Author: Wendy Burden Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 1101186186 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 239
Book Description
In the tradition of Sean Wilsey's Oh The Glory of It All and Augusten Burrough's Running With Scissors, the great-great-great granddaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt gives readers a grand tour of the world of wealth and WASPish peculiarity, in her irreverent and darkly humorous memoir. For generations the Burdens were one of the wealthiest families in New York, thanks to the inherited fortune of Cornelius "The Commodore" Vanderbilt. By 1955, the year of Wendy's birth, the Burden's had become a clan of overfunded, quirky and brainy, steadfastly chauvinistic, and ultimately doomed bluebloods on the verge of financial and moral decline-and were rarely seen not holding a drink. In Dead End Gene Pool, Wendy invites readers to meet her tragically flawed family, including an uncle with a fondness for Hitler, a grandfather who believes you can never have enough household staff, and a remarkably flatulent grandmother. At the heart of the story is Wendy's glamorous and aloof mother who, after her husband's suicide, travels the world in search of the perfect sea and ski tan, leaving her three children in the care of a chain- smoking Scottish nanny, Fifth Avenue grandparents, and an assorted cast of long-suffering household servants (who Wendy and her brothers love to terrorize). Rife with humor, heartbreak, family intrigue, and booze, Dead End Gene Pool offers a glimpse into the fascinating world of old money and gives truth to an old maxim: The rich are different.
Author: Jay D. Aronson Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 0674971493 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 327
Book Description
After September 11, with New Yorkers reeling from the World Trade Center attack, Chief Medical Examiner Charles Hirsch proclaimed that his staff would do more than confirm the identity of the individuals who were killed. They would attempt to identify and return to families every human body part recovered from the site that was larger than a thumbnail. As Jay D. Aronson shows, delivering on that promise proved to be a monumentally difficult task. Only 293 bodies were found intact. The rest would be painstakingly collected in 21,900 bits and pieces scattered throughout the skyscrapers’ debris. This massive effort—the most costly forensic investigation in U.S. history—was intended to provide families conclusive knowledge about the deaths of loved ones. But it was also undertaken to demonstrate that Americans were dramatically different from the terrorists who so callously disregarded the value of human life. Bringing a new perspective to the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history, Who Owns the Dead? tells the story of the recovery, identification, and memorialization of the 2,753 people killed in Manhattan on 9/11. For a host of cultural and political reasons that Aronson unpacks, this process has generated endless debate, from contestation of the commercial redevelopment of the site to lingering controversies over the storage of unclaimed remains at the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum. The memory of the victims has also been used to justify military activities in the Middle East that have led to the deaths of an untold number of innocent civilians.
Author: David C. Stahl Publisher: University of Hawaii Press ISBN: 9780824825409 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 398
Book Description
Although still virtually unknown in the West, Ôoka Shôhei (1909-1988) is one of Japan's most important and influential writers and social critics. The Burdens of Survival is both a seminal English-language study of this preeminent literary figure and one of the first scholarly works to thoroughly examine the war literature of a major Japanese veteran-author. Drawing on Robert Jay Lifton's work on traumatic experience and survivor psychology, the book tells the illuminating story of Ôoka's arduous journey that began with guilt-ridden survival as a prisoner of war in the Philippines and culminated some twenty-five years later in the fruitful completion of survivor mission. David C. Stahl examines Ôoka's battlefield memoirs, including the established war classic Fires on the Plain (1952), in terms of extreme experience, survivor guilt, bearing witness, and the "inability to mourn." Writing enabled Ôoka to give cathartic expression to his haunting battlefield experience and made it possible for him to move from blame-shifting to empathy and mourning. The lengthy, exhaustively researched historical work The Battle for Leyte Island (1967-1969) faithfully details the personal and collective experience of battle, depravation, and loss, and clarifies who and what was ultimately responsible for defeat. Toward the end of this work and Return to Mindoro Island (1969), Ooka draws attention to the outstanding obligations owed by his countrymen to the war dead and suggests how they can be fulfilled by public confrontation, learning the lessons of defeat, and using them to rectify lingering social and political evils.
