- Table View
- List View
Bright Colours from the Past: The History, Chemistry, Characterisation and Application of Synthetic Dyes Between 1856 and 1914 (Cultural Heritage Science)
by Matthijs de Keijzer Maarten R. van BommelThe invention of Mauveine by Perkin in 1856 led to a revolution in the world of textile dyeing. In the second half of the 19th century, natural dyes were quickly replaced by newly developed synthetic dyes which resulted in a bright palette of colours. The synthetic dyes were not only cheaper to produce, but also easier to apply on textiles due to new dyeing mechanisms. As a result, production costs decreased tremendously and brilliantly dyed textiles became available to the larger public. The introduction of synthetic dyes had a strong impact in fashion; in addition, these colourants were also used as stains on furniture, as inks and in paints. In this publication, the development of these vivid colourants is presented. It brings together information about the history of synthetic dyes, including the first attempts, the so-called semi-synthetic dyes, and presenting the most relevant dyes and dye classes, such as nitro dyes, tri-arylmethanes, azo dyes, xanthenes, sulfur dyes, synthetic alizarin and synthetic indigo. It contains a wealth of information regarding the numerous synonyms, trade names, manufacturers and patents. International trade and competition, which was fierce, are discussed. The chemistry behind the synthetic dyeing is explained, including new dyeing technologies developed. The application of dyes and their fastness properties are also presented. An overview of analytical techniques used for characterisation is given. Many case studies are included, expressing the importance of the dyes and the creativity of mankind when applying these colourants. As such, this publication can be seen as a colourful journey through history, relevant for conservators, curators, historians, chemists and all who are interested in the history and development of synthetic dyes.
Differential Geometry: Foundations of Cauchy-Riemann and Pseudohermitian Geometry (Book I-C) (Infosys Science Foundation Series)
by Sorin Dragomir Mohammad Hasan Shahid Falleh R. Al-Solamy Elisabetta BarlettaThis book, Differential Geometry: Foundations of Cauchy–Riemann and Pseudohermitian Geometry (Book I-C), is the third in a series of four books presenting a choice of topics, among fundamental and more advanced, in Cauchy–Riemann (CR) and pseudohermitian geometry, such as Lewy operators, CR structures and the tangential CR equations, the Levi form, Tanaka–Webster connections, sub-Laplacians, pseudohermitian sectional curvature, and Kohn–Rossi cohomology of the tangential CR complex. Recent results on submanifolds of Hermitian and Sasakian manifolds are presented, from the viewpoint of the geometry of the second fundamental form of an isometric immersion. The book has two souls, those of Complex Analysis versus Riemannian geometry, and attempts to fill in the gap among the two. The other three books of the series are: Differential Geometry: Manifolds, Bundles, Characteristic Classes (Book I-A) Differential Geometry: Riemannian Geometry and Isometric Immersions (Book I-B) Differential Geometry: Advanced Topics in Cauchy–Riemann and Pseudohermitian Geometry (Book I-D) The four books belong to an ampler book project &“Differential Geometry, Partial Differential Equations, and Mathematical Physics&”, by the same authors, and aim to demonstrate how certain portions of differential geometry (<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-farea
Social Intelligence: The New Frontier of Integrating Human Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence in Social Space
by Yang Zhang Dong Wang Lanyu ShangGiven the rise of AI and the advent of online collaboration opportunities (e.g., social media, crowdsourcing), emerging research has started to investigate the integration of AI and human intelligence, especially in a collaborative social context. This creates unprecedented challenges and opportunities in the field of Social Intelligence (SI), where the goal is to explore the collective intelligence of both humans and machines by understanding their complementary strengths and interactions in the social space. In this book, a set of novel human-centered AI techniques are presented to address the challenges of social intelligence applications, including multimodal approaches, robust and generalizable frameworks, and socially empowered explainable AI designs. The book then presents several human-AI collaborative learning frameworks that jointly integrate the strengths of crowd wisdom and AI to address the limitations inherent in standalone solutions. The book also emphasizes pressing societal issues in the realm of social intelligence, such as fairness, bias, and privacy. Real-world case studies from different applications in social intelligence are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed solutions in achieving substantial performance gains in various aspects, such as prediction accuracy, model generalizability and explainability, algorithmic fairness, and system robustness.
