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'I'm not here to change your mind about Dusty Springfield or
Shostakovich or Tupac Shakur or synthpop. I'm here to change your
mind about your mind.' There are countless books on music with much
analysis given to musicians, bands, eras and/or genres. But rarely
does a book delve into what's going on inside us when we listen.
Michel Faber explores two big questions: how we listen to music and
why we listen to music. To answer these he considers biology, age,
illness, the notion of 'cool', commerce, the dichotomy between
'good' and 'bad' taste and, through extensive interviews with
musicians, unlocks some surprising answers. From the award-winning
author of The Crimson Petal and the White and Under the Skin, this
curious and celebratory book reflects Michel Faber's lifelong
obsession with music of all kinds. Listen will change your
relationship with the heard world.
With an introduction by David Mitchell Isserley spends most of her
time driving. But why is she so interested in picking up
hitchhikers? And why are they always male, well-built and alone? An
utterly unpredictable and macabre mystery, Under the Skin is a
genre-defying masterpiece.
'Watch your step. Keep your wits about you; you will need them . .
.' So begins this irresistible voyage into the dark side of
Victorian London. Amongst an unforgettable cast of low-lifes,
physicians, businessmen and prostitutes, meet our heroine Sugar, a
young woman trying to drag herself up from the gutter any way she
can. Be prepared for a mesmerising tale of passion, intrigue,
ambition and revenge.
Hailed as "original and unsettling, an Animal Farm for the new
century" (The Wall Street Journal), this first novel lingers long
after the last page has been turned.
Described as a "fascinating psychological thriller" (The Baltimore
Sun), this entrancing novel introduces Isserley, a female driver
who picks up hitchhikers with big muscles. She, herself, is
tiny-like a kid peering up over the steering wheel. Scarred and
awkward, yet strangely erotic and threatening, she listens to her
hitchhikers as they open up to her, revealing clues about who might
miss them if they should disappear. At once humane and horrifying,
Under the Skin takes us on a heart-thumping ride through dangerous
territory-our own moral instincts and the boundaries of compassion.
A grotesque and comical allegory, a surreal representation of
contemporary society run amok, Under the Skin has been
internationally received as the arrival of an exciting talent, rich
and assured.
​Dieses Open-Access-essential schafft Orientierung, wenn
Künstliche Intelligenz im klinischen Alltag eingesetzt wird. Die
Herausforderungen werden anhand zweier Beispiele aus dem Bereich
der Nephrologie erläutert, die ethisch und rechtlich reflektiert
werden. Ein umfangreicher Empfehlungsteil schließt diesen durchweg
interdisziplinär erarbeiteten Band ab.
David Toop's extraordinary work of sonic history travels from the rainforests of Amazonas to the megalopolis of Tokyo via the work of artists as diverse as Brian Eno, Sun Ra, Erik Satie, Kate Bush, Kraftwerk and Brian Wilson.
Beginning in 1889 at the Paris exposition when Debussy first heard Javanese music performed, Ocean of Sound channels the competing instincts of 20th century music into an exhilarating, path-breaking account of ambient sound.
'A meditation on the development of modern music, there's no single term that is adequate to describe what Toop has accomplished here ... mixing interviews, criticism, history, and memory, Toop moves seamlessly between sounds, styles, genres, and eras' Pitchfork's '60 Favourite Music Books'
When Theo Griepenkerl happens upon the fifth Gospel in a war-torn
Iraqi museum, he can't believe his luck. Driven by greed and a lust
for fame, he capitalises on his find by publishing it. His book is
a sensation. But he can hardly imagine the incendiary consequences
his discovery will have for Christians, Arabs, homicidal maniacs
and Amazon customers alike. The Fire Gospel is a brilliant piece of
storytelling, dazzlingly outrageous and utterly gripping.
