Patterned Ground: Entanglements of Nature and Culture

Book Description

Patterned Ground unravels the entangled relationships between nature and culture. Around 100 entries by leading names in new geography and related disciplines focus on various ‘objects’ in the landscape – from beaches to battlefields, bees to horses, police stations to post-offices, trees to tractors. Each piece, written by an expert in the field, explores the way in which we understand that object and its relationship to the world around it. This book is neither encyclopedia nor dictionary, but a knowledgeable and impassioned engagement with the world. In this sense, it chimes with earlier experiments in understanding the earth and its landscapes, whether these endeavors have been conducted within the sciences, the social sciences or the arts.Patterned Ground backtracks from familiar and obvious ways of seeing patterns in the world, and discovers it anew. In this way, it opens up new possibilities for thinking about the relationships between ourselves, objects and the ground on which we walk.

Amazon.com

If you're keen on delving into a country's culture and history, you'll do well with Moon Handbooks. Moon offers an amazingly thorough look at this tightly controlled metropolis at the crossroads of Asia--from its beginnings as an important Malay trading post to the arrival of the British East India Company (under Sir Thomas Raffles) to the government's highly publicized ban of chewing gum in 1992. Singapore is a melting pot of nationalities--Chinese, Malaysian, Thai, Indian--and that diversity is reflected in its varied neighborhoods: Colonial Singapore, dominated by the magnificent Raffles Hotel; Little India, with its bazaars bursting with spices and saris; Chinatown, home to Buddhist and Taoist temples; and Orchard Road, once the stomping ground of wild tigers and now the poshest shopping street. Throughout, readers will find sidebars on a variety of topics ("Singlish," the peculiar Singaporean English; soaring real estate prices; even the red-light districts--yes, they do exist). There are also plenty of tips to make your trip as seamless as possible, including common words and phrases and recommended reading (Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim). --Jill Fergus

Book Description

Moon Handbooks: Singapore is the most comprehensive resource available for your trip to this sophisticated and bustling city. Whether you're a budget backpacker or a conventional tourist, you'll find detailed reviews of hotels, restaurants, and attractions, along with up-to-date political and social information. With 30 detailed maps, Moon Handbooks: Singapore will guide you where you want to go. "Provides the details needed by anyone wanting more than just an overview-packed with quirky corners and off-the-beaten track diversions to appeal to the serious traveler." -- Asia-Pacific News Service

Book Description

This is the first book published on the emerging research field of naturally occurring gas hydrates (focusing on methane hydrate) that is not primarily a physical chemistry textbook. This book is designed as a broad introduction to the field of hydrate science, demonstrating the significance of the hydrate cycle to energy resource potential, seafloor stability, and global climate and climate change, along with other issues. The best known hydrate localities are described, as are research and laboratory methods and results. The book consists of chapters grouped in related themes that present up-to-date information on methane hydrate. Each of the contributing authors is expert in hydrate science and most have been carrying out research in hydrate for a considerable time. Audience: This book will be an important source of information for marine geologists, geophysicists, geochemists, and petroleum geologists and regulators. It is also intended as a graduate-level textbook.

Book Description

Only recently did mankind realise that it resides in a world of networks. The Internet and World Wide Web are changing our life. Our physical existence is based on various biological networks. We have recently learned that the term "network" turns out to be a central notion in our time, and the consequent explosion of interest in networks is a social and cultural phenomenon. The principles of the complex organization and evolution of networks, natural and artificial, are the topic of this book, which is written by physicists and is addressed to all involved researchers and students. The aim of the text is to understand networks and the basic principles of their structural organization and evolution. The ideas are presented in a clear and a pedagogical way, with minimal mathematics, so even students without a deep knowledge of mathematics and statistical physics will be able to rely on this as a reference. Special attention is given to real networks, both natural and artifical. Collected empirical data and numerous real applications of existing theories are discussed in detail, as well as the topical problems of communication networks.

