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Avidly Reads Board Games
by Eric ThurmAvidly Reads is a series of short books about how culture makes us feel. Founded in 2012 by Sarah Blackwood and Sarah Mesle, Avidly—an online magazine supported by the Los Angeles Review of Books—specializes in short-form critical essays devoted to thinking and feeling. Avidly Reads is an exciting new series featuring books that are part memoir, part cultural criticism, each bringing to life the author’s emotional relationship to a cultural artifact or experience. Avidly Reads invites us to explore the surprising pleasures and obstacles of everyday life. Writer and critic Eric Thurm digs deep into his own experience as a board game enthusiast to explore the emotional and social rules that games create and reveal, telling a series of stories about a pastime that is also about relationships. From the outdated gender roles in Life and Mystery Date to the cutthroat, capitalist priorities of Monopoly and its socialist counterpart, Class Struggle, Thurm thinks through his ongoing rivalries with his siblings and ponders the ways games both upset and enforce hierarchies and relationships—from the familial to the geopolitical. Like sitting down at the table for family game night, Board Games is an engaging book of twists and turns, trivia, and nostalgia.
Avidly Reads Board Games
by Eric Thurm“How we should think about board games, and what do they do to us as we play them?”Writer and critic Eric Thurm digs deep into his own experience as a board game enthusiast to explore the emotional and social rules that games create and reveal, telling a series of stories about a pastime that is also about relationships. From the outdated gender roles in Life and Mystery Date to the cutthroat, capitalist priorities of Monopoly and its socialist counterpart, Class Struggle, Thurm thinks through his ongoing rivalries with his siblings and ponders the ways games both upset and enforce hierarchies and relationships—from the familial to the geopolitical. Like sitting down at the table for family game night, Board Games is an engaging book of twists and turns, trivia, and nostalgia.Avidly Reads is a series of short books about how culture makes us feel. Founded in 2012 by Sarah Blackwood and Sarah Mesle, Avidly—an online magazine supported by the Los Angeles Review of Books—specializes in short-form critical essays devoted to thinking and feeling. Avidly Reads is an exciting new series featuring books that are part memoir, part cultural criticism, each bringing to life the author’s emotional relationship to a cultural artifact or experience. Avidly Reads invites us to explore the surprising pleasures and obstacles of everyday life.
Avidly Reads Making Out
by Kathryn Bond Stockton“Here’s the thing with kissing: it matters intensely or not at all.”Mid-kiss, do you ever wonder who you are, who you’re kissing, where it’s leading? It can feel luscious, libidinal, friendly, but are we trying to make out something through our kissing? For Kathryn Bond Stockton, making out is a prism through which to look at the cultural and political forces of our world: race, economics, childhood, books, and movies. Making Out is Stockton’s memoir about a non-binary childhood before that idea existed in her world. We think about kissing as we accompany Stockton to the bedroom, to the closet, to the playground, to the movies, and to solitary moments with a book, the ultimate source of pleasure.Avidly Reads is a series of short books about how culture makes us feel. Founded in 2012 by Sarah Blackwood and Sarah Mesle, Avidly—an online magazine supported by the Los Angeles Review of Books—specializes in short-form critical essays devoted to thinking and feeling. Avidly Reads is an exciting new series featuring books that are part memoir, part cultural criticism, each bringing to life the author’s emotional relationship to a cultural artifact or experience. Avidly Reads invites us to explore the surprising pleasures and obstacles of everyday life.
Avidly Reads Passages (Avidly Reads Ser.)