Electricity and Magnetism: New Formulation by Introduction of Superconductivity (Undergraduate Lecture Notes in Physics)
by Teruo MatsushitaThis comprehensive textbook covers electricity and magnetism in great depth, with the 3rd edition offering updated descriptions of electromagnetic phenomena to help students achieve a more thorough understanding of the subject. In the 1st edition, superconductivity was emphasized, a focus that continued in the 2nd edition, which strengthened the E-B analogy by comparing equipotential surfaces in electricity to equivector potential surfaces in magnetism. The 3rd edition introduces the concept of mean magnetic flux, which aids in determining inductance from magnetic energy. It also demonstrates how vector potential can be directly used to calculate electromotive force. A unique phenomenon is presented when applying current to a superconducting transmission line, where the induced electric field's vector potential is perpendicular to the current. This deviation from common equations can still be explained through Maxwell&’s theory, leading to the correct solution. For a more in-depth grasp of electricity and magnetism, students are encouraged to use Exercises in Electricity and Magnetism by the same author, which offers 400 practice problems. This textbook is ideal for advanced students of physics, astrophysics, or engineering, as well as a valuable reference for professional scientists.
The Power of Scent: How Smells Seduce and Heal
by Hanns Hatt Regine DeeNothing is possible without the nose! We breathe, smell and taste with it. Smells warn us of dangers, and scents can awaken memories and feelings. All without including the mind. The nose decides who we find seductive or who we simply can't smell. We often only realize how important smell is when illnesses like corona rob us of this sense. Everyone's scent preferences are individual. Just like our own scent, which sends out messages and helps us find a partner. The exciting thing is: We don't just perceive these messages with our nose; scents have an effect on the whole body. As the latest scientific research has shown, they can also accelerate the healing of wounds, change the heartbeat and improve hair growth and digestion. They also influence the brain: we may become calmer or more active. Even tumor cells react to scents and reduce their growth. Conversely, tumor cells themselves emit odorous substances, which trained dogs can recognize. This book is a translation of the original German edition “Die Lust am Duft” by Hanns Hatt and Regine Dee, published by Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE in 2023. The translation was done with the help of an artificial intelligence machine translation tool. The authors subsequently revised and added new content, and the text was copy-edited to enhance its style.
Vietnam’s Social Mobility of Science and Technology Human Resource: Opportunities and Challenges in the Context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution
by Dao Thanh Truong Dang Kim Khanh Ly Nguyen Thi Quynh AnhThe book adopts a cognitive perspective on social mobility and its management, addressing gaps and paradoxes in developing science and technology (S&T) human resources at both organizational (particularly universities) and national levels in Vietnam, through sociological and policy approaches. It explores key themes such as social mobility theory, talent attraction challenges in the fourth industrial revolution, the revolution&’s impact on mobility, various types of mobility, influencing factors, and strategies for managing mobility. By understanding these "general laws of social mobility," researchers and policymakers can refine theories on brain circulation, talent attraction, and mobility flow management. Each chapter fosters multi-dimensional dialogue and stakeholder engagement in managing Vietnam's S&T human resources within social mobility and industrial revolutions. The book emphasizes "community knowledge" and "knowledge at large", shifting the focus beyond the individual and calling for deeper dialogue within the framework of positive psychology.
Greek Foreign Trade and Finance: The Mixed Blessings of Economic Dependence (Palgrave Studies in Economic History)
by Constantine MichalopoulosThis book examines the role of international trade and finance in the Greek economy since the beginnings of the Greek state two centuries ago to the present day. It focuses on the benefits and challenges of Greece&’s economic dependence on the larger and higher income countries of Western Europe, and in particular the European Union, have played in its economic development. The volume begins by examining Greece&’s links to Europe in the 19th century and its desultory participation in the Latin Monetary Union. Its main focus is the post- World War II period, starting with Greece&’s efforts to establish sustainable economic growth, at a time when the country was facing severe foreign exchange constraints and relied on assistance from the US under the Marshall Plan. It then examines relations between Greece and the European Community, particularly on its efforts to integrate into the European Union, the debt crisis and the reforms and recovery in its aftermath. The book details in accessible and engaging style how the story of Greece&’s economic integration in Europe has involved both successful development but also failures by Greek, Eurozone and IMF policymakers. With valuable historical insights, this book will be of interest to academics and policymakers in Greece, the EU and emerging economies weighing economic integration. It will also be of interest to economic historians and political economists more broadly.
