Welcome to our book review site go-pdf.online!
You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
The Unwanted Sound of Everything We Want
Noise is usually defined as unwanted sound: loud music from a neighbor, the honk of a taxicab, the roar of a supersonic jet. But as Garret Keizer illustrates in this probing examination, noise is as much about what we want as about what we seek to avoid. It has been a byproduct of human striving since ancient times even as it has become a significant cause of disease in our own. At heart, noise provides a key for understanding some of our most pressing issues, from social inequality to climate change. In a journey that leads us from the Tanzanian veldt to the streets of New York, Keizer deftly explores the political ramifications of noise, America's central role in a loud world, and the environmental sustainability of a quieter one. The result is a deeply satisfying book -- one guaranteed to change how we hear the world, and how we measure our own personal volume within it.
God of Beer
In the remote mill town of Salmon Falls, Vermont, the dead of winter can feel like death itself. Jobs are scarce, kids are bored, and it sometimes seems there's nothing better to do than drink. But when eighteen-year-old Kyle Nelson and a motley group of friends decide to challenge both the legal drinking age and the local drinking culture with a daring act of civil disobedience, they find there's more to do than they ever imagined. Garret Keizer's gripping novel about young men and women in revolt bears witness to the power of ideas, the bonds of friendship, and the trials of working-class kids on the margins of American society. His story never flinches in the face of those forces that conspire against, but needn't overcome, the resilient spirits of the young.
Privacy
American essayist and Harper's contributing editor Garret Keizer offers a brilliant, literate look at our strip-searched, over-shared, viral-videoed existence. Body scans at the airport, candid pics on Facebook, a Twitter account for your stray thoughts, and a surveillance camera on every street corner -- today we have an audience for all of the extraordinary and banal events of our lives. The threshold between privacy and exposure becomes more permeable by the minute. But what happens to our private selves when we cannot escape scrutiny, and to our public personas when they pass from our control? In this wide-ranging, penetrating addition to the Big Ideas//Small Books series, and in his own unmistakable voice, Garret Keizer considers the moral dimensions of privacy in relation to issues of social justice, economic inequality, and the increasing commoditization of the global marketplace. Though acutely aware of the digital threat to privacy rights, Keizer refuses to see privacy in purely technological terms or as an essentially legalistic value. Instead, he locates privacy in the human capacity for resistance and in the sustainable society "with liberty and justice for all."
The Enigma of Anger
Rage, resentment, envy, jealousy, and hatred— these emotions seem to dominate our times. They rule our highways, our workplaces, our homes, and our hearts. In this provocative book of essays, writer Garret Keizer considers anger in all its baffling forms. Poignantly aware of his own temper, and of his ties to a religion that glorifies meekness, the author looks at anger as a paradox in our struggle to remain human in the midst of an infuriating world. Interweaving personal anecdotes, mythological stories, sacred texts, and Keizer's insightful observations, The Enigma of Anger will prove a welcome companion for anyone who has ever wrestled with wrath-or wished to make better use of it.
Getting Schooled
In this powerful, eloquent story, a former teacher offers a rousing defense of his beleaguered vocation in this arresting account of his return to the same rural Vermont high school classroom where he had taught 14 years before.
A Dresser of Sycamore Trees
The prophet Amos, a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore trees, had a parallel, and more challenging, calling as a shepherd of human souls. So too does Garret Keizer, an Episcopalian minister to the community of Island Pond in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom. This profoundly contemporary book displays not only Keizer's knowledge of life's small practicalities (winding the church clock, shopping for groceries), but also his insights about faith and the mysterious ways of God. With an eye attuned to both the pleasures and foibles that make life on earth so rich, he presents a refreshing and often hilarious account of the hands-on work needed to maintain a parish and sustain its spirit. He is a man who believes that God's intentions, if seldom apparent, are inevitably compassionate and compelling.
Help
In a book the San Francisco Chronicle called "unclassifiably wise" and a "masterpiece," noted Harper's essayist Garret Keizer explores the paradox that we are human only by helping others– and all too human when we try to help. It is the primal cry, the first word in a want ad, the last word on the tool bar of a computer screen. A song by the Beatles, a prayer to the gods, the reason Uncle Sam is pointing at you. What we get by with a little of, what we could use a bit more of, what we were only trying to do when we were so grievously misunderstood. What we'll be perfectly fine without, thank you very much. It makes us human. It can make us suffer. It can make us insufferable. It can make ...
Noise
Prehistoric drummers used natural acoustics to recreate natural sound. In classical Europe, orators turned the human voice into a lyrical instrument. In Buddhist temples, the icons' ears were exaggerated to represent their spiritual power. And in modern metropolises we are battered by the roar of sound that surrounds us. In the first narrative history of the subject which puts humans at its centre, and following the author's major BBC Radio 4 series Noise, acclaimed historian David Hendy describes the history of noise - which is also the history of listening. As he puts it: 'By thinking about sound and listening, I want to get closer to what it felt like to live in the past.' This unusual book reveals fascinating changes in how we have understood our fellow human beings and the world around us. For although we might see ourselves inhabiting a visual world, our lives are shaped by our need to hear and be heard.
Five Ways of Being a Painting and Other Essays
A collection of essays by the winner and the five finalists of the prestigious Notting Hill Editions Essay Prize 2017 Covering an array of subjects, from the meaning of art to supermarket shopping, these pieces were chosen for their originality, literary style, and above all, their ability to persuade. The judges awarded the first prize to “Five Ways of Being a Painting” by William Max Nelson for “its curious mix of the philosophical and the personal, the argumentative and the ruminative, that makes it a real essay.” The biennial Notting Hill Editions Essay Prize is open to all essays written in English of between 2,000 and 8,000 words, on any subject. The first prize is £20,000 and...
Leading Lives That Matter
Compiles a wide range of texts-from fiction, social science, philosophy, and ancient poetry-related to questions that arise for those who are trying to decide what to do with their lives
