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Showing 1 - 20 of 1073 items
By Richard Lederer, Richard Dowis. 1999
For years Richard Lederer has enthralled fans of the English language with his keen insights, commonsense advice, and witty presentation.…
Now Lederer has teamed up with Richard Dowis to take readers on another journey through the world's most wonderful, albeit perplexing, language. How many times have we all heard the word viable used in company meetings? Lederer and Dowis show us how "viable," somewhere along the line, was extracted from medical books, where it literally means "capable of living," and placed into the business lexicon, where it means...well, who knows?The authors clear up once and for all the confusion between lay and lie and put to rest some common myths about language. The book's finale is a ten-minute writing lesson from which everyone, from rank amateur to seasoned pro, can benefit. These and dozens of other features make this book pure pleasure for language buffs, writers, and teachers. Sleeping Dogs Don't Lay is useful and authoritative as well as fun to read, with humorous touches often popping up where least expected and most needed.By Jerrold M. Packard. 2002
For a hundred years after the end of the Civil War, a quarter of all Americans lived under a system…
of legalized segregation called Jim Crow. Together with its rigidly enforced canon of racial "etiquette," these rules governed nearly every aspect of life--and outlined draconian punishments for infractions.The purpose of Jim Crow was to keep African Americans subjugated at a level as close as possible to their former slave status. Exceeding even South Africa's notorious apartheid in the humiliation, degradation, and suffering it brought, Jim Crow left scars on the American psyche that are still felt today. American Nightmare examines and explains Jim Crow from its beginnings to its end: how it came into being, how it was lived, how it was justified, and how, at long last, it was overcome only a few short decades ago. Most importantly, this book reveals how a nation founded on principles of equality and freedom came to enact as law a pervasive system of inequality and virtual slavery.Although America has finally consigned Jim Crow to the historical graveyard, Jerrold Packard shows why it is important that this scourge--and an understanding of how it happened--remain alive in the nation's collective memory.By James N. Frey. 2000
In his widely read guides How to Write a Damn Good Novel and How to Write a Damn Good Novel…
II: Advanced Techniques, popular novelist and fiction-writing coach James N. Frey showed tens of thousands of writers how--starting with rounded, living, breathing, dynamic characters--to structure a novel that sustains its tension and development and ends in a satisfying, dramatic climax.Now, in The Key, Frey takes his no-nonsense, "Damn Good" approach and applies it to Joseph Campbell's insights into the universal structure of myths. Myths, says Frey, are the basis of all storytelling, and their structures and motifs are just as powerful for contemporary writers as they were for Homer. Frey begins with the qualities found in mythic heros--ancient and modern--such as the hero's special talent, his or her wound, status as an "outlaw," and so on. He then demonstrates how the hero is initiated--sent on a mission, forced to learn the new rules, tested, and suffers a symbolic death and rebirth--before he or she can return home. Using dozens of classical and contemporary novels and films as models, Frey shows how these motifs and forms work their powerful magic on the reader's imagination.The Key is designed as a practical step-by-step guide for fiction writers and screen writers who want to shape their own ideas into a mythic story.By Langston Hughes. 1940
Introduction by Arnold Rampersad.Langston Hughes, born in 1902, came of age early in the 1920s. In The Big Sea he…
recounts those memorable years in the two great playgrounds of the decade--Harlem and Paris. In Paris he was a cook and waiter in nightclubs. He knew the musicians and dancers, the drunks and dope fiends. In Harlem he was a rising young poet--at the center of the "Harlem Renaissance."Arnold Rampersad writes in his incisive new introduction to The Big Sea, an American classic: "This is American writing at its best--simpler than Hemingway; as simple and direct as that of another Missouri-born writer...Mark Twain."By Gina Gallo. 2001
The critically acclaimed memoirs of one female police officer's sixteen-year odyssey, beginning with day one at the Police Academy and…
spanning assignments on Chicago's West Side, one of the most dangerous areas in the city.The notorious cops' code of silence is broken as the author recounts incidents in the West Side projects: shoot-outs, ambushes, and what it feels like to kill a man—just four days out of the Academy.The stories told are sometimes tragic, sometimes funny, often poignant, and always provide the reader with an on the scene feel for life behind the badge. Domestic violence, murdered spouses, abused children, and philandering CPD brass are just some of the topics addressed, topics that officer Gallo dealt with everyday.From her work with gangs, narcotics, the gun task force, and acting as a prostitute, Gina Gallo offers a gritty account of the darker side of the city, giving readers an objective side to the cops, crooks, and victims that comprise a the police cops world.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.By Ciarán Murphy. 2023
