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Humankind : a hopeful history / by Bregman, Rutger,1988-author.; Manton, Elizabeth,translator.; Moore, Erica,translator.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."If one basic principle has served as the bedrock of bestselling author Rutger Bregman's thinking, it is that every progressive idea -- whether it was the abolition of slavery, the advent of democracy, women's suffrage, or the ratification of marriage equality -- was once considered radical and dangerous by the mainstream opinion of its time. With Humankind, he brings that mentality to bear against one of our most entrenched ideas: namely, that human beings are by nature selfish and self-interested. By providing a new historical perspective of the last 200,000 years of human history, Bregman sets out to prove that we are in fact evolutionarily wired for cooperation rather than competition, and that our instinct to trust each other has a firm evolutionary basis going back to the beginning of Homo sapiens. Bregman systematically debunks our understanding of the Milgram electrical-shock experiment, the Zimbardo prison experiment, and the Kitty Genovese "bystander effect." In place of these, he offers little-known true stories: the tale of twin brothers on opposing sides of apartheid in South Africa who came together with Nelson Mandela to create peace; a group of six shipwrecked children who survived for a year and a half on a deserted island by working together; a study done after World War II that found that as few as 15% of American soldiers were actually capable of firing at the enemy. The ultimate goal of Humankind is to demonstrate that while neither capitalism nor communism has on its own been proven to be a workable social system, there is a third option: giving "citizens and professionals the means (left) to make their own choices (right)." Reorienting our thinking toward positive and high expectations of our fellow man, Bregman argues, will reap lasting success. Bregman presents this idea with his signature wit and frankness, once again making history, social science and economic theory accessible and enjoyable for lay readers"--
Subjects: Human beings.; Philosophical anthropology.; Human behavior.; Civilization; World history.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Wavewalker : a memoir of breaking free / by Heywood, Suzanne,author.;
"Aged just seven, Suzanne Heywood set sail with her parents and brother on a three-year voyage around the world. What followed turned instead into a decade-long way of life, through storms, shipwrecks, reefs and isolation, with little formal schooling. No one else knew where they were most of the time and no state showed any interest in what was happening to the children. Suzanne fought her parents, longing to return to England and to education and stability. This memoir covers her astonishing upbringing, a survival story of a child deprived of safety, friendships, schooling and occasionally drinking water ... At seventeen Suzanne earned an interview at Oxford University and returned to the UK. From the bestselling author of What Does Jeremy Think?, Wavewalker is the incredible true story of how the adventure of a lifetime became one child's worst nightmare--and how her determination to educate herself enabled her to escape"--Publisher's description.
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Heywood, Suzanne; Ocean travel; Parent and child; Ocean travel;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Call me Bill [graphic novel] / by Richards, Lynette,author,artist.;
"It was April 1, 1873. In the middle of the night, Sarah Jane spotted flares off the coast of her island home. She woke her father, who quickly gathered their neighbours. Over the next several hours, rescuers pulled 429 traumatized survivors out of the wreckage of the SS Atlantic. But 535 people didn't survive, including Bill, a sailor. However, this story isn't about death--it's about living. Swapping out their dress for a pair of pants, Bill had run away from New Jersey in search of adventure, anonymity, and a place in the world. Everything seemed to fall into place when they were hired to work on a cargo steamer--but it didn't take long for Bill to discover that they weren't quite as anonymous as they thought. In Call Me Bill, debut graphic novelist Lynette Richards explores the history behind the worst maritime disaster of the 19th century, and uncovers the remarkable life story of a tenacious adventurer called Bill. This story explores identity, courage, and the radical imagination of someone who took huge risks to live an authentic life that others would have had difficulty imagining."--
Subjects: Graphic novels.; Atlantic (Ship : 1870-1873); Shipwreck victims; Gender-nonconforming people; Gender expression; Merchant mariners; Disasters;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The wild robot [videorecording] / by Nighy, Bill,1949-voice actor.; Nyong'o, Lupita,voice actor.; O'Hara, Catherine,voice actor.; Pascal, Pedro,voice actor.; Sanders, Chris,1962-film director,screenwriter.; motion picture adaptation of (work):Brown, Peter,1979-Wild robot.; DreamWorks Animation,production company.; Universal Studios, Inc.,film distributor.;
Voices: Lupita Nyong'o, Pedro Pascal, Catherine O'Hara, Bill Nighy, Kit Connor, Stephanie Hsu, Mark Hamill, Matt Berry, Ving Rhames.The epic adventure follows the journey of a robot, Rozzum unit 7134, 'Roz' for short, that is shipwrecked on an uninhabited island and must learn to adapt to the harsh surroundings, gradually building relationships with the animals on the island and becoming the adoptive parent of an orphaned gosling.Canadian Home Video Rating: G.MPAA rating: PG; for action/peril and thematic elements.Described video for the blind and visually impaired.Subtitled for the deaf and hard-of-hearing (SDH).DVD ; wide screen presentation ; Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Digital 2.0.
Subjects: Video recordings for people with visual disabilities.; Video recordings for the hearing impaired.; Children's films.; Comedy films.; Animated films.; Feature films.; Goslings; Friendship; Islands; Island ecology; Orphaned animals; Robots; Wilderness survival;
For private home use only.
