolonization, economic justice, peace, and international solidarity. McDuffie explores the lives of black left feminists, including the bohemian world traveler Louise Thompson Patterson, who wrote about the “triple exploitation” of race, gender, and class; Esther Cooper Jackson, an Alabama-based civil rights activist who chronicled the experiences of black female domestic workers; and Claudia Jones, the Trinidad-born activist who emerged as one of the Communist Party’s leading theorists of black women’s exploitation. Drawing on more than forty oral histories collected from veteran black women radicals and their family members, McDuffie examines how these women negotiated race, gender, class, sexuality, and politics within the CPUSA. In Sojourning for Freedom, he depicts a community of radical black women activist intellectuals who helped to lay the foundation for a transnational modern black feminism.

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Reluctant Pioneers describes the migration of Chinese to Manchuria, their settlement there, and the incorporation of Manchuria into an expanding China, from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries. The expansion of Chinese state and society from the agrarian and urban core of China proper to the territories north and west of the Great Wall doubled the size of the empire, forming the "China" now so prominent on the map of Asia. The movement and settlement of people, clearing and cultivation of land, invasions of soldiers, circulation of merchants, and establishment of government offices extended the boundaries of China at the same time that the American expansion westward and the Russian expansion eastward created the other great landed empires that dominated the twentieth century and persist today. The chief purpose of this book is to describe the Chinese experience and what it tells us about the expansion of states and societies, drawing comparisons with Russia and America, and reflecting on the nature of what scholars since Frederick Jackson Turner have called "frontiers" and what Turner's critics now call "borderlands" or "middle ground." In addition, the book touches on several other issues central to our understanding of modern China, such as the development of the Chinese economy and the nature of Chinese migration.

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The much-anticipated sequel to the instant New York Times bestseller! Every four years, the Twelve Towns gather for a legendary magical tournament--the Golden Frog Games. With Ravenskill hosting this year's games, all eyes are on Seven Salazar, Valley Pepperhorn and Thorn Laroux: the most famous Spares in the Twelve Towns. Thorn is ready to compete as a fashion champion, but when a forbidden hex is used to turn her fellow champions to stone, suspicion lands on the Witchlings. As the Witchlings attempt to unravel the mystery of the stonifications, future Uncle Seven is harboring a dangerous secret: While she's supposed to be able to communicate with animals, the voices she hears most clearly belong to monstruos, and one spine-chilling voice is the loudest of all. Can Seven fix her broken magic and find out who is stonifying the champions . . . before Thorn becomes the next victim? With action-packed adventure, a coven of quirky witchlings, Claribel A. Ortega's signature humor, and girl-power vibes, you won't be able to put down this middle-grade Latine witch story, perfect for fans of Amari and the Night Brothers or Harry Potter. Gift hardback with a protective dust jacket The first book in the series was a New York Times bestseller 2022

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From his impoverished childhood in segregated pre-war Louisiana to his audience with Bill Clinton at the White House, Ward Connerly's panoramic book spans a civil rights story that's making headlines from coast to coast. Since 1995, when Connerly first burst onto the American scene as the University of California Regent who forced the nation's largest public university to become color blind in its admissions policies, Connerly has led a national campaign to end race preference. In 1996, he passed Proposition 209 in California and two years later he led I-200, an identical measure, to victory in Washington state. He is now battling Governor Jeb Bush in Florida as he attempts to put a Florida Civil Rights Initiative on the ballot there. A personal book that gives the inside story of Connerly's battle against race preferences, Creating Equal names names and tells it like it is. It is destined to provoke debate from the dining room table to the halls of Congress. Connerly's encounters with the great and near great ranging from Jesse Jackson and Al Gore to Bill Clinton and Rupert Murdoch illuminate this book that has been praised by writers such as Shelby Steele. Illustrated with family and political photographs.

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Take a walk on the wild side in Jungle Animals.Look up, look down, and look out for the colorful birds, the gentle giants, and the big cats in the jungles of the world. See how orangutans swing through the jungle and how tigers leap out of the grass after their prey. Filled with stunning photography of the jungle's most amazing creatures, Jungle Animals takes readers inside the wild to see animals in their natural habitats.Perfect for 3–5 year olds learning to read, Level 1 titles contain short, simple sentences with an emphasis on frequently used words. Crisp photographic images with labels provide visual clues to introduce and reinforce vocabulary.Lexile measure: 240 Fountas and Pinnell Text Level Gradient: HTrusted by parents, teachers, and librarians, and loved by kids, DK's leveled reading series is now revised and updated. With shiny new jackets and brand new nonfiction narrative content on the topics kids love, each book is written and reviewed by literacy experts, and contains a glossary and index making them the perfect choice for helping develop strong reading habits for kids ages 3–11.

