Is Nothing Sacred?
Author: Salman Rushdie
Publisher: Penguin Group
Published: 1990
Total Pages: 24
ISBN-13:
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Do Not Say We Have Nothing: A Novel
Author: Madeleine Thien
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2016-10-11
Total Pages: 383
ISBN-13: 0393609898
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWinner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor General's Literary Award Finalist for the Booker Prize and the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction "A powerfully expansive novel…Thien writes with the mastery of a conductor." —New York Times Book Review “In a single year, my father left us twice. The first time, to end his marriage, and the second, when he took his own life. I was ten years old.” Master storyteller Madeleine Thien takes us inside an extended family in China, showing us the lives of two successive generations—those who lived through Mao’s Cultural Revolution and their children, who became the students protesting in Tiananmen Square. At the center of this epic story are two young women, Marie and Ai-Ming. Through their relationship Marie strives to piece together the tale of her fractured family in present-day Vancouver, seeking answers in the fragile layers of their collective story. Her quest will unveil how Kai, her enigmatic father, a talented pianist, and Ai-Ming’s father, the shy and brilliant composer, Sparrow, along with the violin prodigy Zhuli were forced to reimagine their artistic and private selves during China’s political campaigns and how their fates reverberate through the years with lasting consequences. With maturity and sophistication, humor and beauty, Thien has crafted a novel that is at once intimate and grandly political, rooted in the details of life inside China yet transcendent in its universality.
Nothing in MoMA
Author: Abraham Adams
Publisher: punctum books
Published: 2018-09-22
Total Pages: 92
ISBN-13: 1947447750
DOWNLOAD EBOOKNothing in MoMA is a series of photographs captured in areas of Manhattan museums in which there are no artworks, written words, or people. Addressing the "grammar that organizes and secures our scene of looking," in the words of art historian David Joselit's introduction, the book imagines a composite empty museum or a narrative of marginal attention. Originally displayed in partial prototype as a children's board book at Artists Space in 2015, Nothing in MoMA is here collected for the first time in the series' entirety. Evoking the history of indeterminacy as much as that of institutional critique, the deadpan composition of Adams's photographs likewise recalls François Jullien's theory of bland aesthetics, in a playful reductio of socio-institutional space to a bare literality. Both a visual essay on museum phenomenology and a performance document, Nothing in MoMA describes a choreography of avoidance, in which a conceptual constraint becomes a means of seeing and navigating concrete space.
Not What You Think
Author: Michael McAfee
Publisher: Zondervan
Published: 2019-06-11
Total Pages: 208
ISBN-13: 0310355222
DOWNLOAD EBOOKNot What You Think blows the dust off dated misperceptions of the Bible and engages the problems of this book head-on--the parts that make modern readers squeamish, skeptical, and uncertain. If you're skeptical about the Bible, you're not alone. The Bible is seen by many contemporary readers as intolerant, outdated, out of step with societal norms at best, and a tool of oppression at worst. In this earnest and illuminating read, millennial thought leaders and aspiring theologians Michael and Lauren McAfee are here to say: fair enough. But they're also here to raise a few questions of their own: What if we cleared the deck on our preconceptions of the Bible and encountered it anew? What if we came with the understanding that our questions are welcome? And what if the Bible presents less of a system to figure out, and more of a story to step into--a story with more surprising plot twists than we might think? Michael and Lauren spent their childhoods in church and Sunday school, they spent part of their twenties finding their way in the world in New York City, and today they're shaping their careers while pursuing doctoral studies in theology and ethics. Along the way, they've had to wrangle very real questions--both their own, and of their friends--about why, where, and how the most controversial book in history fits in our world today. Join Michael and Lauren as they explore the nature of the Bible--an ancient mosaic of story, literature, history, and poetry--and what it means for this generation and its relationship with God. Ultimately, Not What You Think is an invitation to come and see, and be surprised.
