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Digital Divisions: How Schools Create Inequality in the Tech Era
by Matthew H. RafalowIn the digital age, schools are a central part of a nationwide effort to make access to technology more equitable, so that all young people, regardless of identity or background, have the opportunity to engage with the technologies that are essential to modern life. Most students, however, come to school with digital knowledge they’ve already acquired from the range of activities they participate in with peers online. Yet, teachers, as Matthew H. Rafalow reveals in Digital Divisions, interpret these technological skills very differently based on the race and class of their student body. While teachers praise affluent White students for being “innovative” when they bring preexisting and sometimes disruptive tech skills into their classrooms, less affluent students of color do not receive such recognition for the same behavior. Digital skills exhibited by middle class, Asian American students render them “hackers,” while the creative digital skills of working-class, Latinx students are either ignored or earn them labels troublemakers. Rafalow finds in his study of three California middle schools that students of all backgrounds use digital technology with sophistication and creativity, but only the teachers in the school serving predominantly White, affluent students help translate the digital skills students develop through their digital play into educational capital. Digital Divisions provides an in-depth look at how teachers operate as gatekeepers for students’ potential, reacting differently according to the race and class of their student body. As a result, Rafalow shows us that the digital divide is much more than a matter of access: it’s about how schools perceive the value of digital technology and then use them day-to-day.
An Informal History of the Hugos: A Personal Look Back at the Hugo Awards
by Jo WaltonEngaged, passionate, and consistently entertaining, An Informal History of the Hugos is a book about the renowned science fiction award for the many who enjoyed Jo Walton's previous collection of writing from Tor.com, the Locus Award-winning What Makes This Book So Great.The Hugo Awards, named after pioneer science-fiction publisher Hugo Gernsback, and voted on by members of the World Science Fiction Society, have been presented since 1953. They are widely considered the most prestigious awards in science fiction.Between 2010 and 2013, Jo Walton wrote a series of posts for Tor.com, surveying the Hugo finalists and winners from the award's inception up to the year 2000. Her contention was that each year's full set of finalists generally tells a meaningful story about the state of science fiction at that time.Walton's cheerfully opinionated and vastly well-informed posts provoked valuable conversation among the field's historians. Now these posts, lightly revised, have been gathered into this book, along with a small selection of the comments posted by SF luminaries such as Rich Horton, Gardner Dozois, and David G. Hartwell."A remarkable guided tour through the field—a kind of nonfiction companion to Among Others. It's very good. It's great."—New York Times bestselling author Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing on What Makes This Book So GreatAt the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
The 3rd Woman: A Thriller
by Jonathan FreedlandThe first two murders went unnoticed. The third will change everything. . . . She can't save her sister.Journalist Madison Webb is obsessed with exposing lies and corruption. But she never thought she'd be investigating her own sister's murder. She can't trust the police. Madison refuses to accept the official line that Abigail's death was an isolated crime. She uncovers evidence that suggests her sister was the third victim in a series of killings hushed up as part of a major conspiracy.She can expose the truth. In a United States that now bows before the People's Republic of China, corruption is rife—the government dictates what the "truth" is. With her life on the line, Madison must give up her quest for justice—or face the consequences. . . .
Don't Get Scrooged: How to Thrive in a World Full of Obnoxious, Incompetent, Arrogant, and Downright Mean-Spirited People
by Richard CarlsonInside find helpful advice, such as:Take a Vacation, Not a Guilt-TripDon't Get "Should Upon"Hades or Homecoming?Opt In- or Out-of Family EventsQuit Being Your MotherBan Worry from Your HolidaysIt's Not Daytona—You're Not Jeff GordonDon't Try to Cook Tailgating TurkeysDon't Get Scrooged is a jewel of a handbook on how to avoid, appease, and even win over the Scrooges who haunt your holidays. Whether it's the salesclerk who ignores you in favor of her cell phone, the customer who knowingly jumps ahead of you in line at Starbucks, the unnaturally irritable boss down the hall, or the in-laws who invite themselves (every year) for a two-week stay at your house, you will always need to deal with Scrooges, grumps, uninvited guests, sticks-in-the-mud, and supreme party poopers. Learning to handle them whenever and wherever they appear is not just optional—it's essential.