Author: John Piper Publisher: Crossway ISBN: 1581348452 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 402
Book Description
for every healthy tree bears good fruit --; Demand #28 : love your enemies--lead them to the truth --; Demand #29 : love your enemies--pray for those who abuse you --; Demand #30 : love your enemies--do good to those who hate you, give to the one who asks --; Demand #31 : love your enemies to show that you are children of God --; Demand #32 : love your neighbor as yourself,
Author: Andrew Stark Publisher: Yale University Press ISBN: 0300224702 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 288
Book Description
For those who don’t believe in an afterlife, the wisdom of the ages offers four great consolations for mortality: that death is benign and good; that mortal life provides its own kind of immortality; that true immortality would be awful; and that we experience the kinds of losses in life that we will eventually face in death. Can any of these consolations honestly reconcile us to our inevitable demise? In this timely book, Andrew Stark tests the psychological truth of these consolations and searches our collective literary, philosophical, and cultural traditions for answers to the question of how we, in the twenty-first century, might accept our mortal condition. Ranging from Epicurus and Heidegger to bucket lists, the flaming out of rock stars, and the retiring of sports jerseys, Stark’s poignant and learned exploration shows how these consolations, taken together, reveal death as a blessing no matter how much we may love life.
Author: Anya Yurchyshyn Publisher: Crown ISBN: 055344705X Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 352
Book Description
Named one of Esquire's "Best Nonfiction Books of 2018" "Sharp and searching...a potent look at the fraught, painful, and complicated relationship between parents and children, and the mysteries — revelatory, difficult — that can and cannot be solved." — Boston Globe Anya Yurchyshyn grew up in a narrow townhouse in Boston, every corner filled with the souvenirs of her parents’ adventurous international travels. On their trips to Egypt, Italy, and Saudi Arabia, her mother, Anita, and her father, George, lived an entirely separate life from the one they led as the parents of Anya and her sister – one that Anya never saw. The parents she knew were a brittle, manipulative alcoholic and a short-tempered disciplinarian: people she imagined had never been in love. When she was sixteen, Anya’s father was killed in a car accident in Ukraine. At thirty-two, she became an orphan when her mother drank herself to death. As she was cleaning out her childhood home, she suddenly discovered a trove of old letters, photographs, and journals hidden in the debris of her mother’s life. These lost documents told a very different story than the one she’d believed to be true – of a forbidden romance; of a loving marriage, and the loss of a child. With these revelations in hand, Anya undertook an investigation, interviewing relatives and family friends, traveling to Wales and Ukraine, and delving deeply into her own difficult history in search of the truth, even uncovering the real circumstances of her father’s death – not an accident, perhaps, but something more sinister. In this inspiring and unflinchingly honest debut memoir, Anya interrogates her memories of her family and examines what it means to be our parents’ children. What do we inherit, and what can we choose to leave behind? How do we escape the ghosts of someone else’s past? And can we learn to love our parents not as our parents, but simply as people? Universal and personal; heartbreaking and redemptive, My Dead Parents helps us to see why sometimes those who love us best hurt us most.
Author: Tom Gilliland Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 1683831764 Category : Comics & Graphic Novels Languages : en Pages : 150
Book Description
In this dark fantasy comic omnibus, Death and the Court of the Dead prepare for battle against the warring celestial realms of Heaven and Hell. Heaven and Hell are at war! Fueled by human souls, this never-ending battle threatens to embroil all of existence in its pointless destruction. Death—arbiter of mortal souls and leader of the Underworld—is the unlikely hero who endeavors to restore balance to all the realms. Death and his Court of the Dead plan to rise up and defeat the celestial overlords. Get to know this grim, noble and improbably cast of heroes in the Court of the Dead: Grave Tales comics omnibus. Follow Malavestros, the impassioned, unhinged (and often fourth-wall-breaking) Jester of Death’s Court, on a guided tour through the Land of the Dead. Learn the origins of the unlikely band of heroes who must ultimately overcome their dark and destructive natures to fight the myopic armies of Heaven and Hell. Bear witness as Queen Gethsemoni struggles with her royal burdens. Watch as Kier, the Valkyrie of the Dead, hunts for angels...only to find a much more savage adversary. These and the other gripping epics enclosed within the Grave Tales Omnibus will prepare you for your journey into the afterlife. GraveTales’ 144 pages contain nine original stories, as well as exclusive behind-the-scenes content. This softbound collection of comics is an immersive introduction to the rich dark fantasy universe of the Court of the Dead.
