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Twelve Words for Moss: Love, Loss And Moss
by Elizabeth-Jane BurnettSHORTLISTED FOR THE JHALAK PRIZE 2024Shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize 2023 for Nature Writing'Exquisite, luminous and quietly radical . . . utterly unique and refreshing' Lucy JonesWhere nothing grows, moss is the spark that triggers new life. Embarking on a journey though landscape, memory and recovery, Elizabeth-Jane Burnett explores this mysterious, ancient marvel of the plant world, meditating on and renaming her favourite mosses – from Glowflake to Little Loss – and drawing inspiration from place, people and language itself. 'Fascinating, subtle and risk-taking . . . Poetry, descriptive-evocative prose, memory, memoir, natural history and more all drift and mingle in strikingly new ways' Robert Macfarlane
Watford Forever: How Graham Taylor and Elton John Saved a Football Club, a Town and Each Other
by John Preston Elton JohnThe Sunday Times Sports Book of the YearA Times Book of the YearA Financial Times Book of the YearA Guardian Book of the YearA New Statesman Book of the Year'The heartwarming story of the collaboration and friendship between English football’s oddest couple, Elton John and Graham Taylor' The Times' A wonderful, feel-good account of an ultimately English provincial story' Simon Kuper_____________________ An unforgettable British underdog story from one of our greatest narrative nonfiction writers, John Preston, and the international musical icon and bestselling author, Sir Elton John.Britain in the 1970s was beset by unrest and unemployment, as inflation soared, fuel was scarce, and hooliganism was on the rise. And for Watford FC, the outlook was even gloomier. Rundown and rat-infested, Watford were an ailing side with holes in their kit and barely enough fans to fill a stand. Of the 92 clubs in the Football League, spread across four divisions, Watford were in 92nd place.Meanwhile, Elton John was the most successful rockstar in the world. With six-inch platforms, spangled jumpsuits, and peroxide hair, he was glamorous, gay, and seemingly a world away from the semi-detached house in Pinner where he had supported Watford FC as a child. Many assumed he would move to America. Instead, he bought the football club.Watford Forever is the remarkable story of Elton John's ownership of Watford FC and its transformational journey to the top of the First Division under iconic manager Graham Taylor. Perhaps most remarkably, four of the same players who had been written off as has-beens went with them all the way from the bottom to the top. Inspiring and infectiously funny, this is a tribute to football's unlikeliest friendship as Elton John and Taylor, a straight-talking former fullback with a love of Vera Lynn, beat the odds and their personal demons to save a club and a community.Immersed in the grime and glamour of '70s Britain, Watford Forever is one of sport's great underdog stories and a love letter to the beautiful game.
Thunderclap: SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2024
by Laura Cumming**SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2024****WINNER OF THE WRITERS' PRIZE 2024 | NON-FICTION**A beautifully illustrated new memoir of a life in art, a father and daughter, and what a shared love of a painting can come to mean.‘Brilliant’ Edmund de Waal * ‘Captivating’ Nina Stibbe * 'Extraordinary' India KnightOn the morning of 12 October 1654, a gunpowder explosion devastated the Dutch city of Delft. Among the fatalities was the painter Carel Fabritius, dead at thirty-two, leaving behind his haunting masterpiece The Goldfinch.Thunderclap explores what happened to Fabritius before and after the disaster whilst interweaving the lives of Laura Cumming, her painter father and the great artists of the Dutch Golden Age. It takes the reader from seventeenth-century Delft to twentieth-century Scottish islands, from Rembrandt’s studio to wartime America and contemporary London. This is a book about what a picture may come to mean, how it can enter your life and change your thinking in a thunderclap.‘Superb…this book taught me to see anew’ Daily Telegraph‘A book that often borders on the sublime in its sentiment and beauty’ Sunday Times
Pageboy: A Memoir: The Instant Sunday Times Bestseller
