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Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal—an experience that shocks him to his core. 

Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She’s traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers, and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive’s best-selling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him. 

When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the black-skied Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe.

A virtuoso performance that is as human and tender as it is intellectually playful, Sea of Tranquility is a novel of time travel and metaphysics that precisely captures the reality of our current moment.

Emily St. John Mandel’s five previous novels include The Glass Hotel, which has been translated into twenty-five languages, and Station Eleven, which was a finalist for a National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, was the basis of a limited series on HBO Max, and has been translated into thirty-seven languages. She lives in New York City and Los Angeles. 

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Our society has a technology problem. Many want to disconnect from screens but can't help themselves. These days we spend more time online than ever. Some turn to self-help-measures to limit their usage, yet repeatedly fail, while parents feel particularly powerless to help their children. Unwired: Gaining Control over Addictive Technologies shows us a way out. Rather than blaming users, the book shatters the illusion that we autonomously choose how to spend our time online. It shifts the moral responsibility and accountability for solutions to corporations. Drawing lessons from the tobacco and food industries, the book demonstrates why government regulation is necessary to curb technology addiction. It describes a grassroots movement already in action across courts and legislative halls. Groundbreaking and urgent, Unwired provides a blueprint to develop this movement for change, to one that will allow us to finally gain control.

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This engaging history overturns the conventional wisdom about the Second Amendment--showing that the right to bear arms was not about protecting liberty but about preserving slavery.

In Madison's Militia, Carl Bogus illuminates why James Madison and the First Congress included the right to bear arms in the Bill of Rights. Linking together dramatic accounts of slave uprisings and electric debates over whether the Constitution should be ratified, Bogus shows that--contrary to conventional wisdom--the fitting symbol of the Second Amendment is not the musket in the hands of the minuteman on Lexington Green but the musket wielded by a slave patrol member in the South.

Bogus begins with a dramatic rendering of the showdown in Virginia between James Madison and his federalist allies, who were arguing for ratification of the new Constitution, and Patrick Henry and the antifederalists, who were arguing against it. Henry accused Madison of supporting a constitution that empowered Congress to disarm the militia, on which the South relied for slave control. The narrative then proceeds to the First Congress, where Madison had to make good a congressional campaign promise to write a Bill of Rights--and seizing that opportunity to solve the problem Henry had raised.

Three other collections of stories--on slave insurrections, Revolutionary War battles, and the English Declaration of Rights--are skillfully woven into the narrative and show how arming ragtag militias was never the primary goal of the amendment. And as the puzzle pieces come together, even initially skeptical readers will be surprised by the completed picture: one that forcefully demonstrates that the Second Amendment was intended in the first instance to protect slaveholders from the people they owned.

Carl T. Bogus is a Professor of Law Emeritus at the Roger Williams University School of Law in Bristol, Rhode Island. He has also held visiting positions at the George Washington, Drexel, and Rutgers University law schools. He is the author of two previous books--Buckley: William F. Buckley Jr. and the Rise of American Conservatism (Bloomsbury Press) and Why Lawsuits Are Good for America: Disciplined Democracy, Big Business, and the Common Law (NYU Press)--and the editor of The Second Amendment in Law and History: Historians and Constitutional Scholars on the Right to Bear Arms (The New Press). His writings have appeared in professional journals as well as the New York Times, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, The Nation, American Prospect, American Conservative, and other popular venues.

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This thought-provoking book argues that, ironically, science's credibility is being undermined by tools created by scientists themselves. Scientific disinformation and damaging conspiracy theories are rife because of the internet that science created, the scientific demand for empirical evidence and statistical significance leads to data torturing and confirmation bias, and data mining is fuelled by the technological advances in Big Data and the development of ever-increasingly powerful computers.

Using a wide range of entertaining examples, this fascinating book examines the impacts of society's growing distrust of science, and ultimately provides constructive suggestions for restoring the credibility of the scientific community.

