“[A] tour de force of speculative historical fiction. Highly recommended.”— Library Journal In the extraordinary Worldwar tetralogy, set against the backdrop of World War II, Harry Turtledove, the “Hugo-winning master of alternate SF” ( Publishers Weekly ), wove an explosive saga of world powers locked in conflict against an enemy from the stars. Now he expands his magnificent epic into the volatile 1960s, when the space race is in its infancy and humanity must face its greatest challenge: alien colonization of planet Earth. Yet even in the shadow of this inexorable foe, the United States, the Soviet Union, and Nazi Germany are unable to relinquish their hostilities and unite against a massive new wave of extraterrestrials. For all the countries of the world, this is the greatest threat of all. This time, the terrible price of defeat will be the conquest of our world, and perhaps the extinction of the human race itself. Praise for Second Contact “An exciting, often surprising, story that will not only delight his fans but will probably send newcomers back to the Worldwar saga.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Outstanding entertainment.” — Booklist

"A collection of bestselling, NBCC prize-winning author Jonathan Lethem's finest writing on the subject of writers and writing. A readerly wake-up call from one of America's finest and most acclaimed working writers. Picking up where his NBCC Award finalist collection The Ecstasy of Influence left off, More Alive and Less Lonely collects more than a decade of Lethem's finest writing on writing, with new and previously unpublished material, including: impassioned appeals for forgotten writers and overlooked books, razor-sharp essays, and personal accounts of his most extraordinary literary encounters and discoveries. Only Lethem, with his love of cult favorites and the canon alike, can write with equal insight about the stories of modern masters like Lorrie Moore and Salman Rushdie, graphic novelist Chester Brown, science fiction outlier Philip K. Dick, and classic icons like Moby-Dick. Edited by novelist Christopher Boucher (Golden Delicious), More Alive and Less Lonely deserves a place on every serious reader's bookshelf. Lethem's joyful approach to literature will inspire you to dive back into your favorite books and then point you towards what to read next"--

"Weinberg takes us across centuries from ancient Miletus to medieval Baghdad and Oxford, from Plato's Academy and the Museum of Alexandria to the cathedral school of Chartres and the Royal Society of London. He shows that the scientists of ancient and medieval times not only did not understand what we understand about the world--they did not understand what there is to understand, or how to understand it. Yet over the centuries, through the struggle to solve such mysteries as the curious backward movement of the planets and the rise and fall of the tides, the modern discipline of science eventually emerged"--Amazon.com ; Presents a commentary on the history of science that examines historic clashes and collaborations between science and the competing realms of religion, technology, poetry, mathematics, and philosophy

Based on interviews with eleven Nobel Prize winners and many other prominent physicists, biologists, anthropologists, and psychologists, as well as leading theologians and spiritual leaders, Why Science Does Not Disprove God is a "well-informed and readable" (Wall Street Journal) analysis of the religious implications of our ever-increasing understanding of life and the universe. The renowned science writer Amir Aczel ("One of our best science popularizers"—Publishers Weekly) masterfully refutes the overreaching claims of the "New Atheists," providing millions of educated believers with a clear, engaging explanation of what science really says, how there's still much space for the Divine in the universe, and why faith in both God and empirical science are not mutually exclusive.

A vibrant cultural history investigating pandemics and vaccines, by bestselling author and historian Simon Schama Cities and countries engulfed by panic and death, desperate for vaccines but fearful of what inoculation may bring. This is what the world has just gone through with Covid-19. But as Simon Schama shows in his epic history of vulnerable humanity caught between the terror of contagion and the ingenuity of science, it has happened before. Characteristically, Schama's message is delivered through gripping, page-turning stories set in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: smallpox strikes London; cholera hits Paris; plague comes to India. Threading through the scenes of terror, suffering and hope - in hospitals and prisons, palaces, and slums - are an unforgettable cast of characters: a philosopher-playwright burning up with smallpox in a country chateau; a vaccinating doctor paying house calls in Halifax; a woman doctor in south India driving her inoculator-carriage through the stricken streets as dead monkeys drop from the trees. But we are also in the labs when great, life-saving breakthroughs happen, in Paris, Hong Kong, and Mumbai. At the heart of it all is an unsung hero: Waldemar Haffkine, a gun-toting Jewish student in Odesa turned microbiologist at the Pasteur Institute, hailed in England as "the saviour of mankind" for vaccinating millions against cholera and bubonic plague in British India while being cold-shouldered by the medical establishment of the Raj. Creator of the world's first mass production line of vaccines in Mumbai, he is tragically brought down in an act of shocking injustice. Foreign Bodies crosses borders between east and west, Asia and Europe, the worlds of rich and poor, politics and science. Its thrilling story carries with it the credo of its author on the interconnectedness of humanity and nature; of the powerful and the people. Ultimately, Schama says, as we face the challenges of our times together, "there are no foreigners, only familiars."

