- Books: “The Intimates.”
This first novel traces the lives of two friends, Robbie and Maize, from high school to their first post-college year. Sassone focusses on discrete episodes in the lives of his characters: Maize’s deflowering by a college interviewer; Robbie’s trip to Rome to visit his father . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Mike Peed: Can scientists defeat a devastating banana blight?
Darwin, the capital of Australia’s Northern Territory, is more than a thousand miles northwest of the country’s largest banana plantations, which are centered around Innisfail, on the eastern seaboard. A ramshackle place, Darwin is known for its many impoverished indigenous residents, entertainment attractions like Crocosaurus Cove . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: “How It All Began” review.
In this mischievous novel, Lively traces the genealogy of randomness that messes up the lives of strangers. A mugging on a London street ripples out into an interconnected urban universe, shaking marriages and ruining businesses. A retired teacher moves in with her daughter to convalesce, the daughter’s employer . . . (Subscription required.)...
- The Book of Interplanetary Life and Warfare
Introduction: In the book "The Books behind Methuselah" I have looked into may issues that have bothered me about man's existence on earth, such as: the rise of man, his encounter with Giants, the Nephilim, and the Old Ones known as the Shinning Ones (or other aliens), and from the Bible and other sources I've also looked at personages, such as Adam, and Melchizedek, Darwin, Methuselah, God Himself, and Jesus, the foundation of the demonic world, Lucifer-or the Devil himself, and in particular, the Circle of Refaim as a location, meeting place for the Nephilim. I have gone back perhaps...
- The Book of Interplanetary Life and Warfare
Introduction: In the book "The Books behind Methuselah" I have looked into may issues that have bothered me about man's existence on earth, such as: the rise of man, his encounter with Giants, the Nephilim, and the Old Ones known as the Shinning Ones (or other aliens), and from the Bible and other sources I've also looked at personages, such as Adam, and Melchizedek, Darwin, Methuselah, God Himself, and Jesus, the foundation of the demonic world, Lucifer-or the Devil himself, and in particular, the Circle of Refaim as a location, meeting place for the Nephilim. I have gone back perhaps...
- Extremely Ticklish Feet – A Brief History
Extremely ticklish feet are not that uncommon, but no one really knows why. Physiologists, psychologists, sociologists and great thinkers like Plato and Galileo have all tried to explain the tickle response. Darwin tried to figure out what purpose the tickle response serves from an evolutionary standpoint....
- Books: “Old Border Road.”
This début novel, set in the open spaces of the Southwest in an indeterminate modern age, traces the disappointments and betrayals of a young woman’s first year of marriage. Katherine’s feckless mother and absent father leave her ill-equipped to refuse a quick union . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: “Galore”
Crummey’s expansive yarn begins mysteriously, when a mute albino is pulled from the belly of a whale, and ends when the albino’s descendant, several generations later, plunges into one. Between lies the folkloric history of Paradise Deep, a Newfoundland fishing community composed of “implacable barrens . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: “State of Wonder.”
In Patchett’s emotionally lucid novel, Marina Singh, a scientific researcher, travels to the Amazonian jungle to find out how a friend and colleague died there. She must also complete her dead colleague’s assignment: persuade Annick Swenson, a brilliant scientist and Singh’s medical-school mentor . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: “A Paradise Built in Hell”
Solnit’s expansive argument about human resilience and community in times of crisis is bookended by accounts of two of the greatest natural disasters in American history: the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906 and Hurricane Katrina. In both, the instinctive altruism and resourcefulness of local communities was . . ....
- Books: “Chasing the Sun.”
This spirited panoramic survey examines our relationship to the sun, approaching the subject from almost every conceivable angle. Cohen is cheerfully digressive, covering topics such as nudism, quantum theory, albinos, the rise of khaki uniforms, vampires, seasonal affective disorder, life at the bottom of the sea, and the curiously worded . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: “Pearl Buck in China.”
