BASE

(Building, Antenna, Span, Earth)

Для членства в особом клубе BASE нужно прыгнуть с парашютом с крыши здания, антенны, моста и скалы и остаться в живых, чтобы рассказать об этом.

© 2004 Jevtо Dedijer

This is a story about a mother, two daughters, and two dogs. It’s also about Mozart and Mendelssohn, the piano and the violin, and how we made it to Carnegie Hall.

This was supposed to be a story of how Chinese parents are better at raising kids than Western ones.

But instead, it’s about a bitter clash of cultures, a fleeting taste of glory, and how I was humbled by a thirteen-year-old.

From Publishers Weekly

Chua (Day of Empire) imparts the secret behind the stereotypical Asian child’s phenomenal success: the Chinese mother. Chua promotes what has traditionally worked very well in raising children: strict, Old World, uncompromising values-and the parents don’t have to be Chinese. What they are, however, are different from what she sees as indulgent and permissive Western parents: stressing academic performance above all, never accepting a mediocre grade, insisting on drilling and practice, and instilling respect for authority. Chua and her Jewish husband (both are professors at Yale Law) raised two girls, and her account of their formative years achieving amazing success in school and music performance proves both a model and a cautionary tale. Sophia, the eldest, was dutiful and diligent, leapfrogging over her peers in academics and as a Suzuki piano student; Lulu was also gifted, but defiant, who excelled at the violin but eventually balked at her mother’s pushing. Chua’s efforts “not to raise a soft, entitled child” will strike American readers as a little scary-removing her children from school for extra practice, public shaming and insults, equating Western parenting with failure-but the results, she claims somewhat glibly in this frank, unapologetic report card, “were hard to quarrel with.”

(Jan.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Chua’s stated intent is to present the differences between Western and Chinese parenting styles by sharing experiences with her own children (now teenagers). As the daughter of Chinese immigrants, she is poised to contrast the two disparate styles, even as she points out that being a “Chinese Mother” can cross ethnic lines: it is more a state of mind than a genetic trait. Yet this is a deeply personal story about her two daughters and how their lives are shaped by such demands as Chua’s relentless insistence on straight A’s and daily hours of mandatory music practice, even while vacationing with grandparents. Readers may be stunned by Chua’s explanations of her hard-line style, and her meant-to-be humorous depictions of screaming matches intended to force greatness from her girls. She insists that Western children are no happier than Chinese ones, and that her daughters are the envy of neighbors and friends, because of their poise and musical, athletic, and academic accomplishments. Ironically, this may be read as a cautionary tale that asks just what price should be paid for achievement.

—Colleen Mondor

One of Bustle’s 17 of the Best Nonfiction Books Coming in January 2017 and Men’s Journal’s 7 Best Books of January

“Brilliant, real and readable.”

—former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright

A USA Today “New and Noteworthy” Book

Lisa Dickey traveled across the whole of Russia three times—in 1995, 2005 and 2015—making friends in eleven different cities, then coming back again and again to see how their lives had changed. Like the acclaimed British documentary series Seven Up!, she traces the ups and downs of ordinary people’s lives, in the process painting a deeply nuanced portrait of modern Russia.

From the caretakers of a lighthouse in Vladivostok, to the Jewish community of Birobidzhan, to a farmer in Buryatia, to a group of gay friends in Novosibirsk, to a wealthy “New Russian” family in Chelyabinsk, to a rap star in Moscow, Dickey profiles a wide cross-section of people in one of the most fascinating, dynamic and important countries on Earth. Along the way, she explores dramatic changes in everything from technology to social norms, drinks copious amounts of vodka, and learns firsthand how the Russians really feel about Vladimir Putin.

Including powerful photographs of people and places over time, and filled with wacky travel stories, unexpected twists, and keen insights, Bears in the Streets offers an unprecedented on-the-ground view of Russia today.

In the 150 years since the end of the Civil War and the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, the story of race and America has remained a brutally simple one, written on flesh: it is the story of the black body, exploited to create the country’s foundational wealth, violently segregated to unite a nation after a civil war, and, today, still disproportionately threatened, locked up and killed in the streets. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can America reckon with its fraught racial history?

Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates' attempt to answer those questions, presented in the form of a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son — and readers — the story of his own awakening to the truth about history and race through a series of revelatory experiences: immersion in nationalist mythology as a child; engagement with history, poetry and love at Howard University; travels to Civil War battlefields and the South Side of Chicago; a journey to France that reorients his sense of the world; and pilgrimages to the homes of mothers whose children’s lives have been taken as American plunder. Taken together, these stories map a winding path towards a kind of liberation — a journey from fear and confusion, to a full and honest understanding of the world as it is.

