Stranger Than We Can Imagine

Author: John Higgs
Publisher: Signal
ISBN: 0771038488
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 315

Book Description
The extraordinary story of the 20th century, as told from the furthest fringes of science, art and culture. For readers of Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. Before 1900, history was an account of great discoveries that actually made sense. People understand innovations like the steam engine, agriculture, or electricity. The twentieth century, by contrast, gave us quantum entanglement, cubism, relativity, psychedelics, postmodernism, chaos maths, and the Somme. This is the story of that confusing century as told through the ideas produced at the furthest fringes of our sciences, arts, and culture. Its cast includes well-known geniuses such as Albert Einstein, Francis Crick, and Pablo Picasso, lesser known geniuses like Edward Lorenz, Sergey Korolyov, or Shigeru Miyamoto, and infamous but influential ne'er-do-wells like Timothy Leary, Aleister Crowley and Keith Richards. In this company we take a tour through ideas as strange as general relativity, DNA, the subconscious, Gaia theory, and Dada. In this brilliantly written and original book, John Higgs explores, with great clarity and wit, the extremes of twentieth century thought, and in doing so shows how a world of empires became a world of individuals. You will never see the twentieth century in the same way again.

Stranger Than Life

Author: M.K. Brown
Publisher: Fantagraphics Books
ISBN: 1606997084
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 249

Book Description
One of the funniest cartoonists of the last four decades, M.K. Brown has accumulated a body of work long savored by aficionados but never comprehensively collected ― until now. Stranger Than Life is the first retrospective collection of Brown's cartoons and comic strips from the National Lampoon from 1972-1981, as well as such other magazines as Mother Jones, The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, andPlayboy; and her comics from underground publications like Arcade, Wimmin's Comics, Young Lust, andTwisted Sisters. In these pages: Read instructions for the use of glue, making a pair of pants, home auto repair, coping with chainsaw massacres, and jackknifing your big rig. Travel the globe to witness the giant bananas of Maui, strange sightings in Guatemala, camel races, and a "Saga of the Frozen North." Learn about love 'round the world, among eccentric suburbanites, and in a "Condensed Gothic" romance. Meet Virginia Spears Ngodátu, who (with a bit of a name change) would go on to star in "Dr. Janice N!Godatu," Brown's series of animated shorts that appeared on The Tracy Ullman Showalongside the first incarnation of The Simpsons. Aliens, old people, pilgrims, mermen, monitor lizards, tiny floating muggers and other weirdos feature in Brown's side-splitting single-panel gag strips. Brown's cartoons combine a penchant for the absurd with the gimlet observational eye of Roz Chast. Brown satirizes suburban anxiety and ennui by turning it upside-down and sideways, and her slightly grotesque yet lovable characters are perfectly captured in her restless pen line and delicate jewel-tone watercolors.

The Little Stranger

Author: Sarah Waters
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
ISBN: 1551993392
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 482

Book Description
From the multi-award-winning and bestselling author of The Night Watch and Fingersmith comes an astonishing novel about love, loss, and the sometimes unbearable weight of the past. In a dusty post-war summer in rural Warwickshire, a doctor is called to see a patient at lonely Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for over two centuries, the once grand house is now in decline, its masonry crumbling, its garden choked with weeds. All around, the world is changing, and the family is struggling to adjust to a society with new values and rules. Roddie Ayres, who returned from World War II physically and emotionally wounded, is desperate to keep the house and what remains of the estate together for the sake of his mother and his sister, Caroline. Mrs. Ayres is doing her best to hold on to the gracious habits of a gentler era and Caroline seems cheerfully prepared to continue doing the work a team of servants once handled, even if it means having little chance for a life of her own beyond Hundreds. But as Dr. Faraday becomes increasingly entwined in the Ayreses’ lives, signs of a more disturbing nature start to emerge, both within the family and in Hundreds Hall itself. And Faraday begins to wonder if they are all threatened by something more sinister than a dying way of life, something that could subsume them completely. Both a nuanced evocation of 1940s England and the most chill-inducing novel of psychological suspense in years, The Little Stranger confirms Sarah Waters as one of the finest and most exciting novelists writing today.

