Why is Fifty Shades of Grey like the Higgs boson? Who would Kristen Stewart play in a movie of Ulysses? Is the answer 42? Would Jane Eyre prefer Hamlet or Claudius? And is research really like romance? You will find the answers to all the above questions, and many others, in this book

“This lively appreciation of one of the most intimidating and massive novels ever written should persuade many hesitant readers to try scaling the heights of War and Peace sooner rather than later” (Publishers Weekly). Considered by many critics the greatest novel ever written, War and Peace is also one of the most feared. And at 1,500 pages, it’s no wonder why. Still, in July 2009 Newsweek put War and Peace at the top of its list of 100 great novels and a 2007 edition of the AARP Bulletin included the novel in their list of the top four books everybody should read by the age of fifty. A New York Times survey from 2009 identified War and Peace as the world classic you’re most likely to find people reading on their subway commute to work. What might all those Newsweek devotees, senior citizens, and harried commuters see in a book about the Napoleonic Wars in the early 1800s? War and Peace is many things. It is a love story, a family saga, a war novel. But at its core it’s a novel about human beings attempting to create a meaningful life for themselves in a country torn apart by war, social change, political intrigue, and spiritual confusion. It is a mirror of our times. Give War and Peace a Chance takes readers on a journey through War and Peace that reframes their very understanding of what it means to live through troubled times and survive them. Touching on a broad range of topics, from courage to romance, parenting to death, Kaufman demonstrates how Tolstoy’s wisdom can help us live fuller, more meaningful lives. The ideal companion to War and Peace, this book “makes Tolstoy’s characters lively and palpable…and may well persuade readers to finally dive into one of the world’s most acclaimed—and daunting—novels” (Kirkus Reviews).

A basic introduction to the ancient system of astrology based on the Chinese lunar calendar from the author of Simple Feng Shui. Introduced by the emperor Huang Ti between 2700 and 2600 B.C.E., Chinese astrology is based on the culture’s lunar calendar, which is made up of five cycles of twelve years each, with a complete cycle taking sixty years. According to legend, Buddha summoned all the animals to come to him before he departed earth, but only twelve came to pay their respects. To honor them, he named a year after each animal in the order that they appeared: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Boar. These became the twelve astrological signs that determine your personality, behavior, and proclivities according to the year and time of day you were born. This age-old practice tells you what to expect—in life, career, and romance—in the coming years. Featuring illustrations and tables, this guide makes this exacting science and art of divination and personal analysis accessible to Western readers.

This book takes a brief look at the 50 battles the author believes have had the most profound impact on world history. Listed in order of importance for our world today, they range from the ancient world to the present and span the globe.

AN OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB SELECTION An Instant New York Times Bestseller Shortlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize Longlisted for the 2021 National Book Award for Fiction Longlisted for the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction A heartrending new novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winning and #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Overstory. The astrobiologist Theo Byrne searches for life throughout the cosmos while single-handedly raising his unusual nine-year-old, Robin, following the death of his wife. Robin is a warm, kind boy who spends hours painting elaborate pictures of endangered animals. He’s also about to be expelled from third grade for smashing his friend in the face. As his son grows more troubled, Theo hopes to keep him off psychoactive drugs. He learns of an experimental neurofeedback treatment to bolster Robin’s emotional control, one that involves training the boy on the recorded patterns of his mother’s brain… With its soaring descriptions of the natural world, its tantalizing vision of life beyond, and its account of a father and son’s ferocious love, Bewilderment marks Richard Powers’s most intimate and moving novel. At its heart lies the question: How can we tell our children the truth about this beautiful, imperiled planet?

More Than Sixty Course Syllabi That Bring the New Complexity of Graphic Design to Light All graphic designers teach, yet not all graphic designers are teachers. Teaching is a special skill requiring talent, instinct, passion, and organization. But while talent, instinct, and passion are inherent, organization must be acquired and can usually be found in a syllabus. Teaching Graphic Design, Second Edition, contains syllabi that are for all practicing designers and design educators who want to enhance their teaching skills and learn how experienced instructors and professors teach varied tools and impart the knowledge needed to be a designer in the current environment. This second edition is newly revised to include more than thirty new syllabi by a wide range of professional teachers and teaching professionals who address the most current concerns of the graphic design industry, including product, strategic, entrepreneurial, and data design as well as the classic image, type, and layout disciplines. Some of the new syllabi included are: Expressive Typography Designer as Image Maker Emerging Media Production Branding Corporate Design Graphic Design and Visual Culture Impact! Design for Social Change And many more Beginning with first through fourth year of undergraduate courses and ending with a sampling of graduate school course options, Teaching Graphic Design, Second Edition, is the most comprehensive collection of courses for graphic designers of all levels.

Louis Rosen and his partners sell people--ingeniously designed, historically authentic simulacra of personages such as Edwin M. Stanton and Abraham Lincoln. The problem is that the only prospective buyer is a rapacious billionaire whose plans for the simulacra could land Louis in jail. Then there's the added complication that someone--or something--like Abraham Lincoln may not want to be sold. Is an electronic Lincoln any less alive than his creators? Is a machine that cares and suffers inferior to the woman Louis loves--a borderline psychopath who does neither? With irresistible momentum, intelligence, and wit, Philip K. Dick creates an arresting techno-thriller that suggests a marriage of Bladerunner and Barbarians at the Gate.

Finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction * New York Times Bestseller * A Huffington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of the Year * One of the Best Books of the Month on Goodreads * Library Journal Best Sci-Tech Book of the Year * An American Library Association Notable Book of the Year “Sy Montgomery’s The Soul of an Octopus does for the creature what Helen Macdonald’s H Is for Hawk did for raptors.” —New Statesman, UK “One of the best science books of the year.” —Science Friday, NPR Another New York Times bestseller from the author of The Good Good Pig, this “fascinating…touching…informative…entertaining” (The Daily Beast) book explores the emotional and physical world of the octopus—a surprisingly complex, intelligent, and spirited creature—and the remarkable connections it makes with humans. In pursuit of the wild, solitary, predatory octopus, popular naturalist Sy Montgomery has practiced true immersion journalism. From New England aquarium tanks to the reefs of French Polynesia and the Gulf of Mexico, she has befriended octopuses with strikingly different personalities—gentle Athena, assertive Octavia, curious Kali, and joyful Karma. Each creature shows her cleverness in myriad ways: escaping enclosures like an orangutan; jetting water to bounce balls; and endlessly tricking companions with multiple “sleights of hand” to get food. Scientists have only recently accepted the intelligence of dogs, birds, and chimpanzees but now are watching octopuses solve problems and are trying to decipher the meaning of the animal’s color-changing techniques. With her “joyful passion for these intelligent and fascinating creatures” (Library Journal Editors’ Spring Pick), Montgomery chronicles the growing appreciation of this mollusk as she tells a unique love story. By turns funny, entertaining, touching, and profound, The Soul of an Octopus reveals what octopuses can teach us about the meeting of two very different minds.