Emphasizing the imagination’s power to “make bearable things too ugly to confront directly,” Spurling sensitively traces the biographical background of Buck’s writing. Buck, the daughter of missionaries, spent nearly all of the first forty-two years of her life in China, and her childhood . . ....
- Books: “The Good Soldiers”
Finkel’s sad and wonderful account of soldiers’ experiences of war follows the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry, which was thrown into one of Baghdad’s worst districts as part of the 2007 surge. The average age of its eight hundred soldiers was nineteen. Finkel, who spent eight . . ....
- Books: “The Idea of Justice”
John Rawls’s “A Theory of Justice,” published in 1971, has cast a long shadow over modern political philosophy. Sen’s stimulating and eloquent new work is in some ways a commentary on Rawls, but its refinements give his arguments greater applicability. Rawls was a devotee . . ....
- Books: “The Girl with Glass Feet.”
In this wintry fable, Ida Maclaird finds her feet crystallizing into glass, and she travels to the archipelago of St. Hauda’s Land in search of an enigmatic hermit who she believes can cure her. St. Hauda’s, “a wilderness of recluses,” hides miniature moth-winged . . ....
- Books: “The Man in the Moon” review.
This gorgeously strange picture book, the first in a projected series, traces the origins of the Man in the Moon, who, after losing his parents in a battle with the King of Nightmares, is raised by a retinue of giant glowworms and mice in tasselled sailor caps. Joyce’s . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: “Contested Will.”
In this fascinating study, Shapiro, an English professor at Columbia, casts skepticism about the authorship of Shakespeare’s works as a “long footnote to the larger story of the way we read now” and traces shifting assumptions about the relation between art and autobiography. Some fifty alternative . . ....
- Hannah Goldfield: The Beagle in the East Village.
paragraph class="noindent">It is firmly established on the Web site for the Beagle, an East Village restaurant and cocktail bar, that the place “is not named after the dog.” Lovers of the breed may find their crests falling; lovers of evolutionary theory, meanwhile, will be charmed by . . ....
- Books: “The Lives of Margaret Fuller” review.
This psychologically rich biography traces the brief, quixotic life of the leading female figure of the transcendentalist movement. A child prodigy, Fuller was reared by a father who focussed on cultivating her intellect to the detriment of, as he later ruefully admitted, her “female propriety.” Arrogant and forceful . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: “The Immortals”
Chaudhuri’s languid, melancholy novel, set in Bombay during the nineteen-seventies and eighties, traces the relationship between the middle-class Senguptas and their music teacher, Shyamji. Nirmalya Sengupta, a son of privilege, urges purity in art—the ustads, ragas, and shrutis of Indian classical music—while . . ....
- Books: “Juliet, Naked”
Hornby’s books are almost shamefully readable. They can suffer from simplistic premises and too many corny jokes, but his characters are always richly, sympathetically drawn. In this novel of aging, love, and regret, Annie lives in a decaying seaside town in England, where her partner of convenience, Duncan . . ....
- 5 Reasons Why Bringing A Health Advocate To Your Doctor’s Appointment Can Save Your Life
If you are a woman, doctors seem to take symptoms much more seriously when accompanied by a male advocate. A close male associate came up with a theory about doctors. While this theory may not be ethical, this theory may hold a lot of truth. The theory goes like this......
- Books: “Don Juan.”
In this quick and airy fantasia, the quintessential womanizer becomes instead a sad and mostly passive man, possessing a certain magnetism but emphatically not a seducer, who feels pursued by time itself. Handke’s multilayered structure has a sympathetic narrator relaying Don Juan’s account of travel through . . ....
- Goings on About Town: Night Life
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ROCK AND POP
Musicians and night-club proprietors live complicated lives; it’s advisable to call ahead to confirm engagements.
ABRONS ARTS CENTER
466 Grand St. (212-352-3101)—Jan. 30: Balthrop, Alabama, an expansive local folk-rock collective led by the singer, songwriter, and guitarist Pascal Balthrop . . ....