New Challenges of the Global Economy for Business Management: Global Conference on Entrepreneurship and the Economy in an Era of Uncertainty 2024 (Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics)
by Adnan Ul Haque Sebastian Kot Bilal KhalidThis book features a curated selection of works from the Global Conference on Entrepreneurship and Economy in an Era of Uncertainty (EEEU-24), organized by the International Research Center for Higher Education and Business Cooperation based in Poland in collaboration with academic partners: Czestochowa University of Technology, Swinburne University of Technology, Vietnam and King Mongkut&’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, Thailand. It explores the critical role of entrepreneurship in the digital age, emphasizing the necessity of innovation for businesses to withstand global crises such as pandemics and geopolitical tensions that adversely affect the economy. The book aims to illuminate the transformative effect of digital innovation on fostering entrepreneurial ventures and emphasizes the significance of adept organizational management in nurturing and sustaining successful businesses. The book highlights the influential impact of digital innovation on entrepreneurial success and the importance of organizational management in maintaining a thriving business. It covers topics such as the synergy between innovation and entrepreneurship, promoting sustainability in business practices, integrating supply chain and logistics management, and enhancing educational pursuits through entrepreneurial activities. Aimed at providing valuable and practical insights for scholars and practitioners interested in the intersection of innovation, disruption, and entrepreneurship, this book sheds light on how emerging technologies and innovations are reshaping entrepreneurship and corporate governance, thereby enriching the knowledge base for those invested in the evolving dynamics of business and innovation.
The Little Database: A Poetics of Media Formats (Electronic Mediations #64)
by Daniel Scott SnelsonA poetics for reading the everyday objects that populate a hard drive Bespoke online archives like PennSound and Eclipse host an astounding array of &“old media&” artifacts, posing a handcrafted counterpoint to the immense databases aggregated by digital titans like Google and Facebook. In The Little Database, Daniel Scott Snelson argues for the significance of these comparatively &“small&” collections, exploring how digital archives dramatically transform the artifacts they host and how they might help us better understand our own private collections in turn. Examining curated collections such as Textz, UbuWeb, and the Electronic Poetry Center, Snelson explores media-specific works by poets and artists, including William Carlos Williams, Tracie Morris, bill bissett, Nam June Paik, and Vicki Bennett. He develops creative tools and contingent methods for reading cultural data, whether found on the internet or in our own collections of TXT, JPG, MP3, and MOV artifacts, presenting case studies to show how these objects have come to find revised meaning in their digital contexts. Along the way, experimental poetic interludes give readers practical entry points into the creative practice of producing new meanings in any given little database. Inventive and interdisciplinary, The Little Database grapples with the digitized afterlives of cultural objects, showing how the past is continually reconfigured to shape the present. It invites readers to find playful and personal means for unpacking their own data collections, in the process discovering idiosyncratic ways to explore and connect with digital archives. Retail e-book files for this title are screen-reader friendly with images accompanied by short alt text and/or extended descriptions.
