Unfathomable City

Unfathomable City
Author :
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Total Pages : 176
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780520274037
ISBN-13 : 0520274032
Rating : 4/5 (37 Downloads)

Synopsis Unfathomable City by : Rebecca Solnit

Presents twenty-two color maps and accompanying essays providing details on the people, ecology, and culture of the city.

Nonstop Metropolis

Nonstop Metropolis
Author :
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Total Pages : 232
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780520285941
ISBN-13 : 0520285948
Rating : 4/5 (41 Downloads)

Synopsis Nonstop Metropolis by : Rebecca Solnit

Nonstop Metropolis,Êthe culminating volume in a trilogy of atlases, conveys innumerable unbound experiences of New York City through twenty-six imaginative maps and informative essays. Bringing together the insights of dozens of expertsÑfrom linguists to music historians, ethnographers, urbanists, and environmental journalistsÑamplified by cartographers, artists, and photographers, it explores all five boroughs of New York City and parts of nearby New Jersey. We are invited to travel through ManhattanÕs playgrounds, from polyglot Queens to many-faceted Brooklyn, and from the resilient Bronx to the mystical kung fu hip-hop mecca of Staten Island. The contributors to this exquisitely designed and gorgeously illustrated volume celebrate New York CityÕs unique vitality, its incubation of the avant-garde, and its literary history, but they also critique its racial and economic inequality, environmental impact, and erasure of its past.ÊNonstop MetropolisÊallows us to excavate New YorkÕs buried layers, to scrutinize its political heft, and to discover the unexpected in one of the most iconic cities in the world. It is both a challenge and homage to how New Yorkers think of their city, and how the world sees this capital of capitalism, culture, immigration, and more. Contributors:ÊSheerly Avni,ÊGaiutra Bahadur,ÊMarshall Berman,ÊJoe Boyd,ÊWill Butler,ÊGarnette Cadogan,ÊThomas J. Campanella,ÊDaniel Aldana Cohen,ÊTeju Cole,ÊJoel Dinerstein,ÊPaul La Farge,ÊFrancisco Goldman,ÊMargo Jefferson,ÊLucy R. Lippard,ÊBarry Lopez,ÊValeria Luiselli,ÊSuketu Mehta,ÊEmily Raboteau, Molly Roy, Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts,ÊLuc Sante,ÊHeather Smith,ÊJonathan Tarleton,ÊAstra Taylor,ÊAlexandra T. Vazquez,ÊChristina Zanfagna Interviews with:ÊValerie Capers, Peter Coyote, Grandmaster Caz,ÊGrand Wizzard Theodore,ÊMelle Mel, RZA

Infinite City

Infinite City
Author :
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Total Pages : 172
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780520262492
ISBN-13 : 0520262492
Rating : 4/5 (92 Downloads)

Synopsis Infinite City by : Rebecca Solnit

What makes a place? Rebecca Solnit reinvents the traditional atlas, searching for layers of meaning & connections of experience across San Francisco.

The Faraway Nearby

The Faraway Nearby
Author :
Publisher : Penguin
Total Pages : 215
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781101622773
ISBN-13 : 1101622776
Rating : 4/5 (73 Downloads)

Synopsis The Faraway Nearby by : Rebecca Solnit

A New York Times Notable Book Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award A personal, lyrical narrative about storytelling and empathy, from the author of Orwell's Roses Apricots. Her mother's disintegrating memory. An invitation to Iceland. Illness. These are Rebecca Solnit's raw materials, but The Faraway Nearby goes beyond her own life, as she spirals out into the stories she heard and read—from fairy tales to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein—that helped her navigate her difficult passge. Solnit takes us into the lives of others—an arctic cannibal, the young Che Guevara among the leprosy afflicted, a blues musician, an Icelandic artist and her labyrinth—to understand warmth and coldness, kindness and imagination, decay and transformation, making art and making self. This captivating, exquisitely written exploration of the forces that connect us and the way we tell our stories is a tour de force of association, a marvelous Russian doll of a book that is a fitting companion to Solnit's much-loved A Field Guide to Getting Lost.

