Book Description
Lessons from Nothing is an invaluable resource for busy teachers everywhere who are looking for easy-to-use activities that do not require extensive facilities or preparation. It is a practical source of around 70 language teaching activities that encourage interaction and co-operation in the classroom. Special features: * activities for immediate use * activities for all ages and levels * clear presentation * no photocopying required.
Customer Reviews:
Fantastic resource for inspiration.......2007-07-23
I'm an English teacher in China, doing both classroom and private small-group teaching. Language learning definitely requires more than the "chalk and talk" approach that Mr. Marsland warns against, and his book is a great resource for avoiding such a bland style of teaching. Language learning should be engaging, and this book offers good inspiration for making it so.
I have to cope with very unsatisfactory teaching materials oriented towards memorization and drills -- not good for achieving fluency. Also, I'm frequently asked to teach last-minute classes with little or no time to prepare. Resources are frequently limited to little more than a chalkboard, if that. It's easy to become frantic and stuck in a pattern of "Oh God, how do I fill this 90 minutes of class time? What do I do?!"
Many thanks to Mr. Marsland for giving this concise, well-organized and thoughtful book. It's like a splash of cold water in my face when I make my own job more complicated than it has to be. /Lessons From Nothing/ is a nice reminder that you can easily turn "nothing" into "something" if you make it engaging and interactive.
Not satisfied.......2007-04-10
I don't think that this book is what it claims to be. Too difficult to read and the lessons weren't really that great. I threw it out.
Must Have No Matter Where You Are.......2002-02-11
This is a small compact book that has tons of activities that
you can use with absolutely no resources. In many LDN nations
there will be no resources at all. At times, not even a chalk
board. This book can however, be used anywhere, because it
focuses on Communicative methodology and student-centered activities which allows for better development of L2 acquisition. No matter where you are teaching in the world, if your teaching TEFL/TESOL it should be on your shelf.
Amazon.com
Much more than merely a book about nothing, this is a concentrated guide to cultivating a sense of serenity. Simple living expert Sarah Ban Breathnach calls it a "charming prescription for harried hearts and overwrought minds" that's "filled with persuasive reminders that we do too much and live too little." From its bits of well-taken wisdom ("Learn to say, 'I don't know,'"), to tranquil seaside photos, to little lessons on how to meditate, procrastinate, even turn a bath or wine tasting into intensely spiritual experiences, The Art of Doing Nothing is bound to help even the most high-strung, PalmPilot-toting folks remember exactly how it feels to fully relax. --Erica Jorgensen
Book Description
The Art of Doing Nothing
Simple Ways to Make Time for Yourself
A culture of overachievers, we make things happen--and happen fast. While rushing along, though, the days seem to get shorter and shorter. If only time would hold still, just a little bit, to let us savor life's simplest moments. . . .
The Art of Doing Nothing will help to ease these beat-the-clock jitters. The stress-reducing techniques described here require no time, no skill, no commitment. A practical guide to rest and relaxation, it ushers us into a world where "being" is more compelling than "doing."
Beautifully illustrated with Erica Lennard's photographs, The Art of Doing Nothing gives us permission to celebrate idleness in all its mesmerizing forms. Véronique Vienne's delightfully informative essays on the art of breathing, meditating, bathing, listening, waiting, and more offer useful tips on such skills as how to whistle, stay in the moment, take a nap, cure a cold, or watch the sun set over the horizon. Without further ado--and without feeling guilty--we learn to unwind, exhale, and, yes, stop and smell the roses.
Like Ira Gershwin, you will be delighted to discover that you've got plenty of nothin', and that nothin's plenty for you.
Customer Reviews:
I loved this book.......2006-12-05
This book has lots of great information in it. It really makes you start thinking about how you are living your life. Are you rushing through it? Or, are you enjoying it? Highly recommended for all.
Excellent handy guides for the time-pressed, over-achieving generation!.......2005-09-17
Instinctively, I picked up these two small but wonderful books while browsing the local bookstores during one weekend:
1. The Art of Doing Nothing: Simple Ways to Make Time for Yourtself, by Veronique Vieene;
2. The Art of Napping, by William Anthony;
Ever since I have read Jeff Davidson's Breathing Space: Living & Working @ a Confortable Space in a Sped Up Society, many years ago, I have always valued - & benefitted tremendously from - the power of time-out. In a world where the future is hurtling at breakneck speed with hurricane-force changes, all of us must learn to do some time-outs!