by Michelle D. Commander"What is the value of Black life in America?"In Avidly Reads Passages, Michelle D. Commander plies four freighted modes of travel—the slave ship, train, automobile, and bus—to map the mobility of her ancestors over the past five centuries. In the process, she refreshes the conventional American travel narrative by telling an urgent story about how history shapes what moves us, as well as what prevents so many Black Americans from moving or being moved. Anchored in her maternal kin’s long history on and alongside plantations in rural South Carolina, Commander explores her family members’ ability and inability to navigate safely through space, time, and emotion, detailing how Black lives were shaped by the actual vehicles that promised an escape from the confines of American racism, yet nearly always failed to deliver on those promises. Using personal and public archives, Avidly Reads Passages unfolds distinct histories of transatlantic slavery ships, the possibilities presented by rail lines in the Reconstruction South, the fateful legacies of school busing, and the ways that Black Americans attempted to negotiate their automobility, including through the use of road and travel compendiums such as Travelguide and The Negro Motorist Green Book. In order to understand the intricacies of slavery and its aftermath, Commander began her exploration with the hope of engaging with the difficult evidences and stubborn gaps in her family’s genealogy; what she produced is a biting and elegiac reflection on working-class life in the Black South. Commander demonstrates that the forms of intimidation, brutality, surveillance, and restriction used to control Black mobility have merely evolved since slavery, marking Black life writ large in America, with neither the passage of time nor the passage of laws assuring true and adequate racial progress. Despite this bleak observation, Commander catalogs and celebrates, through affecting stories about her beloved South Carolina community, the compelling strivings of Southern Black people to survive by holding on firmly to family, and their faith that new worlds could be imagined, created, and traveled to someday.Part of the Avidly Reads series, this slim book gives us a new way of looking at American culture. With the singular blend of personal reflection and cultural criticism featured in the series, Avidly Reads Passages offers a unique lens through which to capture the intricacies of Black life.
Avidly Reads Theory
by Jordan Alexander SteinAvidly Reads is a series of short books about how culture makes us feel. Founded in 2012 by Sarah Blackwood and Sarah Mesle, Avidly—an online magazine supported by the Los Angeles Review of Books—specializes in short-form critical essays devoted to thinking and feeling. Avidly Reads is an exciting new series featuring books that are part memoir, part cultural criticism, each bringing to life the author’s emotional relationship to a cultural artifact or experience. Avidly Reads invites us to explore the surprising pleasures and obstacles of everyday life. This is a story about the emotional lives of ideas. As an avowed “theory head,” Jordan Alexander Stein confronts a contradiction: that the abstract, and often frustrating rigors of theory also produced a sense of pride and identity for him and his friends: an idea of how to be and a way to live. Although Stein explains what theory is, this is not an introduction or a how-to. Organized around five ways that theory makes us feel—silly, stupid, sexy, seething and stuck—Stein travels back to the late nineties to tell a story of coming of age at a particular moment and to measure how that moment lives on now.
Avidly Reads Theory
by Jordan Alexander Stein“Theory offered us a way of understanding the world that, like so many youthful exuberances, was both vital and ridiculous.”As an avowed “theory head,” Jordan Alexander Stein confronts a contradiction: that the abstract, and often frustrating rigors of theory also produced a sense of pride and identity for him and his friends: an idea of how to be and a way to live. Although Stein explains what theory is, this is not an introduction or a how-to. Organized around five ways that theory makes us feel—silly, stupid, sexy, seething and stuck—Stein travels back to the late nineties to tell a story of coming of age at a particular moment and to measure how that moment lives on now.Avidly Reads is a series of short books about how culture makes us feel. Founded in 2012 by Sarah Blackwood and Sarah Mesle, Avidly—an online magazine supported by the Los Angeles Review of Books—specializes in short-form critical essays devoted to thinking and feeling. Avidly Reads is an exciting new series featuring books that are part memoir, part cultural criticism, each bringing to life the author’s emotional relationship to a cultural artifact or experience. Avidly Reads invites us to explore the surprising pleasures and obstacles of everyday life. This is a story about the emotional lives of ideas.
Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science
by James D. WatsonFrom a living legend--James D. Watson, who shared the Nobel Prize for having revealed the structure of DNA--a personal account of the making of a scientist. In Avoid Boring People, the man who discovered "the secret of life" shares the less revolutionary secrets he has found to getting along and getting ahead in a competitive world. Recounting the years of his own formation--from his father's birding lessons to the political cat's cradle of professorship at Harvard--Watson illuminates the progress of an exemplary scientific life, both his own pursuit of knowledge and how he learns to nurture fledgling scientists. Each phase of his experience yields a wealth of age-specific practical advice. For instance, when young, never be the brightest person in the room or bring more than one date on a ski trip; later in life, always accept with grace when your request for funding is denied, and--for goodness' sake--don't dye your hair. There are precepts that few others would find occasion to heed (expect to gain weight after you win your Nobel Prize, as everyone will invite you to dinner) and many more with broader application (do not succumb to the seductions of golf if you intend to stay young professionally). And whatever the season or the occasion: avoid boring people. A true believer in the intellectual promise of youth, Watson offers specific pointers to beginning scientists about choosing the projects that will shape their careers, the supreme importance of collegiality, and dealing with competitors within the same institution, even one who is a former mentor. Finally he addresses himself to the role and needs of science at large universities in the context of discussing the unceremonious departure of Harvard's president Larry Summers and the search for his successor. Scorning political correctness, this irreverent romp through Watson's life and learning is an indispensable guide to anyone plotting a career in science (or most anything else), a primer addressed both to the next generation and those who are entrusted with their minds.
