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A Portrait of an Idiot as a Young Man: Part memoir, part explanation as to why men are so rubbish
by Jon HolmesWhen Jon Holmes became a father (twice), he was asked to fill in a form detailing his family medical history. Except he couldn't, because he has no idea who his family are. Born to an unnamed, unmarried mother and an unknown father and given up for adoption at four weeks old, Jon decided to document his own history, so that one day he could pass it on to his children. It's a story of how boys grow up to become (stupid) men, of sexual misadventure, of being accidentally shot in the face, of spiders, a ghost, a fatally injured gerbil, American road trips that went wrong, becoming inadvertently locked in Graham Norton's toilet with an Oscar nominated screenwriter, being removed from Mrs Thatcher's vicinity by her security detail and having loving parents who did their best to bring up a child that wasn't theirs. Part memoir, part hilarious insight into why men are so inept, this is the true story of how an unwanted baby in the Midlands went on to become a wanted man in the state of Texas, and everything that happened in between.His children will never be allowed to read it.
A Portrait of an Idiot as a Young Man: Part memoir, part explanation as to why men are so rubbish
by Jon HolmesWhen Jon Holmes became a father (twice), he was asked to fill in a form detailing his family medical history. Except he couldn't, because he has no idea who his family are. Born to an unnamed, unmarried mother and an unknown father and given up for adoption at four weeks old, Jon decided to document his own history, so that one day he could pass it on to his children. It's a story of how boys grow up to become (stupid) men, of sexual misadventure, of being accidentally shot in the face, of spiders, a ghost, a fatally injured gerbil, American road trips that went wrong, becoming inadvertently locked in Graham Norton's toilet with an Oscar nominated screenwriter, being removed from Mrs Thatcher's vicinity by her security detail and having loving parents who did their best to bring up a child that wasn't theirs. Part memoir, part hilarious insight into why men are so inept, this is the true story of how an unwanted baby in the Midlands went on to become a wanted man in the state of Texas, and everything that happened in between.His children will never be allowed to read it.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: The Modernist Classic Novel By James Joyce (First Avenue Classics ™)
by James JoyceLate 19th-century Ireland is full of social, political, and religious turmoil. It is in the midst of this strife that Stephen Dedalus grows up. From his struggles with his classmates as a schoolboy to the sexual and Christian awakenings he experiences as a young adult, Stephen's life is shaped by the state of Ireland around him. Ultimately, he must decide if the life of beauty he desires can even be found in Ireland at all. This renowned coming-of-age story by Irish author James Joyce was originally published in serial form in the London-based literary magazine The Egoist from 1914-1915 and in novel form in 1916 in the United States. This is an unabridged version.
A Portrait of the Scientist as a Young Woman: A Memoir
by Lindy Elkins-Tanton"Fierce, absorbing, and ultimately inspiring." —ELIZABETH KOLBERT"One of the finest scientific memoirs ever written." —DAVID W. BROWNFrom one of the world’s leading planetary scientists, a luminous memoir of exploration on Earth, in space, and within oneself—equal parts ode to the beauty of science, meditation on loss, and roadmap for personal resilienceDeep in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, three times farther from the sun than the Earth is, orbits a massive asteroid called (16) Psyche. It is one of the largest objects in the belt, potentially containing the equivalent of the world’s total economy in metals, though they cannot be brought back to Earth. But (16) Psyche has the potential to unlock something even more valuable: the story of how planets form, and how our planet formed. Soon we will find out, thanks to the extraordinary work of Lindy Elkins-Tanton, the Principal Investigator of NASA’s $800 million Psyche mission, and the second woman ever to be awarded a major NASA space exploration contract.The journey that brought her to this place is extraordinary. Amid a childhood of terrible trauma, Elkins-Tanton fell in love with science as a means of healing and consolation. But still she wondered, was forced to wonder: as a woman, was science “for her”? In answering that question, she takes us from the wilds of the Siberian tundra to the furthest reaches of outer space, from the Mayo Clinic, where Elkins-Tanton battled ovarian cancer while writing the Psyche proposal, to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where her team brought that proposal to life.A Portrait of the Scientist as a Young Woman is a beautifully-constructed memoir that explores how a philosophy of life can be built from the tools of scientific inquiry. It teaches us how to approach difficult problems by asking the right questions and truly listening to the answers—and how we may find meaning through exploring the wonders of the universe around us.