Donald Mitchell's earlier review sums up very much my sentiments about the first book.
As for the second book, which is also equally lighthearted & humourously illustrated, I find myself amused & entertained by the author's introduction to a napaphobic culture. In a nutshell, these are his fun stuff:
- profiles in napping (stories of legendary nappers, including JFK, Winston Churchill, Thomas Edision, Napoleon Bonaparte, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan!);
- napping strategies (noice to advanced levels);
- nap management (getting the most from your naps);
- the future of napping;
In some way, this book reinforces the chapter on 'The Art of Napping' in the first book. While the first book is beautifully illustrated by the co-author's photographs, the second book has several funny & bone-tickling cartoons.
To sum up my review, I want to say that these two books (plus, Jeff Davidson's book)are excellent handy guides for the time-pressed, over-achieving generation.
The Art of Using a Thesaurus.......2003-01-03
The author makes a pointed effort of using a tiring collection of little used eight letter words...in combination. End result: endless, rambling sentences. The content is quite dull and uninspiring. Exasperating considering I expected this piece to be a beautiful, pleasant read. To follow the author's recommendation, one must reside near a surplus of speciality and gourmet shops. For those of us in the middle to lower economic range, try a fragrant bubble bath from a local dollar store, lock yourself in the bathroom and listen to music.
The photographer is to be commended for her artistic talent. Although, as a heterosexual female, I would have much prefered a picture of a naked man floating in a pond to that of a naked woman!
The Art of Doing Nothing is worth...nothing. Not your time nor your money.
It was just so so.......2002-08-08
It's an ok book - the pictures are pretty - but I honestly haven't even been inspired to read it - it's more just for looking at
A really strange book???.......2002-06-18
I purchased this book in conjunction with "The Art of Imperfection" - and was completely disappointed with both books. This one particularly was, how shall I say, strange? I was expecting to get something out of this book and received nothing. No mind-opening statements, no inspiration, nothing. I wouldn't waste my money again.
Average customer rating:
- Not Free SF Reader
- She is a great writer
- A huge pleasure, and a delicate little masterpiece.
- Don't miss this book
- This novel will tickle your funny bone
|
To Say Nothing of the Dog
Connie Willis
Manufacturer: Bantam Spectra
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 United States
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
| 18th Century
| 19th Century
| 20th Century
| African American
| Asian American
| Classics
| Collections & Readers
| Drama
| General
| Hispanic
| History & Criticism
| Humor
| Jewish American
| Letters & Correspondence
| Native American
| Poetry
| Short Stories
| Women Writers
Willis, Connie
| ( W )
| Authors, A-Z
| Science Fiction & Fantasy
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Fantasy
| Science Fiction & Fantasy
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Science Fiction
| Science Fiction & Fantasy
| Subjects
| Books
Similar Items:
-
Doomsday Book
-
Full Dark House (Bryant & May Mysteries)
-
Three Men in a Boat: To Say Nothing of the Dog (Tor Classics)
-
Bellwether
-
Lincoln's Dreams
ASIN: 0553099957
Release Date: 1997-12-01 |
Amazon.com
To Say Nothing of the Dog is a science-fiction fantasy in the guise of an old-fashioned Victorian novel, complete with epigraphs, brief outlines, and a rather ugly boxer in three-quarters profile at the start of each chapter. Or is it a Victorian novel in the guise of a time-traveling tale, or a highly comic romp, or a great, allusive literary game, complete with spry references to Dorothy L. Sayers, Wilkie Collins, and Arthur Conan Doyle? Its title is the subtitle of Jerome K. Jerome's singular, and hilarious, Three Men in a Boat. In one scene the hero, Ned Henry, and his friends come upon Jerome, two men, and the dog Montmorency in--you guessed it--a boat. Jerome will later immortalize Ned's fumbling. (Or, more accurately, Jerome will earlier immortalize Ned's fumbling, because Ned is from the 21st century and Jerome from the 19th.)
