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Every living thing : the great and deadly race to know all life / by Roberts, Jason(President of Panmedia Corporation),author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."From the bestselling author of A Sense of the World comes this dramatic, globe-spanning and meticulously-researched story of two scientific rivals and their race to survey all life on Earth. In the 18th century, two men dedicated their lives to the same daunting task: identifying and describing all life on Earth. Their approaches could not have been more different. Carl Linnaeus, a pious Swedish doctor with a huckster's flair, believed that life belonged in tidy, static categories. Georges-Louis de Buffon, an aristocratic polymath and keeper of France's royal garden, viewed life as a dynamic swirl of complexities. Both began believing their work to be difficult, but not impossible--how could the planet possibly hold more than a few thousand species? Stunned by life's diversity, both fell far short of their goal. But in the process they articulated starkly divergent views on nature, on humanity's role in shaping the fate of our planet and on humanity itself. The rivalry between these two unique, driven individuals created reverberations that still echo today. Linnaeus, with the help of acolyte explorers he called "apostles" (only half of whom returned alive), gave the world such concepts as mammal, primate and homo sapiens--but he also denied species change and promulgated racist pseudo-science. Buffon coined the term reproduction, formulated early prototypes of evolution and genetics, and argued passionately against prejudice. It was a clash that, during their lifetimes, Buffon seemed to be winning. But their posthumous fates would take a very different turn. With elegant, propulsive prose grounded in more than a decade of research, featuring appearances by Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin and Charles Darwin, bestselling author Jason Roberts tells an unforgettable true-life tale of intertwined lives and enduring legacies, tracing an arc of insight and discovery that extends across three centuries into the present day"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de, 1707-1788.; Linné, Carl von, 1707-1778.; Biology; Life (Biology); Natural history; Naturalists; Naturalists;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Bitch : on the female of the species / by Cooke, Lucy,1970-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."It's a tale as old as time: the philandering man wants to chase sex with whomever, wherever, and at all costs-and to avoid supporting his offspring at all costs, too-while leaving a long-suffering wife to clean up his mess. You can find the idea in comedians' routines, inane self-help books, and any number of movies, novels, and television shows. It almost all comes from evolutionary biology and psychology, and the tale boils down to this: Females are naturally submissive, passive, and maternal, while males are necessarily dominant, competitive, and promiscuous. And as Lucy Cooke shows in Bitch, it's almost completely wrong. In its place, Cooke offers a new vision of the female sex: depending on which one you choose, you can find females that are inherently as promiscuous, competitive, strategically cooperative, ardent, aggressive, dominant, dynamic, complex and variable as evolutionary psychology's stereotypical male. So how did the idea of the passive female get so entrenched? Tracing biology from Darwin to today, Cooke shows how the men behind breakthrough theories in evolution have infused their ideas with a massive dose of societal sexism. Cooke surfs the work of two generations of feminist evolutionary biologists, showing how they've pushed back against the blinkered views of evolution's founding fathers to reveal the true diversity of nature. She meets with pioneering scientists--Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Jeanne Altmann, Mary-Jane West-Eberhard, Patricia Gowaty and more--following their work around the globe. From the dominant female lemurs of Madagascar to same-sex female albatross couples in Hawaii to female killer whale elders in the Salish sea, Cooke takes us on a journey through a side of nature that's much less binary, less heterosexual, and less sexist than we have been led to expect. Fierce, funny, and revolutionary, Bitch is a scientific manifesto that shows us an entirely new perspective on what it means to be a female animal, with serious implications for all of us today"--
Subjects: Females; Psychology, Comparative.; Sexual behavior in animals.; Sexual dimorphism (Animals); Social behavior in animals.; Women.; Women;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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When Two Feathers fell from the sky / by Verble, Margaret,author.;
"Louise Erdrich meets Karen Russell in this deliciously strange and daringly original novel from Pulitzer Prize finalist Margaret Verble: set in 1926 Nashville, it follows a death-defying young Cherokee horse-diver who, with her companions from the Glendale Park Zoo, must get to the bottom of a mystery that spans centuries"--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Cherokee women; Indigenous peoples; Nineteen twenties;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Profiles in mental health courage / by Kennedy, Patrick J.(Patrick Joseph),1967-author.; Fried, Stephen,1958-author.;
