No, despite the title, this isn't a self-help book! But You Can't Be Serious does lay foundations of hope and help for a civilization that seems bent on losing its purpose. Ranging through disciplines as diverse as science, economics, philosophy, poetry and religion in inimitably informal and conversational fashion, You Can't Be Serious involves the reader in shaping a take on the future that offers fresh coherence, meaning and delight. "Lots of wisdom ... I will be sharing in my sermons and in worship." --Richard C. Choe, Coordinating Minister, Grace United Church & St. Paul's United Church, Brampton, Ontario "[Paterson's] life as a journalist and an academic outlier ensure lively readability, and with just enough rigour to set the pace for careful response. And that's exactly what he asks of the reader. Careful, considered response. He doesn't propose easy solutions, but he does propose an excellent method for living. From the Introduction this: 'It comes down to a choice far more complicated and difficult than it might seem: a choice between raw fear and unqualified trust. Fear, it seems to me, has botched hope for far too much of human history: unqualified trust has rarely been given a fair go. Trust in what? That's a good question. But I'd also want to ask "fear of what?" My answer to both questions has to be: "I don't know." I do know, though, that fear inhibits while trust liberates. And living in trust is not only more motivating and energizing than living in fear: it's heaps more fun. Curiosity takes me further when I trust.' The [later chapters in the book] reflect [the author's] personal life as a peripatetic story-teller, an almost gyspy journalist, whose vast range of travels as the editor of an international piping magazine (made in Scotland) pull together streams of influence about culture and story-telling. He is a very, very well-travelled author and it is in this confluence of analysis of culture, religion, and story-telling that Mike Paterson's book becomes readable to the extent I didn't want to put it down." --David Bell, All Things Literary Book Review FROM THE AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION: That the world's not what it was should be no surprise. What is surprising is that human activities now enfold complexities that, even if we don't understand them, seem certain to decide the fate of every living organism. We need to know that the future's now our inescapable responsibility. Not one cubic centimeter of the biosphere, atmosphere or ocean depths remains wholly untouched or unaffected by human interventions of one kind or another. Nuclear power, mass extinctions, the impacts of fertilizers, forestry, fossil fuels, and new materials: the evidence is indelibly laid down, even now, in the geological record. And, as each intervention has rippled through the whole, it's triggered unforeseen changes in places none of us have ever thought to look. Change begets more change, changes interact with each other and permeate things we never meant to mess with. And the tide's rising. The old crusade to wrest control from nature's whim, one that's long preoccupied Western cultures, has reached its "Jerusalem." And, like all victories, the outcomes, intentional and coincidental, aren't quite what we hoped or expected. It's a bit embarrassing really. Our bluffs, our boasts of unimpeachable intellect, are all being called into question. So what's next?
What could a thirty year old American whose life revolved around drinking brandy and collecting shells on the island of Mahe possibly have in common with a teenage girl from England on holiday with her parents? Apparently little until he shows her an underwater hidden world and the silver cowrie shell. Their lives separate, but fate has a surprise for them both many years down the line.
What started for Mike Paterson as a desire to give young people a sense of identity, place, meaning and culture developed into a series of With Love workshops. This book followed and the new edition provides basic writing skills to help even beginner writers bring their stories alive.
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th Annual European Symposium on Algorithms, ESA 2000, held in Saarbrücken, Germany in September 2000. The 39 revised full papers presented together with two invited papers were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. Among the topics addressed are parallelism, distributed systems, approximation, combinatorial optimization, computational biology, computational geometry, external-memory algorithms, graph algorithms, network algorithms, online algorithms, data compression, symbolic computation, pattern matching, and randomized algorithms.
Celebrates the opulence and formality that prevailed during the Victorian and Edwardian eras by exploring the myths and realities of the stately and beautiful English country house, similar to the one depicted in "Downton Abbey.
The British monarchy may be over a thousand years old, but the House of Windsor dates only from 1917, when, in the middle of the First World War that was to see the demise of the major thrones of continental Europe, it rebranded itself from the distinctly Germanic Saxe - Coburg - Gotha to the homely and familiar Windsor. By redefining its loyalt...
This text presents an evocative account of 19th-century London, so well known from Charles Dickens' much-loved novels. It draws on descriptions of life in the capital from original letters, diaries and newspapers, as well as Dickens' own social commentary, to paint a vivid portrait of a city undergoing massive social changes.
Mike Leonard is a lucky man. It’s not everyone who gets parents like Jack and Marge. At eighty-seven, Jack is a pathological optimist with an inexhaustible gift of gab. Marge, Jack’s bride of sixty years, though cut from the same rough bolt of Irish immigrant cloth, is his polar opposite–pessimistic and proud of it. What was their son, Mike, thinking when he took a sabbatical from his job with NBC News so he could pile these two world-class originals along with three of his grown kids and a daughter-in-law into a pair of rented RVs and hit the road for a month? Mike was thinking that he wanted to give his parents the ultimate family reunion. And so, one February morning, three generations of Leonards set out on their journey under the dazzling Arizona sky. Thirty minutes later, one of the humongous recreational vehicles has an unplanned meeting with a concrete island at a convenience store. Thus begins the adventure of a lifetime–and an absolute gem of a book. In the course of their humorous, often poignant cross-country tour, from the desert Southwest to the New England coastline, the Leonards reminisce about their loves, their losses, and their rich and heartwarming (and sometimes heartbreaking) lives, while encountering a veritable Greek chorus of roadside characters along the way. The home stretch finds the clan racing back to Chicago, hoping to catch the arrival of the next generation, Jack and Marge’s first great-grandchild. Through it all, Mike pieces together acentury of family lore and lunacy–and discovers surprising sides to his parents that allow him to see them in a whole new light. Mike Leonard has captivated millions of television viewers with his wry and witty feature stories for NBC’s Today. Now he brings that same engaging charm and keen insight to the foibles and passions of his own blessedly unique family. By turns uproariously funny and deeply moving, The Ride of Our Lives delivers a lifetime of laughs, lessons, and priceless memories. This edition’s exclusive DVD features never-before-seen footage from the trip as well as candid family video and photographs.
Jane Smith is being hailed as James Patterson’s greatest character yet, a tough-as-nails attorney up against a relentless killer. Hard to Kill features possibly the author’s most stunning twist ever. Attorney Jane Smith is mounting an impossible criminal defense. Her client, Rob Jacobson, is the unluckiest of the unlucky. No sooner is he accused of killing a family of three in the Hamptons than a second family is gunned down. It’s not double jeopardy. It’s not double murder. It’s double triple homicide. Jane’s career has spanned from NYPD beat cop to Hamptons courtroom. She’s tough to beat. She’s even tougher to kill. The defense may never rest.
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