The End of Solitude

The End of Solitude PDF Author: William Deresiewicz
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
ISBN: 1250125545
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
A passionate, probing collection gathering nearly thirty years of groundbreaking reflection on culture and society alongside four new essays, by one of our most respected essayists and critics. What is the internet doing to us? What is college for? What are the myths and metaphors we live by? These are the questions that William Deresiewicz has been pursuing over the course of his award-winning career. The End of Solitude brings together more than forty of his finest essays, including four that are published here for the first time. Ranging widely across the culture, they take up subjects as diverse as Mad Men and Harold Bloom, the significance of the hipster, and the purpose of art. Drawing on the past, they ask how we got where we are. Scrutinizing the present, they seek to understand how we can live more mindfully and freely, and they pose two fundamental questions: What does it mean to be an individual, and how can we sustain our individuality in an age of networks and groups?

The End of Solitude

The End of Solitude PDF Author: William Deresiewicz
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
ISBN: 1250125545
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 313

Get Book Here

Book Description
A passionate, probing collection gathering nearly thirty years of groundbreaking reflection on culture and society alongside four new essays, by one of our most respected essayists and critics. What is the internet doing to us? What is college for? What are the myths and metaphors we live by? These are the questions that William Deresiewicz has been pursuing over the course of his award-winning career. The End of Solitude brings together more than forty of his finest essays, including four that are published here for the first time. Ranging widely across the culture, they take up subjects as diverse as Mad Men and Harold Bloom, the significance of the hipster, and the purpose of art. Drawing on the past, they ask how we got where we are. Scrutinizing the present, they seek to understand how we can live more mindfully and freely, and they pose two fundamental questions: What does it mean to be an individual, and how can we sustain our individuality in an age of networks and groups?

The End of Loneliness

The End of Loneliness PDF Author: Benedict Wells
Publisher: Thorndike Press Large Print
ISBN: 9781432863609
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"From internationally bestselling author Benedict Wells, a sweeping, heartbreaking novel of friendship, memory, and the lives we never get to live "[D]azzling storytelling...The End of Loneliness is both affecting and accomplished -- and eternal."--John Irving At eleven years old, Jules Moreau loses his parents in a tragic accident, and in an instant, his childhood is shattered. Leaving a comfortable home in Munich and holidays in the south of France far behind, he and his siblings, Marty and Liz, are enrolled in a bleak boarding school, where the trio begin to lose each other, as well as themselves. Marty throws himself into academic life; Liz is drawn to dark forms of escapism; and Jules, though once vivacious and fearless, turns inward, becoming a ghost of his former self...until he meets Alva. Shy, intelligent, and enigmatic, and concealing a dark childhood of her own, Alva pulls Jules out of his shell and the two bond over books and writing, always with an unspoken understanding of the other's pain. Eight years later, at the precipice of their friendship becoming more, Alva abruptly turns her back, and the two leave school on separate paths. As they enter adulthood, Jules, Marty, and Liz, still strangers to one another, struggle to contend with who they are becoming. Jules is adrift, growing into a directionless young man, anchored only by two desires: to be a writer, and to have Alva back in his life. It isn't until Liz hits rock bottom that the three siblings finally find their footing as a family, and Jules finds the nerve to reach out to Alva -- fifteen years after they last spoke. Invited by Alva to join her and her husband, an esteemed author, at their home in Switzerland, Jules finds his way back to his own writing, and to his closest friend. As life begins to fall into place, just as it seems that they can make amends for time wasted, the past catches up with them, and fate -- or chance -- once again intervenes. A kaleidoscopic and heartfelt family saga, as well as a deeply felt meditation on the power of memory, The End of Loneliness explores the invisible forces and currents that can change our lives in an instant, and asks us all to consider, If you spend all your life running in the wrong direction, could it be the right one after all?"--

