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Eat the buddha: Life and death in a tibetan town
By Barbara Demick. 2020
A gripping portrait of modern Tibet told through the lives of its people, from the bestselling author of Nothing to…
Envy. &“You simply cannot understand China without reading Barbara Demick on Tibet.&”—Evan Osnos, author of Age of Ambition NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND THE WASHINGTON POST Just as she did with North Korea, award-winning journalist Barbara Demick explores one of the most hidden corners of the world. She tells the story of a Tibetan town perched eleven thousand feet above sea level that is one of the most difficult places in all of China for foreigners to visit. Ngaba was one of the first places where the Tibetans and the Chinese Communists encountered one another. In the 1930s, Mao Zedong&’s Red Army fled into the Tibetan plateau to escape their adversaries in the Chinese Civil War. By the time the soldiers reached Ngaba, they were so hungry that they looted monasteries and ate religious statues made of flour and butter—to Tibetans, it was as if they were eating the Buddha. Their experiences would make Ngaba one of the engines of Tibetan resistance for decades to come, culminating in shocking acts of self-immolation. Eat the Buddha spans decades of modern Tibetan and Chinese history, as told through the private lives of Demick&’s subjects, among them a princess whose family is wiped out during the Cultural Revolution, a young Tibetan nomad who becomes radicalized in the storied monastery of Kirti, an upwardly mobile entrepreneur who falls in love with a Chinese woman, a poet and intellectual who risks everything to voice his resistance, and a Tibetan schoolgirl forced to choose at an early age between her family and the elusive lure of Chinese money. All of them face the same dilemma: Do they resist the Chinese, or do they join them? Do they adhere to Buddhist teachings of compassion and nonviolence, or do they fight? Illuminating a culture that has long been romanticized by Westerners as deeply spiritual and peaceful, Demick reveals what it is really like to be a Tibetan in the twenty-first century, trying to preserve one&’s culture, faith, and language against the depredations of a seemingly unstoppable, technologically all-seeing superpower. Her depiction is nuanced, unvarnished, and at times shockingCaste (oprah's book club): The origins of our discontents
By Isabel Wilkerson. 2020
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH&’S BOOK CLUB PICK • LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • &“An instant…
American classic and almost certainly the keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far.&”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions. NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • O: The Oprah Magazine • Time • Marie Claire • Town & Country &“As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not.&” In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people&’s lives and behavior and the nation&’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball&’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their out-cast of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity. Beautifully written, original, and revealing, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is an eye-opening story of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies under the surface of ordinary lives and of American life todayThe cooking gene: A journey through african-american culinary history in the old south
By Michael W Twitty. 2018
Southern food is integral to the American culinary tradition, yet the question of who "owns" it is one of the…
most provocative touchpoints in our ongoing struggles over race. In this unique memoir, culinary historian Michael W. Twitty takes listeners to the white-hot center of this fight, tracing the roots of his own family and the charged politics surrounding the origins of soul food, barbecue, and all Southern cuisine. Twitty travels from the tobacco and rice farms of colonial times to plantation kitchens and backbreaking cotton fields to tell of the struggles his family faced and how food enabled his ancestors' survival across three centuries. He sifts through stories, recipes, genetic tests, and historical documents, and visits Civil War battlefields in Virginia, synagogues in Alabama, and black-owned organic farms in Georgia. As he takes us through his ancestral culinary history, Twitty suggests that healing may come from embracing the discomfort of the South's past. Along the way, he reveals a truth that is more than skin deep-the power of food to bring the kin of the enslaved and their former slaveholders to the table, where they can discover the real America togetherBirthday party games (Happy Birthday!)