Hyperspace

Author: Michio Kaku
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199857768
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 377

Book Description
Are there other dimensions beyond our own? Is time travel possible? Can we change the past? Are there gateways to parallel universes? All of us have pondered such questions, but there was a time when scientists dismissed these notions as outlandish speculations. Not any more. Today, they are the focus of the most intense scientific activity in recent memory. In Hyperspace, Michio Kaku, author of the widely acclaimed Beyond Einstein and a leading theoretical physicist, offers the first book-length tour of the most exciting (and perhaps most bizarre) work in modern physics, work which includes research on the tenth dimension, time warps, black holes, and multiple universes. The theory of hyperspace (or higher dimensional space)--and its newest wrinkle, superstring theory--stand at the center of this revolution, with adherents in every major research laboratory in the world, including several Nobel laureates. Beginning where Hawking's Brief History of Time left off, Kaku paints a vivid portrayal of the breakthroughs now rocking the physics establishment. Why all the excitement? As the author points out, for over half a century, scientists have puzzled over why the basic forces of the cosmos--gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces--require markedly different mathematical descriptions. But if we see these forces as vibrations in a higher dimensional space, their field equations suddenly fit together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, perfectly snug, in an elegant, astonishingly simple form. This may thus be our leading candidate for the Theory of Everything. If so, it would be the crowning achievement of 2,000 years of scientific investigation into matter and its forces. Already, the theory has inspired several thousand research papers, and has been the focus of over 200 international conferences. Michio Kaku is one of the leading pioneers in superstring theory and has been at the forefront of this revolution in modern physics. With Hyperspace, he has produced a book for general readers which conveys the vitality of the field and the excitement as scientists grapple with the meaning of space and time. It is an exhilarating look at physics today and an eye-opening glimpse into the ultimate nature of the universe.

Stranger Than Fantasy

Author: George J. Mauro
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1438918739
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 274

Book Description
Fantasy is a phenomenon that affects all of us more than we consciously recognize. Are we not constantly daydreaming or dreaming of the future pondering our wishes and desires? Or, do too many people accept things as they are-readily to concede all appearances as gospel? Stranger Than Fantasy is a collection of forty fantasy short stories. Each story should be taken for what it is-for the most part, an entertaining excursion of fiction that challenges one's thoughts, one's acceptance of reality. Hopefully, after reading my stories, the readers will look at their lives, their life situations a little differently and finally stand up and exclaim, "That which is, is not and that which is not , is! And if that happens, then I think the world will be a little bit better off today than it was yesterday. George Mauro

The Moral Landscape

Author: Sam Harris
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 143917122X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Book Description
Sam Harris dismantles the most common justification for religious faith--that a moral system cannot be based on science.

I Have America Surrounded

Author: John Higgs
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1504095715
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 392

Book Description
“A truth-seeking biography of an iconic cheerleader for LSD and his adventures in consciousness expansion”—with a foreword by Winona Ryder (Paul Krassner, founder of The Realist). The 1960s and ’70s wouldn’t have been the same without Timothy Leary, the renowned psychologist turned psychedelic drug guru. Always challenging authority, Leary rose to prominence through groundbreaking experiments, achieving mystical states and visions using magic mushrooms and LSD. A counterculture hero, his exploits inspired President Richard Nixon to call him “the most dangerous man in America.” In I Have America Surrounded, cultural historian John Higgs delivers an account of Leary’s wild and controversial life—from his inglorious time at West Point and his successful career in academia at Harvard, to the establishment of a psychedelic “summer camp” in Mexico, to his imprisonment, escape, and life as a fugitive in Algiers and Switzerland. Leary and his spiritual revolution were joined by such luminaries as Aldous Huxley, Allen Ginsberg, and Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. He was kidnapped by Black Panthers, became an FBI narc, and ran for governor of California. I Have America Surrounded is the story of a search for alternate meaning and realities by a man who “was a Chieftain. He stomped on the terra, and he left his elegant hoof prints on all our lives” (Hunter S. Thompson). “Anyone interested in Leary beyond seeing him traduced will be sure to enjoy it, if not love it.” —Reason magazine “You will not want to put this book down—full of unbelievable, gripping adventures—get it!” —Weed World “A remarkable account of a remarkable man.” —reFRESH “A fascinating book about an extraordinary subject.” —The Beat “Enthralling.” —MixMag

Wayfaring Stranger

Author: James Lee Burke
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476710813
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 448

