ÿA Life In Bits is the moving story of one man's battle with bipolar disorder, a condition whose devastating consequences are still not fully appreciated by the world at large. Charles McMullen?s battle with manic depression, as it is often known, began with a nervous breakdown at the age of nineteen. In his twenties, the suicide of his brother, his own divorce and the loss of his job and his home put him inside a psychiatric hospital. Yet despite the periods of appalling despair and the continued setbacks, Charles can still write at the end of the book ?Overall, it?s been a pretty happy life?. This inspirational book will be of great interest to anyone who is afflicted by bipolar disorder, or knows one of the many people ? roughly one in 25 of the population - who are.
Can a Christmas romance mend a life that's broken to pieces? Eileen Makenna is a Pulitzer Prize winning photographer who has traveled the world for over two decades, chasing the next big story. She returns home for the holidays shattered by a life-altering event and facing the terrifying prospect she'll never be able to work again. When Eileen meets Naomi Weaver, a small-town girl who dedicates her free time to helping those in need, Eileen is entranced by Naomi's zest for life. Can Eileen overcome her inner demons and troubled family relationships to let Naomi in? Best-selling lesbian romance authors Harper Bliss & T.B. Markinson have teamed up to bring this touching age-gap love story to life.
'Blown to Bits' is about how the digital explosion is changing everything. The text explains the technology, why it creates so many surprises and why things often don't work the way we expect them to. It is also about things the information explosion is destroying: old assumptions about who is really in control of our lives.
“Full of fascinating insights drawn from an impressive range of disciplines, The Ascent of Information casts the familiar and the foreign in a dramatic new light.” —Brian Greene, author of The Elegant Universe Your information has a life of its own, and it’s using you to get what it wants. One of the most peculiar and possibly unique features of humans is the vast amount of information we carry outside our biological selves. But in our rush to build the infrastructure for the 20 quintillion bits we create every day, we’ve failed to ask exactly why we’re expending ever-increasing amounts of energy, resources, and human effort to maintain all this data. Drawing on deep ideas and frontier thinking in evolutionary biology, computer science, information theory, and astrobiology, Caleb Scharf argues that information is, in a very real sense, alive. All the data we create—all of our emails, tweets, selfies, A.I.-generated text and funny cat videos—amounts to an aggregate lifeform. It has goals and needs. It can control our behavior and influence our well-being. And it’s an organism that has evolved right alongside us. This symbiotic relationship with information offers a startling new lens for looking at the world. Data isn’t just something we produce; it’s the reason we exist. This powerful idea has the potential to upend the way we think about our technology, our role as humans, and the fundamental nature of life. The Ascent of Information offers a humbling vision of a universe built of and for information. Scharf explores how our relationship with data will affect our ongoing evolution as a species. Understanding this relationship will be crucial to preventing our data from becoming more of a burden than an asset, and to preserving the possibility of a human future.
This collection is constructed as an ongoing dialogue among a group of scholars. It engages key questions about new technologies of bio-engineering, reproduction, imaging, communication, and the redefinition of life. The contributors pursue a technophilic, yet critical, path while articulating appraised ethical standards.
This is a book of recollections and reflections of the authors experiences over a long period from Warsaw, Poland where she was born, through WW11 and the Warsaw Uprising. Arrival in England after the war as a refugee, School and College subsequent marriage enjoying a career as dancer, teacher and choreographer in six countries including New York where she received a MA degree in Theatre Arts form Hunter College. She now lives in London where she still pursues her career as an actor.
'Very funny. He writes in a sort of whimsical stream of consciousness ... even his more random disquisitions contain glorious nuggets' - Observer With his trademark darkly humorous mix of personal story and social commentary, Leith attempts to answer the question: is everything really as bad as it seems? 'You'll read this book in a weekend ... Leith is, after all, a very good writer: succinct except when he's repeating himself for effect; amusing except when he's predicting the end of the world; perceptive except when he's pretending he can't remember who actually sang Pink Floyd's Time, or which Dutch explorer discovered Easter Island ... Leith's brain is sharper than most, and he deftly weaves solipsistic woe into more pressing concerns about the housing market and the failure of Western capitalism. This is a potentially important book for our times' Andrew Collins, Mail on Sunday
Bits & Pieces is a sweet treat for children of all ages and for those who want to show someone special that they are loved. Siblings Alex Snyder and Leah Snyder Leitch team together for their debut children's title, distributed by Farcountry Press. Highlights include bright flowers, darling squirrels and fawns, a moose peaking out from behind a spruce, and elephants, lions, and their young. With colorful illustrations and rhyming prose, Bits & Pieces is sure to be a bedtime favorite.
The wife of Australian pianist David Helfgott discusses the pianist's life story, from child musical prodigy, through his mental breakdown, and to a triumphant recovery