Masterfully woven from lyrical personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me offers a powerful new framework for understanding America’s history and current crisis, and a transcendent vision for a way forward.

Ta-Nehisi Coates is a national correspondent for the Atlantic and the author of the memoir The Beautiful Struggle. Coates has received the National Magazine Award, the Hillman Prize for Opinion and Analysis Journalism, and the George Polk Award for his Atlantic cover story ‘The Case for Reparations’. He lives in New York with his wife and son.

Книга "Billy's Blues — Истории из жизни Билли Новика" это повесть о мальчике Диме из Купчино, который превращается в известного половине страны музыканта Билли, лидера группы "Billy's Band". Она выросла из бесчисленных интервью с Билли и другими музыкантами группы и получилась такой, какой получилась. В ней угрюмые 90-е с концертами в переходах, нулевые с первыми альбомами и выступлением на новогоднем огоньке и то, что есть сейчас и пока никак не называется.

Билли книга нравится, мне тоже. Хорошо, если тех, кто ее прочитает будет больше.

Книга "Billy's Blues - Истории из жизни Билли Новика" это повесть о мальчике Диме из Купчино, который превращается в известного половине страны музыканта Билли, лидера группы "Billy's Band". Она выросла из бесчисленных интервью с Билли и другими музыкантами группы и получилась такой, какой получилась. В ней угрюмые 90-е с концертами в переходах, нулевые с первыми альбомами и выступлением на новогоднем огоньке и то, что есть сейчас и пока никак не называется.

Билли книга нравится, мне тоже. Хорошо, если тех, кто ее прочитает будет больше.

“HARROWING…RICHLY DESCRIPTIVE… [AN] ABSORBING ACCOUNT.” — The New York Times Book Review

Anthrax. Smallpox. Incurable and horrifying Ebola-related fevers. For two decades, while a fearful world prepared for nuclear winter, an elite team of Russian bioweaponeers began to till a new killing field: a bleak tract sown with powerful seeds of mass destruction — by doctors who had committed themselves to creating a biological Armageddon. Biohazard is the never-before-told story of Russia's darkest, deadliest, and most closely guarded Cold War secret.

No one knows more about Russia's astounding experiments with biowarfare than Ken Alibek. Now the mastermind behind Russia's germ warfare effort reveals two decades of shocking breakthroughs… how Moscow's leading scientists actually reengineered hazardous microbes to make them even more virulent…the secrets behind the discovery of an invisible, untraceable new class of biological agents just right for use in political assassinations…the startling story behind Russia's attempt to turn a sample of the AIDS virus into the ultimate bioweapon. And in a chilling work of real-world intrigue. Biohazard offers us all a rare glimpse into a shadowy scientific underworld where doctors manufacture mass destruction, where witnesses to errors are silenced forever, and where ground zero is closer than we ever dared believe.

“READ AND BE AMAZED… AN IMPORTANT AND FASCINATING LOOK INTO A TERRIFYING WORLD OF WHICH WE WERE BLISSFULLY UNAWARE.” —Robin Cook, author of Contagion

“HARROWING…RICHLY DESCRIPTIVE… [AN] ABSORBING ACCOUNT.” — The New York Times Book Review

Anthrax. Smallpox. Incurable and horrifying Ebola-related fevers. For two decades, while a fearful world prepared for nuclear winter, an elite team of Russian bioweaponeers began to till a new killing field: a bleak tract sown with powerful seeds of mass destruction — by doctors who had committed themselves to creating a biological Armageddon. Biohazard is the never-before-told story of Russia's darkest, deadliest, and most closely guarded Cold War secret.

No one knows more about Russia's astounding experiments with biowarfare than Ken Alibek. Now the mastermind behind Russia's germ warfare effort reveals two decades of shocking breakthroughs… how Moscow's leading scientists actually reengineered hazardous microbes to make them even more virulent…the secrets behind the discovery of an invisible, untraceable new class of biological agents just right for use in political assassinations…the startling story behind Russia's attempt to turn a sample of the AIDS virus into the ultimate bioweapon. And in a chilling work of real-world intrigue. Biohazard offers us all a rare glimpse into a shadowy scientific underworld where doctors manufacture mass destruction, where witnesses to errors are silenced forever, and where ground zero is closer than we ever dared believe.

