Brendan Smith was born and raised on Long Island, New York, a bagel's throw from New York City. In 1985, Brendan unexpectedly found himself moving to Central New Hampshire. Over the next ten years, he worked hard at adjusting to life there. From learning to rake his roof, to buying firewood for the first time, to trying to fit into the social setting of a morning at the dump, he found that these, and many more adjustments, would not be very easy for this Flatlander. Since 1995, Brendan has been recounting these humorous adventures weekly on the pages of The Weirs Times. This book contains the best of those early columns.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NOW A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES With a career, a boyfriend, and a loving family, Piper Kerman barely resembles the reckless young woman who delivered a suitcase of drug money ten years before. But that past has caught up with her. Convicted and sentenced to fifteen months at the infamous federal correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut, the well-heeled Smith College alumna is now inmate #11187–424—one of the millions of people who disappear “down the rabbit hole” of the American penal system. From her first strip search to her final release, Kerman learns to navigate this strange world with its strictly enforced codes of behavior and arbitrary rules. She meets women from all walks of life, who surprise her with small tokens of generosity, hard words of wisdom, and simple acts of acceptance. Heartbreaking, hilarious, and at times enraging, Kerman’s story offers a rare look into the lives of women in prison—why it is we lock so many away and what happens to them when they’re there. Praise for Orange Is the New Black “Fascinating . . . The true subject of this unforgettable book is female bonding and the ties that even bars can’t unbind.”—People (four stars) “I loved this book. It’s a story rich with humor, pathos, and redemption. What I did not expect from this memoir was the affection, compassion, and even reverence that Piper Kerman demonstrates for all the women she encountered while she was locked away in jail. I will never forget it.”—Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love “This book is impossible to put down because [Kerman] could be you. Or your best friend. Or your daughter.”—Los Angeles Times “Moving . . . transcends the memoir genre’s usual self-centeredness to explore how human beings can always surprise you.”—USA Today “It’s a compelling awakening, and a harrowing one—both for the reader and for Kerman.”—Newsweek
On the eve of his coming of age, a young Lord begins to see the truth of his parents' lives: his mother cannot buy her way into society no matter how hard he tries, and his father is being ruined by her continued attempts. The young Lord then travels to his home in Ireland, encountering adventure on the way, and discovers that the native residents are being exploited in his father's absence.
In the first fully comprehensive study of one of the world's most iconic musical instruments, Stephen Cottrell examines the saxophone's various social, historical, and cultural trajectories, and illustrates how and why this instrument, with its idiosyncratic shape and sound, became important for so many different music-makers around the world.After considering what led inventor Adolphe Sax to develop this new musical wind instrument, Cottrell explores changes in saxophone design since the 1840s before examining the instrument's role in a variety of contexts: in the military bands that contributed so much to the saxophone's global dissemination during the nineteenth century; as part of the rapid expansion of American popular music around the turn of the twentieth century; in classical and contemporary art music; in world and popular music; and, of course, in jazz, a musical style with which the saxophone has become closely identified.
If this book has drawn your interest, imagine that I am standing next to you and holding your hand. You, or someone you love, are grieving the loss of a dearly, truly beloved. When this happened to me upon the death of my sweet, 26-year-old daughter, I found myself in a very dark place. Climbing out of this darkness and back into light, love, laughter, and pleasure felt not only wrong, but absolutely impossible. I learned to walk through the fire and out the other side, because I am a beloved child of the Universe. True life and happiness belong to me for all the days and nights I am here on Earth. They also belong to me beyond this Earth life. And to you, Beloved, as well as to our beloveds who have transitioned. Take my hand as I guide you through the journey of grief, out of darkness and back into the light. You will not feel the same at the end of the book as you did in the beginning, or even in the middle. Keep reading. Keep going in your life journeys, Dear Ones, and never give up. We write what we know. Jen Berghage knows intimately the journey of the death of a dearly, dearly, beloved and how to navigate it such that we can go through the fire and come out the other side, not unscathed, not without scars, but with life, love, celebration, and peace in our hearts. In Coming Alive After Death she shares resources, exercises, and strengths we can tap as we continue here after the transition of our beloveds. Jen spent sixteen years as a credentialed professional editor (Graduate School, USA) and instructional designer (UWISC, Madison) with The Pennsylvania State University, which prepared her well for authorship of her own works. Life, colorful life, prepared her to have something to write about. She never imagined it would be this.
One of the world's leading philosophers offers aspiring thinkers his personal trove of mind-stretching thought experiments. Includes 77 of Dennett's most successful "imagination-extenders and focus-holders.O
NOW IN PAPERBACK-FROM THE AUTHOR OF MARSBOUND Grad- school dropout Matt Fuller is toiling as a lowly research assistant at MIT when he inadvertently creates a time machine. With a dead-end job and a girlfriend who left him for another man, Matt has nothing to lose in taking a time-machine trip himself-or so he thinks.
(Keyboard Instruction). Bill Evans, the pianist, is a towering figure acknowledged by the jazz world, fans, musicians and critics. However Bill Evans, the composer, has yet to take his place alongside the great masters of composition. Therein lies the sole purpose of this book. A compilation of articles now revised and expanded that originally appeared in the quarterly newsletter Letter from Evans , this unique folio features extensive analysis of Evans' work. Pieces examined include: B Minor Waltz * Funny Man * How Deep Is the Ocean * I Fall in Love Too Easily * I Should Care * Peri's Scope * Time Remembered * and Twelve Tone Tune.
Cultures of the West focuses on the ways in which the major ideas and passions of Western culture developed internally and how they have shaped the Greater West - for good and for ill. Comprehensive and geographically broad in scope, such key ideas as political and economic developments,intellectual and artistic ventures, and social trends and countertrends form the central narrative of this text.
