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Showing 8961 - 8980 of 16610 items
By Callan Davies. 2023
This book offers an accessible introduction to England’s sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century playing industry and a fresh account of the…
architecture, multiple uses, communities, crowds, and proprietors of playhouses. It builds on recent scholarship and new documentary and archaeological discoveries to answer the questions: what did playhouses do, what did they look like, and how did they function? The book will accordingly introduce readers to a rich and exciting spectrum of "play" and playhouses, not only in London but also around England. The detailed but wide-ranging case studies examined here go beyond staged drama to explore early modern sport, gambling, music, drinking, and animal baiting; they recover the crucial influence of female playhouse owners and managers; and they recognise rich provincial performance cultures as well as the burgeoning of London’s theatre industry. This book will have wide appeal with readers across Shakespeare, early modern performance studies, theatre history, and social history.By Julie Holledge, Jonathan Bollen, Joanne Tompkins, Liyang Xia. 2022
This pioneering study harnesses virtual reality to uncover the history of five venues that have been 'lost' to us: London's…
1590s Rose Theatre; Bergen's mid-nineteenth-century Komediehuset; Adelaide's Queen's Theatre of 1841; circus tents hosting Cantonese opera performances in Australia's goldfields in the 1850s; and the Stardust showroom in 1950s Las Vegas. Shaping some of the most enduring genres of world theatre and cultural production, each venue marks a significant cultural transformation, charted here through detailed discussion of theatrical praxis and socio-political history. Using virtual models as performance laboratories for research, Visualising Lost Theatres recreates the immersive feel of venues and reveals performance logistics for actors and audiences. Proposing a new methodology for using visualisations as a tool in theatre history, and providing 3D visualisations for the reader to consult alongside the text, this is a landmark contribution to the digital humanities.By Nona Willis Aronowitz. 2022
Named a Most Anticipated Book by Bustle, Esquire, Nylon, and The Millions&“Intimate, thoughtful, and accessible to anyone struggling with the…
persistent, maddening inequities of contemporary sex.&” –Rebecca Traister, New York Times bestselling author of Good and MadFrom Teen Vogue sex and love columnist Nona Willis Aronowitz, a blend of memoir, social history, and cultural criticism that probes the meaning of desire and sexual freedom today.At thirty-two years old, everything in Nona Willis Aronowitz&’s life, and in America, was in disarray. Her marriage was falling apart. Her nuclear family was slipping away. Her heart and libido were both in overdrive. Embroiled in an era of fear, reckoning, and reimagining, her assumptions of what &“sexual liberation&” meant were suddenly up for debate. In the thick of personal and political turmoil, Nona turned to the words of history&’s sexual revolutionaries—including her late mother, early radical pro-sex feminist Ellen Willis. At a time when sex has never been more accepted and feminism has never been more mainstream, Nona asked herself: What, exactly, do I want? And are my sexual and romantic desires even possible amid the horrors and bribes of patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy?Nona&’s attempt to find the answer places her search for authentic intimacy alongside her family history and other stories stretching back nearly two hundred years. Stories of ambivalent wives and unchill sluts, free lovers and radical lesbians, sensitive men and woke misogynists, women who risk everything for sex—who buy sex, reject sex, have bad sex and good sex. The result is a brave, bold, and vulnerable exploration of what sexual freedom can mean. Bad Sex is Nona&’s own journey to sexual satisfaction and romantic happiness, which not only lays bare the triumphs and flaws of contemporary feminism but also shines a light on universal questions of desire.By Alice Feiring. 2022
From veteran wine writer and James Beard Award winner Alice Feiring, an insightful and entertaining memoir of wine, love, heartbreak,…