Author: Andrew H. Miller Publisher: Cornell University Press ISBN: 0801460832 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 278
Book Description
Literary criticism has, in recent decades, rather fled from discussions of moral psychology, and for good reasons, too. Who would not want to flee the hectoring moralism with which it is so easily associated-portentous, pious, humorless? But in protecting us from such fates, our flight has had its costs, as we have lost the concepts needed to recognize and assess much of what distinguished nineteenth-century British literature. That literature was inescapably ethical in orientation, and to proceed as if it were not ignores a large part of what these texts have to offer, and to that degree makes less reasonable the desire to study them, rather than other documents from the period, or from other periods. Such are the intuitions that drive The Burdens of Perfection, a study of moral perfectionism in nineteenth-century British culture. Reading the period's essayists (Mill, Arnold, Carlyle), poets (Browning and Tennyson), and especially its novelists (Austen, Dickens, Eliot, and James), Andrew H. Miller provides an extensive response to Stanley Cavell's contribution to ethics and philosophy of mind. In the process, Miller offers a fresh way to perceive the Victorians and the lingering traces their quests for improvement have left on readers.
Author: Luke Arnold Publisher: Orbit ISBN: 0316455873 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 420
Book Description
In this brilliant sequel to actor Luke Arnold's debut The Last Smile in Sunder City, a former soldier turned PI solves crime in a world that's lost its magic. The name's Fetch Phillips -- what do you need? Cover a Gnome with a crossbow while he does a dodgy deal? Sure. Find out who killed Lance Niles, the big-shot businessman who just arrived in town? I'll give it shot. Help an old-lady Elf track down her husband's murderer? That's right up my alley. What I don't do, because it's impossible, is search for a way to bring the goddamn magic back. Rumors got out about what happened with the Professor, so now people keep asking me to fix the world. But there's no magic in this story. Just dead friends, twisted miracles, and a secret machine made to deliver a single shot of murder. Welcome back to the streets of Sunder City, a darkly imagined world perfect for readers of Ben Aaronovitch and Jim Butcher. Praise for Dead Man in a Ditch: "Superb... With a lead who would be at home in the pages of a Raymond Chandler or James Ellory novel and a nicely twisty plot, this installment makes a strong case for Arnold's series to enjoy a long run." ―Publishers Weekly "Arnold's universe has everything, including the angst of being human. The perfect story for adult fantasy fans—a tough PI and a murder mystery wrapped around the mysticism of Hogwarts, sprinkled with faerie dust." ―Library Journal (starred review) Fetch Phillips Novels The Last Smile in Sunder City Dead Man in a Ditch One Foot in the Fade
Author: Ruth Rendell Publisher: Random House ISBN: 1409068250 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 304
Book Description
Will you be able to get to the bottom of the mystery multi-million copy and SUNDAY TIMES bestselling author Ruth Rendell presents in No More Dying Then? Fans of PD James, Ann Cleeves and Donna Leon will devour this with its compelling drama and intricately woven web of murder, mystery, clues and crimes... 'Ruth Rendell has quite simply transformed the genre of crime writing' -- Sunday Times 'Rendell never fails to come up trumps, and her millions of admirers will eagerly consume this offering as they have all the others.' -- The Irish Times 'Didn't want to stop reading it!' -- ***** Reader review 'Excellent book - had me gripped from the start' -- ***** Reader review 'Great writing as always by the mistress of crime novels' -- ***** Reader review 'A must read'-- ***** Reader review ****************************************************************************************** On a stormy February afternoon, little Stella Rivers disappears - never to be seen again. There are no clues, no demands and no traces. And there is nowhere for Wexford and his team to look. All that remains is the cold fear and awful dread that touches everyone in Kingsmarkham. Just months later, another child vanishes - five-year-old John Lawrence. Wexford and Inspector Burden are launched into another investigation and, all too quickly, they discover chilling similarities to the Stella Rivers case. Then the letters begin. The horrifying, evil, threatening letters of a madman. And suddenly Wexford is fighting against time to find the missing boy, before he meets the same fate as poor Stella...
Author: Wendy Burden
Author: Jay D. Aronson
Author: David C. Stahl
Author: John Piper
Author: Andrew Stark
Author: Anya Yurchyshyn
Author: Tom Gilliland
Author: Andrew H. Miller
Author: Luke Arnold
Author: Ruth Rendell