Up the Walls of the World
Up the Walls of the World

Author: James Tiptree

Publisher: Open Road Media

Published: 2020-08-25

Total Pages: 345

ISBN-13: 1504062353

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The first novel from the award-winning author of Brightness Falls from the Air, a writer “known for gender-bending, boundary-pushing work” (Tor.com). Up the Walls of the World is the 1978 debut novel of Alice Sheldon, who had built her reputation with the acclaimed short stories she published under the name James Tiptree Jr. A singular representation of American science fiction in its prime, Tiptree’s first novel expanded on the themes she addressed in her short fiction. “From telepathy to cosmology, from densely conceived psychological narrative to the broadest of sense-of-wonder revelations, the novel is something of a tour de force” (The Science Fiction Encyclopedia). Known as the Destroyer, a self-aware leviathan roams through space gobbling up star systems. In its path is the planet Tyree, populated by telepathic wind-dwelling aliens who are facing extinction. Meanwhile on Earth, people burdened with psi powers are part of a secret military experiment run by a drug-addicted doctor struggling with his own grief. These vulnerable humans soon become the target of the Tyrenni, whose only hope of survival is to take over their bodies and minds—an unspeakable crime in any other period of the aliens’ history . . . Praise for James Tiptree Jr. “[Tiptree] can show you the human in the alien and the alien in the human and make both utterly real.” —The Washington Post “Novels that deal with the mental gymnastics of superminds, or with concepts like eternity and infinity, are doomed to fall short of the mark. But Tiptree’s misses are more exciting than the bulls‐eyes of less ambitious authors.” —The New York Times

By Water Beneath the Walls
By Water Beneath the Walls

Author: Benjamin H. Milligan

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2024-07-16

Total Pages: 641

ISBN-13: 0553392212

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A gripping history chronicling the fits and starts of American special operations and the ultimate rise of the Navy SEALs from unarmed frogmen to elite, go-anywhere commandos—as told by one of their own. “Deeply researched, well organized, and incredibly engaging . . . This is our legacy with all the warts, the challenges, and the heroics in one concise volume.”—Admiral William H. McRaven, #1 New York Times bestselling author and former commander, United States Special Operations Command How did the US Navy—the branch of the US military tasked with patrolling the oceans—ever manage to produce a unit of raiders trained to operate on land? And how, against all odds, did that unit become one of the world’s most elite commando forces, routinely striking thousands of miles from the water on the battlefields of Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, even Central Africa? Behind the SEALs’ improbable rise lies the most remarkable underdog story in American military history—and in these pages, former Navy SEAL Benjamin H. Milligan captures it as never before. Told through the eyes of remarkable leaders and racing from one longshot, hair-curling raid to the next, By Water Beneath the Walls is the tale of the unit’s heroic naval predecessors, and the evolution of the SEALs themselves. But it’s also the story of the forging of American special operations as a whole—and how the SEALs emerged from the fires as America’s first permanent commando force when again and again some other unit seemed predestined to seize that role. Here Milligan thrillingly captures the outsize feats of the SEALs’ frogmen forefathers in World War II, the Korean War, and elsewhere, even as he plunges us into the second front of interservice rivalries and personal ambition that shaped the SEALs’ evolution. In equally vivid, masterful detail, he chronicles key early missions undertaken by units like the Marine Raiders, Army Rangers, and Green Berets, showing us how these fateful, bloody moments helped create the modern American commando—even as they opened up pivotal opportunities for the Navy. Finally, he takes us alongside as the SEALs at last seize the mantle of commando raiding, and discover the missions of capture/kill and counterterrorism that would define them for decades to come. Now required reading throughout the US special operations community, By Water Beneath the Walls is an essential history of the SEAL teams, a crackling account of desperate last stands and unforgettable characters accomplishing the impossible—and a riveting epic of the dawn of American special operations.

