Jeff's bookshelf: all en-US Mon, 17 Feb 2025 20:06:11 -0800 60 Jeff's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[The Devotional Qur’an: Beloved Surahs and Verses]]> 199597336
Muslim devotional practices vary greatly over time and across regions, communities, and denominations, but they share core Qur’anic surahs (chapters) and verses rooted in the practice of earlier figures—the Prophet Muhammad, his closest Companions, the Shiite Imams, saintly figures, learned scholars, Sufi masters, local imams and religious teachers, forebears, and parents.

This volume is the first to present a curated English translation of these core passages, offering a powerful distillation of the recitational tradition that is at the heart of Muslim faith and practice. In these translations of thirty-two surahs and some forty verses, Shawkat M. Toorawa gives attention to rhythm, assonance, and end rhyme, as well as to the musicality and emotional force of the original Arabic. He organizes the selections according to devotional use and in approximately the order in which Muslims typically encounter, recite, and memorize them. Toorawa also explains the place and role of the surah, verse, or passage in Muslim devotional practice.

This book is for anyone interested in the Qur’an, its aesthetic qualities, and its place in Muslim devotion, including any Muslims seeking a sensitive English translation of these essential surahs and verses.]]> 208 Shawkat M. Toorawa 0300271948 Jeff 0 to-read 4.43 The Devotional Qur’an: Beloved Surahs and Verses
author: Shawkat M. Toorawa
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.43
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Qur'an: A Verse Translation]]> 150778916 672 M.A.R. Habib 0871404990 Jeff 0 to-read 4.27 The Qur'an: A Verse Translation
author: M.A.R. Habib
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.27
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Thinking like an Economist: How Efficiency Replaced Equality in U.S. Public Policy]]> 57866205 The story of how economic reasoning came to dominate Washington between the 1960s and 1980s--and why it continues to constrain progressive ambitions today

For decades, Democratic politicians have frustrated progressives by tinkering around the margins of policy while shying away from truly ambitious change. What happened to bold political vision on the left, and what shrunk the very horizons of possibility? In Thinking like an Economist, Elizabeth Popp Berman tells the story of how a distinctive way of thinking--an "economic style of reasoning"--became dominant in Washington between the 1960s and the 1980s and how it continues to dramatically narrow debates over public policy today.

Introduced by liberal technocrats who hoped to improve government, this way of thinking was grounded in economics but also transformed law and policy. At its core was an economic understanding of efficiency, and its advocates often found themselves allied with Republicans and in conflict with liberal Democrats who argued for rights, equality, and limits on corporate power. By the Carter administration, economic reasoning had spread throughout government policy and laws affecting poverty, healthcare, antitrust, transportation, and the environment. Fearing waste and overspending, liberals reined in their ambitions for decades to come, even as Reagan and his Republican successors argued for economic efficiency only when it helped their own goals.

A compelling account that illuminates what brought American politics to its current state, Thinking like an Economist also offers critical lessons for the future. With the political left resurgent today, Democrats seem poised to break with the past--but doing so will require abandoning the shibboleth of economic efficiency and successfully advocating new ways of thinking about policy.]]> 344 Elizabeth Popp Berman 0691167389 Jeff 0 to-read 3.93 2022 Thinking like an Economist: How Efficiency Replaced Equality in U.S. Public Policy
author: Elizabeth Popp Berman
name: Jeff
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism]]> 60557026 "A must-read, with key lessons for the future."—Thomas Piketty
A groundbreaking examination of austerity’s dark intellectual origins.

For more than a century, governments facing financial crisis have resorted to the economic policies of austerity—cuts to wages, fiscal spending, and public benefits—as a path to solvency. While these policies have been successful in appeasing creditors, they’ve had devastating effects on social and economic welfare in countries all over the world. Today, as austerity remains a favored policy among troubled states, an important question What if solvency was never really the goal?

In The Capital Order , political economist Clara E. Mattei explores the intellectual origins of austerity to uncover its originating the protection of capital—and indeed capitalism—in times of social upheaval from below.

Mattei traces modern austerity to its origins in interwar Britain and Italy, revealing how the threat of working-class power in the years after World War I animated a set of top-down economic policies that elevated owners, smothered workers, and imposed a rigid economic hierarchy across their societies. Where these policies “succeeded,� relatively speaking, was in their enrichment of certain parties, including employers and foreign-trade interests, who accumulated power and capital at the expense of labor. Here, Mattei argues, is where the true value of austerity can be its insulation of entrenched privilege and its elimination of all alternatives to capitalism.

Drawing on newly uncovered archival material from Britain and Italy, much of it translated for the first time, The Capital Order offers a damning and essential new account of the rise of austerity—and of modern economics—at the levers of contemporary political power.]]> 480 Clara E. Mattei 022681839X Jeff 0 to-read 4.28 2022 The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism
author: Clara E. Mattei
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Complete War Memoirs of Charles De Gaulle (English, French and French Edition)]]> 969675 1056 Charles de Gaulle 0786705469 Jeff 0 to-read 3.88 1964 The Complete War Memoirs of Charles De Gaulle (English, French and French Edition)
author: Charles de Gaulle
name: Jeff
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1964
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300�1350]]> 209745060 An exploration of a crucial turning point in Italian art, the early 1300s in the city of Siena

In the early 1300s, the city of Siena gave rise to an extraordinary period of creativity and innovation. Painters, sculptors, and goldsmiths produced remarkable works whose impact was felt far beyond the city’s walls. From vast altarpieces to portable objects for private devotion, the art emanating from Siena left an enduring legacy.

This book explores a crucial turning point in Italian art when the prestige of painting reached new heights. Siena became the centre of a rich exchange of ideas, as painters took inspiration from marble and ivory sculptures, intricate metalwork, and precious imported silks to enhance the power of their work. Travelling beyond their native city, Sienese artists made their mark across Italy and into northern Europe.

Beautifully illustrated and featuring important new scholarship, chapters explore masterpieces by four of Siena’s most illustrious painters―Duccio, Simone Martini, and Ambrogio and Pietro Lorenzetti―alongside objects in other media and from other countries and cultures, encouraging fresh perspectives and dialogues between these groundbreaking works.

Published by National Gallery Global/Distributed by Yale University Press

Exhibition Schedule:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
(7 October 2024�26 January 2025)

The National Gallery, London
(5 March�22 June 2025)]]> 312 Joanna Cannon 1857097165 Jeff 0 to-read 4.44 2024 Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300–1350
author: Joanna Cannon
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Washington at the Plow: The Founding Farmer and the Question of Slavery]]> 56946798 Washington at the Plow depicts the first farmer of America as a leading practitioner of the New Husbandry, a transatlantic movement that spearheaded advancements in crop rotation. A tireless experimentalist, Washington pulled up his tobacco and switched to wheat production, leading the way for the rest of the country. He filled his library with the latest agricultural treatises and pioneered land-management techniques that he hoped would guide small farmers, strengthen agrarian society, and ensure the prosperity of the nation. He saw enslaved field workers and artisans as means of agricultural development and tried repeatedly to adapt slave labor to new kinds of farming. But Washington eventually found that forced labor could not achieve the productivity he desired. His inability to reconcile ideals of scientific farming and rural order with race-based slavery led him to reconsider the traditional foundations of the Virginia plantation. As Bruce Ragsdale shows, it was the inefficacy of chattel slavery, as much as moral revulsion at the practice, that informed Washington's famous decision to free his slaves after his death.]]> 352 Bruce A. Ragsdale 0674246381 Jeff 0 to-read 3.67 Washington at the Plow: The Founding Farmer and the Question of Slavery
author: Bruce A. Ragsdale
name: Jeff
average rating: 3.67
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Guatemala: Never Again 605405 Never Again! 376 Thomas Quigley 157075294X Jeff 0 to-read 4.21 1999 Guatemala: Never Again
author: Thomas Quigley
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Metaphysical Club : A Story of Ideas in America]]> 28202 560 Louis Menand 0007126905 Jeff 0 to-read 4.07 2001 The Metaphysical Club : A Story of Ideas in America
author: Louis Menand
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Treekeepers: The Race for a Forested Future]]> 209456105 How the path from climate change to a habitable future winds through the world’s forests In recent years, planting a tree has become a catchall to represent “doing something good for the planet.� Many companies commit to planting a tree with every purchase. But who plants those trees and where? Will they flourish and offer the benefits that people expect? Can all the individual efforts around the world help remedy the ever-looming climate crisis? In Treekeepers, Lauren E. Oakes takes us on a poetic and practical journey from the Scottish Highlands to the Panamanian jungle to meet the scientists, innovators, and local citizens who each offer part of the answer. Their work isn’t just about planting lots of trees, but also about understanding what it takes to grow or regrow a forest and to protect what remains. Throughout, Oakes shows the complex roles of forests in the fight against climate change, and of the people who are giving trees a chance with hope for our mutual survival. Timely, meticulously reported, and ultimately optimistic, Treekeepers teaches us how to live with a sense of urgency in our warming world, to find beauty in the present for ourselves and our children, and to take action big or small.]]> 336 Lauren E. Oakes 1541603346 Jeff 0 to-read 4.04 Treekeepers: The Race for a Forested Future
author: Lauren E. Oakes
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.04
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Night Magic: Adventures Among Glowworms, Moon Gardens, and Other Marvels of the Dark]]> 204594104 On this imperiled planet, nature’s magic still exists, often in the places we least expect it.

Night Magic is a glorious celebration of the dark! New York Times bestselling nature writer Leigh Ann Henion makes the case for embracing night as a profoundly beautiful part of the world we inhabit—and she invites us to leave our well-lit homes and step outside. It turns out we don’t have to go far to find marvels: We are surrounded by animals that rise with the moon, gigantic moths, and nocturnal blooms that reveal themselves, incrementally, as light fades. In her quest to know night with greater intimacy, Henion travels through forests alight with bioluminescent mushrooms and mountain valleys teeming with migratory salamanders. She ventures into the dark alongside naturalists, biologists, primitive-skills experts, and others who’ve dedicated their lives to cultivating relationships with darkness and the creatures who depend on it.

Every page of this lyrical book feels like an opportunity to ask: How did I not know about this before? For example, we learn that it can take hours, not minutes, for human eyes to reach full night vision capacity. And that there are thousands of firefly species on earth, each with flash patterns as unique as fingerprints—with one million tourists making pilgrimages to witness synchronous fireflies every year. In this age of increasing artificial light, Night Magic is an invitation to focus on the biodiversity that surrounds us. We do not need to stargaze into the distant cosmos or to dive into the depths of oceans to find awe in the dark—when we reclaim night, dazzling wonders can be found in our own backyards.]]> 336 Leigh Ann Henion 1643753363 Jeff 0 to-read 4.31 Night Magic: Adventures Among Glowworms, Moon Gardens, and Other Marvels of the Dark
author: Leigh Ann Henion
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.31
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Kafka: Die frühen Jahre 22601393
»Das Beste, was in diesem Genre hervorgebracht werden kann. Selbst ein Roman.« Imre Kertész

Nach den fulminant gefeierten ersten zwei Bänden seiner Kafka-Biographie schließt Reiner Stach sein großes Werk mit Kafkas Kindheit und Jugend, Studium und ersten Berufsjahren ab. Die Entfaltung von Kafkas Sprachtalent, seine Bildungserlebnisse, die Reifung seiner Sexualität und nicht zuletzt die Auseinandersetzung mit neuen Technologien und Medien sind die entscheidenden Wegmarken. Reiner Stachs Kafka-Biographie genießt schon jetzt den Ruf eines internationalen Standardwerks, das die Möglichkeiten der literarischen Biographie neu ausgelotet hat. Erneut bietet Reiner Stach ein erzählerisch dichtes und farbiges Panorama der Zeit und zugleich die einfühlsame Studie eines außergewöhnlichen Menschen.

