Short stories by an author who offers “shrewd, bitingly funny commentary on his own privileged class” (Time). In nine stories that move between nouveau riche Los Angeles and the working class East Coast, and strike a balance between comedy and catastrophe, Kevin Morris explores the vicissitudes of modern life. Whether looking for creative ways to let off steam after a day in court or enduring chaperone duties on a school field trip to the nation’s capital, the heroes of White Man’s Problems struggle to navigate the challenges that accompany marriage, family, success, failure, growing up, and getting older. “Kevin Morris is that rare writer who bridges the class divide, illuminating the lives of working class characters and affluent professionals with equal authenticity and insight. White Man’s Problems is a revelatory collection that marks the arrival of striking new voice in American fiction.” —Tom Perrotta “The echoes here are of a former generation of American writers—John Cheever, John Updike, Raymond Carver.” —USA Today “Life undermines the pursuit of success and status in these rich, bewildering stories . . . A finely wrought and mordantly funny take on a modern predicament by a new writer with loads of talent.” —Kirkus Reviews
From the critically acclaimed author ofAll Joe Knight andWhite Man's Problems, a hilarious and wildly engaging novel about a forty-seven-year-old lawyer and producer in Hollywood, who takes part in a Civil War reenactment to escape the monotony of his ordinary life As a young man, John Reynolds fled his provincial hometown of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania for Los Angeles, lured by the promise of a life fueled by the excitement of show business. But after twenty years in Hollywood, Reynolds feels existentially unfulfilled. He resides in a beautiful mansion with his wife and daughter, and his business is booming, but Reynolds remains despondent as his attempts to pivot into producing his own movie projects fail again and again. Depressed and at a creative dead-end, Reynolds finds himself inexplicably drawn back to the historical setting of his youth: he has secretly signed up to participate in a weekend-long reenactment of the Battle of Gettysburg in the unlikely California town of Enchino, sixty miles east of Los Angeles. Just before his departure, an ex-Playmate--the very centerfold of Reynolds's adolescent daydreams--pitches him her idea for a reality TV show. When Reynolds impulsively invites the former Playmate and her best friend, a former Miss Universe, to accompany him to the reenactment, his plans for a solitary weekend of self-discovery run amok. With a compulsively readable narrative that offers a satirical portrait of Hollywood--the deal-making, the politics, the pitches--Gettysburg is an intelligent and powerful book about contemporary America.
“Kevin Morris goes for a slam dunk in his debut novel” about the undoing of an American Dreamer in the Philly suburbs (Vanity Fair Hot Type). 1961. Outside Philadelphia, a soon-to-be father runs into a telephone pole while driving drunk; nine months later, his widow dies in a smashed-up T-Bird. From the start, the orphaned Joe Knight is a blank slate. Taken in by a kindly aunt in a tough-skinned suburb, Joe finds his family in high school with the Fallcrest basketball team. Fast-forward thirty years. Joe is divorced with a daughter and certain he’s unfit for love. Ever since selling the ad firm he built from the ground up for millions, he’s been wiling away his time at strip clubs to quiet his mind. Then Chris Scully, former Fallcrest teammate-turned DA, tips him off to a criminal probe into the buyout that got Joe rich years ago—a deal he shared with every member of the basketball team, except for Scully. As Joe’s possible transgressions unreel, he is forced to face the disillusionment inside himself and a secret that has haunted him for decades. A “remarkable and agonizing . . . incendiary look at modern life” (Esquire), All Joe Knight features “an anti-hero for our times . . . John Updike’s Rabbit Angstrom revised for the Trump era—more profane and straight-talking” (USA Today, 3/4 stars), a man who achieved the American Dream and is now scrambling to survive it.
Nine short stories depict the humorous ironies and quirks of daily life, including tales of a chaperone on a school trip in Washington, D.C. and a lawyer looking for unique ways to unwind after being in court. Original.
A Hollywood lawyer and producer takes part in a Civil War reenactment to escape the monotony of his life in this novel by the author of All Joe Knight. As a young man, John Reynolds fled his provincial hometown of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, for Los Angeles, lured by the promise of a life fueled by the excitement of show business. But after twenty years in Hollywood, Reynolds feels existentially unfulfilled. He resides in a beautiful mansion with his wife and daughter, and his business is booming, but Reynolds remains despondent as his attempts to pivot into producing his own movie projects fail again and again. Depressed and at a creative dead-end, Reynolds finds himself inexplicably drawn back to the historical setting of his youth: he has secretly signed up to participate in a weekend-long reenactment of the Battle of Gettysburg in the unlikely California town of Enchino, sixty miles east of Los Angeles. Just before his departure, an ex-Playmate—the very centerfold of Reynolds’s adolescent daydreams—pitches him her idea for a reality TV show. When Reynolds impulsively invites the former Playmate and her best friend, a former Miss Universe, to accompany him to the reenactment, his plans for a solitary weekend of self-discovery run amok. With a compulsively readable narrative that offers a satirical portrait of Hollywood—the deal-making, the politics, the pitches—Gettysburg is an intelligent and powerful book about contemporary America. Praise for Gettysburg “A showbiz satire from someone who knows what he writes. . . . A comic romp about a weekend misadventure at a Civil War re-enactment.” —Variety “Morris’s entertaining second novel, following All Joe Knight, zeros in on a particular male fantasy, and acknowledges the importance of entertainment and honoring the past, both personal and historic.” —Booklist “Though Reynolds’s plans for renewal end up wildly off the mark, he ultimately finds something of value. While delightedly skewering the privileged entertainment industry lifestyle, Morris uses Reynolds’s travails and the divisions of the Civil War period to make larger points about the current state of America.” —Library Journal
Provides a philosophical and historical critique of contemporary conceptions of physicalism, especially non-reductive, levels-based approaches to physicalist metaphysics. Challenging assumptions about the mind-body problem, this accessible book will interest scholars working in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of science.