Avoid the Day: A New Nonfiction in Two Movements
by Jay Kirk"Avoid the Day truly seems to me to push nonfiction memoir as far as it can go without it collapsing into a singularity and I am at a loss for words. You are just going to have to read it." –Helen Macdonald, author of H is for HawkA surreal, high-wire act of narrative nonfiction that redefines the genre, Avoid the Day is part detective story, part memoir, and part meditation on the meaning of life—all told with a dark pulse of existential horror. What emerges is an unforgettable study of mortality and the artist’s journey.Seeking to answer the mystery of a missing manuscript by Béla Bartók, and using the investigation to avoid his father’s deathbed, award-winning magazine writer Jay Kirk heads off to Transylvania, going to the same villages where the “Master,” like a vampire in search of fresh plasma, had found his new material in the folk music of the peasants. With these stolen songs, Bartók redefined music in the 20th Century. Kirk, who is also seeking to renew his writing, finds inspiration in the composer’s unorthodox methods, but begins to lose his tether as he sees himself in Bartók’s darkest and most personal work, the Cantata Profana, which revolves around the curse of fathers and sons. After a near-psychotic episode under the spell of Bartók, the author suddenly finds himself on a posh eco-tourist cruise in the Arctic. There, accompanied by an old friend, now a documentary filmmaker, the two decide to scrap the documentary and make a horror flick instead—shot under the noses of the unsuspecting passengers and crew. Playing one of the main characters who finds himself inexplicably trapped on a ship at the literal end of the world, alone, and under the influence of the midnight sun, Kirk gets lost in his own cerebral maze, struggling to answer his most plaguing question: can we find meaning in experience?
Avoiding Prison and Other Noble Vacation Goals: Adventures in Love and Danger
by Wendy DaleFrom salsa dancing in a rum-induced haze and struggling to exercise in Colombia ("the guerrillas were using the track again today"), to crossing international borders unconventionally and dodging bombs in Lebanon ("the good news was that they were 'small bombs'"), Wendy somehow manages to find herself in the midst of hysterical, adventurous, and often illegal situations. Case in point--every time she heads to Costa Rica, she is forced to visit another prison. Although a jail may not be everyone's idea of a place to find a date, Wendy soon falls in love with a man, a country, and its people and risks everything she has to clear his name. Avoiding Prison and Other Noble Vacation Goals is a bumpy and hilarious ride in which Wendy discovers that a successful vacation--much like that elusive thing, happiness--can be found in some of the most unlikely places imaginable.
Avondale and Chicago's Polish Village
by Rob Reid Elisa Addlesperger Jacob Kaplan Dan Pogorzelski Dominic PacygaHome to Chicago's Polish Village, impressive examples of sacred and industrial architecture, and the legendary Olson Waterfall, Avondale is often tagged as "the neighborhood that built Chicago." Images of America: Avondale and Chicago's Polish Village sheds light on the little known history of the community, including its fascinating industrial past. From its beginnings as a sleepy subdivision started by a Michigan senator, it became a cultural mecca for Chicago's Polish community, playing a crucial role in Poland's struggles for independence. Other people also called Avondale home, such as Scottish proprietors, African American freedmen, Irish activists, Swedish shopkeepers, German tradesmen, Jewish merchants, Filipino laborers, and Italian entrepreneurs; a diversity further enriched as many from the former Soviet Bloc and Latin America settled here. As in other Chicago neighborhoods, change is the one constant, as the arts have brought a renaissance to this working-class corner of the city.
Awaiting The Dawn
by Dorcas HooverThis is the true story of the Troyer family, American Mennonite missionaries to Guatemala. The story is about the martyrdom of John Troyer in 1981 and how the family coped.