Das Gesamtwerk:
Kafka. Die frühen Jahre (1883 - 1910)
Kafka. Die Jahre der Entscheidung (1910 - 1915)
Kafka. Die Jahre der Erkenntnis (1916 - 1924)]]> 608 Reiner Stach 3100751302 Jeff 0 to-read 4.56 2014 Kafka: Die frühen Jahre
author: Reiner Stach
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Atlantic Cataclysm: Rethinking the Atlantic Slave Trades]]> 210176586 442 David Eltis 1009518976 Jeff 0 to-read 5.00 Atlantic Cataclysm: Rethinking the Atlantic Slave Trades
author: David Eltis
name: Jeff
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Tokyo (Ten Moments That Shaped)]]> 205353438 284 Eiko Maruko Siniawer 1108965008 Jeff 0 to-read 4.00 Tokyo (Ten Moments That Shaped)
author: Eiko Maruko Siniawer
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Deep Learning with PyTorch 39980414 450 Eli Stevens 1617295264 Jeff 2 4.18 2020 Deep Learning with PyTorch
author: Eli Stevens
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2020
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2025/02/16
shelves:
review:
If you are competent with Python and understand deep learning, this is not the book for you. Waaaaay too much fluff. Honestly, you're probably 10x better off just opening an open source PyTorch project in one tab and the PyTorch documentation in another.
]]> Between Two Fires 13543121
Is it delirium or is it faith? She believes she has seen the angels of God. She believes the righteous dead speak to her in dreams. And now she has convinced the faithless Thomas to shepherd her across a depraved landscape to Avignon. There, she tells Thomas, she will fulfill her mission to confront the evil that has devastated the earth, and to restore to this betrayed, murderous knight the nobility and hope of salvation he long abandoned.

As hell unleashes its wrath, and as the true nature of the girl is revealed, Thomas will find himself on a macabre battleground of angels and demons, saints, and the risen dead, and in the midst of a desperate struggle for nothing less than the soul of man.]]> 432 Christopher Buehlman 1937007863 Jeff 2
«Between Two Fires» has so much potential. I can't help but wonder if, had Buehlman written this book today with more experience under his belt, he would have nailed it.]]> 4.20 2012 Between Two Fires
author: Christopher Buehlman
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2012
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2025/02/16
shelves:
review:
Much preferred his book «The Blacktongue Thief», which was amazing. Go read that first, and then come back to this.

«Between Two Fires» has so much potential. I can't help but wonder if, had Buehlman written this book today with more experience under his belt, he would have nailed it.
]]> <![CDATA[The Virtues of Underwear: Modesty, Flamboyance and Filth]]> 209050128 An indicator of the vagaries of fashion, underwear can be simple or elaborate. It both safeguards and exposes, reflecting our hopes and experiences. Underwear can embarrass and excite, amuse and shame us. This book illuminates the sometimes profound significance of the garments we wear beneath our outer clothing. It discusses the history of both women’s and men’s underwear, and global cultures of dress.
]]> 224 Nina Edwards 1789149568 Jeff 0 to-read 3.00 The Virtues of Underwear: Modesty, Flamboyance and Filth
author: Nina Edwards
name: Jeff
average rating: 3.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Tracks on the Ocean: A History of Trailblazing, Maps, and Maritime Travel]]> 209050029 An engaging look at ocean routes� complicated beginnings and elusive impact.



Sara Caputo’s Tracks on the Ocean is a sweeping history of how we have understood routes of travel over the ocean and how we came to represent that movement as a cartographical line. Focusing on the representation of sea journeys in the Western world from the early sixteenth century to the present, Caputo deftly argues that the depiction of these lines is inextricable from European imperialism, the rise of modernity, and attempts at mastery over nature. Caputo recounts the history of ocean tracks through an array of lively stories and characters, from the expeditions of Captain James Cook in the eighteenth century to tracks depicted in Moby Dick and popular culture of the nineteenth century to the use of navigational techniques by the British navy. She discusses how tracks evolved from tools of surveying into tools of surveillance and, eventually, into paths of environmental calamity. The impulse to record tracks on the ocean is, Caputo argues, reflective of an ongoing desire for order, schematization, and personal visibility, as well as occupation and permanent ownership—in this case over something that is unoccupiable and impossible to truly possess. Both beautifully written and deeply researched, Tracks on the Ocean shares how the lines drawn on maps tell the audacious and often tragic and violent stories of ocean voyages.

]]> 352 Sara Caputo 0226837920 Jeff 0 to-read 3.46 Tracks on the Ocean: A History of Trailblazing, Maps, and Maritime Travel
author: Sara Caputo
name: Jeff
average rating: 3.46
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Beauty of the Hebrew Letter: From Sacred Scrolls to Graffiti]]> 62621937
The Beauty of the Hebrew Letter is there are many art books on Chinese lettering, Roman lettering, and so on, but this is one of just a few books on the Hebrew letter, and what a beautiful book it is. Calligrapher and scribe Izzy Pludwinski is in love with letters, and this love shines through in this extraordinary, groundbreaking book. Here you will find examples of Hebrew writing and design from Biblical times to the present day that showcase the art of lettering as well as the beauty inherent in the forms themselves. Only one who deeply understands the formation and meaning of these characters could assemble a book of such depth, breadth, and beauty. Though firmly entrenched in the world of traditional Judaica, Pludwinski’s calligraphic passion lies in finding ever-new expressive forms for the Hebrew aleph-bet—a path that has led him to anywhere from font development to Zen-influenced abstract Hebrew calligraphy, from sacred scrolls to graffiti.

Why Beauty?

Beauty is not just a static presentation of form. Calligraphy is like dance—the strokes that form the letters are the embodied gestures of the moving hand and body. One senses the vitality in the movements that underlie these forms. They make the letters come alive, and it is this lifeforce that resonates with the viewer.

Why Hebrew?

In the Midrashic tradition, the Hebrew letter is not simply an arbitrary symbol meant to express a certain sound. There is meaning in the shapes themselves. One develops a relationship with each of the letters. When one writes them, one respects their individuality, on the one hand, and their sense of community, on the other. They belong together. One way to show this respect is to write them as beautifully as possible, to enliven them, to make them shine.

With more than 200 illustrations that span the history of the Hebrew aleph-bet over three millennia, this book will engage, delight, and surprise.
]]> 240 Izzy Pludwinski 168458146X Jeff 0 to-read 4.46 The Beauty of the Hebrew Letter: From Sacred Scrolls to Graffiti
author: Izzy Pludwinski
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.46
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Griffinology: The Griffin's Place in Myth, History and Art]]> 200052493
Griffinology is a fascinating exploration of the mythical creature’s many depictions in human culture. Drawing on a wealth of historical and literary sources, this book shows how the griffin has captured the imagination of people for over five thousand years, representing power, transcendence, and even divinity. It explores the history and symbolism of griffins in art, from their appearances in ancient Egyptian magic wands to medieval bestiaries, and from medieval coats of arms to modern corporate logos. The use of the griffin as a symbol of power and protection is surveyed throughout history and into modern times, such as in the Harry Potter series. Beautifully illustrated, this book should appeal to all those interested in monsters, magic, and the mystical, as well as art and history.]]> 272 A. L. McClanan 1789148464 Jeff 0 to-read 4.60 Griffinology: The Griffin's Place in Myth, History and Art
author: A. L. McClanan
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.60
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Tofu: A Culinary History 209050235
To the untrained eye, there’s nothing as unexciting as tofu, normally regarded as a tasteless, beige, congealed mass of crushed, boiled soybeans. However, tofu more than stands up on its own. Reviled for decades as a vegetarian oddity, the brave, wobbly block has made a comeback. This global history of bean curd stretches from ancient creation myths and tomb paintings, via Chinese poetry and Japanese Buddhist cuisine, to deportations in Soviet Russia and struggles for power on the African continent. It describes the potentially non-Chinese roots of tofu, its myriad types, why “eating tofu� is an insult in Cantonese, and its environmental impact today.

Warning: this book actually makes tofu exciting. It’s anything but bland.]]> 272 Russell Thomas 1789149533 Jeff 0 to-read 2.83 2024 Tofu: A Culinary History
author: Russell Thomas
name: Jeff
average rating: 2.83
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Lunar: A History of the Moon in Myths, Maps, and Matter]]> 209050416
President John F. Kennedy’s rousing “We will go to the Moon� speech in 1961 before the US Congress catalyzed the celebrated Apollo program, spurring the US Geological Survey’s scientists to map the Moon. Over the next eleven years a team of twenty-two, including a dozen illustrator-cartographers, created forty-four charts that forever changed the path of space exploration.

For the first time, each of those beautifully hand-drawn, colorful charts is presented together in one stunning book. In Lunar, National Air and Space Museum curator Matthew Shindell’s expert commentary accompanies each chart, along with the key geological characteristics and interpretations that were set out in the original Geologic Atlas of the Moon. Interwoven throughout the book are contributions from scholars devoted to studying the multifaceted significance of the Moon to humankind around the world. Traveling from the Stone Age to the present day, they explore a wide range of topics: the prehistoric lunar calendar; the role of the Moon in creation myths of Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome; the role of the Moon in astrology; the importance of the Moon in establishing an Earth-centered solar system; the association of the Moon with madness and the menstrual cycle; how the Moon governs the tides; and the use of the Moon in surrealist art.

Combining a thoughtful retelling of the Moon’s cultural associations throughout history with the beautifully illustrated and scientifically accurate charting of its surface, Lunar is a stunning celebration of the Moon in all its guises.]]> 256 Matthew Shindell 0226836517 Jeff 0 to-read 4.40 2024 Lunar: A History of the Moon in Myths, Maps, and Matter
author: Matthew Shindell
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Spice Ports: Mapping the Origins of Global Sea Trade]]> 217374812 288 Nicholas Nugent 0712355952 Jeff 0 to-read 4.00 The Spice Ports: Mapping the Origins of Global Sea Trade
author: Nicholas Nugent
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Freshwater Fish of the Northeast]]> 7819272 144 David A. Patterson 1584658193 Jeff 0 to-read 4.12 2010 Freshwater Fish of the Northeast
author: David A. Patterson
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sea Level: A History (Oceans in Depth)]]> 203232362 Traces a commonplace average—sea level—from its origins in charting land to its emergence as a symbol of global warming.



News reports warn of rising sea levels spurred by climate change. Waters inch ever higher, disrupting delicate ecosystems and threatening island and coastal communities. The baseline for these measurements—sea level—may seem unremarkable, a long-familiar zero point for altitude. But as Wilko Graf von Hardenberg reveals, the history of defining and measuring sea level is intertwined with national ambitions, commercial concerns, and shifting relationships between people and the ocean.



Sea Level provides a detailed and innovative account of how mean sea level was first defined, how it became the prime reference point for surveying and cartography, and how it emerged as a powerful mark of humanity’s impact on the earth. With Hardenberg as our guide, we traverse the muddy spaces of Venice and Amsterdam, the coasts of the Baltic Sea, the Panama and Suez canals, and the Himalayan foothills. Born out of Enlightenment studies of physics and quantification, sea level became key to state-sponsored public works, colonial expansion, Cold War development of satellite technologies, and recognizing the climate crisis. Mean sea level, Hardenberg reveals, is not a natural occurrence—it has always been contingent, the product of people, places, politics, and evolving technologies. As global warming transforms the globe, Hardenberg reminds us that a holistic understanding of the ocean and its changes requires a multiplicity of reference points.