John and Eleanor take over the tenancy of The Old Coaching Inn (The Coach) situated in the Pendle area of Lancashire intending to renovating the third floor attic to provide bed and breakfast accommodation. There is a legend that The Coach is haunted by a ghost Henry. At first things run smoothly, but eventually more unexplained things start to occur which cannot be attributed solely to Henry. In London, Paul Mitch Mitchell who is a close acquaintance of Jennifer, Eleanors best friend, is having dreams of events which took place long ago. Each dream becomes more vivid and revealing. Jennifer decides to investigate. She enlists the help of Jake, one of her colleagues at London University. And Jakes wife Annabel who is a spirit medium experienced in the paranormal. With the help of Lucy a research assistant at the University, they come to the rescue. Annabel conducts one-to-one psychic readings and sances to find out what is troubling the spirit. Will it ever be appeased? And, if so how? The answer lies with The Descendant, but, who is it?
In the tradition of Seabiscuit, the riveting tale of two proud Scotsmen who beat all comers to become the heroes of a golden age—the dawn of professional golf. This essential golf history is now a major motion picture. Bringing to life golf’s founding father and son, Tommy’s Honor is a stirring tribute to two legendary players and a vivid evocation of their colorful, rip-roaring times. The Morrises were towering figures in their day. Old Tom, born in 1821, began life as a nobody—he was the son of a weaver and a maid. But he was born in St. Andrews, Scotland, the cradle of golf, and the game was in his blood. He became the Champion Golfer of Scotland, a national hero who won tournaments (and huge bets) while his young son looked on. As "Keeper of the Green" at the town’s ancient links, Tom deployed golf’s first lawnmower and banished sheep from the fairways. Then Young Tommy’s career took off. Handsome Tommy Morris, the Tiger Woods of the nineteenth century, was a more daring player than his father. Soon he surpassed Old Tom and dominated the game. But just as he reached his peak—with spectators flocking to see him play—Tommy’s life took a tragic turn, leading to his death at the age of twenty-four. That shock is at the heart of Tommy’s Honor. It left Tom to pick up the pieces—to honor his son by keeping Tommy’s memory alive. Like the New York Times bestseller The Greatest Game Ever Played, Tommy’s Honor is both fascinating history and a moving personal saga. Golfers will love it, but this book isn’t only for golfers. It’s for every son who has fought to escape a father’s shadow and for every father who had guided a son toward manhood, then found it hard to let him go.
My Little Book Of Short Poems written by Kevin Morris is a compilation of twenty poems based on his observations, reflections and observations of life from childhood through to adulthood. An introduction is provided at the beginning of each poem in order to put them into context and 'bring them alive' as it where. Laced with humour, nostalgia, pathos and some sadness, which the reader may or may not be able to relate to. Nevertheless, the author hopes that you will enjoy reading them just as much as he enjoyed writing them!
Life is about how much we think. Thinking is about how much mental capacity we possess. Capacity, in addition to our abilities and conscientiousness, is about how much we can process combinations of verbal height, quantitative width, and spatial depth with decisiveness, direction, and speed. No matter where we go or what we do as executives, we take our thinking with us. That may spoil everything, because, to a great extent, we do and accomplish what we think about. Our thoughts mold our aspirations, attitudes and accomplishments during our life. In other words, our careers and lives are influenced more by the power of our thoughts than anything else. The bad news is that most of us never fully use our mental capacities and never achieve our potential. The good news is that neural technologies are now available to transform our thinking into the higher realms of brilliance. Developing the spatial capacity to think higher, wider, and deeper means breaking away from the effects of years of flat thinking or educational backgrounds that stifles creative/innovative potential. Expand your mental agility through a development of higher-order processes and discover a whole new world mentally in Executive Thinking.
This sixth edition of The Study of Philosophy preserves the strengths of the earlier editions - a conversational tone, intriguing examples, and timely reflections on the major fields of philosophical inquiry by seminal thinkers in the history of ideas - and expands those discussions in compelling new directions. This new edition is distinctive for integrating contemporary treatment of continental and analytic philosophy, theories of justice, and feminism. It is a time-honored text, revised for students in the 21st century!"--BOOK JACKET.
