Scorched Corona is a collection of poetry spanning ten years of authorship, from age 12 to 22. A timeline of reflections in raw, unedited form, Scorched Corona views the world through a youth's burnt eyes, a pair each and every one of us has had the burden to wear. This is a free ebook.Like millions of others, Roger Birch and his family depend on ad-viewing income for their survival.Unlike millions of others, the events of one uncomfortable evening leave Roger aware of the government's shadier reasons for investing in Funscreen. With high-definition cameras hidden behind a 60-inch glass veil, the answer was staring him in the face all along.Every family has a Funscreen on their wall. The question is... who's watching who?[Funscreen is a satirical/sci-fi short story of 6,500 words (approx. 22 standard pages)]A unique take on the increasing commercialisation of home life and the apparent trend towards 24-hour surveillance, Funscreen is a standalone spin-off from the dystopian novel Sycamore.Praise for Sycamore: "A brilliant and relevant sci-fi from a debut author... interesting and matrix-like""Dystopian fans should not miss this one" "Great idea from the author... 1984 for the Facebook generation" Views: 246
From the best-selling, award-winning author of 1491 and 1493—an incisive portrait of the two little-known twentieth-century scientists, Norman Borlaug and William Vogt, whose diametrically opposed views shaped our ideas about the environment, laying the groundwork for how people in the twenty-first century will choose to live in tomorrow's world. In forty years, Earth's population will reach ten billion. Can our world support that? What kind of world will it be? Those answering these questions generally fall into two deeply divided groups—Wizards and Prophets, as Charles Mann calls them in this balanced, authoritative, nonpolemical new book. The Prophets, he explains, follow William Vogt, a founding environmentalist who believed that in using more than our planet has to give, our prosperity will lead us to ruin. Cut back! was his mantra. Otherwise everyone will lose! The Wizards are the heirs of Norman Borlaug, whose research, in... Views: 245
Anderson Lake is a company man, AgriGen's Calorie Man in Thailand. Under cover as a factory manager, Anderson combs Bangkok's street markets in search of foodstuffs thought to be extinct, hoping to reap the bounty of history's lost calories. There, he encounters Emiko...
Emiko is the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. One of the New People, Emiko is not human; instead, she is an engineered being, creche-grown and programmed to satisfy the decadent whims of a Kyoto businessman, but now abandoned to the streets of Bangkok. Regarded as soulless beings by some, devils by others, New People are slaves, soldiers, and toys of the rich in a chilling near future in which calorie companies rule the world, the oil age has passed, and the side effects of bio-engineered plagues run rampant across the globe.
What Happens when calories become currency? What happens when bio-terrorism becomes a tool for corporate profits, when said bio-terrorism's genetic drift forces mankind to the cusp of post-human evolution? Award-winning author Paolo Bacigalupi delivers one of the most highly acclaimed science fiction novels of the twenty-first century. Views: 241
We all want to know how to find a soul mate, what career would be most fulfilling, how to live a life with meaning, and how to teach our children well. We are looking for a personal breakthrough, a turning point, a revelation that brings with it new meaning. The Book of Secrets--a crystalline distillation of insights and wisdom accumulated over the lifetime of one of the great spiritual thinkers of our time--provides an exquisite new tool for achieving just that.
Every life is a book of secrets, ready to be opened. The secret of perfect love is found there, along with the secrets of healing, compassion, faith, and the most elusive one of all: who we really are. We are still mysteries to ourselves, despite the proximity of these answers, and what we most long to know remains lodged deep inside.
Because answers to the questions at the center of life are counterintuitive, they are often hidden from view, sequestered from our everyday gaze. In his ongoing quest to elevate our experience, bestselling author Deepak Chopra has isolated fifteen secrets that drive the narrative of this inspiring book--and of our lives. From "The World Is in You" and "What You Seek, You Already Are" to "Evil Is Not Your Enemy" and "You Are Truly Free When You Are Not a Person," The Book of Secrets is rich with insights, a priceless treasure that can transport us beyond change to transformation, and from there to a sacred place where we can savor the nectar of enlightenment.
"The Book of Secrets is the finest and most profound of Deepak Chopra’s books to date. Want the answers to the secrets of life? Let me recommend that you start right here." -- Ken Wilber, author of A Brief History of Everything
From the Hardcover edition. Views: 238
Metaphysics (Greek: τὰ μετὰ τὰ φυσικά) is one of the principal works of Aristotle & the first major work of the branch of philosophy with the same name. The principal subject is "being qua being", or being understood as being. It examines what can be asserted about anything that exists just because of its existence & not because of any special qualities it has. Also covered are different kinds of causation, form & matter, the existence of mathematical objects, & a prime-mover God. Views: 235
In The Mind’s Eye, Oliver Sacks tells the stories of people who are able to navigate the world and communicate with others despite losing what many of us consider indispensable senses and abilities: the power of speech, the capacity to recognize faces, the sense of three-dimensional space, the ability to read, the sense of sight. For all of these people, the challenge is to adapt to a radically new way of being in the world.
There is Lilian, a concert pianist who becomes unable to read music and is eventually unable even to recognize everyday objects, and Sue, a neurobiologist who has never seen in three dimensions, until she suddenly acquires stereoscopic vision in her fifties.
