Author: Melanie Challenger File Type: epub In this strange hybrid of travelogue and natural science the award-winning author explores extinction with solid research... and truly poetic prose (New York Times Review of Books). Award-winning author, poet, and scholar Melanie Challenger saw a link between her own estrangement from nature and the cultural shifts that led to a dramatic rise in extinction. Inspired to uncover how we had become so destructive, Challenger went in search of the stories behind these losses. From an abandoned mine in England to an Antarctic sea voyage from a visit to South Georgias old whaling stations to a stay among an Inuit community in Canada and from the Falkland Islands to Manhattan Island and beyond, Challenger uncovers lost species and lost languages, as well as cultures, industries, and communities touched in different ways by extinction. On each of these peregrinations, Challenger also explores the thoughts of anthropologists, biologists, and philosophers who have come before her. Drawing on their words as well as firsthand accounts and ancestral memory, she traces the mindset that made the 20th century an age of extinction, then proposes a path of redemption rooted in our emotional responses to these disappearances. On Extinction offers an erudite and impassioned... examination on the way our 21st century world is changing so quickly (Dallas Morning News). **From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. Award-winning poet Challenger (Galatea) imbues this ambitious meditation with the courage of an explorer, the scientific curiosity of a botanist and a geologist, the excited digging of an archeologist, the compassion of a cultural anthropologist, the long reach of a historian, and the urgent concern of an environmentalist. She travels from a writers solitary cabin on the Ding Dong Moor, close by the ruins of a tin mine in Cornwall, England, to a journey to Antarctica with the British Antarctic Survey, back to the North Yorkshire town of Whitby, and on to the tundra of the Arctic where the language and culture of the Inuit barely survive. Eventually Challenger comes to rest in a narrowboat on the River Cam in Cambridgeshire. At every stop in her peregrination, she muses on evolutionary changes marked by extinctions past and present. The chief culprit of our estrangement from nature in the 20th century is, for her, the urge to fuse humans and technology. Throughout this beautifully written, moving, and important book, Challenger yearns to find that feeling of belonging to a particular place. Her connection, one comes to feel, is to the past and present of our whole precarious planet. Agent Jessica Woollard, the Marsh Agency. (Dec.) From Booklist An extended essay exploring Challengers thoughts about her and humanitys attitudes toward nature, this work opens with her lament, looking back on growing up near London, over feeling immured, without even a favorite flower to call her own. Reflecting on memories of a grandmothers reaction to the urbanization of the British landscape, Challenger repairs to Cornwall, the first of several journeys that structure her ruminations. Once in placeher subsequent destinations are the British territories of the South Atlantic Ocean and the Canadian Arcticvestiges of Cornwalls millennia of tin mining entwine with Challengers references to philosophers and naturalists by way of coming to grips with economic activitys tendencies, as she sees them, to debilitate the environment. The remnants of the whaling industry, in particular, fascinate her and also, by extension, industrialisms erosion if not extinction of indigenous cultures. With her literary ruminations and search for an endangered flower continuing through an essay-ending boat trip through Cambridgeshire, Challenger offers no certainties but intimates that reconnection with nature is possible, a hopeful posture that should attract readers. --Gilbert Taylor

