The Funhouse Mirror

The Funhouse Mirror PDF Author: Robert Ellis Gordon
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 134

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Book Description
"Prisons are hard places to get into and harder yet to get out of," writes Robert Ellis Gordon as he takes you on a remarkable eight-year journey into the Washington State corrections system. As a writing teacher in the state¿s prisons from 1989 until 1998, Gordon had the unique experience of gaining access to the system¿s darkest realms while still being free to walk away from penitentiary confines at the end of the day. His account is aided by essays and stories contributed by six extraordinary inmates--works that give this book an unforgettable edge. Together, Gordon and his students provide revealing glimpses of this vast secret-laden subculture of incarcerated individuals, which nationwide comprises more than two million U.S. citizens. Here is a gallery of portraits of prison life, from the female guard who tantalizes male inmates with her sexuality to the terrified young fish trying to stave off other prisoners. The stories are jarring, harsh, compelling. A surprising--and frequently searing--examination of the prison experience, seen from both inside and out¿ memorable and gripping."--Kirkus Reviews

The Funhouse Mirror

The Funhouse Mirror PDF Author: Robert Ellis Gordon
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 134

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Book Description
"Prisons are hard places to get into and harder yet to get out of," writes Robert Ellis Gordon as he takes you on a remarkable eight-year journey into the Washington State corrections system. As a writing teacher in the state¿s prisons from 1989 until 1998, Gordon had the unique experience of gaining access to the system¿s darkest realms while still being free to walk away from penitentiary confines at the end of the day. His account is aided by essays and stories contributed by six extraordinary inmates--works that give this book an unforgettable edge. Together, Gordon and his students provide revealing glimpses of this vast secret-laden subculture of incarcerated individuals, which nationwide comprises more than two million U.S. citizens. Here is a gallery of portraits of prison life, from the female guard who tantalizes male inmates with her sexuality to the terrified young fish trying to stave off other prisoners. The stories are jarring, harsh, compelling. A surprising--and frequently searing--examination of the prison experience, seen from both inside and out¿ memorable and gripping."--Kirkus Reviews

Funhouse Mirrors

Funhouse Mirrors PDF Author: Louis Bianco
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
A mirror, when clear, reflects an exact representation of any who stand before it. Each gift, imperfection, and scar is seen clearly and in detail. A mirror that is skewed will still portray a reflection, but the reflection will not directly represent reality. This is the general theory behind the famed Funhouse Mirrors, and why they are so intriguing. In an instant, one can see their reality differently. Sometimes we see something we dislike, and other times, we see what we prefer. Louis Bianco believes our perceptions are like mirrors, reflecting what occurs in real life back into our cognition. Skewed perceptions, much like mirrors, will distort our cognition, causing us to see reality differently than what is actually in front of us. America, is our cognition distorted? Through this book, Bianco hopes that each of us can decide for ourselves how accurately our perceptions depict reality. ***** "Louis Bianco once again provides our world with extraordinary testimony that is presented in a well-organized, scientific, and yet graceful manner. In Bianco's first creation, he challenged everything we knew about disability and diagnosis. In this powerful book, he challenges every perception we have about our country, our world, and how we see ourselves in our own 'mirror.' Funhouse Mirrors is a must for every bookshelf. I assure you, you will be grateful for this introspective journey with this gifted and brilliant author." ~ Catherine Hughes, bestselling author, blogger, coach, editor, speaker, and trainer, The Caffeinated Advocate