Awake In The Heartland: The Ecstasy of What is
by Joan TollifsonThis is a book about waking up. It's not about techniques, dogmas, traditions, exotic states or future attainments. Rather, it points to the simplicity and wonder of what is, as it is. This is a book about discovering perfection in imperfection, and the extraordinary in the ordinary. It's about enlightenment, not a future attainment, but here and now. It celebrates life as it is, from the beautiful to the horrific, inviting the reader to see that everything is spiritual, and that nothing is a mistake. If there seems to be a gap between what the enlightenment books describe and what you find in your own life, if you still think enlightenment is something that will happen to you in the future (or not at all), if you're still chasing experiences or self-improvement, then this book may be just what you need to see that what you seek is already here. There is a vibrant energy that emanates from the pages of this book that cannot help but resonate with and stir the same essence in the reader and awaken them to the ecstasy of what is-their own true nature. Because the personal story is so beautifully interwoven, the book answers the question so often asked by seekers: "Yes, I under stand BUT...How do I live my life?" Joan is constantly showing the reader, by personal example, that life lives itself as IS no matter WHAT appears. I recommend it. - Sailor Bob Adamson
Awake: A Memoir
by Jen Hatmaker“I can’t imagine any woman reading this without feeling seen, inspired, and totally empowered.” —Mel Robbins <BR> “A MASTERPIECE, you guys. This memoir by the great Jen Hatmaker *cannot* be missed. I was riveted as if to a thriller and touched/moved/inspired in ways I can’t quite articulate yet. Just please read. You’ll thank me.” —Elin Hilderbrand, on Instagram <P><P> From Jen Hatmaker—beloved New York Times bestselling author and host of the For the Love podcast—a brutally honest, funny, and revealing memoir about the traumatic end of her twenty-six-year-long marriage, and the beginning of a different kind of love story. <P><P> At 2:30 a.m. on July 11, 2020, Jen Hatmaker woke up to her husband of twenty-six years whispering in his phone to another woman from their bed. It was the end of life as she knew it. In the months that followed, she went from being a shiny, funny, popular leader to a divorced wreck on antidepressants and antianxiety meds, parenting five kids alone with no clue about the functioning of her own bank accounts. Having led millions of women for over a decade—urging them to embrace authenticity, find radical agency, and create healthy relationship—she felt like a catastrophic failure. <P><P> In Awake, Jen shares for the first time what happened when she found herself completely lost at sea—and how she made it to shore. In candid, surprisingly funny vignettes spanning forty years of girlhood, marriage, and parenting, Jen lays bare the disorienting upheaval of midlife—the implosion of a marriage, the unraveling of religious and cultural systems, and the grief that accompanies change you didn’t ask for. And, drawing on all resources—from without and within—Jen dares to question the systems beneath the whole house of cards, and to reckon with the myths, half-truths, and lies that brought her to this point. <P><P> More than one woman’s story, Awake is a critical analysis of the story given to all of us: the story of gender limitations, religious subservience, body shame, self-erasure. With refreshing candor, Jen explores a midlife renaissance—grieving what’s lost, cherishing possibility, and entering the second half of life wide awake. <P><P> <B>New York Times Bestseller</B>
Awake: Discover the Power of Your Story
by Joel Sheldon ClarkJoel Clark’s heart-pounding, tear-jerking, laugh-out-loud stories didn’t happen by accident. His life of adventure ignited when he embraced the journey God had planned for him—the story God wants to tell through each one of us. With interactive film clips and personal interviews embedded in this Zondervan ebook, Joel invites you into the story Jesus is telling in the middle of the orphan crisis in Africa, the heart-rending tragedy that followed the Haiti earthquake, as well as his own quirky and very real love story. As you meet the characters who have shaped Joel’s journey, you’ll see Jesus through the tears of a young slave in Africa and witness intimate conversations with child soldiers in Haiti and youth group kids in South Africa. And you’ll be challenged to enter a God-adventure of your own. Because, according to Clark, another person’s experiences are never enough. Your unique passions, gifts and circumstances are calling you to live big and say yes. What part of the unfolding story is Jesus longing to tell through you? It’s time to do it … for the story.
