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Biography Of Peter Cook
by Harry ThompsonThere are those who say - and Peter Cook himself was among them - that most of his humour was autobiographical. Others - and Peter Cook himself was among them -contend that this simply isn't the case. The truth, of course, lies somewhere in the middle. Peter Cook made President Kennedy wait in line to see him and visited Elizabeth Taylor in her dressing room. He befriended tramps and fundraised for CND. He was capable of extraordinary kindnesses and occasional cruelties. He helped define comedy and satire for a generation, but ended his life a recluse. Harry Thompson has produced the first ever comprehensive biography of this influential and fascinating subject who came up with some of the funniest sketches and greatest jokes of all time.
Biography Of Peter Cook
by Harry ThompsonThere are those who say - and Peter Cook himself was among them - that most of his humour was autobiographical. Others - and Peter Cook himself was among them -contend that this simply isn't the case. The truth, of course, lies somewhere in the middle. Peter Cook made President Kennedy wait in line to see him and visited Elizabeth Taylor in her dressing room. He befriended tramps and fundraised for CND. He was capable of extraordinary kindnesses and occasional cruelties. He helped define comedy and satire for a generation, but ended his life a recluse. Harry Thompson has produced the first ever comprehensive biography of this influential and fascinating subject who came up with some of the funniest sketches and greatest jokes of all time.
Biography of a Bird Dog: A Labrador Retriever in Wyoming
by Garry WallaceAs you might expect, Biography of a Bird Dog is the story of a man and his dog. But it is more than that, it’s a memoir of not only a puppy’s first year of life, but of a middle-aged man’s appraisal of his own life and career in a small town in Wyoming. <P><P> As Ebenezer, his bird dog, is nearing the end of his hunting career, the author decides to add a new puppy to the family, with the intention of using all he has learned to train her to achieve the full potential of her breed, a process that turns out to be filled with both joy and frustration. When tragedy strikes, he must re-evaluate his own plans along with his dog’s future.
Biography of a Phantom: A Robert Johnson Blues Odyssey
by Robert Mack McCormickThe drama of In Cold Blood meets the stylings of a Coen brothers film in this long-lost manuscript from musicologist Robert &“Mack&” McCormick, whose research on blues icon Robert Johnson's mysterious life and death became as much of a myth as the musician himselfWhen blues master Robert Johnson&’s little-known recordings were rereleased to great fanfare in the 1960s, little was known about his life, giving rise to legends that he gained success by selling his soul to the devil. Biography of a Phantom: A Robert Johnson Blues Odyssey is musicologist Mack McCormick's all-consuming search, from the late 1960s until McCormick&’s death in 2015, to uncover Johnson's life story. McCormick spent decades reconstructing Johnson's mysterious life and developing theories about his untimely death at the age of 27, but never made public his discoveries. Biography of a Phantom publishes his compelling work for the first time, including 40 unseen black-and-white photographs documenting his search.While knocking on doors and sleuthing for Johnson's loved ones and friends, McCormick documents a Mississippi landscape ravaged by the racism of paternalistic white landowners and county sheriffs. An editor's preface and afterword from Smithsonian curator John W. Troutman provides context as well as troubling details about McCormick&’s own impact on Johnson&’s family and illuminates through McCormick&’s archive the complex legacy of white male enthusiasts assuming authority over Black people&’s stories and the history of the blues.While Johnson died before achieving widespread recognition, his music took on a life of its own and inspired future generations. Biography of a Phantom, filled with lush descriptive fieldwork and photographs, is an important historical object that deepens the understanding of a stellar musician.
Biography of a Runaway Slave: Fiftieth Anniversary Edition
by Miguel BarnetFiftieth Anniversary Edition Originally published in 1966, Miguel Barnet's Biography of a Runaway Slave provides the written history of the life of Esteban Montejo, who lived as a slave, as a fugitive in the wilderness, and as a soldier fighting against Spain in the Cuban War of Independence. A new introduction by one of the most preeminent Afro-Hispanic scholars, William Luis, situates Barnet's ethnographic strategy and lyrical narrative style as foundational for the tradition of testimonial fiction in Latin American literature. Barnet recorded his interviews with the 103-year-old Montejo at the onset of the Cuban Revolution. This insurgent's history allows the reader into the folklore and cultural history of Afro-Cubans before and after the abolition of slavery. The book serves as an important contribution to the archive of the black experience in Cuba and as a reminder of the many ways that the present continues to echo the past.
