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Showing 1 - 20 of 70 items
By Carl Sagan. 1977
Essays by an award-winning scientist about the possible development of human intelligence, written for nonspecialists. Discusses the biological functions of…
sleep, increasing brain size, and language learning among chimpanzees. Chronicles advances in understanding the brain and implications for the future. BestsellerBy Kim Stanley Robinson. 2020
Established in 2025, the purpose of the new organization was simple: To advocate for the world's future generations and to…
protect all living creatures, present and future. It soon became known as the Ministry for the Future, and this is its storyBy Ryder Windham. 2015
Fictional guide to the Star Wars galaxy, including profiles of planets and members of the Jedi High Council. Also includes…
information on various alien races and a glossary. For grades K-3. 2015By Alan Barnard, Hugh Brewster. 2009
Presents facts learned from fossilized evidence of dinosaur species that roamed the North American continent millions of years ago, like…
the Stegosaurus of Colorado. Discusses size, eating habits, head crests, skull shapes, tail clubs, raptor claws, and dinosaur descendants. For grades 3-6. 2009By Bill Jr. Adler, Bill Adler. 1998
Anthology of twenty-two time travel short stories. Personal favorites of the editor ranging from Edgar Allan Poe's "Three Sundays in…
a Week" written in 1850 to Derryl Murphy's "What Goes Around" from 1997. For senior high and older readersBy Betty Ballantine, Lloyd Birmingham. 1994
An international team of scientists boards a high-tech submersible on an expedition to communicate with whales. The team encounters the…
cetasapiens, a previously unknown type of super-dolphin, from whom they learn much about the creatures of the deep and the fragile ecology of the oceans. For grades 5-8By Jan Wahl, Morgana Wallace. 2019
Covers the pioneering scientific work and inspiring courage of Hedy Lamarr, the famous Hollywood actress who fought against old-fashioned parents,…
a domineering husband, prejudice, and stereotypes to become an accomplished inventor whose work helped pave the way for many of the communications technologies we enjoy today. For grades 2-4. 2019By Margaret Peterson Haddix. 2022
"No matter what anyone tells you, I'm real. That's what the note says that Max finds under his keyboard. He…
knows that his best friend, Josie, wrote it. He'd know her handwriting anywhere. But why she wrote it--and what it means--remains a mystery. Ever since they met in kindergarten, Max and Josie have been inseparable. Until the summer after fifth grade, when Josie disappears, leaving only a note, and whispering something about "whatnot rules." But why would Max ever think that Josie wasn't real? And what are whatnots? As Max sets to uncover what happened to Josie--and what she is or isn't--little does he know that she's fighting to find him again, too. But there are forces trying to keep Max and Josie from ever seeing each other again. Because Josie wasn't supposed to be real." -- Provided by publisherBy Dan Gutman. 2006
Mr. Docker, a new science teacher, is a crazy inventor who blows things up and uses potatoes for power. He…
has A.J. and his friends wondering whether science is for nerds or is the coolest subject ever. For grades 2-4. 2006By Monica Arnaldo. 2021
A Kids' Indie Next List pick! Laugh-out-loud humor and a tender friendship blossom in author-illustrator Monica Arnaldo’s charming picture book…
about a lonely raccoon and a glowing seed, and the world’s most important question: Can this seed grow cheeseburgers? Grub is a lonely racoon. Rumbling in the trash. Looking for food.Seed is, well, a seed! Patiently waiting in the trash. Hoping someone will plant it. When the two finally meet, they realize they might be able to help each other! Grub has just one big question first: What will Seed grow? Could Seed grow Grub’s favorite food, mouthwatering cheeseburgers? Seed isn’t sure what a cheeseburger is exactly, but . . . maybe!And so begins a hilarious friendship following two unlikely strangers learning more about the other and discovering the pressure that comes with fulfilling expectations. Author-illustrator Monica Arnaldo will leave readers giggling and clamoring for more in this charming story that celebrates the unexpected—and how the most special friendships bloom only when we are unapologetically ourselves.By Eric Walters. 2023
By Glen Weldon. 2016
A witty, intelligent cultural history from NPR book critic Glen Weldon explains Batman's rises and falls throughout the ages--and what…