Awakened Cosmos: The Mind of Classical Chinese Poetry
by David HintonA deep and radically original exploration of Taoist and Ch'an (Zen) Buddhist wisdom through the lens of the life and work of Tu Fu, widely considered China's greatest classical poet.What is consciousness but the Cosmos awakened to itself? This question is fundamental to the Taoist and Ch'an (Zen) Buddhist worldview that shapes classical Chinese poetry. A uniquely conceived biography, Awakened Cosmos illuminates that worldview through the life and work of Tu Fu (712-770 C.E.), China's greatest classical poet. Tu Fu's writing traces his life from periods of relative normalcy to years spent as an impoverished refugee amid the devastation of civil war. Exploring key poems to guide the reader through Tu Fu's dramatic life, Awakened Cosmos reveals Taoist/Ch'an insight deeply lived across the full range of human experience.Each chapter presents a poem in three stages: first, the original Chinese; then, an English translation in Hinton's masterful style; and finally, a lyrical essay that discusses the untranslatable philosophical dimensions of the poem. The result is nothing short of remarkable: a biography of the Cosmos awakened to itself in the form of a magisterial poet alive in T'ang Dynasty China.Thirty years ago, David Hinton published America's first full-length translation of Tu Fu's work. Awakened Cosmos is published simultaneously with a newly translated and substantially expanded version of that landmark translation: The Selected Poems of Tu Fu: Expanded and Newly Translated (New Directions).
Awakening Artemis: Deepening Intimacy with the Living Earth and Reclaiming Our Wild Nature
by Vanessa ChakourA healing resource that blends practical plant-based knowledge with spiritual reconnection to show how respect for and communion with our natural world guides us toward healing. Combining Vanessa's story of her own healing journey with practical plant-based knowledge, Awakening Artemis is rooted in the belief that healing happens through reclaiming an intuitive connection to ourselves, to the natural world, and to our own "inner wild." Having experienced a series of physical traumas growing up--including chronic asthma, a car accident that fractured her back and neck, and sexual trauma--Vanessa pursued various approaches to therapeutic movement from martial arts to yogic practices and explored traditions honoring the mind-body connection while forging a path to recovery. Twenty years now into her journey to reconcile her daily routines with her yearning for greater purpose and connection, Vanessa shares the eclectic mix of elements that have brought her deeper self-awareness, a richer understanding of her place in the world, and the confidence and clear boundaries to truly connect with her loved ones. Organized into five sections that move from the present moment to the forest edge, and into the healing darkness, each chapter focuses on a single plant: on their power to connect us to our bodies and our environment. Using storytelling from her own life, Vanessa connects the plants' power and characteristics to issues we all grapple to heal from and even to understand--from the alienating consequences of cultural appropriation to the intersection between a forest's mycelial network and the neural pathways of our brains. For those seeking to recognize the power and omnipresence of the natural world--from the mugwort sprouting in the city sidewalk to the majesty of a three-thousand-year-old yew in rural Scotland--and harness that to push into new realms of self-discovery, Awakening Artemis is an intimate, unforgettable resource capturing one woman's journey to heal her traumas that opens up a world of potential growth and healing for us all.
Awakening Victory: How Iraqi Tribes and American Troops Reclaimed Al Anbar and Defeated Al Qaeda in Iraq
by Michael SilvermanIn August 2006, many senior U.S. officials thought America had lost the war in Iraq, as the senior U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer there wrote that control of al Anbar Province, the seat of the raging Sunni insurgency, was irrevocably lost to the insurgents. During that time, there were over 100 attacks per day against U.S. military and Iraqi forces in al Anbar, and al Qaeda in Iraq had planted their flag in the provincial capital, Ramadi, declaring it the capital of their new &“Islamic State of Iraq.