A provocative look at how grassroots GAA interacts with life in Ireland, from the wittiest Gaelic games pundit at work…
today The GAA is Ireland's largest civil society organisation, woven into the fabric of families and communities - and yet most books about Gaelic games focus on the greatest players and inter-county teams. This is the Life is a book about the 99%: a witty and provocative look at grassroots GAA from the most intelligent and interesting Gaelic games pundit at work today.Ciarán Murphy - of Second Captains and the Irish Times - has an unmatched feel for the timeless elements of this world and a finger on the pulse of change. He looks at the plight of rural clubs that are losing their players to the cities - and he does so not only as a journalist but as a footballer who made the same move himself. He writes about working as an assistant in the clothing shop owned by the family of Jarlath Fallon - both Ciarán's sporting hero and the local postman. And he looks a things we usually prefer not to talk about, like the role of social class in the GAA.This is the Life is a book about the places the GAA comes from, the places it can take a person, and theings that make a local club worth fighting for.By Cheryl Strayed, Rebecca Solnit. 2017
Twenty-Three Leading Feminist Writers on Protest and SolidarityWhen 53 percent of white women voted for Donald Trump and 94 percent…
of black women voted for Hillary Clinton, how can women unite in Trump’s America? Nasty Women includes inspiring essays from a diverse group of talented women writers who seek to provide a broad look at how we got here and what we need to do to move forward.Featuring essays by REBECCA SOLNIT on Trump and his “misogyny army,” CHERYL STRAYED on grappling with the aftermath of Hillary Clinton’s loss, SARAH HEPOLA on resisting the urge to drink after the election, NICOLE CHUNG on family and friends who support Trump, KATHA POLLITT on the state of reproductive rights and what we do next, JILL FILIPOVIC on Trump’s policies and the life of a young woman in West Africa, SAMANTHA IRBY on racism and living as a queer black woman in rural America, RANDA JARRAR on traveling across the country as a queer Muslim American, SARAH HOLLENBECK on Trump’s cruelty toward the disabled, MEREDITH TALUSAN on feminism and the transgender community, and SARAH JAFFE on the labor movement and active and effective resistance, among others.Writer and editorial consultant Ron Hogan helps readers develop an ongoing writing practice as an end in and of itself,…
not a means to publication. Many people pick up the guitar without eyeing a career as a professional musician, or start painting without caring if they get a gallery. But with writing the assumption seems to be that the goal must be to get published. Why? Why is it acceptable to attain technical proficiency at "Stairway to Heaven" or plein air watercolors as a hobby, while writing is expected to earn its keep? In Our Endless and Proper Work, the second in Belt’s series of books about writing and publishing—along with Belt founder Anne Trubek’s So You Want to Publish a Book? (2020)—Ron Hogan argues writing should be an end in itself for more people. The founder of the literary site Beatrice, and creator of the popular newsletter "Destroy Your Safe and Happy Lives", Hogan offers concrete steps to help writers develop ongoing creative practice in chapters such as “Reclaiming Your Time for Writing,” “Finding Your Groove,” and “Preparing Yourself for the Long Haul.” Sprinkled throughout are adorable illustrations by “Positive Doodles” creator Emm Roy. This concise, inspirational book encourages all people to take up writing not, as so many other handbooks and resources suggest, in order to make money or become famous, but because it can help you become a happier, more whole and engaged person.By Anne Trubek. 2020
In So You Want to Publish a Book?, Anne Trubek, founder of Belt Publishing, demystifies the publishing process. This insightful…
guide offers concrete, witty advice and information to authors, prospective authors, and those curioA powerful and revealing memoir about the pioneers of modern-day feminismPhyllis Chesler was a pioneer of Second Wave Feminism. Chesler…
and the women who came out swinging between 1972-1975 integrated the want ads, brought class action lawsuits on behalf of economic discrimination, opened rape crisis lines and shelters for battered women, held marches and sit-ins for abortion and equal rights, famously took over offices and buildings, and pioneered high profile Speak-outs. They began the first-ever national and international public conversations about birth control and abortion, sexual harassment, violence against women, female orgasm, and a woman’s right to kill in self-defense. Now, Chesler has juicy stories to tell. The feminist movement has changed over the years, but Chesler knew some of its first pioneers, including Gloria Steinem, Kate Millett, Flo Kennedy, and Andrea Dworkin. These women were fierce forces of nature, smoldering figures of sin and soul, rock stars and action heroes in real life. Some had been viewed as whores, witches, and madwomen, but were changing the world and becoming major players in history. In A Politically Incorrect Feminist, Chesler gets chatty while introducing the reader to some of feminism's major players and world-changers.By Rosemarie Ostler. 2015