his story tells us about ourselves.Since his creation, Batman has been many things: a two-fisted detective; a planet-hopping gadabout; a campy Pop-art sensation; a pointy-eared master spy; and a grim and gritty ninja of the urban night. For more than three quarters of a century, he has cycled from a figure of darkness to one of lightness and back again; he's a bat-shaped Rorschach inkblot who takes on the various meanings our changing culture projects onto him. How we perceive Batman's character, whether he's delivering dire threats in a raspy Christian Bale growl or trading blithely homoerotic double-entendres with partner Robin on the comics page, speaks to who we are and how we wish to be seen by the world. It's this endlessly mutable quality that has made him so enduring. And it's Batman's fundamental nerdiness--his gadgets, his obsession, his oath, even his lack of superpowers--that uniquely resonates with his fans who feel a fiercely protective love for the character. Today, fueled by the internet, that breed of passion for elements of popular culture is everywhere. Which is what makes Batman the perfect lens through which to understand geek culture, its current popularity, and social significance. In The Caped Crusade, with humor and insight, Glen Weldon, book critic for NPR and author of Superman: The Unauthorized Biography, lays out Batman's seventy-eight-year cultural history and shows how he has helped make us who we are today and why his legacy remains so strong.By Brandy Schillace. 2017
Airships and electric submarines, automatons and mesmerists?welcome to the wild world of steampunk. It is all speculative?or is it? Meet…
the intrepid souls who pushed Victorian technology to its limits and paved the way for our present age. The gear turns, the whistle blows, and the billows expand with electro-mechanical whirring. The shimmering halo of Victorian technology lures us with the stuff of dreams, of nostalgia, of alternate pasts and futures that entice with the suave of James Bond and the savvy of Sherlock Holmes. Fiction, surely. But what if the unusual gadgetry so often depicted as “steampunk” actually made an appearance in history? Zeppelins and steam-trains; arc-lights and magnetic rays: these fascinating (and sometimes doomed) inventions bounded from the tireless minds of unlikely heroes. Such men and women served no secret societies and fought no super-villains, but they did build engines, craft automatons, and engineer a future they hoped would run like clockwork. Along the way, however, these same inventors ushered in a contest between desire and dread. From Newton to Tesla, from candle and clockwork to the age of electricity and manufactured power, technology teetered between the bright dials of fantastic futures and the dark alleyways of industrial catastrophe. In the mesmerizing Clockwork Futures, Brandy Schillace reveals the science behind steampunk, which is every bit as extraordinary as what we might find in the work of Jules Verne, and sometimes, just as fearful. These stories spring from the scientific framework we have inherited. They shed light on how we pursue science, and how we grapple with our destiny—yesterday, today, and tomorrow.By Andrew Hoberek. 2014
Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's Watchmen has been widely hailed as a landmark in the development of the graphic novel.…
It was not only aesthetically groundbreaking but also anticipated future developments in politics, literature, and intellectual property. Demonstrating a keen eye for historical detail, Considering Watchmen gives readers a new appreciation of just how radical Moore and Gibbons's blend of gritty realism and formal experimentation was back in 1986. The book also considers Watchmen's place in the history of the comics industry, reading the graphic novel's playful critique of superhero marketing alongside Alan Moore's public statements about the rights to the franchise. Andrew Hoberek examines how Moore and Gibbons engaged with the emerging discourses of neoconservatism and neoliberal capitalism, ideologies that have only become more prominent in subsequent years. Watchmen's influences on the superhero comic and graphic novel are undeniable, but Hoberek reveals how it has also had profound effects on literature as a whole. He suggests that Watchmen not only proved that superhero comics could rise to the status of literature--it also helped to inspire a generation of writers who are redefining the boundaries of the literary, from Jonathan Lethem to Junot Díaz. Hoberek delivers insight and analysis worthy of satisfying serious readers of the genre while shedding new light on Watchmen as both an artistic accomplishment and a book of ideas.By Grant Morrison. 2011
From one of the most acclaimed and profound writers in the world of comics comes a thrilling and provocative exploration…
of humankind's great modern myth: the superhero. The first superhero comic ever published, Action Comics no. 1 in 1938, introduced the world to something both unprecedented and timeless: Superman, a caped god for the modern age. In a matter of years, the skies of the imaginary world were filled with strange mutants, aliens, and vigilantes: Batman, Wonder Woman, the Fantastic Four, Iron Man, and the X-Men--the list of names as familiar as our own. In less than a century, they've gone from not existing at all to being everywhere we look: on our movie and television screens, in our videogames and dreams. But what are they trying to tell us? For Grant Morrison, arguably the greatest of contemporary chroniclers of the "superworld," these heroes are powerful archetypes whose ongoing, decades-spanning story arcs reflect and predict the course of human existence: Through them we tell the story of ourselves, our troubled history, and our starry aspirations. In this exhilarating work of a lifetime, Morrison draws on art, science, mythology, and his own astonishing journeys through this shadow universe to provide the first true history of the superhero--why they matter, why they will always be with us, and what they tell us about who we are . . . and what we may yet become.By Tom De Haven. 2010