What Connie Willis soon makes clear is that genre can go to the dogs. To Say Nothing of the Dog is a fine, and fun, romance--an amused examination of conceptions and misconceptions about other eras, other people. When we first meet Ned, in 1940, he and five other time jumpers are searching bombed-out Coventry Cathedral for the bishop's bird stump, an object about which neither he nor the reader will be clear for hundreds of pages. All he knows is that if they don't find it, the powerful Lady Schrapnell will keep sending them back in time, again and again and again. Once he's been whisked through the rather quaint Net back to the Oxford future, Ned is in a state of super time-lag. (Willis is happily unconcerned with futuristic vraisemblance, though Ned makes some obligatory references to "vids," "interactives," and "headrigs.") The only way Ned can get the necessary two weeks' R and R is to perform one more drop and recuperate in the past, away from Lady Schrapnell. Once he returns something to someone (he's too exhausted to understand what or to whom) on June 7, 1888, he's free.
Willis is concerned, however, as is her confused character, with getting Victoriana right, and Ned makes a good amateur anthropologist--entering one crowded room, he realizes that "the reason Victorian society was so restricted and repressed was that it was impossible to move without knocking something over." Though he's still not sure what he's supposed to bring back, various of his confederates keep popping back to set him to rights. To Say Nothing of the Dog is a shaggy-dog tale complete with a preternaturally quiet, time-traveling cat, Princess Arjumand, who might well be the cause of some serious temporal incongruities--for even a mouser might change the course of European history. In the end, readers might well be more interested in Ned's romance with a fellow historian than in the bishop's bird stump, and who will not rejoice in their first Net kiss, which lasts 169 years!
Book Description
In her first full-length novel since her critically acclaimed Doomsday Book Connie Willis, winner of multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards, once again visits the unpredictable world of time travel. But this time the result is a joyous journey into a past and future of comic mishaps and historical cross-purposes, in which the power of human love can still make all the difference.
On the surface, England in the summer of 1888 is possibly the most restful time in history--lazy afternoons boating on the Thames, tea parties, croquet on the lawn--and time traveler Ned Henry is badly in need of a rest. He's been shuttling back and forth between the 21st century and the 1940s looking for a Victorian atrocity called the bishop's birdstump. It's only the latest in a long string of assignments from Lady Schrapnell, the rich dowager who has invaded Oxford University. She's promised to endow the university's time-travel research project in return for their help in rebuilding the famed Coventry Cathedral, destroyed in a Nazi air raid over a hundred years before.
But the bargain has turned into a nightmare. Lady Schrapnell's motto is "God is in the details," and as the l25th anniversary of the cathedral's destruction--and the deadline for its proposed completion--approaches, time-travel research has fallen by the wayside. Now Ned and his colleagues are frantically engaged in installing organ pipes, researching misericords, and generally risking life and limb. So when Ned gets the chance to escape to the Victorian era, he jumps at it. Unfortunately, he isn't really being sent there to recover from his time-lag symptoms, but to correct an incongruity a fellow historian, Verity Kindle, has inadvertently created by bringing something forward from the past.
In theory, such an act is impossible. But now it has happened, and it's up to Ned and Verity to correct the incongruity before it alters history or, worse, destroys the space-time continuum. And they have to do it while coping with eccentric Oxford dons, table-rapping spiritualists, a very spoiled young lady, and an even more spoiled cat. As Ned and Verity try frantically to hold things together and find out why the incongruity happened, the breach widens, time travel goes amok, and everything starts to fall apart--until the fate of the entire space-time continuum hangs on a sÚance, a butler, a bulldog, the battle of Waterloo, and, above all, on the bishop's birdstump.
At once a mystery novel, a time-travel adventure, and a Shakespearean comedy, To Say Nothing of the Dog is a witty and imaginative tale of misconceptions, misunderstandings, and a chaotic world in which the shortest distance between two points is never a straight line, and the secret to the universe truly lies "in the details."
Customer Reviews:
Not Free SF Reader.......2007-09-03
Another book by Connie Willis that didn't really interest me, I didn't
really find it either engaging or amusing enough to bother too much
with.
The bishop's bird stump is something I have forgotten about
completely, and didn't really care whether this motley crew ever found
it at all in the first place.