Biography: A Brief History
by Nigel HamiltonFor thousands of years we have recorded real lives--the lives of others, and of ourselves. For what purpose and for whom has this universal and timeless pursuit endured? What obstacles have lain in the path of biographers in the past, and what continues to confound biographers today? Above all, how is it that biographies and autobiographies play such a contested, popular role in contemporary Western culture, from biopics to blogs, from memoir to docudrama? Award-winning biographer and teacher Nigel Hamilton addresses these questions in an incisive and vivid narrative that will appeal to students of human nature and self-representation across the arts and sciences. Tracing the remarkable and often ignored historical evolution of biography from the ancient world to the present, this brief and fascinating tour of the genre conveys the passionate quest to capture the lives of individuals and the many difficulties it has entailed through the centuries. From the Epic of Gilgamesh to American Splendor, from cuneiform to the Internet, from commemoration to deconstruction, from fiction to fact--by way of famous biographical artists such as Plutarch, Saint Augustine, Sir Walter Raleigh, Samuel Johnson, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Lord Byron, Sigmund Freud, Lytton Strachey, Abel Gance, Virginia Woolf, Leni Riefenstahl, Orson Welles, Julian Barnes, Ted Hughes, Frank McCourt, and many others--Nigel Hamilton's Biography: A Brief History will change the way you think about biography and real lives.
Biography: An Annotated Bibliography
by Carl RollysonThis is the only comprehensive, annotated bibliography of writing about biography. Rollyson, a biographer and scholar of biography, includes chapters on the history of biography (beginning in the Greco-Roman period and concluding with biographers such as Leon Edel and Richard Ellmann). Ample sections on psychobiography, the new feminist biography, and on biographers who appear in works of fiction, are also included. Cited in many recent books on the genre of biography, Biography: An Annotated Bibliography, is an essential research tool as well as a clearly written work for those wishing to browse through the commentary on this important genre.
Biography: An Historiography
by Melanie NolanBiography: An Historiography examines how Western historians have used biography from the nineteenth century to the present – considering the problems and challenges that historians have faced in their biographical practice systematically. This volume analyses the strategies and methods that historians have used in response to seven major issues identified over time to do with evidence, including but not limited to the problem of causation, the problem of fact and fiction, the problem of other minds, the problem of significance or representativeness, the problems of perspective, both macro and micro, and the problem of subjectivity and relative truth. This volume will be essential for both postgraduates and historians studying biography.
Biomythography Bayou (The Griot Project Book Series)
by Mel Michelle LewisWhen your stories flow from the brackish waters of the Gulf South, where the land and water merge, your narratives cannot be contained or constrained by the Eurocentric conventions of autobiography. When your story is rooted in the histories of your West African, Creek, and Creole ancestors, as well as your Black, feminist, and queer communities, you must create a biomythography that transcends linear time and extends beyond the pages of a book. Biomythography Bayou is more than just a book of memoir; it is a ritual for conjuring queer embodied knowledges and decolonial perspectives. Blending a rich gumbo of genres—from ingredients such as praise songs, folk tales, recipes, incantations, and invocations—it also includes a multimedia component, with “bayou tableau” images and audio recording links. Inspired by such writers as Audre Lorde, Zora Neale Hurston, and Octavia Butler, Mel Michelle Lewis draws from the well of her ancestors in order to chart a course toward healing Afrofutures. Showcasing the nature, folklore, dialect, foodways, music, and art of the Gulf’s coastal communities, Lewis finds poetic ways to celebrate their power and wisdom.
Biplane
by Richard BachTo discover that time is not a straight line aimed toward infinity, Richard Bach undertook a magnificent journey. Biplane is the story of that solo flight into the American skies -- a flight that became a personal quest to discover everything that lies beyond the ordinary.