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In a new reinterpretation of the 19th century West, George Black casts Yellowstone's creation as the culmination of three interwoven strands - the passion for exploration, the violence of the Indian Wars and the "civilizing" of the frontier - and charts its course through the lives of those who sought to lay bare its mysteries: Lt. Gustavus Cheyney Doane, a gifted but tormented cavalryman known as "the man who invented Wonderland"; the ambitious former vigilante leader Nathaniel Langford; scientist Ferdinand Hayden, who brought photographer William Henry Jackson and painter Thomas Moran to Yellowstone; and Gen. Phil Sheridan, Civil War hero and architect of the Indian Wars, who finally succeeded in having the new National Park placed under the protection of the US Cavalry. At the heart of the story is a great paradox: no matter how deeply flawed these characters may be as individuals, no matter how mixed their motives, the paths they opened led to one of the true glories of American history and the exploration of Yellowstone is a quintessentially American story, of terrible things done in the name of high ideals, and of high ideals realised by dubious means. Empire of Shadows is a groundbreaking historical account of the origins of this majestic national landmark.

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In the spring of 2001, a community of people in the Appalachian foothills of northern Alabama had come to the edge of all they had ever known. Across the South, padlocks and logging chains bound the doors of silent mills, and it seemed a miracle to blue-collar people in Jacksonville that their mill still bit, shook, and roared. The century-old hardwood floors still trembled under whirling steel, and people worked on, in a mist of white air. The mill had become almost a living thing, rewarding the hardworking and careful with the best payday they ever had, but punishing the careless and clumsy, taking a finger, a hand, more. The mill was here before the automobile, before the flying machine, and the mill workers served it even as it filled their lungs with lint and shortened their lives. In return, it let them live in stiff-necked dignity in the hills of their fathers. So, when death did come, no one had to ship their bodies home on a train. This is a mill story - not of bricks, steel, and cotton, but of the people who suffered it to live.

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The heyday of the Art Nouveau style was relatively short, spanning the decades immediately before and after 1900. However it was a tremendously important period, not only for its radical shift away from the academic and romantic movements of the late 19th century, but also for its embrace of nature and natural forms. This authoritative, accessible and beautifully illustrated book explores fifty of the most important works of the Art Nouveau style. From Mackmurdo's jacket design of Christopher Wren's City Churches to Sykes' sculpture, The Spirit of Ecstasy, each work is presented in double-page spreads that chronologically trace Art Nouveau's development and breadth-from architecture, Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, and from graphic arts, Toulouse-Lautrec's poster advertising the Divan Japonais, to home decor, lamps by Tiffany and Daum Freres and to painting, Munch's Madonnas and Walter Crane's Neptune's Horses. Each entry includes a full-page illustration and concise explanatory texts. An introductory essay on the history and legacy of Art Nouveau, along with brief biographies of the artists featured in the book, making this a comprehensive yet compact reference work.

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A haunting new imagining of gothic horror set in a dark-mirror version of post-war England that is not to be read alone at night. For fans of Crimson Peak, Shirley Jackson, Mexican Gothic and Rebecca. Practical, unassuming Jane Shoringfield has done the calculations, and decided that the most secure path forward is this: a husband, in a marriage of convenience, who will allow her to remain independent and occupied with meaningful work. Her first choice, the dashing but reclusive doctor Augustine Lawrence, agrees to her proposal with only one condition: that she must never visit Lindridge Hall, his crumbling family manor outside of town. Yet on their wedding night, an accident strands her at his door in a pitch-black rainstorm, and she finds him changed. Gone is the bold, courageous surgeon, and in his place is a terrified, paranoid man one who cannot tell reality from nightmare, and fears Jane is an apparition, come to haunt him. By morning, Augustine is himself again, but Jane knows something is deeply wrong at Lindridge Hall, and with the man she has so hastily bound her safety to.

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Every knitter knows that their handmade wardrobe isn’t complete without a good Aran-inspired sweater or two (or more!). Now the stylish cabled garments you’ve always longed for are within reach, thanks to this awe-inspiring collection of 15 cable knit patterns from visionary knitwear designer Joan Ho. Whether you’re a seasoned cable connoisseur or have always found this technique a bit daunting, Joan’s clear, expert instruction will walk you through every pattern with ease. And with Joan’s strong commitment to size inclusivity in all of her patterns, every single one of these chic, modern designs is sure to be a beloved piece in your closet for years to come. Go oversized and chunky for quick knits that are sure to impress, like the River Birch Jacket or Morning Glory Vest. Whip up the Willow Pullover or Mulberry Poncho for sophisticated cables with clean, elegant lines. You’ll even dive into the world of lightweight knitting, for cabled tops that are perfect for spring and summer. No matter which pattern you choose to cast on first, one thing’s for certain: You will always be in style!