“READ AND BE AMAZED… AN IMPORTANT AND FASCINATING LOOK INTO A TERRIFYING WORLD OF WHICH WE WERE BLISSFULLY UNAWARE.” —Robin Cook, author of Contagion

A young woman’s heady encounter with the new Russia, as she and the country thrill to their first taste of freedom

It is September 1991 and the dismantling of the Soviet Union is under way. In Voronezh, a provincial town famous for its loamy black earth, a sense of lightheartedness—part fear, part exhilaration—pervades. The people conquer uncertainty, hunger, and -20 degree temperatures by drinking huge quantities of black-market vodka and reveling in their new-found sexual freedom.

Black Earth City is Charlotte Hobson’s record of this tumultuous time. An irresistible guide, she brings us into the cramped, rundown Hostel No. 4, where international students and locals congregate. We meet Yakov, who blows half-a-million rubles on a taxi to see a girl in Minsk; Lola, who sleeps with her peers for a share of their dinner; Viktor, with his brutal memories of military service; and Mitya, Hobson’s wild and optimistic lover whose gradual disillusion—and dissolution—mirrors his country’s dramatic lurch from euphoria to despair.

At once loving and sharp-edged, tender and brave, Black Earth City reveals a world and a woman as they open up to life.

Безумная и непредсказуемая история «Black Sabbath» — ярчайший пример величия британской рок-музыки даже в самых экстремальных ее формах. Оззи, Тони, Гизер и Билл вместе пережили множество невероятных событий, пройдя через ряд ссор и примирений, взлетов и падений. И каждый раз, когда казалось, что их союзу пришел конец, они находили в себе силы вернуться, чтобы снова и снова радовать своих поклонников альбомами и живыми выступлениями.

Джоэл Макайвер без малейших прикрас излагает историю самой зловещей и распутной группы Бирмингема. В его повествовании не забыт ни один из тех музыкантов, что успели подарить группе толику своего таланта за долгие годы ее существования. Автор внимательным образом изучил непростые отношения фронтмена группы Оззи Осборна с остальными ее участниками. Результатом той титанической работы, которую проделал Макайвер, стала не просто книга, а совершенный, абсолютно полный справочник по вселенной «Black Sabbath». Каждый факт, каждая малейшая деталь получены здесь из первых рук, напрямую от людей, стоявших у истоков группы, и от тех, кто сопровождал музыкантов с самого первого дня, через множество кризисов, проблем и разочарований, непосредственно до наших дней.

From one of our most powerful writers, a work of stunning frankness about losing a daughter. Richly textured with bits of her own childhood and married life with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and daughter, Quintana Roo, this new book by Joan Didion examines her thoughts, fears, and doubts regarding having children, illness, and growing old.

Blue Nights opens on July 26, 2010, as Didion thinks back to Quintana’s wedding in New York seven years before. Today would be her wedding anniversary. This fact triggers vivid snapshots of Quintana’s childhood — in Malibu, in Brentwood, at school in Holmby Hills. Reflecting on her daughter but also on her role as a parent, Didion asks the candid questions any parent might about how she feels she failed either because cues were not taken or perhaps displaced. “How could I have missed what was clearly there to be seen?” Finally, perhaps we all remain unknown to each other. Seamlessly woven in are incidents Didion sees as underscoring her own age, something she finds hard to acknowledge, much less accept.

Blue Nights—the long, light evening hours that signal the summer solstice, “the opposite of the dying of the brightness, but also its warning”—like The Year of Magical Thinking before it, is an iconic book of incisive and electric honesty, haunting and profoundly moving.

For more than twenty years Louise Erdrich has dazzled readers with the intricately wrought, deeply poetic novels which have won her a place among today's finest writers. Her nonfiction is equally eloquent, and this lovely memoir offers a vivid glimpse of the landscape, the people, and the long tradition of storytelling that give her work its magical, elemental force.

In a small boat like those her Native American ancestors have used for countless generations, she travels to Ojibwe home ground, the islands of Lake of the Woods in southern Ontario. Her only companions are her new baby and the baby's father, an Ojibwe spiritual leader, on a pilgrimage to the sacred rock paintings their people have venerated for centuries as mystical "teaching and dream guides," and where even today Ojibwe leave offerings of tobacco in token of their power. With these paintings as backdrop, Erdrich summons to life the Ojibwe's spirits and songs, their language and sorrows, and the tales that are in their blood, echoing through her own family's very contemporary American lives and shaping her vision of the wider world. Thoughtful, moving, and wonderfully well observed, her meditation evokes ancient wisdom, modern ways, and the universal human concerns we all share.