Bipolar. Memorias de un estado de ánimo: Growing Up Bipolar
by Cheney, TerriUna memoir que profundiza de manera sincera y abierta en el trastorno bipolar. Terri Cheney, una antigua abogada de espectáculos de Los Ángeles, disipa expectativas deliberadamente con un paseo seguro a través del turbulento relato sobre el trastorno bipolar. Con una imaginería muy evocadora -recuerdos desordenados en el tiempo en los que se reflejan sus desorientados y extremos estados de ánimo- Cheney deja su vida al servicio de la piedad de la química cerebral, que la arranca de la desesperación más desalmada para llevarla a la exuberancia más estridente, de persecuciones impetuosas al letargo paralizador. Apresada en las aguas revueltas del impulso febril, fluctúa de la seducción al intento de suicidio cuando flirtea imprudentemente con los hombres, el peligro y la muerte, sólo para encontrarse ante más desafíos en los dos lados del drástico efecto que le produce el tratamiento. En Bipolar, Terri Cheney cuenta con honestidad y delicadeza la dura historia de su vida, donde pasa de cenar en restaurantes de lujo y conducir su Porsche deportivo a encerrarse en su casa durante semanas, incapaz de salir de la cama, sin vislumbrar ningún futuro. Bipolar es el impresionante relato de una mujer con trastorno maniaco-depresivo con la que van a sentirse identificadas miles de personas que p esta enfermedad o que han padecido amigos o familiares.
Birch Bayh: Making a Difference
by Robert BlaemireA biography of the US senator from Indiana who was behind such monumental legislation as the 25th Amendment and Title IX. A remarkable history of one of the most legendary US senators of our time, Birch Bayh: Making a Difference reveals a life and career dedicated to the important issues facing Indiana and the nation, including civil rights and equal rights for women. Born in Terre Haute, Indiana, right before the Great Depression, Birch Bayh served more than 25 years in the Indiana General Assembly (1954–1962) and the United States Senate (1963–1981). His influence was seen in landmark legislation over his tenure, including Title IX, the 25th Amendment, the 26th Amendment, Civil Rights of the Institutionalized, Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention Act, and the Bayh-Dole Act. Bayh was also the author, chief Senate sponsor, and floor leader of the Equal Rights Amendment and successfully led the opposition to two Nixon nominees to the Supreme Court. Robert Blaemire profiles not only the prolific career of this remarkable senator but also an era when compromise and bipartisanship were common in Congress.&“Bayh has long needed a comprehensive biography, and Robert Blaemire has provided an insider&’s account of Bayh&’s life and career and places him among Indiana&’s leading political figures.&” —Ray E. Boomhower, author of Robert F. Kennedy and the 1968 Indiana Primary&“The story of Birch Bay&’s political career is completely inspiring, especially in an era that has lost touch with bipartisanship and civility. A must read for Hoosiers and for anyone interested in how democracy worked, when it really worked.&” —Ted Widmer, historian and former presidential speechwriter
Birch Hollow Schoolmarm (Dora's Diary #1)
by Carrie BenderPopular author Carrie Bender begins a new series about Dora, the adopted daughter of Miriam and Nate (in Miriam's Journal). Join Dora as she runs around with the Amish youth, then makes peace with her parents and church.
Bird City: Adventures in New York's Urban Wilds
by Ryan GoldbergFor readers of What an Owl Knows and The World Without Us, this infectiously impassioned tour of the five New York City boroughs offers city dwellers and bird lovers everywhere a surprising, delightful new view of the concrete jungle—through its abundant and diverse bird population Ryan Goldberg came to birding unexpectedly, but as many first-timers do after seeing their &“spark&” bird, he fell hard. Enamored with the incredible variety of species that pass through his hometown of New York City, and with the other passionate birders he meets, he embarks on a year of reporting on the natural wonders hiding amidst the skyscrapers. He learns that millions of birds migrate through the city each year—more than four hundred different species have been found in New York, many more than in Yellowstone National Park. Through the four seasons, Goldberg takes readers to all five boroughs, through the city's most famous parks and landmarks. He pursues rare and common species alike, increasing his count and deepening his understanding of how and why birds make their home in this smoggy, noisy, concrete-coated environment. Along the way, he meets many delightful and idiosyncratic characters, both human and feathered. Richly textured, informative, and uplifting, Bird City will inspire fast-walking New Yorkers, the ever-growing birding community, and readers everywhere who think of &“nature&” as just a place to visit on Saturdays to slow down and look around them. There&’s a lot more than pigeons in our city skies.