Double Vision: A Novel
by Pat BarkerDouble Vision from Pat Barker, a gripping novel about the effects of violence on the journalists and artists who have dedicated themselves to representing itIn the aftermath of September 11, 2001, reeling from the effects of reporting from New York City, two British journalists, a writer, Stephen Sharkey, and a photographer, Ben Frobisher, part ways. Stephen, facing the almost simultaneous discovery that his wife is having an affair, returns to England shattered; he divorces and quits his job. Ben returns to his vocation. He follows the war on terror to Afghanistan and is killed. Stephen retreats to a cottage in the country to write a book about violence, and what he sees as the reporting journalist's or photographer's complicity in it; it is a book that will build in large part on Ben's writing and photography. Ben's widow, Kate, a sculptor, lives nearby, and as she and Stephen learn about each other their world speedily shrinks, in pleasing but also disturbing ways; Stephen's maid, with whom he has begun an affair, was once lovers with Kate's new studio assistant, an odd local man named Peter. As these connections become clear, Peter's strange behavior around Stephen and Kate begins to take on threatening implications. The sinister events that take place in this small town, so far from the theaters of war Stephen has retreated from, will force him to act instinctively, violently, and to face his most painful revelations about himself.
Imagine Life with a Well-Behaved Dog: A 3-Step Positive Dog-Training Program
by Julie A. BjellandA comprehensive dog training and puppy training program that offers the added benefit of one-on-one online advice from the authorDo you consider your dog part of the family? Most dog guardians do. But just like children, dogs need structure. Structure to show him that he shouldn't jump on every person who enters your house, or urinate indoors, or drag you down the road when you walk him. In Imagine Life with a Well-Behaved Dog, Julie Bjelland offers all the information you need to make your dog confident, secure and able to understand and follow rules. Drawing on years of experience, Julie has created a thorough guide that teaches basic training, how to communicate with your dog, and how to prevent and solve behavior problems. She discusses how to train your puppy and how to train adult dogs, even special needs dogs, and tells how to choose the right dog for your family and how to integrate him into a home with kids, other dogs, or cats.Because each dog's situation is unique, Julie is offering readers exclusive one-on-one guidance via her website, for up to 60 days. Here dog training, often very expensive, is now affordable and accessible to a broad audience. Julie's down-to-earth, uncomplicated advice is a welcome solution for a busy dog guardian and aims to change the way people communicate with, and care for, their dogs forever.
The Pittsburgh Neighborhood Guidebook (Belt Neighborhood Guidebooks)
by Ben GwinExplore Pittsburgh through poetry and essays with this probing guide to the Steel City&’s diverse locales. Pittsburgh is made up of more than ninety different neighborhoods. And while The Pittsburgh Neighborhood Guidebook can&’t detail every last one of them, it does its best, exploring the contrasts and contradictions that define the city&’s neighborhoods and how they play out through the personal narratives of those who live there. Edited by Ben Gwin, in these pages you&’ll find stories about: · Old Lawrenceville, Garfield, and Squirrel Hill · Swisshelm Park and Oakland in East Pittsburgh · Crafton-Ingram, Thorn Street, and the bars of Dormont · And much more In over thirty poems and essays by lifetime residents, transplants, and transients, The Pittsburgh Neighborhood Guidebook offers a portrait of a city that&’s constantly being hailed for its renaissance but that is still marked by the old remnants of wealth inequality, gentrification, and racism. The newest installment in Belt&’s Neighborhood Guidebook Series, The Pittsburgh Neighborhood Guidebook is a book for anyone who thinks they know Pittsburgh, or just wishes they did.