- How to Practice For Driving Test Theory Questions
Theory questions on driving tests are the thorn in the side of many would be drivers. It can be difficult to study for theory tests and questions because oftentimes you don't know exactly what kind of questions are coming. Luckily, there are a few things you can do to give yourself a fighting chance on your theory test....
- The Top British Manufacturing Car Companies
The word "British" has always been associated with a lot of things such as famous rock band "The Beatles", book like "Harry Potter" which was written by the British author J.K. Rowling or the most popular love story "Romeo and Juliet" which was written by one of the best writers of all time - William Shakespeare. Of course, there's also Princess Diana, regarded as the People's Princess; Charles Darwin, with his Theory of Evolution, Sir Winston Churchill, a famous political leader, and a lot more. ...
- Books: “33 Revolutions per Minute.”
In this history of protest songs, Lynskey forgoes close readings of the thirty-three songs he has chosen, each heading a chapter, and provides instead sweeping sketches of the cultural moments that gave rise to them. There’s a rushed history of John Lennon’s political development in . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: “The Ripple Effect.”
In this account, the author patiently lays out the staggering extent of the world’s water problems. Sewage, fertilizers, industrial chemicals, plastics, paint, drugs, and hand soap, among other contaminants, find their way into the world’s rivers every day. They affect our drinking water in ways that . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: “Blood’s a Rover”
The final novel of Ellroy’s “Underworld U.S.A.” trilogy, following “American Tabloid” and “The Cold Six Thousand,” is a fittingly crazed and violent account of the years 1968 to 1972. Alternating chapters follow three henchmen with ties to a labyrinth of interconnected schemes . . ....
- Books: “[sic]” review.
Intended as a “riposte to the literature of disease”—inspirational stories in which illness presents an opportunity to discover how beautiful life actually is—Cody’s memoir is a manic and often dispiriting account of a young Manhattan composer’s struggle with cancer. Drawn . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: “[sic]” review.
Intended as a “riposte to the literature of disease”—inspirational stories in which illness presents an opportunity to discover how beautiful life actually is—Cody’s memoir is a manic and often dispiriting account of a young Manhattan composer’s struggle with cancer. Drawn . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: “We Had It So Good.”
When Grant’s fifth novel begins, Stephen Newman is a pampered child in postwar California. As it ends, he is a widower in contemporary London mourning his British wife. The intervening pages trace the course of the couple’s life—and the lives of their family and . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: “Everything.”
Canty’s fourth novel chronicles a year’s worth of turmoil in the lives of five appealingly aimless Montanans. Layla, a bright college student, and her heavy-drinking father, RL, fall into parallel adulterous romances—she with Edgar, a promising young painter, he with Betsy, an ex . . ....
- Books: “The Psychopath Test.”
The principal method for assessing psychopathy is a twenty-point personality checklist—the Hare PCL-R—and the resulting diagnosis often leads to permanent institutionalization. In a wide-ranging book mistrustful of psychiatry’s diagnostic methods, Ronson begins by testing a theory he has that psychopaths are . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: “Fiction Ruined My Family” review.
Darst’s father spent his entire life planning to write a novel, and made a career of avoiding steady work, leaving his family in relative poverty. This memoir is a darkly comic account of a childhood spent in the shadow of a well-meaning father’s literary aspirations . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: “How Pleasure Works.”
Bloom’s anatomy of our predilections extends from the banal to the fervid and the bizarre. His account is strewn with startling academic studies, tales of cannibalism and sexual fetishes, and even a passage from Borges. The examples have a way of piling up, however, and there are few . . ....
- Books: “Princess Noire.”
8220;Princess Noire” was the original, unused title of Nina Simone’s autobiography, and Cohodas duly appropriates it for her account of the singer’s life and career. Simone, born Eunice Waymon and nurtured as a child prodigy, devoted her early years to classical piano. After a . . ....
- Driving Theory Test – A Quick Look at the Pass Stats and Facts
Always be best prepared to pass your driving theory test in the UK in 1st attempt. Because according to most of the learner drivers and instructors, driving theory test in the UK is becoming harder and has become a challenge. Here are few facts related to the driving theory test pass rates. ...