1856. Eighteen-year-old chemistry student William Perkin's experiment has gone horribly wrong. But the deep brown sludge his botched project has produced has an unexpected power: the power to dye everything it touches a brilliant purple. Perkin has discovered mauve, the world's first synthetic dye, bridging a gap between pure chemistry and industry which will change the world forever. From the fetching ribbons soon tying back the hair on every fashionable head in London, to the laboratories in which scientists first scrutinized the human chromosome under the microscope, leading all the way to the development of modern vaccines against cancer and malaria, Simon Garfield's landmark work swirls together science and social history to tell the story of how one colour became a sensation.
Fifteen-year-old Mélanie drives across the Arizona desert in a white Meteor, chasing fear and desire and the mysterious Angela Parkins, and breaking free from her mother and her mother's lover in their roadside Mauve Motel. And then we are with Maude Laures as she reads Mauve Desert, this story of Melanie, and becomes obsessed with it. She embarks on an extraordinary quest for its mysterious author, characters and meaning, which leads us into the third part, Mauve, the Horizon, Laures's eventual translation of Mauve Desert.
"Blatt brings big data to the literary canon, exploring the wealth of fun findings that remain hidden in the works of the world's greatest writers. He assembles a database of thousands of books and hundreds of millions of words, and starts asking the questions that have intrigued curious word nerds and book lovers for generations: What are our favorite authors' favorite words? Do men and women write differently? Are bestsellers getting dumber over time? Which bestselling writer uses the most clichaes? What makes a great opening sentence? How can we judge a book by its cover? And which writerly advice is worth following or ignoring?"--Amazon.com.
Data meets literature in this “enlightening” (The Wall Street Journal), “brilliant” (The Boston Globe), “Nate Silver-esque” (O, The Oprah Magazine) look at what the numbers have to say about our favorite authors and their masterpieces. There’s a famous piece of writing advice—offered by Ernest Hemingway, Stephen King, and myriad writers in between—not to use -ly adverbs like “quickly” or “angrily.” It sounds like solid advice, but can we actually test it? If we were to count all the -ly adverbs these authors used in their careers, do they follow their own advice? What’s more, do great books in general—the classics and the bestsellers—share this trait? In the age of big data we can answer questions like these in the blink of an eye. In Nabokov’s Favorite Word Is Mauve, a “literary detective story: fast-paced, thought-provoking, and intriguing” (Brian Christian, coauthor of Algorithms to Live By), statistician and journalist Ben Blatt explores the wealth of fun findings that can be discovered by using text and data analysis. He assembles a database of thousands of books and hundreds of millions of words, and then he asks the questions that have intrigued book lovers for generations: What are our favorite authors’ favorite words? Do men and women write differently? Which bestselling writer uses the most clichés? What makes a great opening sentence? And which writerly advice is worth following or ignoring? All of Blatt’s investigations and experiments are original, conducted himself, and no math knowledge is needed to enjoy the book. On every page, there are new and eye-opening findings. By the end, you will have a newfound appreciation of your favorite authors and also come away with a fresh perspective on your own writing. “Blatt’s new book reveals surprising literary secrets” (Entertainment Weekly) and casts an x-ray through literature, allowing us to see both the patterns that hold it together and the brilliant flourishes that allow it to spring to life.
Monique, an American fashion reporter; Princess Zorina ; and Alison, an Irish fashion designer, lead very different lives. Monique designs the perfect skirt for her wedding, Zorina's love is forbidden, and Alison's star rises in Paris. But when Monique donates her skirt to Goodwill, she sets it on a journey that will change all their lives forever. In her attempts to retrieve the skirt, she encounters other women who convince her the skirt has magical properties. But can the skirt bring Tahir and Zorina together? Can Alison salvage her relationship and her career? Will getting the skirt back bring Monique the luck she craves? Or does Magic in Mauve have something else in store for them? *** Magic in Mauve combines the innocent charm of an old-fashioned clean romance with a modern outlook toward cultural differences, sexuality, and feminine empowerment. *** For the fans of interwoven stories spanning distance and time, such as Love Actually by Richard Curtis and The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan.
Middle-schooler Avery Holsopple is already struggling with the fact that he's the shortest guy in school. To make matters worse, his older sister Valerie has insisted on having a Victorian-style wedding, which means Avery is about to find himself dressed up in the worst color he can imagine for a boy: pink. Of course, Mom insists the color is mauve but Avery's eyes know the truth. Desperate to get out of his duties he hatches a plan with Mark, Valerie's fianc?, and ensures that this wedding is one that nobody is ever going to forget.
"When are the 1970s going to begin?" ran the joke during the Presidential campaign of 1976. With his own patented combination of serious journalism and dazzling comedy, Tom Wolfe met the question head-on in these rollicking essays in Mauve Gloves and Madmen, Clutter and Vine -- and even provided the 1970s with its name: "The Me Decade."
When was the last time you stopped listening to the echoes of people around you and stopped to think what you wanted? Have you ever been wary about the sense of emotional asylum that falling in love seemingly provides, or the satisfaction of not having individual thoughts because you are comfortable with ‘groupthink’, or living with the boredom of being ‘regular’? Have you been told that “It is fate, accept it, live with it” every time you have had such questions or concerns about self, life and the world in general? When was the last time you expressed yourself without any worry or concern – be it making a hop, skip and jump in happiness or wailing out in extreme sadness. Read out loud as you go from page to page of introspection with this book, finding your way around questions, confusions and frustrations. Here’s a piece of advice: - Pack along all your emotions for this trip – anger, love, sadness, convictions, serenity. You’re going to need them This is the beginning of a journey inward; a first step at picking up a set of brushes and a can of paint and starting to paint a whole new picture of your personal life.
