A poignant and unexpectedly inspirational account of women's suffering and resilience in Stalin's forced labor camps, diligently transcribed in the kitchens and living rooms of nine survivors.The pain inflicted by the gulags has cast a long and dark shadow over Soviet-era history. Zgustov's collection of interviews with former female prisoners not only chronicles the hardships of the camps, but also serves as testament to the power of beauty in face of adversity. Where one would expect to find stories of hopelessness and despair, Zgustov has unearthed tales of the love, art, and friendship that persisted in times of tragedy. Across the Soviet Union, prisoners are said to have composed and memorized thousands of verses. Galya Sanova, born in a Siberian gulag, remembers reading from a hand-stitched copy of Little Red Riding Hood. Irina Emelyanova passed poems to the male prisoner she had grown to love. In this way, the arts lent an air of humanity to the women's brutal realities.These stories, collected in the vein of Svetlana Alexievich's Nobel Prize-winning oral histories, turn one of the darkest periods of the Soviet era into a song of human perseverance, in a way that reads as an intimate family history.
Other Press
|
9781590511770
|
Hardcover
Framed
By Grisham, John
In his first work of nonfiction since The Innocent Man, #1 bestselling author John Grisham and Centurion Ministries Founder Jim McCloskey share ten harrowing true stories of wrongful convictions. Impeccably researched and grippingly told, Framed offers an inside look at the injustice faced by the victims of the United States criminal justice system.. A fundamental principle of our legal system is a presumption of innocence, but once someone has been found guilty there is very little room to prove doubt. Framed shares ten true stories of men who were innocent but found guilty and forced to sacrifice friends, families, wives, and decades of their lives to prison while the guilty parties remained free. In each of the stories, John Grisham and Jim McCloskey recount the dramatic hard-fought battles for exoneration.
Doubleday
|
9780385550444
|
Hardcover
Earth in Human Hands
By Grinspoon, David
For the first time in Earth's history, one species--humans--is knowingly altering our planet's evolution, exerting increasing influence and attempting stewardship. How we handle this juncture may very well determine the fate not just of our species, but of life, and the planet. Without minimizing the challenges of the next century, Grinspoon shows how the 10,000-year view is both essential and hopeful. Having spent his career studying the ways in which planets undergo catastrophic changes, he suggests that the present moment is not only one of peril, but also great potential. We need a new vision of the future, one in which we have embraced our role as planet-shapers, and learned to use our technological skills to enhance the survival prospects not just of humanity but of all life on Earth.
Grand Central Pub
|
9781455589128
|
Print book
Convergence
By Watson, Peter
A brilliant history of science over the past 150 years that offers a powerful new argument - that the many disparate scientific branches are converging on the same truths.Convergence is a history of modern science with an original and significant twist. Various scientific disciplines, despite their very different beginnings, have been coming together over the past 150 years, converging and coalescing. Intimate connections have been discovered between physics and chemistry, psychology and biology, genetics and linguistics. In this groundbreaking book, Peter Watson identifies one extraordinary master narrative, capturing how the sciences are slowly resolving into one overwhelming, interlocking story about the universe. Watson begins his narrative in the 1850s, the decade when, he argues, the convergence of the sciences began. The idea of the conservation of energy was introduced in this decade, as was Darwin's theory of evolution - both of which rocketed the sciences forward and revealed unimagined interconnections and overlaps between disciplines. The story then proceeds from each major breakthrough and major scientist to the next, leaping between fields and linking them together. Decade after decade, the story captures every major scientific advance en route to the present, proceeding like a cosmic detective story, or the world's most massive code-breaking effort. Watson's is a thrilling new approach to the history of science, revealing how each piece falls into place, and how each uncovers an "emerging order." Convergence is, as Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg has put it, "The deepest thing about the universe." And Watson's comprehensive and eye-opening book argues that all our scientific efforts are indeed approaching unity. Told through the eyes of the scientists themselves, charting each discovery and breakthrough, it is a gripping way to learn what we now know about the universe and where our inquiries are heading.
Simon & Schuster
|
9781476754345
|
Print book
Our Moon
By Boyle, Rebecca
An intimate look at the Moon and its relationship to life on Earth--from the primordial soup to the Artemis launches--from an acclaimed Scientific American and Atlantic contributorFar from being a lifeless ornament in the sky, the Moon holds the key to some of science's central questions, and in this fascinating account of our remarkable satellite, award-winning science journalist Rebecca Boyle shows us why it is the secret to our success.The Moon stabilizes the Earth's tilt toward the Sun, creating reliable seasons. The durability of this tilt over millennia stabilizes our climate. The Moon pulls on the ocean, driving the tides. It was these tides that mixed nutrients in the sea, enabling the evolution of complex life and, ultimately, bringing life onto land.