EVOLUTION OF NETWORKS:FROM BIOLOGICAL NETS TO THE INTERNET & WWW

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EVOLUTION OF NETWORKS:FROM BIOLOGICAL NETS TO THE INTERNET & WWW
DOROGOVTSEV/MENDES
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OLEDB2

Book Description

Collected here in one volume are six works that represent nearly a quarter century in the productive life of one of the most accomplished and admired of American writers. They explore the private worlds of our "Gilded Age." A once free-spirited American woman in Paris tries to extricate herself from her marriage to a French aristocrat in "Madame de Treymes." A divorced mother finds herself in a strange romantic triangle in "The Mother's Recompense." Repressed passions smolder in small town New England in the classic "Ethan Frome," a tale of unhappy marriage and desperate love which erupts in an act of shattering violence, and in "Summer," which Wharton called the "hot 'Ethan.'" Also included here are "Old New York," four linked novellas set in succeeding decades from the 1840s to the 1870s, Wharton's renowned autobiography "A Backward Glance," and "Life and I," a fascinating autobiographical fragment published here for the first time.

Customer Reviews:

Short novels of society.......2007-03-22

In a way, Edith Wharton was at her best in her novellas -- her stories are lean, taut and emotionally deep. And "Edith Wharton: Novellas and Other Writings" explores views on love, sex, marriage, the conventions of the 19th and early 20th century, and even her own life. They're not just fascinating, but beautifully written.

"Ethan Frome" is the male half of a loveless marriage, with the fretful, fussy Zeena. Then Zeena's lovely cousin Mattie Silver comes to live with them, and she brings out a happier, more passionate side of Ethan. But when Mattie is sent away, Ethan must make a decision. He knows he can't stay in his horrible marriage, so will he run away with Mattie? The choice they make will affect all three lives.

"Summer" shocked the 1917 public, with its frank-for-its-time look at a young woman's sexual awakening. It takes place in the New England village of North Dormer, where the young librarian Charity lives. But when Charity falls in love with an upper-class young rake named Lucius, she finds herself pregnant and unmarried -- a destructive combination in the 1900s. There's only one respectable way out.

"The Mother's Recompense" explores the difficulties of Kate Clephane, who abandoned her husband and daughter, and now lives as an unhappy divorcee on the Riviera. She's unexpectedly invited back, to attend her daughter's wedding -- only to find that her daughter's fiancee is one of Kate's ex-lovers. Now Kate has to wrestle her own regrets and jealousies, to figure out whether to tell her daughter the truth.

"Madame De Treymes" is a sort of Henry Jamesian novella, taking place in early twentieth-century Paris. It follows the unhappy lives abroad of two Americans -- the miserable Fanny Frisbee is married to a nasty aristocrat, and living in Paris. As a knight on a white horse, her friend John is trying to convince her to divorce her hubby and marry him...

"Old New York" is a collection of four novellas, exploring different facets of, well, Old New York -- family strife, adultery, illegitimate children, and a young man's inner changes. And "A Backward Glance" is totally different -- Wharton's autobiography, describing not only her life, but her friendships with the artists of the day, and the inspirations for her rich fiction.

Edith Wharton gave unvarnished looks at social conventions throughout her career -- she doesn't judge, she just tells it how it was, whether she's talking about the Roaring 20s or the uptight Victorian era. Divorce was almost unthinkable, affairs scandalous if revealed, and women had the cards stacked against them in matters of love, marriage and sex.

So her works are even better when you set them in context, full of characters who were totally unlike her. Some were male, some timid and naive, some disgraced (she herself was divorced, though this didn't hurt her socially), and some completely broken by society's dictates. Few of her characters are much like Wharton, but she gets inside their heads and makes them entirely believable.

Wharton's formal, often poetic writing style makes these stories all the richer. They're rich with light, smells, sounds and the swirl of nature, even in a city. But it's offset by the starkness of her stories -- if she took a hard look at hypocrises and social conventions, she didn't flinch from showing what happened to those that transgressed. It's realistic, but a bit depressing.

Doomed love and personal reflection are what makes up a lot of "Edith Wharton: Novellas and Other Writings," a magnificent collection of her shorter books. Sad and beautiful, gripping and classic.

Ethan Frome.......2003-11-07

Ethan Frome is a man that has never been able to make decisions for himself. When he married his wife Zeena it the fact that she made a good companion for the situation with his mother. Their relationship was good at first but it slowly started to die when zeena became sickly. He always did what would be best for other people, but when zeena's cousin came to live with them he took time to see her because Mattie made him feel good about himself. Ethan has been in the same place all of his life and never found a true love. Then mattie came and for once ethan stopped looking at what would be best and started looking for that wonderful feeling.

quick to read but still has a twisted plot.......1999-11-16

I had to read this in under two hours for a literary project and I was very pleased to discover an author who managed to write such a constant yet emotional plot in less than 100 pages. It still hasn't dawned on me whether or not Durham was sensible in his choice. I will be writing a full analysis this week so if ever you need help, email me, and I'd be glad to be of service. Good read for the intellectually stimulating conversationalists.