Gary Smith, Fletcher Jones Professor of Economics, Pomona College Gary Smith is the Fletcher Jones Professor of Economics at Pomona College. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University and was an Assistant Professor there for seven years. He has won two teaching awards and written (or co-authored) more than 100 academic papers and 15 books. He is the author of The AI Delusion (OUP 2018) and co-author with Jay Cordes of The 9 Pitfalls of Data Science (OUP 2019), which won the 2020 Prose Award for Excellence in Popular Science & Popular Mathematics by the Association of American Publishers.

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Chances are, you’ve heard this a lot lately. What might’ve once been a niche digital term has been legitimized in the discourse of presidents, politicians, and lawmakers. 

But what really is cancel culture? Blacklisting celebrities? Censorship? Until now, this has been the general consensus in the media. But it’s time to raise the bar on our definition— to think of cancel culture less as scandal or suppression, and more as an essential means of democratic expression and accountability.

The Case for Cancel Culture does just that. This cultural critique from 2023 Philly News Award-Winning journalist Ernest Owens offers a fresh progressive lens in favor of cancel culture as a tool for activism and change. Using examples from politics, pop culture, and his own personal experience, Owens helps readers reflect on and learn the long history of canceling (spoiler: the Boston Tea Party was cancel culture); how the left and right uniquely equip it as part of their political toolkits; how intersections of society wield it for justice; and ultimately how it levels the playing field for the everyday person’s voice to matter.

Why should we care? Because in a world where protest and free speech are being challenged by the most powerful institutions, those without power deserve to understand the nuance and importance of this democratic tool available to them. Readers will walk away from this first-of-its-kind exploration not despising cancel culture but embracing it as a form of democratic expression that’s always been leading the charge in liberating us all.

Ernest Owens (he/him) is an award-winning journalist and CEO of Ernest Media Empire, LLC. He is the Editor at Large for Philadelphia Magazine and President of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists. He hosts the hit podcast "Ernestly Speaking!" As an openly Black gay journalist, he has made headlines for speaking frankly about intersectional issues in society regarding race, LGBTQ, and pop culture. In 2018, he launched his growing media company that specializes in multimedia production, consulting, and communications. The Case for Cancel Culture is his first book.

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This deep dive into the wonderful world of insects teaches us to love the tiny, seemingly terrifying creatures all around us.

For many people, cockroaches are the most pesky of pests. Not so for entomologist Frank Nischk. In this funny and fascinating book, Frank reveals his love and admiration for so-called "nasty" creatures like cockroaches, crickets, and more. He shows us that even seemingly terrifying insects are beautiful in their own way--and essential to all life on Earth.

Frank never planned to study cockroaches. But when researching hummingbirds fell through, he switched to cockroach feces--and soon fell in love. Cockroaches are incredible survivors, devoted parents, and adapt to almost any environment. Nischk even answers the age-old question of whether a cockroach would survive a nuclear explosion. After reading such eye-opening and warm-hearted stories, you'll think twice before stepping on one

From cockroaches to crickets, Nischk travels to Ecuador to record cricket sounds, where he finds jungles bursting with a riot of insect life (including bullet ants whose stings are surprisingly painful). As Nischk narrates his (mis)adventures as an entomologist, he shares stories about intriguing insect discoveries, from damselflies who lay eggs deep underwater, to zombie fungi that invade the brains of ants. Brimming with fascinating facts, incredible stories, and unbelievable anecdotes, Of Cockroaches and Crickets will intrigue anyone who has ever loved--or hated --bugs.

Frank Nischk is an entomologist, science reporter, and filmmaker who has studied insects in multiple continents around the world. Since 2000, he has been working as a journalist and as a director of TV documentaries, including award-winning nature and animal films.