by Elliot Page#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERINSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER'Singular' Daily Telegraph'Powerful' New York Times'Vital' i'Vivid… Moving… Juicy' NPR'A profoundly talented writer' Elizabeth Day'Raw, harrowing, and often heartbreaking' LA Times'Written by a sensitive soul' GuardianBefore the world premiere of Juno Elliot Page was on the edge of self-discovery. But with Juno's massive success and his dreams coming true, Elliot found himself trapped by the spotlight and the pressure to perform was suffocating him. Until enough was enough. From chasing down secret love affairs to battling body image and working through his difficult childhood, Pageboy is a beautiful, intimate book about searching for ourselves and our place in the world.'An emotional read, delivered in image-drenched prose.' Washington Post'The emergence of our true selves is all of our life's work. Pageboy helps chart the course.' Jamie Lee Curtis'Pageboy is like listening to a friend... Now is an excellent time to read this humanizing and well-written memoir.' Associated Press
Occupational Hazards: My Time Governing In Iraq
by Rory StewartA fascinating insight into the complexity, history and unpredictability of Iraq from Rory Stewart, bestselling author of Politics on the Edge and host of hit podcast The Rest Is Politics.‘Devastating’ - The Sunday Times‘Absolutely absorbing’ - Ken LoachBy September 2003, six months after the US-led invasion of Iraq, the anarchy had begun. Rory Stewart, then a young British diplomat, was appointed as the Coalition Provisional Authority's deputy governor of a province of 850,000 people in the southern marshland region. There, he and his colleagues confronted gangsters, Iranian-linked politicians, tribal vendettas and a full Islamist insurgency.Occupational Hazards is Rory Stewart's inside account of the attempt to rebuild a nation, the errors made, the misunderstandings and insurmountable difficulties encountered. It reveals an Iraq hidden from most foreign journalists and soldiers, a rare and compelling insight that remains just as important today.‘An extraordinarily vivid tale’ - The Guardian‘Wonderfully observed, wise, evocative’ - The Observer
Frances Oldham Kelsey, the FDA, and the Battle against Thalidomide
by Cheryl Krasnick WarshThe woman scientist who saved Americans from thalidomide In the early 1960s, Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration became one of the most celebrated women in America when she prevented a deadly sedative from entering the U.S. market. A Canadian-born pharmacologist and physician, Kelsey saved countless Americans from the devastating side effects of thalidomide, a drug routinely given to pregnant women to prevent morning sickness. As the FDA medical officer charged with reviewing Merrell Pharmaceutical's application for approval in 1960-61, Kelsey was unconvinced that there was sufficient evidence of the drug's efficacy and safety. Despite substantial pressure, she held her ground for nineteen months while the extent of the drug's worldwide damage became known-thousands of stillborn babies, as well as at least 10,000 children across 46 countries born with severe deformities such as missing limbs, arms and legs that resembled flippers, and improperly developed eyes, ears, and other organs. As a result of Kelsey's efforts, thalidomide was never sold in the United States. The incident led Congress to pass the 1962 Drug Amendment, which fundamentally changed drug regulation in America. Those regulations, still in force today, required pharmaceutical companies to conduct phased clinical trials, obtain informed consent from participants in drug testing, and warn the FDA of adverse effects, and it granted the FDA important controls over prescription-drug advertising. One of a small minority of women to earn an advanced degree in science in the 1930s, Kelsey faced challenges that resonate with women scientists to this day. Revered by the public as a ?good mother of science,? she went on to act as a formidable gatekeeper against other suspect drugs, such as diesthylstilbestrol (DES) and laetrile. As part of the team that tested anti-malarial drugs on prisoner volunteers during World War II, she later was instrumental in the formulation of ethical protocols for drug testing on prisoners and the vulnerable, including the elderly and children. Yet behind the public adulation, she faced professional jealousies and glass ceilings, political interference with FDA's actions, and ongoing hostility from pharmaceutical industry officials. She was sustained and supported by family and friends, co-workers and mentors, and a lifetime commitment to good science. Based upon FDA archival records, private family papers, and interviews with family and colleagues, this biography brings to light the efforts and legacy of a pioneering woman of science whose contributions are still influential today.