and the never-ending process of coming-of-age.Called everything from the Patti Smith to the Ruth Bader Ginsburg of natural wines, Alice Feiring is a special sort of wine writer—the kind who dares to disagree with wine &“experts,&” and who believes wholeheartedly that the best wine writing is about life. To Fall in Love, Drink This is both a love letter to wine and a lifelong coming-of-age story. In a series of candid, wise, and humorous personal essays, Feiring serves up a memoir in vignettes. She tells the story of her parents&’ divorce, her first big wine assignment, the end of an eleven-year relationship, the death of her father, a near-fatal brush with a serial killer, pandemic lockdown, and more—and suffuses each with love, romance, pain, joy, and wine. Each essay is &“accompanied&” by a no-nonsense wine take-away designed to answer the questions everyday wine lovers have about wine—age, price, grapes, vineyards, and vintners. This frank, charismatic work is a refreshingly grounded addition to the popular—and notoriously stuffy—genre of wine-writing. Feiring has crafted a timeless, positively unpretentious memoir that will appeal to everyone who has ever enjoyed a glass of wine.By Kendra Allen. 2022
An arresting and one-of-a-kind memoir about the alternately exultant and harrowing trip growing up as a Black child desperate to…
create a clear reality for herself in this countryWritten in a distinctive voice and filled with personality, humor, and pathos, Fruit Punch is a memoir unlike any other, from a one-of-a-kind millennial talent. Growing up in Dallas, Texas, in the nineties and early 2000s, Kendra Allen had a complicated, loving, and intense family life filled with desire and community but also undercurrents of violence and turmoil. “We equate suffering to perseverance and misinterpret the weight of shame,” she writes. As she makes her way through a world of obscureness, Kendra finds herself slowly discovering outlets to help navigate growing up and against the expected performance of being a young Black woman in the South—a complex interplay of race, class, and gender that proves to be ever-shifting ground.Fruit Punch touches on everything from questions of beauty and how we form concepts of ourselves—as a small rebellion, young Kendra scratched a hole into every pair of stockings she was forced to wear—to what it means to grow up in her great uncle’s Southern Baptist church—with rules including “No uncrossed ankles” and “No questions.” Inflected by a powerful sense of place and touched by poetry, Fruit Punch is a stunning achievement—a memoir born of love and endurance, fight or flight, and what it means to be a witness, from a blisteringly honest and observant voice.By Elliot Ackerman. 2022
A powerful and revelatory eyewitness account of the American collapse in Afghanistan, its desperate endgame, and the war&’s echoing legacyElliot…
Ackerman left the American military ten years ago, but his time in Afghanistan and Iraq with the Marines and later as a CIA paramilitary officer marked him indelibly. When the Taliban began to close in on Kabul in August 2021 and the Afghan regime began its death spiral, he found himself pulled back into the conflict. Afghan nationals who had worked closely with the American military and intelligence communities for years now faced brutal reprisal and sought frantically to flee the country with their families. The official US government evacuation effort was a bureaucratic failure that led to a humanitarian catastrophe. With former colleagues and friends protecting the airport in Kabul, Ackerman joined an impromptu effort by a group of journalists and other veterans to arrange flights and negotiate with both Taliban and American forces to secure the safe evacuation of hundreds. These were desperate measures taken during a desperate end to America's longest war. For Ackerman, it also became a chance to reconcile his past with his present. The Fifth Act is an astonishing human document that brings the weight of twenty years of war to bear on a single week, the week the war ended. Using the dramatic rescue efforts in Kabul as his lattice, Ackerman weaves a personal history of the war's long progression, beginning with the initial invasion in the months after 9/11. It is a play in five acts, the fifth act being the story&’s tragic denouement, a prelude to Afghanistan's dark future. Any reader who wants to understand what went wrong with the war&’s trajectory will find a trenchant account here. But The Fifth Act also brings readers into close contact with a remarkable group of characters, American and Afghan, who fought the war with courage and dedication, and at great personal cost. Ackerman's story is a first draft of history that feels like a timeless classic.By Edward Chisholm. 2022