The Death of the Artist

The Death of the Artist PDF Author: William Deresiewicz
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
ISBN: 1250125529
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
A deeply researched warning about how the digital economy threatens artists' lives and work—the music, writing, and visual art that sustain our souls and societies—from an award-winning essayist and critic There are two stories you hear about earning a living as an artist in the digital age. One comes from Silicon Valley. There's never been a better time to be an artist, it goes. If you've got a laptop, you've got a recording studio. If you've got an iPhone, you've got a movie camera. And if production is cheap, distribution is free: it's called the Internet. Everyone's an artist; just tap your creativity and put your stuff out there. The other comes from artists themselves. Sure, it goes, you can put your stuff out there, but who's going to pay you for it? Everyone is not an artist. Making art takes years of dedication, and that requires a means of support. If things don't change, a lot of art will cease to be sustainable. So which account is true? Since people are still making a living as artists today, how are they managing to do it? William Deresiewicz, a leading critic of the arts and of contemporary culture, set out to answer those questions. Based on interviews with artists of all kinds, The Death of the Artist argues that we are in the midst of an epochal transformation. If artists were artisans in the Renaissance, bohemians in the nineteenth century, and professionals in the twentieth, a new paradigm is emerging in the digital age, one that is changing our fundamental ideas about the nature of art and the role of the artist in society.

One Hundred Years of Solitude

One Hundred Years of Solitude PDF Author: Gabriel García Márquez
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
Netflix’s series adaptation of One Hundred Years of Solitude premieres December 11, 2024! One of the twentieth century’s enduring works, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a widely beloved and acclaimed novel known throughout the world and the ultimate achievement in a Nobel Prize–winning career. The novel tells the story of the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Rich and brilliant, it is a chronicle of life, death, and the tragicomedy of humankind. In the beautiful, ridiculous, and tawdry story of the Buendía family, one sees all of humanity, just as in the history, myths, growth, and decay of Macondo, one sees all of Latin America. Love and lust, war and revolution, riches and poverty, youth and senility, the variety of life, the endlessness of death, the search for peace and truth—these universal themes dominate the novel. Alternately reverential and comical, One Hundred Years of Solitude weaves the political, personal, and spiritual to bring a new consciousness to storytelling. Translated into dozens of languages, this stunning work is no less than an account of the history of the human race.

The End of Absence

The End of Absence PDF Author: Michael John Harris
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698150589
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
Soon enough, nobody will remember life before the Internet. What does this unavoidable fact mean? Those of us who have lived both with and without the crowded connectivity of online life have a rare opportunity. We can still recognize the difference between Before and After. We catch ourselves idly reaching for our phones at the bus stop. Or we notice how, midconversation, a fumbling friend dives into the perfect recall of Google. In this eloquent and thought-provoking book, Michael Harris argues that amid all the changes we're experiencing, the most interesting is the end of absence-the loss of lack. The daydreaming silences in our lives are filled; the burning solitudes are extinguished. There's no true "free time" when you carry a smartphone. Today's rarest commodity is the chance to be alone with your thoughts. Michael Harris is an award-winning journalist and a contributing editor at Western Living and Vancouvermagazines. He lives in Toronto, Canada.

Excellent Sheep

Excellent Sheep PDF Author: William Deresiewicz
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 147670273X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
A groundbreaking manifesto about what our nation’s top schools should be—but aren’t—providing: “The ex-Yale professor effectively skewers elite colleges, their brainy but soulless students (those ‘sheep’), pushy parents, and admissions mayhem” (People). As a professor at Yale, William Deresiewicz saw something that troubled him deeply. His students, some of the nation’s brightest minds, were adrift when it came to the big questions: how to think critically and creatively and how to find a sense of purpose. Now he argues that elite colleges are turning out conformists without a compass. Excellent Sheep takes a sharp look at the high-pressure conveyor belt that begins with parents and counselors who demand perfect grades and culminates in the skewed applications Deresiewicz saw firsthand as a member of Yale’s admissions committee. As schools shift focus from the humanities to “practical” subjects like economics, students are losing the ability to think independently. It is essential, says Deresiewicz, that college be a time for self-discovery when students can establish their own values and measures of success in order to forge their own paths. He features quotes from real students and graduates he has corresponded with over the years, candidly exposing where the system is broken and offering clear solutions on how to fix it. “Excellent Sheep is likely to make…a lasting mark….He takes aim at just about the entirety of upper-middle-class life in America….Mr. Deresiewicz’s book is packed full of what he wants more of in American life: passionate weirdness” (The New York Times).

