Brolliology
Title | Brolliology PDF eBook |
Author | Marion Rankine |
Publisher | Melville House |
Total Pages | 193 |
Release | 2017-11-07 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 1612196705 |
A fun, illustrated history of the umbrella's surprising place in life and literature Humans have been making, using, perfecting, and decorating umbrellas for millennia--holding them over the heads of rulers, signalling class distinctions, and exploring their full imaginative potential in folk tales and novels. In the spirit of the best literary gift books, Brolliology is a beautifully designed and illustrated tour through literature and history. It surprises us with the crucial role that the oft-overlooked umbrella has played over centuries--and not just in keeping us dry. Marion Rankine elevates umbrellas to their rightful place as an object worthy of philosophical inquiry. As Rankine points out, many others have tried. Derrida sought to find the meaning (or lack thereof) behind an umbrella mentioned in Nietzsche's notes, Robert Louis Stevenson wrote essays on the handy object, and Dickens used umbrellas as a narrative device for just about everything. She tackles the gender, class, and social connotations of carrying an umbrella and helps us realize our deep connection to this most forgettable everyday object--which we only think of when we don't have one.
Thinking Inside the Box
Title | Thinking Inside the Box PDF eBook |
Author | Adrienne Raphel |
Publisher | Penguin |
Total Pages | 306 |
Release | 2021-03-16 |
Genre | Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | 0525522107 |
“This cultural and personal history of crosswords and their fans, written by an aficionado, is diverting, informative, and discursive.” —The New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice A delightful, erudite, and immersive exploration of the crossword puzzle and its fascinating history Almost as soon as it appeared, the crossword puzzle became indispensable to our lives. Invented practically by accident in 1913, when a newspaper editor at the New York World was casting around for something to fill empty column space, it became a roaring commercial success almost overnight. Ever since then, the humble puzzle has been an essential ingredient of any newspaper worth its salt. But why, exactly, are the crossword’s satisfactions so sweet? Blending first-person reporting from the world of crosswords with a delightful telling of its rich literary history, Adrienne Raphel dives into the secrets of this classic pastime. Thinking Inside the Box is an ingenious love letter not just to the abiding power of the crossword but to the infinite joys and playful possibilities of language itself.
The Dictionary of Animal Languages
Title | The Dictionary of Animal Languages PDF eBook |
Author | Heidi Sopinka |
Publisher | Scribe Publications |
Total Pages | 320 |
Release | 2018-02-26 |
Genre | Fiction |
ISBN | 1925548759 |
A thrillingly elegant yet raw evocation of a woman clawing her way to a creative life, inspired by the story of surrealist artist Leonora Carrington. We grant men a right to solitude. Why can’t we do the same for women? Born into a wealthy family in northern England and sent to boarding school to be educated by nuns, Ivory Frame rebels. She escapes to inter-war Paris, where she finds herself through art, and falls in with the most brilliantly bohemian set: the surrealists. Torn between an intense love affair with a married Russian painter and her soaring ambition to create, Ivory’s life is violently interrupted by the Second World War. She flees from Europe, leaving behind her friends, her art, and her love. Now over ninety, Ivory labours defiantly in the frozen north on her last, greatest work — a vast account of animal languages — alone except for her sharp research assistant, Skeet. And then unexpected news from the past arrives: this magnificently fervent, complex woman is told that she has a grandchild, despite never having had a child of her own …
Children of Ash and Elm
Title | Children of Ash and Elm PDF eBook |
Author | Neil Price |
Publisher | Basic Books |
Total Pages | 629 |
Release | 2020-08-25 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 0465096999 |
The definitive history of the Vikings -- from arts and culture to politics and cosmology -- by a distinguished archaeologist with decades of expertise The Viking Age -- from 750 to 1050 -- saw an unprecedented expansion of the Scandinavian peoples into the wider world. As traders and raiders, explorers and colonists, they ranged from eastern North America to the Asian steppe. But for centuries, the Vikings have been seen through the eyes of others, distorted to suit the tastes of medieval clerics and Elizabethan playwrights, Victorian imperialists, Nazis, and more. None of these appropriations capture the real Vikings, or the richness and sophistication of their culture. Based on the latest archaeological and textual evidence, Children of Ash and Elm tells the story of the Vikings on their own terms: their politics, their cosmology and religion, their material world. Known today for a stereotype of maritime violence, the Vikings exported new ideas, technologies, beliefs, and practices to the lands they discovered and the peoples they encountered, and in the process were themselves changed. From Eirík Bloodaxe, who fought his way to a kingdom, to Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir, the most traveled woman in the world, Children of Ash and Elm is the definitive history of the Vikings and their time.
The Errand
Title | The Errand PDF eBook |
Author | Leo LaFleur |
Publisher | Errand |
Total Pages | 52 |
Release | 2019-08-19 |
Genre | Juvenile Fiction |
ISBN | 9781772290301 |
The second volume in this gorgeously illustrated graphic novel series that is set in a dark, Brothers' Grimm-style fairy-tale world.
You Had One Job!
Title | You Had One Job! PDF eBook |
Author | Beverly L. Jenkins |
Publisher | Andrews McMeel Publishing |
Total Pages | 144 |
Release | 2016-07-12 |
Genre | Humor |
ISBN | 1449480691 |
If someone hangs a stop sign upside down or paints crooked lines on a highway, count on someone else to snap a photo and post it online. You Had One Job! is a collection of hilarious pictures features job-related disasters and general ineptitudes. All of these new, never-before-seen images will be accompanied by witty captions.
Elizabeth Gaskell
Title | Elizabeth Gaskell PDF eBook |
Author | Jennifer S. Uglow |
Publisher | |
Total Pages | 690 |
Release | 1993 |
Genre | Women authors, English |
ISBN | 9780571170364 |