His full name was Spencer Bonaventure Tracy. He was called “The Gray Fox” by Frank Sinatra; other actors called him the “The Pope.” Spencer Tracy’s image on-screen was that of a self-reliant man whose sense of rectitude toward others was matched by his sense of humor toward himself. Whether he was Father Flanagan of Boys Town, Clarence Darrow of Inherit the Wind, or the crippled war veteran in Bad Day at Black Rock, Tracy was forever seen as a pillar of strength. In his several comedy roles Tracy was the sort of regular American guy one could depend on.
Added by: JustGoodNews | Karma: 4306.26 | Fiction literature | 10 November 2011
0
The Astronaut's Wife
This book was fabulous ... until the end. I still gave it four stars because so much of it was so good. A lot time was spent weaving together a sweet, funny, touching life story, then the end was so disappointing. It was like the author just got burnt out and decided to end it without any thought about whether or not the ending made sense. It is still worth reading (if you have the time), but don't buy the book. Borrow it, and enjoy the good parts while they last because the end will baffle you.
The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science (Audiobook)For years the doctrine of neuroscientists has been that the brain is a machine: break a part and you lose that function permanently. But more and more evidence is turning up to show that the brain can rewire itself, even in the face of catastrophic trauma: essentially, the functions of the brain can be strengthened just like a weak muscle. Scientists have taught a woman with damaged inner ears, who for five years had had "a sense of perpetual falling," to regain her sense of balance with a sensor on her tongue, and a stroke victim to recover the ability to walk although 97% of the nerves from the cerebral cortex to the spine were destroyed.
Oxford English Dictionary (2nd Edition) for babylon
This dictionary provides a designation, usually abbreviated, which describes the boundaries within which a word or sense is or was used, in current OED terminology. There are five categories of labels status (obsolete, rare, colloquial), regional (indicating a geographical area of usage such as the USA),
grammitical (describing the syntactical role of the word or sense such as plural or collective),
semantic (indicating the interpretation given to a word or sense in a particular context)
Added by: Kahena | Karma: 11526.37 | Fiction literature | 15 September 2011
4
Resolution
In this powerful, disturbing, wrenching conclusion to the Scottish author's Garnethill trilogy (Garnethill; Exile), the sense of everydayness renders the horrors Mina's Glaswegians confront even more terrible. Forced prostitution, child sexual abuse, alcoholism, dysfunctionality of every kindall are not so much spotlighted as they are integral parts of the fabric of the characters' lives. But for Maureen O'Donnell, whose continued existence is a triumph of will, there's also a strong sense of family and friendships forged in the crucible of survival.