Frances Oldham Kelsey, the FDA, and the Battle against Thalidomide
by Cheryl Krasnick WarshThe woman scientist who saved Americans from thalidomide In the early 1960s, Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration became one of the most celebrated women in America when she prevented a deadly sedative from entering the U.S. market. A Canadian-born pharmacologist and physician, Kelsey saved countless Americans from the devastating side effects of thalidomide, a drug routinely given to pregnant women to prevent morning sickness. As the FDA medical officer charged with reviewing Merrell Pharmaceutical's application for approval in 1960-61, Kelsey was unconvinced that there was sufficient evidence of the drug's efficacy and safety. Despite substantial pressure, she held her ground for nineteen months while the extent of the drug's worldwide damage became known-thousands of stillborn babies, as well as at least 10,000 children across 46 countries born with severe deformities such as missing limbs, arms and legs that resembled flippers, and improperly developed eyes, ears, and other organs. As a result of Kelsey's efforts, thalidomide was never sold in the United States. The incident led Congress to pass the 1962 Drug Amendment, which fundamentally changed drug regulation in America. Those regulations, still in force today, required pharmaceutical companies to conduct phased clinical trials, obtain informed consent from participants in drug testing, and warn the FDA of adverse effects, and it granted the FDA important controls over prescription-drug advertising. One of a small minority of women to earn an advanced degree in science in the 1930s, Kelsey faced challenges that resonate with women scientists to this day. Revered by the public as a ?good mother of science,? she went on to act as a formidable gatekeeper against other suspect drugs, such as diesthylstilbestrol (DES) and laetrile. As part of the team that tested anti-malarial drugs on prisoner volunteers during World War II, she later was instrumental in the formulation of ethical protocols for drug testing on prisoners and the vulnerable, including the elderly and children. Yet behind the public adulation, she faced professional jealousies and glass ceilings, political interference with FDA's actions, and ongoing hostility from pharmaceutical industry officials. She was sustained and supported by family and friends, co-workers and mentors, and a lifetime commitment to good science. Based upon FDA archival records, private family papers, and interviews with family and colleagues, this biography brings to light the efforts and legacy of a pioneering woman of science whose contributions are still influential today.
Letters of Note: Correspondence Deserving Of A Wider Audience (Letters Of Note Ser. #6)
by Shaun UsherIn Letters of Note: War, Shaun Usher brings together some of the most remarkable letters that encapsulate the human experience of war, from unimaginable feats of courage and compassion, to unthinkable episodes of violence and horror. Includes letters by: Martha Gellhorn, Alexander Hamilton, Kurt Vonnegut, Mohandas Gandhi, Mark Twain, June Wandrey, Evelyn Waugh, Luis Alvarez, Lord Horatio Nelson & many more
Wellington's Right Hand: Rowland, Viscount Hill
by Joanna HillOne of the most unlikely soldiers of his day, General Rowland Hill, 1st Viscount Hill of Almarez was imaginative, brave – and perhaps more surprisingly for the period in which he lived and fought – compassionate towards those under his command. This is the compelling story of one of history’s forgotten heroes, a man who frequently led from the front in some of the deadliest battles of the Napoleonic Wars. Hill was given his own ‘detached’ corps and fought his way through Spain, Portugal and France, winning battles against the odds – such at St Pierre, where he defeated the redoubtable Marechal Soult when outnumbered two to one. When ministers at home asked that Hill be allowed to leave the Peninsula and lead an army elsewhere, Wellington dismissed the idea with ‘Would you cut off my right hand?’Hill fought at Roliça, Corunna, Talavera, Bussaco, Almarez, Vitoria and Waterloo. He succeeded the Duke in 1828 as Commander-in-Chief of the forces and served as such until he resigned in 1842, a period marked by civil unrest that he reluctantly was obliged to confront. Based upon the Hill papers and a wide range of other primary sources, Wellington’s Right Hand is an important addition to the literature of the Napoleonic age and in particular to that of the Peninsular War.Writer and historian Joanna Hill is the great, great, great niece of Rowland Hill and as such has gained unique access to the Hill family archives. In April 2005, she published her first book on the Hill family, The Hills of Hawkstone and Attingham; the Rise, Shine and Decline of a Shropshire Family.Serendipity has sometimes led her life in the footsteps of her illustrious ancestor While working at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University’s post graduate department for the history of art and archaeology, she spent three very hot seasons excavating in the Nile Delta of Egypt, a few kilometres from the site of one of the General’s very first battles, at Aboukir in 1801. She currently lives with her husband (and an international champion Skye terrier, Dougal) in a 13th-century hilltop bastide village in South West France. This is just a short distance north of St Pierre d’Irube at the foot of the Pyrenees, where Rowland Hill won his very own general action in the closing stages of the Peninsular War in December 1813. When the victorious British cavalry rode home through France from Toulouse to the channel ports in May the following year, they must have passed by.