By Sarah L. Schuette. 2020
What kind of games will you play at your birthday party? From musical chairs to sack racing, games make birthdays…
fun. Learn about indoor and outdoor games to play on your special dayPlanet canada: How our expats are shaping the future
By John Stackhouse. 2020
A leading thinker on Canada's place in the world contends that our country's greatest untapped resource may be the three…
million Canadians who don't live here. Entrepreneurs, educators, humanitarians: an entire province's worth of Canadian citizens live outside Canada. Some will return, others won't. But what they all share is the ability, and often the desire, to export Canadian values to a world sorely in need of them. And to act as ambassadors for Canada in industries and societies where diplomatic efforts find little traction. Surely a country with people as diverse as Canada's ought to plug itself into every corner of the globe. We don't, and sometimes not even when our expats are eager to help. Failing to put this desire to work, contends bestselling author and longtime foreign correspondent John Stackhouse, is a grave error for a small country whose voice is getting lost behind developing nations of rapidly increasing influence. The soft power we once boasted is getting softer, but we have an unparalleled resource, if we choose to use it. To ensure Canada's place in the world, Stackhouse argues in Planet Canada , we need this exceptional province of expats and their special claim on the twenty-first centuryWandering in strange lands: A daughter of the great migration reclaims her roots
By Morgan Jerkins. 2020
One of Buzzfeed's 24 New Books We Couldn't Put Down "One of the smartest young writers of her generation."—Book Riot…
From the acclaimed cultural critic and New York Times bestselling author of This Will Be My Undoing—a writer whom Roxane Gay has hailed as "a force to be reckoned with"—comes this powerful story of her journey to understand her northern and southern roots, the Great Migration, and the displacement of black people across America. Between 1916 and 1970, six million black Americans left their rural homes in the South for jobs in cities in the North, West, and Midwest in a movement known as The Great Migration. But while this event transformed the complexion of America and provided black people with new economic opportunities, it also disconnected them from their roots, their land, and their sense of identity, argues Morgan Jerkins. In this fascinating and deeply personal exploration, she recreates her ancestors' journeys across America, following the migratory routes they took from Georgia and South Carolina to Louisiana, Oklahoma, and California. Following in their footsteps, Jerkins seeks to understand not only her own past, but the lineage of an entire group of people who have been displaced, disenfranchised, and disrespected throughout our history. Through interviews and hundreds of pages of transcription, Jerkins braids the loose threads of her family's oral histories, which she was able to trace back 300 years, with the insights and recollections of black people she met along the way—the tissue of black myths, customs, and blood that connect the bones of American history. Incisive and illuminating, Wandering in Strange Lands is a timely and enthralling look at America's past and present, one family's legacy, and a young black woman's life, filtered through her sharp and curious eyesMediocre: the dangerous legacy of white male America
By Ijeoma Oluo. 2020
Ijeoma Oluo investigates the real costs and the subversive history of white male American identity in order to find a…
way it can be reimagined, one free from racism, sexism, and oppressionIn Praise of Slow: How a Worldwide Movement Is Challenging the Cult of Speed
By Carl Honore. 2017
In the tradition of such trailblazing books as No Logo and The Tipping Point, In Praise of Slow heralds a…
growing international movement of people dedicated to slowing down the pace of our contemporary times and enjoying a richer, fuller life as a result.These days, almost everyone complains about the hectic pace of their lives. We live in a world where speed rules and everyone is under pressure to go faster. But when speed is king, anyone or anything that gets in our way, that slows us down, becomes an enemy. Thanks to speed, we are living in the age of rage.Carl Honore has discovered a movement that is quickly working its way into the mainstream. Groups of people are developing a recipe for living better in a fast-paced, modern environment by striving for a new balance between fast and slow. In an entertaining and hands-on investigation of this new movement, Honore takes us from a Tantric sex workshop in a trendy neighbourhood in London, England to Bra, Italy, the home of the Slow Food, Slow Cities and Slow Sex movements. He examines how we can continue to live productive lives by embracing the tenets of the slow movement.A challenging take on the cult of speed, as well as a corrective look at how we can approach our lives with new understanding, In Praise of Slow uncovers a movement whose time has come.Trust: Twenty Ways to Build a Better Country
By David Johnston. 2018
From our esteemed former Governor General--and author of the bestsellers The Idea of Canada and Ingenious--a very timely guide for…