She is a great writer.......2007-08-09
How did I get this far in life without reading Connie Willis? She is amazing. I never thought I'd get to read a book that combines my love of PG Wodehouse and science fiction. Original, well-crafted, well-written, wonderful! One of my favorite books ever.
A huge pleasure, and a delicate little masterpiece........2007-07-28
Full disclosure: Jerome K. Jerome's "Three Men in a Boat" is one of my favourite books, and Coventry's Cathedral has always spoken to me more than any other religious structure ever can. Any book that dares to work those two themes together is going to have an easy time getting my attention and a tough time justifying such "Lèse majesté". This one just blew my socks off. It's got a deliberately slow and confusing start (to reflect our hero's own confusion), but you must stick with it. Such loyalty will reward you with a gripping story, fine characterisation (both human and animal), rich historical and literary allusions, and a great "whodunnit" plot all wrapped up in a clever time-travel conceit. A delicate masterpiece from Connie Willis, and a huge pleasure.
Don't miss this book.......2007-06-19
What can I say that others have not said? Connie Willis is a genius. You run the risk of seriously hurting yourself laughing through this marvelous story!
This novel will tickle your funny bone.......2007-06-13
Connie Willis may be known for her science fiction, but as far as I'm concerned her true calling is comedy. This novel is hysterical! This was the first Willis I've read, but I've now added her other books to my must-read list. If you enjoy either light mystery, romantic comedy, historical romances, or books about time travel, you will find something to satisfy you in this story that includes all of the above.
I had read the very droll "Three Men in a Boat" by Jerome before this, so I felt like I got some of Willis's inside jokes, but that book's not really a prerequisite to this one. My husband read "To Say Nothing of the Dog" upon my recommendation, and he absolutely loved it, even though he had not read the Jerome book.
A couple details my husband and I both really enjoyed: We loved how there's a cat who doesn't just say "meow," but instead says things like, "Me," or "Now," depending on the situation. (As owners of some outspoken felines, we found this extremely amusing.) Another clever bit of verbiage is the word "screamlet," generally something attributed to a Victorian young lady---a much-needed addition to the English language, don't you think?
In a nutshell: Good writing plus loads of silliness.
Book Description
Overnight, everything in her life alters when Judy awakens paralyzed from the waist down by a mysterious illness. As she struggles for the courage to find a way of escape from this well of isolation, pain and powerlessness, her creative imagination takes flight. Armed with insight gleaned from her own stories about events and people in her past and present -- told with restrained humor and often with Appalachian flavor -- Judy discovers that her spiritual desire to "walk" is stronger than the fear of falling
Customer Reviews:
Can't speed read this one.......2003-09-06
Another survivor of GBS, who is also a writer
Only several thousand Americans get this hard-to-diagnose, hard-to-understand disease each year. It continues to baffle doctors and researchers. The excellent writer that she is, Judy Ayyildiz unfolds her horror story of paralysis with characteristic gentleness and sensitivity. Because she interweaves childhood and family memories into her GBS story, which lends interest to the tale, a speed reader is apt to get confused. This is one book you cannot skim.
Judy writes descriptively of the fear this unpredictable disease/syndrome brings. She relates how families struggle to deal with it and lend the kind of support needed by the patient, who spends many lonely hours isolated from family members who don't seem to understand. Her book title, Nothing But Time is dead on. The disease wipes you out, leaving you utterly tired and weak.
Disappointed.......2003-03-05
I was looking forward to this book, as my family has gone through several severe illnesses, including Guillane-Barre. I was very disappointed in both her writing (I found it hard to follow at times) and in her attitude (towards her family and health care providers). She was in the hospital for 5 days and seemed to yell at someone at least once a day; my husband was in for 3 months and, albeit justifiably stressed at times, was pleasant and thankful to his caregivers. It is rare that I do not finish a book once I've started it; this one was not worth my time.
Nothing but life.......2001-06-11
Ms. Ayyildiz book is about life and love and family and trauma and survival. It is for any who have faced the very hard times life throws at us. Judy tells her survival in voices of those who shape her life, with tears and laughter.
Nothing but life.......2001-06-11
Ms. Ayyildiz book is about life and love and family and trauma and survival. It is for any who have faced the very hard times life throws at us. Judy tells her survival in voices of those who shape her life, with tears and laughter.