The Last King of Wales: Gruffudd ap Llywelyn, c. 1013-1063
by Michael Davies Sean DaviesGruffudd ap Llywelyn was Wales’ greatest king. Ambitious and battle-sure, he succeeded in doing what no Welsh king before him was capable of: he ruled all Wales as a united and independent state. He went further by turning the Viking threat to his realm into a powerful weapon and conquering border land that had been in English hands for centuries. Having emerged as a war leader, Gruffudd also proved to be much more: a patron of the arts and church, with the trappings of a king who was respected and feared on the European stage. His eventual murder at the hands of his own men narrowed the country’s political ambitions and left Wales in chaos on the eve of the arrival of the Normans. Those who betrayed Gruffudd were the forebears of the famous princes who would dominate Wales until the Edwardian Conquest, meaning that the former king left no one to tell of his glory. As a result, 1,000 years after his birth, the would-be nation builder is all but forgotten. Here, Sean and Michael Davies reveal the king in all his glory, telling for the first time the story of one of Wales’ greatest figures and exploring the full implications of Gruffudd’s rule. For, without Gruffudd, the fate of King Harold and the outcome of the Battle of Hastings would have been very different…
The Comfort Book: The instant No. 1 Sunday Times bestseller
by Matt Haig*MATT HAIG’S NEW NOVEL THE LIFE IMPOSSIBLE IS AVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER NOW * THE INSTANT NUMBER ONE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'Profound, witty and uplifting' Observer 'Full of eloquent, cogent and positive reminders of the beauty of life' Independent The Comfort Book is a collection of consolations learned in hard times and suggestions for making the bad days better. Drawing on maxims, memoir and the inspirational lives of others, these meditations offer new ways of seeing ourselves and the world. This is the book to pick up when you need the wisdom of a friend, the comfort of a hug or a reminder that hope comes from unexpected places.
All His Bright Light Gone: The Death Of John F. Kennedy And The Decline Of America
by Peter McKenna Robert L. Lascaro[Amazon excerpt] The book explores how the United States declined after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Its premise is that Kennedy understood that this country was originally designed by the Founding Fathers to be a democratic republic, and that it must remain a democratic republic if it is to survive. In a remarkably short time, Kennedy created a modern-day version of a republic by inspiring the American people to embrace civic responsibility and to participate in government. [...] Peter McKenna, the book’s author, has been a journalist for more than 30 years. He is a graduate of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He has spent the last five years researching the way this nation changed after November 22, 1963, the day Kennedy died.