restoring personal, community, and national trust.Trust is a much-needed manual for the repair and restoration of the social quality on which all democracies rely. One of Canada's most revered governors general, David Johnston mines his long life and varied career to give Canadians twenty ways to make themselves, their institutions, and their country more worthy of trust. Many of these habits, attitudes, and approaches stem from his experiences serving as the representative of the head of state in Canada for seven years. Some ways are individual--listen first, never manipulate, be consistent in public and private. Some are geared toward leaders at all levels and of all stripes--be barn-raisers, tell everyone your plans, depend on those around you. And some are societal--apologize, cherish teachers, invite others to dance. As such, not only every Canadian, but also every person who cares about their democratic way of life is wise to heed David Johnston's polite yet pressing call. You can become more worthy of trust. You can spot and encourage this vital quality in others. You can be an instrumental force in restoring trust in your community and country--making them better for yourself and your fellow citizens, and the world better for all.21 Lessons for the 21st Century
By Yuval Noah Harari. 2018
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In Sapiens, he explored our past. In Homo Deus, he looked to our future.…
Now, one of the most innovative thinkers on the planet turns to the present to make sense of today’s most pressing issues."Fascinating . . . a crucial global conversation about how to take on the problems of the twenty-first century."—Bill Gates, The New York Times Book ReviewNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY FINANCIAL TIMES AND PAMELA PAUL, KQED How do computers and robots change the meaning of being human? How do we deal with the epidemic of fake news? Are nations and religions still relevant? What should we teach our children? Yuval Noah Harari’s 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is a probing and visionary investigation into today’s most urgent issues as we move into the uncharted territory of the future. As technology advances faster than our understanding of it, hacking becomes a tactic of war, and the world feels more polarized than ever, Harari addresses the challenge of navigating life in the face of constant and disorienting change and raises the important questions we need to ask ourselves in order to survive. In twenty-one accessible chapters that are both provocative and profound, Harari builds on the ideas explored in his previous books, untangling political, technological, social, and existential issues and offering advice on how to prepare for a very different future from the world we now live in: How can we retain freedom of choice when Big Data is watching us? What will the future workforce look like, and how should we ready ourselves for it? How should we deal with the threat of terrorism? Why is liberal democracy in crisis? Harari’s unique ability to make sense of where we have come from and where we are going has captured the imaginations of millions of readers. Here he invites us to consider values, meaning, and personal engagement in a world full of noise and uncertainty. When we are deluged with irrelevant information, clarity is power. Presenting complex contemporary challenges clearly and accessibly, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is essential reading."If there were such a thing as a required instruction manual for politicians and thought leaders, Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari’s 21 Lessons for the 21st Century would deserve serious consideration. In this collection of provocative essays, Harari . . . tackles a daunting array of issues, endeavoring to answer a persistent question: ‘What is happening in the world today, and what is the deep meaning of these events?’"—BookPage (top pick)Growing Young: How Friendship, Optimism, and Kindness Can Help You Live to 100
By Marta Zaraska. 2020
NATIONAL BESTSELLERA smart, research-driven case for why optimism, kindness, and strong social networks will help us live to 100.From the…
day her daughter was born, science journalist Marta Zaraska fretted about what she and her family were eating. She fasted, considered adopting the keto diet, and ran a half-marathon. She bought goji berries and chia seeds and ate organic food. But then her research brought her to read countless scientific papers and to interview dozens of experts in various fields of study, including molecular biochemistry, epidemiology and neuroscience. What Marta discovered shattered her long-held beliefs about aging and longevity. A strong support network of family and friends, she learned, lowers mortality risk by about 45 percent, while exercise only lowers it by about 23 percent. Volunteering your free time lowers it by 22 percent or so, while certain health fads like turmeric haven't been shown to help at all. These revelations led Marta Zaraska to a simple conclusion: In addition to healthy nutrition and physical activity, deepening friendships, practicing empathy and contemplating your purpose in life can improve your lifespan. Through eleven chapters that take her around the world, from catching wild mice in the woods of central England to flower arranging with octogenarians in Japan, from laboratories to "hugging centres," Marta embarks on an absorbing, entertaining and insightful journey to determine the habits that will have the greatest impact on our longevity. Deeply researched and expertly reported, Growing Young will dramatically change the way you seek a longer, happier life.Bolder: Making the Most of Our Longer Lives
By Carl Honore. 2019
