Umbrella Kart

“ 'There’s a story of the Buddha,' my mother began telling us now, perhaps to take our mind off the conflagration, and I listened to her, though usually all the wisdom that came from her, a teacher of comparative religions, I tried to block out because I was a son. 'When his closest disciple, Ananda, asked him what was the greatest miracle,' she went on, 'walking on water or conjuring jewels out of thin air, changing the heat of one’s body through meditation or sitting undisturbed in a cave for years and years, he said, ‘Simply touching the heart of another human being. Acting kindly. That’s the greatest miracle of all.’ ”

-- Pico Iyer, THE MAN WITHIN MY HEAD

Ever since he first discovered Graham Greene's work, Pico Iyer has felt a haunting closeness with the English writer. In The Man Within My Head, Iyer follows Greene's trail from his first novel, The Man Within, to such later classics as The Quiet American, examining Greene's obsessions, his elusiveness, and his penchant for mystery. The deeper he plunges into this exploration, the more Iyer begins to wonder whether the man within his head might not be Greene but his own father, or perhaps some more shadowy aspect of himself.

Drawing upon experiences across the globe, from Cuba to Bhutan, and moving, as Greene would, from Sri Lanka in war to intimate moments of introspection, this is the most personal and revelatory book yet from one of our most astute observers of inner journeys and crossing cultures.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi ( 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the preeminent leader of the Indian independence movement in British-ruled India. Employing nonviolent civil disobedience, Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world.

Successful book launched event of "Hamara Vastu Hamari Nayi Rah" by Suman Agarwal" On 13 sept - 2015 , at Regional Science City Lucknow, Event Organized By Umbrellakart.

Successful book launched event of "Hamara Vastu Hamari Nayi Rah" by Suman Agarwal" On 13 sept - 2015 , at Regional Science City Lucknow, Event Organized By Umbrellakart.

“History is often the tale of small moments—chance encounters or casual decisions or sheer coincidence—that seem of little consequence at the time, but somehow fuse with other small moments to produce something momentous, the proverbial flapping of a butterfly’s wings that triggers a hurricane.”
―from "Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East" By Scott Anderson

The Arab Revolt against the Turks in World War I was, in the words of T. E. Lawrence, “a sideshow of a sideshow.” As a result, the conflict was shaped to a remarkable degree by a small handful of adventurers and low-level officers far removed from the corridors of power. At the center of it all was Lawrence himself. In early 1914 he was an archaeologist excavating ruins in Syria; by 1917 he was riding into legend at the head of an Arab army as he fought a rearguard action against his own government and its imperial ambitions. Based on four years of intensive primary document research, Lawrence in Arabia definitively overturns received wisdom on how the modern Middle East was formed. READ an excerpt here: http://knopfdoubleday.com/book/201116/lawrence-in-arabia/

Now a major motion picture starring Robert Redford and Nick Nolte...

“Black bears rarely attack. But here's the thing. Sometimes they do. All bears are agile, cunning and immensely strong, and they are always hungry. If they want to kill you and eat you, they can, and pretty much whenever they want. That doesn't happen often, but - and here is the absolutely salient point - once would be enough.”
― Bill Bryson, A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail

The Appalachian Trail trail stretches from Georgia to Maine and covers some of the most breathtaking terrain in America–majestic mountains, silent forests, sparking lakes. If you’re going to take a hike, it’s probably the place to go. And Bill Bryson is surely the most entertaining guide you’ll find. He introduces us to the history and ecology of the trail and to some of the other hardy (or just foolhardy) folks he meets along the way–and a couple of bears. Already a classic, A Walk in the Woods will make you long for the great outdoors (or at least a comfortable chair to sit and read in).

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was born in London on this day in 1797.

“If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear!”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

Working from the earliest surviving draft of Frankenstein, Charles E. Robinson presents two versions of the classic novel—as Mary Shelley originally wrote it and a subsequent version clearly indicating Percy Shelley’s amendments and contributions. For the first time we can hear Mary’s sole voice, which is colloquial, fast-paced, and sounds more modern to a contemporary reader. We can also see for the first time the extent of Percy Shelley’s contribution—some 5,000 words out of 72,000—and his stylistic and thematic changes. His occassionally florid prose is in marked contrast to the directness of Mary’s writing. Interesting, too, are Percy’s suggestions, which humanize the monster, thus shaping many of the major themes of the novel as we read it today. In these two versions of Frankenstein we have an exciting new view of one of literature’s greatest works. READ an excerpt here: http://knopfdoubleday.com/book/165585/the-original-frankenstein/

“Forever is the most dizzying word in the English language. The idea of staying in one place forever was like standing at the border of a foreign country, peering over the fence and trying to imagine what life might be like on the other side, and life on the other side was frankly unimaginable.”
― from LAST NIGHT IN MONTREAL by Emily St. John Mandel

When Lilia Albert was a child, her father appeared on the doorstep of her mother's house and took her away. Now, haunted by an inability to remember much about her early childhood, Lilia moves restlessly from city to city, abandoning lovers and eluding the private detective who has dedicated a career to following close behind. Then comes Eli. When Lilia goes out for a paper and fails to return to their Brooklyn apartment, he follows her to Montreal, not knowing whether he wants to disappear, too, or help her find her way home. But what he discovers is a deeper mystery, one that will set past and present spinning toward collision.