Random House
|
9780593129722
|
Hardcover
MCAT Organic Chemistry Review
By Prep, Kaplan Test
Kaplan has been the world leader in the MCAT prep industry for 40 years. Our decades of test expertise and experience are available with MCAT Organic Chemistry Review. This book features thorough subject review, more questions than any competitor, star ratings to focus your study on the most important topics, and the highest-yield practice available. The commentary and instruction come directly from Kaplan MCAT experts and include targeted focus on the most-tested concepts. MCAT Organic Chemistry Review offers: UNPARALLELED MCAT KNOWLEDGE: The Kaplan MCAT team has spent years studying every MCAT-related document available and reviewing feedback from tens of thousands of Kaplan students who have taken the new MCAT. In conjunction with our expert psychometricians, we are able to ensure the accuracy and realism of our practice materials.
Kaplan Publishing
|
9781506223865
|
Paperback
Until the End of Time
By
From the world-renowned physicist, cofounder of the World Science Festival, and best-selling author of The Elegant Universe comes this captivating exploration of deep time and humanity's search for purpose.Brian Greene takes readers on a breathtaking journey from the big bang to the end of time and invites us to ponder meaning in the face of this extraordinary cosmic expanse. He shows us how, despite the universe's drive toward ever greater entropy, remarkable structures form--planets, stars and galaxies--providing islands of order in a sea of chaos; biochemical mechanisms animate the processes of life, populating earth with finely adapted particulate collections; neurons, information, and thought yield complex consciousness, generating cultures suffused with timeless myths, creative expressions, and scientific explorations. Through a series of nested stories that explain distinct but interwoven layers of reality, Greene provides us with a clearer sense of how we came to be, a finer picture of where we are now, and a firmer understanding of where we are headed. Through this grand tour of the universe, beginning to end, Brian Greene allows us all to grasp and appreciate our fleeting but utterly exquisite moment in the cosmos.
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
|
9781524731670
|
Hardcover
How to Win The Bachelor
By Kultgen, Chad
Since its premiere in 2002, ABC's The Bachelor has become a staple of American television. Now, discover the fascinating history of the show, uncover the ins and outs of the phenomenon that has become Bachelor Nation, and take a deeper look at what separates the winners from the losers. From how best to exit the limo on Night One, to strategies for making a run for the all-important First Impression Rose, to how to avoid being labeled a villain, this clear-eyed guide illustrates the rules and strategies any would-be contestant should know. The ultimate must-read for every fan, How to Win the Bachelor gives you an inside look at the franchise where The Rose holds all the power.
Gallery Books
|
9781982172947
|
Hardcover
Fluke
By Mazur, Joseph
What are the chances? This is the question we ask ourselves when we encounter the strangest and most seemingly impossible coincidences, like the woman who won the lottery four times or the fact that Lincoln's dreams foreshadowed his own assassination. But, when we look at coincidences mathematically, the odds are a lot better than any of us would have thought.In Fluke, mathematician Joseph Mazur takes a second look at the seemingly improbable, sharing with us an entertaining guide to the most surprising moments in our lives. He takes us on a tour of the mathematical concepts of probability, such as the law of large numbers and the birthday paradox, and combines these concepts with lively anecdotes of flukes from around the world. How do you explain finding your college copy of Moby Dick in a used bookstore on the Seine on your first visit to Paris? How can a jury be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that DNA found at the scene of a heinous crime did not get there by some fluke? Should we be surprised if strangers named Maria and Francisco, seeking each other in a hotel lobby, accidentally meet the wrong Francisco and the wrong Maria, another pair of strangers also looking for each other? As Mazur reveals, if there is any likelihood that something could happen, no matter how small, it is bound to happen to someone at some time.In Fluke, Mazur offers us proof of the inevitability of the sublime and the unexpected. He has written a book that will appeal to anyone who has ever wondered how all of the tiny decisions that happen in our lives add up to improbable wholes. A must-read for math enthusiasts and storytellers alike, Fluke helps us to understand the true nature of chance.
Basic Books
|
9780465060955
|
Print book
Tangled Up in Blue
By Brooks, Rosa
In her forties, with two children, a spouse, a dog, a mortgage, and a full-time job as a tenured law professor at Georgetown University, Rosa Brooks decided to become a cop. A liberal academic and journalist with an enduring interest in law's troubled relationship with violence, Brooks wanted the kind of insider experience that would help her understand how police officers make sense of their world--and whether that world can be changed. In 2015, against the advice of everyone she knew, she applied to become a sworn, armed reserve police officer with the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department.Then as now, police violence was constantly in the news. The Black Lives Matter movement was gaining momentum, protests wracked America's cities, and each day brought more stories of cruel, corrupt cops, police violence, and the racial disparities that mar our criminal justice system.
