The Greatest Invention

The Greatest Invention
Author: Silvia Ferrara
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Total Pages: 227
Release: 2022-03-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0374601631

In this exhilarating celebration of human ingenuity and perseverance—published all around the world—a trailblazing Italian scholar sifts through our cultural and social behavior in search of the origins of our greatest invention: writing. The L where a tabletop meets the legs, the T between double doors, the D of an armchair’s oval backrest—all around us is an alphabet in things. But how did these shapes make it onto the page, never mind form complex structures such as this sentence? In The Greatest Invention, Silvia Ferrara takes a profound look at how—and how many times—human beings have managed to produce the miracle of written language, traveling back and forth in time and all across the globe to Mesopotamia, Crete, China, Egypt, Central America, Easter Island, and beyond. With Ferrara as our guide, we examine the enigmas of undeciphered scripts, including famous cases like the Phaistos Disk and the Voynich Manuscript; we touch the knotted, colored strings of the Inca quipu; we study the turtle shells and ox scapulae that bear the earliest Chinese inscriptions; we watch in awe as Sequoyah single-handedly invents a script for the Cherokee language; and we venture to the cutting edge of decipherment, in which high-powered laser scanners bring tears to an engineer’s eye. A code-cracking tour around the globe, The Greatest Invention chronicles a previously uncharted journey, one filled with past flashes of brilliance, present-day scientific research, and a faint, fleeting glimpse of writing’s future.

The Novel of Ferrara

The Novel of Ferrara
Author: Giorgio Bassani
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 597
Release: 2018-10-16
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0393634299

Giorgio Bassani’s six classic books, collected for the first time in English as the epic masterwork they were intended to be. Among the masters of twentieth-century literature, Giorgio Bassani and his northern Italian hometown of Ferrara “are as inseparable as James Joyce and Dublin or Italo Svevo and Trieste” (from the Introduction). The Novel of Ferrara brings together Bassani’s six classics, fully revised by the author at the end of his life. Set before, during, and after the Second World War, these interlocking stories present nuanced and unforgettable characters: the respected doctor whose homosexuality is exposed by an exploitative youth; the survivor of the Nazi death camps; the Jewish landowner, returned from exile, to find himself utterly displaced; the schoolteacher whose Communist idealism challenges a postwar generation. Suffused with new life by acclaimed translator and poet Jamie McKendrick, The Novel of Ferrara memorializes a city deeply informed by the Jewish community to which the narrator belongs. This seminal work seals Bassani’s indomitable reputation.

A Death In Tuscany

A Death In Tuscany
Author: Michele Giuttari
Publisher: Hachette UK
Total Pages: 311
Release: 2009-06-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0748111719

In the picturesque Tuscan hill town of Scandicci, the body of a girl is discovered. Scantily dressed, she is lying by the edge of the woods. The local police investigate the case - but after a week, they still haven't even identified her, let alone got to the bottom of how she died. Frustrated by the lack of progress, Chief Superintendent Michele Ferrara, head of Florence's elite Squadra Mobile, decides to step in. Because toxins were discovered in the girl's body, many assumed that she died of a self-inflicted drugs overdose. But Ferrara quickly realises that the truth is darker than that: he believes that the girl was murdered. And when he delves deeper, there are many aspects to the case that convince Ferrara that the girl's death is part of a sinister conspiracy - a conspiracy that has its roots in the very foundations of Tuscan society... Originally published in Italian as La Loggia Degli Innocenti.

Cosmè Tura of Ferrara

Cosmè Tura of Ferrara
Author: Stephen John Campbell
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 230
Release: 1997-01-01
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0300072198

Amajor study of Cosm� Tura (c.1430-1495) who came to prominence as painter to the Este court. As well as close examination of his paintings, Tura's life and works are used as a starting point for the investigation of the 15th cent artist's role and status at court, and urban culture.

