Nicholas Jon Paul Martin William Annabelle Tydings is a curious young daredevil who walks to the beat of his own drum. His sensible side also yearns for respect. Why do people often tell him things that he knows cannot be true? Young Nicholas brushes off the hype in his matter-of-fact way, silently longing for the love and admiration of the people he holds dear. Will energetic curiosity and a daredevil attitude keep Nicholas from learning the truth about the world around him?
With more than 30 million books sold, the My Weird School series really gets kids reading! In this eighth book in the My Weirder School series, college professor Dr. Nicholas visits A.J.’s class to help the students improve their standardized test scores in history. The weird thing is, Dr. Nicholas doesn’t care about the date Christopher Columbus came to America, who wrote the Declaration of Independence, or other important historical facts. She’s more interested in weird information like the history of the toilet bowl! She even built a time machine to take the class on a field trip to the past and future. Who will get stuck in time? And how will they get out? Perfect for reluctant readers and word lovers alike, Dan Gutman’s hugely popular My Weird School series has something for everyone. Don’t miss the hilarious adventures of A.J. and the gang.
Nick McLean was one of the most acclaimed camera operators in American cinema of the 1970s, during which time he shot many classics of the New Hollywood movement including McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Heaven Can Wait, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Deer Hunter, Marathon Man, and Being There. As a cinematographer throughout the 1980s, McLean would film blockbusters such as Cannonball Run II, City Heat, The Goonies, and Short Circuit before being lured into television to photograph some of the biggest shows in town, including Evening Shade, Cybill, and the pop culture phenomenon Friends, for which he was thrice Emmy-nominated.
When Santa offers efficiency expert Holly Jamison a job at the North Pole, she’s delighted to accept. It’s not that she loves the Christmas holidays. Far from it. Everywhere she looks, from the piles of presents to the thousands of cheery elves hard at work, Holly sees ways to improve the whole operation. Even Nick Claus, Santa's charming son, fails to draw Holly into the holiday spirit. Holly has to admit that Nick’s charismatic and handsome, but his fun-loving side doesn’t mask his lack of a work ethic. It’s only when Holly cancels Nick’s pet project, and jeopardizes Christmas for thousands of children, that she realizes that the man she discounts as a total slacker might be the only one who can teach her about the joy of Christmas.
Holly Moreau and Nick Zernigan aren't friends at school—or anywhere else. Especially since Holly blames Nick for her broken nose after a freak accident. But when they find themselves unexpectedly dropped with older relatives at a retirement complex over Christmas break, they must make peace. They have to. It's the only way to survive karaoke night and a senior citizen Christmas dance. Holly thinks Nick is a careless loser. Nick thinks Holly is a too-serious choir nerd. Can one party and a crime spree change their minds about each other? And can Nick and Holly remember the miracle of Christmas and find the answers to some of their hidden questions?
Finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction: “Nicholas Carr has written a Silent Spring for the literary mind.”—Michael Agger, Slate “Is Google making us stupid?” When Nicholas Carr posed that question, in a celebrated Atlantic Monthly cover story, he tapped into a well of anxiety about how the Internet is changing us. He also crystallized one of the most important debates of our time: As we enjoy the Net’s bounties, are we sacrificing our ability to read and think deeply? Now, Carr expands his argument into the most compelling exploration of the Internet’s intellectual and cultural consequences yet published. As he describes how human thought has been shaped through the centuries by “tools of the mind”—from the alphabet to maps, to the printing press, the clock, and the computer—Carr interweaves a fascinating account of recent discoveries in neuroscience by such pioneers as Michael Merzenich and Eric Kandel. Our brains, the historical and scientific evidence reveals, change in response to our experiences. The technologies we use to find, store, and share information can literally reroute our neural pathways. Building on the insights of thinkers from Plato to McLuhan, Carr makes a convincing case that every information technology carries an intellectual ethic—a set of assumptions about the nature of knowledge and intelligence. He explains how the printed book served to focus our attention, promoting deep and creative thought. In stark contrast, the Internet encourages the rapid, distracted sampling of small bits of information from many sources. Its ethic is that of the industrialist, an ethic of speed and efficiency, of optimized production and consumption—and now the Net is remaking us in its own image. We are becoming ever more adept at scanning and skimming, but what we are losing is our capacity for concentration, contemplation, and reflection. Part intellectual history, part popular science, and part cultural criticism, The Shallows sparkles with memorable vignettes—Friedrich Nietzsche wrestling with a typewriter, Sigmund Freud dissecting the brains of sea creatures, Nathaniel Hawthorne contemplating the thunderous approach of a steam locomotive—even as it plumbs profound questions about the state of our modern psyche. This is a book that will forever alter the way we think about media and our minds.
