World Made Of Glass

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World Made of Glass

Author : Ami Polonsky
Publisher : Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
ISBN 13 : 031646225X
Total Pages : 186 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (164 download)

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Book Synopsis World Made of Glass by : Ami Polonsky

Download or read book World Made of Glass written by Ami Polonsky and published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2023-01-17 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An “inspiring” (Kirkus, starred review), “heartfelt” (The Horn Book, starred review) coming-of-age novel about a girl finding her way to activism in the early years of the AIDS pandemic, from award-winning author Ami Polonsky. Iris tries to act normal at school, going through the motions and joking around with her friends. But nothing is normal, and sometimes it feels like she’ll never laugh again. How can she, when her dad is dying of a virus that’s off-limits to talk about? When she knows that soon all she’ll have left of her kind, loving dad are memories, photos, and a binder full of the poems they used to exchange? In a sea of rage and grief, Iris resolves to speak out against the rampant fear, misinformation, and prejudice surrounding AIDS—and find the pieces of Dad that she never knew before. Along the way, Iris might just find new sides to herself. Critically-acclaimed author Ami Polonsky has crafted a lyrical, tender, earth-shattering novel that will stay with you long after you’ve turned the last page.

Glass

Author : Alan Macfarlane
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 9780226500287
Total Pages : 284 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (2 download)

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Book Synopsis Glass by : Alan Macfarlane

Download or read book Glass written by Alan Macfarlane and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2002-10 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Picture, if you can, a world without glass. There would be no microscopes or telescopes, no sciences of microbiology or astronomy. People with poor vision would grope in the shadows, and planes, cars, and even electricity probably wouldn't exist. Artists would draw without the benefit of three-dimensional perspective, and ships would still be steered by what stars navigators could see through the naked eye. In Glass: A World History, Alan Macfarlane and Gerry Martin tell the fascinating story of how glass has revolutionized the way we see ourselves and the world around us. Starting ten thousand years ago with its invention in the Near East, Macfarlane and Martin trace the history of glass and its uses from the ancient civilizations of India, China, and Rome through western Europe during the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and Industrial Revolution, and finally up to the present day. The authors argue that glass played a key role not just in transforming humanity's relationship with the natural world, but also in the divergent courses of Eastern and Western civilizations. While all the societies that used glass first focused on its beauty in jewelry and other ornaments, and some later made it into bottles and other containers, only western Europeans further developed the use of glass for precise optics, mirrors, and windows. These technological innovations in glass, in turn, provided the foundations for European domination of the world in the several centuries following the Scientific Revolution. Clear, compelling, and quite provocative, Glass is an amazing biography of an equally amazing subject, a subject that has been central to every aspect of human history, from art and science to technology and medicine.

The World Is Made of Glass

Author : Morris West
Publisher : Allen & Unwin
ISBN 13 : 1760638528
Total Pages : 237 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (66 download)

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Book Synopsis The World Is Made of Glass by : Morris West

Download or read book The World Is Made of Glass written by Morris West and published by Allen & Unwin. This book was released on 2017-08-23 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Magda von Gamsfeld is beautiful, rich and intelligent, and on the verge of suicide. She has a consultation with the famous psychiatrist Carl Jung at a time when his personal life is in turmoil. Their confrontation is an extraordinary voyage through the mind that leads to a terrible admission of guilt. A cryptic and mysterious case history appears in the autobiography of pioneering Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung: 'A lady came to my office. She refused to give her name . . . What she had to communicate to me was a confession. Some twenty years ago, she had committed a murder . . .' Jung's encounter with the woman had an explosive effect on him, and brought him very close to total breakdown. Morris West recreates this episode in a gripping blend of truth and dramatic speculation. Set in pre-World War I Europe, The World is Made of Glass is a powerful novel of love, sexual obsession, murder and guilt. It has been called Morris West's finest creation of the imagination. 'An audacious and wonderful novel.' The Mail on Sunday 'An enthralling story.' The Spectator

Stuff Matters

Author : Mark Miodownik
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN 13 : 0544236041
Total Pages : 277 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (442 download)

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Book Synopsis Stuff Matters by : Mark Miodownik

Download or read book Stuff Matters written by Mark Miodownik and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2014 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An eye-opening adventure deep inside the everyday materials that surround us, from concrete and steel to denim and chocolate, packed with surprising stories and fascinating science.