More Than Just Time.......2001-05-22
This book is truly an inspiration for anyone who has ever run into a brick wall in life. The author faced what must be one of life's greatest nightmares--finding oneself suddenly paralyzed--and shows how she navigated her way through. Ayyildiz turns this experience into an opportunity to comb through her rich and varied memories--of growing up in West Virginia, of her courtship by and marriage to a Turkish physician, of her struggles to develop her talents and make something of herself as a writer. As she chronicles the various stages of her healing, she stitches together the disparate elements of her life, so that in the end, both her body and her "self" have a new wholeness.
Book Description
At seventeen, Bobby Sands was interested in girls, soccer, and music. Ten years later he led his fellow prisoners on a protest against repressive conditions in Northern Ireland's H-Block prisons that grabbed the world's attention. After sixty-six days of refusing to eat, Sands died on May 5, 1981. Parliaments across the world stopped for a minute's silence in his honor.
Bobby Sand's remarkable life and death have made him an Irish Che Guevara. Nothing But an Unfinished Song is the first biography to properly describe the motivation of the hunger strikers, recreating this period of history from within the prison walls. This powerful book illuminates for the first time this enigmatic, controversial and heroic figure.
Customer Reviews:
This is worth the read.......2006-03-22
The life in the Northern Ireland Prison system was a horrible existence. What these men and women went through for their people is something any student of history or of the cuase of Irish freedom should know about.
The details of the "Dirty Protest" are enough to make a person cry. What the British government did should never be forgotten. The author does a great job showing how Long Kesh and the H-Blocks became a school - a place where people learned what the definition of freedom really is... and how Irish freedom was just like the freedom of all colonial peoples in the world.
The death of Bobby Sands and the other 9 men who followed him is a story that needs to be told again and again and again.
inside a struggle.......2006-02-23
Every now and then a book comes along that can transport you inside a moment in history, or an aspect of human experience, that had seemed remote, or unimaginable, and bring it close in a way that changes how you see the world. Nothing But an Unfinished Song is such a book. If you are old enough, you probably remember the hunger strike and Bobby Sands' death, perhaps as your first awareness that something was terribly wrong in Ireland. If you are like me, your memory is colored by a sense of unreality - the dual shock of men starving themselves to death as a political statement, and of this somehow being acceptable (at least to those in power) in the latter part of the twentieth century in a country as culturally, politically, and historically close to the U.S. as Ireland. And yet, while the thought of prisoners being kept in conditions that drove them to such lengths was cause for enormous outrage, there was another source of confusion and moral discomfort. After all, these were IRA men, and the IRA was waging a military campaign. The Brits were killing people, but the IRA was too. So who were these men and what did they die for? This book is an extraordinary gift to all who asked this question. O'Hearn's exhaustive research, including interviews with many of the men who were imprisoned with Bobby, makes human and comprehensible the development of political consciousness that led Bobby from an unremarkable life to one that inspired millions. For those who continue to struggle against any form of oppression, it is as inspirational as it is heartbreaking. With truly nothing, behind prison walls, Bobby never ceased to think, learn, and create - and to strive to reach beyond those walls. Any group struggling for change must make choices about how their part of the struggle will be waged - however limited the range of possible means may be. By illuminating one moment in one struggle, O'Hearn's book offers much for all of us to ponder.
An Inspiring Life Story.......2006-02-10
This is a meticulously researched and gripping biography of the hunger-striker who gave his life in the struggle for political recognition of the Republican struggle in Ireland. Bobby Sands transformed politics in Irish society and became an inspirational and internationally respected figure for his selfless political activism. He later became renowned for his transcendent poetry and rousing songs that captured key episodes in Irish history. But few knew this man intimately even as he became an icon of the Irish struggle for self-determination and a member of the British Parliament while he lay in a prison hospital.
Denis O'Hearn has put this to rights in a historically informative and yet intimate account of Sands' short life that included community and military activism and a harrowing journey through a gruelling and oppressive prison system. Through sheer bloody-mindedness, mental and physical resolve, and the capacity to recognise 'opportunities' in the most brutal forms of detention, Sands changed the trajectory of Irish politics. O'Hearn reveals a character full of ceaseless energy, buoyancy, sensitivity as well as political vision in a brisk, gripping and deeply moving account of Sands' life.