Bird Cloud
by Annie Proulx"Bird Cloud" is the name Annie Proulx gave to 640 acres of Wyoming wetlands and prairie and four-hundred-foot cliffs plunging down to the North Platte River. On the day she first visited, a cloud in the shape of a bird hung in the evening sky. Proulx also saw pelicans, bald eagles, golden eagles, great blue herons, ravens, scores of bluebirds, harriers, kestrels, elk, deer and a dozen antelope. She fell in love with the land, then owned by the Nature Conservancy, and she knew what she wanted to build on it--a house in harmony with her work, her appetites and her character, a library surrounded by bedrooms and a kitchen. Proulx's first work of nonfiction in more than twenty years, Bird Cloud is the story of designing and constructing that house--with its solar panels, Japanese soak tub, concrete floor and elk horn handles on kitchen cabinets. It is also an enthralling natural history and archaeology of the region--inhabited for millennia by Ute, Arapaho and Shoshone Indians-- and a family history, going back to nineteenth-century Mississippi riverboat captains and Canadian settlers. Proulx, a writer with extraordinary powers of observation and compassion, here turns her lens on herself. We understand how she came to be living in a house surrounded by wilderness, with shelves for thousands of books and long worktables on which to heap manuscripts, research materials and maps, and how she came to be one of the great American writers of her time. Bird Cloud is magnificent.
Bird Cloud: A Memoir of Place
by Annie ProulxPart autobiography, part natural history, Bird Cloud is the glorious story of Annie Proulx's piece of the Wyoming landscape and her home there."Bird Cloud" is the name Annie Proulx gave to 640 acres of Wyoming wetlands and prairie and four-hundred-foot cliffs plunging down to the North Platte River. On the day she first visited, a cloud in the shape of a bird hung in the evening sky. Proulx also saw pelicans, bald eagles, golden eagles, great blue herons, ravens, scores of bluebirds, harriers, kestrels, elk, deer and a dozen antelope. She fell in love with the land, then owned by the Nature Conservancy, and she knew what she wanted to build on it--a house in harmony with her work, her appetites and her character, a library surrounded by bedrooms and a kitchen. Bird Cloud is the story of designing and constructing that house--with its solar panels, Japanese soak tub, concrete floor, and elk horn handles on kitchen cabinets. It is also an enthralling natural history and archaeology of the region--inhabited for millennia by Ute, Arapaho, and Shoshone Indians--and a family history, going back to nineteenth-century Mississippi riverboat captains and Canadian settlers. Proulx, a writer with extraordinary powers of observation and compassion, here turns her lens on herself. We understand how she came to be living in a house surrounded by wilderness, with shelves for thousands of books and long worktables on which to heap manuscripts, research materials and maps, and how she came to be one of the great American writers of her time.
Bird Cottage
by Eva MeijerA novel based on the true story of a remarkable woman, her lifelong relationship with birds and the joy she drew from itLen Howard was forty years old when she decided to leave her London life and loves behind, retire to the English countryside and devote the rest of her days to her one true passion: birds.Moving to a small cottage in Sussex, she wrote two bestselling books, astonishing the world with her observations on the tits, robins, sparrows and other birds that lived nearby, flew freely in and out of her windows, and would even perch on her shoulder as she typed.This moving novel imagines the story of this remarkable woman's decision to defy society's expectations, and the joy she drew from her extraordinary relationship with the natural world.