The Age of Walls
The Age of Walls

Author: Tim Marshall

Publisher: Scribner

Published: 2019-10-15

Total Pages: 3

ISBN-13: 1501183915

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Tim Marshall, the New York Times bestselling author of Prisoners of Geography, offers “a readable primer to many of the biggest problems facing the world” (Daily Express, UK) by examining the borders, walls, and boundaries that divide countries and their populations. The globe has always been a world of walls, from the Great Wall of China to Hadrian’s Wall to the Berlin Wall. But a new age of isolationism and economic nationalism is upon us, visible in Trump’s obsession with building a wall on the Mexico border, in Britain’s Brexit vote, and in many other places as well. China has the great Firewall, holding back Western culture. Europe’s countries are walling themselves against immigrants, terrorism, and currency issues. South Africa has heavily gated communities, and massive walls or fences separate people in the Middle East, Korea, Sudan, India, and other places around the world. In fact, more than a third of the world’s nation-states have barriers along their borders. Understanding what is behind these divisions is essential to understanding much of what’s going on in the world today. Written in Tim Marshall’s brisk, inimitable style, The Age of Walls is divided by geographic region. He provides an engaging context that is often missing from political discussion and draws on his real life experiences as a reporter from hotspots around the globe. He examines how walls, borders, and barriers have been shaping our political landscape for hundreds of years, and especially since 2001, and how they figure in the diplomatic relations and geo-political events of today. “Marshall is a skilled explainer of the world as it is, and geography buffs will be pleased by his latest” (Kirkus Reviews). “Accomplished, well researched, and pacey…The Age of Walls is for anyone who wants to look beyond the headlines and explore the context of some of the biggest challenges facing the world today, it is a fascinating and fast read” (City AM, UK).

Doors in the Walls of the World
Doors in the Walls of the World

Author: Peter Kreeft

Publisher: Ignatius Press

Published: 2018-07-01

Total Pages: 130

ISBN-13: 1681498014

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"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."— Hamlet After William Shakespeare's Horatio sees the ghost of Hamlet's father, and scarcely believes his own eyes, Hamlet tells him that there is more to reality than he can know or imagine, including ghosts. Hamlet's statement suggests that the walls of the material world, which we perceive with our senses and analyze with our intellects, have doors that open into the More beyond them. Philosopher Peter Kreeft explains in this book that the More includes "The Absolute Good, Platonic Forms, God, gods, angels, spirits, ghosts, souls, Brahman, Rta (the Hindu ontological basis for cosmological karma), Nirvana, Tao, 'the will of Heaven', The Meaning of It All, Something that deserves a capital letter." With razor-sharp reasoning and irrepressible joy, Kreeft helps us to find the doors in the walls of the world. Drawing on history, physical science, psychology, religion, philosophy, literature, and art, he invites us to welcome what lies on the other side so that we can begin living the life of Heaven in the here and now.

How to Walk on Water and Climb up Walls
How to Walk on Water and Climb up Walls

Author: David Hu

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2018-11-13

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 0691169861

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Discovering the secrets of animal movement and what they can teach us Insects walk on water, snakes slither, and fish swim. Animals move with astounding grace, speed, and versatility: how do they do it, and what can we learn from them? In How to Walk on Water and Climb up Walls, David Hu takes readers on an accessible, wondrous journey into the world of animal motion. From basement labs at MIT to the rain forests of Panama, Hu shows how animals have adapted and evolved to traverse their environments, taking advantage of physical laws with results that are startling and ingenious. In turn, the latest discoveries about animal mechanics are inspiring scientists to invent robots and devices that move with similar elegance and efficiency. Hu follows scientists as they investigate a multitude of animal movements, from the undulations of sandfish and the way that dogs shake off water in fractions of a second to the seemingly crash-resistant characteristics of insect flight. Not limiting his exploration to individual organisms, Hu describes the ways animals enact swarm intelligence, such as when army ants cooperate and link their bodies to create bridges that span ravines. He also looks at what scientists learn from nature’s unexpected feats—such as snakes that fly, mosquitoes that survive rainstorms, and dead fish that swim upstream. As researchers better understand such issues as energy, flexibility, and water repellency in animal movement, they are applying this knowledge to the development of cutting-edge technology. Integrating biology, engineering, physics, and robotics, How to Walk on Water and Climb up Walls demystifies the remarkable mechanics behind animal locomotion.

The Rats in the Walls
The Rats in the Walls

Author: H.P. Lovecraft

Publisher: SAMPI Books

Published: 2024-07-23

Total Pages: 40

ISBN-13: 6561332423

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In "The Rats in the Walls" by H.P. Lovecraft, a man restores his ancestral estate in England, only to be haunted by mysterious noises within the walls. As he investigates, he uncovers horrifying secrets about his family's dark past and the ancient horrors lurking beneath the mansion.

The Walls Around Us
The Walls Around Us

Author: Nova Ren Suma

Publisher: Algonquin Books

Published: 2014-12-12

Total Pages: 333

ISBN-13: 1616205733

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SPECIAL PREVIEW! “Ori’s dead because of what happened out behind the theater, in the tunnel made out of trees. She’s dead because she got sent to that place upstate, locked up with those monsters. And she got sent there because of me.” The Walls Around Us is a ghostly story of suspense told in two voices--one still living and one long dead. On the outside, there’s Violet, an eighteen-year-old dancer days away from the life of her dreams when something threatens to expose the shocking truth of her achievement. On the inside, within the walls of a girls’ juvenile detention center, there’s Amber, locked up for so long she can’t imagine freedom. Tying these two worlds together is Orianna, who holds the key to unlocking all the girls’ darkest mysteries. We hear Amber’s story and Violet’s, and through them Orianna’s, first from one angle, then from another, until gradually we begin to get the whole picture--which is not necessarily the one that either Amber or Violet wants us to see. Nova Ren Suma tells a supernatural tale of guilt and innocence, and what happens when one is mistaken for the other. Praise for Imaginary Girls: “A surreal and dreamy world where magical thinking is carried to a chilling extreme.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review Praise for 17 & Gone: “Suma’s exquisite sentence-level writing and fine eye for creepy detail are in abundant evidence.” —Kirkus Reviews