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 2
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Empire of ice and stone : the disastrous and heroic voyage of the Karluk / by Levy, Buddy,1960-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."The true, harrowing story of the ill-fated 1913 Canadian Arctic Expedition and the two men who came to define it. In the summer of 1913, the wooden-hulled brigantine Karluk departed Canada for the Arctic Ocean. At the helm was Captain Bob Bartlett, considered the world's greatest living ice navigator. The expedition's visionary leader was a flamboyant impresario named Vilhjalmur Stefansson hungry for fame. Just six weeks after the Karluk departed, giant ice floes closed in around her. As the ship became icebound, Stefansson disembarked with five companions and struck out on what he claimed was a 10-day caribou hunting trip. Most on board would never see him again. Twenty-two men and an Inuit woman with two small daughters now stood on a mile-square ice floe, their ship and their original leader gone. Under Bartlett's leadership they built make-shift shelters, surviving the freezing darkness of Polar night. Captain Bartlett now mad919e a difficult and courageous decision. He would take one of the young Inuit hunters and attempt a 1000-mile journey to save the shipwrecked survivors. It was their only hope. Set against the backdrop of the Titanic disaster and World War I, filled with heroism, tragedy, and scientific discovery, Buddy Levy's Empire of Ice and Stone tells the story of two men and two distinctively different brands of leadership: one selfless, one self-serving, and how they would forever be bound by one of the most audacious and disastrous expeditions in polar history, considered the last great voyage of The Heroic Age of Discovery"--
Subjects: Bartlett, Bob, 1875-1946.; Stefansson, Vilhjalmur, 1879-1962.; Canadian Arctic Expedition (1913-1918); Karluk (Ship); Shipwrecks;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Reckless girls / by Hawkins, Rachel,1979-author.;
"From Rachel Hawkins, the New York Times bestselling author of The Wife Upstairs, comes Reckless Girls, a deliciously wicked gothic suspense, set on an isolated Pacific island with a dark history, for fans of Lucy Foley and Ruth Ware. When Lux McAllister and her boyfriend, Nico, are hired to sail two women to a remote island in the South Pacific, it seems like the opportunity of a lifetime. Stuck in a dead-end job in Hawaii, and longing to travel the world after a family tragedy, Lux is eager to climb on board The Susannah and set out on an adventure. She's also quick to bond with their passengers, college best friends Brittany and Amma. The two women say they want to travel off the beaten path. But like Lux, they may have other reasons to be seeking an escape. Shimmering on the horizon after days at sea, Meroe Island is every bit the paradise the foursome expects, despite a mysterious history of shipwrecks, cannibalism, and even rumors of murder. But what they don't expect is to discover another boat already anchored off Meroe's sandy beaches. The owners of the Azure Sky, Jake and Eliza, are a true golden couple: gorgeous, laidback, and if their sleek catamaran and well-stocked bar are any indication, rich. Now a party of six, the new friends settle in to experience life on an exotic island, and the serenity of being completely off the grid. Lux hasn't felt like she truly belonged anywhere in years, yet here on Meroe, with these fellow free spirits, she finally has a sense of peace. But with the arrival of a skeevy stranger sailing alone in pursuit of a darker kind of good time, the balance of the group is disrupted. Soon, cracks begin to emerge: it seems that Brittany and Amma haven't been completely honest with Lux about their pasts--and perhaps not even with each other. And though Jake and Eliza seem like the perfect pair, the rocky history of their relationship begins to resurface, and their reasons for sailing to Meroe might not be as innocent as they first appeared. When it becomes clear that the group is even more cut off from civilization than they initially thought, it starts to feel like the island itself is closing in on them. And when one person goes missing, and another turns up dead, Lux begins to wonder if any of them are going to make it off the island alive"--
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Psychological fiction.; Islands; Missing persons; Murder; Secrecy; Survival;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 3
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Reckless girls [sound recording] / by Hawkins, Rachel,1979-author.; Kreinik, Barrie,narrator.; Macmillan Audio (Firm),publisher.;
Read by Barrie Kreinik."From Rachel Hawkins, the New York Times bestselling author of The Wife Upstairs, comes Reckless Girls, a deliciously wicked gothic suspense, set on an isolated Pacific island with a dark history, for fans of Lucy Foley and Ruth Ware. When Lux McAllister and her boyfriend, Nico, are hired to sail two women to a remote island in the South Pacific, it seems like the opportunity of a lifetime. Stuck in a dead-end job in Hawaii, and longing to travel the world after a family tragedy, Lux is eager to climb on board The Susannah and set out on an adventure. She's also quick to bond with their passengers, college best friends Brittany and Amma. The two women say they want to travel off the beaten path. But like Lux, they may have other reasons to be seeking an escape. Shimmering on the horizon after days at sea, Meroe Island is every bit the paradise the foursome expects, despite a mysterious history of shipwrecks, cannibalism, and even rumors of murder. But what they don't expect is to discover another boat already anchored off Meroe's sandy beaches. The owners of the Azure Sky, Jake and Eliza, are a true golden couple: gorgeous, laidback, and if their sleek catamaran and well-stocked bar are any indication, rich. Now a party of six, the new friends settle in to experience life on an exotic island, and the serenity of being completely off the grid. Lux hasn't felt like she truly belonged anywhere in years, yet here on Meroe, with these fellow free spirits, she finally has a sense of peace. But with the arrival of a skeevy stranger sailing alone in pursuit of a darker kind of good time, the balance of the group is disrupted. Soon, cracks begin to emerge: it seems that Brittany and Amma haven't been completely honest with Lux about their pasts--and perhaps not even with each other. And though Jake and Eliza seem like the perfect pair, the rocky history of their relationship begins to resurface, and their reasons for sailing to Meroe might not be as innocent as they first appeared. When it becomes clear that the group is even more cut off from civilization than they initially thought, it starts to feel like the island itself is closing in on them. And when one person goes missing, and another turns up dead, Lux begins to wonder if any of them are going to make it off the island alive"--
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Audiobooks.; Psychological fiction.; Islands; Missing persons; Murder; Secrecy; Survival;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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