Podium

Download or read book Podium written by Ben Oakley and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-07-19 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it really take to make the podium? Which of the biological, environmental and psychological factors really shape a champion's route to the top? To answer these questions, Ben Oakley has taken the original step of combining existing research with a study of leading athletes' autobiographies. Looking at the early histories and initial challenges of serial champions in their own words, Podium sheds new light on their commonalities. A similar focus in training, similar influences around them and, above all, similar mental attributes are revealed – and tales of individual brilliance are given a fresh twist. From Ian Thorpe, Usain Bolt and Chrissie Wellington to Victoria Pendleton, Lionel Messi and Roger Federer, all we see is a smooth progression to glory, but each is a rocky path punctuated by critical episodes, and it is the response to these events that can transform talented people into winners. Podium is fascinating reading for anyone interested in the big names at the peak of their respective sports, and essential for coaches or parents of the next budding star. This enthralling read will enrich your interpretation of champions' lives and provide a map of the complex paths through sport to the podium.

Download or read book Women at the Podium written by S. M. Nix and published by William Morrow. This book was released on 2000-08-08 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the battlefield and the pulpit, before cameras and vast crowds, women have long shaped history with powerful, impassioned words. Now, in the first anthology of its kind, S. Michele Nix brings together the memorable speeches of women throughout the ages. Filled with courage, poignancy, and wit, Women at the Podium pairs issues of war, patriotism, social justice, women's rights, religion, politics, and the press with leaders who helped to change the world. With this landmark collection, relive history alongside the women who rose to champion their causes and countries. Listen as Elizabeth I braces her troops for battle against the Spanish Armada and Margaret Thatcher steadies Britain through the Falklands War. Lean in as Frances Harper advocates liberty for slaves and Margaret Chase Smith denounces McCarthyism. Engage in the battle for women's rights as Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Sojourner Truth campaign for the right to vote. Watch the drama unfold as Barbara Jordan argues for the impeachment of Richard Nixon and Lady Jane Grey says farewell from the gallows. Hear Eleanor Roosevelt, Golda Meir, Elizabeth II, Katharine Graham, Barbara Bush, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and many others in a collection that presents a unique and compelling view of history. Spanning centuries and crossing cultures, Women at the Podium stands as the definitive anthology of women's oratory. It is a stirring tribute to the many women who fought so hard to be heard.

Download or read book Podium Humor Ri written by James C. Humes and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 1994-04-28 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, a well-known speech writer and brilliant public speaker explains how to use humor effectively in speeches for every occasion and for any type of audience. Included are more than 600 humorous stories and anecdotes from the author's own collection -- stories and anecdotes that anyone can use to enliven a speech. In Part One of Podium Humor, the author discusses from the speaker's standpoint as well as from that of the audience. With numerous examples he explains what humor is made of, what triggers laughter, how to tell a story, and how to use humor to build suspense. From the basics supplied by the author, you learn how to develop your own humorous stories to suit your individual needs. Part Two of the book features a cross-indexed collection of humor: anecdotes, stories, and one-liners on many topical subjects. The author shows you how to work these humorous pieces into your speech by suggesting "lead-in" lines for particular stories plus "bridge" lines to return to the main sppech. Whether you wish to use humor to start or end a speech, to illustrate a point, or to establish rapport with an audience, Podium Humor will give you practical, easy-to-follow advice and a wealth of humorous material for use in your next speech.

Download or read book Book of Hours written by Kevin Young and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2015-10-13 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A decade after the sudden and tragic loss of his father, we witness the unfolding of grief. “In the night I brush / my teeth with a razor,” he tells us, in one of the collection’s piercing two-line poems. Capturing the strange silence of bereavement (“Not the storm / but the calm / that slays me”), Kevin Young acknowledges, even celebrates, life’s passages, his loss transformed and tempered in a sequence about the birth of his son: in “Crowning,” he delivers what is surely one of the most powerful birth poems written by a man, describing “her face / full of fire, then groaning your face / out like a flower, blood-bloom,/ crocused into air.” Ending this book of both birth and grief, the gorgeous title sequence brings acceptance, asking “What good/are wishes if they aren’t / used up?” while understanding “How to listen / to what’s gone.” Young’s frank music speaks directly to the reader in these elemental poems, reminding us that the right words can both comfort us and enlarge our understanding of life’s mysteries.