The Book of Mirrors

The Book of Mirrors PDF Author: E. O. Chirovici
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1501141562
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
An elegant, page-turning thriller in the vein of Night Film and Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, this tautly crafted novel is about stories: the ones we tell, the ones we keep hidden, and the ones that we’ll do anything to ensure they stay buried. When literary agent Peter Katz receives a partial book submission entitled The Book of Mirrors, he is intrigued by its promise and original voice. The author, Richard Flynn, has written a memoir about his time as an English student at Princeton in the late 1980s, documenting his relationship with the protégée of the famous Professor Joseph Wieder. One night just before Christmas 1987, Wieder was brutally murdered in his home. The case was never solved. Now, twenty-five years later, Katz suspects that Richard Flynn is either using his book to confess to the murder, or to finally reveal who committed the violent crime. But the manuscript ends abruptly—and its author is dying in the hospital with the missing pages nowhere to be found. Hell-bent on getting to the bottom of the story, Katz hires investigative journalist John Keller to research the murder and reconstruct the events for a true crime version of the memoir. Keller tracks down several of the mysterious key players, including retired police detective Roy Freeman, one of the original investigators assigned to the murder case, but he has just been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s. Inspired by John Keller’s investigation, he decides to try and solve the case once and for all, before he starts losing control of his mind. A trip to the Potosi Correctional Centre in Missouri, several interviews, and some ingenious police work finally lead him to a truth that has been buried for over two decades...or has it? Stylishly plotted, elegantly written, and packed with thrilling suspense until the final page, The Book of Mirrors is a book within a book like you’ve never read before.

Smoke in Mirrors

Smoke in Mirrors PDF Author: Jayne Ann Krentz
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780515133998
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 390

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Book Description
A con artist and seductress, Meredith Spooner lived fast—and died young. But her final scam—embezzling more than a million dollars from a college endowment fund—is coming back to haunt Leonora Hutton. The tainted money is stashed away in an offshore account for Leonora. And while she wants nothing to do with the cash, she discovers two other items in the safe-deposit box: a book about Mirror House—the place where Meredith engineered her final deception and a set of newspaper stories about an unsolved murder that occurred there thirty years ago. Now Leonora has an offer for Thomas Walker, another victim of Meredith’s scams and seductions. She’ll hand over the money—if he helps her figure out what’s going on. Meredith had described Thomas as “a man you can trust.” But in a funhouse-mirror world of illusion and distortion, Leonora may be out of her league…

Separation Anxiety

Separation Anxiety PDF Author: Gavin Bradley
Publisher: University of Alberta
ISBN: 1772127086
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 81

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Book Description
This poignant debut by Gavin Bradley explores the emotional toll of different kinds of separation: from a partner, a previously held sense of self, or a home and the people left behind. The main narrative describes the deterioration of a long-term relationship, interweaving poems dealing with the loneliness of immigration and the anxiety of separation from Northern Ireland, the poet’s homeland. These personal poems enter their stories through a variety of characters and places, from dock builders to dogs, from shorelines to volcanoes, to “mouths soft and humming like beehives.” Other sections of the collection examine a post-Troubles’ experience in Northern Ireland (evoking the lived-experience of growing up with bombs and domineering Catholicism), tell grandfather stories, and show a lasting love for the people, the language, and the land. Separation Anxiety ultimately conveys a message of hope, reminding us that “we’ll be remembered for / ourselves, and not the spaces we / leave behind.”

Lost in the Funhouse

Lost in the Funhouse PDF Author: John Barth
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0804152500
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • John Barth's lively, highly original collection of short pieces is a major landmark of experimental fiction exploring themes of purpose and the meaning of existence. "[Barth] ran riot over literary rules and conventions, even as he displayed, with meticulous discipline, mastery of and respect for them." —The New York Times From its opening story, "Frame-Tale"--printed sideways and designed to be cut out by the reader and twisted into a never-ending Mobius strip--to the much-anthologized "Life-Story," whose details are left to the reader to "fill in the blank," Barth's acclaimed collection challenges our ideas of what fiction can do. Highlights include the Homerian story-wthin-a-story-within-a-story (times seven) of "Menalaiad,' and "Night-Sea Journey," a first-person account of a confused human sperm on its way to fertilize an egg. All of the characters in Lost in the Funhouse are searching, in one way or another, for their purpose and the meaning of their existence. Together, their stories form a kaleidescope of exuberant metafictional inventiveness.

