Catalog Search Results
Author
Description
"You swab your cheek or spit in a vial, then send it away to a lab somewhere. Weeks later you get a report that might tell you where your ancestors came from or if you carry certain genetic risks. Or the report could reveal long-buried family secrets and upend your entire sense of identity. Soon a lark becomes an obsession, a relentless drive to find answers to questions at the core of your being, like "Who am I?" and "Where did I come from?" Welcome...
Author
Description
"Discover who's living in your own backyard. More than half of all humans now live in cities, with a mixture of plants, animals, and fungi that have never been together before. Yet not only do few of us see and appreciate these creatures, we often try to eradicate them. What if understanding urban species could help preserve our connection to nature? Secret Life of the City introduces us to corvids, songbirds, ants, pigeons, bats, sparrows, lichens,...
Author
Formats
Description
"Most of us view animals through a very narrow lens, seeing only bits and pieces of beings that seem mostly peripheral to our lives. However, whether animals are building a shelter, seducing a mate, or inventing a new game, animals' creative choices affect their social, cultural, and environmental worlds. The Creative Lives of Animals offers readers intimate glimpses of creativity in the lives of animals, from elephants to alligators to ants. Drawing...
Author
Description
"One of the most powerful questions humans ask about the cosmos is: Are we alone? In The Possibility of Life, Jaime Green traces the history of our understanding, from the days of Galileo and Copernicus to our contemporary quest for exoplanets. Along the way, she interweaves insights from science fiction writers who construct worlds that in turn inspire scientists. Incorporating expert interviews, research, philosophical inquiry, and pop culture touchstones,...
Author
Formats
Description
"All the Ways Our Dead Still Speak takes readers on a lyrical and tender quest to encounter the hereafter. As Wilde picks up bodies, organizes funerals, and meets with grieving families in a small town in Pennsylvania, those who remain share with him--and us--what they experience in the thin places between life and death."--
Author
Description
"A meditation on solitude as a font of creativity and spirituality. Known for his lyrical prose and clear insight, Fenton Johnson explores what it means to be not "single"-meaningless outside of coupledom-but "solitary," able to be alone, inclined to mine the treasures of inner life. Americans tend to celebrate "fortress marriage," turning an equal right into an omnivorous expectation, marginalizing solitaries as odd, even potentially threatening....
Author
Description
"A meia lua whooshed in the air. The strike was evaded and followed with an aú. Two young men were playing capoeira in the middle of the roda. Bimba wanted to play, too. Although it is debated when and where capoeira--an art form that blends martial arts, dance, acrobatics, music, and spirituality--originated exactly, one thing is certain: in the early 20th century, Brazil was the only country in the world where capoeira was played, and it was mainly...
Author
Formats
Description
"A paradigm-shifting work that revolutionizes our understanding of the origins and structure of science. Captivatingly written, interwoven with tantalizing illustrations and historical vignettes ranging from Newton's alchemy to quantum mechanics to the storm surge of Hurricane Sandy, Michael Strevens's wholly original investigation of science asks two fundamental questions: Why is science so powerful? And why did it take so long, two thousand years...
Author
Formats
Description
"The most powerful pirate in history was a woman who was born into poverty in Guangzhou, China, in the early 1800s. When pirates attacked her town and the captain took a liking to her, she saw a way out. Zheng Yi Sao agreed to marry him only if she got an equal share of his business. When her husband died six years later, she took command of the fleet. Over the next decade, the pirate queen built a fleet of over 1,800 ships and 70,000 men. On land...
Author
Formats
Description
"What happens when musical instruments can't make the sounds we expect them to make? Is music still possible? The schools of Philadelphia were filling up with broken violins, drums, pianos, and more, making it difficult for students to learn to play. This sparked an idea for a symphony, played entirely with the broken instruments, that would raise funds to repair the instruments themselves. Musicians young and old volunteered, and their captivating...
Author
Series
Formats
Description
Meet Mars! The red planet. Planet Marvelous. Favorite sibling of Earth (or so he claims). Sometimes they're close (just 34.5 million miles apart). Sometimes they need space (250 million miles apart)! Earth and Mars have a lot in common--clouds, mountains, polar icecaps. And while Earth has Earthlings, Mars makes a persuasive case for why people should make the journey to spend time with him. His day is 7 minutes longer! He is home to the largest volcano...
Author
Formats
Description
"As soon as artist Robert McCloskey saw the ducks in Boston Public Garden, he knew he had to write about them. But how? Studying stuffed birds didn't help... As the ducklings grew, he got down on his hands and knees and followed them with pad and pencil. At times he even acted like a duck! Through revision, after revision, Robert improved the art and story, until he and his editor were finally satisfied."--
Author
Description
"This wacky true tale of American ingenuity all started when John "Minnie" Moore built a mine in Idaho and sold it to Englishman Henry Miller. Then Henry married a local lass named Annie and built her a mansion, hence the "Millers' Minnie Moore Mine Mansion." After Henry died and Annie was hoodwinked-- losing all but the mansion-- she and her son took to raising pigs in the yard, as some are wont to do. But the town wanted those pigs out. Who could...
Author
Formats
Description
"After decades of bouncing between hope and despair, Evangelical, Baptist-raised Julie Rodgers found herself making a powerful public statement that her former self would have never said: ""I support same-sex marriage in the church."" When Rodgers came out to her family as a junior in high school, she still believed that God would sanctify her and eventually make her straight. Wanting so intensely to be good, she spent her adolescent and early adult...
Author
Formats
Description
"You are to report to Station X at Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire, in four days time ... That is all you need to know." This was the terse telegram hundreds of young women throughout the British Isles received in the spring of 1941, as World War II raged. As they arrived at Station X, a sprawling mansion in a state of disrepair surrounded by Spartan-looking huts with little chimneys coughing out thick smoke--these young people had no idea what kind...
Didn't find it?
Can't find what you are looking for? Request an item not in the catalog. Submit Request