"This book is a treasure and a delight."-"Minneapolis Star Tribune"

Miał ledwie dwadzieścia dwa lata, gdy w 1940 roku trafił do obozu. Przesiedział tam pięć lat. Był dzieckiem warszawskiej ulicy, cwaniakiem, od najmłodszych lat zahartowanym w bójkach, obdarzonym dużym sprytem i humorem. Był twardy, postanowił, że się nie da – i udało mu się. Przeżył, choć wrócił z gruźlicą i zmarł na nią w 1963 roku.

Obozowe przeżycia opisał w książce Pięć lat kacetu i od razu stał się sławny. Wszyscy orzekli, że to wielki samorodny talent. Miał wówczas lat czterdzieści. Wysoki, mocno zbudowany, lekko pochylony do przodu, jakby szykował się do skoku, z zadziornym spojrzeniem – po prostu kozak. Tam, „na dole", na Czerniakowie -jak sam mówił – tylko kozaki się liczyły. Zarabiał piosenkami warszawskiej ulicy, stał się modny, ludzie chętnie go słuchali.

W 1959 roku napisał książkę o latach swego dzieciństwa i młodości BOSO, ALE W OSTROGACH. „Wiesz, jaki jestem – mówił o sobie -boso, ale w ostrogach". Przywołał w niej świat przedwojennej Warszawy, ukazał historię obyczaju z przedmieścia, namalował barwne postaci swojej grandy, w której „kapować nie wolno, skarżyć nie wolno, odegrać się wolno". „Grzesiuk lubi popisywać się krzepą- pisał Wojciech Żukrowski – prostuje się wewnętrznie, mogąc komuś dać po łbie, sam też bierze cięgi, ale nie skomli, tylko idzie w kąt lizać rany i poprzysięgać wyrównanie rachunku. Jest w nim jakaś romantyczna szlachetność. Nie odgrywa się za swoje niepowodzenia na słabszych, przestrzega zasad walki. Czytając niektóre karty, ma się ochotę go uściskać, klepnąć po przyjacielsku, dodać otuchy: Nie daj się, trzymaj się twardo". I trzyma się!

BOSO, ALE W OSTROGACH miało już kilkanaście wydań i wciąż zdobywa czytelników.

While in Japan to observe the filming of one of her novels, Pearl Buck was informed that her husband had died. This book is the deeply affecting story of the period that immediately followed — the grief, fears, doubts, and readjustments that a woman must make before crossing the bridge that spans marriage and widowhood.

Subjuguée par l’intelligence de son époux, elle se définit comme « la présidente de son fan-club ». Elle dit ne jamais l’influencer mais se contenter de « l’accompagner »… Pourtant, nul ne doute que, pour Emmanuel Macron, Brigitte est bien plus que ce qu’elle prétend. Depuis leur rencontre au lycée de la Providence jusqu’au perron de l’Élysée, elle n’a cessé de l’inspirer et de le guider. « Emmanuel a eu trois maîtres à penser : Paul Ricoeur, Michel Rocard et Brigitte » explique un proche. Jusqu’à lui attribuer, depuis son passage à Bercy, un rôle de collaboratrice. « Il ne fait rien sans elle », dit-on dans l’entourage présidentiel, avec quelques grincements de dents. Mais qui est vraiment cette première dame d’un genre nouveau, First Lady à la française qui intrigue les médias du monde entier ? Comment supporte-t-elle les rumeurs et polémiques que son couple génère ? Au-delà de leur relation de couple et de ses tenues très commentées, l’auteur suit les traces d’une femme qui, en dépit de son âge, apparaît parfois comme l’atout jeunesse du Président, « plus transgressive » que lui de l’avis de leurs proches. Une femme qui a déjà plusieurs vies, un destin indéniablement romanesque.

Они – главная K-Pop группа, символ Южной Кореи, семеро парней, которые вывели корейскую музыку на мировой уровень. Более 11 млн подписчиков на официальном YouTube канале, более 7 млн в Facebook и 6,5 млн в Instagram, а российское фан-сообщество в ВК насчитывает более 400 тыс. человек.

Перед вами первая неофициальная биография группы, ставшей мировым феноменом! Из книги вы узнаете, как все начиналось, кто участники группы, как им удалось покорить мир и, конечно, какую роль сыграло во всем этом фан-сообщество ARMY.

Добро пожаловать в мир «пуленепробиваемых» BTS!

In this engaging scientific memoir, Kenneth Ford recounts the time when, in his mid-twenties, he was a member of the team that designed and built the first hydrogen bomb. He worked with—and relaxed with—scientific giants of that time such as Edward Teller, Enrico Fermi, Stan Ulam, John von Neumann, and John Wheeler, and here offers illuminating insights into the personalities, the strengths, and the quirks of these men. Well known for his ability to explain physics to nonspecialists, Ford also brings to life the physics of fission and fusion and provides a brief history of nuclear science from the discovery of radioactivity in 1896 to the ten-megaton explosion of “Mike” that obliterated a Pacific Island in 1952.