&” In January 2007, as a spearhead of the newly decided &“Surge,&” the 3rd Battalion, 69th Armored Regiment deployed to Ramadi as part of the 3rd Infantry Division, the first regular Army unit to deploy to Iraq for a third time. The battalion and its parent brigade went to work in a campaign that will be seen as the D-Day of the Global War on Terror. Starting by clearing al Qaeda from the city of Ramadi and replacing them with legitimate locally raised and trained Iraqi police—while simultaneously fostering the tribal movement known as the &“Awakening Councils&”—the brigade began to have tremendous success. By April 2007, attacks within Ramadi went from twenty per day to one or two per week. By mid-summer 2007, attacks in the entire province were down 90 percent from 2006. Furthermore, the &“Awakening&” had swept through the rest of Iraq, leading to the best security situation seen since 2003. The 3rd Battalion, 69th Armored, was the only battalion to participate in this campaign from start to finish. Moreover, many of the US successes came directly from this unit&’s work. Awakening Victory tells the story of this incredible campaign through the eyes of the commander of the 3rd Battalion, who was right in the thick of the fight. The book also provides a description of the Iraqi insurgency—particularly al Qaeda in Iraq—that offers the depth and texture which are currently lacking in most Americans' perceptions of the war. It describes the battalion&’s actions, including incidents previously unknown to the public, but it is not merely another blood-and-guts war story. The author uses the actions of his battalion to describe a paradigm shift that occurred, while in a totally foreign culture, yet allowed for a move from a war of bombs and bullets to one of partnership and ideas. The author, Lt. Col. Michael E. Silverman (ret) is a political scientist and historian by education and has extensive experience in both warfare and Middle Eastern affairs, including a tour as an advisor to a Saudi Arabian infantry battalion in Riyadh. Silverman served a two-year detail to the Central Intelligence Agency at their Langley headquarters between his last two tours in Iraq. There he was privy to the Director&’s Weekly Iraq Briefing, a working group that discussed issues on the war, many of which ultimately found their way into the President&’s Daily Briefing. Well-versed in international affairs and world religions, he writes with the authority of someone who has both been blown-up by an IED and helped to shape US strategic policy for the Global War on Terror. In this book he describes, from the very front line, the exact turning point where the United States turned a supposedly failed war into a possibly enduring success.
Awakening the Spirit of America: FDR's War of Words With Charles Lindbergh—and the Battle to Save Democracy
by Paul M. SparrowA powerful new work of history that brings President Roosevelt, his allies, and his adversaries to life as he fought to transform America from an isolationist bystander into the world&’s first superpower. &“In today&’s troubled times, with authoritarianism escalating at home and abroad, Sparrow&’s book reads like an all-hands-on-deck wakeup call. Highly recommended!&”—Douglas BrinkleyFranklin Roosevelt awoke at 2:50 a.m. on September 1, 1939 to the news that Germany had invaded Poland, signaling the start of World War II. The president had warned for years that Hitler&’s fascist regime posed an existential threat to democracy, but the American public remained stubbornly isolationist as fascist sympathizing groups, egged on by right wing media stars promoting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, plotted to overthrow the president. The situation was dire, and Roosevelt quickly found himself facing an unexpected adversary: Charles Lindbergh. Wildly popular, the famed aviator's youthful charm, plainspoken rhetoric, and media magnetism earned him a massive following as he led an aggressive attack on FDR&’s policies. Millions listened to Linberg&’s radio broadcasts and attended his rallies. Powerful individuals including William Randolph Hearst, Henry Ford, and members of Congress supported him. The German government provided secret funds to Lindbergh&’s Nazi followers as he led the radical America First Committee in an effort to prevent Roosevelt from aiding England&’s survival—and the world&’s. Awakening the Spirit of America brilliantly shows how Roosevelt overcame the forces aligned against him in a war against fascism. Paul Sparrow, former director of the FDR Presidential Library, reveals how FDR's triumph of leadership was by no means a foregone conclusion. Roosevelt&’s astute political maneuvers and persuasive use of language to preserve what he termed &“the spirit of America&” changed history and can still inspire today. Sparrow brings readers into the rooms where key decisions were made, focusing on the crucial role words, media, and propaganda played in the transformation of America into the protector of the free world. Awakening the Spirit of America provides a riveting, inside account of FDR&’s ultimate victory over pro-Nazi isolationists and provides vital insight into American history and an iconic president.
Awakening the Spirit: The Open Wide Like a Floozy Chronicles (Awakening The Spirit Ser.)