The Art of Solitude

The Art of Solitude PDF Author: Zachary Seager
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 1529038138
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 153

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Book Description
In a world where we’re more connected than ever, why is it that we’re also more lonely? Dip into this anthology of classic writing to reclaim the pleasure of your own company. Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning pocket size classics. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is edited and introduced by writer and academic, Zachary Seager. The Art of Solitude shows some of the myriad ways in which people throughout history have understood their experiences of solitary life, or have counselled others to benefit from solitude. It contains poetry, essays, autobiographical pieces and short stories from writers such as Virginia Woolf, Edgar Allen Poe, Emily Dickinson and Ralph Waldo Emerson. These diverse works can teach us how to think in freedom, how to enjoy a profound inner life and how best to cope with the fact that, as the novelist Joseph Conrad put it, we live, as we dream – alone. Above all, they show how we might truly connect with ourselves and, in the process, how we can meaningfully connect with those around us, including the earth itself. Looked at in this way, solitude is always focused both outward and inward, towards the self and towards the world. The cure for loneliness is, in the end, the art of solitude.

Fifty Days of Solitude

Fifty Days of Solitude PDF Author: Doris Grumbach
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1497676657
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 73

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Book Description
A New York Times Notable Book: To truly understand herself, Doris Grumbach embraces solitude With a busy career as a novelist, essayist, reviewer, and bookstore owner, Doris Grumbach has little opportunity to be alone. However, after seventy-five years on the planet, she finally has her chance: Her partner has departed for an extended book-buying trip, and Grumbach has been given fifty days to relax, think, and write about her experience. In this graceful memoir, Grumbach delicately balances the beauty of turning one’s back on everything with the hardship of complete aloneness. Even as she attends church and collects her mail, she moves like a shadow, speaking to no one. Left only to her books and music in the midst of a Maine winter, she must look within herself for solace. The result of this reflection is a powerful meditation on the meaning of aging, writing, and one’s own company—and reaffirmation of the power of friends and companionship.

Too Loud a Solitude

Too Loud a Solitude PDF Author: Bohumil Hrabal
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 0547545886
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 83

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Book Description
A fable about the power of books and knowledge, “finely balanced between pathos and comedy,” from one of Czechoslovakia’s most popular authors (Los Angeles Times). A New York Times Notable Book Haňtá has been compacting trash for thirty-five years. Every evening, he rescues books from the jaws of his hydraulic press, carries them home, and fills his house with them. Haňtá may be an idiot, as his boss calls him, but he is an idiot with a difference—the ability to quote the Talmud, Hegel, and Lao-Tzu. In this “irresistibly eccentric romp,” the author Milan Kundera has called “our very best writer today” celebrates the power and the indestructibility of the written word (The New York Times Book Review).

The Art of Solitude

The Art of Solitude PDF Author: Stephen Batchelor
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300252277
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
In a time of social distancing and isolation, a meditation on the beauty of solitude from renowned Buddhist writer Stephen Batchelor “Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it. A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.”—Kirkus Reviews “Elegant and formally ingenious.”—Geoff Wisner, Wall Street Journal When world renowned Buddhist writer Stephen Batchelor turned sixty, he took a sabbatical from his teaching and turned his attention to solitude, a practice integral to the meditative traditions he has long studied and taught. He aimed to venture more deeply into solitude, discovering its full extent and depth. This beautiful literary collage documents his multifaceted explorations. Spending time in remote places, appreciating and making art, practicing meditation and participating in retreats, drinking peyote and ayahuasca, and training himself to keep an open, questioning mind have all contributed to Batchelor’s ability to be simultaneously alone and at ease. Mixed in with his personal narrative are inspiring stories from solitude’s devoted practitioners, from the Buddha to Montaigne, from Vermeer to Agnes Martin. In a hyperconnected world that is at the same time plagued by social isolation, this book shows how to enjoy the inescapable solitude that is at the heart of human life.