The Natural


Book Description

This is a book about heroism - of sorts. Roy Hobbs has an immense natural gift for playing baseball. He could become one of the great ones of the game, a player unmatched in his time - a hero. But his first hard-won big chance ends violently, at the hands of a crazy girl, and then it is years before he gets another shot. At last, in a few short seasons, or never, he must achieve the towering reputation that he feels is his right.




Natural


Book Description

Illuminates the far-reaching harms of believing that natural means “good,” from misinformation about health choices to justifications for sexism, racism, and flawed economic policies. People love what’s natural: it’s the best way to eat, the best way to parent, even the best way to act—naturally, just as nature intended. Appeals to the wisdom of nature are among the most powerful arguments in the history of human thought. Yet Nature (with a capital N) and natural goodness are not objective or scientific. In this groundbreaking book, scholar of religion Alan Levinovitz demonstrates that these beliefs are actually religious and highlights the many dangers of substituting simple myths for complicated realities. It may not seem like a problem when it comes to paying a premium for organic food. But what about condemnations of “unnatural” sexual activity? The guilt that attends not having a “natural” birth? Economic deregulation justified by the inherent goodness of “natural” markets? In Natural, readers embark on an epic journey, from Peruvian rainforests to the backcountry in Yellowstone Park, from a “natural” bodybuilding competition to a “natural” cancer-curing clinic. The result is an essential new perspective that shatters faith in Nature’s goodness and points to a better alternative. We can love nature without worshipping it, and we can work toward a better world with humility and dialogue rather than taboos and zealotry.




The Book of Mr. Natural


Book Description

Over 100 pages of vintage Crumb comics starring the white-bearded, diminutive sage-cum-charlatan Mr Natural, ranging from charming, freewheeling early 1970s stories to the disturbing, controversial 1990s stories, including the entire 40-page 'Mr Natural and Devil Girl' epic. Crumb's Mr. Natural is probably the most famous underground character of all, meaning readers will not want to miss the chance to snatch up this jam-packed collection from one of the all-time masters.




The Practice Of Natural Movement


Book Description

Erwan Le Corre, creator of the world-renowned fitness system MovNat, is on a mission to reintroduce natural movement to our modern lives with the most ancient movement skill set: walking, running, balancing, jumping, crawling, climbing, swimming, lifting, carrying, throwing, catching, and self-defense. Try to imagine an out-of-shape tiger stepping on an exercise machine to get a workout. It doesn't make any sense, does it? Wild animals simply move the way nature intended, and they become powerful, healthy, and free in the process. So why should it be any different for us? We have become "zoo-humans," separated from nature and living movement-impoverished, unnatural lifestyles. As a result, we are suffering physically, mentally, and spiritually. Exercise has become artificial and boring--a chore, if not a punishment. We are training parts of our bodies, not the whole, and we have lost our drive for movement. What we need is not a better understanding of exercise physiology or more variety in fitness programs and modalities. What we need is simplicity, meaning, purpose, inspiration, and enjoyment. We need to get back to natural movement. In The Practice of Natural Movement, Le Corre demonstrates our innate and versatile ability to perform practical and adaptable movements. With countless techniques and movement variations, as well as strategies for practicing anytime and anywhere, he will inspire you to build a naturally strong and flexible body and to form yourself anew into a mindful, skillful, and physically capable human being.




Pacific Natural at Home


Book Description

Jenni Kayne, the creator of the laid-back, luxe California lifestyle brand, shows us how to create spaces that encourage living well in comfort and style by featuring beautiful and inspiring interiors along with practical room-by-room tips. A known tastemaker and authority on style, Jenni Kayne spans the worlds of fashion, interiors, and entertaining. Inspired by organic textures, thoughtful simplicity, and natural landscapes, Kayne embodies an earthy and effortless aesthetic—one that is intentional and where beauty and authenticity exist in every detail. In her second book Kayne turns to interior design, sharing her beautifully designed interiors as well as the homes of other creative women who embrace a similar natural design ethos. The book introduces the homes by location, spanning varied landscapes and design characteristics: houses by the ocean, desert-style spaces, mountain homes, and abodes in the city. Lovely photographs illustrate how the women live in these spaces, room by room, and include smaller styling vignettes showcasing collectibles and personal objects. Interviews discuss each woman’s design philosophy and her ideas for living well at home. With a mix of visual inspiration and practical tips and resources, Kayne encourages us to express our individual style through decor, showing us how to create beautiful interiors that help us to live joyfully and mindfully, treating life’s details with creativity and care.