Letters to a Starseed: Messages and Activations for Remembering Who You Are and Why You Came Here
by Rebecca CampbellAn inspirational guide for understanding your soul and discovering why it chose to incarnate at the moment it did.From the author of The Starseed Oracle, Rebecca Campbell, a writer, mystic, devotional creative, and visionary who supports hundreds of thousands of people to connect with their soul and weave the sacred back into their everyday life.&“A leading voice in spirituality, Rebecca's work is deep and illuminating.&”— Soul and Spirit MagazineAN ENCOURAGING BOOK TO HELP YOU REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE AND TO PLANT YOURSELF HERETap into the cosmic nature of your soul, discover your purpose and commit to being here on Earth.Letters to a Starseed asks the biggest questions that mystics and philosophers through the ages have been asking: What is the soul, where did it originate and why have we chosen to come here at this time?YOUR SOUL HAD A DREAM, YOUR LIFE IS IT.This is a book for those who at times feel misplaced in the world; those who have always felt a remembering of some other place without quite knowing what that place really is.As a planet, we are waking up to the fact that the ancient prophecies and warnings from the elders and wise ones are no longer predictions, but our waking reality. They are not just coming or even near ... we are living them right now.What we do now matters to the future of this planet. And we all have a role to play.Some Letters to a Starseed Chapter Titles include:· Who Are We and Where Did We Come From?· The Moment of Your Birth· What Is a Starseed?· Ancient Stars in Our Bones· Reaching Back to the Ancients· Here We Are· Returning· The Longing for Home· I Remember· Why Did You Come Here?· There Must Be More Than This· Why Did You Choose to Come?· We All Have a Role to Play, but Only We Know What· Our Role Is· There You Are· I Have Music in My Heart· Finding Our Ground· Starseed Roles· Plant Yourself Here· How to Feel More at Home on Earth· The Challenge of Being Human· Incarnation· The Original Severing· Plant Yourself HereWe are living in a time between myths and stories, and are currently re-weaving the fabric of life on Earth. Throughout this book, Rebecca shares insights and experiences illuminating the connection between our souls, the Earth and the cosmos, to encourage you to commit fully to your incarnation, embrace your human experience and plant yourself here.&“Throughout the book you&’ll find two prompts, which will support you on your journey as you read.&“In many chapters, you&’ll find Soul Inquiry prompts that will help you hear the calls of your soul as you journey through the book.&“In some chapters, you&’ll also find activations. These are here to support you in activating and integrating energies and healing within you, from your soul to your cells.&“My hope for this book is that it supports, comforts, and inspires you to remember who you truly are and why you chose to be here at this pivotal moment in the story of humanity. To commit fully to being here and being present to your life on Earth at this time.&“To encourage you to play the note that you came here to play, without waver.&“Do you remember why you&’ve come?&”Love,Rebecca x
Flying High (Diary of an Accidental Witch)
by Honor Cargill Perdita CargillThe Winter Solstice Grand Tournament is fast approaching, and Bea Black is ready to shine! Determined to prove herself, she's spending more time practicing magic and less time with her best friend, Ash. He&’s not happy about it and suspects something is up. Will she be able to continue to keep her magic a secret from him?Bea Black is all settled into her new life in Little Spellshire, a town with a magical secret. She&’s made a bunch of friends at witch school, and she&’s even learned how to levitate a frog (well, almost). And with the Winter Solstice Grand Tournament coming up, she&’s ready to shine! Determined to prove herself, Bea has been spending more time practicing magic and less time with her best friend, Ash. He&’s not happy about it and suspects something is up. Will she be able to continue to keep her magic a secret from him? With black-and-white illustrations throughout.Told through Bea's diary entries, the Diary of an Accidental Witch series invites readers to follow Bea on a humorous journey of self-discovery as she learns where she truly belongs.
Be Your Future Self Now: The Science of Intentional Transformation
by Dr. Benjamin HardyThis isn&’t a book about BECOMING it&’s about BEING: noted psychologist Dr. Benjamin Hardy shows how to imagine the person you want to be, then BE that person now. When you do this, your imagined FUTURE directs your behavior, rather than your past. Who is your Future-Self? That question may seem trite. But it&’s literally the answer to all of your life&’s questions. It&’s the answer to what you&’re going to do today. It&’s the answer to how motivated you are, and how you feel about yourself. It&’s the answer to whether you&’ll distract yourself on social media for hours, whether you&’ll eat junk food, and what time you get up in the morning. Your imagined Future-Self is the driver of your current reality. It is up to you to develop the ability to imagine better and more expansive visions of your Future-Self. Your current view of your Future-Self is very limited. If you seek learning, growth, and new experiences, you&’ll be able to imagine a different and better Future-Self than you currently can. It&’s not only useful to see your Future-Self as a different person from who you are today, but it is also completely accurate. Your Future-Self will not be the same person you are today. They will see the world differently. They&’ll have had experiences, challenges, and growth you currently don&’t have. They&’ll have different goals and priorities. They&’ll have different habits. They&’ll also be in a different world—a world with different cultural values, different technologies, and different challenges.