The debut work, a short story collection from the bestselling,
critically acclaimed author of Under the Skin, The Crimson Petal
and the White and The Book of Strange New Things. Michel Faber's
short stories reveal an extraordinarily vivid imagination, a deep
love of language and an adventurous versatility. Playful, yet
profoundly moving, wickedly satirical yet sincerely humane, these
tales never fail to strike unexpected chords. 'Some Rain Must Fall'
juxtaposes the tragic circumstances of traumatised schoolchildren
with the interior monologue of a teacher/psychologist enlisted to
aid their recovery. In the pseudo-sci-fi 'Fish' a mother tries to
protect her child in a terrifying world where fish swim through the
streets and lurk in alleyways. Faber's collection is rich and
assured, with a dazzling reach.
The 1987 Fontevraud Conference gathered more than 100 physicists
for the purpose of discussing the latest developments of research
on few-body problems. In addition to participants from most
European countries representatives from Brazil, Canada, Israel,
Japan, South Africa, and the USA took part in the meeting. In the
conference program special emphasis was laid on bringing together
the various fields, where few-body problems play an important role.
Beyond the traditional areas of nuclear and particle physics, in
recent years interest has been focussed especially on atomic and
molecular physics. This developent is due to the design of new
techniques for solving few-body problems under rather general
premises. The proceedings contain all plenary talks and the
contributions presented orally at the conference. They cover such
topics as: few-quark systems and short-range phenomena, two- and
three-body forces in quark as well as nucleonic systems, few-hadron
bound states, response of few-body systems to electromagnetic and
hadronic probes, form factors, hypernuclei, atomic and molecular
few-body systems, hyperspherical method, separable expansions,
numerical techniques, etc. It appears that recently, even in one
year after the Tokyo-Sendai Conference, much progress has been
achieved in research on various few-body systems. The present
volume gives a comprehensive summary of the modern state of the art
and at the same time a proper account of the most recent results
obtained in the different institutions and laboratories.
'This is autobiography taken to the highest reaches of fiction,
another wonderful novel of scorching power, shot through with
honesty and lyricism' Observer The Kindness of Women continues the
story of Jim, the young boy whose experiences in Japanese-occupied
Shanghai were described in Empire of the Sun. It follows his return
to post-war England, setting his childhood in the context of a
lifetime. Jim tries, and fails, to find stability as a medical
student at Cambridge, then as a trainee RAF pilot in Canada. Having
finally settled into happy family life, his world is ripped apart
by domestic tragedy. He plunges into the maelstrom of the 1960s, an
instigator and subject of every aspect of cultural, social and
sexual revolution. We follow, in all this, the progress of a
bruised mind as it tries to make sense of the upheaval around it.
Turning conspicuously, as in Empire of the Sun, to the events of
his own life, Ballard makes of experience fiction that is frankly
startling and, at its most tender, powerfully moving. This edition
is part of a new commemorative series of Ballard's works, featuring
introductions from a number of his admirers (including Ali Smith,
Iain Sinclair, Martin Amis and Ned Beauman) and brand-new cover
designs from the artist Stanley Donwood.
At the heart of this panoramic, multidimensional narrative is the
compelling struggle of a young woman to lift her body and soul out
of the gutter. Faber leads us back to 1870s London, where Sugar, a
nineteen-year-old whore in the brothel of the terrifying Mrs.
Castaway, yearns for escape to a better life. Her ascent through
the strata of Victorian society offers us intimacy with a host of
lovable, maddening, unforgettable characters. They begin with
William Rackham, an egotistical perfume magnate whose ambition is
fueled by his lust for Sugar, and whose patronage brings her into
proximity to his extended family and milieu: his unhinged,
childlike wife, Agnes, who manages to overcome her chronic hysteria
to make her appearances during "the Season"; his mysteriously
hidden-away daughter, Sophie, left to the care of minions; his
pious brother, Henry, foiled in his devotional calling by a
persistently less-than-chaste love for the Widow Fox, whose efforts
on behalf of The Rescue Society lead Henry into ever-more
disturbing confrontations with flesh; all this overseen by assorted
preening socialites, drunken journalists, untrustworthy servants,
vile guttersnipes, and whores of all stripes and persuasions.
Twenty years in its conception, research, and writing, "The Crimson
Petal and the White" is teeming with life, rich in texture and
incident, with characters breathtakingly real. In a class by
itself, it's a big, juicy, must-read of a novel that will delight,
enthrall, provoke, and entertain young and old, male and
female.
NEIL GAIMAN: 'Glorious. A story that will be found and enjoyed and
dreamed about for years to come' A celebration of friendship,
courage and imagination inspired by Alice in Wonderland, The
Chronicles of Narnia and The Wizard of Oz.
__________________________ It all starts on the morning the letter
D disappears from the language. First, it vanishes from her
parents' conversation at breakfast, then from the road signs
outside. Soon the local dentist and the neighbour's Dalmatian are
missing, and even the Donkey Derby has been called off. Though she
doesn't know why, Dhikilo is summoned to the home of her old
history teacher Professor Dodderfield and his faithful Labrador,
Nelly Robinson. And this is where our story really begins. Set
between England and the wintry land of Liminus, a world enslaved by
the monstrous Gamp and populated by fearsome, enchanting creatures,
D (Tale of Two Worlds) is a mesmerising tale of friendship and
bravery in an uncertain world. Told with simple beauty and warmth,
its celebration of moral courage and freethinking is a powerful
reminder of our human capacity for strength, hope and justice.
'Dhikilo is a splendid heroine for our time: She stands for
kindness, honesty and humanity' DIANE SETTERFIELD 'Young adult
readers will love it, but Faber's brio and bubbly ingenuity will
delight adult readers too.' Daily Mail
Sian, troubled by dark dreams and seeking distraction, joins an
archaeological dig at Whitby. The abbey's one hundred and
ninety-nine steps link the twenty-first century with the ruins of
the past and Sian is swept into a mystery involving a long-hidden
murder, a fragile manuscript in a bottle and a cast of most
peculiar characters. Equal parts historical thriller, romance and
ghost story, this is an ingenious literary page-turner and is
completely unforgettable. THIS EDITION ALSO FEATURES MICHEL FABER'S
NOVELLA THE COURAGE CONSORT
Under the pressure of harsh environmental conditions and natural
hazards, large parts of the world population are struggling to
maintain their livelihoods. Population growth, increasing land
utilization and shrinking natural resources have led to an
increasing demand of improved efficiency of existing technologies
and the development of new ones. Additionally, growing complexities
of societal functionalities and interdependencies among
infrastructures and urban habitats amplify consequences of
malfunctions and failures. Malevolence, sustainable developments
and climatic changes have more recently been added to the list of
challenges. Over the last decades, substantial progress has been
made in assessing and quantifying risks. However, with regard to
the broader utilization of risk assessment as a means for societal
strategic and operational planning, there is still a great need for
further development. Applications of Statistics and Probability in
Civil Engineering contains the proceedings of the 11th
International Conference on Applications of Statistics and
Probability in Civil Engineering (ICASP11, Zurich, Switzerland, 1-4
August 2011). The book focuses not only on the more traditional
technical issues, but also emphasizes the societal context of the
decision making problems including the interaction between
stakeholders. This holistic perspective supports the enhanced and
sustainable allocation of limited resources for the improvement of
safety, environment and economy. The book is of interest to
researchers and scientists working in the field of risk and
reliability in engineering; to professionals and engineers,
including insurance and consulting companies working with natural
hazards, design, operation and maintenance of civil engineering and
industrial facilities; and to decision makers and professionals in
the public sector, including nongovernmental organisations
responsible for risk management in the public domain, e.g. building
authorities, the health and safety executives, the United Nations
and the World Economic Forum.