This book challenges complacency, urges activism and rejects thinking within the narrow confines of mainstream political discourse. Bobby Sands, the activist, has been revealed to a new generation and continues to inspire.
nothing but an unfinished song.......2006-02-01
very good book a great life story of a irish hero
Bobby Sands in his true and pivotal place in Irish Republican struggle.......2006-01-20
This book is superb and should be read by anyone with even a fleeting interest in Irish politics and events. As a biography it is a wonderful account of one of the few truly great 20th century Irish political icons. As an historical record of political change and development in the Irish Republican movement in the 1970s and 1980s - the repercussions of which still resonate today - and the unique role played within it by Bobby Sands, it is an extraordinarily detailed, formidable and unmatched piece of political, social and personal research. And yet the book is also an enthralling read, breathlessly taking the reader through the tumultuous times of one man and his far too short but generation-changing life. Many, many books have been written about Ireland. Very few have achieved the level of empathy for the subject as "Nothing But An Unfinished Song". The Sands' family should feel proud and hugely indebted to the author for placing Bobby Sands in a pivotal position in Irish Republican struggle.
Average customer rating:
|
Nothing Except Ourselves: The Harsh Times and Bold Theater of South Africa's Mbongeni Ngema
Laura Jones
Manufacturer: Viking Adult
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
South Africa
| Africa
| History
| Subjects
| Books
British
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
| 18th Century
| 19th Century
| 20th Century
| Classics
| Contemporary
| General
| Historical
| Humor
| Letters & Correspondence
| Middle
| Old
| Poetry
| Renaissance
| Shakespeare
| Short Stories
General
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Performing Arts
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0670836192 |
Book Description
This vivid oral snapshot of an America that planted the blues is full of rhythmic grace. From the son of a sharecropper to an itinerant bluesman, Honeyboy’s stories of good friends Charlie Patton, Big Walter Horton, Little Walter Jacobs, and Robert Johnson are a godsend to blues fans. History buffs will marvel at his unique perspective and firsthand accounts of the 1927 Mississippi River flood, vagrancy laws, makeshift courts in the back of seed stores, plantation life, and the Depression.
Customer Reviews:
Fans of blues music will relish this autobiography.......2001-02-15
Fans of blues music and musicians will relish this autobiography of Delta bluesman Edwards, which charts his rise to fame and his survival in a critical musical world. His first-person observations of the changing blues style and field are especially meaningful given that so many blues titles are not written by participants in the field.
The Genuine Article.......2000-08-04
Honey and his astute collaborators have given us the genuine article: a poignant, detailed, uproarous chronicle of what Robert Palmer called the"Deep Blues," the Delta tradition from which all other blues styles emanate. If you've heard Honey sing either in person or on his fine recordings, you will hear the voice you read. He offers dozens of unforgettable moments, from the first sounds he ushers from a broken-necked guitar to his mother's death to the death of Robert Johnson, that are alive and chilling. My only criticism is that the photographs featured in the book are spartan, contemporary views of critical sites in this artist's life. More historical photography would have enhanced the text. The publisher of this well-designed softcover has made the text relaxingly readable. After my first 50 pages, I wanted to purchase all of Honey's recordings and read more about him. He is an articulate, funny, precise chronicler of his own life. If only I could do the same with my own life! First rate.
A great American life.......2000-04-22
This autobiography succeeds memorably on several levels. Told in spare, moving words, it provides a vivid picture of life in the Mississippi Delta long before the civil rights movements of the '50s. In addition, it's a kind of African-American "On the Road," told from the perspective of one who crisscrossed the Southern United States, scuffling to make a living playing the blues. And finally, it's a terrific history of the blues, told by a man who made a significant musical contribution himself and who played with nearly all the essential artists of the '30s and on.
Edwards, born in the Delta around 1915, worked the fields as a kid before he learned to play the guitar and began hoboing around the South. He rode the rails, played in innumerable small towns, and polished his craft. Along the way, he hung out and played with the likes of Sunnyland Slim, Big Walter Horton, Little Walter Jacobs, Robert Junior Lockwood, Muddy Waters, B.B. King and yes, Robert Johnson. The book describes how these architects of the modern blues passed songs, licks, and stories back and forth, keeping a form that relies so heavily on tradition dynamic and vital.