Bird Dream
by Matt Higgins"[R]iveting... a must-read. A highflying, electrifying story of a treacherous sport in which every triumph is an eye blink away from becoming a disaster." --Kirkus (STARRED) A heart-stopping narrative of risk and courage, Bird Dream tells the story of the remarkable men and women who pioneered the latest advances in aerial exploration--from skydiving to BASE jumping to wingsuit flying--and made history with their daring. Bird Dream shows that recent decades have witnessed an unprecedented revolution in human flight. By the end of the twentieth century BASE jumping was the most dangerous of all the extreme sports, with thrill-seeking jumpers parachuting from bridges, mountains, radio towers, and even skyscrapers. Despite numerous fatalities and legal skirmishes, BASE jumpers like Jeb Corliss of California thought they had discovered the ultimate rush. But all this changed for Corliss in 1999, when, high in the mountains of northern Italy, he and other jumpers watched in wonder as a stranger--wearing a cunning new jumpsuit featuring "wings" between the arms and legs--leaped from a ledge and then actually flew from the vertiginous cliffs. This dude's flying, thought Corliss with a start. This changes everything. What Corliss had witnessed was a wingsuit, an innovation more flying squirrel than bird or plane. Wingsuits were not new; they had fascinated men for centuries. Yet a modern design had improved safety and performance, allowing wingsuit pilots to leap from a helicopter or high cliff and soar for miles--using little more than their bodies--before deploying a parachute to reach the ground safely. The best pilots could fly close to the earth, rapidly navigating narrow canyons and mountain ranges. Still, colossal dangers remained, and the beauty of exploring human flight with such unprecedented grace would exact the ultimate cost for some pilots--they would pay with their lives. Drawing on intimate access to Corliss and other top pilots from around the globe, Bird Dream tracks the evolution of the wingsuit movement through the larger than life characters who, in an age of viral video, forced the sport onto the world stage. Their exploits--which entranced millions of fans along the way--defied imagination. They were flying; not like the Wright brothers, but the way we do in our dreams. Some dared to dream of going further yet, to a day when a wingsuit pilot might fly, and land, all without a parachute. A growing number of wingsuit pilots began plotting ways in which a human being might leap from the sky and land. A half dozen groups around the world were dedicated to this quest for a "wingsuit landing," conjuring the pursuit of nations that once inspired the race to first summit Everest. Given his fame as a stuntman, the brash, publicity-hungry Corliss remained the popular favorite to claim the first landing. Yet Bird Dream also tracks the path of another man, Gary Connery--a forty-two-year-old Englishman--who was quietly plotting to beat Corliss at his own game. Accompanied by an international cast of wingsuit devotees--including a Finnish magician, a parachute tester from Brazil, an Australian computer programmer, a gruff hang-gliding champion-turned-aeronautical engineer, a French skydiving champion, and a South African costume designer--Corliss and Connery raced to leap into the unknown, a contest that would lead to triumph for one and nearly cost the other his life. Based on five years of firsthand reporting and original interviews, Bird Dream is the work of journalist Matt Higgins, who traveled the world alongside these extraordinary men and women as they jumped and flew in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Offering a behind-the-scenes take on some of the most spectacular and disastrous events of the wingsuit movement, Higgins's Bird Dream is a riveting, adrenaline-fueled adventure at the very edge of human experience. Library Journal (STARRED) "[A]ction-packed... An engrossing and exhaustively researched account of extremists who challenge failure and death on a regular basis. High...
Bird Dream
by Matt Higgins"[R]iveting... a must-read. A highflying, electrifying story of a treacherous sport in which every triumph is an eye blink away from becoming a disaster." --Kirkus (STARRED)A heart-stopping narrative of risk and courage, Bird Dream tells the story of the remarkable men and women who pioneered the latest advances in aerial exploration--from skydiving to BASE jumping to wingsuit flying--and made history with their daring.Bird Dream shows that recent decades have witnessed an unprecedented revolution in human flight. By the end of the twentieth century BASE jumping was the most dangerous of all the extreme sports, with thrill-seeking jumpers parachuting from bridges, mountains, radio towers, and even skyscrapers. Despite numerous fatalities and legal skirmishes, BASE jumpers like Jeb Corliss of California thought they had discovered the ultimate rush. But all this changed for Corliss in 1999, when, high in the mountains of northern Italy, he and other jumpers watched in wonder as a stranger--wearing a cunning new jumpsuit featuring "wings" between the arms and legs--leaped from a ledge and then actually flew from the vertiginous cliffs. This dude's flying, thought Corliss with a start. This changes everything.What Corliss had witnessed was a wingsuit, an innovation more flying squirrel than bird or plane. Wingsuits were not new; they had fascinated men for centuries. Yet a modern design had improved safety and performance, allowing wingsuit pilots to leap from a helicopter or high cliff and soar for miles--using little