Spark
by Naoki MatayoshiHilarious, strange and moving in equal measure - a Japanese multi-million-copy smash hit about the struggles of a pair of young manzai stand-up comediansTokunaga is a young comedian struggling to make a name for himself when he is taken under the wing of Kamiya, who is either a crazy genius or perhaps just crazy. Kamiya's indestructible confidence inspires Tokunaga, but it also makes him doubt the limits of his own talent, and dedication to Manzai comedy.Spark is a story about art and friendship, about countless bizarre drunken conversations and how far it's acceptable to go for a laugh. A novel about comedy that's as moving and thoughtful as it is funny, it's already been a sensation in Japan.
I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death
by Maggie O'FarrellIn this astonishing memoir, the New York Times bestselling author of The Marriage Portrait and Hamnet shares the seventeen near-death experiences that have punctuated and defined her life.The childhood illness that left her bedridden for a year, which she was not expected to survive. A teenage yearning to escape that nearly ended in disaster. An encounter with a disturbed man on a remote path. And, most terrifying of all, an ongoing, daily struggle to protect her daughter from a condition that leaves her unimaginably vulnerable to life&’s myriad dangers. Here, O&’Farrell stiches together these discrete encounters to tell the story of her entire life. In taut prose that vibrates with electricity and restrained emotion, she captures the perils running just beneath the surface, and illuminates the preciousness, beauty, and mysteries of life itself.
Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America
by Sam Tanenhaus&“A magnificent achievement—a long, gripping, and enthralling account of the life of America&’s premier conservative polemicist of the twentieth century.&”—Max Boot, author of Reagan: His Life and Legend&“A rich, immersive biography exposes the roots of the modern conservative movement through the life of the firebrand writer and commentator who shaped it.&”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors&’ Choice)In 1951, with the publication of God and Man at Yale, a scathing attack on his alma mater, twenty-five-year-old William F. Buckley, Jr., seized the public stage—and commanded it for the next half century as he led a new generation of conservative activists and ideologues to the peak of political power and cultural influence.Ten years before his death in 2008, Buckley chose prize-winning biographer Sam Tanenhaus to tell the full, uncensored story of his life and times, granting him extensive interviews and exclusive access to his most private papers. Thus began a deep investigation into the vast and often hidden universe of Bill Buckley and the modern conservative revolution.Buckley vividly captures its subject in all his facets and phases: founding editor of National Review, the twentieth century&’s most influential political journal; syndicated columnist, Emmy-winning TV debater, and bestselling spy novelist; ally of Joseph McCarthy and Barry Goldwater; mentor to Ronald Reagan; game-changing candidate for mayor of New York.Tanenhaus also has uncovered the darker trail of Bill Buckley&’s secret exploits, including CIA missions in Latin America, dark collusions with Watergate felon Howard Hunt, and Buckley&’s struggle in his last years to hold together a movement coming apart over the AIDS epidemic, culture wars, and the invasion of Iraq—even as his own media empire was unraveling.At a crucial moment in American history, Buckley offers a gripping and powerfully relevant story about the birth of modern politics and those who shaped it.
Never Let Me Go
by Kazuo IshiguroNOBEL PRIZE WINNER • 20TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION • The moving, suspenseful, beautifully atmospheric modern classic from the acclaimed author of The Remains of the Day and Klara and the Sun—&“a Gothic tour de force" (The New York Times) with an extraordinary twist.With a new introduction by the author.As children, Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Hailsham, an exclusive boarding school secluded in the English countryside. It was a place of mercurial cliques and mysterious rules where teachers were constantly reminding their charges of how special they were.Now, years later, Kathy is a young woman. Ruth and Tommy have reentered her life. And for the first time she is beginning to look back at their shared past and understand just what it is that makes them special—and how that gift will shape the rest of their time together.