Inspired by George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London, A Waiter in Paris is a brilliant portrait of…
the underbelly of contemporary Paris through the eyes of a young waiter scraping out a living in the City of Light. A waiter’s job is to deceive you. They want you to believe in a luxurious calm because on the other side of that door … is hell. Edward Chisholm’s spellbinding memoir of his time as a Parisian waiter takes you below the surface of one of the most iconic cities in the world and right into its glorious underbelly. There, Chisholm inhabits a world of inhuman hours, snatched sleep, and dive bars. He scrapes by on coffee, bread, and cigarettes, often working under sadistic managers, for a wage so low he’s forced to fight his colleagues for tips. And these colleagues — thieves, narcissists, ex-Legionnaires, paperless immigrants, wannabe actors, and drug dealers — are the closest thing he has to family. Waiting tables is physically demanding work, frequently humiliating, and incredibly competitive. But it doesn’t matter because you’re in Paris, the centre of the universe, and there’s nowhere else you’d rather be in the world.By Edoardo Nesi. 2022
In a warm, perceptive essay that touches on economics, fashion, literature, and politics, the Strega Prize–winning author of Story of My…
People reflects on the seismic shifts of 2020 and the diverse ways we&’re adapting.Attempting to make sense of the incredible upheaval of 2020—from the devastating impact of COVID-19 to the sudden loss of his father—Edoardo Nesi considers the changing global economy and its effect on our lives. He shares the stories of Alberto Magelli, a small textile entrepreneur; Livia Firth, a prominent advocate for sustainability; Elisa Martelli, a young Sangiovese winemaker; Enrico Giovannini, a leading economist and statistician; Rino Pratesi, a proud butcher from the heart of Tuscany; and more. From the overworked to the unemployed, we&’re all grappling with difficult questions about our current disorienting world: Will we ever feel healthy again, and what will it take to regain &“normality?&” What does progress mean today? Have science and technology let us down? What will the increased prevalence of remote working mean for our cities, and for our lifestyles generally? Deftly weaving together the personal and the economic, Nesi takes us on a fascinating journey to understanding.By Thomas Schueman, Zainullah Zaki. 2022
Band of Brothers meets Argo in this dramatic and heartfelt dual memoir of the war in Afghanistan told by two men from opposite…
worlds. Always Faithful entwines the stories of Marine Major Tom Schueman, and his friend and Afghan interpreter, Zainullah “Zak” Zaki, as they describe their parallel lives, converging paths, and unbreakable bond in the face of overwhelming danger, culminating in Zak and his family’s harrowing escape from Kabul. In August of 2021, just days shy of the 20th anniversary of 9/11, America ended its longest war. The speed of the Afghanistan’s fall was so stunning that thousands of Afghan citizens who had helped American forces over the course of two decades—and had been promised visas in return—were suddenly stranded, in extreme, imminent danger. As the world watched the shocking scenes of desperation at the Kabul airport in the final two weeks of August, Maj. Tom Schueman fought—both behind the scenes and through a social media campaign—to get his friend and former Afghan interpreter, Zak, out of Afghanistan before he and his family were discovered by the Taliban. When Zak and his family finally took off from the airport mere days before the US left the country, the years-long effort to get Zak to America culminated in two simple words on Instagram: “Wheels up.”Now in Always Faithful, Tom and Zak tell the full story of the divergent paths that led them to Afghanistan, the dangerous road they walked together in service to America, and how their commitment to each other ended up saving them both. Brilliantly told in Tom’s and Zak’s alternating first person voices, Always Faithful tracks the parallel lives of these two men who each spent their childhoods in fear, peril, and poverty, and turned to war in attempt to build a meaningful future. On an inevitable course towards each other, their lives dovetail in Afghanistan’s deadly Helmand Valley, where they formed a brotherhood that transcends even the most overwhelming of odds, eventually culminating in Zak’s harrowing, eleventh-hour rescue.The end result is an intensely personal and uniquely ground-level account of Tom and Zak’s experience, Always Faithful gives readers a 360-degree view of the war. At once provocative and heart pounding, their stories together form a microcosm of the complicated and lasting effects of America’s longest war. Through their eyes and their experiences, they challenge readers to explore the legacy of the war for American and Afghan citizens alike, as we all collectively seek to understand whether twenty years of war was worth the price.By Rifqa Bary. 2015