Flash of Eden

Flash of Eden
Author: Paul Ferrara
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Total Pages: 404
Release: 2007-11-26
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1434340716

REVIEWS MUST read!, May 6, 2008 By G.P. - See all my reviews This is definitely a must read for anyone, Doors fan or not. It's one of the best bios I've read. No 'fluff' here. Paul tells it like it is, and has had an amazing life. His time with the Doors is well documented but he doesn't get enough credit for being THE Doors official photographer and filmmaker. You'll read about his time spent with the Doors, not to mention being one of Morrison's pals. Be prepared to read stories you've never read before. Even if you're not a Doors fan, the book is still a great read. Paul's life was and still is interesting to say the least. You'll be amazed at some of the people Paul knows and worked with. Everything is covered here including his adventures in Thailand, his ranch in New Mexico and his career in the movie industry. I give this book two thumbs up. Check it out! I read Paul's book and it was a big surprise. As a huge Doors fan, I'm aware of his well known photographic and film work for the band and his close relationship with them (mainly with Jim and Ray since the UCLA Days). In the meantime there are lots of details in this book who will delight the fans, details of journeys, partnership, work and so on.... But... Paul's life was much more than Jim and the boys "momento" ( Jim and the "blue lady" at the book's cover is just one of the highlights of the all experience). . Hold your breath. you will be on board of a fantastic trip into childhood, family, friends, girls, party, cinema, music, "sex, drugs and rock n'roll", cars, jail, joy, death, love, etc, .... Rui

A Florentine Death

A Florentine Death
Author: Michele Giuttari
Publisher: Sphere
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2009-08-06
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0748113126

Chief Superintendent Michele Ferrara knows that the beautiful surface of his adopted city, Florence, hides dark undercurrents. When called in to investigate a series of brutal and apparently random murders, his intuition is confirmed. Distrusted by his superiors and pilloried by the media, Ferrara finds time running out as the questions pile up. Is there a connection between the murders and the threatening letters he has received? Are his old enemies, the Calabrian Mafia, involved? And what part is played by a beautiful young woman facing a heart-rending decision, a priest troubled by a secret from his past, and an American journalist fascinated by the darker side of life? Ferrara confronts the murky underbelly of Florence in an investigation that will put not only his career but also his life on the line. Originally published in Italy as Scarabeo.

Abel Ferrara

Abel Ferrara
Author: Nicole Brenez
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2006-12-20
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0252074114

Nicole Brenez argues for Abel Ferrara’s place in a line of grand inventors who have blurred distinctions between industry and avant-garde film, including Orson Welles, Monte Hellman, and Nicholas Ray. Rather than merely reworking genre film, Brenez understands Ferrara’s oeuvre as formulating new archetypes that depict the evil of the modern world. Focusing as much on the human figure as on elements of storytelling, she argues that films such as Bad Lieutenant express this evil through visionary characters struggling against the inadmissible (inadmissible behavior, morality, images, and narratives).

Abel Ferrara

Abel Ferrara
Author: Brad Stevens
Publisher:
Total Pages: 376
Release: 2004
Genre: Motion picture producers and directors
ISBN:

From the Driller Killer - a victim of the original video nasty' panic - to Bad Lieutenant, Ferrara's films have attracted both controversy for their extreme subject matter and admiration for their fine acting: Harvey Keitel, Christopher Walken, Madonna, Lili Taylor and Willem Dafoe all gave their finest performances under Ferrara's direction. Now Brad Stevens has subjected Ferrara's output to exhaustive analysis and uncovers a tender heart beating beneath the excessive imagery.'

Mag World

Mag World
Author: Emilia Ferrara
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 406
Release: 2017-06-13
Genre:
ISBN: 9781547277506

"Not every woman can be a beauty, but every woman can behave like a beauty," wrote Mrs. Walter Sohier in Vogue's February issue, 1950. These words may seem ancient to the iPhone-tapping, degree-earning, Oprah-celebrating women of our day, but has the message behind these words really left us? Magazines first started earning million dollar revenues in the 1970s and yet, 40 years later, media remains a chilly, disciplined and sometimes even painful world for women - most especially, for girls. Emilia Ferrara was a captive magazine reader, pouring through every page of every issue, month after month, in her teens through to college. However, as her passion for journalism grew, her inclination to serve the female reader through female titles waned. She repelled from their frivolous narratives and unhealthy standards. As she studied at Columbia's Journalism School and began researching how the beauty, fashion and magazine industries impact young girls, she began to write her first book: Mag World. Mag World is an non-fiction text that threads together voices such as Virginia Woolf, Walter Lippman and Tina Fey. Ferrara speculates over the future of girls as readers, much like Woolf imagined the future of women writers. She challenges intricate details of modern journalistic practices, adjacent to Lippmann's review on his day. And her hopeful (and sometimes humorous) tone echoes Fey's ability to deliver a positive critique. Written with both vision and forgiveness, Mag World is a melodic call for reform, a handshake to editors and an inspiration to today's girls who stand to inherit the future.