Who decided not to split infinitives? With whom should we take issue if in fact, we wish to boldly write…
what no grammarian hath writ before? In Founding Grammars, Rosemarie Ostler delves into the roots of our grammar obsession to answer these questions and many more. Standard grammar and accurate spelling are widely considered hallmarks of a good education, but their exact definitions are much more contentious - capable of inciting a full-blown grammar war at the splice of a comma, battles readily visible in the media and online in the comments of blogs and chat rooms. With an accessible and enthusiastic journalistic approach, Ostler considers these grammatical shibboleths, tracing current debates back to America's earliest days, an era when most families owned only two books - the Bible and a grammar primer. Along the way, she investigates colorful historical characters on both sides of the grammar debate in her efforts to unmask the origins of contemporary speech. Linguistic founding fathers like Noah Webster, Tory expatriate Lindley Murray, and post-Civil War literary critic Richard Grant White,all play a featured role in creating the rules we've come to use, and occasionally discard, throughout the years. Founding Grammars is for curious readers who want to know where grammar rules have come from, where they've been, and where they might go next.By Simon Mitchell. 1981
First published in 1981, The Logic of Poverty consists of eight essays that share at least one assumption: that Northeast…
Brazil provides a startling example of inhumane economic development. The contributors have all worked in the area, and know it at first hand. They look at rural structure and the role of the unemployed ‘reserve army’, the state of the sugar industry, the ineffectiveness of the irrigation schemes, the stagnation in the fishing sector, the lack of credit available to peasants and the role of SUDENE, the first development agency in the region. Together they paint a picture of poverty and of the factors that allow it to continue, and they place that poverty in the context of the wider economy of Brazil, relating it to the extraordinary transformation that has been called ‘the Brazilian miracle’. This book will be of interest to students of geography, anthropology, economics and sociology.First published in 1970, Leyla and Mejnun provides a thorough introduction to the Leyla and Mejnun love story and the…
various forms in which the story has appeared in the Islamic world. Finally, it offers for the delight of the English poetry lover, an extremely readable translation of the Turkish version of the story. This book will be of interest to students of literature and history.By Anna Siewierska. 1984
First published in 1984, The Passive surveys a wide range of different constructions, which have all been termed ‘passives’ by…
linguists, using data from a large number of genetically and typologically diverse languages. Chapter 1 raises questions about the nature of passives and exposes some of the difficulties inherent in the traditional assumptions. Chapter 2 examines the ‘personal passive’ and includes a discussion on the relationship between the passive and transitivity. Chapter 3 to 5 deal with impersonal, periphrastic and reflexive passives, exploring the varied problems raised by each construction and focusing particularly on English and Southeast Asian languages. The two final chapters look at various attempts to explain exceptions to the passive in both semantic and syntactic terms, with an additional section on pragmatics. This book will appeal to all of those involved in the field of comparative linguistics.By Suniti Kumar Chatterji. 1972
First published in 1972, The Origin and Development of the Bengali Language (Vol. 3) is the updated supplement to the…
two-volume The Origin and Development of the Bengali Language. It contains certain additions and corrections to the first systematic and detailed history of a Modern Indo-Aryan Language written by an Indian, and incidentally, as it is comparative in its treatment, taking into consideration facts in other Indo-Aryan speeches, it is an invaluable contribution to the scientific study of the Modern Indo-Aryan languages as a whole. This book will be of interest to students of language, linguistics and South Asian studies.By Kevin M. Anzzolin. 2024
During Porfirio Díaz&’s thirty-year rule, Mexico dealt with the press in disparate ways in hopes of forging an informed and,…
above all, orderly citizenry. Even as innumerable journalists were sent to prison on exaggerated and unfair charges of defamation or slander, Díaz&’s government subsidized multiple newspapers to expand literacy and to aggrandize the image of the regime. In Guardians of Discourse Kevin M. Anzzolin analyzes the role and representation of journalism in literary texts from Porfirian Mexico to argue that these writings created a literate, objective, refined, and informed public. By exploring works by Porfirian writers such as Emilio Rabasa, Ángel del Campo, Rafael Delgado, Laura Méndez de Cuenca, and Salvador Quevedo y Zubieta, Anzzolin demonstrates that a primary goal of the lettered class was to define and shape the character of public life, establish the social position of citizens, and interrogate the character of civil institutions. These elite letrados—whom Anzzolin refers to as &“guardians of discourse&”—aimed to define the type of discourses that would buttress the transformed Mexico of the Díaz regime to forge a truly national literature that could be discussed among an expanded coterie of lettered thinkers. In addition, these Porfirian guardians hoped to construct an extensive and active public able to debate political and social issues via a press befitting a modern nation-state and create a press that would be independent, illuminating, and distinguished. Through an innovative look at Mexico&’s public sphere via literary fiction in the Porfirian era, Anzzolin contributes to our knowledge of Mexican and Latin American political, cultural, and literary history in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.By Susan Dewey. 2024