more than their bodies--before deploying a parachute to reach the ground safely. The best pilots could fly close to the earth, rapidly navigating narrow canyons and mountain ranges. Still, colossal dangers remained, and the beauty of exploring human flight with such unprecedented grace would exact the ultimate cost for some pilots--they would pay with their lives.Drawing on intimate access to Corliss and other top pilots from around the globe, Bird Dream tracks the evolution of the wingsuit movement through the larger than life characters who, in an age of viral video, forced the sport onto the world stage. Their exploits--which entranced millions of fans along the way--defied imagination. They were flying; not like the Wright brothers, but the way we do in our dreams.Some dared to dream of going further yet, to a day when a wingsuit pilot might fly, and land, all without a parachute. A growing number of wingsuit pilots began plotting ways in which a human being might leap from the sky and land. A half dozen groups around the world were dedicated to this quest for a "wingsuit landing," conjuring the pursuit of nations that once inspired the race to first summit Everest.Given his fame as a stuntman, the brash, publicity-hungry Corliss remained the popular favorite to claim the first landing. Yet Bird Dream also tracks the path of another man, Gary Connery--a forty-two-year-old Englishman--who was quietly plotting to beat Corliss at his own game. Accompanied by an international cast of wingsuit devotees--including a Finnish magician, a parachute tester from Brazil, an Australian computer programmer, a gruff hang-gliding champion-turned-aeronautical engineer, a French skydiving champion, and a South African costume designer--Corliss and Connery raced to leap into the unknown, a contest that would lead to triumph for one and nearly cost the other his life.Based on five years of firsthand reporting and original interviews, Bird Dream is the work of journalist Matt Higgins, who traveled the world alongside these extraordinary men and women as they jumped and flew in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Offering a behind-the-scenes take on some of the most spectacular and disastrous events of the wingsuit movement, Higgins's Bird Dream is a riveting, adrenaline-fueled adventure at the very edge of human experience.Library Journal (STARRED)"[A]ction-packed... An engrossing and exhaustively researched account of extremists who challenge failure and death on a regular basis. Highly recommended."SUSAN CASEY, autho...
Bird Girl: Gene Stratton-Porter Shares Her Love of Nature with the World
by Jill EsbaumThis lively STEAM picture book is about the life of Gene Stratton-Porter, a pioneering wildlife photographer and popular author from the late 19th and early 20th century, who showed the world the beauty of nature, especially birds, and why it was worth preserving.Gene Stratton-Porter was a farm girl who fell in love with birds, from the chickens whose eggs she collected to the hawks that preyed on them. When she grew up, Gene wanted nothing more than to share her love of birds with the world. She wrote stories about birds, but when a magazine wanted to publish them next to awkward photos of stuffed birds, she knew she had to take matters into her own hands. Teaching herself photography, Gene began to take photos of birds in the wild. Her knowledge of birds and how to approach them allowed her to get so close you could count the feathers of the birds in her photos. Her work was unlike anything Americans had ever seen before—she captured the true lives of animals in their natural habitat. A pioneering wildlife photographer and one of the most popular authors of the early 20th century, this bird girl showed the world the beauty of nature and why it was worth preserving.
Bird Milk & Mosquito Bones: A Memoir
by Priyanka MattooFrom a wry, insightful, and very funny new voice, here is one woman&’s search for home, from Kashmir to England to Saudi Arabia to Michigan to Rome and, finally, to Los Angeles—standalone essays that together form a sweeping portrait of a peripatetic life."I would follow Priyanka Mattoo to the ends of the earth, because she would know what to eat there, and how to make a friend, and then sit me down and tell me a story." —Emma StraubPriyanka Mattoo was born into a wooden house in the Himalayas, as were most of her ancestors. In 1989, however, mounting violence in the region forced Mattoo&’s community to flee. The home into which her family poured their dreams was reduced to a pile of rubble.Mattoo never moved back to her beloved Kashmir—because it no longer existed. She and her family just kept packing and unpacking and moving on. In forty years, Mattoo accumulated thirty-two different addresses, and she chronicles her nomadic existence with wit, wisdom, and an inimitable eye for light within the darkest moments. She takes us from her grandparents&’ sprawling home in Srinagar, where her boisterous aunties raced through the halls, to Saudi Arabia, where friendships were gained and lost behind the sandstone walls of a foreigners&’ compound. We witness her courtship with a nice Jewish boy, now her husband, and her efforts to replicate her mother&’s rogan josh recipe via Zoom. And we are with her as she settles into her unlikely new homeland, Los Angeles, where she sets off on what is perhaps her most meaningful journey: that of becoming a writer.Through these astonishingly poignant and often laugh-out loud essays, Mattoo has given us an openhearted, frank, revealing glimpse into a journey of almost constant motion, as well as a journey of self-discovery.
