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The last days of Roger Federer : and other endings / by Dyer, Geoff,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."When artists and athletes age, what happens to their work? Does it ripen or rot? Achieve a new serenity or succumb to an escalating torment? As our bodies decay, how do we keep on? In this beguiling meditation, Geoff Dyer sets his own encounter with late middle age against the last days and last works of writers, painters, footballers, musicians, and tennis stars who've mattered to him throughout his life. With a playful charm and penetrating intelligence, he recounts Friedrich Nietzsche's breakdown in Turin, Bob Dylan's reinventions of old songs, J. M. W. Turner's paintings of abstracted light, John Coltrane's cosmic melodies, Bjorn Borg's defeats, and Beethoven's final quartets -and considers the intensifications and modifications of experience that come when an ending is within sight. Throughout, he stresses the accomplishments of uncouth geniuses who defied convention, and went on doing so even when their beautiful youths were over. Ranging from Burning Man and the Doors to the nineteenth-century Alps and back, Dyer's book on last things is also a book about how to go on living with art and beauty--and on the entrancing effect and sudden illumination that an Art Pepper solo or Annie Dillard reflection can engender in even the most jaded and ironic sensibilities"--
Subjects: Artists; Athletes; Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.); Gifted older people.; Gifted persons.; Older artists.; Older athletes.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The secret life of John le Carré / by Sisman, Adam,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."The extraordinary secret life of a great novelist, which his biographer could not publish while le Carré was alive. Secrecy came naturally to John le Carré, and there were some secrets that he fought fiercely to keep. Adam Sisman's definitive biography, published in 2015, provided a revealing portrait of this fascinating man; yet some aspects of his subject remained hidden. Nowhere was this more so than in his private life. Apparently content in his marriage, the novelist conducted a string of love affairs over five decades. To these relationships he brought much of the tradecraft that he had learned as a spy--cover stories, cut-outs and dead letter boxes. These clandestine operations brought an element of danger to his life, but they also meant deceiving those closest to him. Small wonder that betrayal became a running theme in his work. In trying to manage his biography, the novelist engaged in a succession of skirmishes with his biographer. While he could control what Sisman wrote about him in his lifetime, he accepted that the truth would eventually become known. Following his death in 2020, what had been withheld can now be revealed. The Secret Life of John le Carré reveals a hitherto-hidden perspective on the life and work of the spy-turned-author and a fascinating meditation on the complex relationship between biographer and subject. "Now that he is dead," Sisman writes, "we can know him better.""--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Le Carré, John, 1931-2020.; Novelists, English;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Commonwealth : a novel / by Patchett, Ann,author.;
"The acclaimed, bestselling author--winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize--tells the enthralling story of how an unexpected romantic encounter irrevocably changes two families' lives. One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating's christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny's mother, Beverly--thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families. Spanning five decades, Commonwealth explores how this chance encounter reverberates through the lives of the four parents and six children involved. Spending summers together in Virginia, the Keating and Cousins children forge a lasting bond that is based on a shared disillusionment with their parents and the strange and genuine affection that grows up between them. When, in her twenties, Franny begins an affair with the legendary author Leon Posen and tells him about her family, the story of her siblings is no longer hers to control. Their childhood becomes the basis for his wildly successful book, ultimately forcing them to come to terms with their losses, their guilt, and the deeply loyal connection they feel for one another. Told with equal measures of humor and heartbreak, Commonwealth is a meditation on inspiration, interpretation, and the ownership of stories. It is a brilliant and tender tale of the far-reaching ties of love and responsibility that bind us together"--
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; Families; Family secrets;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 2
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I'm afraid of men / by Shraya, Vivek,1981-author.;
