Books with author William Kennedy

Winner of The Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for FictionIn this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, the third in Kennedy’s Albany cycle, Francis Phelan, ex-ballplayer, part-time gravedigger, and full-time bum with the gift of gab, has hit bottom. Years earlier he’d left Albany after he dropped his infant son accidentally, and the boy died. Now, in 1938, Francis is back in town, roaming the old familiar streets with his hobo pal, Helen, trying to make peace with the ghosts of the past and present.

Winner of The Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for FictionIn this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, the third in Kennedy’s Albany cycle, Francis Phelan, ex-ballplayer, part-time gravedigger, and full-time bum with the gift of gab, has hit bottom. Years earlier he’d left Albany after he dropped his infant son accidentally, and the boy died. Now, in 1938, Francis is back in town, roaming the old familiar streets with his hobo pal, Helen, trying to make peace with the ghosts of the past and present.

Winner of The Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for FictionIn this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, the third in Kennedy’s Albany cycle, Francis Phelan, ex-ballplayer, part-time gravedigger, and full-time bum with the gift of gab, has hit bottom. Years earlier he’d left Albany after he dropped his infant son accidentally, and the boy died. Now, in 1938, Francis is back in town, roaming the old familiar streets with his hobo pal, Helen, trying to make peace with the ghosts of the past and present.

Yes, we do calculate backwards!We read, write and pronounce numbers and words from left to right, but we calculate from right to left (starting with the units).Not only is this inconsistent, it is unnecessary too. Because calculating left to right is extremely easy, as shown in this book.But there are other, stronger reasons for working left to right.The most significant (important) figures are always on the left, so in working from the left we get these figures first. And this means it’s far more efficient, especially for quick, mental calculations.Also the left to right method allows us to combine operations which means we can do huge calculations and get the answer digit by digit to any required accuracy.For these and other reasons left to right is the natural, sensible and easy way to calculate.Whether it’s to improve your mental maths skills, or to understand the simplicity and extraordinary efficiency of this method, this book has the potential to change the way you calculate forever.This book demonstrates that we calculate backwards, describes the advantages of working the alternative way from left to right, and shows how left to right calculations can be carried out.

Sanora Babb experienced pioneer life in a one-room dugout, eye-level with the land that supported, tormented and beguiled her; where her family fought for their lives against drought, crop-failure, starvation, and almost unfathomless loneliness. Learning to read from newspapers that lined the dugout's dirt walls, she grew up to be a journalist, then a writer of unforgettable books about the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, most notably Whose Names Are Unknown. The author was seven when her parents began to homestead an isolated 320-acre farm on the western plains. She tells the story through her eyes as a sensitive, fearless young girl who came to love the wind, the vastness, the mystery and magic in the ordinary. This evocative memoir of a pioneer childhood on the Great Plains is written with the lyricism and sensitivity that distinguishes all of Sanora Babb's writing. An Owl on Every Post, with its environmental disasters, extreme weather, mortgage foreclosures, and harsh living conditions, resonates as much today as when it first appeared. What this true story of Sanora's prairie childhood reveals best are the values--courage, pride, determination, and love--that allowed her family to prevail over total despair. This long, out-of-print memoir is reissued with new acclaim: "On a par stylistically and thematically with Willa Cather's My Antonia, this is a classic that deserves to be rediscovered and cherished for years to come."--Linda Miller, English Professor at Penn State and chairman of the Editorial Advisory Board for The Cambridge Edition of the Letters of Ernest Hemingway."An unsung masterpiece in the field of American autobiography--I was completely blown away. This memoir offers an unforgettable picture of pioneer life. Her ageless story deserves a permanent place in our nation's literature."--Arnold Rampersad, author of Ralph Ellison: A Biography. About the Author Sanora Babb is the author of five books, as well as numerous essays, short stories, and poems that were published in literary magazines alongside the work of William Saroyan, Ralph Ellison, Katherine Anne Porter, and William Carlos Williams. Her Dust Bowl novel, Whose Names Are Unknown, was recently featured in the Ken Burns documentary on The Dust Bowl.sanorababb.com Editorial Reviews "A wry, affectionate but unsentimental recall of frontiering struggles in Colorado just prior to WWI." - Kirkus "Masterly. Hers is a small song, and not grand opera. But hearing it is a significant and salutary experience."--London Times "The author has achieved a small miracle with this book for she has turned hunger, poverty, loneliness and depression into incomparable beauty by the magic of her writing." - The Pretoria News "Babb's engaging memoir recalls a childhood spent on the harsh and wild Colorado frontier during the early 1900s."--Publishers Weekly Owl is novelist Babb's memories of her childhood in eastern Colorado and Kansas before World War I. LJ's reviewer found that Babb wrote well, "relating vividly and with fine and fond recollection" Library Journal 12/1/70.