Bird Relics: Grief and Vitalism in Thoreau
by Branka ArsicBird Relics traces Thoreau’s evolving thoughts through his investigation of Greek philosophy and the influence of a group of Harvard vitalists who resisted the ideas of the naturalist Louis Agassiz. It takes into account materials often overlooked by critics: his Indian Notebooks and unpublished bird notebooks; his calendars that rewrite how we tell time; his charts of falling leaves, through which he develops a complex theory of decay; and his obsession with vegetal pathology, which inspires a novel understanding of the relationship between disease and health.
Bird Student: An Autobiography
by George Miksch SuttonAt thirteen, George Miksch Sutton planned a school of ornithology centered around his collection of bird skins, feathers, bones, nests, eggs, and a prized stuffed crow. As an adult, he became one of the most prominent ornithologists and bird artists of the twentieth century. He describes his metamorphosis from amateur to professional in Bird Student. Born in 1898, Sutton gives us his clearest memories of his boyhood in Nebraska, Minnesota, Oregon, Illinois, Texas, and West Virginia with his closely knit family. Recognizing birds, identifying them correctly, drawing them, and writing about them became more and more important to him. His intense admiration for Louis Agassiz Fuertes had a good deal to do with his beginning to draw birds in earnest, and his correspondence and his 1916 summer visit with the generous Fuertes taught him to look at birds with the eyes of a professional artist and to consider the possibility of making ornithology his career. By 1918, Sutton had talked himself into a job at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, which gave him fresh opportunities to learn and travel, and his 1920 field trip to the Labrador Peninsula stimulated his lifelong interest in arctic birds. Further expeditions to James Bay, the east coast of Hudson Bay—on leave from his job as state ornithologist of Pennsylvania—and Southampton Island at the north end of Hudson Bay, in search of the elusive blue goose and its nesting grounds, give us glimpses of field methods before the days of sophisticated equipment. Sutton ends his autobiography in 1935, with an account of his graduate days at Cornell University and his position as curator of the Fuertes Memorial Collection of Birds. Bird Student is about raising young roadrunners and owls and prairie dogs, sailing (and being stranded) in arctic waters, preparing specimens in the hold of a ship, hunting birds and caribou and bears in almost inaccessible regions, canoeing in the Far North, camping in Florida, and delivering speeches in Pennsylvania. Sutton's gift for mixing facts and philosophy lets us see the evolution of a naturalist, as his inherent curiosity and innocent enjoyment of beauty led to a permanent desire to preserve this beauty.
Bird Uncaged: An Abolitionist's Freedom Song
by Marlon PetersonFrom a leading prison abolitionist, a moving memoir about coming of age in Brooklyn and surviving incarceration—and a call to break free from all the cages that confine us. Marlon Peterson grew up in 1980s Crown Heights, raised by Trinidadian immigrants. Amid the routine violence that shaped his neighborhood, Marlon became a high-achieving and devout child, the specter of the American dream opening up before him. But in the aftermath of immense trauma, he participated in a robbery that resulted in two murders. At nineteen, Peterson was charged and later convicted. He served ten long years in prison. While incarcerated, Peterson immersed himself in anti-violence activism, education, and prison abolition work. In Bird Uncaged, Peterson challenges the typical &“redemption&” narrative and our assumptions about justice. With vulnerability and insight, he uncovers the many cages—from the daily violence and trauma of poverty, to policing, to enforced masculinity, and the brutality of incarceration—created and maintained by American society.Bird Uncaged is a twenty-first-century abolitionist memoir, and a powerful debut that demands a shift from punishment to healing, an end to prisons, and a new vision of justice.
Bird Watching: On Playing and Coaching the Game I Love
by Larry Bird Jackie MacmullanLarry Bird captured the imagination and admiration of basketball fans throughout his 13-year career with the Boston Celtics with his trademark style of creative, intelligent, exciting, and hard-nosed play. And last year, in just his rookie season as head coach of the Indiana Pacers, he remarkably managed to turn around a slumping franchise, lead the team to the conference finals, and was subsequently named the NBA's "Coach of the Year." Now, this beloved sports legend shares his thoughts on the game he loves: From dissecting offensive and defensive strategies to assessing the talent of NBA players and coaches to describing how he manages today's temperamental and overpriced players, it's all here -- a must-read for every fan.