Imagined Life

The captivating possibilities of extraterrestrial life on exoplanets, based on current scientific knowledge of existing worlds and forms of life It is now known that we live in a galaxy with more planets than stars. The Milky Way alone encompasses 30 trillion potential home planets. Scientists Trefil and Summers bring readers on a marvelous experimental voyage through the possibilities of life--unlike anything we have experienced so far--that could exist on planets outside our own solar system. Life could be out there in many forms: on frozen worlds, living in liquid oceans beneath ice and communicating (and even battling) with bubbles; on super-dense planets, where they would have evolved body types capable of dealing with extreme gravity; on tidally locked planets with one side turned eternally toward a star; and even on "rogue worlds," which have no star at all. Yet this is no fictional flight of fancy: the authors take what we know about exoplanets and life on our own world and use that data to hypothesize about how, where, and which sorts of life might develop. Imagined Life is a must-have for anyone wanting to learn how the realities of our universe may turn out to be far stranger than fiction.

Peg Conley has been an artist all her life but, like many of us, took a long detour into the working world where she was a "corporate sales queen" in Seattle with a lot of success and a happy, busy family. Art became the thing she did on vacations, weekends and when she could carve time out of her busy life. Something gnawed at her, a nagging feeling that life might hold something else for her in the midst of it all. Then came the big "aha" moment—Peg heard a still small voice inside: "Imagine the life you want to live, then live it. It's that simple!" Her family encouraged Peg to pursue her passion. Despite a great deal of fear, Peg Conley did the thing she thought she could not do and dropped her big job, big house and big life and moved to San Francisco to start a business based on her artisan stationery. From a handful of handpainted cards, calendars and posters, her company Words & Watercolors was born and has been inspiring people, winning awards and raking in the sales ever since. Peg's intention with her work is to inspire and her art and writing all speak to life's great truths and those aha moments for which we all need reminders. What do you “imagine” your Ideal Life to be? It may take some time for it to unveil itself. You will need to have an idea of what it is you are looking to create. Spend some time in contemplation. For some that means a quiet meditation where images might come to you. For others, you might write about something you’ve always had a longing to create, or a dream that seemed far away and not attainable yet it doesn’t go away. The dream nudges at you, asking you to pay attention. Where words work for some people, pictures work for others. You may want to create a vision board. Gather your old magazines and begin ripping out the pictures that appeal to you, or draw your own images. Your Ideal Life will come alive via the images that resonate with you. Don’t hesitate to pick up a pen, pencil or crayons even and fill the blank pages with doodles of any kind. Do you still think of becoming a nurse? Don’t be disheartened, go online and research classes you can take at your local college to start the process. As someone once said, if you don’t start now, 5 years from now you still will be where you are but if you begin with baby steps, in 5 years you could be in a completely different place! So ask yourself the question: “What does the life I long to live look like?” Imagine it! Draw it, write it, collage it and just plain dream it. Believe you can have it and then go about creating it as you take daily steps towards becoming an enhanced version of yourself! All successful people are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day toward their distant vision, that goal or purpose.

Perceptive, controversial, topical, and achingly funny, Miriam Toews’s books have earned her a place at the forefront of Canadian literature. In this first monograph on Toews’s work, Sabrina Reed examines the interplay of trauma and resilience in the author’s fiction. Reed skillfully demonstrates how Toews situates resilience across key themes, including: the home as both a source of trauma and an inspiration for resilient action; the road trip as a search for resolution and redemption; and the reframing of the Mennonite diaspora as an escape from patriarchal oppression. The deaths by suicide of Toews’s father and sister stand out as the most shocking and tragic of the author’s biographical details, and Reed explores Toews’s use of autofiction as a reparative gesture in the face of this trauma. Written in an accessible style that will appeal to both scholars and devotees of Toews’s work, Lives Lived, Lives Imagined is a timely examination of Toews’s oeuvre and a celebration of fiction’s ability to simultaneously embody compassion and anger, joy and sadness, and to brave the personal and communal oppressions of politics, religion, family, society, and mental illness.