Since his first appearance in Action Comics Number One, published in late spring of 1938, Superman has represented the essence…
of American heroism. "Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound," the Man of Steel has thrilled audiences across the globe, yet as life-long "Superman Guy" Tom De Haven argues in this highly entertaining book, his story is uniquely American. Created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in the midst of the Great Depression, Superman is both a transcendent figure and, when posing as his alter-ego, reporter Clark Kent, a humble working-class citizen. An orphan and an immigrant, he shares a personal history with the many Americans who came to this country in search of a better life, and his amazing feats represent the wildest realization of the American dream. As De Haven reveals through behind-the-scenes vignettes, personal anecdotes, and lively interpretations of more than 70 years of comic books, radio programs, TV shows, and Hollywood films, Superman's legacy seems, like the Man of Steel himself, to be utterly invincible.By Hernan Alberto Vanoli. 2017
Cuentos de ciencia ficción política y biológica por uno de los autores jóvenes que más agitan la escena literaria argentina.…
Una empresa de carpooling convoca almas irredentas que son perseguidas por osos callejeros. Una pareja emprende novedosas técnicas de fertilización y logra sus propios bebés de Rosemary. Una logia mundial de cintas de correr planea una revolución. Y el copamiento de 1989 en La Tablada desemboca en una granja de trolls militada por tiernos ancianos. Las historias de Pyongyang hablan de un totalitarismo suave, cariñoso y veloz, donde hacer un duelo parece imposible, las máquinas nos odian y el progreso es la sagrada ideología oficial. Político y pospolítico, trágico e irónico, imaginativo y cruel, Hernán Vanoli es uno de los autores más singulares del panorama narrativo actual. «Su hiperrealismo lingüístico es un viaje por la sociedad, interesada como nunca en las tribus, los grupos, las fracciones, las camarillas y las bandas.» Beatriz SarloBy Ian Rankin. 2019
It always starts with a small lie. That's how you stop noticing the bigger ones.After his friend suspects something strange…
going on at the launch facility where they both work - and then goes missing - Martin Hepton doesn't believe the official line of "long-term sick leave"...Refusing to stop asking questions, he leaves his old life behind, aware that someone is shadowing his every move.The only hope he has is his ex-girlfriend Jill Watson - the only journalist who will believe his story.But neither of them can believe the puzzle they're piecing together - or just how shocking the secret is that everybody wants to stay hidden...A gripping, page-turning suspense masterclass - experience the brilliance of the iconic Ian Rankin.By Isaac Asimov. 1969
ASIMOV THE GREATEST Isaac Asimov needs no introduction. As the COLUMBUS DISPATCH declares, he is “the man who legitimized Science…
Fiction in the United States." But this is just part of the fabulous Asimov story. For this bestselling author has also explored virtually every branch of human knowledge in his mind- expanding writings. Now, in a blend of Science and Fiction that only he could achieve, Isaac Asimov takes you on a personally guided tour of the brightest adventures and delights in the Asimov galaxy.By Erik M. Conway, Naomi Oreskes. 2014
The year is 2393, and a senior scholar of the Second People's Republic of China presents a gripping and deeply…
disturbing account of how the children of the Enlightenment, the political and economic elites of the so-called advanced industrial societies, entered into a Penumbral period in the early decades of the twenty-first century, a time when sound science and rational discourse about global change were prohibited and clear warnings of climate catastrophe were ignored. What ensues when soaring temperatures, rising sea levels, drought, and mass migrations disrupt the global governmental and economic regimes? The Great Collapse of 2093.This work is an important title that will change how readers look at the world. Dramatizing climate change in ways traditional nonfiction cannot, this inventive, at times humorous work reasserts the importance of scientists and the work they do and reveals the self-serving interests of the so called "carbon industrial complex" that have turned the practice of sound science into political fodder. The authors conclude with a critique of the philosophical frameworks, most notably neo-liberalism, that do their part to hasten civilization's demise. Based on sound scholarship yet unafraid to tilt at sacred cows in both science and policy, this book provides a welcome moment of clarity amid the cacophony of climate change literature. It includes a lexicon of historical and scientific terms that enriches the narrative and an interview with the authors.