A fascinating story that revises our assumptions about land and ocean alike, Sea Level calls for a more nuanced understanding of this baseline, one that allows for new methods and interpretations as we navigate an era of unstable seas.]]> 200 Wilko Graf von Hardenberg 0226831833 Jeff 0 to-read 4.14 Sea Level: A History (Oceans in Depth)
author: Wilko Graf von Hardenberg
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.14
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Oak Origins: From Acorns to Species and the Tree of Life]]> 209049992 From ancient acorns to future forests, the story of how oaks evolved and the many ways they shape our world.



An oak begins its life with the precarious journey of a pollen grain, then an acorn, then a seedling. A mature tree may shed millions of acorns, but only a handful will grow. One oak may then live 100 years, 250 years, or even 13,000 years. But the long life of an individual is only a part of these trees� story.



With naturalist and leading researcher Andrew L. Hipp as our guide, Oak Origins takes us through a sweeping evolutionary history, stretching back to a population of trees that lived more than 50 million years ago. We travel to the ancient tropical Earth to see the ancestors of the oaks evolving side by side with the dinosaurs. We journey from the oaks� childhood in the once-warm forests of the Arctic to the montane cloud forests of Mexico and the broad-leaved evergreen forests of Southeast Asia. We dive into current research on oak genomes to see how scientists study genes� movement between species and how oaks evolve over generations—spanning tens of millions of years. Finally, we learn how oak evolutionary history shapes the forests we know today, and how it may even shape the forests of the future.



Oaks are familiar to almost everyone, and beloved. They are embedded in our mythology. They have fed us, housed us, provided wood for our ships and wine barrels and homes and halls, planked our roads, and kept us warm. Every oak also has the potential to feed thousands of birds, squirrels, and mice and host countless insects, mosses, fungi, and lichens. But as Oak Origins makes clear, the story of the oaks� evolution is not just the story of one important tree. It is the story of the Tree of Life, connecting all organisms that have ever lived on Earth, from oaks� last common ancestor to us.]]> 288 Andrew L. Hipp 0226823571 Jeff 0 to-read 4.14 Oak Origins: From Acorns to Species and the Tree of Life
author: Andrew L. Hipp
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.14
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Pinocchio: The Adventures of a Puppet, Doubly Commented Upon and Triply Illustrated (The Italian List)]]> 62622107 A richly illustrated analysis from one of Europe’s greatest living philosophers.

In Pinocchio, Giorgio Agamben turns his keen philosopher’s eye to the famous nineteenth-century novel by Carlo Collodi. To Agamben, Pinocchio’s adventures are a kind of initiation into life itself. Like us, the mischievous puppet is caught between two worlds. He is faced with the alternatives of submitting to authority or of carrying on, stubbornly indulging his way of being. From Agamben’s virtuoso interpretation of this classic story, we learn that we can harbor the mystery of existence only if we are not aware of it, only if we manage to cohabit with an area of non-knowledge, immemorial and very near. Richly illustrated with images from three early editions of Collodi’s novel, this new volume will delight enthusiasts of both literature and philosophy.
]]> 212 Giorgio Agamben 180309138X Jeff 0 to-read 4.67 2021 Pinocchio: The Adventures of a Puppet, Doubly Commented Upon and Triply Illustrated (The Italian List)
author: Giorgio Agamben
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.67
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sound Reporting, Second Edition: The NPR Guide to Broadcast, Podcast and Digital Journalism]]> 209049966 407 Jerome Socolovsky 0226824667 Jeff 0 to-read 4.00 Sound Reporting, Second Edition: The NPR Guide to Broadcast, Podcast and Digital Journalism
author: Jerome Socolovsky
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Libertine London: Sex in the Eighteenth-Century Metropolis]]> 199703214
Libertine London investigates the sex lives of women throughout the period 1680 to 1830, known as the long eighteenth century. The book uncovers the various experiences of women, whether as mistresses, adultresses, or as participants in the sex trade. From renowned courtesans to downtrodden streetwalkers, it examines the multifaceted lives of these women within brothels, on stage, and even behind bars. Based on new research in court transcripts, asylum records, magazines, pamphlets, satires, songs, theater plays, and erotica, Libertine London reveals the gruesome treatment of women who were sexually active outside of marriage. Julie Peakman looks at sex from women’s points of view, undercutting the traditional image of the bawdy eighteenth century to expose a more sordid side, which often left women distressed, ostracized, and vilified for their sexual behavior.]]> 352 Julie Peakman 1789148472 Jeff 0 to-read 4.50 Libertine London: Sex in the Eighteenth-Century Metropolis
author: Julie Peakman
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.50
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[‘A Seditious and Sinister Tribe�: The Crimean Tatars and Their Khanate]]> 209050020 352 Donald Rayfield 1789149096 Jeff 0 to-read 4.22 ‘A Seditious and Sinister Tribe’: The Crimean Tatars and Their Khanate
author: Donald Rayfield
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.22
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Taming the Tongue: In the Heyday of English Grammar]]> 58728166
Heated arguments can break out over many slander, insults to a person’s honor—and, during one period in English history, grammar. In his new book detailing the controversies and fraught histories that accompanied efforts to regularize English grammar, Bryan A. Garner shows that the grammarians of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were a surprisingly contentious and opinionated lot.
�
Taming the Tongue in the Heyday of English Grammar (1711�1851) makes the primers of the period come alive in ways that their concerned and idiosyncratic authors might not have envisioned. The entries in Taming the Tongue —which has nearly five hundred color illustrations—are packed with scrupulously recorded information on the content and publication details of the primers, as well as tantalizing tales from the authors� lives. Combining scholarly rigor with lively anecdotes, Garner sheds light on the controversies and unexpectedly fiery histories of English grammatical disputes.]]> 299 Bryan A. Garner Jeff 0 to-read 5.00 Taming the Tongue: In the Heyday of English Grammar
author: Bryan A. Garner
name: Jeff
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Poor Naked Wretches: Shakespeare’s Working People]]> 60557405
Was Shakespeare a snob? Poor Naked Wretches challenges the idea that one of the greatest writers of the English language despised working people, showing that he portrayed them with as much insight, compassion, and purpose as the rich and powerful. Moreover, working people play an important role in his dramatic method. Stephen Unwin reads Shakespeare anew, exploring the astonishing variety of working people in his plays, as well as the vast range of cultural sources from which they were drawn. Unwin argues that the robust realism of these characters, their independence of mind, and their engagement in the great issues of the day, make them much more than mere comic relief. Compassionate, cogent, and wry, Poor Naked Wretches grants these often-overlooked figures the dignity and respect they deserve.]]> 304 Stephen Unwin 1789146615 Jeff 0 to-read 3.62 Poor Naked Wretches: Shakespeare’s Working People
author: Stephen Unwin
name: Jeff
average rating: 3.62
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Famous Last Words: An Anthology]]> 26240398
Over the years, family and loved ones have recorded an extraordinary number of famous last words, from kings and queens to politicians, philosophers, scientists, writers, and actors. These exit lines can impart keen insights from an extraordinary life, reveal a sense of humor indomitable in even the darkest hours, or tell us something about a celebrated person’s last moments of life. Perhaps unavoidably given their provenance, many last words have proven irresistible to embellishment or remain in question. King Charles II, for example, was said to have instructed his brothers to “let not Poor Nelly starve,� asking that his favorite mistress be provided a pension of 1,500 pounds a year. Although she did indeed receive said pension, some contend that Charles’s actual last words, following a long period of illness, were, “You must pardon me, gentlemen, for being a most unconscionable time a-dying.�

For Famous Last Words, Claire Cock-Starkey has collected the most interesting, insightful, and controversial last words, from deathbed desperation to the fondest of farewells.]]> 144 Claire Cock-Starkey 1851242511 Jeff 0 to-read 3.69 2016 Famous Last Words: An Anthology
author: Claire Cock-Starkey
name: Jeff
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Babel: Adventures in Translation]]> 42799786
Starting with the concept of Babel itself, which illustrates the early cultural prominence of multilingualism, the book examines a Mediterranean language of four millennia ago called Linear A, which still resists deciphering today. Going on to explore how languages have interacted with each other in different contexts, the book also sheds light on the multilingual transmission of key texts in religion, science, fables and fairy-tales, and epic literature. Lavishly illustrated with a diverse range of material, from papyrus fragments found at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt to Esperanto handbooks to Asterix cartoons, Babel opens up a world of adventures into translation.
]]> 176 Dennis Duncan 185124509X Jeff 0 to-read 3.75 Babel: Adventures in Translation
author: Dennis Duncan
name: Jeff
average rating: 3.75
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Brief History of the Spanish Language]]> 897216
After introductory chapters on what it means to study the history of a language, the concept of linguistic change, and the nature of language families, Pharies traces the development of Spanish from its Latin roots, all with the minimum amount of technical language possible. In the core sections of the book, readers are treated to an engaging and remarkably succinct presentation of the genealogy and development of the language, including accounts of the structures and peculiarities of Latin, the historical and cultural events that deeply influenced the shaping of the language, the nature of Medieval Spanish, the language myths that have become attached to Spanish, and the development of the language beyond the Iberian Peninsula, especially in the Americas. Focusing on the most important facets of the language’s evolution, this compact work makes the history of Spanish accessible to anyone with a knowledge of Spanish and a readiness to grasp basic linguistic concepts.

Available in both English and Spanish editions, A Brief History of the Spanish Language provides a truly outstandingintroduction to the exciting story of one of the world’s great languages.
]]> 248 David A. Pharies 0226666832 Jeff 0 to-read 3.82 2007 A Brief History of the Spanish Language
author: David A. Pharies
name: Jeff
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA["The Girl in the Window" and Other True Tales: An Anthology with Tips for Finding, Reporting, and Writing Nonfiction Narratives]]> 62707935
This book—part anthology, part craft guide—provides a forensic reading of twenty-four of DeGregory’s singular stories, illustrating her tips for writers alongside pieces that put those elements under the microscope. Each of the pieces gathered here—including the Pulitzer Prize–winning title story—is accompanied by notes on how she built the story, plus tips on how nonfiction writers at all levels can do the same. Featuring a foreword by Beth Macy, author of the acclaimed Dopesick , this book is sure to delight fans of DeGregory’s writing, as well as introduce her to readers and writers who have not yet discovered her inspiring body of work.]]> 284 Lane DeGregory 022677127X Jeff 0 to-read 4.84 "The Girl in the Window" and Other True Tales: An Anthology with Tips for Finding, Reporting, and Writing Nonfiction Narratives
author: Lane DeGregory
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.84
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Hidden Game of Football: The Next Edition]]> 1286019 309 Bob Carroll 1892129019 Jeff 0 to-read 3.80 1988 The Hidden Game of Football: The Next Edition
author: Bob Carroll
name: Jeff
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1988
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Stethoscope: The Making of a Medical Icon]]> 60557389
This book explores the colorful past, present, and future of an instrument that is, quite literally, close to our hearts. The stethoscope has become the symbol of medicine itself—how did this come to be? What makes the stethoscope such a familiar yet charismatic object? Drawing from a range of fields including history, anthropology, science, technology, and sound studies, the book illustrates the variety of roles the stethoscope has played over time. It shows that the stethoscope is not, and has never been, a single entity. It is used to a variety of ends, serves several purposes, and is open to many interpretations. This variability is the key to the stethoscope’s enduring presence in the medical and popular imagination.]]> 224 Anna Harris 178914633X Jeff 0 to-read 4.25 Stethoscope: The Making of a Medical Icon
author: Anna Harris
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.25
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Planet of the Bugs: Evolution and the Rise of Insects]]> 20694737
Leaving no stone unturned, Shaw explores how evolutionary innovations such as small body size, wings, metamorphosis, and parasitic behavior have enabled insects to disperse widely, occupy increasingly narrow niches, and survive global catastrophes in their rise to dominance. Through buggy tales by turns bizarre and comical―from caddisflies that construct portable houses or weave silken aquatic nets to trap floating debris, to parasitic wasp larvae that develop in the blood of host insects and, by storing waste products in their rear ends, are able to postpone defecation until after they emerge―he not only unearths how changes in our planet’s geology, flora, and fauna contributed to insects� success, but also how, in return, insects came to shape terrestrial ecosystems and amplify biodiversity. Indeed, in his visits to hyperdiverse rain forests to highlight the current insect extinction crisis, Shaw reaffirms just how crucial these tiny beings are to planetary health and human survival.