Ford worked at both Los Alamos and Princeton’s Project Matterhorn, and brings out Matterhorn’s major, but previously unheralded contribution to the development of the H bomb. Outside the lab, he drove a battered Chevrolet around New Mexico, a bantam motorcycle across the country, and a British roadster around New Jersey. Part of the charm of Ford’s book is the way in which he leavens his well-researched descriptions of the scientific work with brief tales of his life away from weapons.

Readership: A memoir for general readership in the history of science.

Key Features:

• It contains real physics, clearly presented for non-specialists

• Combining historical scholarship and his own recollections, the author offers important insights into the people and the work that led to the first H bomb

• Personal anecdotes enliven the book

Join writer, raconteur and chronic traveler Kevin Armstrong as he journeys through time and space on his gay sex odyssey. As Kevin explores gay saunas and other haunts throughout Asia and the Land Down Under he shares his outrageous experiences (he cheerfully admits to being something of a sex addict) of m/m sex, circle wanking, cock sucking and docking and inter-racial sex. His journey will appeal to mature gay men, younger gay guys just starting out, bi guys and even “curious” straight men and women.

During his epic gay sex odyssey Kevin Armstrong re-lives his youth and his sexual awakening. He recalls his discovery of wanking and the joys of sharing, the gayest Boy Scout troop on the planet, his “first time” and his adventures with Helmut the Helmet amongst others.

However during his odyssey we realize that there are certain threats to Kevin’s free and easy life-style. Sluttish, irresponsible, life-style some would say. In a remote country town in Australia where he has gone to direct the musical “Cabaret” he falls in love with a just-turned-legal cub reporter. Although the boy is a one man cock-sucking welcoming committee to sailors arriving from the four corners of the world, he insists that he is not gay.

EXTRACT:

As the twilight turned lilac we lay in each other’s arms.

“I’m not really gay you know Kev.”

“Really? You could’ve fooled me.”

“Yeah… I’ve got my eye on this chick… Judy, works in Coles.”

“Well, after this afternoon, at a rough guess, I could be forgiven for thinking this is not the first time you’ve sucked cock.”

“Nah, I have to admit I love having dick in my mouth.” He laughed. “It’s my little secret.”

“But if you don’t mind me asking, where do you find cock in a place like this?”

“The ships.”

“What?”

“I go down the port. We get ships from all over the world. With those sailors spending weeks at sea I get all the cock I want. I guess I’m like a one man cock-sucking welcoming committee.”

“My God, they should give you an award!”

On his odyssey our intrepid traveler provides plenty of advice on living a gay life such as:

• Keeping safe in gay venues.

• What to do if you are hassled.

• Proven techniques for cock docking and can circumcised guys participate?

• Secret, unwritten codes used in the gay sauna.

• Cut or uncut? The pros and cons.

Although he is a self-confessed gay slut our Kevin wonders if he has finally met his match when in Kuala Lumpur he comes up against Adrian, a beautiful Burmese boy. As his relationship with Adrian develops through many sexual encounters Kevin finds himself relating his experiences to his friend Chen who is a handsome young Chinese actor in the film industry. Although Chen is possibly the straightest guy Kevin has ever met he seems to have an avid, even an obsessional interest in hearing about Kev’s love-making with his Burmese boy. Will this lead to further complications?

EXTRACT:

After the waiter had deposited two pints of Tiger I got straight to the point and asked my new Burmese friend if he visited the sauna very often.

“Sometimes. When I can afford it.”

“Do you usually fuck Asian boys or always Caucasian guys?”

“Oh, always Caucasian men. Never Asian boy.”

He looked at me rather wistfully. “You have family?”

“No, no children. But I do have a goddaughter. She lives in England.”

“Oh…” his eyes glistened. “Can I be your godson?”

“Of course you can.” We both laughed and raised our glasses. Then he looked at me rather seriously.

“I love my godfather. But is it OK if I fuck with my godfather?” He laughed uproariously.

“I’m sure it’s OK… my godson.”

More glistening and clinking.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Kevin Armstrong works as a scriptwriter in Australian and Asian film and television. “Burmese Boy – a Gay Odyssey” is his first e-book for Balmain Publishing.

“Burmese Boy” contains graphic descriptions of gay sex acts. It should not be read by the faint-hearted or those below the age of 18.