Carl Honoré captured the zeitgeist with his international bestseller, In Praise of Slow. Now he tackles another rising global movement:…
our revolutionary new approach to a human inevitability--ageing. A revolution in how we age is on its way. Yes, ageing is inevitable: one year from now we will all be a year older; that will never change. What can and will change is how we age--and how we can all take a much bolder approach to doing it with vigour and joy. The time has come to cast off prejudices and to blur the lines of what is possible and permissible at every stage of life. In other words: we need to learn to re-imagine our approach to later life. Emboldening ourselves in older age demands big structural changes. For a start, we will have to tear up the old script that locks us into devoting the early part of our life to education, the middle chunk to working and raising kids, and whatever is left over at the end to leisure. In an age-inappropriate world, these silos will dissolve. We'll embrace the idea that we can carry on learning from start to finish; that we can work less and devote more time to family, leisure, and giving back to our communities in our middle years; and that we can remain active and engaged in our later years. Carl Honoré has travelled the globe speaking to influential figures who are bucking preconceived notions of age, whether at work or in their personal lives. He looks at the cultural, medical, and technological developments that are opening new possibilities for us all. Bolder is a radical re-think of our approach to everything from education, healthcare and work, to design, relationships and politics. An essential and inspiring read for everyone interested in our collective future.In this work of immersive journalism, based on hundreds of hours of reporting, Carl Hoffman journeys deep inside Donald Trump's…
rallies, seeking to understand the strange and powerful tribe that forms the president's baseWe keep the dead close: a murder at Harvard and a half century of silence
By Becky Cooper. 2020
Forty years after the fact, Becky Cooper, a curious Harvard undergrad, first heard whispers of a murdered student, one bludgeoned…
to death by a professor to cover up an affair. Though that motive proved false, the story that unfolded, one that Cooper followed for ten years, is even more complex: a tale of gender inequality in academia, the silencing effect of institutions, and our compulsion to rewrite the stories of female victimsLand: How the hunger for ownership shaped the modern world
By Simon Winchester. 2021
The author of The Professor and the Madman and The Perfectionists explores the notion of property—our proprietary relationship with the…
land—through human history, how it has shaped us and what it will mean for our future. Land—whether meadow or mountainside, desert or peat bog, parkland or pasture, suburb or city—is central to our existence. It quite literally underlies and underpins everything. Employing the keen intellect, insatiable curiosity, and narrative verve that are the foundations of his previous bestselling works, Simon Winchester examines what we human beings are doing—and have done—with the billions of acres that together make up the solid surface of our planet. Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World examines in depth how we acquire land, how we steward it, how and why we fight over it, and finally, how we can, and on occasion do, come to share it. Ultimately, Winchester confronts the essential question: who actually owns the world's land—and why does it matter? Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobookTen lessons for a post-pandemic world
By Fareed Zakaria. 2020
COVID-19 is speeding up history, but how? What is the shape of the world to come? Lenin once said, "There…
are decades when nothing happens and weeks when decades happen." This is one of those times when history has sped up. CNN host and bestselling author Fareed Zakaria helps listeners to understand the nature of a post-pandemic world: the political, social, technological, and economic impacts that may take years to unfold. In the form of ten straightforward "lessons," covering topics from globalization and threat-preparedness to inequality and technological advancement, Zakaria creates a structure for listeners to begin thinking beyond the immediate impacts of COVID-19. Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World speaks to past, present, and future, and, while urgent and timely, is sure to become an enduring stapleBeginners: The joy and transformative power of lifelong learning
By Tom Vanderbilt. 2021
The best-selling author of Traffic and You May Also Like now gives us a thought-provoking, playful journey into the transformative…
joys that come with starting something new, no matter your age Why do so many of us stop learning new skills as adults? Are we afraid to be bad at something? Have we forgotten the sheer pleasure of beginning from the ground up? Or is it simply a fact that you can't teach an old dog new tricks? Inspired by his young daughter's insatiable need to know how to do almost everything, and stymied by his own rut of mid-career competence, Tom Vanderbilt begins a year of learning purely for the sake of learning. He tackles five main skills (and picks up a few more up along the way) choosing them for their difficulty to master and their distinct lack of career marketability—chess, singing, surfing, drawing, and juggling. What he doesn't expect is that the circuitous paths he takes while learning these skills will prove even more satisfying than any knowledge he gains. He