The Art of Glass

Author : Antonio Neri
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780900682377
Total Pages : 436 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (823 download)

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Book Synopsis The Art of Glass by : Antonio Neri

Download or read book The Art of Glass written by Antonio Neri and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THIS is the first of a series of volumes edited by Professor M. Cable illustrating progress in understanding glass making from the 17th century to the early part of the 19th. Known as THE WORLD'S MOST FAMOUS BOOK ON GLASSMAKING, it was first published, in Italian, in 1612, as L'Arte Vetraria by Antonio Neri who claimed to have experience of glassmaking in several countries and described the best practice of that time, particularly in making coloured glasses. A second edition printed in 1661 made the work more widely known. An English translation by Christopher Merrett MD, one of the early Fellows of the Royal Society, was published in 1662. Merrett added very extensive notes of his own which almost doubled the length of the book. That text became the master for subsequent editions. It was eventually translated into Latin, French, German, and Spanish, and reprinted at least twenty times over the course of almost two centuries. This edition reproduces Merrett's original layout, including the printers ornaments, but is set more legibly and corrects some errors. It is introduced by an essay written in 1962 by Professor W. E. S. Turner FRS which explains the background and importance of this work.

Glass Town

Author : Isabel Greenberg
Publisher : Abrams
ISBN 13 : 1683358597
Total Pages : 236 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (833 download)

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Book Synopsis Glass Town by : Isabel Greenberg

Download or read book Glass Town written by Isabel Greenberg and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2020-03-03 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A graphic novel about the Brontë siblings and their inventive childhood from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Encyclopedia of Early Earth. NPR Best Book of 2020 Glass Town is an original graphic novel by Isabel Greenberg that encompasses the eccentric childhoods of the four Brontë children—Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne. The story begins in 1825, with the deaths of Maria and Elizabeth, the eldest siblings. It is in response to this loss that the four remaining Brontë children set pen to paper and created the fictional world that became known as Glass Town. This world and its cast of characters would come to be the Brontës’ escape from the realities of their lives. Within Glass Town the siblings experienced love, friendship, war, triumph, and heartbreak. Through a combination of quotes from the stories originally penned by the Brontës, biographical information about them, and Greenberg’s vivid comic book illustrations, readers will find themselves enraptured by this fascinating imaginary world. “This lyrical, endlessly inventive book will appeal equally to lovers of history, literature, and metatextual fantasy.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Drawn with a cheery and expansive sweep that belies its sometimes somber subject, Glass Town is a testament to the (usually) redemptive powers of imagination.” —Minneapolis Star-Tribune “Greenberg pulls Glass Town and its characters directly from the Brontës’ juvenilia, giving readers a look into the early creativity of an iconic literary family with a playful visual style that captures the Brontës’ enthusiasm as they discover what fiction can do.” —AV Club

Through the Language Glass

Author : Guy Deutscher
Publisher : Metropolitan Books
ISBN 13 : 1429970111
Total Pages : 317 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (299 download)

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Book Synopsis Through the Language Glass by : Guy Deutscher

Download or read book Through the Language Glass written by Guy Deutscher and published by Metropolitan Books. This book was released on 2010-08-31 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A masterpiece of linguistics scholarship, at once erudite and entertaining, confronts the thorny question of how—and whether—culture shapes language and language, culture Linguistics has long shied away from claiming any link between a language and the culture of its speakers: too much simplistic (even bigoted) chatter about the romance of Italian and the goose-stepping orderliness of German has made serious thinkers wary of the entire subject. But now, acclaimed linguist Guy Deutscher has dared to reopen the issue. Can culture influence language—and vice versa? Can different languages lead their speakers to different thoughts? Could our experience of the world depend on whether our language has a word for "blue"? Challenging the consensus that the fundaments of language are hard-wired in our genes and thus universal, Deutscher argues that the answer to all these questions is—yes. In thrilling fashion, he takes us from Homer to Darwin, from Yale to the Amazon, from how to name the rainbow to why Russian water—a "she"—becomes a "he" once you dip a tea bag into her, demonstrating that language does in fact reflect culture in ways that are anything but trivial. Audacious, delightful, and field-changing, Through the Language Glass is a classic of intellectual discovery.

Three Junes

Author : Julia Glass
Publisher : Anchor
ISBN 13 : 0375422420
Total Pages : 652 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (754 download)

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Book Synopsis Three Junes by : Julia Glass

Download or read book Three Junes written by Julia Glass and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2002-09-03 with total page 652 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • An astonishing novel that traces the lives of a Scottish family over a decade as they confront the joys and longings, fulfillments and betrayals of love in all its guises. In June of 1989 Paul McLeod, a newspaper publisher and recent widower, travels to Greece, where he falls for a young American artist and reflects on the complicated truth about his marriage.... Six years later, again in June, Paul’s death draws his three grown sons and their families back to their ancestral home. Fenno, the eldest, a wry, introspective gay man, narrates the events of this unforeseen reunion. Far from his straitlaced expatriate life as a bookseller in Greenwich Village, Fenno is stunned by a series of revelations that threaten his carefully crafted defenses.... Four years farther on, in yet another June, a chance meeting on the Long Island shore brings Fenno together with Fern Olitsky, the artist who once captivated his father. Now pregnant, Fern must weigh her guilt about the past against her wishes for the future and decide what family means to her. In prose rich with compassion and wit, Three Junes paints a haunting portrait of love’s redemptive powers.

The Glass Castle

Author : Jeannette Walls
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1416544666
Total Pages : 370 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (165 download)

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Book Synopsis The Glass Castle by : Jeannette Walls

Download or read book The Glass Castle written by Jeannette Walls and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2007-01-02 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A triumphant tale of a young woman and her difficult childhood, The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience, redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and wonderfully vibrant. Jeannette Walls was the second of four children raised by anti-institutional parents in a household of extremes.

The Whole World Over

Author : Julia Glass
Publisher : Anchor
ISBN 13 : 0375424385
Total Pages : 530 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (754 download)

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Book Synopsis The Whole World Over by : Julia Glass

Download or read book The Whole World Over written by Julia Glass and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2006-05-23 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the National Book Award–winning author of Three Junes comes the story of Greenie Duquette, who lavishes most of her passionate energy on her Greenwich Village bakery and her young son—until she makes an impulsive decision that will change the course of several lives around her. Greenie's husband, Alan, seems to have fallen into a midlife depression, while Walter, her closest professional ally, is nursing a broken heart. At Walter’s restaurant, the visiting governor of New Mexico tastes Greenie’s coconut cake and decides to woo her away to be his chef. For reasons both ambitious and desperate, she accepts—heading west without her husband.

The Dragon Behind the Glass

Author : Emily Voigt
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1451678967
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (516 download)

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Book Synopsis The Dragon Behind the Glass by : Emily Voigt

Download or read book The Dragon Behind the Glass written by Emily Voigt and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-05-24 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE 2017 NASW SCIENCE IN SOCIETY JOURNALISM AWARD A FINALIST FOR THE 2017 PEN/E. O. WILSON LITERARY SCIENCE WRITING AWARD LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE A LIBRARY JOURNAL BEST SCIENCE BOOK OF THE YEAR “[A] curiously edifying book.” —The New York Times Book Review “With the taut suspense of a spy novel, Voigt paints a vivid world of murder, black market deals, and habitat destruction surrounding a fish that's considered, ironically, to be a good-luck charm.” —Discover “[An] immensely satisfying story, full of surprises and suspense....Things get weird fast.” —The Wall Street Journal An intrepid journalist’s quest to find a wild Asian arowana—the world’s most expensive aquarium fish—takes her on a global tour in this “engaging tale of obsession and perseverance…and an enthralling look at the intersection of science, commercialism, and conservationism” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). A young man is murdered for his pet fish. An Asian tycoon buys a single specimen for $150,000. Meanwhile, a pet detective chases smugglers through the streets of New York. With “the taut suspense of a spy novel” (Discover) The Dragon Behind the Glass tells the story of a fish like none other. Treasured as a status symbol believed to bring good luck, the Asian arowana, or “dragon fish,” is a dramatic example of a modern paradox: the mass-produced endangered species. While hundreds of thousands are bred in captivity, the wild fish as become a near-mythical creature. From the South Bronx to Borneo and beyond, journalist Emily Voigt follows the trail of the arowana to learn its fate in nature. “A fresh, lively look at an obsessive desire to own a piece of the wild” (Kirkus Reviews), The Dragon Behind the Glass traces our fascination with aquarium fish back to the era of exploration when naturalists stood on the cutting edge of modern science. In an age when freshwater fish now comprise one of the most rapidly vanishing groups of animals, Voigt unearths a surprising truth behind the arowana’s rise to fame—one that calls into question how we protect the world’s rarest species. “Not since Candace Millard published The River of Doubt has the world of the Amazon, Borneo, Myanmar, and other exotic locations been so colorfully portrayed as it is now in Emily Voigt’s The Dragon Behind the Glass…a must-read” (Library Journal, starred review).

World of Wonders

Author : Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Publisher : Milkweed Editions
ISBN 13 : 157131959X
Total Pages : 146 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (713 download)

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Book Synopsis World of Wonders by : Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Download or read book World of Wonders written by Aimee Nezhukumatathil and published by Milkweed Editions. This book was released on 2020-09-08 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A poet celebrates the wonders of nature in a collection of essays that could almost serve as a coming-of-age memoir.” —Kirkus Reviews As a child, Nezhukumatathil called many places home: the grounds of a Kansas mental institution, where her Filipina mother was a doctor; the open skies and tall mountains of Arizona, where she hiked with her Indian father; and the chillier climes of western New York and Ohio. But no matter where she was transplanted—no matter how awkward the fit or forbidding the landscape—she was able to turn to our world’s fierce and funny creatures for guidance. “What the peacock can do,” she tells us, “is remind you of a home you will run away from and run back to all your life.” The axolotl teaches us to smile, even in the face of unkindness; the touch-me-not plant shows us how to shake off unwanted advances; the narwhal demonstrates how to survive in hostile environments. Even in the strange and the unlovely, Nezhukumatathil finds beauty and kinship. For it is this way with wonder: it requires that we are curious enough to look past the distractions in order to fully appreciate the world’s gifts. Warm, lyrical, and gorgeously illustrated by Fumi Nakamura, World of Wonders is a book of sustenance and joy. Praise for World of Wonders Barnes & Noble 2020 Book of the Year An NPR Best Book of 2020 An Esquire Best Book of 2020 A Publishers Weekly “Big Indie Book of Fall 2020” A BuzzFeed Best Book of Fall 2020 “Hands-down one of the most beautiful books of the year.” —NPR “A timely story about love, identity and belonging.” —New York Times Book Review “A truly wonderous essay collection.” —Roxane Gay, The Audacity

The Deserters

Author : Charles Glass
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101617810
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (16 download)

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Book Synopsis The Deserters by : Charles Glass

Download or read book The Deserters written by Charles Glass and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-06-13 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Powerful and often startling…The Deserters offers a provokingly fresh angle on this most studied of conflicts.” --The Boston Globe A groundbreaking history of ordinary soldiers struggling on the front lines, The Deserters offers a completely new perspective on the Second World War. Charles Glass—renowned journalist and author of the critically acclaimed Americans in Paris: Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation—delves deep into army archives, personal diaries, court-martial records, and self-published memoirs to produce this dramatic and heartbreaking portrait of men overlooked by their commanders and ignored by history. Surveying the 150,000 American and British soldiers known to have deserted in the European Theater, The Deserters: A Hidden History of World War II tells the life stories of three soldiers who abandoned their posts in France, Italy, and Africa. Their deeds form the backbone of Glass’s arresting portrait of soldiers pushed to the breaking point, a sweeping reexamination of the conditions for ordinary soldiers. With the grace and pace of a novel, The Deserters moves beyond the false extremes of courage and cowardice to reveal the true experience of the frontline soldier. Glass shares the story of men like Private Alfred Whitehead, a Tennessee farm boy who earned Silver and Bronze Stars for bravery in Normandy—yet became a gangster in liberated Paris, robbing Allied supply depots along with ordinary citizens. Here also is the story of British men like Private John Bain, who deserted three times but never fled from combat—and who endured battles in North Africa and northern France before German machine guns cut his legs from under him. The heart of The Deserters resides with men like Private Steve Weiss, an idealistic teenage volunteer from Brooklyn who forced his father—a disillusioned First World War veteran—to sign his enlistment papers because he was not yet eighteen. On the Anzio beachhead and in the Ardennes forest, as an infantryman with the 36th Division and as an accidental partisan in the French Resistance, Weiss lost his illusions about the nobility of conflict and the infallibility of American commanders. Far from the bright picture found in propaganda and nostalgia, the Second World War was a grim and brutal affair, a long and lonely effort that has never been fully reported—to the detriment of those who served and the danger of those nurtured on false tales today. Revealing the true costs of conflict on those forced to fight, The Deserters is an elegant and unforgettable story of ordinary men desperately struggling in extraordinary times.

Throne of Glass

Author : Sarah J. Maas
Publisher : A&C Black
ISBN 13 : 140883233X
Total Pages : 419 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (88 download)

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Book Synopsis Throne of Glass by : Sarah J. Maas

Download or read book Throne of Glass written by Sarah J. Maas and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2012 with total page 419 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A hugely commercial, fabulously addictive fantastical romp - from an author with top-notch digital self-publishing pedigree and legions of fans awaiting publication

Words Without Music: A Memoir

Author : Philip Glass
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 1631490818
Total Pages : 527 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (314 download)

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Book Synopsis Words Without Music: A Memoir by : Philip Glass

Download or read book Words Without Music: A Memoir written by Philip Glass and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2015-04-06 with total page 527 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Bestseller An NPR Best Book of the Year Winner of the Chicago Tribune Literary Award Finalist for the Marfield Prize, National Award for Arts Writing "Reads the way Mr. Glass's compositions sound at their best: propulsive, with a surreptitious emotional undertow." —Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, New York Times Philip Glass has, almost single-handedly, crafted the dominant sound of late-twentieth-century classical music. Yet in Words Without Music, his critically acclaimed memoir, he creates an entirely new and unexpected voice, that of a born storyteller and an acutely insightful chronicler, whose behind-the-scenes recollections allow readers to experience those moments of creative fusion when life so magically merged with art. From his childhood in Baltimore to his student days in Chicago and at Juilliard, to his first journey to Paris and a life-changing trip to India, Glass movingly recalls his early mentors, while reconstructing the places that helped shape his creative consciousness. Whether describing working as an unlicensed plumber in gritty 1970s New York or composing Satyagraha, Glass breaks across genres and re-creates, here in words, the thrill that results from artistic creation. Words Without Music ultimately affirms the power of music to change the world.

A Man Rides Through

Author : Stephen R. Donaldson
Publisher : Del Rey
ISBN 13 : 030781923X
Total Pages : 883 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (78 download)

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Book Synopsis A Man Rides Through by : Stephen R. Donaldson

Download or read book A Man Rides Through written by Stephen R. Donaldson and published by Del Rey. This book was released on 2013-10-30 with total page 883 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Mirror of Her Dreams, the dazzling first volume of Mordant’s Need, New York Times bestselling author Stephen R. Donaldson introduced us to the richly imagined world of Mordant, where mirrors are magical portals into places of beauty and terror. Now, with A Man Rides Through, Donaldson brings the story of Terisa Morgan to an unforgettable conclusion. . . . Aided by the powerful magic of Vagel, the evil Arch-Imager, the merciless armies are marching against the kingdom of Mordant. In its hour of greatest need, two unlikely champions emerge. One is Geraden, whose inability to master the simplest skills of Imagery has made him a laughingstock. The other is Terisa Morgan, transferred to Mordant from a Manhattan apartment by Geraden’s faulty magic. Together, Geraden and Terisa discover undreamed-of talents within themselves—talents that make them more than a match for any Imager . . . including Vagel himself. Unfortunately, those talents also mark them for death. Branded as traitors, they are forced to flee the castle for their lives. Now, all but defenseless in a war-torn countryside ravaged by the vilest horrors Imagery can spawn, Geraden and Terisa must put aside past failures and find the courage to embrace their powers—and their love—before Vagel can spring his final trap.

The World in a Grain

Author : Vince Beiser
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0399576444
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (995 download)

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Book Synopsis The World in a Grain by : Vince Beiser

Download or read book The World in a Grain written by Vince Beiser and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-08-06 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A finalist for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award The gripping story of the most important overlooked commodity in the world--sand--and the crucial role it plays in our lives. After water and air, sand is the natural resource that we consume more than any other--even more than oil. Every concrete building and paved road on Earth, every computer screen and silicon chip, is made from sand. From Egypt's pyramids to the Hubble telescope, from the world's tallest skyscraper to the sidewalk below it, from Chartres' stained-glass windows to your iPhone, sand shelters us, empowers us, engages us, and inspires us. It's the ingredient that makes possible our cities, our science, our lives--and our future. And, incredibly, we're running out of it. The World in a Grain is the compelling true story of the hugely important and diminishing natural resource that grows more essential every day, and of the people who mine it, sell it, build with it--and sometimes, even kill for it. It's also a provocative examination of the serious human and environmental costs incurred by our dependence on sand, which has received little public attention. Not all sand is created equal: Some of the easiest sand to get to is the least useful. Award-winning journalist Vince Beiser delves deep into this world, taking readers on a journey across the globe, from the United States to remote corners of India, China, and Dubai to explain why sand is so crucial to modern life. Along the way, readers encounter world-changing innovators, island-building entrepreneurs, desert fighters, and murderous sand pirates. The result is an entertaining and eye-opening work, one that is both unexpected and involving, rippling with fascinating detail and filled with surprising characters.