Lark and Termite: A Novel (Vintage Contemporaries)
by Jayne Anne PhillipsNATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Night Watch, a "powerful and emotionally piercing" novel (The New York Times) set during the 1950 in West Virginia and Korea, that intertwines family secrets, war, dreams, and ghosts in a story about the love that unites us all.Lark and Termite is a rich, wonderfully alive novel about seventeen year old Lark and her brother, Termite, living in West Virginia in the 1950s. Their mother, Lola, is absent, while their aunt, Nonie, raises them as her own, and Termite&’s father, Corporal Robert Leavitt, is caught up in the early days of the Korean War.Told with deep feeling, the novel invites us deep into the hearts and thoughts of Lark, on the verge of adulthood, and her brother, Termite, a child unable to walk and talk, who is filled with radiance. We are also with Corporal Leavitt, trapped by friendly fire alongside the Korean children he tries to rescue. We see Lark&’s dreams for Termite and her own future, and how, with the aid of a childhood love and a spectral social worker, she makes them happen. We learn of Lola&’s love for her soldier husband and her children, and unravel the mystery of her relationship with Nonie. We discover the lasting connections between past and future on the night the town experiences an overwhelming flood, and we follow Lark and Termite as their lives are changed forever.
Kafka on the Shore (Vintage International #6)
by Haruki MurakamiNATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the acclaimed author of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and one of the world&’s greatest storytellers comes &“an insistently metaphysical mind-bender&” (The New Yorker) about a teenager on the run and a deceptively simple old man.Now with a new introduction by the author.Here we meet fifteen-year-old runaway Kafka Tamura and the elderly Nakata, who is drawn to Kafka for reasons that he cannot fathom. As their paths converge, acclaimed author Haruki Murakami enfolds readers in a world where cats talk, fish fall from the sky, and spirits slip out of their bodies to make love or commit murder, in what is a truly remarkable journey.&“As powerful as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.... Reading Murakami ... is a striking experience in consciousness expansion.&”—Chicago Tribune
Machine Dreams (Vintage Contemporaries)
by Jayne Anne PhillipsCalled &“an enduring literary achievement . . . astonishing&” by The New York Times, this highly acclaimed debut novel from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Night Watch introduces the Hampsons, an ordinary, small-town American family profoundly affected by the extraordinary events of history—from the Depression to the Vietnam War. One of The Atlantic&’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 YearsHere is a stunning chronicle that is revealed in the thoughts, dreams, and memories of each member of the Hampson family. Mitch struggles to earn a living as Jeans becomes the main breadwinner, working to complete college and raise the family. While the couple fight to keep their marriage intact, their daughter Danner and son Billy forge a sibling bond of uncommon strength. When Billy goes off to Vietnam, Danner becomes the sole bond linking her family, whose dissolution mirrors the fractured state of America in the 1960s. Deeply felt and vividly imagined, this lyrical novel is "among the wisest of a generation to grapple with a war that maimed us all" (The Village Voice), by a master of contemporary fiction.
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (Vintage International)
by Haruki MurakamiFrom the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 1Q84 and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle comes a relentlessly inventive novel that dives deep into the very nature of consciousness. &“Fantastical, mysterious, and funny . . . a fantasy world that might have been penned by Franz Kafka.&”—The Philadelphia InquirerAcross two parallel narratives, Murakami draws readers into a mind-bending universe in which Lauren Bacall, Bob Dylan, a split-brained data processor, a deranged scientist, his shockingly undemure granddaughter, and various thugs, librarians, and subterranean monsters collide to dazzling effect. What emerges is a hyperkinetic novel that is at once hilariously funny and a deeply serious meditation on the nature and uses of the mind.
South and West: From a Notebook
by Joan DidionNATIONAL BESTSELLER • &“One of contemporary literature&’s most revered essayists revives her raw records from a 1970s road trip across the American southwest ... her acute observations of the country&’s culture and history feel particularly resonant today.&” —Harper&’s Bazaar Joan Didion, the bestselling, award-winning author of The Year of Magical Thinking and Let Me Tell You What I Mean, has always kept notebooks—of overheard dialogue, interviews, drafts of essays, copies of articles. Here are two extended excerpts from notebooks she kept in the 1970s; read together, they form a piercing view of the American political and cultural landscape.&“Notes on the South&” traces a road trip that she and her husband, John Gregory Dunne, took through Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Her acute observations about the small towns they pass through, her interviews with local figures, and their preoccupation with race, class, and heritage suggest a South largely unchanged today. &“California Notes&” began as an assignment from Rolling Stone on the Patty Hearst trial. Though Didion never wrote the piece, the time she spent watching the trial in San Francisco triggered thoughts about the West and her own upbringing in Sacramento. Here we not only see Didion&’s signature irony and imagination in play, we&’re also granted an illuminating glimpse into her mind and process.
