Author: Michael Ignatieff
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780333258088
Category : Convicts
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
A Just Measure of Pain
Author: Michael Ignatieff
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780333258088
Category : Convicts
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780333258088
Category : Convicts
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
Project Pain Reliever
Author: Dave Garrett
Publisher: J. Ross Publishing
ISBN: 160427039X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 433
Book Description
“Whether you are managing your first project or your hundredth, you are likely to face new challenges. Project Pain Reliever offers guidance you'll cherish and want to keep close by.” —Kevin Murphy, Managing Partner, Conner Partners “This book is like a therapy session for project managers. I'm prescribing this to my team. No more guesswork for new PMs. Project Pain Reliever lays it all out, with a 360 degree view on all the possible scenarios a PM will face, and prescribes a strategy to deal with them. As a project manager, I'm often trying to help my team members understand why we cannot do certain things — like scope-creep. This book will serve as a great tool to educate and re-enforce!” —Laureen Heinz, PMP, CSM, Six Sigma Blackbelt, Managing Consultant, Practice Services, CA Technologies “This is a wonderful and thorough overview of a number of very common, yet complex, problems and solutions that project and functional managers of all levels can benefit from. The honest writing style and poignant anecdotes also make this an enjoyable read. I've added Project Pain Reliever to my team's professional reading list... it is equally applicable to everyone on my team — from the greenest summer intern to my most seasoned business leader.” —Aaron Hall, PMP, Vice President, Program Management and Product Development, K12 Inc. Much of the work performed in organizations around the world today is project oriented. Those responsible for leading the majority of these projects to successful results have varied educational backgrounds, knowledge, skill sets, and experiences gained over the course of their lives and careers that do not include the professional discipline known as project management. Most are managing projects as part of their role, not their profession. However, these accidental project managers frequently run into the same sort of issues and problems faced by those whose profession is project management, but they lack the education or training to properly address them. As a result, more projects run by accidental project managers fail than succeed.This handbook was developed specifically for those accidental project managers and for the relatively new project managers within the profession. It is uniquely organized in a manner designed to help these project managers quickly find specific solutions to the problems they are desperate to fix right now! The text is divided into two broad categories: the Art of Project Management and the Science of Project Management. Each part is divided into chapters to narrow the user's search by type of issue that project managers encounter, such as Planning and Managing Risks. These are then further divided by specific problems labeled as sub-chapters, such as 'The company's project management process doesn't work for me' and 'My project is too dependent on a few key people'. Project Pain Reliever: A Just-In-Time Handbook for Anyone Managing Projects is essentially a plug-and-play answer to the accidental project manager's problems, and a valuable desk reference for all project managers. Key Features: Presents insights and specific guidance from more than 30 leading project management experts that were sourced from around the world for their specialized knowledge and experience Provides quick references to problems often encountered by anyone managing projects and specific solutions to these problems using language that is easy to understand and techniques that can be applied immediately Each of the 93 sub-chapters brings clarity to the perceived problem, describes warning signs, includes a sidebar example, explains what will happen if you do nothing, and outlines a best practice solution and specific steps for solving the problem WAV offers handy "What you have learned" summaries for addressing problems contained within the book, additional problems with solutions, and other useful resources — available from the Web Added Value Download Resource Center at www.jrosspub.com
Publisher: J. Ross Publishing
ISBN: 160427039X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 433
Book Description
“Whether you are managing your first project or your hundredth, you are likely to face new challenges. Project Pain Reliever offers guidance you'll cherish and want to keep close by.” —Kevin Murphy, Managing Partner, Conner Partners “This book is like a therapy session for project managers. I'm prescribing this to my team. No more guesswork for new PMs. Project Pain Reliever lays it all out, with a 360 degree view on all the possible scenarios a PM will face, and prescribes a strategy to deal with them. As a project manager, I'm often trying to help my team members understand why we cannot do certain things — like scope-creep. This book will serve as a great tool to educate and re-enforce!” —Laureen Heinz, PMP, CSM, Six Sigma Blackbelt, Managing Consultant, Practice Services, CA Technologies “This is a wonderful and thorough overview of a number of very common, yet complex, problems and solutions that project and functional managers of all levels can benefit from. The honest writing style and poignant anecdotes also make this an enjoyable read. I've added Project Pain Reliever to my team's professional reading list... it is equally applicable to everyone on my team — from the greenest summer intern to my most seasoned business leader.” —Aaron Hall, PMP, Vice President, Program Management and Product Development, K12 Inc. Much of the work performed in organizations around the world today