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Hearty Plant-Based Recipes Worthy of a Celebration Vegans rejoice! Pot roasts, Wellingtons, meatloaves and more are back on the table. Romy London's ingenious plant-based roasts make every meal feel like a special occasion, whether it's a holiday or just another weeknight. Showstopping recipes such as Smoky Jackfruit Seitan Brisket, crunchy Nut-Crusted Zesty Tofu and flaky Mushroom and Lentil Wellington are just some of the festive main dishes you'll enjoy- and they're even more delicious when smothered in any of the flavorful sauces and gravies, such as Red Wine Gravy, Brandy Peppercorn Sauce and Lemon and Tarragon Cashew Cream. Round out your vegan spread with standout side dishes like Maple-Roasted Sweet Potatoes, Pecan and Apple Stuffing and Creamy Cauliflower Bake with Caramelized Onions. These recipes pack in the vegetables and protein, making them every bit as filling and delicious as traditional roasts. With expert advice on how to mix and match the components of your feast, plus essential tips and techniques to ensure a perfect roast, your meal will delight everyone at the table, vegan or not.

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A young mother's life is forever changed and her faith in God is broken when her son in diagnosed with several birth defects. Restore and grow your faith as you read about Hilary Yancey's personal journey back to God.Hilary Yancey thought she had unshakable faith until it was truly tested. Married to her college sweetheart and jubilantly expecting their first child, when a routine ultrasound revealed her baby's significant facial cleft, a missing eye, and one especially tiny ear, Hilary asked God for a miracle and believed her son would be healed.But he wasn't. And the weeks the couple spent beside their baby's hospital bed became a spiritual exile for the young mother, where she contemplated faith, nearly lost all of it she had, wrestled with anger with God, and was reintroduced to Him by her beautiful baby boy, Jackson.For readers of spiritual narrative, new parents in the midst of the challenge, anyone who has experienced faith-shattering circumstances, or those who find themselves lost in the wilderness of shaken belief, this book will provoke honest self-reflection and encouragement through a mother's vulnerable, raw account of her journey back to God.

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A beautiful debut collection from Jamaican poet Safiya Sinclair that draws on our colonial history and speaks powerfully to our present moment.Shortlisted for Seamus Heaney First Collection Poetry Prize 2021 A Guardian most anticipated book for 2020'Safiya Sinclair bursts onto the shelves with this richly powerful debut collection' – ScotsmanColliding with and confronting Shakespeare's The Tempest and postcolonial identity, the poems in Safiya Sinclair's Cannibal beautifully evoke the poet's Jamaican childhood and reach beyond to explore history, race relations in America, womanhood, otherness, and exile. She evokes a home no longer accessible and a body at times uninhabitable, often mirrored by a hybrid Eve/Caliban figure. Blooming with intense lyricism and fertile imagery, these full-blooded poems are elegant, mythic, and intricately woven. Here the female body is a dark landscape; the female body is cannibal. Sinclair shocks and delights her readers with her willingness to disorient and provoke. Cannibal marks the arrival of a thrilling and essential lyrical voice.'Cannibal is nothing less than an entrancing debut that reveals the teeming intellect and ravishing lucidity of a young poet in full possession of her literary powers.' – Major Jackson

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Action movie stars ranging from Jackie Chan to lesser-known stunt women and men like Zoë Bell and Chad Stahelski stun their audiences with virtuosic martial arts displays, physical prowess, and complex fight sequences. Their performance styles originate from action movies that emerged in the industrial environment of 1980s Hong Kong. In Experts in Action Lauren Steimer examines how Hong Kong--influenced cinema aesthetics and stunt techniques have been taken up, imitated, and reinvented in other locations and production contexts in Hollywood, New Zealand, and Thailand. Foregrounding the transnational circulation of Hong Kong--influenced films, television shows, stars, choreographers, and stunt workers, she shows how stunt workers like Chan, Bell, and others combine techniques from martial arts, dance, Peking opera, and the history of movie and television stunting practices to create embodied performances that are both spectacular and, sometimes, rendered invisible. By describing the training, skills, and labor involved in stunt work as well as the location-dependent material conditions and regulations that impact it, Steimer illuminates the expertise of the workers whose labor is indispensable to some of the world's most popular movies.