Download or read book The Warmth of Other Suns written by Isabel Wilkerson and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-10-04 with total page 642 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES’S FIVE BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY “A brilliant and stirring epic . . . Ms. Wilkerson does for the Great Migration what John Steinbeck did for the Okies in his fiction masterpiece, The Grapes of Wrath; she humanizes history, giving it emotional and psychological depth.”—John Stauffer, The Wall Street Journal “What she’s done with these oral histories is stow memory in amber.”—Lynell George, Los Angeles Times WINNER: The Mark Lynton History Prize • The Anisfield-Wolf Award for Nonfiction • The Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize • The Hurston-Wright Award for Nonfiction • The Hillman Prize for Book Journalism • NAACP Image Award for Best Literary Debut • Stephen Ambrose Oral History Prize FINALIST: The PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction • Dayton Literary Peace Prize ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times • USA Today • Publishers Weekly • O: The Oprah Magazine • Salon • Newsday • The Daily Beast ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker • The Washington Post • The Economist •Boston Globe • San Francisco Chronicle • Chicago Tribune • Entertainment Weekly • Philadelphia Inquirer • The Guardian • The Seattle Times • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • The Christian Science Monitor In this beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Isabel Wilkerson presents a definitive and dramatic account of one of the great untold stories of American history: the Great Migration of six million Black citizens who fled the South for the North and West in search of a better life, from World War I to 1970. Wilkerson tells this interwoven story through the lives of three unforgettable protagonists: Ida Mae Gladney, a sharecropper’s wife, who in 1937 fled Mississippi for Chicago; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, and Robert Foster, a surgeon who left Louisiana in 1953 in hopes of making it in California. Wilkerson brilliantly captures their first treacherous cross-country journeys by car and train and their new lives in colonies in the New World. The Warmth of Other Suns is a bold, remarkable, and riveting work, a superb account of an “unrecognized immigration” within our own land. Through the breadth of its narrative, the beauty of the writing, the depth of its research, and the fullness of the people and lives portrayed herein, this book is a modern classic.

Download or read book Music Direction for the Stage written by Joseph Church and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-02 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Theater music directors must draw on a remarkably broad range of musical skills. Not only do they conduct during rehearsals and performances, but they must also be adept arrangers, choral directors, vocal coaches, and accompanists. Like a record producer, the successful music director must have the flexibility to adjust as needed to a multifaceted job description, one which changes with each production and often with each performer. In Music Direction for the Stage, veteran music director and instructor Joseph Church demystifies the job in a book that offers aspiring and practicing music directors the practical tips and instruction they need in order to mount a successful musical production. Church, one of Broadway's foremost music directors, emerges from the orchestra pit to tell how the music is put into a musical show. He gives particular attention to the music itself, explaining how a music director can best plan the task of learning, analyzing, and teaching each new piece. Based on his years of professional experience, he offers a practical discussion of a music director's methods of analyzing, learning, and practicing a score, thoroughly illustrated by examples from the repertoire. The book also describes how a music director can effectively approach dramatic and choreographic rehearsals, including key tips on cueing music to dialogue and staging, determining incidental music and underscoring, making musical adjustments and revisions in rehearsal, and adjusting style and tempo to performers' needs. A key theme of the book is effective collaboration with other professionals, from the production team to the creative team to the performers themselves, all grounded in Church's real-world experience with professional, amateur, and even student performances. He concludes with a look at music direction as a career, offering invaluable advice on how the enterprising music director can find work and gain standing in the field.

Download or read book One Hand on the Podium written by John E. Harper and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2012-01-13 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: FBI AGENTS TOM MERRITT AND STEVE FRANKANO aren't accomplices to murder, but they're beginning to feel that way. As they watch a young woman's mangled body being removed from a landfill, they know who committed the crime. They also know he's an evil man of power--a politician who stays beneath the law enforcement radar. And yet they can't arrest and convict him. Because the murderer is also guilty of treason, the US government waits in hopes that the treason is what will ultimately bring down the man in question, retired US Air Force Colonel Simon Moss. Moss is a charismatic official who is climbing the political ladder. On the side, he's also selling secrets to the Syrian government. If Merritt and Frankano bring him in for murder, how will they catch Moss's Syrian connection? It's not an easy war being waged as espionage takes precedence over cold-blooded killing. The FBI watches and waits as more innocent lives are lost, but the law can't wait forever.