The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean
by Susan CaseyNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this "wonderfully vivid, kinetic narrative" (The New York Times), the bestselling author of Voices in the Ocean captures colossal, ship-swallowing waves, and the surfers and scientists who seek them out. For legendary surfer Laird Hamilton, hundred foot waves represent the ultimate challenge. As Susan Casey travels the globe, hunting these monsters of the ocean with Hamilton&’s crew, she witnesses first-hand the life or death stakes, the glory, and the mystery of impossibly mammoth waves. Yet for the scientists who study them, these waves represent something truly scary brewing in the planet&’s waters. With inexorable verve, The Wave brilliantly portrays human beings confronting nature at its most ferocious.
Fast Lanes (Vintage Contemporaries)
by Jayne Anne PhillipsFrom the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Night Watch: a short story collection that presents a tour de force of voices, offering elegantly rendered views into the lives of characters torn between the liberation of detachment and the desire to connect."A brilliant writer, utterly original and with an astonishing range." —Ian McEwan, New York Times bestselling author of Atonement and Lessons Three stories are collected in this edition for the first time: in "Alma," and adolescent daughter is made the confidante of her lonely mother; "Counting" traces the history of a dommed love affair; and "Callie" evokes memories of the haunting death of a child in 1920's West Virginia. Along with the original seven stories from Fast Lanes—each told in extraordinary first person narratives that have been hailed by critics as virtuoso performances—these incandescent portraits offer windows into the lives of an entire generation of Americans, demonstrating again and again why Jayne Anne Phillips remains one of our most powerful writers.
Persuasion: A Novel (Vintage Classics)
by Jane AustenOf all Jane Austen&’s great and delightful novels, Persuasion—the story of a second chance at true love—is widely regarded as the most moving.With a new introduction by Brandon Taylor.Anne Elliot, daughter of the snobbish Sir Walter Elliot, is woman of quiet charm and deep feelings. When she was nineteen she fell in love with—and was engaged to—a naval officer, the fearless and headstrong Captain Wentworth. But the young man had no fortune, and Anne allowed herself to be persuaded to give him up. Now, eight years later, Wentworth has returned to the neighborhood, a rich man and still unwed. Anne&’s never-diminished love is muffled by her pride, and he seems cold and unforgiving. What happens as the two are thrown together in the social world of Bath—and as an eager new suitor appears for Anne—is touchingly and wittily told in Persuasion, a masterpiece that is also one of the most entrancing novels in the English language.
Spell Freedom: The Underground Schools That Built the Civil Rights Movement
by Elaine WeissThe acclaimed author of the &“stirring, definitive, and engrossing&” (NPR) The Woman&’s Hour returns with the story of four activists whose audacious plan to restore voting rights to Black Americans laid the groundwork for the Civil Rights Movement. In the summer of 1954, educator Septima Clark and small businessman Esau Jenkins travelled to rural Tennessee&’s Highlander Folk School, an interracial training center for social change founded by Myles Horton, a white southerner with roots in the labor movement. There, the trio united behind a shared mission: preparing Black southerners to pass the daunting Jim Crow era voter registration literacy tests that were designed to disenfranchise them. Together with beautician-turned-teacher Bernice Robinson, they launched the underground Citizenship Schools project, which began with a single makeshift classroom hidden in the back of a rural grocery store. By the time the Voting Rights Act was signed into law in 1965, the secretive undertaking had established more than nine hundred citizenship schools across the South, preparing tens of thousands of Black citizens to read and write, demand their rights—and vote. Simultaneously, it nurtured a generation of activists—many of them women—trained in community organizing, political citizenship, and tactics of resistance and struggle who became the grassroots foundation of the Civil Rights Movement. Dr. King called Septima Clark, &“Mother of the Movement.&” In the vein of Hidden Figures and Devil in the Grove, Spell Freedom is both a riveting, crucially important lens onto our past, and a deeply moving story for our present.