Mother Is a Verb: An Unconventional History
by Sarah KnottWelcome to a work of history unlike any other.Mothering is as old as human existence. But how has this most essential experience changed over time and cultures? What is the history of maternity—the history of pregnancy, birth, the encounter with an infant? Can one capture the historical trail of mothers? How?In Mother Is a Verb, the historian Sarah Knott creates a genre all her own in order to craft a new kind of historical interpretation. Blending memoir and history and building from anecdote, her book brings the past and the present viscerally alive. It is at once intimate and expansive, lyrical and precise.As a history, Mother Is a Verb draws on the terrain of Britain and North America from the seventeenth century to the close of the twentieth. Knott searches among a range of past societies, from those of Cree and Ojibwe women to tenant farmers in Appalachia; from enslaved people on South Carolina rice plantations to tenement dwellers in New York City and London’s East End. She pores over diaries, letters, court records, medical manuals, items of clothing. And she explores and documents her own experiences.As a memoir, Mother Is a Verb becomes a method of asking new questions and probing lost pasts in order to historicize the smallest, even the most mundane of human experiences. Is there a history to interruption, to the sound of an infant’s cry, to sleeplessness? Knott finds answers not through the telling of grand narratives, but through the painstaking accumulation of a trellis of anecdotes. And all the while, we can feel the child on her hip.
How to Spot a Bastard by His Star Sign: The Ultimate Horrorscope
by Adèle Lang Susi RajahThe Ultimate HorrorscopeJoin the women around the world whose love lives have been transformed by the astro-guide that pulls no punches when it comes to the dark side of men and their star signs.Use it to... -Deride, ridicule, and annoy the hell out of men - Speed up the dating process by using star sign elimination - Avoid dating complete scum - Keep current boyfriends/husbands in their places - Keep conversation going at dinner parties - And much, much more!Discover who you are destined not to date...A match made in heaven or the relationship from hell? Find out which zodiac couplings are the least likely to result in derision, depression, divorce, or death! - Are you good enough for a LEO? - Can you put up with PISCES? - Will you get along with GEMINI? - Do you have the skills necessary to cope with VIRGO? Put yourself to the test with our 12 compatibility quizzes - each one carefully designed to ensure you know exactly which bastards to avoid in the future.Now men will cringe when you ask them what their star signs are!
Rust Belt Chicago: An Anthology (Belt City Anthologies)
by Martha Bayne&“A lively grab bag of essays, fiction and poetry that reads at times like a who&’s who of contemporary Chicago writers/residents&”(Chicago Tribune). Chicago is a city built on meat, railroads, and steel, on opportunity and exploitation. But its identity has long involved so much more than manufacturing. Today, the city continues to lure new residents from around the world, and from across a region rocked by recession and deindustrialization.Rust Belt Chicago collects essays, fiction, and poetry from more than fifty writers who speak directly to the concerns the city shares with the Midwest at large, and the elements that set it apart. With contributions from writers like Aleksandar Hemon, Kathleen Rooney, and Zoe Zolbrod, here you&’ll find stories about: Buying Bread on Devon Street The Cantinas of Pilsen Bike commutes through the North Side Adventures on the El. Writing with affection, frustration, anger, and joy, the writers in this collection capture all the harmony and dissonance that define one cacophonous place.
Helpless: A Novel
by Barbara GowdyFrom the internationally acclaimed author of The White Bone and The Romantic, a haunting and suspenseful novel of abduction and obsessive loveNine-year-old Rachel Fox has the face of an angel, a heart-stopping luminosity that strikes all who meet her. Her single mother, Celia, working at a video store by day and a piano bar by night, is not always around to shield her daughter from the attention—both benign and sinister—that her beauty draws. Attention from model agencies, for example, or from Ron, a small-appliance repairman who, having seen Rachel once, is driven to see her again and again.When a summer blackout plunges the city into darkness and confusion, Rachel is taken from her home. A full-scale search begins, but days pass with no solid clues, only a phone call Celia receives from a woman whose voice she has heard before but cannot place. And as Celia fights her terror and Rachel starts to trust in her abductor's kindness, the only other person who knows where she is wavers between loyalty to the captor and saving the child. Will Rachel be found before her abductor's urge to protect and cherish turns to something altogether less innocent?Tapping into the fear that lies just below the surface of contemporary city life, Barbara Gowdy draws on her trademark empathy and precision to create a portrait of love at its most consuming and ambiguous and to uncover the volatile point at which desire gives way to the unthinkable.