A Postcard Memoir
by Lawrence SutinDrawing upon his collection of quirky antique postcards, Lawrence Sutin has penned A Postcard Memoir--a series of brief but intense reminiscences of his "ordinary" life. In the process, he creates an unrepentant, wholly unique account about learning to live with a consciousness all his own. Ranging from remembered events to inner states to full-blown fantasies, Sutin is at turns playful and somber, rhapsodic and mundane, funny and full of pathos. Here you'll find tales about science teachers and other horrors of adolescence, life in a comedy troupe, stepfathering--each illustrated with the postcard that triggered Sutin's muse--and presented in a mix so enticingly wayward as to prove that at least some of it really happened.
A Posy of Wild Flowers: A Gypsy Girl at Heart
by Rosemary PenfoldMore gypsy tales from the SUNDAY TIMES bestselling author...Rosemary Penfold's A FIELD FULL OF BUTTERFLIES was a beautiful and evocative memoir of her life growing up in the fields of the English countryside. A moving testament to a forgotten world and a rapidly disappearing and often misunderstood people, Rosemary won the hearts of the nation with her story. In this, her second book, Rosemary returns to the idyllic countryside to continue her compelling story. Written in the same elegant narrative that has made Rosemary a much loved and admired storyteller, she paints a vivid and touching portrait of a way of life that no longer exists. It is a heartwarming tale of a fast-changing world, which captures the hopes and struggles, loves and losses, traditions and prejudices of a Romany community.
A Posy of Wild Flowers: A Gypsy Girl at Heart
by Rosemary PenfoldMore gypsy tales from the SUNDAY TIMES bestselling author...Rosemary Penfold's A FIELD FULL OF BUTTERFLIES was a beautiful and evocative memoir of her life growing up in the fields of the English countryside. A moving testament to a forgotten world and a rapidly disappearing and often misunderstood people, Rosemary won the hearts of the nation with her story. In this, her second book, Rosemary returns to the idyllic countryside to continue her compelling story. Written in the same elegant narrative that has made Rosemary a much loved and admired storyteller, she paints a vivid and touching portrait of a way of life that no longer exists. It is a heartwarming tale of a fast-changing world, which captures the hopes and struggles, loves and losses, traditions and prejudices of a Romany community.
A Pound of Paper: Confessions of a Book Addict
by John BaxterIN THE RURAL AUSTRALIA OF THE FIFTIES where John Baxter grew up, reading books was regarded with suspicion, owning and collecting them with utter incomprehension. Despite this, by the age of eleven Baxter had "collected" his first book-The Poems of Rupert Brooke. He'd read the volume often, but now he had to own it. This was the beginning of what would become a major collection and a lifelong obsession. His book hunting would take him all over the world, but his first real find was in London in 1978, when he spotted a rare copy of a Graham Greene children's book while browsing a stall in Swiss Cottage. It was going for 5 pence. This would also, fortuitously, be the day when he first encountered one of the legends of the book-selling world-Martin Stone. At various times pothead, international fugitive from justice, and professional rock musician, he would become John's mentor and friend. In this brilliantly readable and funny book, John Baxter brings us into contact with such literary greats as Graham Greene, Kingsley Amis, I. . Ballard, and Ray Bradbury. But he also shows us how he penetrated the secret fraternity of "runners" or book scouts- sleuths who use bluff and guile to hunt down their quarry-and joined them in scouring junk shops, markets, auction rooms, and private homes for rarities. In the comic tradition of Clive James's Unreliable Memoirs, A Pound of Paper describes how a boy from the bush came to be living in a Paris penthouse with a library worth millions. It also explores the exploding market in first editions. What treasures are lying unnoticed in your garage?
A Powerful Mind: The Self-Education of George Washington
by Adrienne M. HarrisonHis formal schooling abruptly cut off at age eleven, George Washington saw his boyhood dream of joining the British army evaporate and recognized that even his aspiration to rise in colonial Virginian agricultural society would be difficult. Throughout his life he faced challenges for which he lacked the academic foundations shared by his more highly educated contemporaries. Yet Washington’s legacy is clearly not one of failure.Breaking new ground in Washington scholarship and American revolutionary history, Adrienne M. Harrison investigates the first president’s dedicated process of self-directed learning through reading, a facet of his character and leadership long neglected by historians and biographers. In A Powerful Mind, Harrison shows that Washington rose to meet these trials through a committed campaign of highly focused reading, educating himself on exactly what he needed to do and how best to do it. In contrast to other famous figures of the revolution—Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin—Washington did not relish learning for its own sake, viewing self-education instead as a tool for shaping himself into the person he wanted to be. His two highest-profile and highest-risk endeavors—commander in chief of the Continental Army and president of the fledgling United States—are a testament to the success of his strategy.
