![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() From the art of translation to the lyricism of sign language, these essays display the stunning range of Tammet’s literary and polyglot talents. ![]() From the art of translation to the lyricism of sign language, these essays display the stunning range of Tammet's literary and polyglot talents. A joyous romp through the world of words, letters, stories, and meanings, Every Word Is a Bird We Teach to Sing explores the way communication shapes reality. He chats with chatbots, contrives an "e"-less essay on lipograms, studies the grammar of the telephone, contemplates the significance of disappearing dialects, and corresponds with native Esperanto speakers - in their mother tongue.Ī joyous romp through the world of words, letters, stories, and meanings, Every Word Is a Bird We Teach to Sing explores the way communication shapes reality. In Every Word Is a Bird We Teach to Sing, Tammet goes back in time to London to explore the numeric language of his autistic childhood in Iceland, he learns why the name Blær became a court case in Canada, he meets one of the world's most accomplished lip readers. Is vocabulary destiny? Why do clocks "talk" to the Nahua people of Mexico? Will AI researchers ever produce true human-machine dialogue? In this mesmerizing collection of essays, Daniel Tammet answers these and many other questions about the intricacy and profound power of language. A mind-expanding, deeply humane tour of language by the best-selling author of Born on a Blue Day and Thinking in Numbers. ![]()
0 Comments
![]() ![]() The night breathed on me, an entity all its own. I rose from my mattress and went to the window, throwing open the shutters. Firecrackers screamed, and children clapped in awe at the explosion of colored lights. The murmur of a hundred voices drifted up to my room from the square below, punctuated by occasional laughter. I lifted my head and peered through the narrow wooden slats of the shutters on my wall, watching colored lanterns dance in the distance. Outside, the sundown bell tolled, deep and loud, calling the people of Adros to celebrate. ![]() Nomatter how much I scrubbed, the smell would never come out of my skin. ![]() It was on everything I owned, the curse of an apprentice blacksmith. No, not bone, and the heavy burnt iron tang on the air wasn’t blood, but the smell of the forge in my hair and on my clothes. Remnants of the terrible dreamtraced their way down my neck and spine in beads of icy sweat while hammers struck bone in the distance. I woke at dusk, the fist of a nightmare still tight around my throat. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Zoe’s relationship with Marcus and her struggle to balance her new feelings with her relationship with the beloved stepfather she calls Dad feel relatable and believable. While Zoe is driven and extremely goal-oriented, Marks also includes everyday moments such as friendship insecurities and exaggerated expectations. Marks has written a natural, authentic story that particularly shines when she skillfully intertwines her narrative with historical information and contemporary context about the penal system. However, despite his securing a good job and a place to live, the life of an exoneree is fraught with pitfalls. ![]() Now that Marcus has been released, Zoe feels protective and hopeful about his future. As a seventh grader, Zoe worked tirelessly to determine whether the imprisoned father she had never met was innocent or guilty, ultimately helping to exonerate him. ![]() Now the Black 14-year-old is taking her journalistic skills to the airways through a podcast. It’s been two years since the determined tween at the heart of From the Desk of Zoe Washington (2020) sought answers about the unjust incarceration of her birth father. " Not being incarcerated doesn’t necessarily make you free. ![]() ![]() ![]() The writing alone is so sensational that it draws you in from the preliminary websites, I was addicted by the 15% mark as well as likewise the story was revealed a little bit simultaneously so you was familiar with the superb, the bad as well as likewise the Others a little bit a great deal better than before because in this book you are presented to a brand-new host of personalities to appreciate. It still seems like I read a design that is just lived in by this collection. ![]() ![]() I locate it tough to analyze overviews of this collection because I have actually loved this globe as well as likewise individuals that inhabit it to the factor where I am not exactly sure I am developing an unbiased evaluation any type of longer. ![]() ![]() ![]() Second in the Lady Helen series, The Dark Days Pact tells of the continuing adventures of Lady Helen Wrexhall, now newly minted Reclaimer-in-training, under the tutelage of the slightly shady Lord Carlston. With so much at stake, Helen must make an agonizing choice between duty and devotion.” ( Synopsis from publisher) Meanwhile, the Duke of Selburn seems determined to try and protect her, irrespective of the risk to himself. As she rushes to complete her training, Helen finds herself torn between her loyalty to Carlston and the orders of the Home Office, who wish to use her to further their own agenda. Her mentor, Lord Carlston, believes that a Grand Deceiver has arrived in England, and there is no time to lose in preparing Helen to fight it. Lady Helen Wrexhall is spending the summer season in Brighton, where she will continue her Reclaimer training and prepare for her duties as a fully fledged member of the Dark Days Club. Genre: fantasy historical fiction young-adult ![]() ![]() Read by Cherry Jones and accompanied by Paul Woodiel on the fiddle. An excellent book to read curled up under a blanket with a cup of cocoa. Wholesomely inspirational and heartwarming. Their love plays out so slowly compared to many teen books that it has time to bloom and blossom. I appreciate that he remains as a background character. (The first time since Farmer Boy.) Laura (in the story) admires him first for his horses, then for his kindness and then for his bravery as he hitches up his team of horses to make a run for fuel for the entire town. We are introduced to Almanzo as an adult. Every tiniest thing glittered rosy toward the sun and pale blue toward the sky, and all along every blade of grass ran rainbow sparkles. Then the sun peeped over the edge of the prairie and the whole world glittered. Their fuel runs out, their food consists of scraps, and Pa can no longer play the fiddle for his hands are stiff with cold.