In 2004, late in her legendary career, Ágota Kristóf wrote this slim dagger of a memoir about being a refugee after fleeing Hungary in 1956 Narrated in a series of stark, brief vignettes, The Illiterate is Ágota Kristóf’s memoir of her childhood, her escape from Hungary in 1956 with her husband and small child, her early years working in factories in Switzerland, and the writing of her first novel, The Notebook. Few writers can convey so much in so little space. Fierce yet almost pointedly flat and documentarian in tone, Kristóf portrays with a disturbing level of detail and directness an implacable message of loss: first, she is forced to learn Russian as a child (with the Soviet takeover of Hungary, Russian became obligatory at school); next, at age twenty-one, she finds herself required to learn French to survive: I have spoken French for more than thirty years, I have written in French for twenty years, but I still don’t know it. I don’t speak it without mistakes, and I can only write it with the help of dictionaries, which I frequently consult. It is for this reason that I also call the French language an enemy language. There is a further reason, the most serious of all: this language is killing my mother tongue.

It is startling and it is shaming: in a country that prides itself on being among the most enlightened in the world, 25 million American adults cannot read the poison warnings on a can of pesticide, a letter from their child’s teacher, or the front page of a newspaper. An additional 35 million read below the level needed to function successfully in our society. The United States ranks forty-ninth among 158 member nations of the UN in literacy, and wastes over $100 billion annually as a result. The problem is not merely an embarrassment, it is a social and economic disaster. In Illiterate America, Jonathan Kozol, author of National Book Award-winning Death at an Early Age, addresses this national disgrace. Combining hard statistics and heartrending stories, he describes the economic and the human costs of illiteracy. Kozol analyses and condemns previous government action—and inaction—and, in a passionate call for reform, he proposes a specific program to conquer illiteracy. One out of every three American adults cannot read this book—which is why everyone else must.

The Illiterate is an absurdist comedy about a writer named Jones who wakes up one morning unable to read. After discovering his illiteracy, Jones consults a number of doctors and friends. But instead of providing relief, his encounters make him increasingly confused and ultimately cause his life to fall apart. His illiteracy creates an existential crisis - a crisis further complicated by the simple fact that Jones suffers from an ailment that no one he seeks help from can understand. Feeling alienated from his former life, Jones eventually embraces the nihilism his new condition seems to push him toward. He embarks on a surreal adventure throughout New York City, one governed only by his impulses and instinctual reactions, which culminates when he's tricked into working as a sideshow freak on Coney Island. In the end, left with only a crippling sense of paranoia, Jones decides to leave the city for good in order to distance himself from his past and focus on his future. Immediately after he acts on this resolution and finds himself in a car speeding away from the city, Jones discovers that, oddly enough, he can read once again.

This is a new release of the original 1924 edition.

We have known for some time that babies possess a keen perceptual sensitivity for the melodic, rhythmic and dynamic aspects of speech and music: aspects that linguists are inclined to categorize under the term ‘prosody’, but which are in fact the building blocks of music. Only much later in a child’s development does he make use of this ‘musical prosody’, for instance in delineating and subsequently recognizing word boundaries. In this essay Henkjan Honing makes a case for ‘illiterate listening’, the human ability to discern, interpret and appreciate musical nuances already from day one, long before a single word has been uttered, let alone conceived. It is the preverbal and preliterate stage that is dominated by musical listening. See also the download version.

It is essential that every business executive be conversant in the principles of finance. This is a handbook for developing your financial acumen to give you a stronger voice inside the executive boardroom. From accounting to finance, from risk management to capital allocation -- no stone is left unturned. This is a one-stop reference source to guide any executive through the most important decisions and conversations that go on in the executive boardrooms of every organization. Stories of failed executives illustrate the importance of financial acumen and provide a launching point for discussing finance principles in practical scenarios. Whether you are running your own company or an executive in a larger organization, you will become an impressive financial practitioner without getting mired in the details and theoretical complexities contained in most financial textbooks. Learn what matters and how to use it to your advantage to: - Analyze financial information with ease; - Make smarter business decisions; - Develop strategy and allocate capital with a financial return in mind; - Hire and manage financial people better, and; - Avoid financial disasters that can ruin your company.