In this age of honeybee die-offs and bedbugs hitching rides in the spines of library books, Planet of the Bugs charms with humor, affection, and insight into the world’s six-legged creatures, revealing an essential importance that resonates across time and space.]]> 256 Scott Richard Shaw 022616361X Jeff 0 to-read 4.08 2014 Planet of the Bugs: Evolution and the Rise of Insects
author: Scott Richard Shaw
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Jellyfish: A Natural History 26240418
Jellyfish presents these aquarium favorites in all their extraordinary and captivating beauty. Fifty unique species, from stalked jellyfish to black sea nettles, are presented in stunning color photographs along with the most current scientific information on their anatomy, history, distribution, position in the water, and environmental status. Foremost jellyfish expert Lisa-ann Gershwin provides an insightful look at the natural history and biology of each of these spellbinding creatures, while offering a timely take on their place in the rapidly changing and deteriorating condition of the oceans. Readers will learn about immortal jellyfish who live and die and live again as well as those who camouflage themselves amid sea grasses and shells, hiding in plain sight.

Approachably written and based in the latest science and ecology, this colorful book provides an authoritative guide to these ethereal marine wonders.]]> 224 Lisa-Ann Gershwin 022628767X Jeff 0 to-read 4.41 2016 Jellyfish: A Natural History
author: Lisa-Ann Gershwin
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Visual Elements―Design: A Handbook for Communicating Science and Engineering]]> 183362909
In this short handbook, award-winning science communicator Felice C. Frankel offers a quick guide for scientists and engineers who want to share—and better understand—their research by designing compelling graphics for journal submissions, grant applications, presentations, and posters. Like all the books in the Visual Elements series, this handbook is also a training tool for researchers. Distilling her celebrated books and courses to the essentials, Frankel shows scientists and engineers, from students to primary investigators, the importance of thinking visually. This crucial volume in the Visual Elements series offers a wealth of engaging design examples. Case studies and advice from designers at prestigious publications and researchers� own before-and-after examples show how even the smallest changes—to color, type, composition, and layering—can greatly improve communication. Ideal for researchers who want a foothold for presenting and preparing their work for everything from conferences to publications, the book explains the steps for creating a concise and communicative graphic to highlight the most important aspects of research—and to clarify researchers� own thinking. The resulting book is an essential element of any scientist’s, engineer’s, or designer’s library.]]> 208 Felice C. Frankel 0226829162 Jeff 0 to-read 4.00 The Visual Elements―Design: A Handbook for Communicating Science and Engineering
author: Felice C. Frankel
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Wild Sea: A history of the southern ocean]]> 40238697
Weaving together sea captains� journals, whalers� log books, explorers� letters, scientific research and ancient beliefs with her own voyage of discovery, Joy McCann reveals the secrets of a little-known ocean and its importance as a barometer of climate change.]]> 258 Joy McCann 1742235735 Jeff 0 to-read 3.84 Wild Sea: A history of the southern ocean
author: Joy McCann
name: Jeff
average rating: 3.84
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Portable Latin for Gardeners: More than 1,500 Essential Plant Names and the Secrets They Contain]]> 31447340 A Portable Latin for Gardeners is the perfect quick reference for working in the garden, shopping for plants, or doing botanical research—and no prior knowledge of Latin is required. The 1,500 terms are grouped by categories, making it easy to describe color, size, form, habitat, scent, taste, and time. Gardeners will make new connections and discoveries in a way standard alphabetical lists simply don’t allow. Alternately, gardeners who want to look up a particular term can jump right into the alphabetical index. Each entry includes the different forms of the term, a basic pronunciation guide, the definition, and an example plant species.
Rich botanical illustrations make this guide as beautiful as it is useful, while a durable flexi-bound cover means the book can withstand both days in the garden and evenings on the nightstand.]]> 160 Royal Horticultural Society 022645536X Jeff 0 to-read 5.00 A Portable Latin for Gardeners: More than 1,500 Essential Plant Names and the Secrets They Contain
author: Royal Horticultural Society
name: Jeff
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Book of Seeds: A Life-Size Guide to Six Hundred Species from around the World]]> 36217453
The Book of Seeds takes readers through six hundred of the world’s seed species, revealing their extraordinary beauty and rich diversity. Each page pairs a beautifully composed photo of a seed—life-size, and, in some cases, enlarged to display fine detail—with a short description, a map showing distribution, and information on conservation status. The whole spectrum of seeds is covered here. There are prolific species like corn and less widely distributed species, like the brilliant blue seeds of the traveler’s palm or the bird of paradise flower, aptly named for its distinctive orange coiffure. There are tiny seeds and seeds weighing up to forty pounds. And while seeds in all their shapes, sizes, and colors grant us sustenance, there are even some we would be wise to treat with caution, such as the rosary pea, whose seeds are considered more toxic than ricin.

The essential guide to these complex plant creations, The Book of Seeds offers readers a rare, up-close look that will inspire scientists and nature lovers alike.
]]> 656 022636223X Jeff 0 to-read 4.47 The Book of Seeds: A Life-Size Guide to Six Hundred Species from around the World
author: Paul Smith
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.47
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Trees: From Root to Leaf 60557165 Trees seen like never before—a world expert presents a stunning compendium, illuminating science, conservation, and art.

Trees provoke deep affection, spirituality, and creativity. They cover about a third of the world’s land and play a crucial role in our environmental systems—influencing the water, carbon, and nutrient cycles and the global climate. This puts trees at the forefront of research into mitigating our climate emergency; we cannot understate their importance in shaping our daily lives and our planet’s future.

In these lavish pages, ecologist Paul Smith celebrates all that trees have inspired across nearly every human culture throughout history. Generously illustrated with over 450 images and organized according to tree life cycle—from seeds and leaves to wood, flowers, and fruit—this book celebrates the great diversity and beauty of the 60,000 tree species that inhabit our planet. Surprising photography and infographics will inspire readers, illustrating intricate bark and leaf patterns, intertwined ecosystems, colorful flower displays, archaic wooden wheels, and timber houses. In this lavishly illustrated book, Smith presents the science, art, and culture of trees. As we discover the fundamental and fragile nature of trees and their interdependence, we more deeply understand the forest without losing sight of the magnificent trees.]]> 320 0226824179 Jeff 0 to-read 4.67 2022 Trees: From Root to Leaf
author: Paul Smith
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.67
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Nature's Fabric: Leaves in Science and Culture]]> 31939375
A lush, incredibly informative tribute to the leaf, Nature’s Fabric offers an introduction to the science of leaves, weaving biology and chemistry with the history of the deep connection we feel with all things growing and green. Leaves come in a staggering variety of textures and they can be smooth or rough, their edges smooth, lobed, or with tiny teeth. They have adapted to their environments in remarkable, often stunningly beautiful ways—from the leaves of carnivorous plants, which have tiny “trigger hairs� that signal the trap to close, to the impressive defense strategies some leaves have evolved to reduce their consumption. (Recent studies suggest, for example, that some plants can detect chewing vibrations and mobilize potent chemical defenses.) In many cases, we’ve learned from the extraordinary adaptations of leaves, such as the invention of new self-cleaning surfaces inspired by the slippery coating found on leaves. But we owe much more to leaves, and Lee also calls our attention back to the fact that that our very lives—and the lives of all on the planet—depend on them. Not only is foliage is the ultimate source of food for every living thing on land, its capacity to cycle carbon dioxide and oxygen can be considered among evolution’s most important achievements—and one that is critical in mitigating global climate change.

Taking readers through major topics like these while not losing sight of the small wonders of nature we see every day—if you’d like to identify a favorite leaf, Lee’s glossary of leaf characteristics means you won’t be left out on a limb� Nature’s Fabric is eminently readable and full of intriguing research, sure to enhance your appreciation for these extraordinary green machines.
]]> 512 David Lee 022618059X Jeff 0 to-read 3.00 Nature's Fabric: Leaves in Science and Culture
author: David Lee
name: Jeff
average rating: 3.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Strange Bright Blooms: A History of Cut Flowers]]> 55623746 324 Randy Malamud 1789144019 Jeff 0 to-read 3.50 Strange Bright Blooms: A History of Cut Flowers
author: Randy Malamud
name: Jeff
average rating: 3.50
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Amber Waves: The Extraordinary Biography of Wheat, from Wild Grass to World Megacrop]]> 49415230 Amber Waves tells the story of a group of grass species that first grew in scattered stands in the foothills of the Middle East until our ancestors discovered their value as a source of food. Over thousands of years, we moved their seeds to all but the polar regions of Earth, slowly cultivating what we now know as wheat, and in the process creating a world of cuisines that uses wheat seeds as a staple food. Wheat spread across the globe, but as ecologist Catherine Zabinski shows us, a biography of wheat is not only the story of how plants ensure their own success: from the earliest breads to the most mouthwatering pastas, it is also a story of human ingenuity in producing enough food for ourselves and our communities.

Since the first harvest of the ancient grain, we have perfected our farming systems to grow massive quantities of food, producing one of our species� global megacrops—but at a great cost to ecological systems. And despite our vast capacity to grow food, we face problems with undernourishment both close to home and around the world. Weaving together history, evolution, and ecology, Zabinski’s tale explores much more than the wild roots and rise of a now ubiquitous grain: it illuminates our complex relationship with our crops, both how we have transformed the plant species we use as food, and how our society—our culture—has changed in response to the need to secure food sources. From the origins of agriculture to gluten sensitivities, from our first selection of the largest seeds from wheat’s wild progenitors to the sequencing of the wheat genome and genetic engineering, Amber Waves sheds new light on how we grow the food that sustains so much human life.]]> 216 Catherine Zabinski 022655371X Jeff 0 to-read 3.65 Amber Waves: The Extraordinary Biography of Wheat, from Wild Grass to World Megacrop
author: Catherine Zabinski
name: Jeff
average rating: 3.65
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Roots to Seeds: 400 Years of Oxford Botany]]> 56690892 224 Stephen A. Harris 1851245618 Jeff 0 to-read 4.67 Roots to Seeds: 400 Years of Oxford Botany
author: Stephen A. Harris
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.67
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Heritage Apples 44319044 This book features apple varieties from the Herefordshire Pomona that are still cultivated today. The Pomona—an exquisitely illustrated book of apples and pears—was published at the height of the Victorian era by a small rural naturalists� club. Its beautiful illustrations and authoritative text are treasured by book collectors and apple experts alike. From the Blenheim Orange and Worcester Pearmain to the less fêted yet scrumptious Ribston Pippin, Margil, and Pitmaston Pine Apple, Heritage Apples is illustrated with the Pomona’s stunning paintings and tells the intriguing stories behind each variety, how they acquired their names, and their merits for eating, cooking, or making cider. Also featuring practical advice on how to choose and grow your own trees, this is the perfect book for apple-lovers and growers alike.
]]> 248 Caroline Ball 1851245162 Jeff 0 to-read 4.60 Heritage Apples
author: Caroline Ball
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.60
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Zombies: A Cultural History 25102561 Luckhurst follows a trail that leads from the nineteenth-century Caribbean, through American pulp fiction of the 1920s, to the middle of the twentieth century, when zombies swarmed comic books and movie screens. From there he follows the zombie around the world, tracing the vectors of its infectious global spread from France to Australia, Brazil to Japan. Stitching together materials from anthropology, folklore, travel writings, colonial histories, popular literature and cinema, medical history, and cultural theory, Zombies is the definitive short introduction to theserestlesspulp monsters.
]]> 224 Roger Luckhurst 1780235283 Jeff 0 to-read 4.04 2015 Zombies: A Cultural History
author: Roger Luckhurst
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Magic Lantern 213854 The Magic Lantern.