Who Governs?: Presidents, Public Opinion, and Manipulation (Chicago Studies In American Politics Ser.)
by James N. Druckman Lawrence R. JacobsAmerica’s model of representational government rests on the premise that elected officials respond to the opinions of citizens. This is a myth, however, not a reality, according to James N. Druckman and Lawrence R. Jacobs. In Who Governs?, Druckman and Jacobs combine existing research with novel data from US presidential archives to show that presidents make policy by largely ignoring the views of most citizens in favor of affluent and well-connected political insiders. Presidents treat the public as pliable, priming it to focus on personality traits and often ignoring it on policies that fail to become salient. Melding big debates about democratic theory with existing research on American politics and innovative use of the archives of three modern presidents—Johnson, Nixon, and Reagan—Druckman and Jacobs deploy lively and insightful analysis to show that the conventional model of representative democracy bears little resemblance to the actual practice of American politics. The authors conclude by arguing that polyarchy and the promotion of accelerated citizen mobilization and elite competition can improve democratic responsiveness. An incisive study of American politics and the flaws of representative government, this book will be warmly welcomed by readers interested in US politics, public opinion, democratic theory, and the fecklessness of American leadership and decision-making.
Proceed to Check Out (Phoenix Poets)
by Alan ShapiroAward-winning poet Alan Shapiro offers a new collection of poems reflecting on mortality and finitude. Alan Shapiro’s fourteenth collection of poetry, Proceed to Check Out, is a kind of summing up, or stock-taking, by an aging poet, of his precarious place in a world dominated by the ever-accelerating pace of technological innovation, political disruption, personal loss, and racial strife. These poems take on fundamental subjects—like the nature of time and consciousness and how or why we become who we are—but Shapiro presses them into becoming urgent and timely. Employing idiomatic range and formal variety, Shapiro’s poems move through recurring dreams, the coercions of childhood, and the mysterious connections of mind and matter, pleasure and memory. They meet an abiding need to find empathy and understanding in even the most challenging places—amid disaffection, public discord, and estrangement. His grasp of contemporary life—in all its insidious violence and beauty—is distinct, comprehensive, and profound.
Risky Medicine: Our Quest to Cure Fear and Uncertainty
by Robert Aronowitz&“A thoughtful and compelling book that focuses attention on the extent to which risk avoidance characterizes modern medicine.&”—Rick Mathis, Health Affairs Will ever-more sensitive screening tests for cancer lead to longer, better lives? Will anticipating and trying to prevent the future complications of chronic disease lead to better health? Not always, says Robert Aronowitz in Risky Medicine. In fact, it often is hurting us. Exploring the transformation of health care over the last several decades that has led doctors to become more attentive to treating risk than treating symptoms or curing disease, Aronowitz shows how many aspects of the health system and clinical practice are now aimed at risk reduction and risk control. He argues that this transformation has been driven in part by the pharmaceutical industry, which benefits by promoting its products to the larger percentage of the population at risk for a particular illness, rather than the smaller percentage who are actually affected by it. Meanwhile, for those suffering from chronic illness, the experience of risk and disease has been conflated by medical practitioners who focus on anticipatory treatment as much if not more than on relieving suffering caused by disease. Drawing on such controversial examples as HPV vaccines, cancer screening programs, and the cancer survivorship movement, Aronowitz argues that patients and their doctors have come to believe, perilously, that far too many medical interventions are worthwhile because they promise to control our fears and reduce uncertainty. Risky Medicine is a timely call for a rebalancing of health care to restore an emphasis on the actual curing of and caring for people suffering from disease.
