"Humans are pretty grass-fed now." That's the general opinion about the remnants of the human race existing in the three compounds of the dust planet Yalk. Humanity lost their freedom centuries ago to the Lovindians, who live forever at the expense of their conquered species. Jacob tries to find contentment in his life, which is destined to be short. He tries to repress the losses of his traumatic childhood and ignore when people continue to disappear but is violently forced from his apathetic life. When Jacob is the only one to see the massacre of the Yalkian rebels, he adopts the role of an unwilling anti-hero. Can a single human's rage make any difference against the strength of the conquerors of a galaxy? Will Jacob be able to keep his loved ones safe from the greed of an impossible enemy?
Following the Milky Way is the story of Elyn Aviva's 500-mile-long journey on foot on the Camino de Santiago. This 1000-year-old pilgrimage road stretches from the French Pyrenees across northern Spain to Santiago de Compostela, supposed tomb of St. James the Apostle. It is a journey that crosses the landscape of the soul as well as the mountains and mesetas of Spain.
The acclaimed author of "Tracing Stars" delivers a moving story about how a mother's mental illness affects her childrenNand the way her children's band together to get through it.
“Human beings have been smart enough to turn nature to their ends, generate vast wealth for themselves, and double their average life span. But are they smart enough to solve the problems of the 21st century?” -- Thomas Homer-Dixon In The Ingenuity Gap, Thomas Homer-Dixon, "global guru" (the Toronto Star), asks: is our world becoming too complex, too fast-paced to manage? The challenges facing us converge, intertwine, and remain largely beyond our ken. Most of suspect the "experts don't really know what's going on; that as a species we've released forces that are neither managed nor manageable. We are fast approaching a time when we may no longer be able to control a world that increasingly exceeds our grasp. This is "the ingenuity gap" -- the term coined by Thomas Homer-Dixon -- the critical gap between our need for practical, innovative ideas to solve complex problems and our actual supply of those ideas. Through gripping narrative stories and incidents that exemplify his arguments, he takes us on a world tour that begins with a heartstopping description of the tragic crash of United Airlines Flight 232 from Denver to Chicago and includes Las Vegas in its desert, a wilderness beach in British Columbia, and his solitary search for a little girl in Patna, India. He shows how, in our complex world, while poor countries are particularly vulnerable to ingenuity gaps, our own rich countries are not immune, and we are caught between a requirement for ingenuity and an increasingly uncertain supply. When the gap widens, political disintegration and violent upheaval can result, reaching into our own economies and daily lives in subtle ways. In compelling, lucid, prose, he makes real the problems we face and suggests how we might overcome them.
The “spellbinding” (People, 4 stars), New York Times bestseller from the author of The Dovekeepers: an extraordinary novel about an electric and impassioned love affair—“an enchanting love story rich with history and a sense of place” (USA TODAY). Coralie Sardie is the daughter of the sinister impresario behind The Museum of Extraordinary Things, a Coney Island freak show that thrills the masses. An exceptional swimmer, Coralie appears as the Mermaid in her father’s “museum,” alongside performers like the Wolfman and the Butterfly Girl. One night Coralie stumbles upon a striking young man taking pictures of moonlit trees in the woods off the Hudson River. The dashing photographer is Eddie Cohen, a Russian immigrant who has run away from his community and his job as a tailor’s apprentice. When Eddie photographs the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, he becomes embroiled in the mystery behind a young woman’s disappearance. And he ignites the heart of Coralie. Alice Hoffman weaves her trademark magic, romance, and masterful storytelling to unite Coralie and Eddie in a tender and moving story of young love in tumultuous times. The Museum of Extraordinary Things is, “a lavish tale about strange yet sympathetic people” (The New York Times Book Review).
Almost forty years ago we launched the "Voyager Space Probe". It was a feat of human ingenuity. The craft explored the outer planets, sending back information and images to expand our knowledge of this universe. When its mission was complete, Voyager left our solar system for interstellar space. Although we stayed in contact with it, we felt its mission was over....but we were wrong. The moment it left our solar system it was detected by an alien race who were unaware of our location. With i
