![]() “The book contains practical advice for women - and the men who want to help them - on how to lean in and close the gap.” “I believe that the world would be a better place if half our institutions were run by women, and half our homes were run by men,” said Sandberg in an email to me earlier this week. Titled “Lean In,” the book is not a memoir, but a “call to action” with a lot of research and data, laced with anecdotes of the experience of one of Silicon Valley’s most high-profile female executives and also many other women. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg has written a book on challenges facing women in the workplace that is expected to be published next year by Knopf. ![]()
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![]() ![]() To the inquisitive visitor eager to conjecture just in how far the volumes on the shelves-and not merely those Howells chose to put on display for us there-correspond with the ones penned by the tour guide himself, the “anxiety of influence” conveyed in above passage must seem a veritable invitation to linger long after the echoes of the author’s anecdotes, charming though they may be, have given way to thought-conjuring silence. I hope I shall always be able and willing to learn something from the masters of literature and still be myself, but for the young writer this seems impossible. That it was a long time before I found it best to be as like myself as I could, even when I did not think so well of myself as of some others. ![]() “I have now no reluctance to confess,” Howells continues, ![]() “I have never greatly loved an author without wishing to write like him,” William Dean Howells remarks as he ushers us into his private library for the engaging excursion that is My Literary Passions (18). Harry Heuser Passion and the Individual Talent A Trollope among the Brahmins?: Howells’s Rise of Silas Lapham and the Reform of the Fallen Novel ![]() ![]() ![]() Worry grips me in spite of myself, digging its fingers into the spaces between my ribs. I took her wrist to help her back under the covers. It was when I brought her the last cup of tea. And I think-I know-that what makes her most furious is that I saw her struggling to get out of bed. ![]() Grinding her teeth whenever she’s not coughing. It’s not the first time I’ve thought of disappearing into it, and never coming back.Īnother cough, deep enough to splinter wood and rock. It’s not the first time I’ve seen this trick of water and light. Streaks of sun catch the crystals hovering above the ground. ![]() ![]() I shift from foot to foot in front of the kitchen sink. November has just turned into December, bringing a cold wind. What’s the alternative? I could go crazy with it, but I’d still be inside. For a moment the fabric presses in tight against my skin, too tight, hemming me in the way the house does. In mid afternoon, with the sun fighting its way through the clouds, I’m barely there. It’s only cabin fever that makes my face look flushed in the shimmering reflection in the window above the kitchen sink. I feel it in the center of my own chest, even one floor removed. The stairs do nothing to conceal the sound. My mother’s cough rattles the house-the wood and the windowpanes and the floor beneath my feet. ![]() ![]() ![]() There, after some adventure and separation from Digby, the sadistic Sergeant Major Lejaune gets command of the little garrison at Fort Zinderneuf in French North Africa, and only an attack by Tuaregs prevents a mutiny and mass desertion._x000D_ Percival Christopher Wren (1875-1941) was an English writer, mostly of adventure fiction. When a precious jewel known as the "Blue Water" goes missing, suspicion falls on the young people, and Beau leaves Britain to join the French Foreign Legion, followed by his brothers, Digby (his twin) and John. The Geste brothers are orphans and have been brought up by their aunt at Brandon Abbas. ![]() The three Geste brothers are a metaphor for the British upper class values of a time gone by, and "the decent thing to do" is, in fact, the leitmotif of the novel. The main narrator (among others), by contrast, is his younger brother John. ![]() ![]() ![]() Unity, in fact, was so alarmed when England and Germany went to war that she shot herself in the head, somehow survived, and, in Lovell’s words, “remained childlike for the rest of her life.” (Hitler, ever accommodating, paid all her medical bills and saw that she got safely to Switzerland.) Back in England, Diana, whom the government considered a security threat, sat out three and a half years of the war in prison. ![]() Diana and Unity were infatuated with fascism and charmed by Hitler (Lovell does not believe they ended up in the sack). Still, the much-chronicled Mitfords remain a family with astonishing histories. Although there are indeed numerous family crises and catastrophes (unexpected deaths-one of Jessica’s children, a ten-year-old, was delivering newspapers when he was struck and killed by a bus-infidelities, and financial reversals), the story always rolls merrily along with little trenchant or compelling analysis of the meanings or effects of the events. Lovell declares that she had originally intended a sort of “frothy biography” but instead found so many conflicts, passions, and personal tragedies that the story darkened. In prose so light that sentences nearly float up from the page, Lovell ( A Rage to Live, 1998, etc.) chases the Mitford sisters (Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica, and Deborah) hither and yon, from mansion to prison, from Hitler’s hideaway to the top of the bestseller lists. ![]() ![]() ![]() It is set in 17th century England and recalls events that happened in Oxford shortly after the Restoration of Charles II to the monarchy in 1660. (Yes, I know, the title made zero sense to me at the time as well.) On the way back from the restaurant we stopped at the wonderful Barnes & Noble store in Burlington, MA, and I picked up a copy of An Instance of the Fingerpost. He described how moved he was by Pears' writing, so I decided to give it a try. ![]() I had never heard of Iain Pears until a couple of weeks ago, when a colleague of mine from work mentioned him over dinner. Reading a book recommended by a friend is almost always guaranteed to be a pleasant experience. ![]() ![]() ![]() Perry has created his most complex and compelling protagonist.” The strong-willed heroine he introduces in Vanishing Act rates as one of his most singular creations.” ![]() ![]() “Thomas Perry keeps pulling fresh ideas and original characters out of thin air. So she is only mildly surprised to find an intruder waiting for her when she returns home one day.Īn ex-cop suspected of embezzling, John Felker wants Jane to do for him what she did for his buddy Harry Kemple: make him vanish.īut as Jane opens a door out of the world for Felker, she walks into a trap that will take all her heritage and cunning to escape…. Jane knows all the tricks, ancient and modern in fact, she has invented several of them herself. Thanks to her membership in the Wolf Clan of the Seneca tribe, she can fool any pursuer, cover any trail, and then provide her clients with new identities, complete with authentic paperwork. She is in the one-woman business of helping the desperate disappear. Jane Whitefield is a Native American guide who leads people out of the wilderness–not the tree-filled variety but the kind created by enemies who want you dead. ![]() ![]() ![]() In remarks to reporters, McConnell insisted the tapes could only have been recorded by someone surreptitiously "bugging" his office, without providing any proof his office was bugged. McConnell would not address how seriously he was considering a possible smear campaign, instead focusing on how the tapes may have been recorded. Mother Jones magazine released secretly recorded audio tapes Tuesday that disclose McConnell's campaign staff considering using his then-potential Democratic opponent's battles with depression and her religious views against her. ![]() Caught on tape planning how to run against potential opponent Ashley Judd, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is sidestepping questions about whether it was appropriate for his team to discuss Judd's mental state (and whether or not such personal issues should be fair game for political attacks). ![]() ![]() ![]() In this new edition he discusses how Ancient DNA studies have revolutionized how we view the recent (post-550 ka) human evolution, and the process of speciation. In this Very Short Introduction Bernard Wood traces the history of paleoanthropology from its beginnings in the eighteenth century to the very latest fossil finds. ![]() ![]() Newly discovered fossil evidence is adding ever more pieces to the puzzle of our past, whilst revolutionary technological advances in the study of ancient DNA are completely reshaping theories of early human populations and migrations. The study of human evolution is advancing rapidly. Explains the functions of geochronology and paleoclimatology.Explains how fossils are found, and analysed, and why they are interpreted in different ways.Discusses discoveries of new taxa, as well as the suggestion from ancient DNA studies of 'ghost' taxa whose fossil records still remains to be discovered.Explores how Ancient DNA studies have revolutionized how we view the recent (post-550 ka) human evolution.Traces the history of paleoanthropology from its beginnings in the eighteenth century to the very latest fossil finds. ![]() ![]() ![]() "I wanted to succeed or fail on the merits, not because I was a woman benefitting from the lawsuit," she writes. Still, it's not something she talked about until now. ![]() Yovanovitch competed for one of the slots and got it. In a case of good timing, part of the settlement included allowing 14 female FSOs who had been placed in the management or consular cones to move to political. ![]() ![]() She sued the State Department for discrimination and won. Yovanovitch also benefitted from one woman in particular: Alison Palmer. It often entailed long hours, sometimes in dangerous situations. Luck finally intervened with a string of good bosses and some good job opportunities doing the political work she wanted. And, like many others who enter public service, she says she wanted to "find a way to give back to the country that had given the Yovanovitch family a home." (Her mother and father had both survived the Nazi occupation of Europe.) Still, she wanted to work in foreign affairs and to help represent and fight for American interests and values. She had some bad bosses, and in her first tour she literally had corruption (the nephew of the leader of the country) come knocking at her door. Instead of a political job, she was assigned to a management specialty. She didn't get the cone, State's term for job specialty, that she wanted. It was far from guaranteed that Yovanovitch would stay with State. ![]() |