Other books that might interest you

• 

  Theatre of the Unimpressed - In...

  Jordan Tannahill

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  How dull plays are killing theatre and what we can do about it.
     
  Had I become disenchanted with the form I had once fallen so madly in love with as a pubescent, pimple-faced suburban homo with braces? Maybe theatre was like an all-consuming high school infatuation that now, ten years later, I saw as the closeted balding guy with a beer gut he’d become. There were of course those rare moments of transcendencethat kept me coming back. But why did they come so few and far between?
     
  A lot of plays are dull. And one dull play, it seems, can turn us off theatre for good. Playwright and theatre director Jordan Tannahill takes in the spectrum of English-language drama – from the flashiest of Broadway spectacles to productions mounted in scrappy storefront theatres – to consider where lifeless plays come from and why they persist. Having travelled the globe talking to theatre artists, critics, passionate patrons and the theatrically disillusioned, Tannahill addresses what he considers the culture of ‘risk aversion’ paralyzing the form.
    
     
  Theatre of the Unimpressed is Tannahill’s wry and revelatory personal reckoning with the discipline he’s dedicated his life to, and a roadmap for a vital twenty-first-century theatre – one that apprehends the value of ‘liveness’ in our mediated age and the necessity for artistic risk and its attendant failures. In considering dramaturgy, programming and alternative models for producing, Tannahill aims to turn theatre from an obligation to a destination.
     
  ‘[Tannahill is] the poster child of a new generation of (theatre? film? dance?) artists for whom "interdisciplinary" is not a buzzword, but a way of life.’ —J. Kelly Nestruck, Globe and Mail
     
  ‘Jordan is one of the most talented and exciting playwrights in the country, and he will be a force to be reckoned with for years to come.’ —Nicolas Billon, Governor General's Award–winning playwright (Fault Lines)

  Show book

• 

  The Story of Your Home - A...

  Courtney Warren

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Create a space you'll love (that everyone can live with) 
   
  Your home is where you make memories, build relationships, and find sanctuary, so it should tell your story. Full of practical action items and bursting with unique and inspiring photos, The Story of Your Home is your guide to creating a space that reflects the personality and purpose of the people who live there.  
   
  With the help of interior designer Courtney Warren and her StyleSense Design Quiz, you'll start by determining the heart behind your home and the story you want to tell through it. She'll guide you through your house, one room at a time, providing tools to stretch you beyond mere aesthetics to the true essence of how you live and what you want your home to say--both to the people who live in it and those you invite in. 
   
  With Courtney's expert help, the inviting and comfortable home you long for is closer than you think. 
   
   
  "Courtney will help you create a meaningful and memorable home, one that honors the people and stories it holds while creating space for connection and new experiences. You'll want to start a project the moment you put it down!"--Lindsay Sherbondy, owner and artist at Lindsay Letters Co. 
   
  "Courtney Warren makes the challenge of weaving style and personality into your home fun, budget-friendly, and easy to achieve."--Hilary Kennedy, TV host and influencer