"Profiles in Mental Health Courage portrays the dramatic journeys of a diverse group of Americans who have struggled with their mental health. This book offers deeply compelling stories about the bravery and resilience of those living with a variety of mental illnesses and addictions. Several years ago, Patrick J. Kennedy shared the story of his personal and family challenges with mental illness and addiction--and the nation's--in his bestselling memoir, A Common Struggle. Now, he and his Common Struggle coauthor, award-winning healthcare journalist Stephen Fried, have crafted this powerful new book sharing the untold stories of others--a special group who agreed to talk about their illnesses, treatments, and struggles for the first time. When Kennedy's uncle, President John F. Kennedy, published his classic book Profiles in Courage, he hoped to inspire "political courage" by telling the stories of brave U.S. senators who changed America. In Profiles in Mental Health Courage, former Congressman Kennedy adapts his uncle's idea to inspire the "mental health courage" it takes for those with these conditions to treat their illnesses, and risk telling their stories to help America face its crisis in our families, our workplaces, our jails, and on our streets. The resounding silence surrounding these illnesses remains persistent, and this book takes an unflinching look at the experience of mental illness and addiction that inspires profound connection, empathy, and action. In this book, you'll meet people of all ages, backgrounds, and futures, across politics and government, Hollywood and the arts, tech and business, sports and science--some recovering, some relapsing, some just barely holding on, but all sharing experiences and insights we need to better understand. You'll also meet those trying to help them through--parents, siblings, spouses, therapists, bosses, doctors, and friends who create the extended families needed to support care and wellness. The personal stories they share with Kennedy and Fried are intimate, sometimes shocking, always revealing. And they are essential reading for caregivers, family members, policymakers, and the general public--just as they are for those who often feel alone in experiencing these challenges themselves."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Mental health; Mental illness; Mentally ill; Psychotherapy patients; Recovering addicts;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The killing fields of East New York : the first subprime mortgage scandal, a white-collar crime spree, and the collapse of an American neighborhood / by Horn, Stacy,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."In this groundbreaking work of investigative journalism and true crime, Stacy Horn sheds light on how the subprime mortgage scandal of the 1970s and a long history of white-collar crime slowly devastated East New York, a Brooklyn neighborhood that would come to be known as the Killing Fields. On a warm summer evening in 1991, seventeen-year-old Julia Parker was murdered in the Brooklyn neighborhood of East New York. An area known for an exorbitant level of violence and crime, East New York had come to be known as the Killing Fields. In the six months after Julia Parker's death, 62 more people were murdered in the same area. In the early 1990s, murder rates in the neighborhood climbed to the highest in NYPD history. East New York was dying. But how did this once thriving, diverse, family neighborhood fall into such ruin? The answer can be found two decades earlier. In response to redlining and discriminatory housing practices, the Johnson administration passed the Housing and Urban Development Act in 1968. The Federal Housing Authority aimed to use this piece of legislation to help low-income families of color finally achieve homeownership. But they could never have predicted how banks, lenders, realtors, and corrupt FHA officials themselves would use the newly passed law to make victims of the very people they were trying to help, and the devastation they would leave in their wake. A compulsively readable hybrid of true crimeand investigative journalism, The Killing Fields of East New York reveals how white-collar crime reduced a prospering neighborhood to abandoned buildings and empty lots. Following the dual threads of the hunt for the network of criminals behind the first subprime mortgage scandal and the ensuing downfall of East New York, Stacy Horn weaves a compelling narrative of government failure, a desperate community, and ultimately the largest series of mortgage fraud prosecutions in American history. The Killing Fields of East New York deftly demonstrates how different types of crime are profoundly entangled, and how the crimes committed in nice suits and corner offices are just as destructive as those committed on the street"--
Subjects: True crime stories.; Criminology.; Fraud investigation.; Murder; Scandals.; White collar crime investigation;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Walking to the park / by Smith, Annette.; Nicholls-Diver, Amy.; Mauthoor, Moya.; Laugesen, Malene.;
A series of pictures without text show a father and two children walking from home to the nearby park. They look out for cars and cross the streets safely to reach the park. Includes instructions for teachers to help students discuss the characters' actions and use simple sentences to describe them."Level: 1"--Page [2] of cover.LSC
Subjects: Stories without words.; Pedestrians;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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The riddles of the sphinx : inheriting the feminist history of the crossword puzzle / by Shechtman, Anna,author.;
Includes bibliographical references.Combining the soul-baring confessional of Brain on Fire and the addictive storytelling of The Queen's Gambit, a renowned puzzle creator's compulsively readable memoir and history of the crossword puzzle as an unexpected site of women's work and feminist protest. The indisputable "queen of crosswords," Anna Shechtman published her first New York Times puzzle at age nineteen, and later, spearheaded the The New Yorker's popular crossword section. Working with a medium often criticized as exclusionary, elitist, and out-of-touch, Anna is one of very few women in the field of puzzle making, where she strives to make the everyday diversion more diverse. In this fascinating work-part memoir, part cultural analysis-she excavates the hidden history of the crossword and the overlooked women who have been central to its creation and evolution, from the "Crossword Craze" of the 1920s to the role of digital technology today. As she tells the story of her own experience in the CrossWorld, she analyzes the roles assigned to women in American culture, the boxes they've been allowed to fill, and the ways that they've used puzzles to negotiate the constraints and play of desire under patriarchy. The result is an unforgettable and engrossing work of art, a loving and revealing homage to one of our most treasured, entertaining, and ultimately political pastimes.