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Can we ever truly comprehend the universe before we fully understand consciousness and the wonders, and limits, of the mind? Ulf Danielsson, an acclaimed theoretical physicist who has dedicated his career to probing the deepest mysteries of nature, thinks not. As he dismantles the arguments of esteemed mathematicians and scientists, who would substitute their mathematical models for reality and equate the mind to a computer, he makes a lucid and passionate case that it is nature, full of beauty and meaning, which must compel us. In challenging established worldviews, he also takes a fresh look at major philosophical debates, including the notion of free will. 

Fearless, provocative, and witty, The World Itself is essential listening for anyone curious about the profound questions surrounding life, the universe, and everything.

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With increased compression, every word, every sentence matters more. A writer must learn how to form narratives around caesuras and crevices instead of strings of connections, to move a story through the symbolic weight of images, to master the power of suggestion.

With elegant prose, deep readings of other writers, and scaffolded writing exercises, The Art of Brevity takes the reader on a lyrical exploration of compact storytelling, guiding readers to heighten their awareness of not only what appears on the page but also what doesn't.

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The Hidden Rules of Architecture: how to build world-class, award winning, creative, innovative, sustainable, livable and beautiful spaces that foster a sense of place and well being

Leading architect Reinier de Graaf De Graaf punctures the myths behind the debates on what contemporary architecture is, with wit and devastating honesty. Architecture, it seems, has become too important to leave to architects. No longer does it suffice to judge a building solely by its appearance, it must be measured, and certified. When architects talk about “Excellence,” “Sustainability,” “Well-being,” “Livability,” “Placemaking,” “Creativity,” “Beauty” and “Innovation” what do they actually mean?

In architect, verb. De Graff dryly skewers the doublespeak and hot air of an industry in search of an identity in the 21st century. Who determines how to measure a “green building”? Why is Vancouver more “liveable” than Vienna? How do developers get away with advertising their buildings as promoting “well-being”? Why did Silicon Valley become so obsessed with devising “creative” spaces or developing code that replaces architects? How much revenue can be attributed to the design of public space? Who gets to decide what these measurements should be, and what do they actually mean? And what does it mean for the future of our homes, cities, planet?

He also includes a biting, satirical dictionary of “profspeak”: the corporate language of consultants, developers and planners from “Active listening” to “Zoom Readiness.”

Reinier de Graaf (1964, Schiedam) is a Dutch architect and writer. He is a partner in the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), where he leads projects in Europe, Russia and the Middle East. Reinier is the co-founder of OMA’s think-tank AMO and Sir Arthur Marshall Visiting Professor of Urban Design at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of Four Walls and a Roof: The Complex Nature of a Simple Profession and the novel The Masterplan. 

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Where Did the Universe Come From? And Other Cosmic Questions: Our Universe, from the Quantum to the Cosmos 
Co-authored with Geraint Lewis

Do you ever look up to the stars and wonder about what is out there?

Over the last few centuries, humans have successfully unraveled much of the language of the universe, exploring and defining formerly mysterious phenomena such as electricity, magnetism, and matter through the beauty of mathematics. But some secrets remain beyond our realm of understanding—and seemingly beyond the very laws and theories we have relied on to make sense of the universe we inhabit. It is clear that the quantum, the world of atoms and electrons, is entwined with the cosmos, a universe of trillions of stars and galaxies…but exactly how these two extremes of human understanding interact remains a mystery. Where Did the Universe Come From? And Other Cosmic Questions allows readers to eavesdrop on a conversation between award-winning physicists Chris Ferrie and Geraint F. Lewis as they examine the universe through the two unifying and yet often contradictory lenses of classical physics and quantum mechanics, tackling questions such as:

Where did the universe come from?
Why do dying stars rip themselves apart
Do black holes last forever?
What is left for humans to discover?
A brief but fascinating exploration of the vastness of the universe, this book will have armchair physicists turning the pages until their biggest and smallest questions about the cosmos have been answered.

Chris Ferrie is an award-winning physicist and Senior Lecturer for Quantum Software and Information at the University of Technology Sydney. He has a Masters in applied mathematics, BMath in mathematical physics and a PhD in applied mathematics.

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