  Show book

• 

  Brad Lansky and the 4D-Verse

  J.D. Venne

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  MAMAI Soliton found a way to travel through the toroid artefact in the Anti-STARC. The cryptic note he left before disappearing leads Brad and Alex to Drupa 5, a deserted alien planet. There they find a beacon in a desert canyon that might belong to MAMAI.  
  Next thing they hit upon a treasure trove of alien artefacts; to Alex, an explorer’s dream come true - to Brad, too good to be true. Alex’s personality suddenly changes. And then there are the shapes…. 
  This moment strains their friendship and marks the start of a devious plan by unseen agents. Subsequent events drive the rift between them ever wider. Can trust win through when reality itself is being manipulated? Can friendship survive in a game dictated by malevolent superbeings? 
  Alex is soon lost in a higher dimension where his only hope is a friend’s loyalty. In his desperation Brad accepts the help of a sinister warship and soon finds himself at the forefront of GAIA’s power struggle with an old enemy, an enemy that has just taken the arms race to a completely new, and terrifying level.Track 1 – Expensive Coordinates – Brad and Alex look for MAMAI Soliton in a desert canyon on Drupa 5, an alien planet. What they see is not what they find, and what they find is not what it seems.Track 2 – Message from MAMAI – Is the beacon MAMAI’s? Whose alien artefacts did they help themselves to? And what about the shapes?Track 3 – The Mystery Goggles – Alex finds mysterious goggles in the galley. What do they do? Kimberly, a friendly operating system guide offers to help.Track 4 – Entangled in Tethys – Brad and Alex pay Aleph One a visit on a moon of Saturn. They find only secrets and madness.Track 5 – The Siren of Drupa 5 – Kimberly makes contact again, this time without the goggles. Alex is not himself, and she bends him to her will.Track 6 – First Visit in 4D-verse –  Kimberly takes Alex on a heady tour under the fractal fortress in 4D-verse. Track 7 – The Real Me in the Mirror – A bad hangover for Alex and a fall-out with his best friend. Can it get any worse?Track 8 – Room within a Room – Solefuge sheds some light on the problem with Alex. They need to act before Kimberly strikes again.Track 9 – Coming Clean with GAIA – Too late. It’s time to lay all cards on the table and join forces.Track 10 – The Fractal Fortress – Brad enters 4D-verse to rescue Alex.  GAIA’s primitive transform can only render Brad in flat mode – a state with many limitations, but are there any advantages?Track 11 – Diamond Moon –  Betrayed, Alex finally comes to terms with his situation in 4D-verse.Track 12 – The State of Pan-dimensional Affairs – Brad and Alex learn a lot about their place in the universe. Track 13 – A Small Matter of Symmetry – Brad and Alex are shocked to find their old enemy in 4D-verse. Even if they survive the fight, how will they get back to 3D-verse?Track 14 – The Map – Brad falls victim to an A.I. error. D5 leaves them with a special map.

  Show book

• 

  The Golden Flea - A Story of...

  Michael Rips

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Across America and around the world, people wander through flea markets to search for lost treasures. For decades, no such market was more renowned than the legendary Chelsea flea market, which sprawled over several blocks and within an old garage on the west side of Manhattan. Visitors would trawl through booths crammed with vintage dresses, rare books, ancient swords, glass eyeballs, Afghan rugs, West African fetish dolls, Old Master paintings, and much more.In The Golden Flea, the acclaimed writer Michael Rips takes listeners on a trip through this charmed world. With a beguiling style that has won praise from Joan Didion and Susan Orlean, Rips recounts his obsession with the flea and its treasures and provides a fascinating account of the business of buying and selling antiques. Along the way, he introduces us to the flea's lovable oddball cast of vendors, pickers, and collectors, including a haberdasher who only sells to those he deems worthy; an art dealer whose obscure paintings often go for enormous sums; a troubadour who sings to attract customers; and the Prophet, who finds wisdom among all the treasures and trash.As Rips's passion for collecting grows and the flea's last days loom, he undertakes a quest to prove the provenance of a mysterious painting that just might be the one.

  Show book

• 

  The End - Surviving the World...

  Katie Goh

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Throughout history, apocalypse fiction has explored social injustice through fantasy, sci-fi and religious imagery, but what can we learn from it? Why do we escape very real disaster via dystopia? Why do we fantasise about the end of the world?
  
  The word "apocalypse" has roots in ancient Greek, with apo ("off") and kalýptein ("cover") combining to form apokálypsis, meaning to uncover or reveal. In considering apocalypse fiction across culture and its role in how we manage, manifest and imagine social, economic and political crises, Goh navigates what this genre reveals about our contemporary anxieties, and why we turn to disaster time and again.
  
  From blockbusters like War of the Worlds to The Handmaid's Tale and far beyond, we venture through global pandemics to the climate crisis, seeking real answers in the midst of our fictional destruction.
  
  Let's journey to the end.

  Show book

• 

  Jazz As Critique - Adorno and...

  Fumi Okiji

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  This “lucidly argued, historically grounded . . . and timely book” reexamines the relationship between black cultures, jazz music, and critical theory (Alexander G. Weheliye, Northwestern University). A sustained engagement with the work of Theodor Adorno, Jazz As Critique looks to jazz for ways of understanding the inadequacies of contemporary life. While Adorno's writings on jazz are notoriously dismissive, he has faith in the critical potential of some musical traditions. Music, he suggests, can provide insight into the controlling, destructive nature of modern society while offering a glimpse of more empathetic and less violent ways of being together in the world.   Taking Adorno down a new path, Okiji calls attention to an alternative sociality made manifest in jazz. In response to writing that tends to portray it as a mirror of American individualism and democracy, she makes the case for jazz as a model of “gathering in difference.” Noting that this mode of subjectivity emerged in response to the distinctive history of black America, she reveals that the music cannot but call the integrity of the world into question.

  Show book