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Sets a new trajectory for considering the intertwined relationship between theology and law through speculative cinema Offers 7 close readings of Hollywood speculative fiction blockbusters as theological and jurisprudential texts: Shyamalan's Unbreakable, Snyder's Man of Steel, Lucas and Disney's Star Wars, Nolan's The Dark Knight & The Dark Knight Rises, Proyas' I, Robot, Nolfi's The Adjustment Bureau and Jackson's The Hobbit Explores key themes of law including justice, the exception, law's violence, revolution, law's universality, sovereignty and property as theft Explores key themes of theology including the nature of evil, myth and mysticism, atonement, sacrifice, compassionate acts, visions of the divine and charity as gift Through close readings of a range of popular Hollywood speculative fiction films, Timothy Peters explores how fictional worlds, particularly those that 'make strange' the world of the viewer, can render visible and make explicit the otherwise opaque theologies of modern law. He illustrates that speculative cinema's genres of estrangement provide a way for us to see and engage the theological concepts of modern law in our era of late capitalism, global empire and the crises of neoliberalism.

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The third and final volume of Prokofiev's Diaries covers the years 1924 to 1933 when he was living in Paris. Intimate accounts of the successes and disappointments of a great creative artist at the heart of the European arts world between the two world wars jostle with witty and trenchant commentaries on the personalities who made up this world. The Diaries document the complex emotional inner world of a Russian exile uncomfortably aware of the nature of life in Stalin's Russia yet increasingly persuaded that his creative gifts would never achieve full maturity separated from the culture, people and land of his birthplace. Since even Prokofiev knew that the USSR was hardly the place to commit inner reflections to paper, the Diaries come to an end after June 1933 although it would be another three years before he, together with his wife and children, finally exchanged the free if materially uncertain life of a cosmopolitan Parisian celebrity for Soviet citizenship and the credo of Socialist Realism within which the regime struggled to strait-jacket its artists.Volume Three continues the kaleidoscopic impressions and the stylish language - Prokofiev was almost as gifted and idiosyncratic a writer as a composer - of its predecessors.

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Inspired by her encounter with Dr Chevalier Jackson’s collection of ingested curiosities at Philadelphia’s Mütter Museum, Kimiko Hahn’s tenth collection investigates the grip that seemingly insignificant objects exert on our lives. Itself a cabinet of curiosities, the collection provokes the same surprise, wonder and pangs of recognition Hahn felt upon opening drawer after drawer of these swallowed and retrieved, objects—a radiator key, a child’s perfect attendance pin, a mother-of-pearl button. The speaker of these moving poems sees reflections of these items in the heartbreaking detritus of her family home and in her long-dead mother’s Japanese jewellery. As Hahn remakes the lyric sequence in chains reminiscent of the Japanese tanka, the foreign bodies of the title expand to include the immigrant woman’s trafficked body, fossilised remains, a grandmother’s Japanese body. She explores the relationship between our innermost selves and the relics of our vanished past, making room for meditation on grief and the ephemeral nature of the material world, for the account of a nineteenth-century female fossil hunter, and for a celebration of the nautilus. Foreign Bodies investigates the power of possession, replete with Hahn’s electric originality and thrilling mastery of ever-changing forms.

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There are the acknowledged classics of world literature: the canonical works assigned in schools, topping every must-read list . . . and then there are the B-Sides. These are the books that slipped through the cracks, went unread, missed their rightful appointment with posterity. They were ahead of their times or behind their times or on a whole different schedule than the rest of the universe.What do you do when a book that you love has been neglected or dismissed by everyone else? In B-Side Books, leading writers, critics, and scholars show why their favorite forgotten books deserve a new audience. From dusty westerns and far-out science fiction to obscure Czech novelists and romance-novel precursors, the contributors advocate for the unsung virtues of overlooked books. They write about unheralded novels, poetry collections, memoirs, and more with understanding, respect, passion, and love.In these thoughtful, often personal essays, contributors—including Stephanie Burt, Caleb Crain, Merve Emre, Ursula K. Le Guin, Carlo Rotella, and Namwali Serpell—read books by writers such as Helen DeWitt, Shirley Jackson, Stanislaw Lem, Dambudzo Marechera, Paule Marshall, and Charles Portis.

