The Secret Life of Things

The Secret Life of Things
Author: Mark Blackwell
Publisher: Bucknell University Press
Total Pages: 378
Release: 2007
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780838756669

This collection enriches and complicates the history of prose fiction between Richardson and Fielding at mid-century and Austen at the turn of the century by focusing on it-narratives, a once popular form largely forgotten by readers and critics alike. The volume also advances important work on eighteenth-century consumer culture and the theory of things. The essays that comprise The Secret Life of Things thus bring new texts, and new ways of thinking about familiar ones, to our notice. Those essays range from the role of it-narratives in period debates about copyright to their complex relationship with object-riddled sentimental fictions, from anti-semitism in Chrysal to jingoistic imperialism in The Adventures of a Rupee, from the it-narrative as a variety of whore's biography to a consideration of its contributions to an emergent middle-class ideology.

Bent Objects

Bent Objects
Author: Terry Border
Publisher: Running Press Adult
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2009-10-06
Genre: Photography
ISBN: 9780762435623

Trained as a photographer, Terry Border left the commercial world for story-telling. His complex vignettes are made of the simplest, everyday items: a jar of spices, a cigarette stub, a flower, a snack food. These sly photos range from whimsical scenes to sexy scenarios, the sad truths to the hilarious happenings in everyday life. In the tradition of bestselling humorous photography books like Chicks with Baggage, Play with Your Food, and Hello Cupcake!, this volume will surprise you with every viewing. A sunflower missing a petal becomes the tortured artist Van Gogh; an egg arrives to visit his mom only to discover roast chicken on the table; when confronted by a jar of peanut butter, peanuts hold a wake; and hot dogs leave behind their own brand of little presents. Marshmallows, wine corks, bread, soap, rocks, and tea bags—no common household item is safe from the twisted (wire) mind behind these uncommon creations!

Stuff

Stuff
Author: John C. Ryan
Publisher: Seattle, Wash. : Northwest Environment Watch
Total Pages: 98
Release: 1997
Genre: Nature
ISBN:

This volume takes you to the places and people you touch every day. - BOOK JACKET.

Household Horror

Household Horror
Author: Marc Olivier
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2020-02-11
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0253046599

A scholar examines 14 everyday objects featured in horror films and how they manifest their power and speak to society’s fears. Take a tour of the house where a microwave killed a gremlin, a typewriter made Jack a dull boy, a sewing machine fashioned Carrie’s prom dress, and houseplants might kill you while you sleep. In Household Horror, Marc Olivier highlights the wonder, fear, and terrifying dimension of objects in horror cinema. Inspired by object-oriented ontology and the nonhuman turn in philosophy, Olivier places objects in film on par with humans, arguing, for example, that a sleeper sofa is as much the star of Sisters as Margot Kidder, that The Exorcist is about a possessed bed, and that Rosemary’s Baby is a conflict between herbal shakes and prenatal vitamins. Household Horror reinvigorates horror film criticism by investigating the unfathomable being of objects as seemingly benign as remotes, radiators, refrigerators, and dining tables. Olivier questions what Hitchcock’s Psycho tells us about shower curtains. What can we learn from Freddie Krueger’s greatest accomplice, the mattress? Room by room, Olivier considers the dark side of fourteen household objects to demonstrate how the objects in these films manifest their own power and connect with specific cultural fears and concerns. “Provides a lively and highly original contribution to horror studies. As a work on cinema, it introduces the reader to films that may be less well-known to casual fans and scholars; more conspicuously, it returns to horror staples, gleefully reanimating works that one might otherwise assume had been critically “done to death” (Psycho, The Exorcist, The Shining).” —Allan Cameron, University of Auckland

Eloquent JavaScript, 3rd Edition

Eloquent JavaScript, 3rd Edition
Author: Marijn Haverbeke
Publisher: No Starch Press
Total Pages: 474
Release: 2018-12-04
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1593279507