“So everything is necessary. Every least thing. This is the hard lesson. Nothing can be dispensed with. Nothing despised. Because the seams are hid from us, you see. The joinery. The way in which the world is made. We have no way to know what could be taken away. What omitted. We have no way to tell what might stand and what might fall.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Crossing

"In the Obama era, the predominant policy response... has been a narrow one: to weaken teachers’ tenure protections and then use “measures of student learning”—a euphemism for children’s scores on an ever-expanding battery of hastily designed tests—to identify and fire bad teachers."
--Dana Goldstein, The Teacher Wars

In her lively, character-driven history of public teaching, Goldstein guides us through American education's many passages, including the feminization of teaching in the 1800s and the fateful growth of unions, and shows that the battles fought over nearly two centuries echo the very dilemmas we cope with today. Goldstein shows that recent innovations like Teach for America, merit pay, and teacher evaluation via student testing are actually as old as public schools themselves.

Goldstein argues that long-festering ambivalence about teachers--are they civil servants or academic professionals?--and unrealistic expectations that the schools alone should compensate for poverty's ills have driven the most ambitious people from becoming teachers and sticking with it. In America's past, and in local innovations that promote the professionalization of the teaching corps, Goldstein finds answers to an age-old problem.

"Lafayette felt more comfortable in the saddle than perched on a gilded stool, and he remained uneasy in a society that cultivated an ideal of disaffected nonchalance; feigned detachment was foreign to his character. Reared on tales of his ancestors’ military exploits, Lafayette yearned to prove himself worthy of such a legacy."
--from THE MARQUIS: Lafayette Reconsidered by Laura Auricchio

The Marquis de Lafayette at age nineteen volunteered to fight under George Washington and became the French hero of the American Revolution. In this major biography Laura Auricchio looks past the storybook hero and selfless champion of righteous causes who cast aside family and fortune to advance the transcendent aims of liberty and fully reveals a man driven by dreams of glory only to be felled by tragic, human weaknesses. Drawing on substantial new research conducted in libraries, archives, museums, and private homes in France and the United States, Auricchio, gives us history on a grand scale revealing the man and his complex life, while challenging and exploring the complicated myths that have surrounded his name for more than two centuries. READ an excerpt here: http://knopfdoubleday.com/book/6369/the-marquis/

"Nobody notices them.

Sometimes they pass right in front of us, and we look through them as if they were not there.

But they are here, and the United States would be a very different country without them. People don't realize just how important they are to our way of life.

Those who go through each day unseen are undocumented immigrants. The invisibles.

They go out of their way not to be noticed by authorities or counted by census takers. It's not always easy to distinguish exactly who is an immigration agent. In order to avoid the risk of making a mistake, they talk to no one.

They stay away from the police. The invisibles keep their distance from them, even though many times they need protection from the violence of those who want to do them harm. The less they're seen, the greater the chance that they will be left alone to work and earn their wages in peace.

They live in the shadows. Being seen is a great risk and could mean deportation from the country that they have called home for years, the country where their children were born and, for many, their grandchildren too.

They live in silence. They don't often complain, though they certainly have reasons to. Complaints lead to questions. Questions lead to trouble.

When we cross paths with them on the street, they quickly avert their eyes. Not being is their way of being. For them, not having an identity is their identity.

Nevertheless, the United States could not function without their labor. They do this country's most difficult, least desirable, lowest-paying work. They clean what nobody else will clean, harvest the crops no one will harvest, cook our food, and build our houses.

It's likely that you're hardly aware of their presence in hotels and restaurants. But they're there. They're like ghosts. They walk without making noise and speak only when it's absolutely essential for them to do so.

They work behind the scenes, in kitchens, doing anything from washing dishes to preparing the finest cuisine. They learn quickly, and they are adept at making things--anything--because they are determined to survive. Their getting through the day gives their children opportunities they never had.

They accept working conditions that no legal citizen can imagine. They don't have the benefit of minimum wage; it's unheard-of for most. They don't get health insurance, do not have labor organizations to support them, and operate under the perennial threat of being unjustly fired or reported to Immigration Services and thus deported--often forced to leave children behind.

They clean up after us in public bathrooms, spending as many as ten hours a day steeped in filth for virtually no money. And though they are taken advantage of by so many, they continue to believe in the dreams that brought them here.

Without them our lives would be far less comfortable."

-- Jorge Ramos, author of A COUNTRY FOR ALL