The Man Who Loved Only Numbers: The Story of Paul Erdos and the Search for Mathematical Truth
by Paul Hoffman"A funny, marvelously readable portrait of one of the most brilliant and eccentric men in history." --The Seattle Times Paul Erdos was an amazing and prolific mathematician whose life as a world-wandering numerical nomad was legendary. He published almost 1500 scholarly papers before his death in 1996, and he probably thought more about math problems than anyone in history. Like a traveling salesman offering his thoughts as wares, Erdos would show up on the doorstep of one mathematician or another and announce, "My brain is open." After working through a problem, he'd move on to the next place, the next solution. Hoffman's book, like Sylvia Nasar's biography of John Nash, A Beautiful Mind, reveals a genius's life that transcended the merely quirky. But Erdos's brand of madness was joyful, unlike Nash's despairing schizophrenia. Erdos never tried to dilute his obsessive passion for numbers with ordinary emotional interactions, thus avoiding hurting the people around him, as Nash did. Oliver Sacks writes of Erdos: "A mathematical genius of the first order, Paul Erdos was totally obsessed with his subject--he thought and wrote mathematics for nineteen hours a day until the day he died. He traveled constantly, living out of a plastic bag, and had no interest in food, sex, companionship, art--all that is usually indispensable to a human life."The Man Who Loved Only Numbers is easy to love, despite his strangeness. It's hard not to have affection for someone who referred to children as "epsilons," from the Greek letter used to represent small quantities in mathematics; a man whose epitaph for himself read, "Finally I am becoming stupider no more"; and whose only really necessary tool to do his work was a quiet and open mind. Hoffman, who followed and spoke with Erdos over the last 10 years of his life, introduces us to an undeniably odd, yet pure and joyful, man who loved numbers more than he loved God--whom he referred to as SF, for Supreme Fascist. He was often misunderstood, and he certainly annoyed people sometimes, but Paul Erdos is no doubt missed. --Therese Littleton
Forbidden Cocktails: Libations Inspired by the World of Pre-Code Hollywood
by André DarlingtonA stunning package for classic film buffs and drinks enthusiasts alike, all the &“forbidden&” fun of Pre-Code Hollywood and the Prohibition and speakeasy era meet in this stylish cocktail book. What might Jean Harlow have sipped for Dinner at Eight? What did Barbara Stanwyck take to steel herself in Baby Face? If you&’re a classic film fan who&’s ever pondered these questions, or are a bartender or at-home entertainer who adores Prohibition-era cocktails, this guide to mixed drinks inspired by Pre-Code Hollywood is essential reading. The stars and stories of the &“forbidden&” time in moviemaking before strict censorship was enforced and the movies reflected a raucous freedom that would be unseen again for decades take the spotlight in Forbidden Cocktails. With 50 film-and-drink pairings and packaged handsomely with more than 100 full-color and black-and-white photos throughout, this is a practical and stunning homage to a singularly exuberant and evocative era. Movie-and-cocktail pairings include: The Divorcee / Balanced Account; Hell&’s Angels / Platinum Blonde; Dracula / Count Draiquiri; Strangers May Kiss / Stranger&’s Kiss; The Public Enemy / Tom Powers; Night Nurse / My Pal Rye; Shanghai Express / Shanghai Lily; Scarface / First Ward; One Way Passage / Passage to Paradise; Trouble in Paradise / Lubitsch Touch; Call Her Savage / Greenwich Village; Sign of the Cross / Naked Moon; Gold Diggers of 1933 / Pettin&’ in the Park; Flying Down to Rio / Hotel Hibiscus; It Happened One Night / It Happened One Morning; The Thin Man / Asta
The Dead Don't Need Reminding: In Search of Fugitives, Mississippi, and Black TV Nerd Shit
by Julian RandallThis brilliant, adult nonfiction debut from the acclaimed MG author and poet weaves two personal narratives of recovery and reclamation, spliced with a dazzle of pop-cultureThe Dead Don&’t Need Reminding is a braided story of Julian Randall&’s return from the cliff edge of a harrowing depression and his determination to retrace the hustle of a white-passing grandfather to the Mississippi town from which he was driven amid threats of tar and feather. Alternatively wry, lyrical, and heartfelt, Randall transforms pop culture moments into deeply personal explorations of grief, family, and the American way. He envisions his fight to stay alive through a striking medley of media ranging from Into the Spiderverse and Jordan Peele movies to BoJack Horseman and the music of Odd Future. Pulsing with life, sharp, and wickedly funny, The Dead Don&’t Need Reminding is Randall&’s journey to get his ghost story back.
