Doubling the Point


Book Description

Nadine Gordimer has written of J.M. Coetzee that his vision goes to the nerve-centre of being. What he finds there is more than most people will ever know about themselves, and he conveys it with a brilliant writer's mastery of tension and elegance. Doubling the Point takes the reader to the center of that vision. These essays and interviews, documenting Coetzee's longtime engagement with his own culture, and with modern culture in general, constitute a literary autobiography.




J.M. Coetzee and the Life of Writing


Book Description

J.M. Coetzee is one of the world's most intriguing authors. Compelling, razor-sharp, erudite: the adjectives pile up but the heart of the fiction remains elusive. Now, in J.M. Coetzee and the Life of Writing, David Attwell explores the extraordinary creative processes behind Coetzee's novels from Dusklands to The Childhood of Jesus. Using Coetzee's manuscripts, notebooks, and research papers--recently deposited at the Harry Ransom Center of the University of Texas at Austin--Attwell produces a fascinating story. He shows convincingly that Coetzee's work is strongly autobiographical, the memoirs being continuous with the fictions, and that his writing proceeds with never-ending self-reflection. Having worked closely with him on Doubling the Point: Essays and Interviews and given early access to Coetzee's archive, David Attwell is an engaging, authoritative source. J. M. Coetzee and the Life of Writing is a fresh, fascinating take on one of the most important and opaque literary figures of our time. This moving account will change the way Coetzee is read, by teachers, critics, and general readers.




Doubling and Duplicating in the Book of Genesis


Book Description

The style of the Hebrew Bible has long been of significant interest to scholars and exegetes alike. Early Jewish and later Christian commentaries point out the importance of the exact wording in interpreting the text, and many an article has been written on features such as repetition and inclusio. With the rise of literary and narrative criticism in biblical studies, these features have received even more attention. The current book stands in the tradition of Robert Alter in that it focuses on how the text of Genesis is written and phrased. More explicitly, it is interested in why Genesis is formulated the way it is and how this affects the reader in his/her encounter with the text. Doubling and Duplicating is not only concerned with a style-as-analysis frame for interpreters but also with its role as a guide for any audience and its gateway to the ancient mind-set (ideological, ontological, and so on). All of the contributors to this collected volume focus on the form of the book of Genesis—that is, on its use of language and formulation. Yet, each author does this in his/her own way, depending on the most fitting tool for the specific research question or based on the researcher’s methodological background. Thus, the essays represent the various approaches in current literary and stylistic criticism as applied to the biblical corpus. Furthermore, the recurring duality of the features discussed in each of the contributions adds to the overall unity of the volume. This recurrence suggests the presence of a stylistic feature in the book of Genesis, the feature of doubling and duplicating, that surpasses the other features of the individual units or stories. This book offers insights about meaning-making on both the micro- and the macro-text levels.




Dumbing Us Down


Book Description

With over 70,000 copies of the first edition in print, this radical treatise on public education has been a New Society Publishers’ bestseller for 10 years! Thirty years in New York City’s public schools led John Gatto to the sad conclusion that compulsory schooling does little but teach young people to follow orders like cogs in an industrial machine. This second edition describes the wide-spread impact of the book and Gatto’s "guerrilla teaching." John Gatto has been a teacher for 30 years and is a recipient of the New York State Teacher of the Year award. His other titles include A Different Kind of Teacher (Berkeley Hills Books, 2001) and The Underground History of American Education (Oxford Village Press, 2000).