Įven in her toughest year, faced with bitter cold and starvation, Laura still conveys the beauty of the prairie. Snow soon piles over their windows and the bitter cold ensures that they cannot leave their houses. This was one of the harshest winters they would ever face. ![]() ![]() The whole family moves into town to weather the winter of 1800-1801 - and it's good thing they do. I would have died ten times over if I lived during Laura's time ![]() ![]() One is the question of pre-contact demographics: old-school scholars had long advanced the idea that there were only a few million Native Americans at the time of the Columbian arrival, whereas revisionists in the 1960s posited that there were eight million on the island of Hispaniola alone, a figure punctured by revisionists of revisionism, now beset by Native American activists for the political incorrectness of adjusting the census. They built great and wealthy cities they lived, for the most part, on farms and their home continents “were immeasurably busier, more diverse, and more populous than researchers had previously imagined.” In defending this view, Mann visits several thriving controversies in the historic/prehistoric record. Plummer, 1995), Native Americans were as active in shaping their environments as anyone else. In fact, writes Mann ( Noah’s Choice, with Mark L. Historians once thought that prehistoric Indian peoples somehow lived outside of history, adrift and directionless, “passive recipients of whatever windfalls or disasters happenstance put in their way” that view was central to the myth of the noble savage. ![]() Science journalist Mann’s survey of the current knowledge is a bracing corrective. ![]() Unless you’re an anthropologist, it’s likely that everything you know about American prehistory is wrong. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() “Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. ![]() First published in 1945, and drawn from Steinbeck’s memories of real inhabitants of Monterey, California, Cannery Row focuses on the acceptance of life as it is-both the loneliness of the individual and the exuberance of community. Cannery Row is just a few blocks long, but the story it harbors is suffused with warmth, understanding, and a great fund of human values. Lee Chong stocks his grocery with almost anything a man could want, and Doc, a young marine biologist who ministers to sick puppies and unhappy souls, unexpectedly finds true love. Henry the painter sorts through junk lots for pieces of wood to incorporate into the boat he is building, while the girls from Dora Flood’s bordello venture out now and then to enjoy a bit of sunshine. Goodreads Summary– Unburdened by the material necessities of the more fortunate, the denizens of Cannery Row discover rewards unknown in more traditional society. ![]() ![]() ![]() With the other, eats rubber bands and becomes a media darling. She quickly rose to become director, realizing early on that this “was a job I could love for the rest of my life.” Dewey, meanwhile, brings disabled children out of their shells, invites businessmen to pet him with one hand while holding the Wall Street Journal ![]() After her divorce, Myron graduated college (the first in her family) and stumbled into a library job. Through her developing relationship with the feline, Myron recounts the economic and social history of Spencer as well as her own success story-despite an alcoholic husband, living on welfare, and health problems ranging from the difficult birth of her daughter, Jodi, to breast cancer. And in this tender story, Myron, the library director, tells of the impact the cat, named DeweyReadmore Books, had on the library and its patrons, and on Myron herself. One frigid Midwestern winter night in 1988, a ginger kitten was shoved into the after-hours book-return slot at the public library in Spencer, Iowa. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The party was a success, but, Leo decided to hit Camino Island full force with the eye of the storm passing right over Bay Books (well….main street).Īfter the storm the extent of the devastation was apparent: Camino Island, tourist mecca, will be out of action for a long long time, and 11 people, sadly, died…including a best selling author….įinding the body of their friend: Bruce, crime author Bob Cobb, and, part-time book store employee avid mystery reader and Wake Forest student, Nick Sutton conclude that it was murder, and, when the authorities punt on the investigation, the three amigos pick up the investigation. The residents of Camino Island, off the coast near Jacksonville, Florida, are not too concerned about Leo since they have never really been hit hard by a hurricane, but, Leo IS the talk of the town….right after Mercer Mann’s party! When they predict a path, Leo fools them and goes left when he was predicted to go right. Hurricane Leo is wandering the Atlantic playing games with the weather forecasters. ![]() Three years after “Camino Island”, Mercer Mann has finished her book, “Tessa”, and it is now on the bestseller list.īruce Cable, owner of Bay Books, is planning a huge party in honor of Mercer’s success, and everyone is invited! ![]() |