More grand mosaic than linear account, Bergman’s vignettes trace his life from a rural Swedish childhood through his work in theater to Hollywood’s golden age, and a tumultuous romantic history that includes five wives and more than a few mistresses. Throughout, Bergman recounts his life in a series of deeply personal flashbacks that document some of the most important moments in twentieth-century filmmaking as well as the private obsessions of the man behind them. Ambitious in scope yet sensitively wrought, The Magic Lantern is a window to the mind of one of our era’s great geniuses.

“[Bergman] has found a way to show the soul’s landscape. . . . Many gripping revelations.”�New York Times Book Review

“Joan Tate’s translation of this book has delicacy and true pitch . . . The Magic Lantern is as personal and penetrating as a Bergman film, wry, shadowy, austere.”�New Republic

“[Bergman] keeps returning to his past, reassessing it, distilling its meaning, offering it to his audiences in dazzling new shapes.”�New York Times

“What Bergman does relate, particularly his tangled relationships with his parents, is not only illuminating but quite moving. No ‘tell-all� book this one, but revealing in ways that much longer and allegedly ‘franker� books are not.”�Library Journal]]> 314 Ingmar Bergman 0226043827 Jeff 0 to-read 4.11 1987 The Magic Lantern
author: Ingmar Bergman
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Extinct: A Compendium of Obsolete Objects]]> 57402598
So-called extinct objects are those that were imagined but were never in use, or that existed but are now unused—superseded, unfashionable, or simply forgotten. Extinct gathers together an exceptional range of artists, curators, architects, critics, and academics, including Hal Foster, Barry Bergdoll, Deyan Sudjic, Tacita Dean, Emily Orr, Richard Wentworth, and many more. In eighty-five essays, contributors nominate “extinct� objects and address them in a series of short, vivid, sometimes personal accounts, speaking not only of obsolete technologies, but of other ways of thinking, making, and interacting with the world. Extinct is filled with curious, half-remembered objects, each one evoking a future that never came to pass. It is also a visual treat, full of interest and delight.]]> 390 Barbara Penner 1789144523 Jeff 0 to-read 4.00 2021 Extinct: A Compendium of Obsolete Objects
author: Barbara Penner
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Full-Length Mirror: A Global Visual History]]> 60557377
This book tells two stories about the full-length mirror. One story, through time and space, crisscrosses the globe to introduce a broad range of historical kings and slaves, artists and writers, merchants and craftsmen, courtesans, and commoners. The other story explores the connections among objects, painting, and photography, the full-length mirror providing a new perspective on historical artifacts and their images in art and visual culture. The Full-Length Mirror represents a new kind of global art history in which “global� is understood in terms of both geography and visual medium, a history encompassing Europe, Asia, and North America, and spanning over two millennia from the fourth century BCE to the early twentieth century.]]> 288 Wu Hung 1789146100 Jeff 0 to-read 4.00 The Full-Length Mirror: A Global Visual History
author: Wu Hung
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Supernatural America: The Paranormal in American Art]]> 55167420
​Featuring artists from James McNeill Whistler and Kerry James Marshall to artist/mediums who made images with spirits during séances, this catalog covers more than two hundred years of the supernatural in American art. Here we find works that explore haunting, UFO sightings, and a broad range of experiential responses to other worldly contact.]]> 320 Robert Cozzolino 022678682X Jeff 0 to-read 4.00 Supernatural America: The Paranormal in American Art
author: Robert Cozzolino
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Paper Zoo: 500 Years of Animals in Art]]> 31374480
In this stunning book, historian of science Charlotte Sleigh draws on the ultimate bibliophile’s menagerie—the collections of the British Library—to present a lavishly illustrated homage to this historical collaboration between art and science. Gathering together a breathtaking range of nature illustrations from manuscripts, prints, drawings, and rare printed books from across the world, Sleigh brings us face to face (or face to tentacle) with images of butterflies, beetles, and spiders, of shells, fish, and coral polyps. Organized into four themed sections—exotic, native, domestic, and paradoxical—the images introduce us to some of the world’s most renowned natural history illustrators, from John James Audubon to Mark Catesby and Ernst Haeckel, as well as to lesser-known artists. In her accompanying text, Sleigh traces the story of the art of natural history from the Renaissance through the great age of exploration and into the nineteenth century, offering insight into the changing connections between the natural and human worlds.

But the story does not end there. From caterpillars to crabs, langurs to dugongs, stick insects to Old English pigs; from the sinuous tail feathers of birds of paradise to the lime-green wings of New Zealand’s enormous flightless parrot, the kakapo; from the crenellated plates of a tortoise’s shell to imagined likenesses of unicorns, mermaids, and dinosaurs, the story continues in this book. It is a Paper Zoo for all time.]]> 256 Charlotte Sleigh 022644712X Jeff 0 to-read 4.25 The Paper Zoo: 500 Years of Animals in Art
author: Charlotte Sleigh
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.25
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Art of the Bird: The History of Ornithological Art through Forty Artists]]> 44179311 The Art of the Bird, devout birder and ornithologist Roger J. Lederer celebrates this heyday of avian illustration in forty artists� profiles, beginning with the work of Flemish painter Frans Snyders in the early 1600s and continuing through to contemporary artists like Elizabeth Butterworth, famed for her portraits of macaws. Stretching its wings across time, taxa, geography, and artistic style—from the celebrated realism of American conservation icon John James Audubon, to Elizabeth Gould’s nineteenth-century renderings of museum specimens from the Himalayas, to Swedish artist and ornithologist Lars Jonsson’s ethereal watercolors—this book is feathered with art and artists as diverse and beautiful as their subjects. A soaring exploration of our fascination with the avian form,The Art of the Birdis a testament to the ways in which the intense observation inherent in both art and science reveals the mysteries of the natural world.]]> 224 Roger J. Lederer 022667505X Jeff 0 to-read 4.38 2019 The Art of the Bird: The History of Ornithological Art through Forty Artists
author: Roger J. Lederer
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Slow Birding: The Art and Science of Enjoying the Birds in Your Own Backyard]]> 60279806
Many birders travel far and wide to popular birding destinations to catch sight of rare or “exotic� birds. In Slow Birding , evolutionary biologist Joan E. Strassmann introduces readers to the joys of birding right where they are.

In this inspiring guide to the art of slow birding, Strassmann tells colorful stories of the most common birds to be found in the United States—birds we often see but might not have considered deeply before. For example, northern cardinals thrive in the city, where they are free from predators. White brows on a male white-throated sparrow indicate that he is likely to be a philanderer. This essential guide to the fascinating world of common, everyday birds
Slow Birding is the perfect guide for the birder looking to appreciate the beauty of the birds right in their own backyard, observing keenly how their behaviors change from day to day and season to season.]]> 352 Joan E. Strassmann 0593329929 Jeff 0 to-read 3.66 Slow Birding: The Art and Science of Enjoying the Birds in Your Own Backyard
author: Joan E. Strassmann
name: Jeff
average rating: 3.66
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Architectural Heritage of Yemen: Buildings that Fill My Eye (Art Series)]]> 34606727 ]]> 240 Trevor H.J. Marchand 1909942073 Jeff 0 to-read 5.00 Architectural Heritage of Yemen: Buildings that Fill My Eye (Art Series)
author: Trevor H.J. Marchand
name: Jeff
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[London: The Selden Map and the Making of a Global City, 1549-1689]]> 17673985


London’s success, Robert K. Batchelor argues, lies not just with the well-documented rise of Atlantic settlements, markets, and economies. Using his discovery of a network of Chinese merchant shipping routes on John Selden’s map of China as his jumping-off point, Batchelor reveals how London also flourished because of its many encounters, engagements, and exchanges with East Asian trading cities. Translation plays a key role in Batchelor’s study—translation not just of books, manuscripts, and maps, but also of meaning and knowledge across cultures—and Batchelor demonstrates how translation helped London understand and adapt to global economic conditions. Looking outward at London’s global negotiations, Batchelor traces the development of its knowledge networks back to a number of foreign sources and credits particular interactions with England’s eventual political and economic autonomy from church and King.



London offers a much-needed non-Eurocentric history of London, first by bringing to light and then by synthesizing the many external factors and pieces of evidence that contributed to its rise as a global city. It will appeal to students and scholars interested in the cultural politics of translation, the relationship between merchants and sovereigns, and the cultural and historical geography of Britain and Asia.]]> 334 Robert K. Batchelor 022608065X Jeff 0 to-read 3.80 2013 London: The Selden Map and the Making of a Global City, 1549-1689
author: Robert K. Batchelor
name: Jeff
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> North Sea Crossings 53230733 between the people of the Low Countries and England in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, and reveals how Anglo-Dutch connections changed the literary landscape on both sides of the North Sea.
Ranging from the Norman Conquest of 1066 to the ‘Glorious
Revolution� of 1688, it examines how Dutch-speaking immigrants
transformed English culture, and it uncovers the lasting impact of
contacts and collaborations between Dutch and English speakers
on historical writing, map-making, manuscript production and
early printing.
The literary heritage of Anglo-Dutch relations is explored and
lavishly illustrated through the unique collection of manuscripts,
early prints, maps and other treasures from the Bodleian Library
in Oxford. The book sheds new light on the literature and art of a
pivotal period in European history.]]> 304 Sjoerd Levelt 1851245545 Jeff 0 to-read 5.00 North Sea Crossings
author: Sjoerd Levelt
name: Jeff
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Fires of Lust: Sex in the Middle Ages]]> 57402618
The medieval humoral system of medicine suggested that it was possible to die from having too much—or too little—sex, while the Roman Catholic Church taught that virginity was the ideal state. Holy men and women committed themselves to lifelong abstinence in the name of religion. Everyone was forced to conform to restrictive rules about who they could have sex with, in what way, how often, and even when, and could be harshly punished for getting it wrong. Other experiences are more familiar. Like us, medieval people faced challenges in finding a suitable partner or trying to get pregnant (or trying not to). They also struggled with many of the same social issues, such as whether prostitution should be legalized. Above all, they shared our fondness for dirty jokes and erotic images. By exploring their sex lives, the book brings ordinary medieval people to life and reveals details of their most personal thoughts and experiences. Ultimately, it provides us with an important and intimate connection to the past.]]> 320 Katherine Harvey 1789144892 Jeff 0 to-read 3.98 The Fires of Lust: Sex in the Middle Ages
author: Katherine Harvey
name: Jeff
average rating: 3.98
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> A Brief History of Death 18526850
Using the work of archaeologists and paleoanthropologists, Spellman examines how interpreting physical remains gives us insight into prehistoric perspectives on death. He traces how humans have died over the centuries, both in the causes of death and in the views of actions that lead to death. He spotlights the great philosophical and scientific traditions of the West, which did not believe in an afterlife or see the purpose of bereavement, while also casting new light on the major religious beliefs that emerged in the ancient world, particularly the centuries-long development of Christianity. He delves into three approaches to the meaning of death―the negation of life, continuity in another form, and agnosticism―from both religious and secular-scientific perspectives.