by Cindy L. HerbOne woman shows how others can overcome adversity just as she conquered her abusive childhood and found the power to heal and flourish.Discover a path to spiritual recovery. Streams of personal healing fill the pages of author Cindy L. Herb’s Awakening the Spirit: The Open Wide Like a Floozy Chronicles. Scarred by a childhood rife with the piercing pain of rape and molestation along with the unrelenting grief of neglect, Cindy emerged into adulthood burdened with a damaged and fragmented soul. But refusing to carry the weight of others’ sins, she set out to uncover the bitter roots of her suffering and, in the end, found a simple process that permits true healing. The hope of a resurrected life bursts forth from her inspirational tale—encouragement to anyone bearing the wounds of a painful past and an uncertain future.Praise for Cindy L. Herb and Awakening the Spirit“I know [Cindy] will inspire others through [her] personal story of overcoming pain and suffering. I applaud [her] for having the courage and strength to share [her] extraordinary story.” —Maria Shriver, activist, author, journalist“Awakening the Spirit is more than a work of art. It is a work of heart. Cindy Herb has survived the devastating pain of physical, spiritual, and mental abuse, but she’s also experienced the joy of creating a new life from the ashes. This book offers hope, healing, and self-reclamation. I recommend this book to anyone who is looking to move beyond the wounds and anguish of a difficult past to embrace a new life of love and happiness.” —Dr. Annette Colby, author of Depression Freedom and Your Highest Potential“We all have within us the essence of divinity that enables us to choose light over darkness. Cindy Herb’s inspiring comeback is a beautiful testament to that spirit.” —Kaushal Aras, author of The Seven Symphonies of Extraordinary Love: A Blueprint for World Peace
Away All Boats: A Personal Guide for the Small-Boat Owner
by John ColeHigh-spirited and passionate--at once a useful guide and a record of an extended love affair with small boats--Away All Boats is a blending of sparkling waterlands and vivid memories.Author of Striper and Fishing Came First, John N. Cole takes readers from the dangers of haul-seining for striped bass that challenge a wooden dory's limits in the surf to the excitement of searching the flats of the Florida Keys for tarpon and other game fish aboard a shall-draft, high-tech craft perfectly matched to the task. Evocative of nature's miracles and realities (and the foibles of men who go down to the sea in "ships"), the writing is dry and witty, tender and perceptive. Alongside the hard facts and opinions about the selection, refitting, maintenance, and use of small boats is a series of wonderful stories about the author's explorations as a bayman and fisherman in the waters of eastern Long Island, Maine, and the Florida Keys. Each boat described serves to introduce a key chapter in the author's life and his taste for adventure.John Cole's first love is the skiff, rowboat, dory, or sharpie--any relatively stable wooden boat that can be easily and efficiently rowed--but the author also takes on larger craft powered by the internal combustion engine to indicate that every boat is designed to perform a limited family of functions. The trick, as we learn in these robust pages, is to find the boat you need (not always the boat you want), and Cole offers practical advice on how to go about it. The surprise is that a good boat doesn't have to be expensive; some are even gifts from the sea. As to basic equipment, the author keeps the advice simple: a compass, charts, a tachometer, an ammeter, an understanding of local winds and tides, and, with luck, an informed "weather eye" to minimize risks in open water.
Away Up the North Fork: A Girl's Search for Home in the Wilderness
by Annie ChappellIn the 1970s, Annie Chappell dreams of a homesteading life—a life like the one depicted in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House in the Big Woods, where the world is uncomplicated. If she can get to that place, she thinks, the trouble she faces at home—alcohol use, sexual abuse, and the sorrows of modern-day issues—will disappear. Home in Denver during a break from boarding school in the spring of 1973, she meets Bill, a mountain man Vietnam vet who’s traveling through town on his way back to his cabin on the Canadian border in Montana, and she falls in love with the life he describes. In October, after months of imagining a life with Bill, she runs away from boarding school in the East to find him so he can teach her the wild ways. When Annie’s plan fails, she goes back to school to graduate, but she continues to exchange letters with Bill for the rest of the school year—and after graduation, with her parents’ blessing, she makes her way to Montana to live with him. Homesteading with an older man in the wilderness, however, presents challenges she hasn’t anticipated. Ultimately, Annie’s experiences with Bill push her to face her own strengths and fears, as well as her relationship with her parents and home—and to begin to figure out who she really wants to be.
Away with Words
by HutcheonA Simon & Schuster eBook. Simon & Schuster has a great book for every reader.