A Practical Way to Get Rich . . . and Die Trying: A Memoir About Risking It All
by John Roa"A scathingly honest memoir of entrepreneurship's dark reality... I would advise every entrepreneur--or anyone who dreams of becoming one--to read this book."--Eric Schurenberg - CEO, Fast Company and Inc.A young tech entrepreneur's memoir of building his hugely successful company and the mental and physical price he paid for itAt the age of twenty-six, John Roa founded a tech-consulting and design firm that he sold for a fortune to the largest tech company in San Francisco, Salesforce. His account of his rise from a self-described below-average student, to becoming a poster boy for the ambitious, successful young entrepreneur, to nearly destroying himself in the process is the subject of A Practical Way to Get Rich . . . and Die Trying. Roa's twenty-year-long journey from being dead-broke to wealth he never imagined is an absurd and often comical story of talent, luck, risk, rapidly changing technology, larger-than-life personalities, sex, gambling, and excessive alcohol and drug consumption. Roa's intention for his memoir is not to present a glamorous rags-to-riches saga, but, instead, to serve as a cautionary tale of the toll that entrepreneurship can take on ambitious young people unprepared for the physical and mental costs that "making it" can take. Those pitfalls eventually took their toll on Roa, who, in the face of round-the-clock pressure and risk taking, ultimately suffered a psychotic breakdown from which he almost didn't walk away. As he healed in the aftermath, he began to question the ethos that had brought him to that dark place, and he learned from other entrepreneurs that they, too, had experienced similar debilitating issues that they felt unable to admit, let alone discuss. A Practical Way to Get Rich . . . and Die Trying is a compelling memoir and the foundation for a campaign of honesty and vulnerability in an industry that currently allows neither. Roa aims to be the bridge to helping young leaders confront the mental health issues and abuse that too often accompany the tech startup that so many have embraced as their salvation for their future.
A Prairie Faith: The Religious Life of Laura Ingalls Wilder (Library of Religious Biography (LRB))
by John J. FryWhat role did Laura Ingalls Wilder&’s Christian faith play in her life and writing? The beloved Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder have sold over 60 million copies since their publication in the first half of the twentieth century. Even her unpolished memoir, Pioneer Girl, which tells the true story behind the children&’s books, was widely embraced upon its release in 2014. Despite Wilder&’s enduring popularity, few fans know much about her Christian beliefs and practice. John J. Fry shines a light on Wilder&’s quiet faith in this unique biography. Fry surveys the Little House books, Pioneer Girl, and Wilder&’s lesser-known writings, including her letters, poems, and newspaper columns. Analyzing this wealth of sources, he reveals how Wilder&’s down-to-earth faith and Christian morality influenced her life and work. Interweaving these investigations with Wilder&’s perennially interesting life story, A Prairie Faith illustrates the Christian practices of pioneers and rural farmers during this dynamic period of American history.
A Prairie Girl's Faith: The Spiritual Legacy of Laura Ingalls Wilder
by Stephen W. HinesThe beloved author of the Little House books was not only one of America's great pioneer storytellers but a woman of vibrant faith.A Prairie Girl's Faith provides the first extended, in depth discussion of the Christian faith of one of America's most beloved pioneer women--Laura Ingalls Wilder. Although the faith of the Ingalls' family pervades books in the Little House series, the more specific details of Laura's faith have never been fully explored. It took extraordinary pluck for anyone to survive the harshness of frontier life--from the heartbreak of sudden crop losses to murderous storms to unrelenting loneliness. This book reveals how in surviving, the brave Laura drew not just on her character, but found encouragement, strength, and hope in her relationship with God.
A Prayer for Orion: A Son's Addiction and a Mother's Love
by Katherine JamesIt's always somebody else's kid—until it's yours.
A Prelude: Landscapes, Characters and Conversations from the Earlier Years of My Life
by Edmund WilsonThe leading literary critic Edmund Wilson shares his travels and adventures from his young life in this intellectual autobiography, A Prelude.From his early childhood in Red Bank, New Jersey, to his undergraduate years in Princeton, to his later time spent in the army, this personal study, told partly in diary form, provides an illuminating look inside the mind of one of the twentieth century's towering man of letters. Also included in this volume is two short stories by Wilson, both based on actual events: "The Death of a Soldier," about the death of a young soldier from pneumonia just before going to the front. And "Lieutenant Franklin" concerning a young officer in the Army of Occupation in Germany after the war.