"After four years of hiding my faith from my family, I knew that it was time. I wrote with shaky…
hands, 'Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior. I refuse to deny him....' There was no turning back now. I had to get out of that house if I wanted to live. Was this worth risking everything for? Yes." Rifqa Bary grew up in a devout Muslim home, obediently following her parents' orders to practice the rituals of Islam. But God was calling her to freedom and love. He was calling her to true faith. He was calling her to give up everything. Leaving Islam for Christianity cost her more than she imagined but gave more than she could have dreamed. Hiding in the Light is the story of Rifqa's remarkable spiritual journey from Islam to Christianity. It is also the untold story of how she ran from her father's threats to find refuge with strangers in Florida, only to face a controversial court case that reached national headlines. Most of all, it is the story of a young girl who made life-changing sacrifices to follow Jesus--and who inspires us to do the same.This book maps contemporary playwriting and theatre translation practices and ecologies in the European continent. Whether you are a scholar…
researching contemporary drama and translation, or a theatre practitioner looking for ways to navigate theatrical conventions in other countries, this book is for you. Through questionnaires and one-to-one interviews with key stakeholders, Dr Laera collects qualitative and quantitative data about how each national theatre culture supports living dramatists, what conventions drive the production and translation (or lack thereof) of contemporary plays, and what perceptions are held by gatekeepers, theatre-makers and other cultural operators about the theatre system in which they work. Through country-by-country descriptions and analyses; interviews with playwrights, translators, directors and gatekeepers; a list of key facts and best practices; and a rigorous assessment of its methodologies, this volume is indispensable for those interested in contemporary European theatre practice.By Leah McLaren. 2022
When eight-year-old Leah's parents get divorced, her mother, Cessie, flees her conventional life as a suburban housewife in search of…
a glamorous big city career in journalism. In the chaotic years that follow Cessie lurches from one apartment, job and toxic romance to the next, with her adoring daughter in tow. Cessie describes her parenting style as 'benign neglect' and their family motto 'Commitment sucks the life right out of you' is tacked up on every rental fridge. In the aftermath of a disturbing sexual experience at a pool party, Leah finds herself crippled with anxiety. When she confides in her mother, Cessie makes an astonishing disclosure in turn, one that alters everything: from the age of twelve to fifteen she was in a clandestine relationship with her middle-aged, married riding instructor. The damage inflicted by the 'Horseman', Cessie explains, is the reason for all her regrettable life choices - marriage, divorce and even motherhood itself. Both women spend the ensuing decades haunted by the spectre of the Horseman, until they decide to investigate what became of him - an ill-conceived quest that will test the bonds of love and redefine their relationship forever.Written with unflinching candour and wit, Where You End and I Begin explores the dark reverberations of victim narratives and the power of filial love.By Ralph Berry. 2016
Few playwrights have been more slandered, abused or honoured in performance than William Shakespeare. First published in 1992, this collection…
of 300 stories focuses on Shakespeare’s plays on stage. Organised chronologically, it offers the reader the opportunity to witness the changes in theatrical approaches to Shakespeare from their own time to the present day. This book will be of interest to those studying theatre, but also to those fascinated by the Shakespeare tradition.By Peggy Rowe. 2022
Peggy Rowe is at it again—this time giving a hilarious inside look at her writing career.Peggy Rowe has been writing…