There is Pat, who reinvents herself as a loving grandmother and active member of her community, despite the fact that she has aphasia and cannot utter a sentence, and Howard, a prolific novelist who must find a way to continue his life as a writer even after a stroke destroys his ability to read.
And there is Dr. Sacks himself, who tells the story of his own eye cancer and the bizarre and disconcerting effects of losing vision to one side.
Sacks explores some very strange paradoxes—people who can see perfectly well but cannot recognize their own children, and blind people who become hyper-visual or who navigate by “tongue vision.” He also considers more fundamental questions: How do we see? How do we think? How important is internal imagery—or vision, for that matter? Why is it that, although writing is only five thousand years old, humans have a universal, seemingly innate, potential for reading?
The Mind’s Eye is a testament to the complexity of vision and the brain and to the power of creativity and adaptation. And it provides a whole new perspective on the power of language and communication, as we try to imagine what it is to see with another person’s eyes, or another person’s mind.
From the Hardcover edition. Views: 234
Denbies Wine Estate (Dorking, England), plays host to a "St George’s Day Celebration Supper" in April.As well as a sumptuous banquet plus minstrels, jesters and magicians, guests (being a pretty bright bunch) are invited to take part in a literary competition.Now updated to include the 2012 competition, as well as winners and finalists from the previous years.All may seem lost...until you really do lose everything.Jessica Ellison thought she'd lost everything in the Joplin tornado, until her boyfriend, Nick, dies in a freak accident. It all started as a retreat to Eureka Springs to escape the rubble of what was left of their lives, a chance to have a normal weekend before returning to sift through the debris one last time. Things come into focus for Jessica when the only man she's ever loved is killed. Can fate twist things around and set it right, or has it just spiraled out of control? Views: 233
From the bestselling author of STRIKE BACK, Chris Ryan returns with a new action-packed series.Tough enough? Smart enough? Max will require all his skills just to stay alive as a Special Forces Cadet...A top-secret government programme needs a crack team of undercover military operators. They must have awesome levels of determination, endurance and fitness. They must be able to think on their feet. The recruits undergo the most rigorous and testing selection process the modern military can devise. And in order to operate in circumstances where adult forces would be compromised, the recruits must be under sixteen. Only a few are tough enough and smart enough to make it . . . And once out in the field, they will require all their skills just to stay alive. Which is what happens when Max Silver, Abby Asher, Lukas Channing and Sami Hakim are sent into an armed siege in an inner-city school . . . Views: 232
An ancient Hopi legend predicts the birth of a girl with pale skin, blond hair and yellow eyes. When the prophecy is misread the child is abandoned, but unexplained forces ensure she is found by a loving Christian family. As her body and mind undergo a strange metamorphosis she is faced with the revelation that the future of mankind may depend upon her.Have you ever wondered why you were born? You know deep in your soul that life has purpose, but answers to your questions are illusive. We are all searching. A million years before the Florida peninsula existed, a chain of small islands arose from Earth’s primordial oceans. Today, people call it the Florida Ridge. It was there an ancient and highly advanced civilization established a final sanctuary containing an underground library with historical records and remnants of technology. The archaeological site was discovered in 1930 by French explorer Claude Gautier, but remains a closely guarded secret to this day. Sleep was difficult for Haley King. For as long as she could remember, her nights were filled with recurring dreams of a strange civilization. Everyone in her community knew her. They all loved the little blind girl, everyone except Brian. He learned of her true identity from a strange old man with glowing eyes, but he didn’t dare tell anyone; they would laugh at him. She was the biological offspring of two full-blooded Hopi Indians, but her DNA was very different. Her eyes were fluorescent yellow, hair blond, and her skin was pale. An ancient Hopi legend predicted her birth, but the tribe’s partial conversion to Catholicism in the late sixteenth century resulted in a serious misinterpretation of what to do with her. The medicine man took Haley from her mother and gave her to the Catholic Church. Haley was adopted and moved to Florida when she was twelve years old. She became close friends with five boys who had the suspicious happening of all being born on the same day. While the boys were on a fishing trip celebrating their sixteenth birthday, their boat was struck by lightning. Four of them (including Brian) were nearly killed. A tattoo of a leafless tree was burned on their feet. The fifth boy experienced a vision of the future. They were all changed by the incident and their lives became more intermingled with Haley. Views: 231
The Rest of the Robots is the third timeless, amazing and amusing volume of Isaac Asimov's robot stories, offering golden insights into robot thought processes. Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics have since been programmed into real computers the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and used as the outline for a legal robotic charter in Korea.
ROBOT TONY is the first robot designed to perform domestic duties by the US Robots and Mechanical Men Corporation. Is it Tony's fault that the lady of the house where he's field tested falls in love with him?
ROBOT AL was intended for shipment to a mining outfit on the moon. Instead, he's loose in the mountains of Virginia...building from scraps of junk his very own, very dangerous disintegrator.
ROBOT LENNY answers workaday questions in babytalk. So why is Dr Susan Calvin, the world's top robopsychologist, fascinated by this messed up specimen of an industrial robot? Views: 231