is project oriented. Those responsible for leading the majority of these projects to successful results have varied educational backgrounds, knowledge, skill sets, and experiences gained over the course of their lives and careers that do not include the professional discipline known as project management. Most are managing projects as part of their role, not their profession. However, these accidental project managers frequently run into the same sort of issues and problems faced by those whose profession is project management, but they lack the education or training to properly address them. As a result, more projects run by accidental project managers fail than succeed.This handbook was developed specifically for those accidental project managers and for the relatively new project managers within the profession. It is uniquely organized in a manner designed to help these project managers quickly find specific solutions to the problems they are desperate to fix right now! The text is divided into two broad categories: the Art of Project Management and the Science of Project Management. Each part is divided into chapters to narrow the user's search by type of issue that project managers encounter, such as Planning and Managing Risks. These are then further divided by specific problems labeled as sub-chapters, such as 'The company's project management process doesn't work for me' and 'My project is too dependent on a few key people'. Project Pain Reliever: A Just-In-Time Handbook for Anyone Managing Projects is essentially a plug-and-play answer to the accidental project manager's problems, and a valuable desk reference for all project managers. Key Features: Presents insights and specific guidance from more than 30 leading project management experts that were sourced from around the world for their specialized knowledge and experience Provides quick references to problems often encountered by anyone managing projects and specific solutions to these problems using language that is easy to understand and techniques that can be applied immediately Each of the 93 sub-chapters brings clarity to the perceived problem, describes warning signs, includes a sidebar example, explains what will happen if you do nothing, and outlines a best practice solution and specific steps for solving the problem WAV offers handy "What you have learned" summaries for addressing problems contained within the book, additional problems with solutions, and other useful resources — available from the Web Added Value Download Resource Center at www.jrosspub.com
Limits to Pain
Author: Nils Christie
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1556355971
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 123
Book Description
Inflicting pain is a serious matter, often at variance with cherished values such as kindness and forgiveness. Attempts might therefore be made to hide the basic character of the activity, or to give various scientific reasons for inflicting pain. Such attempts are systematically described in this book, and related to social conditions. None of these attempts to cope with pain seem to be quite satisfactory. It is as if societies in their struggle with penal theories oscillate between attempts to solve an insoluble dilemma. Punishment is used less in some systems than in others. On the basis of examples from systems where pain is rarely inflicted, some general conditions for a low level of pain infliction are formulated. The standpoint is that if pain is to be applied, this should be done without a manipulative purpose and in a social form resembling that which is normal when people are in deep sorrow. Most of the material is from Scandinavia, but the book draws extensively on the crime control debate in the United Kingdom and USA.
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1556355971
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 123
Book Description
Inflicting pain is a serious matter, often at variance with cherished values such as kindness and forgiveness. Attempts might therefore be made to hide the basic character of the activity, or to give various scientific reasons for inflicting pain. Such attempts are systematically described in this book, and related to social conditions. None of these attempts to cope with pain seem to be quite satisfactory. It is as if societies in their struggle with penal theories oscillate between attempts to solve an insoluble dilemma. Punishment is used less in some systems than in others. On the basis of examples from systems where pain is rarely inflicted, some general conditions for a low level of pain infliction are formulated. The standpoint is that if pain is to be applied, this should be done without a manipulative purpose and in a social form resembling that which is normal when people are in deep sorrow. Most of the material is from Scandinavia, but the book draws extensively on the crime control debate in the United Kingdom and USA.
Healing Back Pain
Author: John E. Sarno
Publisher: Balance
ISBN: 0759520844
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 194
Book Description
Dr. John E. Sarno's groundbreaking research on TMS (Tension Myoneural Syndrome) reveals how stress and other psychological factors can cause back pain-and how you can be pain free without drugs, exercise, or surgery. Dr. Sarno's program has helped thousands of patients find relief from chronic back conditions. In this New York Times bestseller, Dr. Sarno teaches you how to identify stress and other psychological factors that cause back pain and demonstrates how to heal yourself--without drugs, surgery or exercise. Find out: Why self-motivated and successful people are prone to Tension Myoneural Syndrome (TMS) How anxiety and repressed anger trigger muscle spasms How people condition themselves to accept back pain as inevitable With case histories and the results of in-depth mind-body research, Dr. Sarno reveals how you can recognize the emotional roots of your TMS and sever the connections between mental and physical pain...and start recovering from back pain today.