Completely revised and updated, this best-selling introduction to programming in JavaScript focuses on writing real applications. JavaScript lies at the heart of almost every modern web application, from social apps like Twitter to browser-based game frameworks like Phaser and Babylon. Though simple for beginners to pick up and play with, JavaScript is a flexible, complex language that you can use to build full-scale applications. This much anticipated and thoroughly revised third edition of Eloquent JavaScript dives deep into the JavaScript language to show you how to write beautiful, effective code. It has been updated to reflect the current state of Java¬Script and web browsers and includes brand-new material on features like class notation, arrow functions, iterators, async functions, template strings, and block scope. A host of new exercises have also been added to test your skills and keep you on track. As with previous editions, Haverbeke continues to teach through extensive examples and immerses you in code from the start, while exercises and full-chapter projects give you hands-on experience with writing your own programs. You start by learning the basic structure of the JavaScript language as well as control structures, functions, and data structures to help you write basic programs. Then you'll learn about error handling and bug fixing, modularity, and asynchronous programming before moving on to web browsers and how JavaScript is used to program them. As you build projects such as an artificial life simulation, a simple programming language, and a paint program, you'll learn how to: - Understand the essential elements of programming, including syntax, control, and data - Organize and clarify your code with object-oriented and functional programming techniques - Script the browser and make basic web applications - Use the DOM effectively to interact with browsers - Harness Node.js to build servers and utilities Isn't it time you became fluent in the language of the Web? * All source code is available online in an inter¬active sandbox, where you can edit the code, run it, and see its output instantly.

The Secret Lives of Objects

The Secret Lives of Objects
Author: Jane Graves
Publisher: Trafford Publishing
Total Pages: 166
Release: 2012-03-27
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1466920777

This book looks at everyday, and not-so-everyday objects from a psychoanalytical perspective as well as the practice of art and design. It is an entertaining interpretation of the creation, consumption and culture of things we take for granted.

Significant Objects

Significant Objects
Author: Joshua Glenn
Publisher: Fantagraphics Books
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2012-08-06
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1606995251

100 EXTRAORDINARY STORIES ABOUT ORDINARY THINGS SIGNIFICANT OBJECTS: A Literary and Economic Experiment Can a great story transform a worthless trinket into a significant object? The Significant Objects project set out to answer that question once and for all, by recruiting a highly impressive crew of creative writers to invent stories about an unimpressive menagerie of items rescued from thrift stores and yard sales. That secondhand flotsam definitely becomes more valuable: sold on eBay, objects originally picked up for a buck or so sold for thousands of dollars in total — making the project a sensation in the literary blogosphere along the way. But something else happened, too: The stories created were astonishing, a cavalcade of surprising responses to the challenge of manufacturing significance. Who would have believed that random junk could inspire so much imagination? The founders of the Significant Objects project, that’s who. This book collects 100 of the finest tales from this unprecedented creative experiment; you’ll never look at a thrift-store curiosity the same way again. FEATURING ORIGINAL STORIES BY: Chris Adrian • Rob Agredo • Kurt Andersen • Rachel Axler • Rob Baedeker • Nicholson Baker • Rosecrans Baldwin • Matthew Battles • Charles Baxter • Kate Bernheimer • Susanna Breslin • Kevin Brockmeier • Matt Brown • Blake Butler • Meg Cabot • Tim Carvell • Patrick Cates • Dan Chaon • Susanna Daniel • Adam Davies • Kathryn Davis • Matthew De Abaitua • Stacey • D'Erasmo • Helen DeWitt • Doug Dorst • Mark Doty • Ben Ehrenreich • Mark Frauenfelder • Amy Fusselman • William Gibson • Myla Goldberg • Ben Greenman • Jason Grote • Jim Hanas • Jennifer Michael Hecht • Sheila Heti • Christine Hill • Dara Horn • Shelley Jackson • Heidi Julavits • Ben Katchor • Matt Klam • Wayne Koestenbaum • Josh Kramer • Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer • Neil LaBute • Victor LaValle • J. Robert Lennon • Jonathan Lethem • Todd Levin • Laura Lippman • Mimi Lipson • Robert Lopez • Joe Lyons • Sarah Manguso • Merrill Markoe • Tom McCarthy • Miranda Mellis • Lydia Millet • Maud Newton • Annie Nocenti • Stephen O’Connor • Stewart O’Nan • Jenny Offill • Gary Panter • Ed Park • James Parker • Benjamin Percy • Mark Jude Poirier • Padgett Powell • Bob Powers • Todd Pruzan • Dan Reines • Nathaniel Rich • Peter Rock • Lucinda Rosenfeld • Greg Rowland • Luc Sante • R.K. Scher • Toni Schlesinger • Matthew Sharpe • Jim Shepard • David Shields • Marisa Silver • Curtis Sittenfeld • Bruce Sterling • Scarlett Thomas • Jeff Turrentine • Deb Olin Unferth • Tom Vanderbilt • Matthew J. Wells • Joe Wenderoth • Margaret Wertheim • Colleen Werthmann • Colson Whitehead • Carl Wilson • Cintra Wilson • Sari Wilson • Douglas Wolk • John Wray

