I have a weird imagination and care deeply about being kind in all areas of life. I think people, in general, need to be kinder to one another and to the earth. I find humanity to be too anthropocentric and dismissive of the intelligence of other creatures. The incredible complexity and interconnectedness of nature fascinate me, and I constantly look for connections between two seemingly disparate systems. Writing my book allowed me to put insects at the focal point of planetary control. It was an incredibly fun story to write.
I love Vonnegut’s style of blending an intensely serious topic (doomsday, brought on by human invention) with his trademark wit. He is my favorite author because he takes an outlandish premise and imbues it with humanity–people caring for one another, banding together, unleashing something outside of their control, etc.
One of America's greatest writers gives us his unique perspective on our fears of nuclear annihilation
Experiment.
Told with deadpan humour and bitter irony, Kurt Vonnegut's cult tale of global destruction preys on our deepest fears of witnessing Armageddon and, worse still, surviving it.
Solution.
Dr Felix Hoenikker, one of the founding fathers of the atomic bomb, has left a deadly legacy to the world. For he is the inventor of ice-nine, a lethal chemical capable of freezing the entire planet. The search for its whereabouts leads to Hoenikker's three eccentric children, to a crazed dictator in the Caribbean, to…
I love VanderMeer’s imagination and use of outrageous characters (a giant flying bear, an amorphous creature that can mimic anything/anyone) to explore the potential environmental consequences of humanity’s hubris. I was amazed by how much I cared for the characters in a setting where a literal giant flying bear terrorized everyone.
The dark, dangerous, funny and uplifting new novel from the author of Annihilation, the inspiration for the major motion picture directed by Alex Garland.
'Neither of us had control of our monsters anymore'
In a ruined city of the future, Rachel scavenges a strange creature from the fur of a despotic bear.
She names him Borne.
He reminds her of her homeland lost to rising seas, but her lover Wick is intent on rendering him down as raw material for the special drugs he sells. Nothing is quite what it seems, and if…
Harris Maloub, a killer with an erased official past, now in his fifties, is visited by someone who could not be alive and given an assignment. In Aarhus, Denmark, Jens Erik, police officer on pre-retirement leave, somehow cannot forget the body of a Black man recovered from the sea some…
I love how Huxley depicts a utopic community in a sea of unrestrained capitalism. This book got me thinking about solutions to problems I didn’t know existed. It got me to rethink how I view family structures, community, responsible drug use, and meditation. I appreciate how he centered the conflict around his ideal world versus the world imposed on his ideals by reality.
For over a hundred years the Pacific island of Pala has been the scene of a unique experiment in civilisation. Its inhabitants live in a society where western science has been brought together with Eastern philosophy to create a paradise on earth. When cynical journalist, Will Farnaby, arrives to research potential oil reserves on Pala, he quickly falls in love with the way of life on the island. Soon the need to complete his mission becomes an intolerable burden and he must make a difficult choice.
In counterpoint to Brave New World and Ape and Essence, in Island Huxley gives…
I loved the nuanced solutions Robinson proposes in this book to fix the biggest problems of today. Although the book wasn’t my favorite in terms of plot, I appreciated Robinson’s work in detailing realistic solutions that meaningfully address climate change. It provoked me to really scrutinize what we are and are not doing to tackle rising global temperatures.
“The best science-fiction nonfiction novel I’ve ever read.” —Jonathan Lethem
"If I could get policymakers, and citizens, everywhere to read just one book this year, it would be Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future." —Ezra Klein (Vox)
The Ministry for the Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, using fictional eyewitness accounts to tell the story of how climate change will affect us all. Its setting is not a desolate, postapocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us. Chosen by Barack Obama as one of his favorite…
The end of life is still a forbidden topic. Today, Baby Boomers, the largest population group in American history, are facing death. And nobody wants to talk about it!
Join Brad Stuart, M.D. as he shows how he learned the truth about dying over…
More so than any book I’ve ever read, this book made me hopeful for humanity’s trajectory. I love how Deutsch has taken incredibly complex topics (quantum physics, mathematics, etc.) and made them accessible for laypeople like myself.
This book has given me a new perspective on the way humanity approaches problems and the potential we inherently possess. The lessons in this nonfiction work—that humanity’s potential is theoretically infinite—significantly shaped my thinking while writing my book.
'Science has never had an advocate quite like David Deutsch ... A computational physicist on a par with his touchstones Alan Turing and Richard Feynman, and a philosopher in the line of his greatest hero, Karl Popper. His arguments are so clear that to read him is to experience the thrill of the highest level of discourse available on this planet and to understand it' Peter Forbes, Independent
In our search for truth, how far have we advanced? This uniquely human quest for good explanations has driven amazing improvements in everything from scientific understanding and technology to politics, moral values…
Humanity’s fate rests in the tiny hands of the insects, who monitor not only the health of planet Earth but also the moral compass of its most influential inhabitants: humans. If mankind reaches a point of no return, the bugs will unleash their last resort—extermination. But don’t worry, they have a backup plan. With mosquito-collected DNA, they’re ready to start fresh with a new batch of humans, hoping the next generation might do better.
A chilling look at the potential consequences of climate neglect, my book explores themes of environmental collapse, collective responsibility, and survival, all seen through the eyes of our planet’s most overlooked creatures. Readers will be captivated by my dark humor, inventive storytelling, and the eerie plausibility of the bugs’ last resort.
Winner of the Robert F. Lucid Award for Mailer Studies.
Celebrating Mailer's centenary and the seventy-fifth publication of The Naked and the Dead, the book illustrates how Mailer remains a provocative presence in American letters.
From the debates of the nation's founders, to the revolutionary traditions of western romanticism,…
Misanthropic psychologist Dr. Grace Park is placed on the Deucalion, a survey ship headed to an icy planet in an unexplored galaxy. Her purpose is to observe the thirteen human crew members aboard the ship—all specialists in their own fields—as they assess the colonization potential of the planet, Eos. But…