Publisher: Balance
ISBN: 0759520844
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 194
Book Description
Dr. John E. Sarno's groundbreaking research on TMS (Tension Myoneural Syndrome) reveals how stress and other psychological factors can cause back pain-and how you can be pain free without drugs, exercise, or surgery. Dr. Sarno's program has helped thousands of patients find relief from chronic back conditions. In this New York Times bestseller, Dr. Sarno teaches you how to identify stress and other psychological factors that cause back pain and demonstrates how to heal yourself--without drugs, surgery or exercise. Find out: Why self-motivated and successful people are prone to Tension Myoneural Syndrome (TMS) How anxiety and repressed anger trigger muscle spasms How people condition themselves to accept back pain as inevitable With case histories and the results of in-depth mind-body research, Dr. Sarno reveals how you can recognize the emotional roots of your TMS and sever the connections between mental and physical pain...and start recovering from back pain today.
Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You
Author: Peter Cameron
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
ISBN: 1429927135
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Book Description
Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You is the story of James Sveck, a sophisticated, vulnerable young man with a deep appreciation for the world and no idea how to live in it. James is eighteen, the child of divorced parents living in Manhattan. Articulate, sensitive, and cynical, he rejects all of the assumptions that govern the adult world around him–including the expectation that he will go to college in the fall. He would prefer to move to an old house in a small town somewhere in the Midwest. Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You takes place over a few broiling days in the summer of 2003 as James confides in his sympathetic grandmother, stymies his canny therapist, deplores his pretentious sister, and devises a fake online identity in order to pursue his crush on a much older coworker. Nothing turns out how he'd expected. "Possibly one of the all-time great New York books, not to mention an archly comic gem" (Peter Gadol, LA Weekly), Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You is the insightful, powerfully moving story of a young man questioning his times, his family, his world, and himself.
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
ISBN: 1429927135
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Book Description
Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You is the story of James Sveck, a sophisticated, vulnerable young man with a deep appreciation for the world and no idea how to live in it. James is eighteen, the child of divorced parents living in Manhattan. Articulate, sensitive, and cynical, he rejects all of the assumptions that govern the adult world around him–including the expectation that he will go to college in the fall. He would prefer to move to an old house in a small town somewhere in the Midwest. Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You takes place over a few broiling days in the summer of 2003 as James confides in his sympathetic grandmother, stymies his canny therapist, deplores his pretentious sister, and devises a fake online identity in order to pursue his crush on a much older coworker. Nothing turns out how he'd expected. "Possibly one of the all-time great New York books, not to mention an archly comic gem" (Peter Gadol, LA Weekly), Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You is the insightful, powerfully moving story of a young man questioning his times, his family, his world, and himself.
English MPs
Author: Michael W. McCahill
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350332305
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 281
Book Description
What was the role of elected legislators? Was it to represent the opinions of constituents or to vote according to their informed opinions reflecting the needs of the kingdom? Most authorities have accepted Edmund Burke's depiction of 18th-century MPs, insisting it was their right to form their opinions without reference to the instructions of constituents. This study provides answers to these important questions and, in doing so, reveals that Burke's vision does not represent how the House of Commons functioned during the last two decades of the 18th century. Rather than focusing on specific issues or demographic groups, English MPs brings to the fore the legislative activity of a broad segment of late 18th-century English MPs. This book shows they were diligent legislators who attended to the needs of constituents, in the process developing strong connections with them. It demonstrates that these connections did not rest on shared beliefs in reformist ideologies except in, and around, the metropolis. Instead, they grew out of the members' timely and effective tending, session after session, to the host of measures brought forward by constituents and neighbours. McCahill explores, in fascinating detail, the consequences of this bond. In this book, McCahill draws from an impressive array of primary sources and secondary literature to combine a structural analysis with broad surveys and detailed case-studies. The result is an illuminating and a comprehensive account of the House of Commons between 1760 and 1790.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350332305
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 281
Book Description
What was the role of elected legislators? Was it to represent the opinions of constituents or to vote according to their informed opinions reflecting the needs of the kingdom? Most authorities have accepted Edmund Burke's depiction of 18th-century MPs, insisting it was their right to form their opinions without reference to the instructions of constituents. This study provides answers to these important questions and, in doing so, reveals that Burke's vision does not represent how the House of Commons functioned during the last two decades of the 18th century. Rather than focusing on specific issues or demographic groups, English MPs brings to the fore the legislative activity of a broad segment of late 18th-century English MPs. This book shows they were diligent legislators who attended to the needs of constituents, in the process developing strong connections with them. It demonstrates that these connections did not rest on shared beliefs in reformist ideologies except in, and around, the metropolis. Instead, they grew out of the members' timely and effective tending, session after session, to the host of measures brought forward by constituents and neighbours. McCahill explores, in fascinating detail, the consequences of this bond. In this book, McCahill draws from an impressive array of primary sources and secondary literature to combine a structural analysis with broad surveys and detailed case-studies. The result is an illuminating and a comprehensive account of the House of Commons between 1760 and 1790.
Figures of Criminality in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Colonial Vietnam
Author: American Council of Learned Societies
Publisher: SEAP Publications
ISBN: 9780877277248
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 276
Book Description
A complex examination of "criminality" and "the criminal" as constructs and active presences in Southeast Asia. Contributors explore such themes as surveillance, incarceration, law and custom, secrecy, and corruption. A fascinating study of power and subversion in the modern postcolonial nation-state. Contributors include Daniel S. Lev, Henk M. J. Maier, Rudolf Mrazek, James T. Siegel, and others.
Publisher: SEAP Publications
ISBN: 9780877277248
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 276
Book Description
A complex examination of "criminality" and "the criminal" as constructs and active presences in Southeast Asia. Contributors explore such themes as surveillance, incarceration, law and custom, secrecy, and corruption. A fascinating study of power and subversion in the modern postcolonial nation-state. Contributors include Daniel S. Lev, Henk M. J. Maier, Rudolf Mrazek, James T. Siegel, and others.
If I Stay
Author: Gayle Forman
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101046341
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
The critically acclaimed, bestselling novel from Gayle Forman, author of Where She Went, Just One Day, and Just One Year. Soon to be a major motion picture, starring Chloe Moretz! In the blink of an eye everything changes. Seventeen year-old Mia has no memory of the accident; she can only recall what happened afterwards, watching her own damaged body being taken from the wreck. Little by little she struggles to put together the pieces- to figure out what she has lost, what she has left, and the very difficult choice she must make. Heartwrenchingly beautiful, this will change the way you look at life, love, and family. Now a major motion picture starring Chloe Grace Moretz, Mia's story will stay with you for a long, long time.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101046341
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
The critically acclaimed, bestselling novel from Gayle Forman, author of Where She Went, Just One Day, and Just One Year. Soon to be a major motion picture, starring Chloe Moretz! In the blink of an eye everything changes. Seventeen year-old Mia has no memory of the accident; she can only recall what happened afterwards, watching her own damaged body being taken from the wreck. Little by little she struggles to put together the pieces- to figure out what she has lost, what she has left, and the very difficult choice she must make. Heartwrenchingly beautiful, this will change the way you look at life, love, and family. Now a major motion picture starring Chloe Grace Moretz, Mia's story will stay with you for a long, long time.
The Art of Sanctions
Author: Richard Nephew
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231542550
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 278
Book Description
Nations and international organizations are increasingly using sanctions as a means to achieve their foreign policy aims. However, sanctions are ineffective if they are executed without a clear strategy responsive to the nature and changing behavior of the target. In The Art of Sanctions, Richard Nephew offers a much-needed practical framework for planning and applying sanctions that focuses not just on the initial sanctions strategy but also, crucially, on how to calibrate along the way and how to decide when sanctions have achieved maximum effectiveness. Nephew—a leader in the design and implementation of sanctions on Iran—develops guidelines for interpreting targets’ responses to sanctions based on two critical factors: pain and resolve. The efficacy of sanctions lies in the application of pain against a target, but targets may have significant resolve to resist, tolerate, or overcome this pain. Understanding the interplay of pain and resolve is central to using sanctions both successfully and humanely. With attention to these two key variables, and to how they change over the course of a sanctions regime, policy makers can pinpoint when diplomatic intervention is likely to succeed or when escalation is necessary. Focusing on lessons learned from sanctions on both Iran and Iraq, Nephew provides policymakers with practical guidance on how to measure and respond to pain and resolve in the service of strong and successful sanctions regimes.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231542550
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 278
Book Description
Nations and international organizations are increasingly using sanctions as a means to achieve their foreign policy aims. However, sanctions are ineffective if they are executed without a clear strategy responsive to the nature and changing behavior of the target. In The Art of Sanctions, Richard Nephew offers a much-needed practical framework for planning and applying sanctions that focuses not just on the initial sanctions strategy but also, crucially, on how to calibrate along the way and how to decide when sanctions have achieved maximum effectiveness. Nephew—a leader in the design and implementation of sanctions on Iran—develops guidelines for interpreting targets’ responses to sanctions based on two critical factors: pain and resolve. The efficacy of sanctions lies in the application of pain against a target, but targets may have significant resolve to resist, tolerate, or overcome this pain. Understanding the interplay of pain and resolve is central to using sanctions both successfully and humanely. With attention to these two key variables, and to how they change over the course of a sanctions regime, policy makers can pinpoint when diplomatic intervention is likely to succeed or when escalation is necessary. Focusing on lessons learned from sanctions on both Iran and Iraq, Nephew provides policymakers with practical guidance on how to measure and respond to pain and resolve in the service of strong and successful sanctions regimes.
I Know This Much Is True
Author: Wally Lamb
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780060391621
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 884
Book Description
With his stunning debut novel, She's Come Undone, Wally Lamb won the adulation of critics and readers with his mesmerizing tale of one woman's painful yet triumphant journey of self-discovery. Now, this brilliantly talented writer returns with I Know This Much Is True, a heartbreaking and poignant multigenerational saga of the reproductive bonds of destruction and the powerful force of forgiveness. A masterpiece that breathtakingly tells a story of alienation and connection, power and abuse, devastation and renewal--this novel is a contemporary retelling of an ancient Hindu myth. A proud king must confront his demons to achieve salvation. Change yourself, the myth instructs, and you will inhabit a renovated world. When you're the same brother of a schizophrenic identical twin, the tricky thing about saving yourself is the blood it leaves on your bands--the little inconvenience of the look-alike corpse at your feet. And if you're into both survival of the fittest and being your brother's keeper--if you've promised your dying mother--then say so long to sleep and hello to the middle of the night. Grab a book or a beer. Get used to Letterman's gap-toothed smile of the absurd, or the view of the bedroom ceiling, or the influence of random selection. Take it from a godless insomniac. Take it from the uncrazy twin--the guy who beat the biochemical rap. Dominick Birdsey's entire life has been compromised and constricted by anger and fear, by the paranoid schizophrenic twin brother he both deeply loves and resents, and by the past they shared with their adoptive father, Ray, a spit-and-polish ex-Navy man (the five-foot-six-inch sleeping giant who snoozed upstairs weekdays in the spare room and built submarines at night), and their long-suffering mother, Concettina, a timid woman with a harelip that made her shy and self-conscious: She holds a loose fist to her face to cover her defective mouth--her perpetual apology to the world for a birth defect over which she'd had no control. Born in the waning moments of 1949 and the opening minutes of 1950, the twins are physical mirror images who grow into separate yet connected entities: the seemingly strong and protective yet fearful Dominick, his mother's watchful "monkey"; and the seemingly weak and sweet yet noble Thomas, his mother's gentle "bunny." From childhood, Dominick fights for both separation and wholeness--and ultimately self-protection--in a house of fear dominated by Ray, a bully who abuses his power over these stepsons whose biological father is a mystery. I was still afraid of his anger but saw how he punished weakness--pounced on it. Out of self-preservation I hid my fear, Dominick confesses. As for Thomas, he just never knew how to play defense. He just didn't get it. But Dominick's talent for survival comes at an enormous cost, including the breakup of his marriage to the warm, beautiful Dessa, whom he still loves. And it will be put to the ultimate test when Thomas, a Bible-spouting zealot, commits an unthinkable act that threatens the tenuous balance of both his and Dominick's lives. To save himself, Dominick must confront not only the pain of his past but the dark secrets he has locked deep within himself, and the sins of his ancestors--a quest that will lead him beyond the confines of his blue-collar New England town to the volcanic foothills of Sicily 's Mount Etna, where his ambitious and vengefully proud grandfather and a namesake Domenico Tempesta, the sostegno del famiglia, was born. Each of the stories Ma told us about Papa reinforced the message that he was the boss, that he ruled the roost, that what he said went. Searching for answers, Dominick turns to the whispers of the dead, to the pages of his grandfather's handwritten memoir, The History of Domenico Onofrio Tempesta, a Great Man from Humble Beginnings. Rendered with touches of magic realism, Domenico's fablelike tale--in which monkeys enchant and religious statues weep--becomes the old man's confession--an unwitting legacy of contrition that reveals the truth's of Domenico's life, Dominick learns that power, wrongly used, defeats the oppressor as well as the oppressed, and now, picking through the humble shards of his deconstructed life, he will search for the courage and love to forgive, to expiate his and his ancestors' transgressions, and finally to rebuild himself beyond the haunted shadow of his twin. Set against the vivid panoply of twentieth-century America and filled with richly drawn, memorable characters, this deeply moving and thoroughly satisfying novel brings to light humanity's deepest needs and fears, our aloneness, our desire for love and acceptance, our struggle to survive at all costs. Joyous, mystical, and exquisitely written, I Know This Much Is True is an extraordinary reading experience that will leave no reader untouched.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780060391621