Captivology: The Science of Capturing People's Attention
by Ben ParrThe former editor of Mashable and cofounder of DominateFund examines the psychological phenomena that captivate our attention—and how we can leverage them to draw and retain attention for our ideas, work, companies, and more.Whether you’re an artist or a salesperson, a teacher or an engineer, a marketer or a parent—putting the spotlight on your ideas, insights, projects and products requires a deep understanding of the science of attention. In Captivology, award-winning journalist and entrepreneur Ben Parr explains how and why the mind pays attention to some events or people—and not others—and presents seven captivation triggers—techniques guaranteed to help you capture and retain the attention of friends, colleagues, customers, fans, and even strangers.Parr combines the latest research on attention with interviews with more than fifty scientists and visionaries—Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, film director Steven Soderbergh, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, magician Jon Armstrong, New York Times bestselling author Susan Cain, Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto, founder of Reddit Alexis Ohanian, and more—who have successfully brought their ideas, projects, companies, and products to the forefront of cultural consciousness. The result is an insightful and practical book that will change how you assign jobs to your kids or staff, craft a multi-million dollar ad campaign, deliver your next presentation, attract users to your product, or convince the world to support your cause.
Love the Wine You're With: A Novel
by Kim GruenenfelderThree best friends decide to open a wine bar in Echo Park LA, where they encounter the trials and tribulations of dating, love, and life in Kim Gruenenfelder's Love the Wine You're With."Balancing moments of profound wisdom with pithy observations, Love the Wine You’re With will brighten your day faster than a glass of chardonnay.” —Jennifer Lancaster, New York Times bestselling author of Bitter Is the New Black and The Tao of Martha“Gruenenfelder’s women are smart, likable and good to each other.” —Kirkus ReviewsJessie is finally about to realize her life-long goal of owning her own house, the first step to a wonderful marriage, kids, and life with her boyfriend of three years, Kevin; except after they find the perfect place, Kevin suddenly gets cold feet.Nat is having a passionate affair with her gorgeous British boss Marc—unfortunately, he’s married. Now what? Holly is an actress who still waits tables to pay the bills, and who is coping with the recent loss of her father. A particularly bad audition, where she snaps and tells off a big director, leads her to wonder what to do when you stop loving what you do. (And also what to do about her hot neighbor. Because, you know, hot neighbor.)After each girl finishes a particularly awful workday, the three friends meet at their favorite wine bar, which has been sold by its owner for a huge profit and will close that night. In a moment of tipsy brazenness, Jessie suggests that the three of them open their own wine bar in the gentrifying Echo Park area of Los Angeles. An unapologetically girly place for good wine and good friends—which leads to a challenge for each woman: how do you fix a life that’s not actually broken, but needs an upgrade?
Frozen: A Play
by Bryony Lavery"[A] big, brave, compassionate play about grief, revenge, forgiveness and bearing the unbearable." --The GuardianOne evening, ten-year-old Rhona goes missing. Her mother, Nancy, retreats into a state of frozen hope. Agnetha, an academic, comes to England to research a thesis entitled "Serial Killings: A Forgivable Act?" Then there's Ralph, a loner with a bit of a record who's looking for some distraction . . . Drawn together by horrific circumstances, these three embark upon a long, dark journey that finally curves upward into the light.
Statesmanship and Party Government: A Study of Burke and Bolingbroke
by Harvey C. MansfieldIn this incisive look at early modern views of party politics, Harvey C. Mansfield examines the pamphlet war between Edmund Burke and the followers of Henry St. John, First Viscount Bolingbroke during the mid-eighteenth century. In response to works by Bolingbroke published posthumously, Burke created his most eloquent advocacy of the party system. Taking an interdisciplinary approach to the material, Mansfield shows that present-day parties must be understood in the light of the history of party government. The complicated organization and the public actions of modern parties are the result, he contends, and not the cause of a great change in opinion about parties. Mansfield points out that while parties have always existed, the party government that we know today is possible only because parties are now considered respectable. In Burke’s day, however, they were thought by detractors to be a cancer in a free polity. Even many supporters of the parties viewed them as a dangerous instrument, only to be used cautiously by statesmen in dire times. Burke, however, was an early champion of the party system in Britain and made his arguments with a clear-eyed realism. In Statesmanship and Party Government, Mansfield provides a skillful evaluation of Burke’s writings and sheds light present-day party politics through a profound understanding of the historical background of the their inception.