"Megan Amram, one of Forbes' "30 Under 30 in Hollywood & Entertainment," Rolling Stone's "25 Funniest People on Twitter," and a writer for NBC's hit show Parks and Recreation, delivers a politically, scientifically, and anatomically incorrect "textbook" that will have women screaming with laughter, and men dying to know what the noise is about. In the vein of faux expert books by John Hodgman and Amy Sedaris, Science...for Her! is ostensibly a book of science written by a denizen of women's magazines. Comedy writer and Twitter sensation Megan Amram showcases her fiendish wit with a pitch-perfect attack on everything from those insanely perky tips for self-improvement to our bizarre shopaholic dating culture to the socially mandated pursuit of mind-blowing sex to the cringe-worthy secret codes of food and body issues. Part hilarious farce, part biting gender commentary, Amram blends Cosmo and science to highlight absurdities with a machine-gun of laugh-inducing lines that leave nothing and no one unscathed. Subjects include: this Spring's ten most glamorous ways to die; tips for hosting your own big bang; what religion is right for your body type; and the most pressing issue facing women today: kale!!! Be prepared to laugh about anything in this outrageous satirical gem"--

Drawing on the lives of five great scientists, this "scholarly, insightful, and beautifully written book" (Martin Rees, author of From Here to Infinity ) illuminates the path to scientific discovery. Charles Darwin, William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), Linus Pauling, Fred Hoyle, and Albert Einstein all made groundbreaking contributions to their fields--but each also stumbled badly. Darwin's theory of natural selection shouldn't have worked, according to the prevailing beliefs of his time. Lord Kelvin gravely miscalculated the age of the earth. Linus Pauling, the world's premier chemist, constructed an erroneous model for DNA in his haste to beat the competition to publication. Astrophysicist Fred Hoyle dismissed the idea of a "Big Bang" origin to the universe (ironically, the caustic name he gave to this event endured long after his erroneous objections were disproven). And Albert Einstein speculated incorrectly about the forces of the universe--and that speculation opened the door to brilliant conceptual leaps. As Mario Livio luminously explains in this "thoughtful meditation on the course of science itself" ( The New York Times Book Review ), these five scientists expanded our knowledge of life on earth, the evolution of the earth, and the evolution of the universe, despite and because of their errors. "Thoughtful, well-researched, and beautifully written" ( The Washington Post ), Brilliant Blunders is a wonderfully insightful examination of the psychology of five fascinating scientists--and the mistakes as well as the achievements that made them famous.

More of Isaac Asimov's weekly science columns for the Los Angeles Times and those his wife, Janet, wrote during his illness and after his death in April 1992. The Asimovs discuss how close we are to producing life in a lab, the latest revelations about dinosaur extinction, recent startling sightings of planets and stars, if we can establish colonies on Mars, if computer intelligence can ever surpass human intelligence, and the gravest dangers to our environment. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Frontiers probes the furthest boundaries of prehistory, science, earth space and the universe. It is a collection of short, topical and intriguing essays through which Isaac Asimov, the incomparable writer of science fiction, proposes brand new answers to classic scientific conundrums.