Gun Present takes us inside the everyday operations of the law at a courthouse in the Deep South. Illuminating the…
challenges accompanying the prosecution of criminal cases involving guns, the three coauthors—an anthropologist, a geographer, and a district attorney—present a deeply human portrait of prosecutors’ work. Built on an immersive, community-based participatory partnership between researchers and criminal justice professionals, Gun Present chronicles how a justice assemblage comprising institutional structures and practices, relationships and roles, and individual moral and emotional worlds informs the day-to-day administration of justice. Weaving together in-depth interviews, quantitative analysis of more than a thousand criminal cases, analysis of trial transcripts, and over a year of ethnographic observations, Gun Present provides a model for scholar-practitioner collaborations.By Tricia Rose. 2003
The Sexual Lives of Black Women, In Their Own WordsIn a culture driven by sexual and racial imagery, very few…
honest conversations about race, gender, and sexuality actually take place. In their absence, commonly held perceptions of black women as teenage mothers, welfare recipients, mammies, or exotic sexual playthings remain unchanged. For fear that telling their stories will fulfill society's implicit expectations about their sexuality, most black women have retreated into silence. Tricia Rose seeks to break this silence and jump-start a dialogue by presenting, for the first time, the sexual testimonies of black women. Spanning a broad range of ages, levels of education, and socioeconomic backgrounds, twenty women, in their own words, talk with startling honesty about sex, love, family, relationships, and intimacy. Their stories dispel prevailing myths and provide revealing insights into how black women navigate the complex terrain of sexuality. Nuanced, rich, and powerful, Longing to Tell will be required reading for anyone interested in issues of race and gender.This book examines the ways in which indigeneity interacts with climate change politics at multiple levels and at the same…
time offers a self-critical reflection on the role of ethnographic research (and researchers) in this process. Through a multi-sited ethnography, it shows how indigeneity and climate change mitigation are at this point so intensely intertwined that one cannot be clearly understood without considering the other. While indigenous identities have been (re)defined in relation to climate change, it argues that Indigenous Peoples continue to subvert pervasive notions of the nature/culture dichotomy and disrupt our understanding of what it means to be human in relation to nature. It encourages students and researchers in anthropology, international development, and other related fields to engage in more meaningful reflection on the epistemic shortcomings of “the West”, including in our own research, and to acknowledge the ongoing role of power, coloniality, extractivism, and whiteness in climate change discourses.By Sergio García-Magariño. 2024
This book offers a general theory of violent radicalization and uses case studies from a variety of different countries and…
groups to illustrate this.The first and fundamental objective of the book is to provide an explanatory framework to understand phenomena related to violent radicalization, deradicalization, the prevention of radicalization and to political violence; in particular, that inspired by religion. The second objective follows from the first. Understanding violent radicalization of religious inspiration implies delving into two key concepts: violent radicalization and religion. This second objective is indeed elusive, since, on the one hand, many liberal democracies have undergone processes of secularization or, at least, have lost interest in examining religion in public debates. Therefore, rigorously exploring social problems where religion seems to be involved, in one way or another, is complicated. Moreover, the notion of violent radicalization, in turn, is highly contested and confused with other ideas, such as polarization, extremism, terrorism or nonviolent radicalization. Finally, the book aims to bring theory into dialogue with empirical phenomena, and to test it against concrete cases related to violent radicalization and its prevention, on the one hand, and religion, on the other. The book’s originality comes from both its innovative, methodological approach and its breadth, with cases from several countries (Spain, the United States, Ireland, India, Israel, Russia and Colombia) and different ideological groups (revolutionary communists, nationalist movements, Jihadist groups, white and black supremacists).This book will be of much interest to students of terrorism and political violence, radicalization, sociology and international relations in general.