Away with Words: An Irreverent Tour Through the World of Pun Competitions
by Joe Berkowitz"[Away with Words] is low wit in its highest form. . . Mr. Berkowitz is sensitive throughout to the evanescence and contingency of punning and to the fleeting chemistry of a live pun-on-pun matchup crackling with energy." –Wall Street JournalFast Company reporter Joe Berkowitz investigates the bizarre and hilarious world of pun competitions from the Punderdome 3000 in Brooklyn to the World competition in Austin.When Joe Berkowitz witnessed his first Punderdome competition, it felt wrong in the best way. Something impossible seemed to be happening. The kinds of jokes we learn to repress through social conditioning were not only being aired out in public—they were being applauded. As it turned out, this monthly show was part of a subculture that’s been around in one form or another since at least the late ‘70s. Its pinnacle is the O. Henry Pun Off World Championship, an annual tournament in Austin, Texas. As someone who is terminally self-conscious, Joe was both awed and jealous of these people who confidently killed with the most maligned form of humor. In this immersive ride into the subversive world of pun competitions, we meet punsters weird and wonderful and Berkowitz is our tour guide. Puns may show up in life in subtle ways sometimes, but once you start thinking in puns you discover they’re everywhere. Berkowitz’s search to discover who makes them the most, and why, leads him to the professional comedian competitors on @Midnight, a TV show with a pun competition built into it, the writing staff of Bob’s Burgers, the punniest show on TV, and even a humor research conference. With his new unlikely band of punster brothers, he finally heads to Austin to compete in the World Championship. Of course, in befriending these comic misfits he also ended up learning that when you embrace puns you become a more authentic version of yourself.
Away with Words: The Daring Story of Isabella Bird
by Lori MortensenThis dashing picture book biography takes us around the world with a daring Victorian female explorer and author.Exploring was easier said than done for a young woman in nineteenth-century England. But somehow Isabella persisted, and with each journey, she breathed in new ways to see and describe everything around her. Question by question, word by word, Isabella bloomed. First, out in the English countryside. Then, off to America and Canada. And eventually, around the world, to Africa, Asia, Australia, and more. Always more—more places, more questions, more words—and all those experiences became books, in which she described the land she traveled, the people she met, and the dangers she experienced. And finally, Isabella returned home to England, where she became the first female member of the Royal Geographic Society and was presented to the Queen. But to wild-vine Isabella, the world was home. Back matter features an author's note, bibliography, and timeline.
Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life
by Dacher Keltner"Read this book to connect with your highest self.&” —Susan Cain, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Bittersweet and Quiet&“We need more awe in our lives, and Dacher Keltner has written the definitive book on where to find it.&” —Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again&“Awe is awesome in both senses: a superb analysis of an emotion that is strongly felt but poorly understood, with a showcase of examples that remind us of what is worthy of our awe.&” —Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and author of How the Mind Works and RationalityFrom a foremost expert on the science of emotions and consultant to Pixar&’s Inside Out, a groundbreaking and essential exploration into the history, science, and greater understanding of aweAwe is mysterious. How do we begin to quantify the goose bumps we feel when we see the Grand Canyon, or the utter amazement when we watch a child walk for the first time? How do you put into words the collective effervescence of standing in a crowd and singing in unison, or the wonder you feel while gazing at centuries-old works of art? Up until fifteen years ago, there was no science of awe, the feeling we experience when we encounter vast mysteries that transcend our understanding of the world. Scientists were studying emotions like fear and disgust, emotions that seemed essential to human survival. Revolutionary thinking, though, has brought into focus how, through the span of evolution, we&’ve met our most basic needs socially. We&’ve survived thanks to our capacities to cooperate, form communities, and create culture that strengthens our sense of shared identity—actions that are sparked and spurred by awe. In Awe, Dacher Keltner presents a radical investigation and deeply personal inquiry into this elusive emotion. Revealing new research into how awe transforms our brains and bodies, alongside an examination of awe across history, culture, and within his own life during a period of grief, Keltner shows us how cultivating awe in our everyday life leads us to appreciate what is most humane in our human nature. And during a moment in which our world feels more divided than ever before, and more imperiled by crises of different kinds, we are greatly in need of awe. If we open our minds, it is awe that sharpens our reasoning and orients us toward big ideas and new insights, that cools our immune system&’s inflammation response and strengthens our bodies. It is awe that activates our inclination to share and create strong networks, to take actions that are good for the natural and social world around us. It is awe that transforms who we are, that inspires the creation of art, music, and religion. At turns radical and profound, brimming with enlightening and practical insights, Awe is our field guide, from not only one of the leading voices on the subject but a fellow seeker of awe in his own right, for how to place awe as a vital force within our lives.