soon finds himself having rapturous experiences singing the Spice Girls in an amateur choir, losing games of chess to eight-year olds, and dodging scorpions at a surf camp in Costa Rica. Along the way, he interviews dozens of experts to explore the fascinating psychology and science behind the benefits of becoming an adult beginner. Weaving comprehensive research and surprising insight gained from his year of learning dangerously, Vanderbilt shows how anyone can get better at beginning again — and, more importantly, why they should take those first awkward steps. Ultimately he shares how his refreshed sense of curiosity opened him up to a profound happiness and a deeper connection to the people around him. It's about how small acts of reinvention, at any age, can make life seem magicalA woman like her: The story behind the honor killing of a social media star
By Sanam Maher. 2020
The murder of a Pakistani social media star exposes a culture divided between accelerating modernity and imposed traditional values—and the…
tragedy of those caught in the middle. In 2016, Pakistan's first social media celebrity, Qandeel Baloch, was murdered in a suspected honor killing. Her death quickly became a media sensation. It was both devastatingly routine and breathtakingly brutal, and in a new media landscape, it couldn't be ignored. Qandeel had courted attention and outrage with a talent for self-promotion that earned her comparisons to Kim Kardashian—and made her the constant victim of harassment and death threats. Social media and reality television exist uneasily alongside honor killings and forced marriages in a rapidly, if unevenly, modernizing Pakistan, and Qandeel Baloch's story became emblematic of the cultural divide. In this deftly reported and artfully told account, Sanam Maher reconstructs the story of Qandeel's life and explores the depth and range of her legacy from her impoverished hometown rankled by her infamy, to the aspiring fashion models who follow her footsteps, to the Internet activists resisting the same vicious online misogyny she faced. Maher depicts a society at a crossroads, where women serve as an easy scapegoat for its anxieties and dislocations, and teases apart the intrigue and myth-making of the Qandeel Baloch story to restore the humanity of the woman at its centerDo nothing: How to break away from overworking, overdoing, and underliving
By Celeste Headlee. 2020
&“A welcome antidote to our toxic hustle culture of burnout.&”—Arianna Huffington &“This book is so important and could truly save…
lives.&”—Elizabeth Gilbert &“A clarion call to work smarter [and] accomplish more by doing less.&”—Adam Grant We work feverishly to make ourselves happy. So why are we so miserable? Despite our constant search for new ways to optimize our bodies and minds for peak performance, human beings are working more instead of less, living harder not smarter, and becoming more lonely and anxious. We strive for the absolute best in every aspect of our lives, ignoring what we do well naturally and reaching for a bar that keeps rising higher and higher. Why do we measure our time in terms of efficiency instead of meaning? Why can&’t we just take a break? In Do Nothing, award-winning journalist Celeste Headlee illuminates a new path ahead, seeking to institute a global shift in our thinking so we can stop sabotaging our well-being, put work aside, and start living instead of doing. As it turns out, we&’re searching for external solutions to an internal problem. We won&’t find what we&’re searching for in punishing diets, productivity apps, or the latest self-improvement schemes. Yet all is not lost—we just need to learn how to take time for ourselves, without agenda or profit, and redefine what is truly worthwhile. Pulling together threads from history, neuroscience, social science, and even paleontology, Headlee examines long-held assumptions about time use, idleness, hard work, and even our ultimate goals. Her research reveals that the habits we cling to are doing us harm; they developed recently in human history, which means they are habits that can, and must, be broken. It&’s time to reverse the trend that&’s making us all sadder, sicker, and less productive, and return to a way of life that allows us to thriveDesert notebooks: A road map for the end of time
By Ben Ehrenreich. 2020
As inhabitants of the Anthropocene, what might some of our own histories tell us about how to confront apocalypse? And…
how might the geologies and ecologies of desert spaces inform how we see and act toward time—the pasts we have erased and paved over, this anxious present, the future we have no choice but to build? National Magazine Award winner Ben Ehrenreich examines how the unprecedented pace of the destruction of our environment and an increasingly unstable geopolitical landscape have led us to the brink of a calamity greater than any humankind has confronted before. But in the canyons and oases of the Mojave and in Las Vegas's neon apocalypse, Ehrenreich finds beauty, and even hope, surging up in the most unlikely places, from the most barren rocks and the apparent emptiness of the sky. He draws on that stark grandeur to ask how we might reckon with the uncertainty that surrounds us and fight off the crises that have already begun. Layering climate science, mythologies, nature writing, and personal experiences, Desert Notebooks offers a vital and necessary chronicle of our past and our present—perfect for fans of Robert Macfarlane and Elizabeth Rush—that's unflinching, urgent, and yet timeless and profound