A Black Girl in the Middle: Essays on (Allegedly) Figuring It All Out
by Shenequa Golding'Growing up in Queens, I didn't know being named Shenequa was considered "ghetto" or uncouth. It was only later in life that I realized I was being judged by a decision I had no control over... I will examine the double-standard Black girls with big names like Shenequa face, and the quick math we have to calculate when trying to de-escalate drama.'In A BLACK GIRL IN THE MIDDLE, a timely, compelling, and blazingly honest essay collection, Shenequa Golding holds up her magnifying glass to both her own experiences and those of young Black women everywhere. With her trademark wit and originality, Shenequa covers identity-searching themes of white supremacy, feminism, misogyny, love, sex and heartbreak. But this isn't just a book about Black women's trauma, it is also a book that embraces and celebrates the things that make Black women different. For readers of SLAY IN YOUR LANE, Candice Brathwaite and Issa Rae.
Relentless: My Story of the Latino Spirit That Is Transforming America
by Luis A. Miranda Jr.Essential reading from an expert voice: Luis A. Miranda Jr.&’s personal and political memoir reveals a deep understanding of Latino culture and how to build community to change our world for the better. A veteran of New York and national politics, Luis Miranda embodies the relentless spirit of progress of American immigrants. There is no one on the Latino, New York, and national political scene with the breadth of experience, passion, and storytelling charm of Luis Miranda. In Relentless, he shares a fascinating narrative of his life and career—from his early days as a radically minded Puerto Rican activist to his decades of political advice and problem-solving. Miranda recounts the thrill of the ascendency of Hamilton, created by his son Lin-Manuel, and he details the suffering after the devastation of Puerto Rico by Hurricane Maria. Amid the triumphs and challenges, Miranda examines what his experience reveals about our ever-changing politics, demographics, and society.
I Will Show You How It Was: The Story of Wartime Kyiv
by Illia Ponomarenko"A story of searing clarity from Ukraine's frontlines of an unfathomably resilient, freedom loving people who refuse to bend to Putin's assault on truth and human life."-Nicole Perlroth“Destined to become a classic of modern war reporting.”-Luke HardingA raw, irreverent account of a young Ukrainian reporter on-the-ground as his country heroically defends itself against the Russian invasion. In late February 2022, a series of missiles and rocket strikes began falling upon Ukraine, as the Russian military barreled over the border and fanned out across the country. First they took Chernobyl, then Kherson, then Mariupol. Time stood still as the world waited for Ukraine to flatten underneath the boot of its neighbor. Meanwhile, on the front lines in the capital city, Kyiv Independent reporter Illia Ponomarenko was seeing a different story on unfold: after months-years-of waiting for this long-feared attack, Ukraine was fed up and ready to fight back. The Russians bogged down hard in combat east and west of Kyiv. They got exhausted. They screwed up logistics. They sustained heavy losses. Their unbelievably overconfident blitz was failing. I Will Show You How It Was is Illia Ponomarenko's heart-wrenching memoir of the war on his homeland, offering a fiery diatribe against Russian hypocrisy and a moving look at what is being lost. But it's also a story of pride and even elation as Ukrainian forces come together, find their mojo, and oust the invaders from Kyiv. The most powerful and personal chronicle of the war to date, I Will Show You How It Was is an exceptional literary achievement, chronicling a stunning feat of resistance and a courageous people set on a miraculous victory.
Ethel: The biography of countryside pioneer Ethel Haythornthwaite
by Helen MortPioneer, activist, environmentalist, poet. Ethel Haythornthwaite is virtually unknown, even in her home town of Sheffield – the UK's outdoor city – yet her tireless campaigning led to the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 and the creation of the Peak District National Park, protecting a wild and varied landscape so many have fallen in love with. Founder of a local society to protect rural scenery in 1924, she went on to join the Council for the Preservation of Rural England (CPRE) and become its wartime director. Saviour of the beautiful Longshaw estate, her achievements also include establishing the first green belt in the UK. In Ethel, award-winning author Helen Mort explores the life of this countryside revolutionary who has been overlooked by history. Born into wealth yet frugal, ever restless but infinitely patient, widowed at twenty-two, independent and thoroughly ahead of her time, Ethel Haythornthwaite helped save the British countryside at a time when simply to be a woman was challenge enough. Having been given unrestricted access to Ethel's archive, including hundreds of meticulously written letters, in Ethel, Helen Mort has written letters to Ethel's memory and a paean to her legacy. The beauty and accessibility of the British countryside is the result of passionate campaigning during the inter- and post-war years by groundbreaking figures such as Ethel Haythornthwaite.