Over the past few decades there has been a revolution in terms of who controls knowledge and information. This rapid change has imperilled the way we think. Without pausing to consider the cost, the world has rushed to embrace the products and services of four titanic corporations. We shop with Amazon; socialise on Facebook; turn to Apple for entertainment; and rely on Google for information. These firms sell their efficiency and purport to make the world a better place, but what they have done instead is to enable an intoxicating level of daily convenience. As these companies have expanded, marketing themselves as champions of individuality and pluralism, their algorithms have pressed us into conformity and laid waste to privacy. They have produced an unstable and narrow culture of misinformation, and put us on a path to a world without private contemplation, autonomous thought, or solitary introspection - a world without mind. In order to restore our inner lives, we must avoid being co-opted by these gigantic companies, and understand the ideas that underpin their success. Elegantly tracing the intellectual history of computer science - from the Descartes and the enlightenment to Alan Turing to Stuart Brand and the hippie origins of today's Silicon Valley - Foer exposes the dark underpinnings of our most idealistic dreams for technology. The corporate ambitions of Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon, he argues, are trampling longstanding liberal values, especially intellectual property and privacy. This is a nascent stage in the total automation and homogenization of social, political, and intellectual life. By reclaiming our private authority over how we intellectually engage with the world, we have the power to stem the tide. At stake is nothing less than who we are, and what we will become. There have been monopolists in the past but today's corporate giants have far more nefarious aims. They're monopolists who want access to every facet of our identities and influence over every corner of our decision-making. Until now few have grasped the sheer scale of the threat. Foer explains not just the looming existential crisis but the imperative of resistance.

Humanity has always been intrigued by the timeless question: Where did we come from? In 1974, the discovery of the fossilised bones of a three-million-year-old female dubbed 'Lucy' captured the world's attention. This nearly complete skeleton of an early human ancestor not only triggered widespread interest in our human origins but also prompted a thorough re-evaluation of established scientific doctrines. Today, hardly a month goes by without news of significant discoveries that are changing our understanding of human origins at what seems like the speed of lightning. But what does all this new knowledge about our species mean? That's exactly what acclaimed science writer Carl Zimmer tackles in this accessible, up-to-the-minute guide to human origins. Zimmer offers an entertaining and illuminating journey through our ancestry - beginning sixty-five million years ago with the first primates and ending today, as we enter a new phase of evolution. From ancient fossils unearthed in the Sahara Desert to the analysis of DNA by robots at the National Human Genome Research Institute in suburban Maryland, Zimmer weaves together the varied clues about our human ancestry in an entertaining, informative and highly readable volume that will appeal to expert and general reader alike.

Unabridged declassified value reproduction of The Los Alamos Primer by Robert Serber, in full color with all censor markings. This is the booklet given to new workers at Los Alamos during World War II, to catch them up on how to build a practical fission bomb. The Primer was driven by Robert Oppenheimer asking his protégé Robert Serber to summarize all knowledge and possible solutions known as of April 1943 in a series of lectures. Serber did such an excellent job that the notes from the series was turned into The Los Alamos Primer. Serber was known as an expert that bridged theory and reality, and so was also chosen to be one of the first Americans to enter Hiroshima and Nagasaki to assess the atomic damage in 1945. Touch a piece of history in this slim volume with the full text at an affordable price.

From the author of the #1 national bestselling Musicophilia comes a truly visionary book: an exploration of the remarkable, unpredictable ways that our brains cope with the loss of sight by finding new forms of perception to create worlds as complete and rich as the no-longer-visible world. Following the phenomenal success of his international bestseller Musicophilia , the inimitable Oliver Sacks returns with another book on the extraordinary interaction between our brain and our senses -- in this case, vision. In The Mind's Eye , Sacks examines questions ranging from the primary experiences of how we perceive depth or color or motion to the complex matter of how different individuals have varied ways of thinking and experiencing or recreating the visual world. Like The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and An Anthropologist on Mars , Sacks's new book is based primarily on individual stories -- including Sacks's own experience of an ocular tumor that left him unable to perceive depth. As always, he embeds these case histories in a rich historical and scientific context. Sacks goes beyond basic vision to explore perception, hallucination and the power of visualization, as well as the ocular effects of migraine, epilepsy and other conditions. Oliver Sacks is our perfect guide to the visual world, a realm that, it turns out, is much, much more complicated than we could have imagined.

