From the best-selling author of Gratitude, On the Move, and* Musicophilia, * a collection of essays that displays Oliver Sacks's passionate engagement with the most compelling and seminal ideas of human endeavor: evolution, creativity, memory, time, consciousness, and experience.
Oliver Sacks, a scientist and a storyteller, is beloved by readers for the extraordinary neurological case histories (Awakenings, An Anthropologist on Mars) in which he introduced and explored many now familiar disorders--autism, Tourette's syndrome, face blindness, savant syndrome. He was also a memoirist who wrote with honesty and humor about the remarkable and strange encounters and experiences that shaped him (Uncle Tungsten, On the Move, Gratitude). Sacks, an Oxford-educated polymath, had a deep familiarity not only with literature and medicine but with botany, animal anatomy, chemistry, the history of science, philosophy, and psychology. The River of Consciousness is one of two books Sacks was working on up to his death, and it reveals his ability to make unexpected connections, his sheer joy in knowledge, and his unceasing, timeless project to understand what makes us human. Views: 294
A profound, moving and important collection of letters, diaries and memories of the First World War, edited by Sebastian Faulks - author of Birdsong - and Dr Hope Wolf.
A Broken World presents a cacophony of voices from and about the Great War in a way never before collected together, telling the story of the conflict and its aftermath through memories and stories assembled by place and landscape.
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Sebastian Faulks and Hope Wolf have explored archives and autobiographical records to select true-life stories and experiences from diaries, letters, postcards, memoirs and other remembrances of this terrible conflict and its aftermath.
When thinking about the First World War, images of trenches, no man's land, ruined towns, and fields of white crosses have endured. This collection will include memories from and about these places, but will also feature writing from less familiar environments: voices from deserts, air space and seascapes will jostle alongside war stories from hospitals, railways, monumnets, churches, theatres, factories, prison camps and the home.
As Sebastian Faulks says: 'Much of the most exciting and illuminating writing on the First World War is found in private, unpublished documents. Some little-known or out-of-print published works also have important things to say. The centenary is the right time to shake up our received ideas of those four years. This anthology hopes to give a hearing to a Babel of urgent but little-known voices and to guide the reader through them to a deeper understanding.' Views: 292
Ann Rule has followed a lovely young woman who had realized her childhood dream of being a police officer. Barb Thompson, Ronda’s mother, waited in an airport amid Christmas decorations in 1998. Ronda never arrived. Ronda had been married less than a year and she sounded happy on the phone only hours before, excited that she would be seeing her family. But sheer dread replaced confusion as the news of Ronda’s death arrived. Her husband told a 911 operator that Ronda had committed suicide.
How could this have happened? The explanation defied physical evidence, circumstantial evidence, and witnesses’ statements. Who was in the Reynolds’ home that night, and who wanted her dead—if, indeed, they did? Had something far more sinister than suicide occurred? Ronda’s mother never stopped seeking answers.
Listeners will never forget Ronda’s tragically short life.
Rule has been given unparalleled access to the players in a real-life mystery. This is an unexplained death that true crime fans will find haunting. Views: 291
This book has 6 breathtaking tales set in the bestselling world of "The Innkeeper's Song".
All those who were enthralled by Peter S. Beagle's highly acclaimed novel, 'The Innkeeper's Song', will revel in the prospect of re-entering its strange, haunting world in this collection of stories, each marked by that special brand of magic that has earned the author comparison with Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. Moving from one teller of tales to another, Beagle describes the last, tragic sacrifice of the most celebrated bard of all time, the adventures of a peasant magician whose skills exceeded his own humble ambitions, the fate of a group of travelling players who make the mistake of dabbling in politics. He tells of the perilous escapade of two ageing mercenaries, the story of a young girl and Singing Fish, and records the poignant legacy of the dying race of giants. Told with humour, subtlety and infinite skill, these spellbinding stories will captivate all readers, whether they are seasoned Beagle fans or come to him for the first time.
Contents:
Last song of Sirit Byar --
Magician of Karakosk --
Tragical historie of the Jiril's players --
Lal and Soukyan --
Choushi-wai's story --
Giant bones. Views: 291
Welcome back to New Orleans.
