Author: Edmund White File Type: epub A new memoir from acclaimed author Edmund White about his life as a reader. hrLiterary icon Edmund White made his name through his writing but remembers his life through the books he has read. For White, each momentous occasion came with a book to match Prousts Remembrance of Things Past, which opened up the seemingly closed world of homosexuality while he was at boarding school in Michigan the Ezra Pound poems adored by a lover he followed to New York the biography of Stephen Crane that inspired one of Whites novels. But it wasnt until heart surgery in 2014, when he temporarily lost his desire to read, that White realized the key role that reading played in his life forming his tastes, shaping his memories, and amusing him through the best and worst life had to offer. Blending memoir and literary criticism, The Unpunished Vice is a compendium of all the ways reading has shaped Whites life and work. His larger-than-life presence on the literary scene lends itself to fascinating, intimate insights into the lives of some of the worlds best-loved cultural figures. With characteristic wit and candor, he recalls reading Henry James to Peggy Guggenheim in her private gondola in Venice and phone calls at eight oclock in the morning to Vladimir Nabokov--who once said that White was his favorite American writer. Featuring writing that has appeared in the New York Review of Books and the Paris Review, among others, The Unpunished Vice is a wickedly smart and insightful account of a life in literature.**ReviewThe Unpunished Vice pulls together [Whites] lived life and his reading life what he cares about is giving the readers a sense of some of the authors he has enjoyed the most, and from whom he has learned the most . . . [For White] reading was a transgression against the norm, to be pursued in private, to be enjoyed for the pleasure of the story and the guilt of reading it. - Jane Smiley, New York Times Book ReviewWhites reflections are just as lucid as they are fascinating and just as compelling as they are bountiful. A literary delicacy with more takeaways than one can count. - starred review, KirkusIn this melange of essay and memoir, author White (Our Young Man) reflects on the books and people that helped shape his remarkable literary life . . . In a conversational tone that blends affirmation and elegy, White escorts readers through an impressive range of interests and experiences . . . this collection is like a heartfelt conversation with friends over a bottle of wine. - Publishers WeeklyA generous, lovely book about the profound effect of reading on a versatile and influential writer. - BooklistThe delightful thing about [The Unpunished Vice] is the way Whites personal adventures and omnivorous reading habits intersect. - Chicago TribuneIn this blend of memoir and literary criticism, author White writes about his lifelong love of reading. In the books postface, he relates being chastised as a young child for not yet having learned to read, a skill he equated with freedom. Using his life and experiences, the author creates a literary memoir about this lonely and intensely sociable act. His tastes are eclectic and wide ranging he argues that Leo Tolstoys Anna Karenina is the greatest novel in all literature, placing this and other works within the context of his own life and the time and place in which the book was published. VERDICT A lovely and thoughtful memoir about reading, books, and life. - starred review, Library JournalWhite is a charming and sharp-witted raconteur worth spending time with on the page. The Unpunished Vice is a welcome capstone to the venerable literary career of a writer who has never been afraid to expose his own and others fallibility. - BookPageWhite is the preeminent gay man of letters of our time. - Bay Area ReporterEdmund White is one of the best writers of my generation hes certainly the contemporary American writer I reread more than any other, and the one whose next book I look forward to reading most - John IrvingEdmund White tells such a good story that Im ready to to listen to anything he wants to talk about - New York Times on THE FLANEURWhites prose is as fresh as a series of slaps to the face. - The New York Times Book Review on OUR YOUNG MANWhite has proven himself again and again to be one of the finest storytellers of his generation . . . Sleek, witty, a bit raunchy, and fully enticing and entertaining. - New York Journal of Books on OUR YOUNG MANHe never descends to savage satire. This open-heartedness, an essential White quality, makes his writing sparkle with generosity Every detail is alive and gleaming It is also a book that floats above things, so light is its touch, so playful and joyous its execution It is shameful, though, that we havent managed to free White from the initially groundbreaking but now enfettering label of gay novelist. It has blinded us to the essential allusiveness, wit and sprezzatura of his work, its conversations with other books, its effortless ability to say profound things in unsententious and gossamer-light ways - Guardian on OUR YOUNG MANAbout the Author Edmund White is the author of many novels, including A Boys Own Story, The Beautiful Room Is Empty, The Farewell Symphony, and, most recently, Our Young Man. His nonfiction includes City Boy, Inside a Pearl, and other memoirs The Flaneur, about Paris and literary biographies and essays. White lives in New York.