The Walls Have Ears
The Walls Have Ears

Author: Helen Fry

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2019-09-10

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 0300249012

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A history of the elaborate and brilliantly sustained World War II intelligence operation by which Hitler’s generals were tricked into giving away vital Nazi secretsAt the outbreak of World War II, MI6 spymaster Thomas Kendrick arrived at the Tower of London to set up a top secret operation: German prisoners’ cells were to be bugged and listeners installed behind the walls to record and transcribe their private conversations. This mission proved so effective that it would go on to be set up at three further sites—and provide the Allies with crucial insight into new technology being developed by the Nazis.In this astonishing history, Helen Fry uncovers the inner workings of the bugging operation. On arrival at stately-homes-turned-prisons like Trent Park, high-ranking German generals and commanders were given a "phony" interrogation, then treated as "guests," wined and dined at exclusive clubs, and encouraged to talk. And so it was that the Allies got access to some of Hitler’s most closely guarded secrets—and from those most entrusted to protect them.

Climbing the Walls
Climbing the Walls

Author: Kieran Cunningham

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2021-05-13

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 1398500216

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When mountains are your salvation, what keep your mental weather calm and free of storms, how do you cope if they’re out of reach? After spending a decade restlessly globetrotting in search of a way of life that worked for him, journalist Kieran Cunningham alighted on Sondrio, a small town in Lombardy, Italy. A stone’s throw from the Alps, there he found the perfect combination of fresh mountain air, a strong network of local friends and lots of climbing. Finally he was able to accept and manage his diagnosis of Bipolar 1. And then Lombardy found itself the European epicentre of Covid-19 and subject to the strictest of lockdowns. What does a climber do when his beloved peaks are off limits? When he’s only permitted to leave the house for his weekly sanctioned grocery shop? When all the things that help him maintain his delicate equilibrium are taken away? As Kieran feels his mental health begin to crumble, he looks desperately for something he can climb to help rid him of his excess energy and hopefully get him back on track. Kieran finds himself navigating the walls of his house over and over while gazing at the mountain ranges so tantalisingly close. He dreams of that first euphoric climb – alone in the clouds, tired, happy, sated. Climbing the Walls is a memoir about mental health and the power of nature and exercise. It’s both a devastatingly honest account of living with Bipolar 1 and a love song to small-town Italian life and the high places that keep him healthy.

Walls
Walls

Author: David Frye

Publisher: Scribner

Published: 2019-08-27

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 1501172719

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“A lively popular history of an oft-overlooked element in the development of human society” (Library Journal)—walls—and a haunting and eye-opening saga that reveals a startling link between what we build and how we live. With esteemed historian David Frye as our raconteur-guide in Walls, which Publishers Weekly praises as “informative, relevant, and thought-provoking,” we journey back to a time before barriers of brick and stone even existed—to an era in which nomadic tribes vied for scarce resources, and each man was bred to a life of struggle. Ultimately, those same men would create edifices of mud, brick, and stone, and with them effectively divide humanity: on one side were those the walls protected; on the other, those the walls kept out. The stars of this narrative are the walls themselves—rising up in places as ancient and exotic as Mesopotamia, Babylon, Greece, China, Rome, Mongolia, Afghanistan, the lower Mississippi, and even Central America. As we journey across time and place, we discover a hidden, thousand-mile-long wall in Asia's steppes; learn of bizarre Spartan rituals; watch Mongol chieftains lead their miles-long hordes; witness the epic siege of Constantinople; chill at the fate of French explorers; marvel at the folly of the Maginot Line; tense at the gathering crisis in Cold War Berlin; gape at Hollywood’s gated royalty; and contemplate the wall mania of our own era. Hailed by Kirkus Reviews as “provocative, well-written, and—with walls rising everywhere on the planet—timely,” Walls gradually reveals the startling ways that barriers have affected our psyches. The questions this book summons are both intriguing and profound: Did walls make civilization possible? And can we live without them? Find out in this masterpiece of historical recovery and preeminent storytelling.