Featured throughout the book are dozens of lessons from Senior PGA Tour pros. Top players like Hale Irwin, Jim Colbert, and Bob Duval provide tips and instruction on everything from long-iron play to putting.
Hauling Pennsylvania anthracite and backloads of iron ore among mountain mines, inland ports and tidewater cites along its 106-mile route, the Morris Canal (1824-1924) with its water-powered inclined planes performed an engineering feat of worldwide note. The Morris Canal and the Age of Ingenuity traces the rise and fall of this hybrid canal-and-railway from technological marvel to quaint curiosity over the course of a century. Built as part of an ambitious network of nineteenth-century "internal improvements," it combined with other canals and railways to solve America's first energy crisis, relieving rising seaboard cities of dependence on depleted woodlots and mud roads. Though superseded by all-season railroads of far greater capacity, the canal fills a formative chapter in the backstory of America's rise from colonial backwater to global economic powerhouse. For those who recognize the importance of innovation to economic growth, the Morris Canal also presents a historical lesson of timely interest.
Cloaked in gothic shadows, soaked in blood, darkness descends on the world of Sherlock Holmes. “I have heard, Mr. Holmes, that you can see deeply into the manifold wickedness of the human heart.” Vengeance from beyond, forbidden passions and sadistic cruelty draw the great detective and his faithful companions into storms of madness and otherworldly violence which threaten to cloud the clarity of logic. Facing the eldritch reach of ancient talismans and arcane science, from the streets of London and Paris to the loneliest of manor houses, the great detective battles the weird and uncanny. Can steadfast reason hold against unspeakable terror when Sherlock Holmes can no longer eliminate the impossible? Follow the great detective through ten new tales of terror as he doggedly pursues investigations leading him to the edge of reason and beyond! With contributions by: David Stuart Davies, Lyndsay Faye, Nancy Holder, Mark A. Latham, James Lovegrove, Mark Morris, Charles Prepolec, Josh Reynolds, Angela Slatter, Kevin P. Thornton, and Stephen Volk. About the Series: - Book 1: Gaslight Grimoire: Fantastic Tales of Sherlock Holmes - Book 2: Gaslight Grotesque: Nightmare Tales of Sherlock Holmes - Book 3: Gaslight Arcanum: Uncanny Tales of Sherlock Holmes - Book 4: Gaslight Gothic: Strange Tales of Sherlock Holmes These anthologies have received critical acclaim from prominent reviewers such as National Post, Library Journal, Booklist, Globe & Mail, etc.
Issue framing is the way that people, especially politicians, get other people to view a particular problem or issue. By framing the issue in a particular way, the goal is to get people to think about the issue, to believe that an action is required and, most importantly, to believe that a particular action (the one being proposed by the framer) is the right one. The use of language and imagery is an essential part of issue framing and has been an integral part of the presidency since our nation’s founding, but it has become particularly important since Theodore Roosevelt began to take his message directly to the people. This work examines a selected speech delivered by every president from Roosevelt through Barack Obama to show how language has been instrumental in directing policy. Each chapter will examine the situation or background for the problem, include a transcript of the speech the president delivered, and conclude with an analysis of the speech in terms of the particular frame that the speech utilized and the eventual outcome, or policy direction, inspired by the speech.
This book analyzes the findings reported in the first Asia Pacific summit of the Successful Transgenerational Entrepreneurship Practices (STEP) project. Researchers in Australia, China, and India discussed eleven in-depth case studies to shed light on the challenges that business families and family businesses faced in continuing and extending their entrepreneurial capabilities across multiple generations. Based on a common research framework from STEP, each chapter introduces key findings and challenges existing theory, offering answers to two broad questions in the Asia Pacific context: How do business families and family businesses generate and sustain entrepreneurial performance across generations and how does entrepreneurial performance relate to the continuity, growth and transgenerational entrepreneurship of business families and family businesses? In doing so, the authors look at key issues faced by family business including dealing with communication issues across generations, resolving conflict between siblings, preparing and luring younger generations back to family business, and professionalization of business. The chapters go beyond the succession and governance challenges and explore the processes and outcomes of entrepreneurship in the AustralAsian family context. Academics, teachers and students in business and management, entrepreneurship and family business, and Asian studies will find this path-breaking book of great value, as will libraries, policymakers and consultants.
Originally published in 1984, The Image of the Middle Ages in Romantic and Victorian Literature looks at the impact of medievalism in the 18th and 19th centuries and the importance of post-Enlightenment literary religious medievalism. The book suggests that religious medievalism was not a superficial cultural phenomenon and that the romantic spirit with which it was chronologically connected, was intimately associated with the metaphysical. The book suggests that this belief gave birth to the metaphysical yearning and cultural expression of the eighteenth and nineteenth century. The book seeks to clarify the post-Enlightenment relationship between aesthetic culture and ‘aesthetic’ religion, romanticism, medievalism and religious trends.
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