Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character)

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character) Review

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character) Feature

• ISBN13: 9780393316049
• Condition: New
• Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!

A series of anecdotes shouldn't by rights add up to an autobiography, but that's just one of the many pieces of received wisdom that Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman (1918-88) cheerfully ignores in his engagingly eccentric book, a bestseller ever since its initial publication in 1985. Fiercely independent (read the chapter entitled "Judging Books by Their Covers"), intolerant of stupidity even when it comes packaged as high intellectualism (check out "Is Electricity Fire?"), unafraid to offend (see "You Just Ask Them?"), Feynman informs by entertaining. It's possible to enjoy Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman simply as a bunch of hilarious yarns with the smart-alecky author as know-it-all hero. At some point, however, attentive readers realize that underneath all the merriment simmers a running commentary on what constitutes authentic knowledge: learning by understanding, not by rote; refusal to give up on seemingly insoluble problems; and total disrespect for fancy ideas that have no grounding in the real world. Feynman himself had all these qualities in spades, and they come through with vigor and verve in his no-bull prose. No wonder his students--and readers around the world--adored him. --Wendy Smith

A New York Times bestseller—the outrageous exploits of one of this century's greatest scientific minds and a legendary American original.

In this phenomenal national bestseller, the Nobel Prize­-winning physicist Richard P. Feynman recounts in his inimitable voice his adventures trading ideas on atomic physics with Einstein and Bohr and ideas on gambling with Nick the Greek, painting a naked female toreador, accompanying a ballet on his bongo drums and much else of an eyebrow-raising and hilarious nature.
Black-and-white photographs throughout

Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different

Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different Review

In this brilliantly illuminating group portrait of the men who came to be known as the Founding Fathers, the incomparable Gordon Wood has written a book that seriously asks, "What made these men great?"-and shows us, among many other things, just how much character did in fact matter. The life of each-Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, Madison, Paine-is presented individually as well as collectively, but the thread that binds these portraits together is the idea of character as a lived reality. They were members of the first generation in history that was self-consciously self-made-men who understood that the arc of lives, as of nations, is one of moral progress.

Building your child's character from the inside out

Building your child's character from the inside out Review

An exciting journey that leads parents into discovering how to nurture and mold their children's inner character with sound values.

Minor Characters: A Beat Memoir

Minor Characters: A Beat Memoir Review

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, Johnson's Beat memoir is "the safe-deposit box that contains the last, precious scrolls of the New York '50s" (The Washington Post).

Jack Kerouac. Allen Ginsberg. William S. Burroughs. LeRoi Jones. Theirs are the names primarily associated with the Beat Generation. But what about Joyce Johnson (nee Glassman), Edie Parker, Elise Cowen, Diane Di Prima, and dozens of others? These female friends and lovers of the famous iconoclasts are now beginning to be recognized for their own roles in forging the Beat movement and for their daring attempts to live as freely as did the men in their circle a decade before Women's Liberation.

Twenty-one-year-old Joyce Johnson, an aspiring novelist and a secretary at a New York literary agency, fell in love with Jack Kerouac on a blind date arranged by Allen Ginsberg nine months before the publication of On the Road made Kerouac an instant celebrity. While Kerouac traveled to Tangiers, San Francisco, and Mexico City, Johnson roamed the streets of the East Village, where she found herself in the midst of the cultural revolution the Beats had created. Minor Characters portrays the turbulent years of her relationship with Kerouac with extraordinary wit and love and a cool, critical eye, introducing the reader to a lesser known but purely original American voice: her own.

"Rich and beautifully written, full of vivid portraits and evocations." --San Francisco Chronicle

"--A first-rate memoir, very beautiful, very sad." --E. L. Doctorow

"Realistic rather than flamboyant, [Johnson] succeeds in portraying the Beats not as oddities or celebrities but as individuals." --The New Yorker

Tuttle Learning Chinese Characters, Vol. 1: A Revolutionary New Way to Learn and Remember the 800 Most Basic Chinese Characters

Tuttle Learning Chinese Characters, Vol. 1: A Revolutionary New Way to Learn and Remember the 800 Most Basic Chinese Characters Review

Tuttle Learning Chinese Characters, Vol. 1: A Revolutionary New Way to Learn and Remember the 800 Most Basic Chinese Characters Feature

• ISBN13: 9780804838160
• Condition: New
• Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!

Aimed at helping students of Chinese learn and remember Chinese characters, including the pronunciation of characters, fast and effectively, Learning Chinese Characters Volume 1 is a systematic study aid to this difficult language.

Designed specifically to ease students into the daunting process of learning Chinese characters, Learning Chinese Characters Volume 1 incorporates the key principle of visual imagery. A book for serious learners of Chinese, it can be used alongside (or after, or even before) a course in the Chinese language. Concise, clear and appealing, this practical guide is well designed and includes an easy-to-use index.

Growing Great Characters From the Ground Up: A Thorough Primer for Writers of Fiction and Nonfiction

Growing Great Characters From the Ground Up: A Thorough Primer for Writers of Fiction and Nonfiction Review

As Growing Great Characters From the Ground Up states, character development is the most important facet of any character-based book, because "readers won't follow for long if they find the people you're writing about dull, one-dimensional or unbelievable." After listing the three attributes of a great character, the book takes readers through a step-by-step process that teaches them how to develop characters from start to finish.

Character Building (An African American Heritage Book)

Character Building (An African American Heritage Book) Review

In Character Building are thirty seven addresses that Booker T. Washington gave before students, faculty, and guests at the Tuskegee Institute. These addresses take the form of timeless advice on a number of subjects. Very motivational and uplifting. Washington was constantly, and often bitterly, criticized by his contemporaries for being too conciliatory to whites and not concerned enough about civil rights. It would not be until after his death that the world would find out that he had indeed worked a great deal for civil rights anonymously behind the scenes.