Walking is Falling

Walking is Falling

Author: Michael Sokoloff

Publisher: Lulu.com

Published: 2014-01-16

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 1304794571

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Gifted author, playwright and director Michael Sokoloff hits readers with an unexpected and refreshing dose of realism in this eclectic collection of essays. Sokoloff propels us down the rough and tumble path of his life illuminated by young love, shadowed by loss and enlightened by raw and honest reflection. Uninhibited and unashamed, Sokoloff digs deep, and his sophisticated, unfiltered prose draws readers into his renegade world.


The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture

The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture

Author: John Kieschnick

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2003-04-06

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 9780691096766

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Buddhism had a profound effect not only on Chinese philosophy and ritual, but also on the material culture of China. Examining the impact of books, bridges, sugar, tea and the chair, amongst other things, this text looks at how attitudes to such novelties affected the history of Chinese Buddhism.


The Largesse of the Sea Maiden

The Largesse of the Sea Maiden

Author: Denis Johnson

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2018-01-16

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 0812988647

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Twenty-five years after Jesus’ Son, a haunting new collection of short stories on mortality and transcendence, from National Book Award winner and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Denis Johnson NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Dwight Garner, The New York Times • Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s Fresh Air • Chicago Tribune • Newsday • New York • AV Club • Publishers Weekly “Ranks with the best fiction published by any American writer during this short century.”—New York “A posthumous masterpiece.”—Entertainment Weekly NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • The Washington Post • NPR • The Boston Globe • New York Public Library • Kirkus Reviews • Bloomberg The Largesse of the Sea Maiden is the long-awaited new story collection from Denis Johnson. Written in the luminous prose that made him one of the most beloved and important writers of his generation, this collection finds Johnson in new territory, contemplating the ghosts of the past and the elusive and unexpected ways the mysteries of the universe assert themselves. Finished shortly before Johnson’s death, this collection is the last word from a writer whose work will live on for many years to come. Praise for The Largesse of the Sea Maiden “An instant classic.”—Newsday “Exceptional luminosity . . . hits a powerful vein.”—The New York Times Book Review “Grace and oblivion are inextricably yoked in these transcendent stories. . . . [Johnson’s] gift is to extract the beauty in all that brokenness.”—The Wall Street Journal “Nobody ever wrote like Denis Johnson. Nobody ever came close. . . . We’re just left with this miraculous book, these perfect stories, the last words from one of the world’s greatest writers.”—NPR


He, She and It

He, She and It

Author: Marge Piercy

Publisher: Fawcett

Published: 2010-11-24

Total Pages: 448

ISBN-13: 0307775224

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"A triumph of the imagination. Rich, complex, impossible to put down."—Alice Hoffman In the middle of the twenty-first century, life as we know it has changed for all time. Shira Shipman's marriage has broken up, and her young son has been taken from her by the corporation that runs her zone, so she has returned to Tikva, the Jewish free town where she grew up. There, she is welcomed by Malkah, the brilliant grandmother who raised her, and meets an extraordinary man who is not a man at all, but a unique cyborg implanted with intelligence, emotions—and the ability to kill. . . . From the imagination of Marge Piercy comes yet another stunning novel of morality and courage, a bold adventure of women, men, and the world of tomorrow.


The Antinomies Of Realism

The Antinomies Of Realism

Author: Fredric Jameson

Publisher: Verso Books

Published: 2013-10-08

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 1781681910

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The Antinomies of Realism is a history ofthe nineteenth-century realist novel and its legacy told without a glimmer of nostalgia for artistic achievements that the movement of history makes it impossible to recreate. The works of Zola, Tolstoy, Pérez Galdós, and George Eliot are in the most profound sense inimitable, yet continue to dominate the novel form to this day. Novels to emerge since struggle to reconcile the social conditions of their own creation with the history of this mode of writing: the so-called modernist novel is one attempted solution to this conflict, as is the ever-more impoverished variety of commercial narratives – what today’s book reviewers dub “serious novels,” which are an attempt at the impossible endeavor to roll back the past. Fredric Jameson examines the most influential theories of artistic and literary realism, approaching the subject himself in terms of the social and historical preconditions for realism’s emergence. The realist novel combined an attention to the body and its states of feeling with a focus on the quest for individual realization within the confines of history. In contemporary writing, other forms of representation – for which the term “postmodern” is too glib – have become visible: for example, in the historical fiction of Hilary Mantel or the stylistic plurality of David Mitchell’s novels. Contemporary fiction is shown to be conducting startling experiments in the representation of new realities of a global social totality, modern technological warfare, and historical developments that, although they saturate every corner of our lives, only become apparent on rare occasions and by way of the strangest formal and artistic devices. In a coda, Jameson explains how “realistic” narratives survived the end of classical realism. In effect, he provides an argument for the serious study of popular fiction and mass culture that transcends lazy journalism and the easy platitudes of recent cultural studies.


Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

Author: Sijie Dai

Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 037541309X

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An enchanting literary debut—already an international best-seller. At the height of Mao’s infamous Cultural Revolution, two boys are among hundreds of thousands exiled to the countryside for “re-education.” The narrator and his best friend, Luo, guilty of being the sons of doctors, find themselves in a remote village where, among the peasants of Phoenix mountain, they are made to cart buckets of excrement up and down precipitous winding paths. Their meager distractions include a violin—as well as, before long, the beautiful daughter of the local tailor. But it is when the two discover a hidden stash of Western classics in Chinese translation that their re-education takes its most surprising turn. While ingeniously concealing their forbidden treasure, the boys find transit to worlds they had thought lost forever. And after listening to their dangerously seductive retellings of Balzac, even the Little Seamstress will be forever transformed. From within the hopelessness and terror of one of the darkest passages in human history, Dai Sijie has fashioned a beguiling and unexpected story about the resilience of the human spirit, the wonder of romantic awakening and the magical power of storytelling.


Mick

Mick

Author: Christopher Andersen

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2012-07-10

Total Pages: 466

ISBN-13: 1451661460

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“He’s a smart little mother******,I’ll give him that.” —KEITH RICHARDS on MICK JAGGER IS he Jumpin’ Jack Flash? A Street Fighting Man? A Man of Wealth and Taste? All this, it turns out, and far more. By any definition, Mick Jagger is a force of nature, a complete original—and undeniably one of the dominant cultural figures of our time. Swaggering, strutting, sometimes elusive, always spellbinding, he grabbed us by our collective throat a half-century ago and—unlike so many of his gifted peers—never let go. For decades, Mick has jealously guarded his many shocking secrets—until now. As the Rolling Stones mark their 50th anniversary, journalist and #1 New York Times bestselling author Christopher Andersen tears the mask from rock’s most complex and enigmatic icon in a no-holds-barred biography as impossible to ignore as Jagger himself. Based on interviews with friends, family members, fellow music legends, and industry insiders—as well as wives and legions of lovers—MICK sheds new light on a man whose very name defines an era and candidly reveals: —New details about Jagger’s jaw-dropping sexual exploits with more than four thousand women (including Madonna, Angelina Jolie, Carly Simon, Linda Ronstadt, Uma Thurman, and France’s First Lady Carla Bruni)—as well as his encounters with several of rock’s biggest male stars. Also, the day Mick’s wife Jerry Hall and Keith Richards pleaded with Jagger to seek treatment for sex addiction. —The backstage drama surrounding Mick’s knighthood, and Jagger’s little-known ties to Britain’s Royal Family, including Prince William and Kate Middleton. —What he really thinks of today’s superstars—including Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Beyoncé, Justin Timberlake, Kanye West, and Justin Bieber. —Never-before-revealed, behind-the-scenes accounts of his often turbulent relationships—from his band-mates, ravenous groupies, and rabid fans to such intimates as Andy Warhol, John Lennon, Jackie Onassis, Bill Clinton, and others. —Cocaine, LSD, hashish, and speed—the flabbergasting truth about the extent of Jagger’s substance abuse, and how long it really went on. —A rare glimpse into Mick’s business dealings and the killer instinct that has enabled him to amass a personal fortune well in excess of $400 million. —The stormy “marriage” between Mick and Keith that nearly ran aground over Keith’s searing comments—and all the scandal, mayhem, excess, madness, and genius that went into making the Rolling Stones “the world’s greatest rock-and-roll band.” Like its subject, this book is explosive and riveting—the definitive biography of a living legend who has kept us thrilled, confounded, and astounded. THIS IS MICK.


The Myth of Shangri-La

The Myth of Shangri-La

Author: Peter Bishop

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 1989-01-01

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 9780520066861

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"Bishop's engrossing and readable account provides us with a fascinating picture of European myths concerning the Land of the Snows and of the role these myths played in shaping perceptions of the Orient. Bishop's riveting portrait of European conceptions is an important and exceptionally well written contribution to an understanding of Western attitudes toward Tibet and all of East Asia."--Morris Rossabi, author of Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times


The Dragon Run

The Dragon Run

Author: Tony Robinson-Smith

Publisher: University of Alberta

Published: 2017-09-19

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 1772123498

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Tony Robinson-Smith, his wife Nadya, and ten Bhutanese college students set out to run 578 kilometres (360 miles) across the Kingdom of Bhutan in the Himalayas. Joined by a stray dog, they slogged over five mountain passes, bathed in ice-clogged streams, ate over log fires, and stopped at every store, restaurant, guesthouse, and dzong to raise money for the Tarayana Foundation. The “Tara-thon” was the first endeavour of its kind and gave 350 village children the chance to go to school. En route, the Long Distance Dozen met a Buddhist lama, a royal prince, a Tibetan renegade, and a matriarch who told them the secret to long life. On arrival in Thimphu, they were decorated by Her Majesty the Queen. In this contemplative memoir, Tony describes Bhutan in rich detail at a transformative period in its history and reflects on tradition, belief, modernization, and happiness. See the book trailer at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-VsWAbTHAQ