With his elegant prose and perceptive imagination, the bestselling
author of The Crimson Petal and the White creates a unique,
self-contained world, where the perennial human drama plays out in
all its passion and ambiguity. In these acclaimed novellas, Michel
Faber takes on the interior world of inventively crafted
characters. "The Courage Consort" tells of an a capella vocal
ensemble sequestered in a Belgian chateau to rehearse a monstrously
complicated new piece. But competing artistic temperaments and
sexual needs create as much discordance as the avant-garde music.
In "The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps," a lonely woman joins an
archaeological dig at Whitby Abbey and unearths a mystery involving
a long-hidden murder. In "The Fahrenheit Twins," strange children,
identical in all but gender and left alone at the icy zenith of the
world by their anthropologist parents, create their own ritual
civilization.
Michel Faber's short stories are markedly diverse-the voice of each
is so distinct that the book reads like an anthology of different
writers. But Faber's radically inventive style fastens all fifteen
stories into a compelling collection deserving of the high praise
it garnered in the United Kingdom. One surreal story, "Fish,"
projects a futuristic world populated with fish swimming in the
air. As sharks hover in abandoned corners and human zealots of the
Church of the Armageddon loose their fanaticism on the innocent,
it's a mother's full-time job to protect her young daughter. The
title story, ""Some Rain Must Fall, "" tells of a substitute
schoolteacher called on in a crisis, and as she encourages her
pupils to express their feelings, we learn the source of the
class's trouble: a devastating act that resonates with contemporary
America. As Garth Morris wrote in the Mail on Sunday (London),
"these are well-crafted pieces of quiet forlorn intensity in a very
real world."
OASIS, an Amazon Original Series, coming in 2017 'I am with you
always, even unto the end of the world . . .' Peter Leigh is a
missionary called to go on the journey of a lifetime. Leaving
behind his beloved wife, Bea, Peter sets out on a quest to take the
word of God to the farthest corners of the galaxy. His mission will
challenge everything - his faith, his endurance and the love that
can hold two people together, even when they are worlds apart.
*This book has been printed with two different cover designs. We
are unable to accept requests for a specific cover. The different
covers will be assigned to orders at random.*
A fascinating blend of hatred and tenderness, of hard-boiled
realism and generous idealism colors the writings of Chester Himes.
How did this gifted son of the respectable southern black family
become a juvenile delinquent? How did he acquire self-esteem and a
new sense of identity by writing short stories while in the Ohio
state penitentiary?
Chester Himes (1909-1984) had literary genius. Yet in his native
country, he is recalled more as the author of successful detective
novels ("Cotton Comes to Harlem") than as a practitioner of the art
of fiction. The genesis of his books is his own autobiography. In
"If He Hollers, Let Him Go" and in the fratricidal shootout of his
black detectives Grave Digger and Coffin Ed in "Plan B" he was an
unsparing witness to our changing times. His painful experiences in
American indelibly marked his fiction, which is filled with
reflections on his difficult relationships, especially with
women--his fair-complexioned mother, his African-American first
wife Jean, his many white lovers, and finally his English wife
Leslie. His career was beset by controversy, and he left America to
live on the Left Bank in the colony of expatriates and as a
colleague of Richard Wright. Eventually, he settled in Spain.
Drawn from his letters, notebooks, memoirs, and his fiction,
this straightforward account of Hime's varied, episodic life
attempts to trace the origins of his significant literary gift. It
details the socioeconomic, familial, and cultural background which
fed his ambivalent views on race in America. Hime's Deep South
childhood, his adolescence in the Midwest, his young manhood in
prison (1928-1936), his years as a menial laborer, his struggles as
an author in California and New York City, and finally his glory
days as an expatriate and celebrity in France and Spain are plumbed
deeply for their effects upon his works. This is the bittersweet
story of a man who found salvation in writing.
Edward Margolies is Professor Emeritus, English, and American
Studies, College of Staten Island, City University of New York.
Michel Fabre is Professor Emeritus, American Studies, Universite de
la Sorbonne.
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