We Cast a Shadow

We Cast a Shadow
Author :
Publisher : One World/Ballantine
Total Pages : 338
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780525509066
ISBN-13 : 0525509062
Rating : 4/5 (66 Downloads)

Synopsis We Cast a Shadow by : Maurice Carlos Ruffin

"In a near-future Southern city, everyone is talking about a new experimental medical procedure that boasts unprecedented success rates. In a society plagued by racism, segregation, and private prisons, this operation saves lives with a controversial method--by turning people white. Like any father, our unnamed narrator just wants the best for his son Nigel, a biracial boy whose black birthmark is getting bigger by the day. But in order to afford Nigel's whiteness operation, our narrator must make partner as one of the few black associates at his law firm, jumping through a series of increasingly absurd hoops--from diversity committees to plantation tours to equality activist groups--in a tragicomic quest to protect his son. This electrifying, suspenseful novel is, at once, a razor-sharp satire of surviving racism in America and a profoundly moving family story. In the tradition ofRalph Ellison's Invisible Man, We Cast a Shadow fearlessly shines a light on the violence we inherit, and on the desperate things we do for the ones we love"--

Hollow City

Hollow City
Author :
Publisher : Verso Books
Total Pages : 193
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781788731362
ISBN-13 : 1788731360
Rating : 4/5 (62 Downloads)

Synopsis Hollow City by : Rebecca Solnit

Reporting from the front lines of gentrification in San Francisco, Rebecca Solnit and Susan Schwartzenberg sound a warning bell to all urban residents. Wealth is just as capable of ravaging cities as poverty.

Metropolis

Metropolis
Author :
Publisher : Anchor
Total Pages : 472
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780385543477
ISBN-13 : 0385543476
Rating : 4/5 (77 Downloads)

Synopsis Metropolis by : Ben Wilson

In a captivating tour of cities famous and forgotten, acclaimed historian Ben Wilson tells the glorious, millennia-spanning story how urban living sparked humankind's greatest innovations. “A towering achievement.... Reading this book is like visiting an exhilarating city for the first time—dazzling.” —The Wall Street Journal During the two hundred millennia of humanity’s existence, nothing has shaped us more profoundly than the city. From their very beginnings, cities created such a flourishing of human endeavor—new professions, new forms of art, worship and trade—that they kick-started civilization. Guiding us through the centuries, Wilson reveals the innovations nurtured by the inimitable energy of human beings together: civics in the agora of Athens, global trade in ninth-century Baghdad, finance in the coffeehouses of London, domestic comforts in the heart of Amsterdam, peacocking in Belle Époque Paris. In the modern age, the skyscrapers of New York City inspired utopian visions of community design, while the trees of twenty-first-century Seattle and Shanghai point to a sustainable future in the age of climate change. Page-turning, irresistible, and rich with engrossing detail, Metropolis is a brilliant demonstration that the story of human civilization is the story of cities.

The Essence of Zen

The Essence of Zen
Author :
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Total Pages : 178
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780861718443
ISBN-13 : 0861718445
Rating : 4/5 (43 Downloads)

Synopsis The Essence of Zen by : Sekkei Harada

The Essence of Zen is an expert's guided tour of the ins and outs of the tradition's approach to meditation, enlightenment, and the oneness of all things. To read it is to enter into one of modern Japanese Zen's most subtle and sophisticated minds. Sekkei Harada skillfully pushes us to drop those parts of ourselves that grasp and make demands regarding our understanding or progress in meditation practice. He enables us to see clearly-and steer clear of-the philosophical stumbling blocks that can make the path precarious. The Essence of Zen represents the most succinct of his teachings, making it of immediate value to anyone with an interest in Zen. The book also contains Harada's explanations of the differences between the tradition's primary schools, making it particularly helpful to newcomers.

Symphony for the City of the Dead

Symphony for the City of the Dead
Author :
Publisher : Candlewick Press
Total Pages : 465
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780763691004
ISBN-13 : 0763691003
Rating : 4/5 (04 Downloads)

Synopsis Symphony for the City of the Dead by : M.T. Anderson

Originally published: Somerville, Massachusetts: Candlewick Press, 2015.

The Third Coast

The Third Coast
Author :
Publisher : Penguin
Total Pages : 561
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780143125099
ISBN-13 : 0143125095
Rating : 4/5 (99 Downloads)

Synopsis The Third Coast by : Thomas L. Dyja

Winner of the Chicago Tribune‘s 2013 Heartland Prize A critically acclaimed history of Chicago at mid-century, featuring many of the incredible personalities that shaped American culture Before air travel overtook trains, nearly every coast-to-coast journey included a stop in Chicago, and this flow of people and commodities made it the crucible for American culture and innovation. In luminous prose, Chicago native Thomas Dyja re-creates the story of the city in its postwar prime and explains its profound impact on modern America—from Chess Records to Playboy, McDonald’s to the University of Chicago. Populated with an incredible cast of characters, including Mahalia Jackson, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Chuck Berry, Sun Ra, Simone de Beauvoir, Nelson Algren, Gwendolyn Brooks, Studs Turkel, and Mayor Richard J. Daley, The Third Coast recalls the prominence of the Windy City in all its grandeur.