Mirror, Mirror

Mirror, Mirror PDF Author: Mark Pendergrast
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0786729902
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
Of all human inventions, the mirror is perhaps the one most closely connected to our own consciousness. As our first technology for contemplation of the self, the mirror is arguably as important an invention as the wheel. Mirror Mirror is the fascinating story of the mirror's invention, refinement, and use in an astonishing range of human activities -- from the fantastic mirrored rooms that wealthy Romans created for their orgies to the mirror's key role in the use and understanding of light. Pendergrast spins tales of the 2,500year mystery of whether Archimedes and his "burning mirror" really set faraway Roman ships on fire; the medieval Venetian glassmakers, who perfected the technique of making large, flat mirrors from clear glass and for whom any attempt to leave their cloistered island was punishable by death; Isaac Newton, whose experiments with sunlight on mirrors once left him blinded for three days; the artist David Hockney, who holds controversial ideas about Renaissance artists and their use of optical devices; and George Ellery Hale, the manic-depressive astronomer and telescope enthusiast who inspired (and gave his name to) the twentieth century's largest ground-based telescope. Like mirrors themselves, Mirror Mirror is a book of endless wonder and fascination.

True Story

True Story PDF Author: Danielle J. Lindemann, PhD
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374720967
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 166

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Book Description
Named a Best Nonfiction Book of 2022 by Esquire A sociological study of reality TV that explores its rise as a culture-dominating medium—and what the genre reveals about our attitudes toward race, gender, class, and sexuality What do we see when we watch reality television? In True Story: What Reality TV Says About Us, the sociologist and TV-lover Danielle J. Lindemann takes a long, hard look in the “funhouse mirror” of this genre. From the first episodes of The Real World to countless rose ceremonies to the White House, reality TV has not just remade our entertainment and cultural landscape (which it undeniably has). Reality TV, Lindemann argues, uniquely reflects our everyday experiences and social topography back to us. Applying scholarly research—including studies of inequality, culture, and deviance—to specific shows, Lindemann layers sharp insights with social theory, humor, pop cultural references, and anecdotes from her own life to show us who we really are. By taking reality TV seriously, True Story argues, we can better understand key institutions (like families, schools, and prisons) and broad social constructs (such as gender, race, class, and sexuality). From The Bachelor to Real Housewives to COPS and more (so much more!), reality programming unveils the major circuits of power that organize our lives—and the extent to which our own realities are, in fact, socially constructed. Whether we’re watching conniving Survivor contestants or three-year-old beauty queens, these “guilty pleasures” underscore how conservative our society remains, and how steadfastly we cling to our notions about who or what counts as legitimate or “real.” At once an entertaining chronicle of reality TV obsession and a pioneering work of sociology, True Story holds up a mirror to our society: the reflection may not always be pretty—but we can’t look away.

We are All Completely Beside Ourselves

We are All Completely Beside Ourselves PDF Author: Karen Joy Fowler
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0399162097
Category : Bloomington (Ind.)
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
From the "New York Times"-bestselling author of "The Jane Austen Book Club," the story of an American family, ordinary in every way but one--their close family relative was a chimpanzee.

The 10 Best-Ever Depression Management Techniques: Understanding How Your Brain Makes You Depressed and What You Can Do to Change It

The 10 Best-Ever Depression Management Techniques: Understanding How Your Brain Makes You Depressed and What You Can Do to Change It PDF Author: Margaret Wehrenberg
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393706567
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
A strategy-filled handbook to understand, manage, and conquer your depression, modeled after its best-selling counterpart on anxiety. Why is depression one of the most pervasive of all mental health complaints? What makes the lethargy, mental rumination, loss of concentration, unassuageable negativity, and feelings of inadequacy so stubbornly resistant to treatment and so hard to shake off? What can you do to alleviate your symptoms and move in the direction of full recovery? In order to answer these questions, Margaret Wehrenberg explains, you must first understand your brain. Drawing on cutting-edge neuroscience research presented in a reader-friendly way, Wehrenberg skillfully describes what happens in the brain of a depression sufferer and what specific techniques can be used to alter brain activity and control its range of disabling symptoms. Containing practical, take-charge tips from a seasoned clinician, this book presents the ten most effective strategies for moving from lethargy into action, taking charge of your brain, and breaking free from depression to find hope and happiness.