A major strength of the book is Edwards' distinctive voice, transcribed by his collaborators to retain its distinctive rhythms and dialect. The book's title sums up his attitude. His memories include violent death, physical and emotional loss, and great material want. Still, you sense strongly that he wouldn't have had his life any other way. His narrative is devoid of self-pity, but it never glosses over the difficulty of the times he endured, which included stints in prison.
The book concludes with useful appendices that define key terms and offer capsule biographies and discographies of musicians Edwards encountered. A good bibliography is also included. Highly recommended for those interested in the blues and in American social history. Great read.
The memoir of a great Bluesman........1999-03-08
What a life! 82 years old Bluesman Honeyboy Edwards is one last Bluesmen alive that knew Robert Johnson but that is not the basis of the book. Edwards has lived a life that makes anyone really understand what the Blues is all about and other bluesmen back in the 1930's and 40's who shaped blues music.
Honeyboy's tales gives the reader his firsthand accounts of plantation life, the 1927 Mississippi River flood, vagrancy laws, makeshift courts, the racial problem and economics of southern blacks and the Depression.
This book came about because of the stories that Honeyboy told his manager of 25 years, Michael Robert Frank, who is also the founder of Earwig Records and Janis Martinson, a freelance writer. Martinson did the transcribing and left Honeyboy's speech patterns intact. My friend, Travis Brown is from Tennessee and after reading this book remarked that reading the words of Honeyboy took him back "home". Martinson also did the research and wrote the three appendices that appear in the back of the book. Want to find out what the "killin' floor" is (was) than buy this book.
Earwig has also issued a CD with the same title, I had that CD and Robert Johnson's in my changer while I read the book, they provided the perfect soundtrack to the theater of the mind.
Tony Houston, 1999
Enlightening.......1998-02-08
Now I know why the Delta, Memphis, St Louis, and Chicago all claim to be the "birthplace of the blues"! Honeyboy Edwards & Co made their mark on all these cities.
Average customer rating:
|
Nothing Down? Nothing Doing! Real Estate Guide for First-Time Buyers
Alan Ray Hoxie
Manufacturer: Virtualbookworm.com Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Social Services & Welfare
| Poverty
| Current Events
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Consumer Guides
| Reference
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Reference
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Health, Mind & Body
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 1589392159 |
Book Description
You've probably seen the infomercials on television offering books and tapes that show you how to buy and sell real estate with "nothing down." But if making a fortune was as easy as the infomercials claim, why aren't the authors looking for the next big deal rather than peddling books and conducting seminars?
This book shows you how to avoid the pitfalls that come from such get-rich real estate claims and reviews how you can really acquire property without a great deal of money.
This book also discusses ways to buy and sell your first home. This will give you a head start when you enter the increasingly competitive real estate market.
So forget the claims you see on television and read this book if you truly want to give real estate a try.
Book Description
uccessful and smart, Betsy Carter was not only the ultimate 'New York Woman,' she also founded a magazine by that same name. For nearly 20 years, she led a high-gloss life that others only dream of-travel, fashion, parties, power-until things started to go terribly wrong. Carter faced a series of catastrophes: a devastating car accident, a failed marriage, a house that burned down. Then her magazine folded and she was diagnosed with breast cancer. This moving story, set against the gossipy and often hilarious world of magazine publishing, reveals what it is like to be stripped bare, to wander through the rubble, and to finally put yourself together again.
Customer Reviews:
From A Fresh Voice...........2005-01-04
I didn't realize that this was an autobiography. It reads like fiction. I know very little about the magazine world, but I have a distinct feeling that Carter really showed us an inside peek into it. I had a little trouble keeping up with all the friends, colleagues, loves, etc., so I just concentrated & listened beyond that. I really enjoyed reading Carter's upbeat attitude on life. Yes, she's definitely an optimist and no, that doesn't automatically classify you as silly or stupid. All the curves that life has thrown this woman, it'd be easy to let them all blanket her in despair. Yet, Carter only gained strength & wisdom at each point.
A few people have mentioned they had a hard time following b/c of the way she moves from past to present so frequently. If you can relax & really immerse yourself in the book, you won't even notice that. Obviously, she did that for affect & wanted readers to get the "full circle" feel of her story.