A Preparation for Death
by Greg BaxterIn his early thirties, Greg Baxter found himself in a strange place. He hated his job, he was drinking excessively, he was sabotaging his most important relationships, and he was no longer doing the thing he cared about most: writing. Strangest of all, at this time he started teaching evening classes in creative writing - and his life changed utterly.A Preparation for Death is a document of the chaos and discovery of that time and of the experiences that led Greg Baxter to that strange place - an extraordinarily intimate account of literary failure (and its consequences), personal decay, and redemption through reading, writing, and truth-telling. 'Brilliant and wonderfully original ... Yes, this is a book about drinking and shagging. But rarely have these things been written about so well' William Leith, Literary Review'Baxter is a serious, thoughtful writer, bend on emotional truth and artistry. He has written an unusual, provocative book' Suzi Feay, Financial Times'Brave, honest and propulsive' Metro'The triumph is the steely courage it takes to put a life down with such uncompromising clarity' Hugo Hamilton, Irish Times'This is an occasionally infuriating and completely wonderful book. I read it in one sitting, unsettled and delighted by its ferocity' Anne Enright
A Prescribed Life
by Tony Atkinson Lynn SmailesTony Atkinson spent his early days suspended in a cage outside the sixth-storey window of his family home in 1920s London, so perhaps he was always going to see the world differently. This is a gloriously entertaining memoir of a life fully lived in and around ridiculous, hilarious situations.There was the time Tony came between Winston Churchill and his bowel movements (an accident that required a parliamentary explanation); and when Tony and his friends rerouted the London bus network so they could race Stirling Moss around the city; and the high-society shenanigans he witnessed after becoming footman to Queen Elizabeth – all just tasters from this irresistibly charming memoir.Tony and the love of his life came to Australia as &‘ten-pound Poms&’ and although he eventually settled into a medical career, one would never really say he settled down. His speciality was anaesthesia, but his greatest gift may be for telling rousing tales. A Prescribed Life is a warm and engaging chronicle about love, medicine and royalty spanning almost a century of great change.
A Presidency in Peril
by Robert KuttnerAs with many progressives who had pinned their hopes on the promise of Barack Obama, Kuttner (co-editor of The American Prospect magazine) has become disappointed with President Obama's failure to deliver transformational change in the realm of US economic policy. He delivers a work of reportage, analysis, and critique that seeks to understand the reasons for Obama's basic acquiescence to the priorities of Wall Street over those of Main Street and his failure to push for strong financial regulation in the face of economic crisis. Although he is critical of Obama's economic performance in the first two years, he holds out hope that the President may yet salvage his legacy and offers advice on how Obama could go about redeeming his presidency. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc. , Portland, OR (booknews. com)
A Presidency in Peril: The Inside Story of Obama's Promise, Wall Street's Power, and the Struggle to Control Our Economic Future
by Robert KuttnerAs with many progressives who had pinned their hopes on the promise of Barack Obama, Kuttner (co-editor of The American Prospect magazine) has become disappointed with President Obama's failure to deliver transformational change in the realm of US economic policy. He delivers a work of reportage, analysis, and critique that seeks to understand the reasons for Obama's basic acquiescence to the priorities of Wall Street over those of Main Street and his failure to push for strong financial regulation in the face of economic crisis. Although he is critical of Obama's economic performance in the first two years, he holds out hope that the President may yet salvage his legacy and offers advice on how Obama could go about redeeming his presidency. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc. , Portland, OR (booknews. com)
A President in the Family: Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings, and Thomas Woodson
by Byron W. WoodsonThe author, a 6th generation descendant of Jefferson, details the quest to corroborate family lore, locate missing family members, and reveal the truth about life at Monticello.
A Presidential Nation
by Michael A. GenoveseThe Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial. Why do we devote monuments to the presidents? Why do we honor them, instead of Congress, or the courts? A Presidential Nation examines how the presidency--an office limited by the Constitution and separation of powers--became the centerpiece of American government. Michael A. Genovese argues that in rebelling against the British, the Framers of the Constitution invented a circumscribed presidency to guard against executive tyranny. Yet, over time, presidential power has risen and congressional power declined to a point where the United States has a near imperial presidency. Reexamining the status of presidential power in the post-9/11 world, Dr. Genovese considers the alternatives, if any, to the current model of presidential power. A Presidential Nation is perfect for students of American Presidency and Federal Governance courses and anyone interested in the changing authority of the American political system.