"A powerful meditation on the damaging effects of masculinity from a trans girl--a writer with celebrated indie roots and a knack for dismantling assumptions and challenging the status quo. Toxic masculinity takes many insidious forms, from misogyny and sexual harassment to homophobia, transphobia, and bullying. Vivek Shraya has firsthand experience with nearly all of them. As a boy, Vivek exhibited "feminine" qualities. The men in her life immediately and violently disapproved. They taught her to fear the word girl by turning it into a weapon used to hurt her. They taught her to hate her femininity, to destroy the best parts of herself. In order to survive, Vivek had to learn to convincingly perform masculinity. As a girl, she's still afraid. Having spent years undoing the damage and salvaging her lost girlhood, she is haunted by the violence of men, seldom dressing the way she wants in public. As a result she is often still perceived as male, stirring feelings of guilt and self-doubt: Am I not feminine enough? Is this my fault for striving to be the perfect man and excelling at it? I'm afraid of men is a culmination of the years Vivek spent observing men and creating her own version of manhood. Through deeply personal reflection, she offers a rare and multifaceted perspective on gender and a hopeful reimagining of masculinity at a time when it's needed more than ever"--
Subjects: Autobiographies.; Biographies.; Shraya, Vivek, 1981-; Transgender people; Gender expression; Gender identity; Sex differences.; Masculinity.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Two truths and a lie : a murder, a private investigator, and her search for justice / by McGarrahan, Ellen,author.;
"In 1990, Ellen McGarrahan was a young reporter for the Miami Herald when she covered the execution of Jesse Tafero, a man convicted of murdering two police officers. When it later emerged that Tafero may not have committed the murders, McGarrahan became haunted by that grisly execution--and appalled by her unquestioning acceptance of the state's version of events. Decades later, in the midst of her successful career as a private investigator, McGarrahan finally decides to find out the truth of what really happened. Her investigation takes her back to Florida, where she combs through court files and interviews everyone involved in the case, in. She plunges back into the Miami of the 1960s and 1970s, where gangsters and kingpins and beautiful women inhabit a dangerous world of nightclubs, speed boats, and drug cartels. Violence is everywhere. The murdered police officers, she discovers, are only one part of the picture. But even as McGarrahan circles closer to the truth, the story of guilt and innocence becomes more complex. She gradually discovers that she hasn't been alone in her search for closure, because whenever a human life is forcibly taken--by bullet, or by electric chair--the reckoning is long and difficult. Both a gripping true-crime narrative and a fascinating glimpse into the life of a private investigator, Two Truths and a Lie is ultimately a profound meditation on grief and complicity"--
Subjects: Tafero, Jesse, 1946-1990.; Crime and the press; Judicial error; Murder;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Out of the woods : a memoir of wayfinding / by Darling, Lynn.;
"Combining the soul-baring insight of Wild, the profound wisdom of Shop Class as Soulcraft, and the adventurous spirit of Eat, Pray, Love, Lynn Darling's powerful, lyrical memoir of self-discovery, full of warmth and wry humor, Out of the Woods. When her college-bound daughter leaves home, Lynn Darling, widowed over a decade earlier, finds herself alone--and utterly lost, with no idea of what she wants or even who she is. Searching for answers, she leaves New York for the solitary woods of Vermont. Removed from the familiar, cocooned in the natural world, her only companions a new dog and a compass, she hopes to develop a sense of direction--both in the woods and in her life. Hiking unmapped trails, Darling meditates on the milestones of her past; as she adapts to her new surroundings, she uses the knowledge she's gained to chart her future. And when an unexpected setback nearly derails her newfound balance, she is able to draw upon her newfound skills to find her bearings and stay the course. In revealing how one woman learned to navigate--literally and metaphorically--the uneven course of life, Out of the Woods is, in the words of Pulitzer-prize winning author Geraldine Brooks, 'a marvelous book; both a compass and a manifesto for navigating the often-treacherous switchbacks of the second half of life'"--Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Darling, Lynn.; Adjustment (Psychology); Life change events; Middle-aged women; Self-actualization (Psychology); Solitude; Widows; Women journalists;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Women's work : a reckoning with home and help / by Stack, Megan K.,author.;
When Megan Stack was living in Beijing, she left her prestigious job as a foreign correspondent to have her first child and work from home writing a book. She quickly realized that caring for a baby and keeping up with the housework while her husband went to the office each day was consuming the time she needed to write. This dilemma was resolved in the manner of many upper-class families and large corporations: she availed herself of cheap Chinese labor. The housekeeper Stack hired was a migrant from the countryside, a mother who had left her daughter in a precarious situation to earn desperately needed cash in the capital. As Stack's family grew and her husband's job took them to Dehli, a series of Chinese and Indian women cooked, cleaned, and babysat in her home. Stack grew increasingly aware of the brutal realities of their lives: domestic abuse, alcoholism, unplanned pregnancies. Hiring poor women had given her the ability to work while raising her children, but what ethical compromise had she made? Determined to confront the truth, Stack traveled to her employees' homes, met their parents and children, and turned a journalistic eye on the tradeoffs they'd been forced to make as working mothers seeking upward mobility--and on the cost to the children who were left behind. Women's Work is an unforgettable story of four women as well as an electrifying meditation on the evasions of marriage, motherhood, feminism, and privilege.