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A Mother's Dilemma
A Fantastic Voyage Across an Hysterical Sea

The Mother's Recompense
Edith Wharton
Manufacturer: Scribner
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Literary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0684825317

Book Description

Opening on the French Riviera among a motley community of American expatriates, The Mother's Recompense tells the story of Kate Clephane and her reluctant return to New York society after being exiled years before for abandoning her husband and infant daughter.

Oddly enough, Kate has been summoned back by that same daughter, Anne, now fully grown and intent on marrying Chris Fenno, a war hero, dilettante, and social opportunist. Chris's questionable intentions toward her daughter are, however, the least of Kate's worries since she was once, and still is, deeply in love with him. Kate's moral quandary and the ensuing drama evoke comparison with Oedipus and Hamlet and lead to an ending that startled the mores of the day.

Customer Reviews:

A Mother's Dilemma.......2004-10-19

Written in 1925, this less well-known novel by Edith Wharton examines a mother's dilemma. Kate Clephane, the heroine of this novel, deserted her wealthy husband and young daughter twenty years before, when she fled the social constraints of her proper home in New York, at the turn of the century. After the end of that affair she seeks to be reunited with her child, but is denied this by her husband and mother in law. Ostracized by friends and family, Kate leads a life of love affairs and social gatherings amid the frivolous expatriate community on the Riviera. One day she receives a telegram from her now grown daughter. Kate's mother-in-law has died and the girl summons her to return to New York in an attempt to rekindle their relationship. Things go well for a while, until Kate discovers that her daughter is planning on marrying Chris one of Kate's near do well former lovers. Kate is repelled by the thought. She wrestles with what she should do. Should she tell her daughter of her former relationship with Chris, putting her relationship with her daughter in jeopardy? Should she attempt to break up the relationship to save her daughter from marrying a man whose character indicates he was not meant to marry? Or should she keep silent and not break her daughter's heart. The reader struggles with Kate over which is the correct decision, as well as what motivates Kate's behavior. Does she want to end the relationship between her daughter and Chris out of jealousy, or perhaps selfishness? I won't reveal her choice. But in the end she forgoes her own happiness in rejecting the hand of a suitor. Why? This is for the reader to decide. There are similaries in plot and style with Henry James' Washington Square, where a father intrudes into the relationship of his shy daughter with a potentially disastrous suitor.

A Fantastic Voyage Across an Hysterical Sea.......1998-07-28

This novel which has gone undiscovered for many years deserves close scrutiny and ultimately a judgement on the heroine. The introduction invites the author to decide whether the mother is merely hysterical or has real cause for concern. Whatever the outcome it is a difficult and delightful decision to make

Mother's Recompense, The (The Collected Works of Edith Wharton - 43 Volumes)

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Mother's Recompense, The (The Collected Works of Edith Wharton - 43 Volumes)
Edith Wharton
Manufacturer: Classic Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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THE MOTHER'S RECOMPENSE
GRACE AGUILAR
Manufacturer: RICHARD EDWARD
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000S294B6

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The Mother's Recompense
Grace Aguilar
Manufacturer: IndyPublish.com
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Love & Romance | Relationships | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

Marriage | Relationships | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

General | Parenting & Families | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1414230591

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The Mother's Recompense
Grace Aguilar
Manufacturer: IndyPublish.com
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Love & Romance | Relationships | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

Marriage | Relationships | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

General | Parenting & Families | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1414230834

The Mother's Recompense (The Sundial Series)

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The Mother's Recompense (The Sundial Series)

Manufacturer: Miles & Miles
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000GM1PMY

The Mother's Recompense (V1, A Sequel To Home Influence)

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The Mother's Recompense (V1, A Sequel To Home Influence)
Grace Aguilar
Manufacturer: IndyPublish
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Love & Romance | Relationships | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1428086498

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The Mother's Recompense (V1, A Sequel To Home Influence)
Grace Aguilar
Manufacturer: IndyPublish
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Love & Romance | Relationships | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1428086536

The Mother's Recompense : A Sequel to Home Influence

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The Mother's Recompense : A Sequel to Home Influence
Grace Aguilar
Manufacturer: D. Appleton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000RTSSNK

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