The Lives of the Objects

The Lives of the Objects
Author: Victoria and Albert Museum
Publisher: V&a Publications
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2019-12-31
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9781851779727

Here, ten world-renowned curators from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London tell the story of ten of the most famous and curious objects acquired by the museum over its history. Among these are "Tipu's Tiger," an almost life-size wooden mechanical toy of a tiger mauling a European soldier; the "Great Bed of Ware," a 10 1/2-foot-wide Elizabethan bed; and a "Shakespeare First Folio," one of the few survivors of an estimated 750 that were originally printed. Learn too about collection building and how careful curation and fortuitous optimism drive and change museum priorities over time.

How to Write

How to Write
Author: Philip Oltermann
Publisher: Guardian Books
Total Pages: 432
Release: 2012-06-05
Genre: Reference
ISBN: 0852653638

The Guardian's 2008 'How to Write' supplements were a huge success with wordsmiths of all stripes. Covering fiction, poetry, comedy, screenwriting, biography and journalism, they offered invaluable advice and bags of encouragement from a range of leading professionals, including Catherine Tate on writing memorable comedy characters, Robert Harris on penning bestelling fiction and Michael Rosen on constructing stories that will appeal to young people. This book draws together the material from those supplements and includes a full directory of useful addresses, from publishers and agents to professional societies and providers of bursaries. Whether you're looking to polish up your writing skills or you want to ensure that your manuscript finds its way into the right hands, How to Write will prove essential reading.

Fewer, Better Things

Fewer, Better Things
Author: Glenn Adamson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2018-08-07
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1632869667

From the former director of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, a timely and passionate case for the role of the well-designed object in the digital age. Curator and scholar Glenn Adamson opens Fewer, Better Things by contrasting his beloved childhood teddy bear to the smartphones and digital tablets children have today. He laments that many children and adults are losing touch with the material objects that have nurtured human development for thousands of years. The objects are still here, but we seem to care less and know less about them. In his presentations to groups, he often asks an audience member what he or she knows about the chair the person is sitting in. Few people know much more than whether it's made of wood, plastic, or metal. If we know little about how things are made, it's hard to remain connected to the world around us. Fewer, Better Things explores the history of craft in its many forms, explaining how raw materials, tools, design, and technique come together to produce beauty and utility in handmade or manufactured items. Whether describing the implements used in a traditional Japanese tea ceremony, the use of woodworking tools, or the use of new fabrication technologies, Adamson writes expertly and lovingly about the aesthetics of objects, and the care and attention that goes into producing them. Reading this wise and elegant book is a truly transformative experience.