Smoking Typewriters

Smoking Typewriters PDF Author: John McMillian
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199376468
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Originally published in hardcover in 2011.

Smoking Typewriters

Smoking Typewriters PDF Author: John McMillian
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199376468
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Originally published in hardcover in 2011.

Beatles vs. Stones

Beatles vs. Stones PDF Author: John McMillian
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451612389
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
In the 1960s an epic battle was waged between the two biggest bands in the world—the clean-cut, mop-topped Beatles and the badboy Rolling Stones. Both groups liked to maintain that they weren’t really “rivals”—that was just a media myth, they politely said—and yet they plainly competed for commercial success and aesthetic credibility. On both sides of the Atlantic, fans often aligned themselves with one group or the other. In Beatles vs. Stones, John McMillian gets to the truth behind the ultimate rock and roll debate. Painting an eye-opening portrait of a generation dragged into an ideological battle between Flower Power and New Left militance, McMillian reveals how the Beatles-Stones rivalry was created by music managers intent on engineering a moneymaking empire. He describes how the Beatles were marketed as cute and amiable, when in fact they came from hardscrabble backgrounds in Liverpool. By contrast, the Stones were cast as an edgy, dangerous group, even though they mostly hailed from the chic London suburbs. For many years, writers and historians have associated the Beatles with the gauzy idealism of the “good” sixties, placing the Stones as representatives of the dangerous and nihilistic “bad” sixties. Beatles vs. Stones explodes that split, ultimately revealing unseen realities about America’s most turbulent decade through its most potent personalities and its most unforgettable music.

The Radical Reader

The Radical Reader PDF Author: Timothy McCarthy
Publisher: The New Press
ISBN: 159558742X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 688

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Book Description
Radicalism is as American as apple pie. One can scarcely imagine what American society would look like without the abolitionists, feminists, socialists, union organizers, civil-rights workers, gay and lesbian activists, and environmentalists who have fought stubbornly to breathe life into the promises of freedom and equality that lie at the heart of American democracy. The first anthology of its kind, The Radical Reader brings together more than 200 primary documents in a comprehensive collection of the writings of America’s native radical tradition. Spanning the time from the colonial period to the twenty-first century, the documents have been drawn from a wealth of sources—speeches, manifestos, newspaper editorials, literature, pamphlets, and private letters. From Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” to Kate Millett’s “Sexual Politics,” these are the documents that sparked, guided, and distilled the most influential movements in American history. Brief introductory essays by the editors provide a rich biographical and historical context for each selection included.

Obsolete

Obsolete PDF Author: Anna Jane Grossman
Publisher: ABRAMS
ISBN: 1613120303
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
A cultural catalog of everyday things rapidly turning into rarities—from landlines to laugh tracks. So many things have disappeared from our day-to-day world, or are on the verge of vanishing. Some we may already think of as ancient relics, like typewriters (and their accompanying bottles of correction fluid). Others seem like they were here just yesterday, like boom boxes and CDs. We may feel fond nostalgia for certain items of yore: encyclopedias, newspapers, lighthouses. Other items, like MSG, not so much. But as the pace of change keeps accelerating, it’s worth taking a moment to mark the passing of the objects of our lives, from passbooks and pay phones to secretaries and skate keys. And to reflect on certain endangered phenomena that may be worth trying to hold on to—like privacy, or cash. This thoughtful alphabetized compendium invites us to take a look at the many things, ideas, and behaviors that have gone the way of the subway token—and to reflect on what is ephemeral, and what is truly timeless.

Uncommon Type

Uncommon Type PDF Author: Tom Hanks
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1101946164
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
A collection of seventeen wonderful short stories showing that the legendary Tom Hanks is as talented a writer as he is an actor. “Reading Tom Hanks's Uncommon Type is like finding out that Alice Munro is also the greatest actress of our time.” —Ann Patchett, bestselling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Dutch House A gentle Eastern European immigrant arrives in New York City after his family and his life have been torn apart by his country's civil war. A man who loves to bowl rolls a perfect game--and then another and then another and then many more in a row until he winds up ESPN's newest celebrity, and he must decide if the combination of perfection and celebrity has ruined the thing he loves. An eccentric billionaire and his faithful executive assistant venture into America looking for acquisitions and discover a down and out motel, romance, and a bit of real life. These are just some of the tales Tom Hanks tells in this first collection of his short stories. They are surprising, intelligent, heartwarming, and, for the millions and millions of Tom Hanks fans, an absolute must-have!

Deliberate Prose

Deliberate Prose PDF Author: Allen Ginsberg
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0060930810
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 562

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Book Description
Whether criticizing the American government, protesting the war in Vietnam, or denouncing capitalism, Ginsberg gave voice to the moral conscience of the nation. His personal essays on Jean Genet, Andy Warhol, Philip Glass, and others, give us compelling portraits of his fellow artists. And his views on poetry, free speech, Buddhism, and the Beats reflect the concerns of the postwar American culture he helped shape. Provocative, playful, eloquent, and of the moment, these essays offer a social history of modern America that remind us of the events and issues that preoccupied the minds of a nation -- and one of its most influential citizens -- in the postwar years.