Zhou Enlai: A Life
by Jian ChenThe definitive biography of Zhou Enlai, the first premier and preeminent diplomat of the People’s Republic of China, who protected his country against the excesses of his boss—Chairman Mao.Zhou Enlai spent twenty-seven years as premier of the People’s Republic of China and ten as its foreign minister. He was the architect of the country’s administrative apparatus and its relationship to the world, as well as its legendary spymaster. Richard Nixon proclaimed him “the greatest statesman of our era.” Yet Zhou has always been overshadowed by Chairman Mao. Chen Jian brings Zhou into the light, offering a nuanced portrait of his complex life as a revolutionary, a master diplomat, and a man with his own vision and aspirations who did much to make China, as well as the larger world, what it is today.Born to a declining mandarin family in 1898, Zhou received a classical education and as a teenager spent time in Japan. As a young man, driven by the desire for China’s development, Zhou embraced the communist revolution as a vehicle of China’s salvation. He helped Mao govern through a series of transformations, including the disastrous Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution. Yet, as Chen shows, Zhou was never a committed Maoist. His extraordinary political and bureaucratic skill, combined with his centrist approaches, enabled him to mitigate the enormous damage caused by Mao’s radicalism.When Zhou died in 1976, the PRC that we know of was not yet visible on the horizon; he never saw glistening twenty-first-century Shanghai or the broader emergence of Chinese capitalism. But it was Zhou’s work that shaped the nation whose influence and power are today felt in every corner of the globe.
A Summer with Pascal
by Antoine CompagnonFrom an eminent scholar, a spirited introduction to one of the great polymaths in the history of Europe.Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) is best known in the English-speaking world for his contributions to mathematics and physics, with both a triangle and a law in fluid mechanics named after him. Meanwhile, the classic film My Night at Maud’s popularized Pascal’s wager, an invitation to faith that has inspired generations of theologians. Despite the immensity of his reputation, few read him outside French schools. In A Summer with Pascal, celebrated literary critic Antoine Compagnon opens our minds to a figure somehow both towering and ignored.Compagnon provides a bird’s-eye view of Pascal’s life and significance, making this volume an ideal introduction. Still, scholars and neophytes alike will profit greatly from his masterful readings of the Pensées—a cornerstone of Western philosophy—and the Provincial Letters, in which Pascal advanced wry theological critiques of his contemporaries. The concise, taut chapters build upon one another, easing into writings often thought to be forbidding and dour. With Compagnon as our guide, these works are not just accessible but enchanting.A Summer with Pascal brings the early modern thinker to life in the present. In an age of profound existential doubt and assaults on truth and reason, in which religion and science are so often crudely opposed, Pascal’s sophisticated commitment to both challenges us to meet the world with true intellectual vigor.
