Memories of an Unremarkable Man


Book Description

This is the story of one man's journey through life, documenting his triumphs and disasters, his successes and failures. He speaks honestly and emotionally about his progression from child to youth to manhood. His dreams, nightmares and aspirations are laid bare, along with how he deals with the high and the low points of his "e;journey"e;.




Odd Man Out


Book Description

This documentation of the architecture of Santa Barbara, California has grown since the first edition was published in 1970: the second (1980) saw an expanded format and some 150 new photographs, and the third includes still more pages and photographs. The architectural examples presented here, selected from thousands taken on a block-by- block survey, were chosen for purity of style, historical signficance, and uniqueness. Each clear and beautiful black and white photo is captioned with information on the original owner or building title; date of construction; name of architect, designer, or builder; address; and alterations or additions to the building. 11x10" Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR




An Unremarkable Body


Book Description

***Shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award 2018*** EVERY MOTHER IS A WOMAN WITH A PAST 'An intriguing tale of love and loss . . . written with verve and delivers an amazing twist' Sunday Mirror 'A haunting debut about grief, loss and motherhood' The Pool 'This novel pulls you in and will have you racing to reach the end' Good Housekeeping When Katharine is found dead at the foot of her stairs, it is the mystery of her life that consumes her daughter, Laura. The medical examiner's report, in which precious parts of Katharine's body are weighed and categorised, motivates Laura to write her own version of events. But as she delves deeper into Katharine's past, she is forced to confront a new version of the woman she knew only as her mother. A woman silenced by her own mother and wronged by her husband. A woman who lived in the shadows but whose secrets are now coming to light. *** Includes an extract from Elisa Lodato's second novel The Necessary Marriage.*** 'An incredibly moving story of maternal love, sacrifice, and how little we know those closest to us' Chloë Mayer, author of The Boy Made of Snow 'Extraordinarily sensuous storytelling that makes the reader's heart ache in sympathy' Observer 'Spare, confident and affecting. A compelling read' Joanna Barnard, author of Precocious




When Memory Speaks


Book Description

J ill Ker Conway, one of our most admired autobiographers--author of The Road from Coorain and True North--looks astutely and with feeling into the modern memoir: the forms and styles it assumes, and the strikingly different ways in which men and women respectively tend to understand and present their lives. In a narrative rich with evocations of memoirists over the centuries--from Jean-Jacques Rousseau and George Sand to W. E. B. Du Bois, Virginia Woolf, Frank McCourt and Katharine Graham--the author suggests why it is that we are so drawn to the reading of autobiography, and she illuminates the cultural assumptions behind the ways in which we talk about ourselves. Conway traces the narrative patterns typically found in autobiographies by men to the tale of the classical Greek hero and his epic journey of adventure. She shows how this configuration evolved, in memoirs, into the passionate romantic struggling against the conventions of society, into the frontier hero battling the wilderness, into self-made men overcoming economic obstacles to create an invention or a fortune--or, more recently, into a quest for meaning, for an understandable past, for an ethnic identity. In contrast, she sees the designs that women commonly employ for their memoirs as evolving from the writings of the mystics--such as Dame Julian of Norwich or St. Teresa of Avila--about their relationship with an all-powerful God. As against the male autobiographer's expectation of power over his fate, we see the woman memoirist again and again believing that she lacks command of her destiny, and tending to censor her own story. Throughout, Conway underlines the memoir's magic quality of allowing us to enter another human being's life and mind--and how this experience enlarges and instructs our own lives.




Remembering Denny


Book Description

"In this contemplation of his friend's life, Calvin Trillin attempts to chart the mysterious course of a career that had seemed full of limitless promise. He also embarks upon a provocative investigation of America in the 1950s - exploring the assumptions inherited by the "silent generation" as well as how those assumptions fared during the subsequent transformation of American society in the years that followed. Remembering Denny is not only a memoir of friendship, but also a meditation on our country's evolving sense of self."--Jacket.