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 884
Book Description
With his stunning debut novel, She's Come Undone, Wally Lamb won the adulation of critics and readers with his mesmerizing tale of one woman's painful yet triumphant journey of self-discovery. Now, this brilliantly talented writer returns with I Know This Much Is True, a heartbreaking and poignant multigenerational saga of the reproductive bonds of destruction and the powerful force of forgiveness. A masterpiece that breathtakingly tells a story of alienation and connection, power and abuse, devastation and renewal--this novel is a contemporary retelling of an ancient Hindu myth. A proud king must confront his demons to achieve salvation. Change yourself, the myth instructs, and you will inhabit a renovated world. When you're the same brother of a schizophrenic identical twin, the tricky thing about saving yourself is the blood it leaves on your bands--the little inconvenience of the look-alike corpse at your feet. And if you're into both survival of the fittest and being your brother's keeper--if you've promised your dying mother--then say so long to sleep and hello to the middle of the night. Grab a book or a beer. Get used to Letterman's gap-toothed smile of the absurd, or the view of the bedroom ceiling, or the influence of random selection. Take it from a godless insomniac. Take it from the uncrazy twin--the guy who beat the biochemical rap. Dominick Birdsey's entire life has been compromised and constricted by anger and fear, by the paranoid schizophrenic twin brother he both deeply loves and resents, and by the past they shared with their adoptive father, Ray, a spit-and-polish ex-Navy man (the five-foot-six-inch sleeping giant who snoozed upstairs weekdays in the spare room and built submarines at night), and their long-suffering mother, Concettina, a timid woman with a harelip that made her shy and self-conscious: She holds a loose fist to her face to cover her defective mouth--her perpetual apology to the world for a birth defect over which she'd had no control. Born in the waning moments of 1949 and the opening minutes of 1950, the twins are physical mirror images who grow into separate yet connected entities: the seemingly strong and protective yet fearful Dominick, his mother's watchful "monkey"; and the seemingly weak and sweet yet noble Thomas, his mother's gentle "bunny." From childhood, Dominick fights for both separation and wholeness--and ultimately self-protection--in a house of fear dominated by Ray, a bully who abuses his power over these stepsons whose biological father is a mystery. I was still afraid of his anger but saw how he punished weakness--pounced on it. Out of self-preservation I hid my fear, Dominick confesses. As for Thomas, he just never knew how to play defense. He just didn't get it. But Dominick's talent for survival comes at an enormous cost, including the breakup of his marriage to the warm, beautiful Dessa, whom he still loves. And it will be put to the ultimate test when Thomas, a Bible-spouting zealot, commits an unthinkable act that threatens the tenuous balance of both his and Dominick's lives. To save himself, Dominick must confront not only the pain of his past but the dark secrets he has locked deep within himself, and the sins of his ancestors--a quest that will lead him beyond the confines of his blue-collar New England town to the volcanic foothills of Sicily 's Mount Etna, where his ambitious and vengefully proud grandfather and a namesake Domenico Tempesta, the sostegno del famiglia, was born. Each of the stories Ma told us about Papa reinforced the message that he was the boss, that he ruled the roost, that what he said went. Searching for answers, Dominick turns to the whispers of the dead, to the pages of his grandfather's handwritten memoir, The History of Domenico Onofrio Tempesta, a Great Man from Humble Beginnings. Rendered with touches of magic realism, Domenico's fablelike tale--in which monkeys enchant and religious statues weep--becomes the old man's confession--an unwitting legacy of contrition that reveals the truth's of Domenico's life, Dominick learns that power, wrongly used, defeats the oppressor as well as the oppressed, and now, picking through the humble shards of his deconstructed life, he will search for the courage and love to forgive, to expiate his and his ancestors' transgressions, and finally to rebuild himself beyond the haunted shadow of his twin. Set against the vivid panoply of twentieth-century America and filled with richly drawn, memorable characters, this deeply moving and thoroughly satisfying novel brings to light humanity's deepest needs and fears, our aloneness, our desire for love and acceptance, our struggle to survive at all costs. Joyous, mystical, and exquisitely written, I Know This Much Is True is an extraordinary reading experience that will leave no reader untouched.