The Minor Fall is a modern interpretation of an Old Testament saga. Davy Jessie is a young, personal injury trial lawyer working as an associate in a top-drawer law firm in Houston, Texas in 2005. In addition to trying difficult (sometimes impossible to win) cases assigned to him by the firm, Davy also assists Tim Sullivan (one of the named partners in the firm) in prosecuting more serious cases. Sullivan is a flamboyant, fashionable, facile at formulating a memorable turn of phrase, philandering litigator with a long history of trial victories and the material rewards that a contingency fee practice can yield. Davy is enamored with Sullivan and attempts to emulate Sullivan’s professional (and personal) behavior. After Davy wins one of the cases he was not expected to win, Sullivan designates Davy to lead the firm’s efforts in representing a group of landowners in eastern Kentucky whose properties have been contaminated by oil field production. Beth Sheehan, a contract lawyer hired by the firm to help with discovery on the case, travels to Kentucky with Davy where they have a brief affair, Davy returns to find that his wife Michelle is pregnant. The fallout from the affair and the stress of preparing the case send Davy spiraling into depression and emotional paralysis. Along the way down to his moral crisis, Davy contemplates existential questions about the nature of law, the importance of literature, the existence of God, and what (if anything other than single malt Scotch or cold chardonnay) gives meaning to life as he considers losing his wife, leaving the law firm, and abandoning the practice of law.

Rock falls can be a public safety issue. This book provides comprehensive information on identification of these hazards, and design and construction of protection methods.Rock Fall Engineering describes first, the theoretical background to rock fall behavior in terms of the impact and trajectory phases of rock falls, and second, how this informati

Praised as "brilliantly revelatory...a masterful work of critical journalism" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), The Holy or the Broken is the fascinating account of one of the most-performed rock songs in history--Leonard Cohen's heartrending "Hallelujah." How did one obscure song become an international anthem for human triumph and tragedy, a song each successive generation seems to feel they have discovered and claimed as uniquely their own? Celebrated music journalist Alan Light follows the improbable journey of "Hallelujah" straight to the heart of popular culture.

In the most comprehensive account to date of Walter Benjamin’s philosophy of language, Alexander Stern explores the nature of meaning by putting Benjamin in dialogue with Wittgenstein. Known largely for his essays on culture, aesthetics, and literature, Walter Benjamin also wrote on the philosophy of language. This early work is famously obscure and considered hopelessly mystical by some. But for Alexander Stern, it contains important insights and anticipates—in some respects surpasses—the later thought of a central figure in the philosophy of language, Ludwig Wittgenstein. As described in The Fall of Language, Benjamin argues that “language as such” is not a means for communicating an extra-linguistic reality but an all-encompassing medium of expression in which everything shares. Borrowing from Johann Georg Hamann’s understanding of God’s creation as communication to humankind, Benjamin writes that all things express meanings, and that human language does not impose meaning on the objective world but translates meanings already extant in it. He describes the transformations that language as such undergoes while making its way into human language as the “fall of language.” This is a fall from “names”—language that responds mimetically to reality—to signs that designate reality arbitrarily. While Benjamin’s approach initially seems alien to Wittgenstein’s, both reject a designative understanding of language; both are preoccupied with Russell’s paradox; and both try to treat what Wittgenstein calls “the bewitchment of our understanding by means of language.” Putting Wittgenstein’s work in dialogue with Benjamin’s sheds light on its historical provenance and on the turn in Wittgenstein’s thought. Although the two philosophies diverge in crucial ways, in their comparison Stern finds paths for understanding what language is and what it does.

Being able to understand and use primary research is essential tool in any scientific career. This book teaches these valuable skills simply and clearly, saving you hours in the long run.