Book Description
In his most ambitious work yet, New York Times bestseller James Lee Burke tells a classic American story through one man’s unforgettable life. In 1934, sixteen-year-old Weldon Avery Holland happens upon infamous criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow after one of their notorious armed robberies. A confrontation with the outlaws ends with Weldon firing a gun, unsure whether it hit its mark. Ten years later, Second Lieutenant Weldon Holland barely survives the Battle of the Bulge, in the process saving the lives of his sergeant, Hershel Pine, and a young Spanish prisoner of war, Rosita Lowenstein—a woman who holds the same romantic power over him as the strawberry blonde Bonnie Parker, and is equally mysterious. The three return to Texas where Weldon and Hershel get in on the ground floor of the nascent oil business. In just a few years’ time Weldon will spar with the jackals of the industry, rub shoulders with dangerous men, and win and lose fortunes twice over. But it is the prospect of losing his one true love that will spur his most reckless act yet—one inspired by that encounter long ago with the outlaws of his youth. A tender love story and pulse-pounding thriller, Wayfaring Stranger “is a sprawling historical epic full of courage and loyalty and optimism and good-heartedness that reads like an ode to the American Dream” (Benjamin Percy, Poets & Writers).

A Stranger in the House of God

Author: John Koessler
Publisher: Zondervan
ISBN: 0310864216
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 227

Book Description
Growing up the son of agnostics, John Koessler saw a Catholic church on one end of the street and a Baptist on the other. In the no-man’s land between the two, this curious outside wondered about the God they worshipped—and began a lifelong search to comprehend the grace and mystery of God. A Stranger in the House of God addresses fundamental questions and struggles faced by spiritual seekers and mature believers. Like a contemporary Pilgrim’s Progress, it traces the author’s journey and explores his experiences with both charismatic and evangelical Christianity. It also describes his transformation from religious outsider to ordained pastor. John Koessler provides a poignant and often humorous window into the interior of the soul as he describes his journey from doubt and struggle with the church to personal faith

Fire Color One

Author: Jenny Valentine
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0399546936
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 141

Book Description
A finalist for the prestigious Carnegie Medal, this novel is a stunning tribute to fathers and daughters, and to the unique power of art to connect and change us. Sixteen-year-old Iris itches constantly for the strike of a match. But when she’s caught setting one too many fires, she’s dragged away to London before she can get arrested. At least, that’s the story her mother tells. Soon Iris finds herself in the English countryside, where her millionaire father—a man she’s never met—lives. Though not for very much longer. Iris’s father is dying, and her self-interested mother is determined to claim his life’s fortune, including his priceless art collection. Forced to live with him as part of an exploitive scheme, Iris quickly realizes her father is far different from the man she’s been schooled to hate, and everything she thought she knew—about her father and herself—is suddenly unclear. But there may be hidden beauty in Iris’s uncertain past and hopeful future, if only she can see beyond the flames. Praise for Fire Color One: "It’s not often—in fact, it has never happened to me even once—that I fall so hard for a young arsonist. The book moves swiftly, alternating between comedy and sadness, sometimes in the same paragraph. I loved Fire Color One." —Daniel Wallace, critically acclaimed and bestselling author of Big Fish * "Valentine writes about family dysfunction, arson, and art with equal levels of beauty and lyricism, creating a vivid landscape of heartache and redemption....A story about an ugly situation that explodes into beauty through cunning and resilience." —Kirkus *STARRED* * "From the first page to the last, Valentine has crafted a masterpiece." —BCCB *STARRED* "[T]his is a poignant story about the power of art to connect and transform." —SLJ "Beautifully written...a quiet, reflective novel that blooms into a thrilling mystery." —Booklist "Fire Color One is a stunning journey of a teenage girl’s struggle to find her place in a world that tries its hardest to keep her out....For fans of stories in which the good guys prevail, this book is perfect." —VOYA "Wise, brilliantly plotted." —The Sunday Times "Beautifully written...this latest creation is her most spectacular yet." —The Guardian Children's Books review “A beautifully written, darkly funny and surprisingly poignant story of art, family and discovering the people we thought we knew.” —Kerry Kletter, critically acclaimed author of The First Time She Drowned Praise for Me, the Missing, and the Dead: A Morris Award finalist Winner of the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize (under title Finding Violet Park) * “Compulsively readable. A memorable new voice.” —Publishers Weekly *STARRED* * “Lucas’ pitch-perfect voice and authentic family relationships...and the poignant, coming-of-age mystery will stay with the reader long after the book ends. Valentine’s debut novel shines richly.” —Booklist *STARRED* * “Engaging from start to finish.” —School Library Journal *STARRED* “An impressive debut. Valentine offers a rich cast of characters and marvelous writing.” —Buffalo News “Charmingly told, this mystery manages to be both frothy and nourishing.” —Kirkus