Author: Heather Lende File Type: epub As the obituary writer in a spectacularly beautiful but often dangerous spit of land in Alaska, Heather Lende knows something about last words and lives well lived. Now shes distilled what shes learned about how to live a more exhilarating and meaningful life into three words find the good. Its that simple--and that hard. Quirky and profound, individual and universal, Find the Good offers up short chapters that help us unlearn the habit--and it is a habit--of seeing only the negatives. Lende reminds us that we can choose to see any event--starting a new job or being laid off from an old one, getting married or getting divorced--as an opportunity to find the good. As she says, We are all writing our own obituary every day by how we live. The best news is that theres still time for additions and revisions before it goes to press. Ever since Algonquin published her first book, the New York Times bestseller If You Lived Here, Id Know Your Name, Heather Lende has been praised for her storytelling talent and her plainspoken wisdom. The Los Angeles Times called her part Annie Dillard, part Anne Lamott, and that comparison has never been more apt as she gives us a fresh, positive perspective from which to view our relationships, our obligations, our priorities, our community, and our world. An antidote to the cynicism and self-centeredness that we are bombarded with every day in the news, in our politics, and even at times in ourselves, Find the Good helps us rediscover whats right with the world. Heather Lendes small town is populated with big hearts--she finds them on the beach, walking her granddaughters, in the stories of ordinary peoples lives, and knits them into unforgettable tales. Find the Good is a treasure. Jo-Ann Mapson, author of *Owens Daughter* Find the Good is excellent company in unsteady times . . . Heather Lende is the kind of person you want to sit across the kitchen table from on a rainy afternoon with a bottomless cup of tea. When things go wrong, when things go right, her quiet, commonsense wisdom, self-examining frankness, and good-natured humor offer a chance to reset, renew, rebalance. Pam Houston, author of *Contents May Have Shifted* With gentle humor and empathy [Lende] introduces a number of people who provide examples of how to live well . . . [Find the Good] is simple yet profound. *Booklist* In this cynical world, Find the Good is a tonic, a literary wellspring, which will continue to run, and nurture, even in times of drought. What a brave and beautiful thing Heather Lende has made with this book. John Straley, Shamus Award winner and former writer laureate of Alaska Heather Lende is a terrific writer and terrific company intimate, authentic, and as quirky as any of her subjects. Marilyn Johnson, author of *The Dead Beat***ReviewWorking as an obituary writer could get you down, if you were the kind of person who let it. Lende isntshe teases wisdom from the lives her obits celebrate as well as from her own experiences as a mother and grandmothereach conveys the unsentimental conviction that the good in our lives shouldnt be overshadowed by their inevitable end.New York Times Book ReviewA wise, witty memoir that combines anecdotes about Lendes work and family with plainspoken wisdom gleaned from her years of living in a small community.Shelf Awareness for Readers, starred reviewFind the Goodis the perfect nightstand accompaniment short, breezy and chock-full of life lessons.New York Daily News Find the Goodis wonderful to its core . . . page after page of this delicious book is filled with truisms youll want framed to hang on your wall.The OklahomanSimple yet profound [Lendes] homespun stories will speak meaningfully to readers. The overarching message is that the life we get is precious, as obituary writer Lende knows so well, and should be lived in such a way as to create much good to be remembered by.BooklistHonest and simple yet full of lasting strength, the authors prose demonstrates what makes a life better rather than worseincluding something as simple as picking up heart-shaped stones on the beach with a grandchild. Optimistic, slightly humorous reflections on living a fully engaged, meaningful life.Kirkus ReviewsIt seems so easy to write something that makes the world a better place, but as most writers know, it isnt. Heather Lende has a rare gift and is a writer to be treasured and appreciated for all the tough times in your life, whether you are from a small town inSoutheast Alaskaor a city on the other side of the world.The Seattle Review of BooksAt times heart-achingly poignant, at others heart-meltingly sweet,Find the Goodreminds us those last words will come soon enough, far too soon for some, and charges us with the responsibility to not only live a life worth writing about but to recognize and honor those people who matter to us while theyre here to appreciate it.South BergeniteNorthJersey.comLendes short chapters resonate, reminding us that its worth looking at our relationships, our obligations, our priorities, our community, and our world from a fresh, positive perspective. A gift to share with friends and family,Find the Goodoffers a way out of the negativity and cynicism that can overwhelm our daily routines.Utne ReaderA feel-good volume that is sure to please many a mom and maybe even earn you some extra brownie points.BookbrowseAbout the Author Coming soon...

Author: Boris Petz File Type: pdf

Author: Manuel Castells File Type: pdf This book, the first in Castells ground-breaking trilogy, is an account of the economic and social dynamics of the new age of information. Based on research in the USA, Asia, Latin America, and Europe, it aims to formulate a systematic theory of the information society which takes account of the fundamental effects of information technology on the contemporary world.Amazon.com ReviewThe Rise of the Network Society, the first volume in a trilogy collectively known as the Information Age, has earned Manuel Castells comparisons to such illustrious social critics as Max Weber and Karl Marx. Just as they worked to make sense of industrial capitalism, so does Castells put forth a systemic analysis of the global informational capitalism that emerged in the last half of the 20th century. While many books have considered the development of increasingly sophisticated information technology, the shifting conditions of employment and responsibility within corporations, or the rise of corporations whose domains are spread out over several nation-states, Castells unites these topics in a comprehensive thesis, negotiating the tightrope between academic sociology and mainstream business analysis. ReviewA brief review cannot do it justice. No other scholar has approached the subject of the information age in as engaging and innovative a way as this author. Strongly recommended for academic libraries. M. Perelman, California State University. We live today in a period of intense and puzzling transformation, signalling perhaps a move beyond the industrial era altogether. Yet where are the great sociological works that chart this transition? Hence the importance of Manuel Castells multivolume work, in which he seeks to chart the social and economic dynamics of the information age . . . [It] is bound to be a major reference source for years to come. Anthony Giddens, The Times Higher Education Supplement.Adam Smith explained how capitalism worked, and Karl Marx explained why it didnt. Now the social and economic relations of the Information Age have been captured by Manuel Castells. Wall Street Journal.So far, the person who has straddled the world of social theory and Silicon Valley most successfully is Manuel Castells. Castells enjoys a growing reputation as the first significant philosopher of cyberspace. The Economist.A must-read. Wired.This book goes a considerable way to helping us make sense of todays global information economy and our place in it. Financial Times.