all of her adult life. In fact, she doesn&’t know how not to write—even through those years of constant rejection from publishing houses. But between her tenacity and the encouragement of her family, Peggy&’s breakthrough finally came—at the age of eighty! Vacuuming in the Nude is most likely her funniest prose to date as she shares her journey of attending myriad writers&’ conferences and honing her ability to see humor in everyday situations. From the family&’s beloved dog Shim, who thrived on piles of fresh, warm manure from the horse pasture—to vacationing on the sweltering beach with mosquitos the size of dune buggies—to the challenges of aging, Peggy Rowe delivers a hilarious array of stories that reflect her addiction to making people laugh. Even in her cancer support group, she manages to use her humor to affect others for the good. If Peggy isn&’t putting her publisher on hold to finish a game of Mahjongg, she&’s at her kitchen table window-on-the-world taking notes for the next story for fans old and new to enjoy.By Dr Gordon Chen, Dr Christopher Chen. 2022
A CT scan revealed Dr. James Chen, a Miami physician, had a cancerous, inoperable, tumor behind his nose. The prognosis…
was bleak. Dr. Chen had eight weeks to live. Dr. Chen and his sons, Chris and Gordon, looked for a miracle. Chris was completing a cardiology fellowship. Gordon was finishing medical school. They knew what they were up against. Even still, they were shocked when a local oncologist told them, &“The first available appointment is in six weeks.&” James and his sons were suddenly patients, forced to look at the healthcare system from the other end of the stethoscope. They didn&’t like what they saw—expensive, uncoordinated, and ineffective care. At one point James asked his sons, &“If a family of doctors with connections can&’t navigate this system, what chance do my patients have?&” The Chens found their calling. Together with James&’ wife Mary, Chris&’s wife Stephanie (an attorney), and Gordon&’s wife Jessica (another doctor) they created ChenMed, a physician-led company that serves the underserved. ChenMed puts their patients from forgotten communities first and focuses on accountable, compassionate care that improves health. In The Calling, Chris and Gordon share how the family succeeded beyond their wildest expectations through a combination of determination, data, family, and faith. They turned what could have been a tragedy into an opportunity that will revolutionize healthcare delivery for years to come. The Calling will give you hope.By Alison Faulkner. 2022
“This is the book that will help you finally put your self-doubt to rest and awaken you to your brilliance.” — Nakeia…
Homer, author of I Hope This HelpsEverywhere we look, we’re bombarded with millions of ways we can transform ourselves. But while often a worthwhile goal, this drive to be our best selves can also be overwhelming and stressful. Alison Faulkner has been there, and is here to remind us that nothing external can give us worth or value-- we’re already awesome, what we need to do is learn how to recognize our inherent awesomeness and then step into our true power. In You’re Already Awesome, Alison shares with honesty, vulnerability, and a whole lot of humor, personal stories and twelve powerful shifts that help us shift back into an awareness of our awesomeness. The tools in each chapter are tried and true methods that she has used herself and with countless clients to build successful businesses and step into the life of their dreams.By Andrew Brobyn. 2022
A mid-level drug trafficker and self-proclaimed low-life with a big vocabulary comes to terms with his actions and his mental…
health. Andrew Brobyn’s relationship was in shambles before he took the terrible acid that sent him on an almost decade-long journey seeking redemption. His immediate plans following university were to liquidate his illicit assets, sell his client list, pack up shop, and retire to his parents’ home in Toronto while he figured out what to do with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and a quarter million in cash. As his drug use and bipolar disorder spiral, his situation gets stranger and stranger, taking him from his university campus to strip clubs, psych wards, and the slammer.Equal parts hilarious and terrifying, Babble On is a psycho-philosophical memoir that tracks Brobyn as he navigates the consequences of his eccentric choices and struggles with profound ambivalence toward his own health and well-being.A RARE MACHINES BOOKBy Jesse Ball. 2022
A work of unflinching honesty, Autoportrait is a hypnotic memoir of reflection, loss, and everyday joy from one of America's…