How to Be a Patient: The Essential Guide to Navigating the World of Modern Medicine
by Sana GoldbergFrom registered nurse and public health advocate Sana Goldberg, RN, a timely, accessible, and comprehensive handbook to navigating common medical situations. From the routine to the unexpected, How to Be a Patient is your ultimate guide to better healthcare.Did you know that patients have statistically better outcomes when their surgeon is female? That you can mark-up an informed consent sheet before you sign it, or get second opinions on CTs and MRIs? That there’s a blue book for healthcare procedures, or an algorithm to decide between ER, Urgent Care, and waiting-until-Monday?In How to Be a Patient, nurse and public health advocate Sana Goldberg walks readers through the complicated and uncertain medical landscape, illuminating a path to better care.Warm and disarmingly honest, Goldberg’s advice is as expert as it is accessible. In the face of an epidemic of brusque, impersonal care she empowers readers with the information and tools to come to good decisions with their providers and sidestep the challenging realities of modern medicine.With sections like When All is Well, When It’s An Emergency, When It’s Your Person, and When You Have to Stand Up to the Industry, along with appendices to help track family history, avoid pointless medical tests, and choose when and where to undergo a procedure, How to Be a Patient is an invaluable and essential guide for a new generation of patients.
Carry On: A Story of Resilience, Redemption, and an Unlikely Family
by Lisa Fenn“An incredible life-affirming story” about an unexpected, lifechanging relationship between an ESPN producer and two disabled, inner-city athletes (Family Circle). When award-winning ESPN producer Lisa Fenn returned to her hometown for a story about two wrestlers at one of Cleveland’s toughest public high schools, she had no idea that the trip would change her life. Both young men were disadvantaged students with significant physical disabilities. Dartanyon Crockett was legally blind as a result of Leber’s disease; Leroy Sutton lost both his legs at eleven, when he was run over by a train. Brought together by wrestling, they had developed a brother-like bond as they worked to overcome their disabilities.After forming a profound connection with Dartanyon and Leroy, Fenn realized she couldn't just walk away when filming ended; these boys had had to overcome the odds too many times. Instead, Fenn dedicated herself to ensuring their success long after the reporting was finished and the story aired—and an unlikely family of three was formed.The years ahead would be fraught with complex challenges, but Fenn stayed with the boys every step of the way—teaching them essential life skills, helping them heal old wounds and traumatic pasts, and providing the first steady and consistent support system they’d ever had.This powerful memoir is one of love, hope, faith, and strength—a story about an unusual family and the courage to carry on, even in the most extraordinary circumstances.“A poignant memoir.” —Sports Illustrated“A profoundly moving memoir about two boys who become men in the face of life’s toughest challenges:. We see the many ways in which one person can carry another, and we are inspired to do the same.” —Tim Howard, New York Times–bestselling author of The Keeper“‘An astonishingly beautiful tale . . . like The Blind Side or Same Kind of Different As Me, Lisa Fenn’s work forces us to reframe our definition of family.” —Kevin Salwen, author of The Power of Half“A heartfelt memoir that grips you from the first page and pulls at your soul until the end” —Steve Eubanks, New York Times–bestselling author of All American
Secrets to Seducing a Scot: Secrets To Seducing A Scot And Lessons In Loving A Laird (Knaves of Scotland #1)
by Michelle MarcosMeet the Highland Knaves, an infamous clan of outcast Scots who live for justice, lust for freedom, and long for lovers bold enough to tame them...A DIAMOND IN THE ROUGHTorn from a pampered life of luxury and thrust into the midst of a Scottish revolution, Serena Marsh is shocked to meet the brutish man who has been assigned to protect her from the rebels trying to kill her—Malcolm Slayter, the most rugged, most dangerous, and most undeniably attractive man she's ever encountered...THE KNAVE OF HEARTSMalcolm has no loyalties, no country, and no sense of propriety. Hired by her father, Malcolm agrees to protect the lovely lass for a fee. But when Serena challenges Malcolm's authority—and engages him in a risky flirtation—all bets are off. When the battle heats up, it's anyone's guess as to who's seducing whom...and who'll surrender first.