A Natural


Book Description

From dreams of soccer glory to the realities of the minor leagues, the high-stakes world of English football comes to life in this vivid coming-of-age novel for fans of Nick Hornby and The Art of Fielding. After his unceremonious release from a Premier League academy at nineteen, Tom feels his bright future slipping away. The only contract offer he receives is from a lower-level club. Away from home for the first time, Tom struggles on and off the field, anxious to avoid the cruel pranks and hazing rituals of his teammates. Then a taboo encounter upends what little stability he has, forcing Tom to reconcile his suppressed desires with his drive to succeed. Meanwhile, the team’s popular captain, Chris, is in denial about the state of his marriage. His wife, Leah, has almost forgotten the dreams she once held for her career. As her husband is transferred from club to club, and raising their first child practically on her own, she is lost, disillusioned with where life has taken her. A Natural delves into the heart of a professional soccer club: the pressure, the loneliness, the threat of scandal, the fragility of the body, and the struggle of conforming to the person everybody else expects you to be. Praise for A Natural “This is a bold novel. [Raisin has a] deep and unwavering empathy for others, and an ability to find flashes of beauty in life’s unforgiving ugliness. His language might be spare, but his turn of phrase is strikingly elegant. . . . The way is lit by his keen perceptions; the novel suggests the frustrations that arise when lived experience fails to align with what was imagined, and analyzes the gap between spectatorship and participation. . . . If Raisin has chosen to focus on that which stifles rather than frees us, he has done so to demonstrate precisely why we need all the things that society and circumstance suppress. . . . The confidence and skill with which he pursues his vision is not just persuasive, it’s powerful.”—The New York Times Book Review “Raisin’s transporting and acutely observed novel speaks to us all. First-rate.”—Booklist (starred review) “An intimate picture of life in the lower reaches of professional British football . . . a bold theme . . . is rendered with restraint and sympathy. . . . [A Natural] is a sensitive treatment of very different kinds of solitude and pain.”—Kirkus Reviews




Natural Color


Book Description

A beautiful book of seasonal projects for using the brilliant spectrum of colors derived from plants to naturally dye your clothing and home textiles. Organized by season, Natural Color is a beautifully photographed guide to the full range of plant dyes available, drawn from commonly found fruits, flowers, trees, and herbs, with accompanying projects. Using sustainable methods and artisinal techniques, designer, artist, and professor Sasha Duerr details achievable ways to apply these limitless color possibilities to your home and wardrobe. Whether you are new to dyeing or more practiced, Duerr's clear and simple ingredients lists, step-by-step instructions, and detailed breakouts on techniques such as shibori, dip-dye, and block printing will ensure beautiful results. With recipes to dye everything from dresses and sweaters to rugs and napkins, Natural Color will inspire fashion enthusiasts, home decorators, textile lovers, and everyone else who wants to bring more color into their life.




Nothing Natural


Book Description




Natural Wine for the People


Book Description

A compact illustrated guide to the emerging and enormously popular category of natural wine, a style that focuses on minimal intervention, lack of additives, and organic and biodynamic growing methods. Today, wine is more favored and consumed that it's ever been in the United States--and millennials are leading the charge, drinking more wine than any other generation in history. Many have been pulled in by the tractor beam of natural wine--that is, organic or biodynamic wine made with nothing added, and nothing taken away--a movement that has completely rocked the wine industry in recent years. While all of the hippest restaurants and wine bars are touting their natural wine lists, and while more and more consumers are calling for natural wine by name, there is still a lot of confusion about what exactly natural wine is, where to find it, and how to enjoy it. In Natural Wine for the People, James Beard Award-winner Alice Feiring sets the record straight, offering a pithy, accessible guide filled with easy definitions, tips and tricks for sourcing the best wines, whimsical illustrations, a definitive list to the must-know producers and bottlings, and an appendix with the best shops and restaurants specializing in natural wine across the country, making this the must-buy and must-gift wine book of the year.




MovNat


Book Description

Do you want to be able to keep up with your children or grandchildren? Do you want to move like you are young again? Do you want to not just look fit, but also be fit? Do you want to move with power, efficiency, and grace? The modern world has become sedentary. Running, crawling, jumping, squatting, kicking, throwing—these are all movements the human body was designed for, and yet we are losing the ability to perform these tasks without injury or great exertion. In MovNat, Erwan Le Corre, a world-renowned expert in evolutionary and natural fitness, lays out a fitness program and philosophy that will allow you to forever reconcile with your body and natural motion. You will learn: - More than 200 natural exercises that can be performed virtually anywhere: the gym, the park, in your living room, while on vacation. -The "ten natural-approach principles" to movement training and conditioning. -How to discover limitless exercises based upon fundamental techniques. -How to boost your fitness progress by making your training scalable, progressive, and safe. -Dozens of exercise combos and circuits, and how to build exercise obstacle courses.