My Beautiful Broken Shell


Book Description

Already a bestseller with more than 100,000 copies sold, Adams' comforting words are now accompanied by D. Morgan's exquisite watercolors that summon the very sounds and scents of the ocean. Words of wisdom and peaceful images bring encouragement to those buffeted by life's storms.




The Snail with the Right Heart


Book Description

Based on a real scientific event and inspired by a beloved real human in the author's life, this is a story about science and the poetry of existence; about time and chance, genetics and gender, love and death, evolution and infinity -- concepts often too abstract for the human mind to fathom, often more accessible to the young imagination; concepts made fathomable in the concrete, finite life of one tiny, unusual creature dwelling in a pile of compost amid an English garden. Emerging from this singular life is a lyrical universal invitation not to mistake difference for defect and to welcome, across the accordion scales of time and space, diversity as the wellspring of the universe's beauty and resilience.




The Shell Collector


Book Description

In this astonishingly assured, exquisitely crafted debut collection, Anthony Doerr takes readers from the African coast to the suburbs of Ohio, from sideshow pageantry to harsh wilderness survival, charting a vast and varied emotional landscape. Like the best storytellers, Doerr explores the human condition in all its manifestations: metamorphosis, grief, fractured relationships, and slowly mending hearts. Most dazzling is Doerr's gift for conjuring nature in both its beautiful abundance and crushing power. Some of his characters contend with tremendous hardship; some discover unique gifts; all are united by their ultimate deference to the mysteries of their respective landscapes.




The Heart of the Pearl Shell


Book Description

For the Foi people who live on the edge of the central highlands of Papua New Guinea, the flow of pearl shells is the "heart" of their social life. The pearl shell is the exchange item that mediates the creation of their most important sexual and social roles. The Heart of the Pearl Shell analyzes a number of myths of the Foi people, elegantly bringing together significant ethnographic materials in a way that has important implications for the development of social theory in anthropology and in Melanesian studies. Scholars of semiotic-symbolic anthropology and of comparative religion will also share the author's interest in the meaning and role of mythology in Foi culture. Instead of relying on orthodox methods of Freudian or structuralist interpretation, James Weiner assumes there is a dialectical relationship between the images of Foi myth and the images of the Foi's social world. He demonstrates how each set of these images is dependent upon the other for its creation. This innovative study locates Foi social meaning in the re-creation and attempted solution of the moral dilemmas that are crystallized in mythology and other poetic usages. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1988.




The Shell Book


Book Description




A World in a Shell


Book Description

Following the trails of Hawai‘i’s snails to explore the simultaneously biological and cultural significance of extinction. In this time of extinctions, the humble snail rarely gets a mention. And yet snails are disappearing faster than any other species. In A World in a Shell, Thom van Dooren offers a collection of snail stories from Hawai‘i—once home to more than 750 species of land snails, almost two-thirds of which are now gone. Following snail trails through forests, laboratories, museums, and even a military training facility, and meeting with scientists and Native Hawaiians, van Dooren explores ongoing processes of ecological and cultural loss as they are woven through with possibilities for hope, care, mourning, and resilience. Van Dooren recounts the fascinating history of snail decline in the Hawaiian Islands: from deforestation for agriculture, timber, and more, through the nineteenth century shell collecting mania of missionary settlers, and on to the contemporary impacts of introduced predators. Along the way he asks how both snail loss and conservation efforts have been tangled up with larger processes of colonization, militarization, and globalization. These snail stories provide a potent window into ongoing global process of environmental and cultural change, including the largely unnoticed disappearance of countless snails, insects, and other less charismatic species. Ultimately, van Dooren seeks to cultivate a sense of wonder and appreciation for our damaged planet, revealing the world of possibilities and relationships that lies coiled within a snail’s shell.




Springboard


Book Description

Everyone knows that you are supposed to “follow your dream.” But where is the road map to help you discover what that dream is? You have just found it. In Springboard, award-winning author and teacher G. Richard Shell helps you find your future. His advice: Take an honest look inside and then answer two questions: What, for me, is success? How will I achieve it? You will begin by assessing your current beliefs about success, including the hidden influences of family, media, and culture. These are where the pressures to live “someone else’s life” come from. Once you gain perspective on these outside forces, you will be ready to look inside at your unique combination of passions and capabilities. The goal: to focus more on what gives meaning and excitement to your life and less on what you are “supposed” to want. Drawing on his decades of research, Shell offers personalized assessments to help you probe your past, imagine your future, and measure your strengths. He then combines these with the latest scientific insights on everything from self-confidence and happiness to relationships and careers. Throughout, he shares inspiring examples of people who found what they were meant to do by embracing their own true measure of success. Eric Adler: one of Shell’s former students who walked away from a conventional business career to help launch a revolutionary new concept in public education that has placed hundreds of inner-city high school students in top colleges. Kurt Timken: a Harvard-educated son of a Fortune 500 CEO who found his true calling as a hard-charging police officer fighting drug lords in southern California. Cynthia Stafford: an office worker who became one of her community’s leading promoters of theater and the arts. Get ready for the journey of a lifetime—one that will help you reevaluate your future and envision success on your own terms. Students and executives say that Richard Shell’s courses have changed their lives. Let this book change yours.













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