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This volume is dedicated to the phenomenon of staged photography, the trend that has revolutionised the photographic language since the 1980s. Through over 100 works, the catalogue tells how photography was able to reach the heights of fantasy and invention between the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st-century, previously almost exclusively entrusted to cinema and painting. Goldfish invading bedrooms, icefalls in the desert, imaginary cities, Marilyn Monroe and Lady D shopping together: all of this can happen thanks to veritable stages set up in order to build a parallel reality, or thanks to new technologies and, in particular, through the increasingly sophisticated use of Photoshop, released in 1990. Photography, the realm of documentation and (presumed) objectivity becomes the realm of fantasy, invention and subjectivity, completing the last decisive evolution of its history. Works by: Jeff Wall, Cindy Sherman, James Casebere, Sandy Skoglund, Yasumasa Morimura, Laurie Simmons, David Lachapelle, Bernard Faucon, Eileen Cowin, Bruce Charlesworth, David Levinthal, Paolo Ventura, Lori Nix, Miwa Yanagi, Alison Jackson, Julia Fullerton Batten, Jung Yeondoo, Jiang Pengyi. Text in English and Italian.

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The rebel hero of Abstract Expressionism, Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) careened through his life like a firework across the American art landscape. Channeling ideas from sources as diverse as Picasso and Mexican surrealism, he rejected convention to develop his own way of seeing, interpreting, and expressing. Pollock’s most famous works are his drip paintings, where he dripped and poured household enamel paint over the canvas with a variety of instruments, from sticks to syringes, hardened brushes to broken bits of glass. The splattered results pulsate with energy, replacing the refinement of easel and brush with something altogether more immediate, vivid, and physical. To evade the viewer’s search for figurative elements in his paintings, Pollock abandoned titles and identified each work with a neutral number only. Notoriously reclusive and volatile, struggling with alcoholism, married to fellow Abstract Expressionist Lee Krasner, and killed in a car crash aged just 44, Pollock is as much a compelling celebrity icon as an artistic pioneer. This essential artist introduction explores both his work and his fame to shed light on masterpieces of the modernist story, and the making of a cultural icon.

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Relationships come together, fall apart and are reinvented over time in this warm-hearted novel by the world’s favourite storyteller, Danielle Steel. Eileen Jackson was happy to set aside her own career dreams in order to raise a family with her husband Paul. But when she discovers Paul’s affair with a younger woman, she begins to question all those years of sacrifice and compromise. On the brink of forty, she fears it is too late to start over. Meanwhile, Paul’s girlfriend Olivia is struggling to find herself while in the shadow of her mother, a famous actress, and her grandmother, a fiercely independent artist. With their love and support, Olivia takes a major professional step. But she realizes she still has much to learn about herself before committing her life to someone else. Ultimately, Eileen decides to chase her own dreams as well, thousands of miles away in Paris. What awaits is an adventure that transforms her life. At every age, there are challenges to be met and new worlds to discover. The Numbers Game is a reminder that it’s never too late to turn a new page and start again.

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When Halt and Crowley discover that the ambitious Morgarath has been infiltrating the Rangers in order to corrupt the corps and, ultimately, steal the throne, they seek a royal warrant to stop him before it is too late. Yet when Halt and Crowley arrive in Gorlan, they discover just how close Morgarath's scheme is to taking root.Prince Duncan has already been taken prisoner and an imposter installed in his place. All the while, Morgarath has been earning trust and admiration from the Council of Barons while he secretly assembles a powerful force of his own. If the young Rangers are to prevent the coup from succeeding, they will need to prove their mettle in battles the like of which neither has ever faced . . . This origin story brings readers to a time before Will was a Ranger's apprentice, and lays the groundwork for the epic battles that have already captivated fans of the Ranger's Apprentice series around the world.Perfect for fans of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, T.H. White’s The Sword in the Stone, Christopher Paolini’s Eragon series and Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series.

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***With consultant editor Tony Visconti. 'An unearthed trove of Bowie treasure' - David MitchellDavid Bowie's story has never been told quite like this.Tracing the star's encounters with fellow icons throughout his life, We Could Be offers a new history of Bowie, collecting 300 short stories that together paint a portrait of humour, humility, compassion, tragedy and more besides.He teaches Michael Jackson the moonwalk. He embarrasses himself in front of Lennon and Warhol. He saves the life of Nina Simone. He also taught John McEnroe to play 'Rebel Rebel'; had run-ins with Lou Reed, Axel Rose and Liam Gallagher, and had his feet measured by Freddie Mercury at their first meeting. Individually astonishing, together these stories - including details never before revealed - build a new picture of Bowie, one which shows his vulnerability, his sense of humour, his inner diva.Exhaustively researched from thousands of sources by BBC reporter and Bowie obsessive Tom Hagler - with the guidance and memories of Bowie's long-time producer Tony Visconti - We Could Be is fascinating, comic, compelling, and a history of Bowie unlike any that has come before.

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