Thirteen Ways

Robert Harbison offers a novel interpretation of what architectural theory might look like. The title is based on Wallace Stevens' "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird", and like the poem, Harbison's work is a composite structure built of oblique meanings and shifts that give a portrait of architecture in which symbol and metaphor coexist. 10 illustrations.

??Wallace Stevens? ?Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird? appeared originally in 1917 and was subsequently published in his first book, Harmonium, in 1923. In a letter, Stevens once wrote that ?this group of poems is not meant to be a collection of epigrams or of ideas, but of sensations.? If this is indeed the poet?s intent, the poem provides readers with no fewer than thirteen perspectives or observances about blackbirds, but in those ?thirteen ways? is the immeasurable culmination of sensations. Just as the poet?s imagination invites readers to discover the infinite mysteries of the world and how these unify us in unexpected ways, Corinne Jones? new visual interpretation of Stevens? poem invites us, again, to re-explore the multiplicity of observation and subsequent knowledge.????This new trade edition, a 10x10 reprint of the original fine arts book, juxtaposes Jones?s beautiful and sensual prints of blackbirds against Stevens?s poetic text. The result is that the life and power inherent in each artwork is increased wonderfully and vibrantly when taken as a whole.??.

From the author of the award-winning novel Let the Great World Spin and TransAtlantic comes an eponymous novella and three stories that range fluidly across time, tenderly exploring the act of writing and the moment of creation when characters come alive on the page; the lifetime consequences that can come from a simple act; and the way our lives play across the world, marking language, image and each other. Thirteen Ways of Looking is framed by two author’s notes, each dealing with the brutal attack the author suffered last year and strikes at the heart of contemporary issues at home and in Ireland, the author’s birth place. Brilliant in its clarity and deftness, this collection reminds us, again, why Colum McCann is considered among the very best contemporary writers.

Let’s suppose you have a really ambitious goal in life – you want to kill your community! You want to drive away people, eliminate jobs, undermine businesses, and you won’t quit until the whole place is in ruins. Don’t know how to go about it? You’re in luck – here is a handy manual, chock-full of proven ideas, for the up-and-coming town wrecker. This is the book for you! But suppose you have a different goal – you want to save your community. You want to promote growth, ensure prosperity, build for the future. Well, you too can benefit from 13 Ways. All you have to do is follow the advice in reverse, and before you know it, you and your neighbours will have built a thriving, successful community that’s the envy of everyone.

For reasons both obvious and mysterious, even as our cultural and social constructions of domesticity change, the house remains a fundamental site for advancing modern architectural theory and practice: because it accommodates a full diurnal and annual cycle of life, and because it intricately stages ritual and routine, this most private of programs has become a medium of publicity and polemic. Thirteen Ways of Looking at a House both participates in and critiques this contemporary tradition. The reader's attention in this examination is directed not only to LEVENBETTS' houses, but to all houses, and all parts of houses--pieces of home and rhetorics of domesticity that show up in our collective memory: from a stolen moment on a staircase in a John Cassavetes film, to the sturdy knife-edged contractor modernism of suburban late to mid-twentieth-century America. Thirteen Ways of Looking at a House is an accessible and universal book--everyone has a sense of home. The book includes thirteen texts on domestic pieces that make up the house, comparative diagrams, construction metrics and anecdotes, informal photos, and structural details all in the interest of taking the house apart in order to put it back together.

A picture book that celebrates the rich and complex lives of black boys and men.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning author's revelatory celebration of the novel - at once an anatomy of the art of fiction, a guide for readers and writers and a memoir of literary life. Over her 20 year career, Jane Smiley has written many kinds of novels - mystery, comedy, historical fiction, epic. But when her impulse to write faltered after 9/11, she decided to approach novels from a different angle: she read 100 of them, from the 1000-year-old Tale of Genji to the recent bestseller White Teeth by Zadie Smith, from classics to little-known gems. With these books and her experience of reading them as her reference, Smiley discusses the pleasure of reading; why a novel succeeds - or doesn't; and how the form has changed over time. She delves into the character of the novelist and reveals how (and which) novels have affected her own life.

13 Ways to Kill Your Community is lively, full of personality, conversational, breezy, succinct, and fun. One can imagine readers seeking out information on boosting their local community sighing dutifully as they seek out material and then being relieved and delighted when what they find turns out to be as entertaining as it is informative. The information provided is sometimes startling and often positively revelatory. The anecdotes and examples are delivered with wit and a little bit of a dishy factor. But underneath all the fun is a clear breadth of experience, and a no-nonsense, practical approach to community building, which can be easily grasped. 13 Ways to Kill Your Community offers practical, implementable steps that can be taken to bring a moribund community back to life. This book delivers what it promises, and it does so with wit and warmth....