Who are you when your brain is not you?' Jane Lapotaire is one of the lucky ones. Many people do not survive, let alone live intelligently and well again once they have suffered cerebral haemorrhage. In the long haul back to life - 'nearly dying was the easy bit' - she's learned much, some of it very hard lessons. Some friendships became casualties; family relations had to be redefined; and her work as an actress took a severe battering. The stress of living is felt that much more keenly when 'sometimes I still feel as if I am walking around with my brain outside my body. A brain still all too available for smashing by noise, physical jostling, or any form of harshness'. But she has survived and now believes it herself when people say how lucky she is. This is a very moving, darkly funny, honest book about what happens when the 'you' you've known all your life is no longer the same you.

Manhattan executive Corbin is haunted by memories of another time -- memories that do not belong to him. Then, in the midst of a raging New York City snowstorm, the inexplicable images become more vivid and real. And before he knows it, Jonathan Corbin has stepped into a bygone world of gaslit streets and horsedrawn carriages -- and into the center of a nineteenth-century maelstrom of love, revenge, obsession...and death. Through the swirling snow, he can make out the figure of a woman-someone he can't possibly recognize, but does; someone he knows he is destined to kill.

Time Out of Mind is one of the most ambitious, complex, and provocative albums of Bob Dylan’s distinguished artistic career. The present book interprets the songs recorded for Time Out of Mind as a series of dreams by a single singer/dreamer. These dreams overlap and intermingle, but three primary levels of meaning emerge. On one level, the singer/dreamer envisions himself as a killer awaiting execution for killing his lover. On another level, the song-cycle functions as religious allegory, dramatizing the protagonist’s relentless struggles with his lover as a battle between spirit and flesh, earth and heaven, salvation and damnation. On still another level, Time Out of Mind is a meditation on American slavery and racism, Dylan’s most personal encounter with the subject, but one tangled up in associations with the minstrelsy tradition and debates surrounding cultural appropriation. Time Out of Mind marks the culmination of several recurring themes that have preoccupied Dylan for decades, and it serves as a pivotal turning point toward his late renaissance in terms of both subject matter and intertextual approach.

Considered by many to be mentally retarded, a brilliant, impatient fifth-grader with cerebral palsy discovers a technological device that will allow her to speak for the first time.

“The coolest class on campus” – The New York Times When the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Bob Dylan in 2016, a debate raged. Some celebrated, while many others questioned the choice. How could the world’s most prestigious book prize be awarded to a famously cantankerous singer-songwriter who wouldn’t even deign to attend the medal ceremony? In Why Bob Dylan Matters, Harvard Professor Richard F. Thomas answers this question with magisterial erudition. A world expert on Classical poetry, Thomas was initially ridiculed by his colleagues for teaching a course on Bob Dylan alongside his traditional seminars on Homer, Virgil, and Ovid. Dylan’s Nobel Prize brought him vindication, and he immediately found himself thrust into the spotlight as a leading academic voice in all matters Dylanological. Today, through his wildly popular Dylan seminar—affectionately dubbed "Dylan 101"—Thomas is introducing a new generation of fans and scholars to the revered bard’s work. This witty, personal volume is a distillation of Thomas’s famous course, and makes a compelling case for moving Dylan out of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and into the pantheon of Classical poets. Asking us to reflect on the question, "What makes a classic?", Thomas offers an eloquent argument for Dylan’s modern relevance, while interpreting and decoding Dylan’s lyrics for readers. The most original and compelling volume on Dylan in decades, Why Bob Dylan Matters will illuminate Dylan’s work for the Dylan neophyte and the seasoned fanatic alike. You’ll never think about Bob Dylan in the same way again.

Time Out of Mind I was never one to begrudge people their memories. From a child I would listen when they spoke of the past. Mother often remarked upon it as strange in one so young. But I think I must have guessed, even then, at what is now clear to me, though I have not skill enough with words to make it plain. For I know that nothing can be so sweet as remembered joy, and nothing so bitter as despair that no longer has the power to hurt us. And to me the past seems like nothing so much as one of those shells that used to be on every mantelpiece of sea-faring families years ago along the coast of Maine. There were two such shells in the parlor of Fortune's Folly. Rissa and Nat and I were never tired of pressing one or the other to our ears to hear how a dwindled thunder of sea still beat in each fluted pink hollow. So I say again, that is how the past seems to me--a hollow shell out of the mighty sea of Time, which each one of us may press to the ear to drown out the louder clamor of the present. Perhaps it is too childish and fanciful a notion for people to believe in, in these times. Perhaps it only comes of my being so much alone with memories that make both sweet and bitter company...

OVER 40,000 COPIES SOLD “An exhilarating but highly structured approach to the creative use of time. Kadavy’s approach is likely to spark a new evaluation of conventional time management. ” —Kirkus Reviews You have the TIME. Do you have the ENERGY? You’ve done everything you can to save time. Every productivity tip, every “life hack,” every time management technique. But the more time you save, the less time you have. The more overwhelmed, stressed, exhausted you feel. “Time management” is squeezing blood from a stone. Introducing a new approach to productivity. Instead of struggling to get more out of your time, start effortlessly getting more out of your mind. In Mind Management, Not Time Management, best-selling author David Kadavy shares the fruits of his decade-long deep dive into how to truly be productive in a constantly changing world. Quit your daily routine. Use the hidden patterns all around you as launchpads to skyrocket your productivity. Do in only five minutes what used to take all day. Let your “passive genius” do your best thinking when you’re not even thinking. “Writer’s block” is a myth. Learn a timeless lesson from the 19th century’s most underrated scientist. Wield all of the power of technology, with none of the distractions. An obscure but inexpensive gadget may be the shortcut to your superpowers. Keep going, even when chaos strikes. Tap into the unexpected to find your next Big Idea. Mind Management, Not Time Management isn’t your typical productivity book. It’s a gripping page-turner chronicling Kadavy’s global search for the keys to unlock the future of productivity. You’ll learn faster, make better decisions, and turn your best ideas into reality. Buy it today.