Foundations of Blockchain


Book Description

Learn the foundations of blockchain technology - its core concepts and algorithmic solutions across cryptography, peer-to-peer technology, and game theory. Key FeaturesLearn the core concepts and foundations of the blockchain and cryptocurrenciesUnderstand the protocols and algorithms behind decentralized applicationsMaster how to architect, build, and optimize blockchain applicationsBook Description Blockchain technology is a combination of three popular concepts: cryptography, peer-to-peer networking, and game theory. This book is for anyone who wants to dive into blockchain from first principles and learn how decentralized applications and cryptocurrencies really work. This book begins with an overview of blockchain technology, including key definitions, its purposes and characteristics, so you can assess the full potential of blockchain. All essential aspects of cryptography are then presented, as the backbone of blockchain. For readers who want to study the underlying algorithms of blockchain, you’ll see Python implementations throughout. You’ll then learn how blockchain architecture can create decentralized applications. You’ll see how blockchain achieves decentralization through peer-to-peer networking, and how a simple blockchain can be built in a P2P network. You’ll learn how these elements can implement a cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin, and the wider applications of blockchain work through smart contracts. Blockchain optimization techniques, and blockchain security strategies are then presented. To complete this foundation, we consider blockchain applications in the financial and non-financial sectors, and also analyze the future of blockchain. A study of blockchain use cases includes supply chains, payment systems, crowdfunding, and DAOs, which rounds out your foundation in blockchain technology. What you will learnThe core concepts and technical foundations of blockchainThe algorithmic principles and solutions that make up blockchain and cryptocurrenciesBlockchain cryptography explained in detailHow to realize blockchain projects with hands-on Python codeHow to architect the blockchain and blockchain applicationsDecentralized application development with MultiChain, NEO, and EthereumOptimizing and enhancing blockchain performance and securityClassical blockchain use cases and how to implement themWho this book is for This book is for anyone who wants to dive into blockchain technology from first principles and build a foundational knowledge of blockchain. Familiarity with Python will be helpful if you want to follow how the blockchain protocols are implemented. For readers who are blockchain application developers, most of the applications used in this book can be executed on any platform.




Selected Areas in Cryptography


Book Description

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Focal Point


Book Description

The true secret of high achievers is that they know how to find their "focal point" - the one thing they should do, at any given moment, to get the best possible results in each area of their lives. Bestselling author and motivational speaker Brian Tracy brings together the very best ideas on personal management into a simple, easy-to-use plan. Focal Point helps readers analyze their lives in seven key areas and shows them how to develop focused goals and plans in each. This best-selling guide provides timeless truths that have been discovered by the most effective people throughout the ages, answering questions like: In Focal Point, Tracy provides timeless truths that answers questions such as: How can I get control of my time and my life? How can I achieve maximum career success and still balance my personal life? How can I accelerate the achievement of all my goals? Focal Point shows you how to develop absolute clarity about what they want, and how they can achieve supreme satisfaction, both personally and professionally.




The Good Story


Book Description

J.M. Coetzee's latest novel, The Schooldays of Jesus, is now available from Viking. Late Essays: 2006-2016 will be available January 2018. J.M. Coetzee: What relationship do I have with my life history? Am I its conscious author, or should I think of myself as simply a voice uttering with as little interference as possible a stream of words welling up from my interior? Arabella Kurtz: One way of thinking about psychoanalysis is to say that it is aimed at setting free the narrative or autobiographical imagination. The Good Story is a fascinating dialogue about psychotherapy and the art of storytelling between a writer with a long-standing interest in moral psychology and a psychotherapist with training in literary studies. Coetzee and Kurtz consider psychotherapy and its wider social context from different perspectives, but at the heart of both of their approaches is a concern with narrative. Working alone, the writer is in control of the story he or she tells. The therapist, on the other hand, collaborates with the patient in developing an account of the patient's life and identity that is both meaningful and true. In a meeting of minds that is illuminating and thought-provoking, the authors discuss both individual psychology and the psychology of the group: the school classroom, gangs and the settler nation, in which the brutal deeds of ancestors are accommodated into a national story. Drawing on great writers like Cervantes and Dostoevsky and psychoanalysts like Freud and Melanie Klein, Coetzee and Kurtz explore the human capacity for self-examination, our wish to tell our own life stories and the resistances we encounter along the way.




American Turning Point - Repairing and Restoring Our Constitutional Republic


Book Description

American Democracy is at a Turning Point Most of the American people believe our government is on the wrong track, is broken, and is not capable of solving our major problems. Our national leaders have for too long made the rules for how we are governed for the benefit of their careers and re-election, primarily serving partisan and donor interests instead of serving the country. This book will present fact-based, unbiased and non-partisan actions that "We the People" can take to restore a service-to-country culture in Congress and the Administration.




Computer Games I


Book Description

Computer Games I is the first volume in a two part compendium of papers covering the most important material available on the development of computer strategy games. These selections range from discussions of mathematical analyses of games, to more qualitative concerns of whether a computer game should follow human thought processes rather than a "brute force" approach, to papers which will benefit readers trying to program their own games. Contributions include selections from the major players in the development of computer games: Claude Shannon whose work still forms the foundation of most contemporary chess programs, Edward O. Thorpe whose invention of the card counting method caused Las Vegas casinos to change their blackjack rules, and Hans Berliner whose work has been fundamental to the development of backgammon and chess games.