I liked the book very much. A real slice of life. I love the way she has handled everything. I wish Ms. Carter much happiness & hope readers pick this book up & are inspired by her as I've been.
Boring.......2004-08-22
I haven't finished this book yet, but I am very hesitant in doing so. I'm about a quarter of the way into it and am totally bored. I saw the ad in a magazine and it sounded interesting. The details she gives in some parts are just not needed as someone else stated. I hope it gets more interesting. She definitely makes me want to write a book about my life because it is way more interesting than hers. I figure if she can publish an autobiography than I definitely could get a deal in a second. Sorry I just find this book not worth reading anymore.
Happy martyr.......2003-09-16
While her resume sparkles, Betsy Carter does not live up to the promise of her editorial credits. The facts of her story are certainly interesting, but Carter's observations of her own fate are removed and somewhat clinical, rather than compelling and empathetic. Her story weaves back and forth between her childhood, young adulthood and careerhood in a poorly structured manner that is confusing to the reader and does the story no favors. My hopes were so high for this book and I was sorely disappointed. Readers are tired of the "woman overcoming adversity story." This one could have stood out with more emotion and less antisepticism.
Betsy Clark is a real human being!.......2003-05-02
i thoroughly enjoyed this book, and agree with some reviews i've read that reviewers shouldn't go into too much detail because thats half the enjoyment (if you can enjoy someone else's misfortune), reading her life events as they unfolded. the other half is her humor and as a woman and a working woman i could relate to how she felt in many circumstances. it was rich in history, both her evolving profession and the times she lived rising in her profession, and i enjoyed how she interweaved her growing up years with her adult years, her family, friends and loves. she also drove through Jacksonville on her way to Miami and went to the University of Florida so that was interesting! i hated it to end and i couldn't help wonder what shes doing now. i really hope all her dark times are past her. i think she is a 'real human being.' :) this is a book that made me feel good.
Want to know the rest of the story.......2003-04-27
I enjoyed Carter's tale but it appeared to have ended ten years ago or so. I would've liked to have seen what she did after "New York Woman" (besides writing this book). According to the book jacket, she worked for a similarly titled magazine called "New Woman" and also founded the "My Generation" magazine. I would've liked to have learned more about those experiences. How long did it take her to get a job after "New York Woman" folded?
I also think she should've spent more time writing about her actual work at "New York Woman." Besides the female bonding, what else was going on?
In any case, Carter gave this reader a peek into the New York magazine world. It was certainly an environment that I had aspired to when I was younger but after reading this, it's less fascinating to me. Carter actually appeared a lot more interesting when she was on her way up, writing for the air & water newsletter and for the Washington bank than when she was editor in chief of her own magazine. Hopefully Betsy will write another book.
Books:
- Literacy Work Stations: Making Centers Work
- Love Is Never Painless: Three Novellas
- Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
- Mariel Hemingway's Healthy Living from the Inside Out: Every Woman's Guide to Real Beauty, Renewed Energy, and a Radiant Life
- Murder in Foggy Bottom (Truman, Margaret, Capital Crimes Series.)
- My Life in and out of the Rough: The Truth Behind All That Bull**** You Think You Know About Me
- My New Baby And Me: A First Year Record Book For Big Brothers And Big Sisters
- My Woman His Wife
- Olive Thomas: The Life and Death of a Silent Film Beauty
- One More River to Cross: Black & Gay in America
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- The Euro, 2nd Edition
- Goldmine Record Album Price Guide
- 1974 Report on the World Social Situation
- Basic American Government
- Cinderella: A Pop-Up Fairy Tale
- Margarita
- Effects of Resource Distribution on Animal Plant Interactions
- Travel Perspectives: A Guide to Becoming A Travel Professional
- California Mortgage Loan Brokering and Lending
- Death in Midsummer: And Other Stories
Five-Minute Activities: A Resource Book of Short Activities (Cambridge Handbooks for Language Teachers)
Keep Talking: Communicative Fluency Activities for Language Teaching (Cambridge Handbooks for Language Teachers)
Games for Language Learning (Cambridge Handbooks for Language Teachers)
Grammar Practice Activities: A Practical Guide for Teachers
Discussions that Work: Task-centred Fluency Practice (Cambridge Handbooks for Language Teachers)