Dressed for a Dance in the Snow
By Zgustova, Monika
A poignant and unexpectedly inspirational account of women's suffering and resilience in Stalin's forced labor camps, diligently transcribed in the kitchens and living rooms of nine survivors.The pain inflicted by the gulags has cast a long and dark shadow over Soviet-era history. Zgustov's collection of interviews with former female prisoners not only chronicles the hardships of the camps, but also serves as testament to the power of beauty in face of adversity. Where one would expect to find stories of hopelessness and despair, Zgustov has unearthed tales of the love, art, and friendship that persisted in times of tragedy. Across the Soviet Union, prisoners are said to have composed and memorized thousands of verses. Galya Sanova, born in a Siberian gulag, remembers reading from a hand-stitched copy of Little Red Riding Hood. Irina Emelyanova passed poems to the male prisoner she had grown to love. In this way, the arts lent an air of humanity to the women's brutal realities.These stories, collected in the vein of Svetlana Alexievich's Nobel Prize-winning oral histories, turn one of the darkest periods of the Soviet era into a song of human perseverance, in a way that reads as an intimate family history.
Framed
By Grisham, John
In his first work of nonfiction since The Innocent Man, #1 bestselling author John Grisham and Centurion Ministries Founder Jim McCloskey share ten harrowing true stories of wrongful convictions. Impeccably researched and grippingly told, Framed offers an inside look at the injustice faced by the victims of the United States criminal justice system.. A fundamental principle of our legal system is a presumption of innocence, but once someone has been found guilty there is very little room to prove doubt. Framed shares ten true stories of men who were innocent but found guilty and forced to sacrifice friends, families, wives, and decades of their lives to prison while the guilty parties remained free. In each of the stories, John Grisham and Jim McCloskey recount the dramatic hard-fought battles for exoneration.
Earth in Human Hands
By Grinspoon, David
For the first time in Earth's history, one species--humans--is knowingly altering our planet's evolution, exerting increasing influence and attempting stewardship. How we handle this juncture may very well determine the fate not just of our species, but of life, and the planet. Without minimizing the challenges of the next century, Grinspoon shows how the 10,000-year view is both essential and hopeful. Having spent his career studying the ways in which planets undergo catastrophic changes, he suggests that the present moment is not only one of peril, but also great potential. We need a new vision of the future, one in which we have embraced our role as planet-shapers, and learned to use our technological skills to enhance the survival prospects not just of humanity but of all life on Earth.
Convergence
By Watson, Peter
A brilliant history of science over the past 150 years that offers a powerful new argument - that the many disparate scientific branches are converging on the same truths.Convergence is a history of modern science with an original and significant twist. Various scientific disciplines, despite their very different beginnings, have been coming together over the past 150 years, converging and coalescing. Intimate connections have been discovered between physics and chemistry, psychology and biology, genetics and linguistics. In this groundbreaking book, Peter Watson identifies one extraordinary master narrative, capturing how the sciences are slowly resolving into one overwhelming, interlocking story about the universe. Watson begins his narrative in the 1850s, the decade when, he argues, the convergence of the sciences began. The idea of the conservation of energy was introduced in this decade, as was Darwin's theory of evolution - both of which rocketed the sciences forward and revealed unimagined interconnections and overlaps between disciplines. The story then proceeds from each major breakthrough and major scientist to the next, leaping between fields and linking them together. Decade after decade, the story captures every major scientific advance en route to the present, proceeding like a cosmic detective story, or the world's most massive code-breaking effort. Watson's is a thrilling new approach to the history of science, revealing how each piece falls into place, and how each uncovers an "emerging order." Convergence is, as Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg has put it, "The deepest thing about the universe." And Watson's comprehensive and eye-opening book argues that all our scientific efforts are indeed approaching unity. Told through the eyes of the scientists themselves, charting each discovery and breakthrough, it is a gripping way to learn what we now know about the universe and where our inquiries are heading.
Our Moon
By Boyle, Rebecca
An intimate look at the Moon and its relationship to life on Earth--from the primordial soup to the Artemis launches--from an acclaimed Scientific American and Atlantic contributorFar from being a lifeless ornament in the sky, the Moon holds the key to some of science's central questions, and in this fascinating account of our remarkable satellite, award-winning science journalist Rebecca Boyle shows us why it is the secret to our success.The Moon stabilizes the Earth's tilt toward the Sun, creating reliable seasons. The durability of this tilt over millennia stabilizes our climate. The Moon pulls on the ocean, driving the tides. It was these tides that mixed nutrients in the sea, enabling the evolution of complex life and, ultimately, bringing life onto land.