A Presidents Story
by Brad McKimAt the dawn of the 19th century, fourteen men will succeed George Washington in leading the young United States. As their personal tales intertwine and overlap with one another on their way to the Presidency, they craft an election system that is, at once, chaotic and orderly. Their ambition forces them to join political parties even as those parties’ agendas are not always clear. Their supporters engage in ever more vicious public and private campaigns. They rely on political favors and a partisan press to win votes and to solicit compromise. And yet, they follow Washington’s example and hand over power after each election to the newest victor, typically with unprecedented grace and humility. These are the practices that survive, even as a Civil War looms that threatens to destroy virtually everything else about the young country.
A Primate's Memoir: A Neuroscientist's Unconventional Life Among the Baboons (Thorndike Press Large Print Adventure Ser.)
by Robert M. SapolskyIn the tradition of Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey, Robert Sapolsky, a foremost science writer and recipient of a MacArthur Genius Grant, tells the mesmerizing story of his twenty-one years in remote Kenya with a troop of savanna baboons."I had never planned to become a savanna baboon when I grew up; instead, I had always assumed I would become a mountain gorilla,&” writes Robert Sapolsky in this witty and riveting chronicle of a scientist&’s coming-of-age in Africa. An exhilarating account of Sapolsky&’s twenty-one-year study of a troop of rambunctious baboons in Kenya, A Primate&’s Memoir interweaves serious scientific observations with wry commentary about the challenges and pleasures of living in the wilds of the Serengeti—for man and beast alike. Over two decades, Sapolsky survives culinary atrocities, gunpoint encounters, and a surreal kidnapping, while witnessing the encroachment of the tourist mentality on Africa. As he conducts unprecedented physiological research on wild primates, he becomes enamored of his subjects—unique and compelling characters in their own right—and he returns to them summer after summer, until tragedy finally prevents him. By turns hilarious and poignant, A Primate&’s Memoir is a magnum opus from one of our foremost science writers.
A Primer for Forgetting: Getting Past the Past
by Lewis Hyde“One of our true superstars of nonfiction” (David Foster Wallace), Lewis Hyde offers a playful and inspiring defense of forgetfulness by exploring the healing effect it can have on the human psyche. We live in a culture that prizes memory—how much we can store, the quality of what’s preserved, how we might better document and retain the moments of our life while fighting off the nightmare of losing all that we have experienced. But what if forgetfulness were seen not as something to fear—be it in the form of illness or simple absentmindedness—but rather as a blessing, a balm, a path to peace and rebirth? A Primer for Forgetting is a remarkable experiment in scholarship, autobiography, and social criticism by the author of the classics The Gift and Trickster Makes This World. It forges a new vision of forgetfulness by assembling fragments of art and writing from the ancient world to the modern, weighing the potential boons forgetfulness might offer the present moment as a creative and political force. It also turns inward, using the author’s own life and memory as a canvas upon which to extol the virtues of a concept too long taken as an evil. Drawing material from Hesiod to Jorge Luis Borges to Elizabeth Bishop to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, from myths and legends to very real and recent traumas both personal and historical, A Primer for Forgetting is a unique and remarkable synthesis that only Lewis Hyde could have produced.
A Prince of Our Disorder
by John E. MackWhen this Pulitzer Prize-winning biography first appeared in 1976, it rescued T. E. Lawrence from the mythologizing that had seemed to be his fate. In it, John Mack humanely and objectively explores the relationship between Lawrence's inner life and his historically significant actions. Extensive interviews, far-flung correspondence, access to War Office dispatches and unpublished letters provide the basis for Mack's sensitive investigation of the psychiatric dimensions of Lawrence's personality. In addition, Mack examines the pertinent history, politics, and sociology of the time in order to weigh the real forces with which Lawrence contended and which impinged upon him.
A Princely Knave: A Novel of Perkin Warbeck
by Philip LindsayA historical novel inspired by the notorious pretender to the English throne who risked all to be known as Richard Plantagenet. Was Perkin Warbeck, as he claimed, Richard of York, son of King Edward IV, and the rightful heir to the throne won by Henry VII on Bosworth Field? Or was he simply another unscrupulous adventurer who reveled in the threat of rebellion, played for high stakes, and lost? This riveting novel explores one of the most fascinating personalities in English history, describing Perkin Warbeck’s futile attempt to rouse the West Country against the king and his inevitable fate, as well as the tragic story of his wife, Lady Katherine Gordon—who, at the same time in love with and half-despising her husband, risked her freedom for him and found herself drawn remorselessly into the grim drama.