Where the streets swirl with jazz and beauty.
Where the houses breathe with ghosts.
A year ago, Rebecca Brown escaped death in a New Orleans cemetery. Now she has returned to this haunting city. She is looking forward to seeing Anton Grey, the boy who may or may not have her heart.
But she also meets a ghost: a troubled boy who insists only she can help him. Soon Rebecca finds herself embroiled in another murder mystery from more than a century ago. But as she tries to right wrongs, she finds more questions than answers: Is she putting her friends, and herself, in danger? Can she trust this new ghost? And has she stumbled into something much bigger and more serious than she understands? Views: 289
James B. Hendryx (1880-1963) was the author of more than 50 novels and anthologies, and wrote hundreds of stories. And Hendryx wrote what he knew, spending time in Alaska, Canada, and the Wyoming badlands. But he’s best known for his characters set around the outlaw community of Halfaday Creek in the Yukon. Set during the Gold Rush of the late 1890s, Hendryx penned over a hundred stories featuring these characters over the span of 25 years for magazines such as West, Dime Western, New Western, Argosy, and the primary home for the Halfaday Creek series, Short Stories. Views: 289
The bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman and The Map That Changed the World examines the enduring and world-changing effects of the catastrophic eruption off the coast of Java of the earth's most dangerous volcano — Krakatoa.
The legendary annihilation in 1883 of the volcano-island of Krakatoa — the name has since become a byword for a cataclysmic disaster — was followed by an immense tsunami that killed nearly forty thousand people. Beyond the purely physical horrors of an event that has only very recently been properly understood, the eruption changed the world in more ways than could possibly be imagined. Dust swirled round the planet for years, causing temperatures to plummet and sunsets to turn vivid with lurid and unsettling displays of light. The effects of the immense waves were felt as far away as France. Barometers in Bogotá and Washington, D.C., went haywire. Bodies were washed up in Zanzibar. The sound of the island's destruction was heard in Australia and India and on islands thousands of miles away. Most significant of all — in view of today's new political climate — the eruption helped to trigger in Java a wave of murderous anti-Western militancy among fundamentalist Muslims: one of the first outbreaks of Islamic-inspired killings anywhere.
Simon Winchester's long experience in the world wandering as well as his knowledge of history and geology give us an entirely new perspective on this fascinating and iconic event as he brings it telling back to life. Views: 288
The first rocket will take five minutes to hit London.You have six minutes to stop the second.From the best-selling author of Fatherland and Munich comes a WWII thriller about a German rocket engineer, a former actress turned British spy, and the Nazi rocket program.It's November 1944—Willi Graf, a German rocket engineer, is launching Nazi Germany's V2 rockets at London from Occupied Holland. Kay Connolly, once an actress, now a young English Intelligence officer, ships out for Belgium to locate the launch sites and neutralize the threat. But when rumors of a defector circulate through the German ranks, Graf becomes a suspect. Unknown to each other, Graf and Connolly find themselves on opposite sides in the hunt for the saboteur. Their twin stories play out against the background of the German missile campaign, one of the most epic and modern but least explored episodes of the Second World War. Their destinies are on a collision course. Views: 288
This article presents an assessment that helps professionals detect the potential for violence. The assessment is balanced and looks at both risks and protective factors.This article presents an assessment that helps professionals detect the potential for violence. The assessment is balanced and looks at both risks and protective factors. Rather than having a zero tolerance policy where a single risk can get a child expelled, this assessment looks at the whole child, especially the factors that show the child is at low risk to act out in violent ways. Children, young people and adults who have good relationships with prosocial people, can regulate their emotions and behaviors, and who have beliefs that promote the well-being of others and the self are at relatively low risk. Persons who have poor relationships with others, have difficulty managing their emotions and actions, and who have beliefs that violence solves problems are at high risk. Views: 287