best contemporary novelistsJesse Ball has produced fourteen acclaimed works of deeply empathetic absurdism in poetry and fiction. Now, he offers readers his first memoir, one that showcases his &“humane curiosity&” (James Wood) and invites the reader into a raw and personal account of love, grief, and memory. Inspired by the memoir Édouard Levé put to paper shortly before his death, Autoportrait is an extraordinarily frank and intimate work from one of America's most brilliant young authors.The subtle power of Ball's voice conjures the richness of everyday life. On each page, half-remembered moments are woven together with the joys and triumphs—and the mistakes and humiliations, too—that somehow tell us who we are, why we are here. Held at the same height as tragic accounts of illness or death are moments of startling beauty, banality, or humor: "I wake in the morning, I sit, I walk long distances. If there is somewhere to swim, I may swim. If I have a bicycle, I will ride it, especially to meet someone. There is no more preparing for me to do, other than preparing for death, and I do that by laughing. Not laughing at death, of course. Laughing at myself." An extraordinary memoir that reminds us what is possible and builds to the kind of power one might feel reading Anne Carson's Glass Essay, or Joe Brainard's I Remember. Autoportrait will leave you feeling utterly invigorated, inspired, and a little afraid.By Keith Corbin, Kevin Alexander. 2022
A sharply crafted and unflinchingly honest memoir about gangs, drugs, cooking, and living life on the line—both on the streets…
and in the kitchen—from one of the most exciting stars in the food world today&“As compelling or more so than Boyz N the Hood and Menace II Society . . . When Corbin writes about his life, it burns with the intensity of the best pulp fiction, but it isn&’t fiction—it&’s the life he lived.&”—Los Angeles TimesChef Keith Corbin has been cooking his entire life. Born on the home turf of the notorious Grape Street Crips in 1980s Watts, Los Angeles, he got his start cooking crack at age thirteen, becoming so skilled that he was flown across the country to cook for drug operations in other cities. After his criminal enterprises caught up with him, though, Corbin spent years in California&’s most notorious maximum security prisons—witnessing the resourcefulness of other inmates who made kimchi out of leftover vegetables and tamales from ground-up Fritos. He developed his own culinary palate and ingenuity, creating &“spreads&” out of the unbearable commissary ingredients and experimenting during his shifts in the prison kitchen.After his release, Corbin got a job managing the kitchen at LocoL, an ambitious fast food restaurant spearheaded by celebrity chefs Roy Choi and Daniel Patterson, designed to bring inexpensive, quality food and good jobs into underserved neighborhoods. But when Corbin was suddenly thrust into the spotlight, he struggled to live up to or accept the simplified &“gangbanger redemption&” portrayal of him in the media. As he battles private demons while achieving public success, Corbin traces the origins of his vision for &“California soul food&” and takes readers inside the worlds of gang hierarchy, drug dealing, prison politics, gentrification, and culinary achievement to tell the story of how he became head chef of Alta Adams, one of America&’s best restaurants.By Rebecca Woolf. 2022
“Beautifully written, complex, provocative, painful, genuine...an unforgettable memoir.”—ROXANE GAY“Wonderfully lyrical and uncomfortably honest in a way that is so rare,…
yet so needed.”—JENNY LAWSON“Disturbing and profound, this intimate book also reveals the sometimes-labyrinthine nature of the bonds that unite people in love...A provocative and memorable work.”—Kirkus ReviewsAfter years of struggling in a tumultuous marriage, writer Rebecca Woolf was finally ready to leave her husband. Two weeks after telling him she wanted a divorce, he was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. Four months later, at the age of forty-four, he died.In All of This, Woolf chronicles the months before her husband’s death—and her rebirth after he was gone. With rigorous honesty and incredible awareness, she reflects on the end of her marriage: how her husband’s illness finally gave her the space to make peace with his humanity and her own.Stunning, compelling, and brilliantly nuanced, All of This is one woman’s story of embracing the complexities of grief without shame—as a mother, a widow, and a sexual being—and emerging on the other side of a relationship with gratitude and relief.