Are you enjoying a God-imagined life, fulfilling dreams and leaving a contagious legacy worth inheriting? Or are you only following your own imagination, pursuing mundane and hollow worldly paths that lead to only temporary success and limited joy? God-Imagined Adventures is a series of real-life experiences and examples sure to inspire you to dream and live as God imagines. Jeff "Coach" Zirkle will encourage you through these real stories, showing you all the joys and challenges that come in the seasons of life and in biblical principles that will work. You will learn how to build a healthy spirit, mind, and body, gaining intimacy in relationships and improving finances as you enjoy a servant lifestyle. Coach Zirkle's real-life stories will broaden the possibilities of your life and comfort your heart. His amusing life encounters can uplift your soul as you laugh and relive family adventures and Christmas stories; walking with characters in the biblical stories of Jesus's birth will also provide fresh insights and inspire imaginative celebrations of faith and goodwill. With God-Imagined Adventures, you will gain valuable insight to key questions in life, overcome and thrive in tough times, and pursue God-sized dreams as you fulfill your destiny. Above all, these adventurous life stories will connect your heart to God's love, truth, joy, hope, and destiny. So read and take the dare--live as God imagines you!

"Eight internationally acclaimed authors have invented imaginary biographies and character sketches based on fourteen unidentified portraits... in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery."--Back cover.

Awarded 2013 PROSE Honorable Mention in Media & Cultural Studies With the resurgent interest in his work today, this is a timely reevaluation of this foundational figure in Cultural Studies, a critical but friendly review of both Hoggart's work and reputation. Re-examines the reputation of one of the ‘inventors’ of Cultural Studies Uses new archival sources to critically evaluate Hoggart's contribution and influence, set his work in context, and determine its current relevance Addresses detractors and their positions of Hoggart, delineating long-term ideological battles within academia Brings cultural studies, literary criticism, and social history to bear on this figure whose interests spread across disciplines, to create a text which blends many threads into a coherent whole

Recognising that problems with body image are often the lead cause of eating disorders, therapists are increasingly looking for innovative and effective ways to address these issues with clients. This book is packed with simple, inexpensive art-based activities that use a range of media to engage with common body image concerns openly and creatively. The activities employ basic principles from Behavioral Therapy including mindfulness and emotion regulation and use common and familiar objects to create a reassuring environment. Discussion and evaluation are encouraged throughout to enhance awareness and appreciation of self. All the exercises, and their objectives, are thoroughly explained with illustrative case studies and sample artworks from the author's extensive therapeutic experience. These adaptable art exercises will be the perfect resource for any professional to promote healthy body image in group or individual work, with girls and women. They can be used as preventative strategies with girls still developing their identities, and will be especially useful at all stages of eating disorder treatment programs.

Mixing fiction, history, psychoanalysis, and personal fantasy, Teresa, My Love turns a past world into a modern marvel, following Sylvia Leclercq, a French psychoanalyst, academic, and incurable insomniac, as she falls for the sixteenth-century Saint Teresa of Avila and becomes consumed with charting her life. Traveling to Spain, Leclercq, Julia Kristeva's probing alter ego, visits the sites and embodiments of the famous mystic and awakens to her own desire for faith, connection, and rebellion. One of Kristeva's most passionate and transporting works, Teresa, My Love interchanges biography, autobiography, analysis, dramatic dialogue, musical scores, and images of paintings and sculpture to engage the reader in Leclercq's—and Kristeva's—journey. Born in 1515, Teresa of Avila outwitted the Spanish Inquisition and was a key reformer of the Carmelite Order. Her experience of ecstasy, which she intimately described in her writings, released her from her body and led to a complete realization of her consciousness, a state Kristeva explores in relation to present-day political failures, religious fundamentalism, and cultural malaise. Incorporating notes from her own psychoanalytic practice, as well as literary and philosophical references, Kristeva builds a fascinating dual diagnosis of contemporary society and the individual psyche while sharing unprecedented insights into her own character.