MCAT Organic Chemistry Review
By Prep, Kaplan Test
Kaplan has been the world leader in the MCAT prep industry for 40 years. Our decades of test expertise and experience are available with MCAT Organic Chemistry Review. This book features thorough subject review, more questions than any competitor, star ratings to focus your study on the most important topics, and the highest-yield practice available. The commentary and instruction come directly from Kaplan MCAT experts and include targeted focus on the most-tested concepts. MCAT Organic Chemistry Review offers: UNPARALLELED MCAT KNOWLEDGE: The Kaplan MCAT team has spent years studying every MCAT-related document available and reviewing feedback from tens of thousands of Kaplan students who have taken the new MCAT. In conjunction with our expert psychometricians, we are able to ensure the accuracy and realism of our practice materials.
Until the End of Time
By
From the world-renowned physicist, cofounder of the World Science Festival, and best-selling author of The Elegant Universe comes this captivating exploration of deep time and humanity's search for purpose.Brian Greene takes readers on a breathtaking journey from the big bang to the end of time and invites us to ponder meaning in the face of this extraordinary cosmic expanse. He shows us how, despite the universe's drive toward ever greater entropy, remarkable structures form--planets, stars and galaxies--providing islands of order in a sea of chaos; biochemical mechanisms animate the processes of life, populating earth with finely adapted particulate collections; neurons, information, and thought yield complex consciousness, generating cultures suffused with timeless myths, creative expressions, and scientific explorations. Through a series of nested stories that explain distinct but interwoven layers of reality, Greene provides us with a clearer sense of how we came to be, a finer picture of where we are now, and a firmer understanding of where we are headed. Through this grand tour of the universe, beginning to end, Brian Greene allows us all to grasp and appreciate our fleeting but utterly exquisite moment in the cosmos.
How to Win The Bachelor
By Kultgen, Chad
Since its premiere in 2002, ABC's The Bachelor has become a staple of American television. Now, discover the fascinating history of the show, uncover the ins and outs of the phenomenon that has become Bachelor Nation, and take a deeper look at what separates the winners from the losers. From how best to exit the limo on Night One, to strategies for making a run for the all-important First Impression Rose, to how to avoid being labeled a villain, this clear-eyed guide illustrates the rules and strategies any would-be contestant should know. The ultimate must-read for every fan, How to Win the Bachelor gives you an inside look at the franchise where The Rose holds all the power.
Fluke
By Mazur, Joseph
What are the chances? This is the question we ask ourselves when we encounter the strangest and most seemingly impossible coincidences, like the woman who won the lottery four times or the fact that Lincoln's dreams foreshadowed his own assassination. But, when we look at coincidences mathematically, the odds are a lot better than any of us would have thought.In Fluke, mathematician Joseph Mazur takes a second look at the seemingly improbable, sharing with us an entertaining guide to the most surprising moments in our lives. He takes us on a tour of the mathematical concepts of probability, such as the law of large numbers and the birthday paradox, and combines these concepts with lively anecdotes of flukes from around the world. How do you explain finding your college copy of Moby Dick in a used bookstore on the Seine on your first visit to Paris? How can a jury be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that DNA found at the scene of a heinous crime did not get there by some fluke? Should we be surprised if strangers named Maria and Francisco, seeking each other in a hotel lobby, accidentally meet the wrong Francisco and the wrong Maria, another pair of strangers also looking for each other? As Mazur reveals, if there is any likelihood that something could happen, no matter how small, it is bound to happen to someone at some time.In Fluke, Mazur offers us proof of the inevitability of the sublime and the unexpected. He has written a book that will appeal to anyone who has ever wondered how all of the tiny decisions that happen in our lives add up to improbable wholes. A must-read for math enthusiasts and storytellers alike, Fluke helps us to understand the true nature of chance.
Tangled Up in Blue
By Brooks, Rosa
In her forties, with two children, a spouse, a dog, a mortgage, and a full-time job as a tenured law professor at Georgetown University, Rosa Brooks decided to become a cop. A liberal academic and journalist with an enduring interest in law's troubled relationship with violence, Brooks wanted the kind of insider experience that would help her understand how police officers make sense of their world--and whether that world can be changed. In 2015, against the advice of everyone she knew, she applied to become a sworn, armed reserve police officer with the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department.Then as now, police violence was constantly in the news. The Black Lives Matter movement was gaining momentum, protests wracked America's cities, and each day brought more stories of cruel, corrupt cops, police violence, and the racial disparities that mar our criminal justice system.