American Epidemic

American Epidemic PDF Author: John McMillian
Publisher: The New Press
ISBN: 1620975203
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
A first-of-its kind collection of the most vivid reporting about the most lethal addiction crisis ever Just a few years ago, the opioid crisis could be referred to as a "silent epidemic," but it is no longer possible to argue that the scourge of opiate addiction being overlooked. This is in large part thanks to the extraordinary writings featured in this volume, which includes some of the most impactful reporting in the United States in recent years addressing the opiate addiction crisis. American Epidemic collects, for the first time, the key works of reportage and analysis that provide the best picture available of the origins, consequences, and human calamity associated with the epidemic. Spirited, informed, and eloquently written, American Epidemic will serve as an essential introduction for anyone seeking insight into the deadliest drug crisis in American history.

The Mysterious Affair at Olivetti

The Mysterious Affair at Olivetti PDF Author: Meryle Secrest
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0451493664
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
The never-before-told true account of the design and development of the first desktop computer by the world's most famous high-styled typewriter company, more than a decade before the arrival of the Osborne 1, the Apple 1, the first Intel microprocessor, and IBM's PC5150. The human, business, design, engineering, cold war, and tech story of how the Olivetti company came to be, how it survived two world wars and brought a ravaged Italy back to life, how after it mastered the typewriter business with the famous "Olivetti touch," it entered the new, fierce electronics race; how its first desktop compter, the P101, came to be; how, within eighteen months, it had caught up with, and surpassed, IBM, the American giant that by then had become an arm of the American government, developing advanced weapon systems; Olivetti putting its own mainframe computer on the market with its desktop prototype, selling 40,000 units, including to NASA for its lunar landings. How Olivetti made inroads into the US market by taking control of Underwood of Hartford CT as an assembly plant for Olivetti's own typewriters and future miniaturized personal computers; how a week after Olivetti purchased Underwood, the US government filed an antitrust suit to try to stop it; how Adriano Olivetti, the legendary idealist, socialist, visionary, heir to the company founded by his father, built the company into a fantastical dynasty--factories, offices, satellite buildings spread over more than fifty acres--while on a train headed for Switzerland in 1960 for supposed meetings and then to Hartford, never arrived, dying suddenly of a heart attack at fifty-eight . . . how eighteen months later, his brilliant young engineer, who had assembled Olivetti's superb team of electronic engineers, was killed, as well, in a suspicious car crash, and how the Olivetti company and the P101 came to its insidious and shocking end.

Protest Nation

Protest Nation PDF Author: Timothy Patrick McCarthy
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1459617789
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 358

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Book Description
America has recently re-awakened to the idea that real change is possible. Yet this present moment is just a point on a journey that extends over a century of activism and struggle - one that has been kept alive by a powerful American tradition of inspiring radical alternatives to the status quo.Protest Nation is a guide through the speeches, letters, broadsides, essays, and manifestos that form the backbone of this tradition-a much more accessible trade edition of The Radical Reader, which was published for the academy. Here are the words - from socialists, feminists, union organizers, civil-rights workers, gay and lesbian activists, and environmentalists - that have served as beacons for millions. Their radical arguments and ideas are links in a chain reaching from the present back through decades of radical thinking and movement-building. Brief introductory essays by the editors provide a rich biographical and historical context for each selection included. Protest Nation presents the most significant and brilliant examples of radical writing, in a concise volume geared for anyone interested in reconnecting with the deep currents of American radical thinking. These range from a fiery speech by Eugene Debs, the great socialist orator; to the original Black Panther Party Platform; to Peter Singer's astonishing treatise on animal liberation, among many others.

My Salinger Year

My Salinger Year PDF Author: Joanna Rakoff
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307958019
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
A keenly observed and irresistibly funny memoir about literary New York in the late nineties, a pre-digital world on the cusp of vanishing. Now a major motion picture starring Sigourney Weaver and Margaret Qualley After leaving graduate school to pursue her dream of becoming a poet, Joanna Rakoff takes a job as assistant to the storied literary agent for J. D. Salinger. Precariously balanced between poverty and glamour, she spends her days in a plush, wood-paneled office—where Dictaphones and typewriters still reign and agents doze after three-martini lunches—and then goes home to her threadbare Brooklyn apartment and her socialist boyfriend. Rakoff is tasked with processing Salinger’s voluminous fan mail, but as she reads the heart-wrenching letters from around the world, she becomes reluctant to send the agency’s form response and impulsively begins writing back. The results are both humorous and moving, as Rakoff, while acting as the great writer’s voice, begins to discover her own.