Providing a deeper context for contemporary debates over end-of-life issues and the tension between longevity and quality of life, A Brief History of Death is an illuminating look at the complex ways humans face death and the dying.]]> 255 William M. Spellman 1780232659 Jeff 0 to-read 3.54 2014 A Brief History of Death
author: William M. Spellman
name: Jeff
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Wig: A Hairbrained History]]> 52612690 256 Luigi Amara 1789143462 Jeff 0 to-read 2.80 2014 The Wig: A Hairbrained History
author: Luigi Amara
name: Jeff
average rating: 2.80
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Calling the Spirits: A History of Seances]]> 52612652
Calling the Spirits investigates the eerie history of our conversations with the dead, from necromancy in Homer’s Odyssey to the emergence of Spiritualism—when Victorians were entranced by mediums and the seance was born. Among our cast are the Fox sisters, teenagers surrounded by “spirit rappings�; Daniel Dunglas Home, the “greatest medium of all time�; Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, whose unlikely friendship was forged, then riven, by the afterlife; and Helen Duncan, the medium whose trial in 1944 for witchcraft proved more popular to the public than news about the war. The book also considers Ouija boards, modern psychics, and paranormal investigations, and is illustrated with engravings, fine art (from beyond), and photographs. Hugely entertaining, it begs the is anybody there . . . ?]]> 336 Lisa Morton 1789142806 Jeff 0 to-read 3.86 2021 Calling the Spirits: A History of Seances
author: Lisa Morton
name: Jeff
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Empires and Anarchies: A History of Oil in the Middle East]]> 33359599 256 Michael Quentin Morton 178023810X Jeff 0 to-read 3.67 2017 Empires and Anarchies: A History of Oil in the Middle East
author: Michael Quentin Morton
name: Jeff
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Partitioning Palestine: British Policymaking at the End of Empire]]> 44179336 256 Penny Sinanoglou 022666578X Jeff 0 to-read 4.67 Partitioning Palestine: British Policymaking at the End of Empire
author: Penny Sinanoglou
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.67
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Edge of Empires: A History of Georgia]]> 15108923
Beginning with the first intimations of the existence of Georgians in ancient Anatolia and ending with the volatile presidency of Mikheil Saakashvili, Rayfield deals with the country’s internal politics and swings between disintegration and unity, and divulges Georgia’s complex struggles with the empires that have tried to control, fragment, or even destroy it. He describes the country’s conflicts with Xenophon’s Greeks, Arabs, invading Turks, the Crusades, Genghis Khan, the Persian Empire, the Russian Empire, and Soviet totalitarianism. A wide-ranging examination of this small but colorful country, its dramatic state-building, and its tragic political mistakes, Edge of Empires draws our eyes to this often overlooked nation.]]> 479 Donald Rayfield 1780230303 Jeff 0 to-read 3.72 2012 Edge of Empires: A History of Georgia
author: Donald Rayfield
name: Jeff
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Lesser Dragons: Minority Peoples of China]]> 36377228 Lesser Dragons is a timely introduction to the fascinating, complex, and vital world of China’s national minorities. Drawing on firsthand fieldwork in several minority areas, Michael Dillon introduces us to the major non-Han peoples of China, including the Mongols, the Tibetans, the Uyghur of Xinjiang, and the Manchus, and traces the evolution of their relationship with the Han Chinese majority. With chapters devoted to each of the most important minority groups and an additional chapter exploring the parallel but very different world of inter-ethnic relations in Taiwan, Lesser Dragons will interest anyone eager to understand the reality behind regional conflicts increasingly covered by global media. From the tense security situation in Xinjiang to China’s attitude toward Tibet and the Dalai Lama, to the resistance efforts of Mongolian herders losing traditional grasslands, Dillon’s book both examines clichés—such as those found in the Chinese press, which often portrays ethnic minorities as colorful but marginal people—and defies expectations. He shows us how these minority peoples� religions, cultures, and above all languages mark these groups as distinct from the Chinese majority—distinct, yet endangered by the systemic forces of integration.]]> 288 Michael Dillon 1780239114 Jeff 0 to-read 4.12 2018 Lesser Dragons: Minority Peoples of China
author: Michael Dillon
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[From Stone to Flesh: A Short History of the Buddha (Buddhism and Modernity)]]> 15999512


Leading historian of Buddhism Donald S. Lopez Jr. tells the story of how various idols carved in stone—variously named Beddou, Codam, Xaca, and Fo—became the man of flesh and blood that we know simply as the Buddha. He reveals that the positive view of the Buddha in Europe and America is rather recent, originating a little more than a hundred and fifty years ago. For centuries, the Buddha was condemned by Western writers as the most dangerous idol of the Orient. He was a demon, the murderer of his mother, a purveyor of idolatry.



Lopez provides an engaging history of depictions of the Buddha from classical accounts and medieval stories to the testimonies of European travelers, diplomats, soldiers, and missionaries. He shows that centuries of hostility toward the Buddha changed dramatically in the nineteenth century, when the teachings of the Buddha, having disappeared from India by the fourteenth century, were read by European scholars newly proficient in Asian languages. At the same time, the traditional view of the Buddha persisted in Asia, where he was revered as much for his supernatural powers as for his philosophical insights. From Stone to Flesh follows the twists and turns of these Eastern and Western notions of the Buddha, leading finally to his triumph as the founder of a world religion.]]> 289 Donald S. Lopez Jr. 0226493202 Jeff 0 to-read 4.25 2013 From Stone to Flesh: A Short History of the Buddha (Buddhism and Modernity)
author: Donald S. Lopez Jr.
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[None of Your Damn Business: Privacy in the United States from the Gilded Age to the Digital Age]]> 43819478
Every day, Americans surrender their private information to entities claiming to have their best interests in mind. This trade-off has long been taken for granted, but the extent of its nefariousness has recently become much clearer. As None of Your Damn Business reveals, the problem is not so much that data will be used in ways we don’t want, but rather how willing we have been to have our information used, abused, and sold right back to us. In this startling book, Lawrence Cappello targets moments from the past 130 years of US history when privacy was central to battles over journalistic freedom, national security, surveillance, big data, and reproductive rights. As he makes dismayingly clear, Americans have had numerous opportunities to protect the public good while simultaneously safeguarding our information, and we’ve squandered them every time. None of Your Damn Business is a rich and provocative survey of an alarming topic that grows only more relevant with each fresh outrage of trust betrayed.]]> 352 Lawrence Cappello 022655774X Jeff 0 to-read 3.92 None of Your Damn Business: Privacy in the United States from the Gilded Age to the Digital Age
author: Lawrence Cappello
name: Jeff
average rating: 3.92
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Lies of the Land: Seeing Rural America for What It Is―and Isn’t]]> 112975288
It seems everyone has an opinion about rural America. Is it gripped in a tragic decline? Or is it on the cusp of a glorious revival? Is it the key to understanding America today? Steven Conn argues that we’re missing the real question: Is rural America even a thing? No, says Conn, who believes we see only what we want to see in the lands beyond the suburbs—fantasies about moral (or backward) communities, simpler (or repressive) living, and what it means to be authentically (or wrongheadedly) American. If we want to build a better future, Conn argues, we must accept that these visions don’t exist and never did.

In The Lies of the Land, Conn shows that rural America—so often characterized as in crisis or in danger of being left behind—has actually been at the center of modern American history, shaped by the same forces as everywhere else in the country: militarization, industrialization, corporatization, and suburbanization. Examining each of these forces in turn, Conn invites us to dispense with the lies and half-truths we’ve believed about rural America and to pursue better solutions to the very real challenges shared all across our nation.]]> 320 Steven Conn 0226826902 Jeff 0 to-read 3.99 2023 The Lies of the Land: Seeing Rural America for What It Is―and Isn’t
author: Steven Conn
name: Jeff
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[In Hock: Pawning in America from Independence through the Great Depression]]> 7757012 Puncturing the myth of the seamy storefront stocked with stolen watches and overseen by a shifty proprietor, In Hock reveals that pawnshops have long played an integral role in Americans� economic lives.

The definitive history of pawnbroking in the United States from the nation’s founding through the Great Depression, this volume demonstrates that the practice was inextricably intertwined with the rise of capitalism. The class of working poor begotten by this economic tide could make ends meet, Wendy Woloson argues, only by regularly visiting pawnshops to supplement their inadequate wages. Nonetheless, businessmen, reformers, and cultural critics berated the shops for promoting vice and used anti-Semitic stereotypes to cast their proprietors as greedy and cold-hearted. Parsing and subverting these caricatures, Woloson shows that pawnbrokers were in fact shrewd businessmen, often from humble origins, who honed sophisticated knowledge of a wide range of goods and their values in different markets.

In the process, she paints a resonant portrait of the generations of Americans whose struggle for economic survival often depended on an institution that has remained, until now, woefully misunderstood.

]]> 248 Wendy A. Woloson 0226905675 Jeff 0 to-read 4.10 2009 In Hock: Pawning in America from Independence through the Great Depression
author: Wendy A. Woloson
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Old Thiess, a Livonian Werewolf: A Classic Case in Comparative Perspective]]> 50202926 In 1691, a Livonian peasant known as Old Thiess boldly announced before a district court that he was a werewolf. Yet far from being a diabolical monster, he insisted, he was one of the “hounds of God,� fierce guardians who battled sorcerers, witches, and even Satan to protect the fields, flocks, and humanity—a baffling claim that attracted the notice of the judges then and still commands attention from historians today.

In this book, eminent scholars Carlo Ginzburg and Bruce Lincoln offer a uniquely comparative look at the trial and startling testimony of Old Thiess. They present the first English translation of the trial transcript, in which the man’s own voice can be heard, before turning to subsequent analyses of the event, which range from efforts to connect Old Thiess to shamanistic practices to the argument that he was reacting against cruel stereotypes of the “Livonian werewolf� a Germanic elite used to justify their rule over the Baltic peasantry. As Ginzburg and Lincoln debate their own and others� perspectives, they also reflect on broader issues of historical theory, method, and politics. Part source text of the trial, part discussion of historians� thoughts on the case, and part dialogue over the merits and perils of their different methodological approaches, Old Thiess, a Livonian Werewolf opens up fresh insight into a remarkable historical occurrence and, through it, the very discipline of history itself.

]]> 289 Carlo Ginzburg 022667441X Jeff 0 to-read 3.92 2020 Old Thiess, a Livonian Werewolf: A Classic Case in Comparative Perspective
author: Carlo Ginzburg
name: Jeff
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Tiber: Eternal River of Rome 39396779
The Tiber has served as the realm of protomythic creatures and gods, a battleground for armies and navies, a livelihood for boatmen and fishermen, the subject matter of poets and painters, and the final resting place for criminals and martyrs. Tiber: Eternal River of Rome is a highly readable history and a go-to resource for information about Italy's most storied river.