The former dean of the Yale School of Management and Undersecretary of Commerce in the Clinton administration chronicles the 1971 August meeting at Camp David, where President Nixon unilaterally ended the last vestiges of the gold standard--breaking the link between gold and the dollar--transforming the entire global monetary system. Over the course of three days--from August 13 to 15, 1971--at a secret meeting at Camp David, President Richard Nixon and his brain trust changed the course of history. Before that weekend, all national currencies were valued to the U.S. dollar, which was convertible to gold at a fixed rate. That system, established by the Bretton Woods Agreement at the end of World War II, was the foundation of the international monetary system that helped fuel the greatest expansion of middle-class prosperity the world has ever seen. In making his decision, Nixon shocked world leaders, bankers, investors, traders and everyone involved in global finance. Jeffrey E. Garten argues that many of the roots of America's dramatic retrenchment in world affairs began with that momentous event that was an admission that America could no longer afford to uphold the global monetary system. It opened the way for massive market instability and speculation that has plagued the world economy ever since, but at the same time it made possible the gigantic expansion of trade and investment across borders which created our modern era of once unimaginable progress. Based on extensive historical research and interviews with several participants at Camp David, and informed by Garten's own insights from positions in four presidential administrations and on Wall Street, Three Days at Camp David chronicles this critical turning point, analyzes its impact on the American economy and world markets, and explores its ramifications now and for the future.

From Jeff Pearlman--the New York Times best-selling author of Three Ring Circus--comes the rollicking, outrageous story of the USFL, full of larger-than-life characters and you-can't-make-this-up stories featuring some of the biggest celebrities and buffoons in the game. The United States Football League--known fondly to millions of sports fans as the USFL--did not merely challenge the NFL, but cause its owners and executives to collectively shudder. In its three seasons from 1983-85, it secured multiple television deals, drew millions of fans and launched the careers of legends such as Steve Young, Jim Kelly, Herschel Walker, and Reggie White. But then it died beneath the weight of a particularly egotistical and bombastic team owner--a New York businessman named Donald J. Trump. In Football for a Buck, Jeff Pearlman draws on more than four hundred interviews to unearth all the salty, untold stories of one of the craziest sports entities to have ever captivated America. From 1980s drug excess to airplane brawls and player-coach punch outs, to backroom business deals and some of the most enthralling and revolutionary football ever seen, Pearlman transports readers back in time to this crazy, boozy, audacious, unforgettable era of the game. He shows how fortunes were made and lost on the backs of professional athletes and how, forty years ago, Trump was already a scoundrel and a spoiler. For fans of Terry Pluto's Loose Balls or Jim Bouton's Ball Four and of course Pearlman's own stranger-than-fiction narratives, Football for a Buck is sports as high entertainment--and a cautionary tale of the dangers of ego and excess.

This book, suitable for both course work and self-study, brings together for the first time, in an informal, tutorial fashion, the computer techniques, mathematical tools, and research results that will enable both students and practitioners to apply genetic algorithms to problems in many fields: programmers, scientists, engineers, mathematicians, statisticians and management scientists will all find interesting possibilities here. Major concepts are illustrated with running examples, and major algorithms are illustrated by Pascal computer programs. Chapter concludes with exercises and computer assignments. No prior knowledge of Gas or genetics is assumed.

The Future of science is female, by award-winning journalist Zara Stone, shares the fascinating stories of how diverse and powerful women have (and continue to) shape science and humanity. Filled with real-life inspiration for today's amazing girls, these stories show how women can break gender norms and succeed in the "traditionally masculine" fields of coding, science, robotics, and beyond! Learn about the challenges and adventures everyday heroes face as they race to fix everything the world has messed up.--

This fourth volume of the year's best science fiction and fantasy features thirty stories by some of the genre's greatest authors, including Jonathan Carroll, Neil Gaiman, Kij Johnson, Kelly Link, Paul McAuley, RJ Parker, Robert Reed, Rachel Swirsky, Catherynne M. Valente, and many others. Selecting the best fiction from Asimov's , F&SF , Strange Horizons , Subterranean , Tor.com, and other top venues, The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy is your guide to magical realms and worlds beyond tomorrow.

This giant volume combines two collections of the best science fiction stories from the fifties, sixties, and seventies, edited and with an introduction by the incomparable Isaac Asimov. These thrilling and sometimes frightening visions of the future include: • "The Last Question" by Isaac Asimov • "Who's There?" by Arthur C. Clarke • "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes