The Hands that Crafted the Bomb

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Author :
Publisher : PM Press
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 257 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (874 download)

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Book Synopsis The Hands that Crafted the Bomb by : Josh Fernandez

Download or read book The Hands that Crafted the Bomb written by Josh Fernandez and published by PM Press. This book was released on 2024-02-13 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Josh Fernandez is a community college professor who finds himself under investigation for “soliciting students for potentially dangerous activities” after starting an antifascist club on campus. As Fernandez spends the year defending his job, he reflects on a life lived in protest of the status quo, swept up in chaos and rage, from his childhood in Boston dealing with a mentally ill father and a new family to growing up in Davis, California, in the basement shows of the early '90s when Nazi boneheads proliferated the music scene, looking for heads to crack. His crew’s first attempts at an antifascist group fall short when a member dies in a knife fight. A born antiauthoritarian, filled with an untamable rage, Fernandez rails against the system and aggressively chooses the path of most resistance. This leads to long spates of living in his car, strung out on drugs, and robbing the whiteboys coming home from the clubs at night. Fernandez eventually realizes that his rage needs an outlet and finds relief for his existential dread in the form of running. And fighting Nazis. Fernandez cobbles together a life for himself as a writing professor, a facilitator of a self-defense collective, a boots-on-the-ground participant in Antifa work, and a proud father of two children he unapologetically raises to question authority. But his parents and academia seem to think Fernandez is failing miserably, putting his children and his students at risk, and they treat Fernandez like he’s a time bomb, ready to explode at any moment. They may have a point.

Bomb (Graphic Novel)

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Author :
Publisher : Roaring Brook Press
ISBN 13 : 1250291038
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (52 download)

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Book Synopsis Bomb (Graphic Novel) by : Steve Sheinkin

Download or read book Bomb (Graphic Novel) written by Steve Sheinkin and published by Roaring Brook Press. This book was released on 2023-01-24 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A riveting graphic novel adaptation of the award-winning nonfiction book, Bomb—the fascinating and frightening true story of the creation behind the most destructive force that birthed the arms race and the Cold War. In December of 1938, a chemist in a German laboratory made a shocking discovery: When placed next to radioactive material, a Uranium atom split in two. That simple discovery launched a scientific race that spanned three continents. In Great Britain and the United States, Soviet spies worked their way into the scientific community; in Norway, a commando force slipped behind enemy lines to attack German heavy-water manufacturing; and deep in the desert, one brilliant group of scientists, led by "father of the atomic bomb" J. Robert Oppenheimer, was hidden away at a remote site at Los Alamos. This is the story of the plotting, the risk-taking, the deceit, and genius that created the world's most formidable weapon. This is the story of the atomic bomb. New York Times bestselling author Steve Sheinkin's award-winning nonfiction book is now available reimagined in the graphic novel format. Full color illustrations from Nick Bertozzi are detailed and enriched with the nonfiction expertise Nick brings to the story as a beloved artist, comic book writer, and commercial illustrator who has written a couple of his own historical graphic novels, including Shackleton and Lewis & Clark. Accessible, gripping, and educational, this new edition of Bomb is perfect for young readers and adults alike. Praise for Bomb (2012): “This superb and exciting work of nonfiction would be a fine tonic for any jaded adolescent who thinks history is 'boring.' It's also an excellent primer for adult readers who may have forgotten, or never learned, the remarkable story of how nuclear weaponry was first imagined, invented and deployed—and of how an international arms race began well before there was such a thing as an atomic bomb.” —The Wall Street Journal “This is edge-of-the seat material that will resonate with YAs who clamor for true spy stories, and it will undoubtedly engross a cross-market audience of adults who dozed through the World War II unit in high school.” —The Bulletin (starred review) Also by Steve Sheinkin: Fallout: Spies, Superbombs, and the Ultimate Cold War Showdown The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War Born to Fly: The First Women's Air Race Across America The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism & Treachery Which Way to the Wild West?: Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn't Tell You About Westward Expansion King George: What Was His Problem?: Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn't Tell You About the American Revolution Two Miserable Presidents: Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn't Tell You About the Civil War

Juliet the Maniac

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Author :
Publisher : Melville House
ISBN 13 : 1612197590
Total Pages : 337 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (121 download)

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Book Synopsis Juliet the Maniac by : Juliet Escoria

Download or read book Juliet the Maniac written by Juliet Escoria and published by Melville House. This book was released on 2019-05-07 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "For fans of Ottessa Moshfegh, Juliet the Maniac is a worthy new entry in that pantheon of deconstruction... Dazzling."—NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW This portrait of a young teenager's fight toward understanding and recovering from mental illness is shockingly honest, funny, and heartfelt. Ambitious, talented fourteen-year-old honors student Juliet is poised for success at her Southern California high school. However, she soon finds herself in an increasingly frightening spiral of drug use, self-harm, and mental illness that lands her in a remote therapeutic boarding school, where she must ultimately find the inner strength to survive. A highly anticipated debut—from a writer hailed as "a combination of Denis Johnson and Joan Didion" (Dazed)—that brilliantly captures the intimate triumph of a girl's struggle to become the woman she knows she can be.

The Making of the Atomic Bomb

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Author :
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1439126224
Total Pages : 890 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (391 download)

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Book Synopsis The Making of the Atomic Bomb by : Richard Rhodes

Download or read book The Making of the Atomic Bomb written by Richard Rhodes and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-09-18 with total page 890 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: **Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award** The definitive history of nuclear weapons—from the turn-of-the-century discovery of nuclear energy to J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project—this epic work details the science, the people, and the sociopolitical realities that led to the development of the atomic bomb. This sweeping account begins in the 19th century, with the discovery of nuclear fission, and continues to World War Two and the Americans’ race to beat Hitler’s Nazis. That competition launched the Manhattan Project and the nearly overnight construction of a vast military-industrial complex that culminated in the fateful dropping of the first bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Reading like a character-driven suspense novel, the book introduces the players in this saga of physics, politics, and human psychology—from FDR and Einstein to the visionary scientists who pioneered quantum theory and the application of thermonuclear fission, including Planck, Szilard, Bohr, Oppenheimer, Fermi, Teller, Meitner, von Neumann, and Lawrence. From nuclear power’s earliest foreshadowing in the work of H.G. Wells to the bright glare of Trinity at Alamogordo and the arms race of the Cold War, this dread invention forever changed the course of human history, and The Making of The Atomic Bomb provides a panoramic backdrop for that story. Richard Rhodes’s ability to craft compelling biographical portraits is matched only by his rigorous scholarship. Told in rich human, political, and scientific detail that any reader can follow, The Making of the Atomic Bomb is a thought-provoking and masterful work.

The Berlin Project

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Author :
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1481487663
Total Pages : 480 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (814 download)

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Book Synopsis The Berlin Project by : Gregory Benford

Download or read book The Berlin Project written by Gregory Benford and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-05-09 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times bestselling author Gregory Benford creates an alternate history about the creation of the atomic bomb that explores what could have happened if the bomb was ready to be used by June 6, 1944. Karl Cohen, a chemist and mathematician who is part of The Manhattan Project team, has discovered an alternate solution for creating the uranium isotope needed to cause a chain reaction: U-235. After convincing General Groves of his new method, Cohen and his team of scientists work at Oak Ridge preparing to have a nuclear bomb ready to drop by the summer of 1944 in an effort to stop the war on the western front. What ensues is an altered account of World War II in this taut thriller. Combining fascinating science with intimate and true accounts of several members of The Manhattan Project, The Berlin Project is an astounding novel that reimagines history and what could have happened if the atom bomb was ready in time to stop Hitler from killing millions of people.

Black Power, White Blood

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Author :
Publisher : Temple University Press
ISBN 13 : 9781566397506
Total Pages : 356 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (975 download)

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Book Synopsis Black Power, White Blood by : Lori B. Andrews

Download or read book Black Power, White Blood written by Lori B. Andrews and published by Temple University Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in hardcover to much acclaim, this vividly written biographical drama will now be available in a paperback edition and includes a new epilogue by the author. Conceived within a clandestine relationship between a black man and a married white woman, Spain was born (as Larry Michael Armstrong) in Mississippi during the mid-1950s. Spain's life story speaks to the destructive power of racial bias. Even if his mother's husband were willing to accept the boy-which he was not-a mixed-race child inevitably would come to harm in that place and time. At six years old, already the target of name-calling children and threatening adults, he could not attend school with his older brother. Only decades later would he be told why the Armstrongs sent him to live with a black family in Los Angeles. As Johnny came of age, he thought of himself as having been rejected by his white family as well as by his black peers. His erratic, destructive behavior put him on a collision course with the penal system; he was only seventeen when convicted of murder and sent to Soledad. Drawn into the black power movement and the Black Panther Party by a fellow inmate, the charismatic George Jackson, Spain became a dynamic force for uniting prisoners once divided by racial hatred. He committed himself to the cause of prisoners' rights, impressing inmates, prison officials, and politicians with his intelligence and passion. Nevertheless, among the San Quentin Six, only he was convicted of conspiracy after Jackson's failed escape attempt. Lori Andrews, a professor of law, vividly portrays the dehumanizing conditions in the prisons, the pervasive abuses in the criminal justice system, and the case for overturning Spain's conspiracy conviction. Spain's personal transformation is the heart of the book, but Andrews frames it within an indictment of intolerance and injustice that gives this individual's story broad significance. Author note: Lori Andrewsteaches at Chicago-Kent Law School and has been named one of the 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America by theNational Law Journal. One of the foremost experts on the policy of genetics and reproduction, she is author ofThe Clone Age: Adventures in the New World of Reproductive Technology.

Hands of My Father

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Author :
Publisher : Bantam
ISBN 13 : 0553906275
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (539 download)

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Book Synopsis Hands of My Father by : Myron Uhlberg

Download or read book Hands of My Father written by Myron Uhlberg and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2009-02-03 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By turns heart-tugging and hilarious, Myron Uhlberg’s memoir tells the story of growing up as the hearing son of deaf parents—and his life in a world that he found unaccountably beautiful, even as he longed to escape it. “Does sound have rhythm?” my father asked. “Does it rise and fall like the ocean? Does it come and go like the wind?” Such were the kinds of questions that Myron Uhlberg’s deaf father asked him from earliest childhood, in his eternal quest to decipher, and to understand, the elusive nature of sound. Quite a challenge for a young boy, and one of many he would face. Uhlberg’s first language was American Sign Language, the first sign he learned: “I love you.” But his second language was spoken English—and no sooner did he learn it than he was called upon to act as his father’s ears and mouth in the stores and streets of the neighborhood beyond their silent apartment in Brooklyn. Resentful as he sometimes was of the heavy burdens heaped on his small shoulders, he nonetheless adored his parents, who passed on to him their own passionate engagement with life. These two remarkable people married and had children at the absolute bottom of the Great Depression—an expression of extraordinary optimism, and typical of the joy and resilience they were able to summon at even the darkest of times. From the beaches of Coney Island to Ebbets Field, where he watches his father’s hero Jackie Robinson play ball, from the branch library above the local Chinese restaurant where the odor of chow mein rose from the pages of the books he devoured to the hospital ward where he visits his polio-afflicted friend, this is a memoir filled with stories about growing up not just as the child of two deaf people but as a book-loving, mischief-making, tree-climbing kid during the remarkably eventful period that spanned the Depression, the War, and the early fifties. From the Hardcover edition.

Higher Education and the Carceral State

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Author :
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 100385995X
Total Pages : 245 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (38 download)

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Book Synopsis Higher Education and the Carceral State by : Annie Buckley

Download or read book Higher Education and the Carceral State written by Annie Buckley and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-03-05 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Higher Education and the Carceral State: Transforming Together explores the diversity of ways in which university faculty and students are intervening in the system of mass incarceration through the development of transformative arts and educational programs for students in correctional institutions. Demonstrating the ways that higher education can intervene in and disrupt the deeply traumatic experience of incarceration and shift the embedded social-emotional cycles that lead to recidivism, this book is both inspiration and guide for those seeking to create and sustain programs as well as to educate students about the types of programs universities bring to prisons. From arts workshops and educational courses to degree-granting programs, individuals and communities across multiple disciplines in higher education are actively breaking the cycle of shame and division in mass incarceration through direct engagement. This book explores the inspiring, innovative, and changemaking initiatives in carceral spaces - from arts workshops and educational courses to degree granting programs - through the lens of faculty, artists, scholars, students, and administrators. Readers will learn the diverse ways in which these interventions and partnerships can take shape and the life changing impacts that they have on all those involved, in particular students who are incarcerated. The book includes authors with lived experience of incarceration throughout. Section I highlights the voices of students who are currently or formerly incarcerated, while Section II addresses diverse collaborations through and across systems of corrections and education. Section III features the voices of teaching artists, while Section IV includes those that start and lead these programs, offering roadmaps for others interested in engaging in this transformative work.

Incendiary

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Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1451635761
Total Pages : 276 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (516 download)

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Book Synopsis Incendiary by : Chris Cleave

Download or read book Incendiary written by Chris Cleave and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-12-07 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I am a woman built upon the wreckage of myself. In an emotionally raw voice alive with grief, compassion, and startling humor, a woman mourns the loss of her husband and son at the hands of one of history’s most notorious criminals. And in appealing to their executioner, she reveals the desperate sadness of a broken heart and a working-class life blown apart.

Sachiko

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Publisher : Carolrhoda Books (R)
ISBN 13 : 1467789038
Total Pages : 148 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (677 download)

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Book Synopsis Sachiko by : Caren Barzelay Stelson

Download or read book Sachiko written by Caren Barzelay Stelson and published by Carolrhoda Books (R). This book was released on 2016 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This striking work of narrative nonfiction tells the true story of six-year-old Sachiko Yasui's survival of the Nagasaki atomic bomb on August 9, 1945, and the heartbreaking and lifelong aftermath. Having conducted extensive interviews with Sachiko Yasui, Caren Stelson chronicles Sachiko's trauma and loss as well as her long journey to find peace. This book offers readers a remarkable new perspective on the final moments of World War II and their aftermath.

Senselessness

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Publisher : New Directions Publishing
ISBN 13 : 0811219844
Total Pages : 161 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (112 download)

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Book Synopsis Senselessness by : Horacio Castellanos Moya

Download or read book Senselessness written by Horacio Castellanos Moya and published by New Directions Publishing. This book was released on 2008-05-17 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Rainmaker Translation Grant Winner from the Black Mountain Institute: Senselessness, acclaimed Salvadoran author Horacio Castallanos Moya's astounding debut in English, explores horror with hilarity and electrifying panache. A boozing, sex-obsessed writer finds himself employed by the Catholic Church (an institution he loathes) to proofread a 1,100 page report on the army's massacre and torture of thousands of indigenous villagers a decade earlier, including the testimonies of the survivors. The writer's job is to tidy it up: he rants, "that was what my work was all about, cleaning up and giving a manicure to the Catholic hands that were piously getting ready to squeeze the balls of the military tiger." Mesmerized by the strange Vallejo-like poetry of the Indians' phrases ("the houses they were sad because no people were inside them"), the increasingly agitated and frightened writer is endangered twice over: by the spell the strangely beautiful heart-rending voices exert over his tenuous sanity, and by real danger—after all, the murderers are the very generals who still run this unnamed Latin American country.

The Apothecary

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Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101535741
Total Pages : 338 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (15 download)

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Book Synopsis The Apothecary by : Maile Meloy

Download or read book The Apothecary written by Maile Meloy and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-10-04 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's 1952 and the Scott family has just moved from Los Angeles to London. Here, fourteen-year-old Janie meets a mysterious apothecary and his son, Benjamin Burrows - a fascinating boy who's not afraid to stand up to authority and dreams of becoming a spy. When Benjamin's father is kidnapped, Janie and Benjamin must uncover the secrets of the apothecary's sacred book, the Pharmacopoeia, in order to find him, all while keeping it out of the hands of their enemies - Russian spies in possession of nuclear weapons. Discovering and testing potions they never believed could exist, Janie and Benjamin embark on a dangerous race to save the apothecary and prevent impending disaster. Together with Ian Schoenherr's breathtaking illustrations, this is a truly stunning package from cover to cover.

Beyond Uncertainty

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781934137284
Total Pages : 480 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (372 download)

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Book Synopsis Beyond Uncertainty by : David C. Cassidy

Download or read book Beyond Uncertainty written by David C. Cassidy and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now in paperback: Heisenberg's life reconsidered for the twenty-first century by the world's leading English-language authority.

The Body Papers

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Publisher : Restless Books
ISBN 13 : 1632061848
Total Pages : 308 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (32 download)

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Book Synopsis The Body Papers by : Grace Talusan

Download or read book The Body Papers written by Grace Talusan and published by Restless Books. This book was released on 2019-04-02 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of The Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing “Grace Talusan writes eloquently about the most unsayable things: the deep gravitational pull of family, the complexity of navigating identity as an immigrant, and the ways we move forward even as we carry our traumas with us. Equal parts compassion and confession, The Body Papers is a stunning work by a powerful new writer who—like the best memoirists—transcends the personal to speak on a universal level.” —Celeste Ng, author of Everything I Never Told You and Little Fires Everywhere Born in the Philippines, young Grace Talusan moves with her family to a New England suburb in the 1970s. At school, she confronts racism as one of the few kids with a brown face. At home, the confusion is worse: her grandfather’s nightly visits to her room leave her hurt and terrified, and she learns to build a protective wall of silence that maps onto the larger silence practiced by her Catholic Filipino family. Talusan learns as a teenager that her family’s legal status in the country has always hung by a thread—for a time, they were “illegal.” Family, she’s told, must be put first. The abuse and trauma Talusan suffers as a child affects all her relationships, her mental health, and her relationship with her own body. Later, she learns that her family history is threaded with violence and abuse. And she discovers another devastating family thread: cancer. In her thirties, Talusan must decide whether to undergo preventive surgeries to remove her breasts and ovaries. Despite all this, she finds love, and success as a teacher. On a fellowship, Talusan and her husband return to the Philippines, where she revisits her family’s ancestral home and tries to reclaim a lost piece of herself. Not every family legacy is destructive. From her parents, Talusan has learned to tell stories in order to continue. The generosity of spirit and literary acuity of this debut memoir are a testament to her determination and resilience. In excavating such abuse and trauma, and supplementing her story with government documents, medical records, and family photos, Talusan gives voice to unspeakable experience, and shines a light of hope into the darkness.

Doctor Fischer of Geneva, Or, The Bomb Party

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Author :
Publisher : Penguin Books
ISBN 13 : 9780140185287
Total Pages : 142 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (852 download)

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Book Synopsis Doctor Fischer of Geneva, Or, The Bomb Party by : Graham Greene

Download or read book Doctor Fischer of Geneva, Or, The Bomb Party written by Graham Greene and published by Penguin Books. This book was released on 1980 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Influx

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Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0451469445
Total Pages : 530 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (514 download)

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Book Synopsis Influx by : Daniel Suarez

Download or read book Influx written by Daniel Suarez and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-02-03 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times bestselling author Daniel Suarez imagines a chilling future where technological advances are held hostage by the government in this thriller that perfectly blends “nail-biting suspense with accessible science” (Publishers Weekly). Physicist Jon Grady and his team have discovered a device that can reflect gravity—a triumph that will revolutionize the field of physics and change the future. But instead of acclaim, Grady’s lab is locked down by a covert organization known as the Bureau of Technology Control. The bureau’s mission: suppress the truth of sudden technological progress and prevent the social upheaval it would trigger. Because the future is already here. And it’s rewards are only for a select few. When Grady refuses to join the BTC, he’s thrown into a nightmarish high-tech prison housing other doomed rebel intellects. Now, as the only hope to usher humanity out of its artificial dark age, Grady and his fellow prisoners must try to expose the secrets of an unimaginable enemy—one that wields a technological advantage half a century in the making.

I Know This Much Is True

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Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780060391621
Total Pages : 884 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (916 download)

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Book Synopsis I Know This Much Is True by : Wally Lamb

Download or read book I Know This Much Is True written by Wally Lamb and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1998-06-03 with total page 884 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With his stunning debut novel, She's Come Undone, Wally Lamb won the adulation of critics and readers with his mesmerizing tale of one woman's painful yet triumphant journey of self-discovery. Now, this brilliantly talented writer returns with I Know This Much Is True, a heartbreaking and poignant multigenerational saga of the reproductive bonds of destruction and the powerful force of forgiveness. A masterpiece that breathtakingly tells a story of alienation and connection, power and abuse, devastation and renewal--this novel is a contemporary retelling of an ancient Hindu myth. A proud king must confront his demons to achieve salvation. Change yourself, the myth instructs, and you will inhabit a renovated world. When you're the same brother of a schizophrenic identical twin, the tricky thing about saving yourself is the blood it leaves on your bands--the little inconvenience of the look-alike corpse at your feet. And if you're into both survival of the fittest and being your brother's keeper--if you've promised your dying mother--then say so long to sleep and hello to the middle of the night. Grab a book or a beer. Get used to Letterman's gap-toothed smile of the absurd, or the view of the bedroom ceiling, or the influence of random selection. Take it from a godless insomniac. Take it from the uncrazy twin--the guy who beat the biochemical rap. Dominick Birdsey's entire life has been compromised and constricted by anger and fear, by the paranoid schizophrenic twin brother he both deeply loves and resents, and by the past they shared with their adoptive father, Ray, a spit-and-polish ex-Navy man (the five-foot-six-inch sleeping giant who snoozed upstairs weekdays in the spare room and built submarines at night), and their long-suffering mother, Concettina, a timid woman with a harelip that made her shy and self-conscious: She holds a loose fist to her face to cover her defective mouth--her perpetual apology to the world for a birth defect over which she'd had no control. Born in the waning moments of 1949 and the opening minutes of 1950, the twins are physical mirror images who grow into separate yet connected entities: the seemingly strong and protective yet fearful Dominick, his mother's watchful "monkey"; and the seemingly weak and sweet yet noble Thomas, his mother's gentle "bunny." From childhood, Dominick fights for both separation and wholeness--and ultimately self-protection--in a house of fear dominated by Ray, a bully who abuses his power over these stepsons whose biological father is a mystery. I was still afraid of his anger but saw how he punished weakness--pounced on it. Out of self-preservation I hid my fear, Dominick confesses. As for Thomas, he just never knew how to play defense. He just didn't get it. But Dominick's talent for survival comes at an enormous cost, including the breakup of his marriage to the warm, beautiful Dessa, whom he still loves. And it will be put to the ultimate test when Thomas, a Bible-spouting zealot, commits an unthinkable act that threatens the tenuous balance of both his and Dominick's lives. To save himself, Dominick must confront not only the pain of his past but the dark secrets he has locked deep within himself, and the sins of his ancestors--a quest that will lead him beyond the confines of his blue-collar New England town to the volcanic foothills of Sicily 's Mount Etna, where his ambitious and vengefully proud grandfather and a namesake Domenico Tempesta, the sostegno del famiglia, was born. Each of the stories Ma told us about Papa reinforced the message that he was the boss, that he ruled the roost, that what he said went. Searching for answers, Dominick turns to the whispers of the dead, to the pages of his grandfather's handwritten memoir, The History of Domenico Onofrio Tempesta, a Great Man from Humble Beginnings. Rendered with touches of magic realism, Domenico's fablelike tale--in which monkeys enchant and religious statues weep--becomes the old man's confession--an unwitting legacy of contrition that reveals the truth's of Domenico's life, Dominick learns that power, wrongly used, defeats the oppressor as well as the oppressed, and now, picking through the humble shards of his deconstructed life, he will search for the courage and love to forgive, to expiate his and his ancestors' transgressions, and finally to rebuild himself beyond the haunted shadow of his twin. Set against the vivid panoply of twentieth-century America and filled with richly drawn, memorable characters, this deeply moving and thoroughly satisfying novel brings to light humanity's deepest needs and fears, our aloneness, our desire for love and acceptance, our struggle to survive at all costs. Joyous, mystical, and exquisitely written, I Know This Much Is True is an extraordinary reading experience that will leave no reader untouched.