Subjects: Biographies.; Stack, Megan K.; Child care workers; Child care workers; Working mothers; Americans; Americans;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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We measure the earth with our bodies : a novel / by Lama, Tsering Yangzom,author.;
"A compelling and profound debut novel about a Tibetan family's journey through exile. In the wake of China's 1959 invasion of Tibet, Lhamo and her younger sister, Tenkyi, arrive at a refugee camp in Nepal. They survived the dangerous journey across the Himalayas, but their parents did not. As Lhamo--haunted by the loss of her homeland and her mother, a village oracle--tries to rebuild a life amid a shattered community, hope arrives in the form of a young man named Samphel, whose uncle brings with him an ancient statue of the Nameless Saint--a relic known to vanish and reappear in times of need. Decades later, the sisters are separated, and Tenkyi is living with Lhamo's daughter, Dolma, in Toronto. While Tenkyi works as a cleaner and struggles with traumatic memories, Dolma vies for a place as a scholar of Tibet Studies. But when Dolma comes across the Nameless Saint in a collector's vault, she must decide what she is willing to do for her community, even if it means risking her dreams. Breathtaking in its scope and powerful in its intimacy, We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies is a gorgeously written meditation on colonization, displacement, and the lengths we'll go to remain connected to our families and ancestral lands. Told through the lives of four people over fifty years, this novel provides a nuanced, moving portrait of the little-known world of Tibetan exiles"--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Novels.; Exiles; Life change events; Refugees; Relics; Sisters; Tibetans; Women, Tibetan;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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A ballet of lepers : a novel and stories / by Cohen, Leonard,1934-2016,author.; Pleshoyano, Alexandra,1962-editor.; Cohen, Leonard,1934-2016Selections.;
"An unprecedented glimpse into the formation of the legendary talent of Leonard Cohen. Before the celebrated late-career world tours, before the Grammy awards, before the chart-topping albums, before "Hallelujah" and "So Long, Marianne" and "Famous Blue Raincoat," the young Leonard Cohen wrote poetry and fiction and yearned for literary stardom. In A Ballet of Lepers, readers will discover that the magic that animated Cohen's unforgettable body of work was present from the very beginning. Written between 1956 in Montreal, just as Cohen was publishing his first poetry collection, and 1961, when he'd settled on Greece's Hydra island, the pieces in this collection offer startling insight into Cohen's imagination and creative process, and explore themes that would permeate his later work, from shame and unworthiness to sexual desire to longing, whether for love, family, freedom, or transcendence. The titular novel, A Ballet of Lepers--one he later remarked was "probably a better novel" than his celebrated book The Favourite Game--is a haunting examination of these elements, while the fifteen stories, as well as the playscript, probe the inner demons of his characters, many of whom could function as stand-ins for the author himself. Meditative, surprising, playful, and provocative, A Ballet of Lepers is vivid in its detail, unsparing in its gaze, and reveals the great artist and visceral genius like never before."--
Subjects: Short stories.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Everyone you hate is going to die : and other comforting thoughts on family, friends, sex, love, and more things that ruin your life / by Sloss, Daniel,author.;
"From one of the hottest young comedians at work today--two Netflix specials, a world tour, a brand new HBO special, and a well-earned reputation as mind-bogglingly funny and hilariously offensive and challenging--a book about his favorite subject ... and you will never think about relationships in the same way again. Daniel Sloss's comedy engages, enrages, offends, makes people uncomfortable, provides solace, and gets everyone roaring with laughter--all at the same time. Dark, his first Netflix comedy special, is a brilliant, somehow laugh-out loud funny meditation on our relationship with death. Jigsaw, his second Netflix special, needles apart the ideas of love, romantic relationships, and marriage--and according to Sloss has caused 120 divorces and some 50,000 break-ups (and he's got the Tweets to back up those numbers). Now, in his first book, he picks up where Jigsaw left off, and goes after every conceivable kind of relationship between two people--with one's country (Daniel's is Scotland), with America, with lovers, ex-lovers, ex-lovers who you hate, ex-lovers who hate you, parents, best friends (male and female), not-best friends, children, and siblings. Every relationship gets the full, inimitable Sloss treatment as he explains why each one is fragile and ridiculous and awful--but, just maybe, also valuable and meaningful. In any case, one way or the other, under his pen, they are all hilarious"--
Subjects: Interpersonal relations;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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