The Devourers


Book Description

For readers of Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood, China Miéville, and David Mitchell comes a striking debut novel by a storyteller of keen insight and captivating imagination. LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD WINNER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST On a cool evening in Kolkata, India, beneath a full moon, as the whirling rhythms of traveling musicians fill the night, college professor Alok encounters a mysterious stranger with a bizarre confession and an extraordinary story. Tantalized by the man’s unfinished tale, Alok will do anything to hear its completion. So Alok agrees, at the stranger’s behest, to transcribe a collection of battered notebooks, weathered parchments, and once-living skins. From these documents spills the chronicle of a race of people at once more than human yet kin to beasts, ruled by instincts and desires blood-deep and ages-old. The tale features a rough wanderer in seventeenth-century Mughal India who finds himself irrevocably drawn to a defiant woman—and destined to be torn asunder by two clashing worlds. With every passing chapter of beauty and brutality, Alok’s interest in the stranger grows and evolves into something darker and more urgent. Shifting dreamlike between present and past with intoxicating language, visceral action, compelling characters, and stark emotion, The Devourers offers a reading experience quite unlike any other novel. Praise for The Devourers “A chilling, gorgeous saga that spans several centuries and many lands . . . The all-too-human characters—including the nonhuman ones—and the dreamlike, recursive plot serve to entrance the reader. . . . There’s no escaping The Devourers. Readers will savor every bite.”—N. K. Jemisin, The New York Times Book Review “The Devourers is beautiful. It is brutal. It is violent and vicious. . . . [It] also showcases Das’s incredible prowess with language and rhythm, and his ability to weave folklore and ancient legend with modern day loneliness.”—Tordotcom “A wholly original, primal tale of love, violence, and transformation.”—Pierce Brown, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Red Rising Trilogy “Astonishing . . . a narrative that takes possession of you and pulls you along in its wake.”—M. R. Carey, author of The Girl with All the Gifts




Mnemonics Memory Palace


Book Description

What is a memory palace? And how exactly do you build one? Unlike other popular books on the subject,"How to Build a Mnemonic Memory Palace" focuses on practical, hands on advice. Information that will help you get started making your own memory palaces.Memory palaces are an ancient, somehow forgotten, method of memorizing all kinds of information. You can use them to store volumes upon volumes of information, from textbooks to poetry, speeches to general knowledge."How to Build a Mnemonic Memory Palace" takes you by the hand and walks you through the process, step by step. It's a no-nonsense, practical guide on how to conceive and build memory palaces, and how to feed them with the information that you want to memorize.







The Gender of Memory


Book Description

Emphasizes time between 1950s and 1970s in rural southern and central Shanxi province.




The Most Secret Memory of Men


Book Description

A masterful coming-of-age novel and a gripping investigation into the life of a mysterious author who disappeared without a trace, by the first writer from sub-Saharan Africa to be awarded France’s prestigious Prix Goncourt. Paris, 2018. Diégane Latyr Faye, a young Senegalese writer, discovers a legendary book published in 1938 titled The Maze of Inhumanity. No one knows what happened to the author, T.C. Elimane, once referred to as the “Black Rimbaud.” After he was accused of plagiarism, his reputation was destroyed by the critics. He subsequently disappeared without a trace. Curiosity turns to obsession, and Faye embarks on a quest to uncover the fate of the mysterious T.C. Elimane. His search weaves past and present, countries and continents, following the author’s labyrinthine trail from Senegal to Argentina and France and confronting the great tragedies of history. Alongside his investigation, Faye becomes part of a group of young African writers in Paris. They talk, drink, make love, and philosophize about the role of exile in artistic creation. He becomes particularly close to two women: the seductive Siga, keeper of secrets, and the fleeting photojournalist Aïda. But throughout, a question persists: will he get to the truth at the center of the maze? A gripping detective novel without a detective and a masterpiece of perpetual reinvention, The Most Secret Memory of Men confronts the impact of colonialism and neo-colonialism, the holocaust in Europe, dictatorships in South America and the Caribbean, genocide in Africa, and collaboration and resistance everywhere. Above all, it is a love song to literature and its timeless power.