How to Do Nothing
Author: Jenny Odell
Publisher: Melville House
Published: 2019-04-23
Total Pages: 257
ISBN-13: 1612197507
DOWNLOAD EBOOK** A New York Times Bestseller ** NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY: Time • The New Yorker • NPR • GQ • Elle • Vulture • Fortune • Boing Boing • The Irish Times • The New York Public Library • The Brooklyn Public Library "A complex, smart and ambitious book that at first reads like a self-help manual, then blossoms into a wide-ranging political manifesto."—Jonah Engel Bromwich, The New York Times Book Review One of President Barack Obama's "Favorite Books of 2019" Porchlight's Personal Development & Human Behavior Book of the Year In a world where addictive technology is designed to buy and sell our attention, and our value is determined by our 24/7 data productivity, it can seem impossible to escape. But in this inspiring field guide to dropping out of the attention economy, artist and critic Jenny Odell shows us how we can still win back our lives. Odell sees our attention as the most precious—and overdrawn—resource we have. And we must actively and continuously choose how we use it. We might not spend it on things that capitalism has deemed important … but once we can start paying a new kind of attention, she writes, we can undertake bolder forms of political action, reimagine humankind’s role in the environment, and arrive at more meaningful understandings of happiness and progress. Far from the simple anti-technology screed, or the back-to-nature meditation we read so often, How to do Nothing is an action plan for thinking outside of capitalist narratives of efficiency and techno-determinism. Provocative, timely, and utterly persuasive, this book will change how you see your place in our world.
Nothing Happens in This Book
Author: Judy Ann Sadler
Publisher: Kids Can Press Ltd
Published: 2018-05-01
Total Pages: 47
ISBN-13: 1525300997
DOWNLOAD EBOOKReader, don’t waste your time with this book. You might as well stick this book back on the shelf. Or toss it under your bed. You don’t need to read it because nothing happens. Or, wait, is that something? It’s a trumpet without a trumpeter. And there’s a tiny car without a driver. And a baton without a twirler. Maybe if you keep turning the pages, you’ll find out who is missing these items. Maybe they are all together, about to do something surprising. Maybe something does happen after all — something amazing! Kids will be hooked as they embark on a quest to find this (seemingly) missing story!
Simple Recipes
Author: Madeleine Thien
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Published: 2009-10-31
Total Pages: 97
ISBN-13: 0316087130
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWith delicate language and wisdom, Madeleine Thien explores the longing of families pulled apart by conflicts between generations, cultures, and values.Each of these stories captures a deeply personal world in which characters struggle to reconcile family loyalty with individual desires. In "House," a 10-year-old girl longs for the alcoholic mother who left the house one day never to return. In "Dispatch," a woman tries to hold her marriage together even after finding proof that her husband is in love with someone else. In "A Map of the City, " a young woman's troubled relationship with her father overshadows the course she takes in her adult life. Thien's fresh perspective and spare, haunting prose have already won her prizes and the praise of established masters. "Simple Recipes" is the beginning of a luminous writing career.
Do Nothing
Author: Celeste Headlee
Publisher: Harmony
Published: 2020-03-10
Total Pages: 290
ISBN-13: 1984824740
DOWNLOAD EBOOK“A welcome antidote to our toxic hustle culture of burnout.”—Arianna Huffington “This book is so important and could truly save lives.”—Elizabeth Gilbert “A clarion call to work smarter [and] accomplish more by doing less.”—Adam Grant We work feverishly to make ourselves happy. So why are we so miserable? Despite our constant search for new ways to optimize our bodies and minds for peak performance, human beings are working more instead of less, living harder not smarter, and becoming more lonely and anxious. We strive for the absolute best in every aspect of our lives, ignoring what we do well naturally and reaching for a bar that keeps rising higher and higher. Why do we measure our time in terms of efficiency instead of meaning? Why can’t we just take a break? In Do Nothing, award-winning journalist Celeste Headlee illuminates a new path ahead, seeking to institute a global shift in our thinking so we can stop sabotaging our well-being, put work aside, and start living instead of doing. As it turns out, we’re searching for external solutions to an internal problem. We won’t find what we’re searching for in punishing diets, productivity apps, or the latest self-improvement schemes. Yet all is not lost—we just need to learn how to take time for ourselves, without agenda or profit, and redefine what is truly worthwhile. Pulling together threads from history, neuroscience, social science, and even paleontology, Headlee examines long-held assumptions about time use, idleness, hard work, and even our ultimate goals. Her research reveals that the habits we cling to are doing us harm; they developed recently in human history, which means they are habits that can, and must, be broken. It’s time to reverse the trend that’s making us all sadder, sicker, and less productive, and return to a way of life that allows us to thrive.