“This engaging book carries the reader along on an entertaining and often illuminating journey that traverses the entire course of the river’s history from antiquity until the twentieth century. Allen has assembled a collection of stories that are alternately charming, scandalous, intriguing, and informative, relating how the lives of individuals—ranging from painters to popes, shepherds to saints, and emperors to aviators—have intertwined with the Tiber.”—Gregory S. Aldrete, author of Floods of the Tiber in Ancient Rome

“Tiber provides a thoroughly enjoyable gallimaufry, engagingly written, [ranging] through Rome’s history from the riverside view, with much curious learning lightly displayed. Good fun, with something for everyone.”—Robert Twigger, author of Red Nile: A Biography of the World’s Greatest River

“[An] amusing and delightful compendium of historical Tiber trivia.�

—Publishers Weekly]]> 304 Bruce Ware Allen 1512600377 Jeff 0 to-read 3.67 Tiber: Eternal River of Rome
author: Bruce Ware Allen
name: Jeff
average rating: 3.67
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Consequences of Peace: The Versailles Settlement: Aftermath and Legacy 1919-2010 (Makers of the Modern World)]]> 9598154 220 Alan Sharp 1905791747 Jeff 0 to-read 2.75 2010 Consequences of Peace: The Versailles Settlement: Aftermath and Legacy 1919-2010 (Makers of the Modern World)
author: Alan Sharp
name: Jeff
average rating: 2.75
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Phenomena: Doppelmayr's Celestial Atlas]]> 60557162 Lavishly illustrated volume revealing the intricacies of a 1742 map of the cosmos.

The expansive and intricate Atlas Coelestis, created by Johann Doppelmayr in 1742, set out to record everything known about astronomy at the time, covering constellations, planets, moons, comets, and more, all rendered in exquisite detail. Through stunning illustrations, historical notes, and scientific explanations, Phenomena contextualizes Doppelmayr’s atlas and creates a spectacular handbook to the heavens.

Phenomena begins by introducing Doppelmayr’s life and work, placing his extraordinary cosmic atlas in the context of discoveries made in the Renaissance and Enlightenment and highlighting the significance of its publication. This oversized book presents thirty beautifully illustrated and richly annotated plates, covering all the fundamentals of astronomy—from the dimensions of the solar system to the phases of the moon and the courses of comets. Each plate is accompanied by expert analysis from astronomer Giles Sparrow, who deftly presents Doppelmayr’s references and cosmological work to a modern audience. Each plate is carefully deconstructed, isolating key stars, planets, orbits, and moons for in-depth exploration. A conclusion reflects on the development of astronomy since the publication of the Atlas and traces the course of the science up to the present day. Following the conclusion is a timeline of key discoveries from ancient times onward along with short biographies of the key players in this history.
]]> 256 Giles Sparrow 022682411X Jeff 0 to-read 4.67 Phenomena: Doppelmayr's Celestial Atlas
author: Giles Sparrow
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.67
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Замок із кришталю (Замок із кришталю, #3)]]> 222459413 744 Ірина Грабовська 6171706280 Jeff 0 to-read 4.82 Замок із кришталю (Замок із кришталю, #3)
author: Ірина Грабовська
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.82
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Norton Anthology of World Religions: Islam]]> 24501204
Unprecedented in scope and approach, The Norton Anthology of World Islam brings together over 100 texts from the Qur’an in the seventh century to feminist and pluralist readings of the Qur’an in the twenty-first century. The volume features Jack Miles’s illuminating General Introduction―“How the West Learned to Compare Religions”―as well as Jane Dammen McAuliffe’s “Submission to God as the Wellspring of a Civilization,� a lively primer on the history and core tenets of Islam.]]> 720 Jack Miles 039391898X Jeff 0 currently-reading 3.91 2015 The Norton Anthology of World Religions: Islam
author: Jack Miles
name: Jeff
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Multiple View Geometry in Computer Vision]]> 89897 670 Richard Hartley 0521540518 Jeff 0 currently-reading 4.34 2000 Multiple View Geometry in Computer Vision
author: Richard Hartley
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Marvels of the World: An Anthology of Nature Writing Before 1700 (Penn Studies in Landscape Architecture)]]> 55503545 The Marvels of the World offers a corrective to the still-prevalent tendency to dismiss premodern attitudes toward nature as simple or univocal.

Gathering together medical texts, herbals, and how-to books, as well as scientific, religious, philosophical, and poetic works dating from antiquity to the dawn of the Enlightenment, the anthology explores both mainstream and unconventional thinking about the natural world. Its seven parts focus on philosophy and science; plants; animals; weather and climate; ways of inhabiting the land; gardens and gardening; and European encounters with the wider world. Each section and each of the book's selections is prefaced with a helpful introduction by volume editor Rebecca Bushnell that weaves connections among these compelling pieces of the past. The early writers collected here wrote with extraordinary openness about ways of coexisting with the nonhuman forces that shaped them, Bushnell demonstrates, even as they sought to control and exploit their environment. Taken as a whole, The Marvels of the World reveals how many of these early writers cared as much about the natural world as we do today.]]> 384 Rebecca Bushnell 0812224736 Jeff 3 3.67 The Marvels of the World: An Anthology of Nature Writing Before 1700 (Penn Studies in Landscape Architecture)
author: Rebecca Bushnell
name: Jeff
average rating: 3.67
book published:
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2025/01/16
shelves:
review:
Most of the selections were interesting, but a few felt like dead weight, added for an empty sense of completeness.
]]> Чути українською 55853863
Якщо чесно: ви все це знаєте. І навіть якщо вам здається, що ви гадки не маєте, за яким принципом слід вимовляти ті чи інші звуки, ваші мовна свідомість і мовленнєвий апарат роблять це бездоганно.

Книжка «Чути українською» не змушуватиме вас учити правила чи зубрити мовні закони. Це вже робила колись ваша вчителька української мови та літератури. Завдання книжки � пояснити, за якими правилами й закономірностями працює звукова система, а ще � чому наша абетка майже досконала. І, звісно, переконати вас, що українська мова � це надзвичайно цікаво, легко і місцями навіть корисно.

Ольга Дубчак � кандидатка філологічних наук, фахова редакторка, літературна редакторка, аудіо-редакторка і головна редакторка. Словом, хоче про це поговорити. Так склалося, що редагування лягло в основу всього життя, хоча сама Ольга такого не планувала.

Народилася в Києві, на Оболоні, що часом раптово позначається на мовленні й ставленні до різних життєвих ситуацій. Навчалася у фізико-математичному класі й планувала вступати в КПІ, однак інженерно-технічні спеціальності виступили «проти». Вступила на факультет української філології Національного педагогічного університету імені М.П. Драгоманова, бо «за» висловилися всі переможені Ольгою районні та міські олімпіади з мови та літератури. Там само на кафедрі української мови захистила кандидатську дисертацію.

Навчання у школі, в університеті, подальше викладання, педагогічна практика та підготовка абітурієнтів до ЗНО з української мови та літератури Ользі загалом подобалися. Але була одна проблема: ані сама Ольга, ані учні й викладачі, яким випала непроста доля мати з нею справи, не могли й не можуть зрозуміти � навіщо вчити правила, якщо їх ніхто не запам’ятову� і не застосовує на практиці? Для чого зазубрювати правило дев’ятк� (Що таке правило дев’ятк�, спитаєте ви? От саме про це й мова!), якщо слово «чипси» все одно скрізь написане неправильно? Врешті: чому нам і досі сняться шкільні уроки з української мови, якщо ми абсолютно нічого з них не пам’ятаєм�?

Отже, настав час дати відповіді на всі ці запитання й розповісти про українську мову так, щоб це було цікаво, корисно і, можливо, навіть весело. Хоча в цьому питанні немає гарантій, бо в Ольги зовсім немає почуття гумору.

Книжка «Чути українською» є першою з трьох, присвячених правилам української мови, але не тим, що ви подумали, а іншим. Якщо ви нічого такого не подумали � навіть краще. У першій книжці ми поговоримо про букви та звуки, принципи їх узгодження та взаємодії, спробуємо запам’ятат� кілька слів і зрозуміти, чому апостроф � крутий, а м’яки� знак � невпевнений у собі і відвідує спеціаліста. Плюс трошки історії і цікавих фактів.

І без гумору, звісно! Не час сміятися, шановні.]]> 192 Ольга Дубчак 6177960073 Jeff 5 4.36 2020 Чути українською
author: Ольга Дубчак
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/13
date added: 2025/01/13
shelves:
review:
Мовний патруль із воччін ас...
]]> <![CDATA[Чарівні істоти українського міфу. Духи природи]]> 35229689 320 Дара Корній 6176908981 Jeff 0 to-read 4.54 2017 Чарівні істоти українського міфу. Духи природи
author: Дара Корній
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.54
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Natural History of the Senses]]> 76611 352 Diane Ackerman 0679735666 Jeff 0 to-read 4.16 1990 A Natural History of the Senses
author: Diane Ackerman
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1990
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Moby-Dick or, The Whale 153747 "It is the horrible texture of a fabric that should be woven of ships' cables and hawsers. A Polar wind blows through it, and birds of prey hover over it."

So Melville wrote of his masterpiece, one of the greatest works of imagination in literary history. In part, Moby-Dick is the story of an eerily compelling madman pursuing an unholy war against a creature as vast and dangerous and unknowable as the sea itself. But more than just a novel of adventure, more than an encyclopaedia of whaling lore and legend, the book can be seen as part of its author's lifelong meditation on America. Written with wonderfully redemptive humour, Moby-Dick is also a profound inquiry into character, faith, and the nature of perception.

This edition of Moby-Dick, which reproduces the definitive text of the novel, includes invaluable explanatory notes, along with maps, illustrations, and a glossary of nautical terms.]]> 720 Herman Melville 0142437247 Jeff 5 to-read 3.53 1851 Moby-Dick or, The Whale
author: Herman Melville
name: Jeff
average rating: 3.53
book published: 1851
rating: 5
read at: 2021/12/28
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: to-read
review:
I don't want to spoil anything... but when the whale's son makes peace with Ahab's son? And they open a cupcake shop together? Amazing. Love to see this sort of creativity in the 19th century.
]]> On Haiku 38458432 294 Hiroaki Sato 0811227413 Jeff 5 to-read
Some of the essays have a meandering, aimless quality. However the essays might meander, the content is superb, and I highly recommend it.

===============================

I just finished rereading «On Haiku». It's even better than I remembered it being.]]> 4.18 On Haiku
author: Hiroaki Sato
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.18
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2023/05/19
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: to-read
review:
One of those books that makes you want to read more, and provides plenty of leads on what to read next. Fascinating.

Some of the essays have a meandering, aimless quality. However the essays might meander, the content is superb, and I highly recommend it.

===============================

I just finished rereading «On Haiku». It's even better than I remembered it being.
]]> <![CDATA[The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary]]> 15820216 A new English translation of the Quran that is accurate, accessible, and reliable in how it renders this sacred text.
A wide-ranging verse-by-verse commentary that brings together the most respected and distinguished traditions of metaphysical, spiritual, theological, and legal interpretation of the Quran within Islam.
A helpful introduction to each surah that provides an overview and background of its teachings.
Essays by fifteen internationally renowned scholars on how to read and understand the Quran and its role in shaping Islamic civilization.
A beautiful two-color, two-column design that presents the sacred text and commentary in the spirit of traditional Quran manuscripts
Maps, a time line of historical events, comprehensive indexes, and other features to aid reading
The Study Quran provides a service never before available to readers of English: a scholarly yet accessible resource where one can quickly and easily explore how Muslims have interpreted the Quran through the centuries to the present day. An invaluable resource for scholars and students of all backgrounds, and especially to Muslims who want to deepen their understanding of their own tradition, The Study Quran is a much-needed guide in a time when confusion about the Quran and Islam is so prevalent.]]> 2048 Seyyed Hossein Nasr 0062227629 Jeff 0 to-read 4.43 2015 The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary
author: Seyyed Hossein Nasr
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> At Swim-Two-Birds 97333 This is an alternative cover edition for ISBN 9780141182681

A wildly comic send-up of Irish literature and culture, At Swim-Two-Birds is the story of a young, lazy, and frequently drunk Irish collegestudent who lives with his curmudgeonly uncle in Dublin. When not inbed (where he seems to spend most of his time) or reading he is composing a mischief-filled novel about Dermot Trellis, a second-rate author whose characters ultimately rebel against him and seek vengeance. From drugging him as he sleeps to dropping the ceiling onhis head, these figures of Irish myth make Trellis pay dearly for his bad writing. Hilariously funny and inventive, At Swim-Two-Birds has influenced generations of writers, opening up new possibilities for what can be done in fiction. It is a true masterpiece of Irish literature.