States of Plague: Reading Albert Camus in a Pandemic
by Alice Kaplan Laura MarrisStates of Plague examines Albert Camus’s novel as a palimpsest of pandemic life, an uncannily relevant account of the psychology and politics of a public health crisis. As one of the most discussed books of the COVID-19 crisis, Albert Camus’s classic novel The Plague has become a new kind of literary touchstone. Surrounded by terror and uncertainty, often separated from loved ones or unable to travel, readers sought answers within the pages of Camus’s 1947 tale about an Algerian city gripped by an epidemic. Many found in it a story about their own lives—a book to shed light on a global health crisis. In thirteen linked chapters told in alternating voices, Alice Kaplan and Laura Marris hold the past and present of The Plague in conversation, discovering how the novel has reached people in their current moment. Kaplan’s chapters explore the book’s tangled and vivid history, while Marris’s are drawn to the ecology of landscape and language. Through these pages, they find that their sense of Camus evolves under the force of a new reality, alongside the pressures of illness, recovery, concern, and care in their own lives. Along the way, Kaplan and Marris examine how the novel’s original allegory might resonate with a new generation of readers who have experienced a global pandemic. They describe how they learned to contemplate the skies of a plague spring, to examine the body politic and the politics of immunity. Both personal and eloquently written, States of Plague uncovers for us the mysterious way a novel can imagine the world during a crisis and draw back the veil on other possible futures.
The Traces of Jacques Derrida's Cinema
by Timothy HollandSituated at the intersection of film and media studies, literary theory, and continental philosophy, The Traces of Jacques Derrida's Cinema provides a trenchant account of the role of cinema in the oeuvre of one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century, Jacques Derrida (1930-2004). The book is animated by Derrida's self-confessed passion for the movies, his reluctance to write about film despite the range of his corpus, and the generative encounters arising between his legacy and the field of film and media studies as a result. Given the expanse of its references, interdisciplinarity, and consideration of Derrida's approach to the experience of both spectatorship and the act of being filmed, The Traces of Jacques Derrida's Cinema contributes to the ongoing close analyses of the philosopher's work while also providing a rigorous introduction to deconstruction. Author Timothy Holland interweaves historical and speculative modes of research and writing to articulate the peripheral-yet surprisingly crucial-place of the cinematic medium for Derrida and his philosophical enterprise. The outcome is a meticulously detailed survey of the centers and margins of Derrida's oeuvre that include forays into such terrain as: his notable appearances in films; an unrealized project on cinema and belief that Derrida proposed in a 2001 interview; the correspondences between the strategies of deconstruction and the traditions, homecomings, and wordplay of David Lynch's cinematic media; and the questions wedded to the future of film studies amid the vicissitudes of the modern, virtual university. Ultimately, Holland pursues the thinking activated by the flickering of Derrida's cinema-not only the absence and presence of film in Derrida's professional and personal life, but also the rigor of academic discourse and the pleasures of the movies, ghosts and technology, religious faith and scientific knowledge, and ruination and survival-as a critical chance for reflection.
Soil Science in Italy: 1861 to 2024
by Carmelo Dazzi Anna Benedetti Giuseppe Corti Edoardo A.C. CostantiniHistory is generally defined as “the study of past events, particularly in human affairs” and is mostly understood when presented chronologically. That’s why someone also defined it as the ‘chronological record of the past’. Knowing the past is extremely important for any society and human being. Past gives us insights into our evolving behavior in many matters of life. The book is seen as a unique opportunity to preserve the memory of the Italian history of soil science. It represents a milestone and a cultural heritage. Moreover, the book is a sort of ideal bridge between the pioneers of soil science in Italy and the young generation of researchers, contributing to spreading awareness of the importance of soil as a fundamental resource.
The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea
by null Sebastian JungerThe worst storm in history seen from the wheelhouse of a doomed fishing trawler; a mesmerisingly vivid account of a natural hell from a perspective that offers no escape. The ‘perfect storm’ is a once-in-a-hundred-years combination: a high pressure system from the Great Lakes, running into storm winds over an Atlantic island – Sable Island – and colliding with a weather system from the Caribbean: Hurricane Grace. This is the story of that storm, told through the accounts of individual fishing boats caught up in the maelstrom, their families waiting anxiously for news of their return, the rescue services scrambled to save them. It is the story of the old battle between the fisherman and the sea, between man and Nature, that awesome and capricious power which can transform the surface of the Atlantic into an impossible tumult of water walls and gaping voids, with the capacity to break an oil tanker in two. In spare, lyrical prose ‘The Perfect Storm’ describes what happened when the Andrea Gail looked into the wrathful face of the perfect storm.