This short story follows a boy obsessed with a velvet recliner in his house.This short story follows the life of Danton, a boy who grew up with a velvet recliner always near him, but never able to touch, and the experiences he went through being so close to his obsession yet always kept away from it, and the results of his obsession as he grows older. Views: 287
Michael Forster is the stalled wunderkind of gritty, urban fiction; just as he thinks that he has the panacea to his chemically induced writer’s block, indecision clouds his vision. Is art imitating life? Or is it the other way around?Could it be the drugs, the alcohol, and the bingeing have created an alternate world clouded in amnesia and just out of reach?And just who IS Desiree?Michael Forster is the wunderkind of gritty, urban fiction - a Tarantino-esque rise to literary fame that has taken him down a dark road to excess, debauchery and expectation. And now, as the pressure of continuing to keep the bright white burn of street-cred relevance increases, Michael is facing his biggest crisis yet. New writers are emerging, threatening to over-take him as he faces the demons that success has brought him.He starts to write again but, just as he thinks that he may just have the panacea to his chemically induced writer’s block, indecision clouds his vision.Is art imitating life? Or is it the other way around?Could it be the drugs, the alcohol, and the bingeing have created an alternate world clouded in amnesia and just out o reach?Or is it all in his head?And, more importantly, who really is Desiree? Views: 287
Herne and I have a new home in Annwn, a castle overlooking a sea. We're about to get married, and I'm learning what it means to be a goddess. I'm also learning what I have to leave behind. But secrets come to light, bringing hope for my homeland. I thought I was done with the dragons forever, but things aren't always simple, and happily ever after doesn't mean worry-free. Reading Order for the Wild Hunt Series:Book 1: The Silver StagBook 2: Oak & ThornsBook 3: Iron BonesBook 4: A Shadow of CrowsBook 5: The Hallowed HuntBook 6: The Silver MistBook 7: Witching HourBook 8: Witching BonesBook 9: A Sacred MagicBook 10: The Eternal ReturnBook 11: Sun BrokenBook 12: Witching MoonBook 13: Autumn's BaneBook 14: Witching TimeBook 15: Hunter's MoonBook 16: Witching Fire Book 17: Veil of StarsBook 18: Antlered CrownKeep watch for The Hedge Dragon Series (book 1: The Poisoned Forest) and the Night... Views: 286
Once in a great while a science fiction story is so visionary, yet so close to impending scientific developments that it becomes not only an accurate predictor, but itself the locus for new discoveries and development. True Names by Vernor Vinge, first published in 1981, is such a work.
Here is a feast of articles by computer scientists and journalists on the cutting edge of the field, writing about innovations and developments of the Internet, including, among others:
Danny Hillis: Founder of thinking machines and the first Disney Fellow.
Timothy C. May: former chief scientist at Intel--a major insider in the field of computers and technology.
Marvin Minsky: Cofounder of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab.
Chip Morningstar and F. Randall Farmer: Codevelopers of habitat, the first real computer interactive environment.
Mark Pesce: Cocreator of VRML and the author of the Playful World: How Technology Transforms Our Imagination.
Richard M. Stallman: Research affiliate with MIT; the founder of the Free Software Movement. Views: 284
"More than anyone else in the field, Mr. Dick really puts you inside people's minds." – Wall Street Journal Many thousands of readers worldwide consider Philip K. Dick to have been the greatest science fiction writer on any planet. Since his untimely death in 1982, interest in Dick's work has continued to mount and his reputation has been enhanced by a growing body of critical attention. The Philip K. Dick Award is now presented annually to a distinguished work of science fiction, and the Philip K. Dick Society is devoted to the study and promulgation of his works. This collection includes all of the writer's earliest short and medium-length fiction (including several previously unpublished stories) covering the years 1954-1964, and featuring such fascinating tales as The Minority Report (the inspiration for Steven Spielberg's film), Service Call, Stand By, The Days of Perky Pat, and many others. Here, readers will find Dick's initial explorations of the themes he so brilliantly brought to life in his later work. Dick won the prestigious Hugo Award for best novel of 1963 for The Man in the High Castle and in the last year of his life, the now-classic film Blade Runner was made from his novel Do Androids Dream Electric Sheep? The classic stories of Philip K. Dick offer an intriguing glimpse into the early imagination of one of science fiction's most enduring and respected names. "A useful acquisition for any serious SF library or collection." – Kirkus Reviews "Awe-inspiring." – The Washington Post Views: 284