Author: Peter J. Taylor File Type: pdf The founding father of the famous Globalization and World Cities Research Network and think-tank on worldwide links between cities presents this fascinating overview on cities in geohistory. By moving cities to the centre stage, Peter Taylor proposes that concern for states tell only part of the macro-social story of humanity. Cities have been, and are, the engines of innovation. This impressive new book provides new insights into why cities succeed or fail. The book is in the class with broadminded presentations like Jared Diamonds book Guns, Germs and Steel. - Christian Matthiessen, University of Copenhagen, Denmark and President, International Geographical Union s Commission on Urban Geography This is a big book by Peter Taylor. It tells of the extraordinary world-making powers of cities across the ages, it explains why a state-centric social science has constrained recognition of these powers over the last two centuries, and it outlines a new indisciplinarity to help us make sense of a human condition increasingly forged out of the urban. Anyone troubled by the social sciences as we know them, ought to read this book. - Ash Amin, Cambridge University, UK and author, Land of Strangers Accepting that cities are extraordinary, this book provides an original city-centered narrative of human creativity, past, present and future. In this innovative, ambitious and wide-ranging book, Peter Taylor demonstrates that cities are the epicenters of human advancement. In exploring cities as sites through which economies flourish, by harnessing the creative potential of myriad communication networks, the author considers cities from varying temporal and spatial perspectives. Four stories of cities are told the origins of city networks the domination of cities by world-empires the genesis of a singular modern creative interval in which innovation culminates in todays globalized cities and finally, the need for cities to act as centers for human creativity to produce a more resilient global society in the current crisis century. Providing a long-term view through which to consider the role of cities in attending to incipient crises of the twenty-first century, this closely argued thesis will prove essential for students and scholars of urban studies, geography and sociology, and all those with a professional interest in, or personal fascination for, cities. Contents Preface Part I Setting Down and Setting Up 1. A Cities Perspective 2. Conceptual Toolkits Part II Narrative I Beginning Conjectures 3. City and State Beginnings Western Asias Great Creative Interlude 4. Geographies of Beginning Creative Interludes Part III Narrative II World-systems 5. Normal History 6. Making the Modern World-system Western Europe s Great Creative Interlude Part IV Narrative III Prospective Conjectures - Where Are We and Where Are We Going? 7. Working in an Urban World 8. Towards Green Networks of Cities for the Twenty-first Century References Index **Review In this intellectually far-reaching, all-encompassing, thoroughly researched, methodologically rigorous archaeological account, Taylor sets out myriad arguments that support his notion that cities (all cities) are exceptional. He offers a city-centric analysis of macro-economic change and in so doing disabuses readers of the idea that the state, typically considered the driver of economic change, is in charge. Indeed, he points to the impotence of the state, were it not for the city. In so doing, he masterfully breaks the mold and departs from tradition... Taylor engages in an archaeological dig of mammoth proportions never before witnessed in the study of cities. An incredible work... Essential. -- - R. Sanders, Choice About the Author Peter J. Taylor, FBA Professor of Human Geography, Northumbria University, UK

Author: Douglas C. Comer File Type: pdf Mapping Archaeological Landscapes from Spaceoffers a concise overview of air and spaceborne imagery and related geospatial technologies tailored to the needs of archaeologists.Leading experts including scientists involved in NASAs Space Archaeology program provide technical introductions to five sections 1) Historic Air and Spaceborne Imagery 2) Multispectral and Hyperspectral Imagery 3) Synthetic Aperture Radar 4) Lidar 5) Archaeological Site Detection and Modeling Each of these five sections includes two or more case study applications that have enriched understanding of archaeological landscapes in regions including the Near East, East Asia, Europe, Meso- and North America.Targeted to the needs of researchers and heritage managers as well as graduate and advanced undergraduate students, this volume conveys a basic technological sense of what is currently possible and, it is hoped, will inspire new pioneering applications. Particular attention is paid to the tandem goals of research (understanding) and archaeological heritage management (preserving) the ancient past. The technologies and applications presented can be used to characterize environments, detect archaeological sites, model sites and settlement patterns and, more generally, reveal the dialectic landscape-scale dynamics among ancient peoples and their social and environmental surroundings. In light of contemporary economic development and resultant damage to and destruction of archaeological sites and landscapes, applications of air and spaceborne technologies in archaeology areof wide utility and promoting understanding of them is a particularly appropriate goal at the 40thanniversary of the World Heritage Convention. **Review From the book reviews This book explores the research potential and use of remote sensing technologies and analysis in archaeology. the volume contains 22 chapters ranging from historical descriptions to technical treatises and comprehensive case studies that emphasize the research value of geospatial technologies and remote sensing data. Overall, the book is a great reference source for archaeologistsgeospatial novices and aficionados alikeinterested in leveraging remote sensing and geospatial analysis in their work. (Wetherbee Dorshow, Journal of Anthropological Research, Vol. 70, 2014) From the Back Cover Mapping Archaeological Landscapes from Space In Observance of the 40th Anniversary of the World Heritage Convention offers a concise overview of air and spaceborne imagery and related geospatial technologies tailored to the needs of archaeologists. Leading experts including scientists involved in NASAs Space Archaeology program provide technical introductions to five sections 1) Historic Air and Spaceborne Imagery, 2) Multispectral and Hyperspectral Imagery, 3) Synthetic Aperture Radar, 4) Lidar, and 5) Archaeological Site Detection and Modeling. Each of these five sections includes two or more case study applications that have enriched understanding of archaeological landscapes in regions including the Near East, East Asia, Europe, Meso- and North America. Targeted to the needs of researchers and heritage managers as well as graduate and advanced undergraduate students, this volume conveys a basic technological sense of what is currently possible and, it is hoped, will inspire new pioneering applications. Particular attention is paid to the tandem goals of research (understanding) and archaeological heritage management (preserving) the ancient past. The technologies and applications presented can be used to characterize environments, detect archaeological sites, model sites and settlement patterns and, more generally, reveal the dialectic landscape-scale dynamics among ancient peoples and their social and environmental surroundings. In light of contemporary economic development and resultant damage to and destruction of archaeological sites and landscapes, reflexively nurturing advances in applications of air and spaceborne technologies in archaeology is a matter of wide utility and a particularly appropriate goal at the 40th anniversary of the World Heritage Convention.

Author: Mark Fisher File Type: pdf