Flann O'Brien's first novel is a brilliant impressionistic jumble of ideas, mythology and nonsense. Operating on many levels it incorporates plots within plots, giving full rein to O'Brien's dancing intellect and Celtic wit. The undergraduate narrator lives with his uncle in Dublin, drinks too much with his friends and invents stories peopled with hilarious and unlikely characters, one of whom, in a typical O'Brien conundrum, creates a means by which women can give birth to full-grown people. Flann O'Brien's blend of farce, satire and fantasy result in a remarkable, astonishingly innovaative book.]]> 239 Flann O'Brien Jeff 5 to-read
A timeless, international treasure]]> 3.88 1939 At Swim-Two-Birds
author: Flann O'Brien
name: Jeff
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1939
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: to-read
review:
Hey. Go read this book. Go buy all the novels that Flann O'Brien wrote and read them. Then, go buy the compilations of his newspaper articles written under the name Myles Na gCopaleen, and read those.

A timeless, international treasure
]]> Бачити українською 58987592
Книжку «Бачити українською» присвячено найголовнішій одиниці мови � слову. Саме воно дає нам змогу порозумітися (і посваритися), передати важливу (і неважливу) інформацію, висловити почуття (і навіть просто подумати про них). А загалом � саме зі слова почалося буквально все. А що «все»? � спитаєте ви. Щонайменше � ця книжка, а щонайбільше � людська свідомість. І це не жарт, бо жартів у книжках про мову не буває.]]> 335 Ольга Дубчак 6177960251 Jeff 0 to-read 4.38 2021 Бачити українською
author: Ольга Дубчак
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Перемагати українською. Про мову ненависті й любові]]> 62647572 144 Ольга Дубчак 6177960723 Jeff 0 to-read 4.20 2022 Перемагати українською. Про мову ненависті й любові
author: Ольга Дубчак
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Так, але� 49676319 152 Taras Prokhasko 6177807003 Jeff 0 to-read 4.39 2019 Так, але…
author: Taras Prokhasko
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Willows 1335601
"The Willows" is one of Algernon Blackwood's best known short stories. American horror author H.P. Lovecraft considered it to be the finest supernatural tale in English literature. "The Willows" is an example of early modern horror and is connected within the literary tradition of weird fiction.]]> 105 Algernon Blackwood 1587156520 Jeff 0 to-read 4.09 1907 The Willows
author: Algernon Blackwood
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1907
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Монету підкине кожен 216791932
Щойно підкинеш монету � і наслідки вибору стануть фатальними. Когось штовхатиме до прірви монстр із потойбіччя, а когось � власні амбіції, жадоба або просто дурість. Та поки монета не впала, поки грає мелодія з-під землі, поки тривають експерименти з часом і доки не вдарив «град», є можливість прожити цю історію вибору і його прийняття.

До збірки увійшли одинадцять оповідань, які поєднали в собі елементи соціальної фантастики, антиутопії, горору, притчеві й біблійні мотиви. Та, попри наявність містики у багатьох сюжетах, найстрашнішим злом для героїв виявляється реальність.]]> 216 Ігор Антонюк 6178287283 Jeff 0 to-read 4.08 Монету підкине кожен
author: Ігор Антонюк
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.08
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Assassin's Fate (The Fitz and the Fool, #3)]]> 30688013
Fitz’s young daughter, Bee, has been kidnapped by the Servants, a secret society whose members not only dream of possible futures but use their prophecies to add to their wealth and influence. Bee plays a crucial part in these dreams—but just what part remains uncertain.

As Bee is dragged by her sadistic captors across half the world, Fitz and the Fool, believing her dead, embark on a mission of revenge that will take them to the distant island where the Servants reside—a place the Fool once called home and later called prison. It was a hell the Fool escaped, maimed and blinded, swearing never to return.

For all his injuries, however, the Fool is not as helpless as he seems. He is a dreamer too, able to shape the future. And though Fitz is no longer the peerless assassin of his youth, he remains a man to be reckoned with—deadly with blades and poison, and adept in Farseer magic. And their goal is simple: to make sure not a single Servant survives their scourge.]]> 847 Robin Hobb 0553392956 Jeff 0 to-read 4.61 2017 Assassin's Fate (The Fitz and the Fool, #3)
author: Robin Hobb
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.61
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Fool's Quest (The Fitz and the Fool, #2)]]> 40610956 Acclaimed and bestselling author Robin Hobb continues her Fitz and the Fool trilogy with this second entry, following Fool’s Assassin, ramping up the tension and the intrigue as disaster continues to strike at Fitz’s life and heart.

After nearly killing his oldest friend, the Fool, and finding his daughter stolen away by those who were once targeting the Fool, FitzChivarly Farseer is out for blood. And who better to wreak havoc than a highly trained and deadly former royal assassin? Fitz might have let his skills go fallow over his years of peace, but such things, once learned, are not so easily forgotten. And nothing is more dangerous than a man who has nothing left to lose…]]> 757 Robin Hobb 055339293X Jeff 0 to-read 4.53 2015 Fool's Quest (The Fitz and the Fool, #2)
author: Robin Hobb
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Language Files: Materials for an Introduction to Language and Linguistics]]> 32790709 Language Files: Materials for an Introduction to Language and Linguistics has become one of the most widely adopted, consulted, and authoritative introductory textbooks to linguistics ever written. The scope of the text makes it suitable for use in a wide range of courses, while its unique organization into student-friendly, self-contained sections allows for tremendous flexibility in course design.

The twelfth edition has been significantly revised, clarified, and updated throughout—with particular attention to the chapters on phonetics, phonology, pragmatics, and especially psycholinguistics. The restructured chapter on psycholinguistics makes use of recent research on language in the brain and includes expanded coverage of language processing disorders, introducing students to current models of speech perception and production and cutting-edge research techniques. In addition, exercises have been updated, and icons have been added to the text margins throughout the book, pointing instructors and students to useful and engaging audio files, videos, and other online resources on the accompanying Language Files website, which has also been significantly expanded.

**Audio enhanced]]> 768 0814275788 Jeff 4 3.83 1994 Language Files: Materials for an Introduction to Language and Linguistics
author: The Ohio State University Department of Linguistics
name: Jeff
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1994
rating: 4
read at: 2021/10/09
date added: 2024/12/16
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Agitator Design for Gas-Liquid Fermenters and Bioreactors]]> 59595154 AGITATOR DESIGN FOR GAS-LIQUID FERMENTERS AND BIOREACTORS Explore the basic principles and concepts of the design of agitation systems for fermenters and bioreactors

Agitator Design for Gas-Liquid Fermenters and Bioreactors delivers a -concise treatment and explanation of how to design mechanically sound agitation systems that will perform the agitation process function efficiently and economically. The book covers agitator fundamentals, impeller systems, optimum power and air flow at peak mass transfer calculations, optimizing operation for minimum energy per batch, heat transfer surfaces and calculations, shaft seal considerations, mounting methods, mechanical design, and vendor evaluation.

The accomplished author has created a practical and hands-on tool that discusses the subject of agitation systems from first principles all the way to implementation in the real world. Step-by-step processes are included throughout the book to assist engineers, chemists, and other scientists in the design, construction, installation, and maintenance of these systems.

Readers will also benefit from the inclusion

A thorough introduction to the design of gas-liquid fermenters and bioreactorsAn exploration of agitator fundamentals, impeller systems, optimum power, and air flow at peak mass transfer calculationsA discussion of how to optimize operation for minimum energy per batchStep-by-step processes to assist engineers, chemists, and scientistsAn examination of heat transfer surfaces and calculations, shaft seal considerations, mounting methods, and mechanical designPerfect for chemical engineers, mechanical engineers, process engineers, chemists, and materials scientists, Agitator Design for Gas-Liquid Fermenters and Bioreactors will also earn a place in the libraries of pharmaceutical scientists seeking a one-stop resource for designing mechanically sound agitation systems.]]> 419 Gregory T Benz 1119650534 Jeff 4
Merged review:

Really informative. The author injects a lot of opinion that stems from their vast personal experience, but sometimes those opinions are not given any further justification. Otherwise, very good book.]]> 4.50 Agitator Design for Gas-Liquid Fermenters and Bioreactors
author: Gregory T Benz
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.50
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/05
date added: 2024/09/21
shelves:
review:
Really informative. The author injects a lot of opinion that stems from their vast personal experience, but sometimes those opinions are not given any further justification. Otherwise, very good book.

Merged review:

Really informative. The author injects a lot of opinion that stems from their vast personal experience, but sometimes those opinions are not given any further justification. Otherwise, very good book.
]]> <![CDATA[The Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680-1790]]> 56245390
One of the formative periods of European and world history, the Enlightenment is the fountainhead of modern secular Western values: religious tolerance, freedom of thought, speech and the press, of rationality and evidence-based argument. Yet why, over three hundred years after it began, is the Enlightenment so profoundly misunderstood as controversial, the expression of soulless calculation? The answer may be that, to an extraordinary extent, we have accepted the account of the Enlightenment given by its conservative enemies. Ritchie Robertson goes back into the long eighteenth century, from approximately 1680 to 1790, to reveal what this much-debated period was really about.

Any account of the Enlightenment must be in large part a history of ideas. But Robertson argues that it is not solely a philosophical movement; the Enlightenment saw the publication of the Encyclop�die, which is not only a historical and philosophical compendium, but also an illustrated guide to all sorts of contemporary machinery, handicrafts, and trades aimed to improve people's lives in immediate and practical ways. Robertson chronicles the campaigns mounted by some Enlightened figures against specific evils such as capital punishment, judicial torture, serfdom and witchcraft trials, featuring the experiences of major figures like Voltaire and Diderot with ordinary people who lived through this extraordinary moment. Robertson gives due attention to philosophical and theological debates, but also looks to literature, music, and the visual arts as prominent means of conveying enlightenment ideas.

In seeking to correct one-sided views of the Enlightenment, Robertson ultimately puts forward his own. He does not reduce this transformative period to a formula, but instead makes the claim that indeed the Enlightenment was an attempt to increase human happiness, and to claim that happiness was possible in this world, without needing any compensatory belief in a better one beyond the grave.]]> 981 Ritchie Robertson 0062410679 Jeff 0 to-read 4.34 2020 The Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680-1790
author: Ritchie Robertson
name: Jeff
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Ramayana: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic]]> 129876 157 R.K. Narayan 0143039679 Jeff 4 3.92 1957 The Ramayana: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic
author: R.K. Narayan
name: Jeff
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1957
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/08/13
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Blazing World and Other Writings]]> 354620
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.]]> 272 Margaret Cavendish 0140433724 Jeff 0 to-read, fantasy-sci-fi 3.25 The Blazing World and Other Writings
author: Margaret Cavendish
name: Jeff
average rating: 3.25
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: to-read, fantasy-sci-fi
review:

]]>