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Shechtman, Anna.; Crossword puzzle makers; Crossword puzzles; Feminism; Journalists; Women;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The CIA book club : the secret mission to win the Cold War with forbidden literature / by English, Charlie,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."For almost five decades after the Second World War, the Iron Curtain divided Europe, standing as the longest and most heavily guarded border on earth. With the risk of nuclear annihilation too high for physical combat, conflict was reserved for the psychological sphere. No one understood this battle of hearts, minds, and intellects more clearly than Bucharest-born George Minden, the head of a covert intelligence operation known as the "CIA books program." This initiative aimed to win the Cold War with literature: to undermine the censorship of the Soviet bloc and inspire revolt by offering different visions of thought and culture to the people. From its Manhattan headquarters, Minden's global CIA "book club" would infiltrate millions of banned titles into the Eastern Bloc, written by a vast and eclectic list of authors. Volumes were smuggled on trucks and aboard yachts, dropped from balloons, and hidden in the luggage of hundreds of thousands of individual travelers. Once inside Soviet bloc, each book would circulate secretly among dozens of like-minded readers, quietly turning them into dissidents. Soon, underground print shops began to reproduce the books, too. By the late 1980s, illicit literature in Poland was so pervasive that the system of communist censorship broke down, and the Iron Curtain soon followed. Former head of international news at the Guardian, Charlie English is the first to uncover this true story of Cold War spy craft, smuggling and secret printing operations, highlighting the work of a handful of extraordinary people who risked their lives to stand up to the intellectual strait-jacket Stalin created. People like Miroslaw Chojecki, an underground Polish publisher who endured beatings, force-feeding and exile in service of this mission and Minden, the CIA's mastermind, who didn't waver in his belief that truth, culture, and diversity of thought could help free the "captive nations" of Eastern Europe. This is a story about the power of the printed word as a means of resistance and liberation. Books, it shows, can set you free"--
Subjects: United States. Central Intelligence Agency; Books and reading; Cold War; Information warfare; Information warfare; Publishers and publishing;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Last breath [videorecording] / by Brooks, David,1969-film producer,screenwriter.; Cole, Finn,1995-actor.; Gallagher, Kelly,film producer.; Harrelson, Woody,actor.; LaFortune, Mitchell,screenwriter.; Liu, Simu,1989-actor.; Parkinson, Alex,film director,screenwriter.; Dark Castle Entertainment (Firm),production company.; Elevation Pictures,film distributor.; Longshot Films,production company.;
Edited by Tania Goding; director of photography Nick Remy Matthews.Woody Harrelson, Simu Liu, Finn Cole, Cliff Curtis.A heart-pounding film that follows seasoned deep-sea divers as they battle the raging elements to rescue their crewmate trapped hundreds of feet below the ocean's surface. Based on a true story, Last Breath is an electrifying story about teamwork, resilience, and a race against time to do the impossible.Canadian Home Video Rating: PG.MPAA rating: PG-13; for brief strong language.Subtitled for the deaf and hard-of-hearing (SDH).DVD ; wide screen presentation ; Dolby Digital 5.1.
Subjects: Video recordings for the hearing impaired.; Thrillers (Motion pictures); Feature films.; Allcock, Duncan; Lemons, Chris; Yuasa, David; Deep diving; Diving accidents; Male friendship; Rescues; Saturation diving; Survival;
For private home use only.
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Digital minimalism : choosing a focused life in a noisy world / by Newport, Cal,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index.Minimalism is the art of knowing how much is just enough. Digital minimalism applies this idea to our personal technology. It's the key to living a focused life in an increasingly noisy world. In this timely and enlightening book, the bestselling author of Deep Work introduces a philosophy for technology use that has already improved countless lives. Digital minimalists are all around us. They're the calm, happy people who can hold long conversations without furtive glances at their phones. They can get lost in a good book, a woodworking project, or a leisurely morning run. They can have fun with friends and family without the obsessive urge to document the experience. They stay informed about the news of the day, but don't feel overwhelmed by it. They don't experience "fear of missing out" because they already know which activities provide them meaning and satisfaction. Now, Newport gives us a name for this quiet movement, and makes a persuasive case for its urgency in our tech-saturated world. Common sense tips, like turning off notifications, or occasional rituals like observing a digital sabbath, don't go far enough in helping us take back control of our technological lives, and attempts to unplug completely are complicated by the demands of family, friends and work. What we need instead is a thoughtful method to decide what tools to use, for what purposes, and under what conditions. Drawing on a diverse array of real-life examples, from Amish farmers to harried parents to Silicon Valley programmers, Newport identifies the common practices of digital minimalists and the ideas that underpin them. He shows how digital minimalists are rethinking their relationship to social media, rediscovering the pleasures of the offline world, and reconnecting with their inner selves through regular periods of solitude. He then shares strategies for integrating these practices into your life, starting with a thirty-day "digital declutter" process that has already helped thousands feel less overwhelmed and more in control. Technology is intrinsically neither good nor bad. The key is using it to support your goals and values, rather than letting it use you. This book shows the way.
Subjects: Self-help publications.; Information technology; Internet addiction; Technological innovations;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Results 411 to 420 of 465 | « previous |