Nothing Stopped Sophie
Author: Cheryl Bardoe
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2018-06-12
Total Pages: 41
ISBN-13: 0316394297
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe true story of eighteenth-century mathematician Sophie Germain, who solved the unsolvable to achieve her dream. When her parents took away her candles to keep their young daughter from studying math...nothing stopped Sophie. When a professor discovered that the homework sent to him under a male pen name came from a woman...nothing stopped Sophie. And when she tackled a math problem that male scholars said would be impossible to solve...still, nothing stopped Sophie. For six years Sophie Germain used her love of math and her undeniable determination to test equations that would predict patterns of vibrations. She eventually became the first woman to win a grand prize from France's prestigious Academy of Sciences for her formula, which laid the groundwork for much of modern architecture (and can be seen in the book's illustrations). Award-winning author Cheryl Bardoe's inspiring and poetic text is brought to life by acclaimed artist Barbara McClintock's intricate pen-and-ink, watercolor, and collage illustrations in this true story about a woman who let nothing stop her.
There's Nothing in This Book That I Meant to Say
Author: Paula Poundstone
Publisher: Crown
Published: 2022-04-05
Total Pages: 290
ISBN-13: 0593444019
DOWNLOAD EBOOKPart memoir, part monologue, with a dash of startling honesty, There’s Nothing in This Book That I Meant to Say features biographies of legendary historical figures from which Paula Poundstone can’t help digressing to tell her own story. Mining gold from the lives of Abraham Lincoln, Helen Keller, Joan of Arc, and Beethoven, among others, the eccentric and utterly inimitable mind of Paula Poundstone dissects, observes, and comments on the successes and failures of her own life with surprising candor and spot-on comedic timing in this unique laugh-out-loud book. If you like Paula Poundstone’s ironic and blindingly intelligent humor, you’ll love this wryly observant, funny, and touching book. Paula Poundstone on . . . The sources of her self-esteem: “A couple of years ago I was reunited with a guy I knew in the fifth grade. He said, “All the other fifth-grade guys liked the pretty girls, but I liked you.” It’s hard to know if a guy is sincere when he lays it on that thick. The battle between fatigue and informed citizenship: I play a videotape of The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer every night, but sometimes I only get as far as the theme song (da da-da-da da-ah) before I fall asleep. Sometimes as soon as Margaret Warner says whether or not Jim Lehrer is on vacation I drift right off. Somehow just knowing he’s well comforts me. The occult: I need to know exactly what day I’m gonna die so that I don’t bother putting away leftovers the night before. TV’s misplaced priorities: Someday in the midst of the State of the Union address they’ll break in with, “We interrupt this program to bring you a little clip from Bewitched.” Travel: In London I went to the queen’s house. I went as a tourist—she didn’t invite me so she could pick my brain: “What do you think of my face on the pound? Too serious?” Air-conditioning in Florida: If it were as cold outside in the winter as they make it inside in the summer, they’d put the heat on. It makes no sense. The scandal: The judge said I was the best probationer he ever had. Talk about proud. With a foreword by Mary Tyler Moore