The Emerald Light in the Air: Stories
by Donald AntrimNothing is simple for the men and women in Donald Antrim's stories. As they do the things we all do—bum a cigarette at a party, stroll with a girlfriend down Madison Avenue, take a kid to the zoo—they're confronted with their own uncooperative selves. These artists, writers, lawyers, teachers, and actors make fools of themselves, spiral out of control, have delusions of grandeur, despair, and find it hard to imagine a future. They talk, they listen, they hope, they dream. They look for communion in a city, both beautiful and menacing, which can promise so much and yield so little. But they are hungry for life. They want to love and be loved. These stories, all published in The New Yorker over the last fifteen years, make it clear that Antrim is one of America's most important writers. His work has been praised by his significant contemporaries, including Jonathan Franzen, Thomas Pynchon, Jeffrey Eugenides, and George Saunders, who described The Verificationist as "one of the most pleasure-giving, funny, perverse, complicated, addictive novels of the last twenty years." And here is Antrim's best book yet: the story collection that reveals him as a master of the form.
Johnny Mad Dog: A Novel
by Emmanuel DongalaLife During Wartime, As Seen Through the Eyes of Two Congolese Teenagers Set amid the chaos of West Africa's civil wars, Emmanuel Dongala's striking novel tells the story of two teenagers growing up while rival ethnic groups fight for control of their country.At age sixteen, Johnny is a member of the Death Dealers, a rebel faction bent on seizing power. Even as he is drawn into the rebels' program of terror, Johnny Mad Dog, as he calls himself, retains his youthful exuberance--searching for girls, good times, and adventure. Sixteen-year-old Laokolé, for her part, dreams of finishing high school and becoming an engineer, but as rogue militias prepare to sack the city, she is forced to leave home with her mother and brother--and then finds herself alone and running from the likes of Johnny.Acclaimed in France, Johnny Mad Dog is a coming-of-age story like no other; Dongala's masterful use of dual narrators makes the novel an unusually vivid and affecting tale of the struggle to survive--and to retain one's humanity--in terrifying times.
Dear Elizabeth: A Play in Letters from Elizabeth Bishop to Robert Lowell and Back Again
by Sarah RuhlFrom playwright Sarah Ruhl, Dear Elizabeth is a moving, innovative play based on one of the greatest correspondences in literary history--the letters of Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop. From 1947 to 1977, Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop exchanged more than four hundred letters. Describing the writing of their poems, their travel and daily illnesses, the pyrotechnics of their romantic relationships, and the profound affection they had for each other, these missives are the most intimate record available of both poets and one of the greatest correspondences in American literature. The playwright Sarah Ruhl fell in love with these letters and set herself an unusual challenge: to turn this thirty-year exchange into a stage play, and to bring to life the friendship of two writers who were rarely even in the same country. As innovative as it is moving, Dear Elizabeth gives voice to a conversation that lived mostly in writing, illuminating some of the finest poems of the twentieth century and the minds that produced them.
Supersurvivors: The Surprising Link Between Suffering and Success
by David B. Feldman Lee Daniel KravetzStarting where resiliency studies leave off, two psychologists explore the science of remarkable accomplishment in the wake of trauma, revealing the surprising principles that allow people to transform their lives and achieve extraordinary things.Over four billion people worldwide will survive a trauma during their lives. Some will experience severe post-traumatic stress. Most will eventually recover and return to life as normal. But sometimes, survivors do more than bounce back. Sometimes they bounce forward.These are the Supersurvivors—individuals who not only rebuild their lives, but also thrive and grow in ways never previously imagined. Beginning where resilience ends, David B. Feldman and Lee Daniel Kravetz look beyond the tenets of traditional psychology for a deeper understanding of the strength of the human spirit. What they have found flies in the face of conventional wisdom—that positive thinking may hinder more than help; that perceived support can be just as good as the real thing; and that realistic expectations may be a key to great success.They introduce the humble but powerful notion of grounded hope as the foundation for overcoming trauma. The authors interviewed dozens of men and women whose stories serve as the counterpoint to the latest scientific research. Feldman and Kravetz then brilliantly weave these extraordinary narratives with new science, creating an emotionally compelling and thought-provoking look at what is possible in the face of human tragedy. Supersurvivors will reset our thinking about how we deal with challenges, no matter how big or small.