ABOUT THE BOOK “A Place of My Own is the biography of a building,” writes Michael Pollan by way of introduction. In the preface of the 2008 edition, Mr. Pollan reflects on his motivations for building a hut in his backyard. He had reasons that many of us can relate to. As we spend more and more of our days at desks, in front of screens, in shopping malls and grocery stores, we become more removed from nature and the process of creating tangible things. Mr. Pollan embarks on journey to build a house, from beginning to end, from design to construction. Along the way, he learns about the history and philosophy of architecture and, of course, the practicalities of actually building a structure. He warns us, however, that this is not a how-to book. While readers may be inspired to build a house after reading his book, they would be well-advised to seek instruction elsewhere. MEET THE AUTHOR Vivian is an experienced writer and a member of the Hyperink Team, which works hard to bring you high-quality, engaging, fun content. Happy reading! EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK Different people have different requirements of the space in which they daydream. Bachelard envisioned a comfortable space set apart from others, perhaps just a comfortable chair by the fire or an attic. Virginia Woolf also wrote about a space for daydreaming in her book, A Room of One’s Own, from which the title of this chapter is derived. For her, “A lock one the door means the power to think for oneself.” The idea of a room of one’s own in which to think and create in private actually had its origins in the Renaissance. It is thought that there was a reciprocity between the space in which individuals daydreamed and developed their sense of self and the spaces that they then created. Charles R. Myer Unlike the preceding daydreamers, Pollan dreams of an entire building rather than a room within a house. On the simplest level, he wanted to build a hut because the architect helping to renovate his house mentioned that the view from the upstairs window needed a destination for the eye to see. A bench would help, but a little structure would be even better! Here we are introduced to Charles R. Myer, a college friend of Pollan’s. He is described as a true architect with an architect’s attention to detail and image hidden beneath a carefully engineered facade of casual rumple. Myer is helping them renovate their home in Conneticut. They are four months behind schedule and onto their second mortgage... Buy a copy to keep reading!

Examines and compares diplomatic practices and normative change in the African Union and ASEAN.

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Walter Scott was acutely conscious of the fictionality of his historical novels. In this 1989 book, James Kerr reads the Waverley novels as a grand fictional project constructed around the relationship between the language of fiction and historical reality. We can see throughout Scott's novels a tension between the romancer, recasting the events of the past in accordance with recognizably literary logics, and the historian, presenting an accurate account of the past. This contradiction, reflected in Scott's generic mixture of romance and realism, remains unresolved, even in the most self-conscious of his works. It is in this interplay of fiction and history that Professor Kerr identifies the rich complexity of the Waverley novels.

Claes Oldenburg, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and Donald Juddall are iconic names in art history, and each is allowed a chapter's worth of exploration by Shannon (contemporary art history theory, Univ. of Maryland), who manages to surprise us into remembering that these people were grappling with their environment and working to understand the modern urban landscape. See, for example, the photo of Johns and Rauschenberg in Rauschenberg's home. They look like two young men camped out in a cheap flat somewhere in the present day, smoking, having a drink, and talking philosophy. Yet, they were making great strides in using their art, as Shannon argues, to understand how and why "all that was once directly lived has become mere representation," eventually revealing the "inadequacy of language itself." New York City was disappearing all around them, as faceless monoliths of modern glass and steel replaced treasured places where people had lived and died. Theirs was a time of rapid change, and these themes still persist today.Nadine Dalton, Speidel Cuyahoga Cty. P.L., Parma, OH Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

It is the year 2047 and twenty-five-years-old Tennessee Murray has realized his ambition to teach and his dream of publishing a book. He is preparing to marry the love of his life and things couldn't be better.Then one morning he steps out into foggy weather and finds the world has taken a turn for the extremely bad.In a matter of minutes, half the population of Earth dies in a horrible fashion. It's not an ultimate war or biological disaster, and no oversized meteorite hit the planet or any other such catastrophe.It is sudden, it is deadly, and it is inexplicable.Seven and a half years later, Tennessee, now a tracker in a diminished world that is limping along, sets out to find a missing young woman and makes a discovery that sheds light on the longstanding mystery. He also learns that a finale is in store for the remaining peoples of Earth.Could the fate of the world hinge on the actions of an ex-middle school English teacher?