Download Free Magnificent Obsessions Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Magnificent Obsessions and write the review.

This volume is a tribute to the life and work of Hazel Rowley, internationally acclaimed biographer who died unexpectedly in March 2011. Her passions were many and varied: biography, politics, questions of race and sexuality, the ways in which couples negotiate the dilemmas posed by the need to retain their individuality while building a life as a couple, the deleterious effects of imposing a corporate mentality on universities – all these, and more, were subjects of intense interest to her. This collection combines essays responding to many of those interests with creative writing to honour the complexity and variety of her own magnificent contribution. Hazel Rowley, whose life and work are honoured in this collection, was the author of many articles and essays and four outstanding biographies, Christina Stead: A Biography, Richard Wright: The Life and Times, Tête-à-Tête: Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre, and Franklin and Eleanor: An Extraordinary Marriage.
The 20 individuals presented in this book have gathered remarkable collections from the whimsical to the conceptual, from items already widely appreciated to the unconventional and beyond. The color photos present the collectors themselves surrounded by their favorite things. The interviews draw out the stories behind these remarkable collectors. They reveal the collectors capacity to derive emotional or intellectual stimulation from objects, their desire not merely to see but to own, their methods for unearthing items both wondrous and rare, and their willingness to allocate time and resources to the elusive goal of completeness.
Exploring more than a dozen personal collections of contemporary artists, this unique and revealing book probes the aesthetic and psychological dimensions of collecting and shows how objects can influence and reflect their owners' work. A lead essay examines the reasons why artists collect, attempting to understand the relationship between the objects artists amass and the works they make, and contributions by or on each of the artists reflect on the personal significance of collecting habits.
Life and work of Homi Jehangir Bhabha, 1909-1966, Indian physicist.
Best known for powerful 1950s melodramas like All That Heaven Allows, Written on the Wind, The Tarnished Angels, and Imitation of Life, Douglas Sirk (1897–1987) brought to all his work a distinctive style that led to his reputation as one of twentieth-century film’s great directors. Sirk worked in Europe during the 1930s, mainly for Germany’s UFA studios, and then in America in the 1940s and ’50s. The Films of Douglas Sirk: Exquisite Ironies and Magnificent Obsessions provides an overview of his entire career, including Sirk’s work on musicals, comedies, thrillers, war movies, and westerns. One of the great ironists of the cinema, Sirk believed rules were there to be broken. Whether defying the decrees of Nazi authorities trying to turn film into propaganda or arguing with studios that insisted characters’ problems should always be solved and that endings should always restore order, what Sirk called “emergency exits” for audiences, Sirk always fought for his vision. Offering fresh insights into all of the director’s films and situating them in the culture of their times, critic Tom Ryan also incorporates extensive interview material drawn from a variety of sources, including his own conversations with the director. Furthermore, his enlightening study undertakes a detailed reconsideration of the generally overlooked novels and plays that served as sources for Sirk’s films, as well as providing a critical survey of previous Sirk commentary, from the time of the director’s “rediscovery” in the late 1960s up to the present day.
When Robert Merrick's life is saved at the expense of the life of an eccentric but adored surgeon, the carefree playboy is forced to reevaluate his own path. Merrick embarks on a course of anonymous philanthropy, inspired by reading the doctor's private papers. An engaging and dramatic story of personal redemption and private sacrifice, this spiritual tale has served as an inspiration for both the stage and screen.
“Bad behavior makes for entertaining history” in this bold history of Europe, the Middle East, and the men who ruled them in the early sixteenth century (Kirkus Reviews). John Julius Norwich—“the very model of a popular historian”—is acclaimed for his distinctive ability to weave together a fascinating narrative through vivid detail, colorful anecdotes, and captivating characters. Here, he explores four leaders—Henry VIII, Francis I, Charles V, and Suleiman—who led their countries during the Renaissance (The Wall Street Journal). Francis I of France was the personification of the Renaissance, and a highly influential patron of the arts and education. Henry VIII, who was not expected to inherit the throne but embraced the role with gusto, broke with the Roman Catholic Church and appointed himself head of the Church of England. Charles V was the most powerful man of the time, and unanimously elected Holy Roman Emperor. And Suleiman the Magnificent—who stood apart as a Muslim—brought the Ottoman Empire to its apogee of political, military, and economic power. These men collectively shaped the culture, religion, and politics of their respective domains. With remarkable erudition, John Julius Norwich offers “an important history, masterfully written,” indelibly depicting four dynamic characters and how their incredible achievements—and obsessions with one another—changed Europe forever (The Washington Times).
Lloyd C. Douglas's 1929 novel 'Magnificent Obsession' is about Robert Merrick, who is resuscitated by a rescue crew after a boating accident. The crew is thus unable to save the life of Dr. Hudson, a physician renowned for his ability to help people, who was having a heart attack at the same time on the other side of the lake. Merrick then decides to devote his life to making up for the doctor's, and becomes a physician himself.
My Omaha Obsession takes the reader on an idiosyncratic tour through some of Omaha’s neighborhoods, buildings, architecture, and people, celebrating the city’s unusual history. Rather than covering the city’s best-known sites, Miss Cassette is irresistibly drawn to strange little buildings and glorious large homes that don’t exist anymore as well as to stories of Harkert’s Holsum Hamburgers and the Twenties Club. Piecing together the records of buildings and homes and everything interesting that came after, Miss Cassette shares her observations of the property and its significance to Omaha. She scrutinizes land deeds, insurance maps, tax records, and old newspaper articles to uncover a property’s singular story. Through conversations with fellow detectives and history enthusiasts, she guides readers along her path of hunches, personal interests, mishaps, and more. As a longtime resident of Omaha, Miss Cassette is informed by memories of her youth combined with an enduring curiosity about the city’s offbeat relics and remains. Part memoir and part research guide with a healthy dose of colorful wandering, My Omaha Obsession celebrates the historic built environment and searches for the people who shaped early Omaha.
Geneen Roth, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Women Food and God, explains how to take the journey to find one’s own best self in this “beautiful, funny, deeply relevant” (Glennon Doyle) collection of personal reflections. With an introduction by Anne Lamott, This Messy Magnificent Life is a personal and exhilarating read on freeing ourselves from daily anxiety, lack, and discontent. It’s a deep dive into what lies behind our self-criticism, whether it is about the size of our thighs, the expression of our thoughts, or the shape of our ambitions. And it’s about stopping the search to fix ourselves by realizing that on the other side of the “Me Project” is spaciousness, peace, and the capacity to reclaim one’s power and joy. This Messy Magnificent Life explores the personal beliefs, hidden traumas, and social pressures that shape not just women’s feelings about their bodies but also their confidence, choices, and relationships. After years of teaching retreats and workshops on weight, money, and other obsessions, Roth realized that there was a connection that held her students captive in their unhappiness. With laugh-out-loud humor, compassion, and dead-on insight she reveals the paradoxes in our beliefs and shows how to move beyond our past to build lives that reflect our singularity and inherent power. This Messy Magnificent Life is a brilliant, bravura meditation on who we take ourselves to be, what enough means in our gotta-get-more culture, and being at home in our minds and bodies.