From Grids To Service And Pervasive Computing

Product Description

Grids are a crucial enabling technology for scientific and industrial development. Peer-to-peer computing, grid, distributed storage technologies, emerging web service technologies, and other types of networked distributed computing have provided new paradigms exploiting distributed resources. Grids are revolutionizing computing as profoundly as e-mail and the Web.

From Grids to Service and Pervasive Computing, the 10th edited volume of the CoreGRID series, is based on the 2008 CoreGRID Symposium, held August 25-26 in the Canary Islands, Spain. The CoreGRID Symposium is organized jointly with the Euro-Par 2008 conference. The aim of this symposium is to strengthen and advance scientific and technological excellence in the area of grid and peer-to-peer computing.

This volume is designed for a professional audience composed of researchers and practitioners within the grid and peer-to-peer computing industry. This volume is also suitable for advanced-level students in computer science.Product Details

* Published on: 2008-08-01
* Original language: English
* Number of items: 1
* Binding: Hardcover
* 242 pages

Rationale-Based Software Engineering

Product Description

Many decisions are required throughout the software development process. These decisions, and to some extent the decision-making process itself, can best be documented as the rationale for the system, which will reveal not only what was done during development but the reasons behind the choices made and alternatives considered and rejected. This information becomes increasingly critical as software development becomes more distributed and encompasses the corporate knowledge both used and refined during the development process. The capture of rationale helps to ensure that decisions are well thought out and justified and the use of rationale can help avoid the mistakes of the past during both the development of the current system and when software products (architecture and design, as well as code) are reused in future systems.

Burge, Carroll, McCall, and Mistrík describe in detail the capture and use of design rationale in software engineering to improve the quality of software. Their book is the first comprehensive and unified treatment of rationale usage in software engineering. It provides a consistent conceptual framework and a unified terminology for comparing, contrasting and combining the myriad approaches to rationale in software engineering. It is both an excellent introductory text for those new to the field and a uniquely valuable reference for experienced rationale researchers. The book covers the use of rationale for decision making throughout the software lifecycle, starting from the first decisions in a project and continuing through requirements definition, design, implementation, testing, maintenance, redesign and reuse.

Product Details

* Amazon Sales Rank: #1146129 in Books
* Published on: 2008-05-09
* Original language: English
* Number of items: 1
* Binding: Hardcover
* 316 pages

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This book provides researchers and practitioners in Software Design Rationale with a new standard reference, critiquing the state of the art, and proposing a roadmap of pragmatic ways forward." - Simon Buckingham Shum, The Open University, UK

About the Author

Janet E. Burge is an Assistant Professor at Miami University Computer Science and Systems Analysis Department. Her major research interests are in Software Engineering and Artificial Intelligence. Her primary research area is in Design Rationale, with a focus on Design Rationale for Software Maintenance. She received her PhD in Computer Science from WPI in 2005, her M.S in Computer Science from WPI in 1999, and her B.S. in Computer Science from Michigan Technological University in 1984.

John M. Carroll is the Edward M. Frymoyer Chair Professor of Information Sciences and Technology at the Pennsylvania State University. His research interests include methods and theory in human-computer interaction, particularly as applied to networking tools for collaborative learning and problem solving, and the design of interactive information systems. He serves on several editorial boards for journals, handbooks, and series and is Editor-in-Chief of the ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interactions. He received the Rigo Award and the CHI Lifetime Achievement Award from ACM, the Silver Core Award from IFIP, and the Alfred N. Goldsmith Award from IEEE. He is a fellow of the ACM, IEEE, and HFES.

Raymond McCall is an Associate Professor in the Department of Planning and Design at the University of Colorado, Denver. His major areas of research are in design rationale methods and systems. Since 1992, most of his research has concentrated on the use of rationale to support the design of artifacts for human exploration of space. For much of this time he collaborated with NASA contractors and with employees of the Johnson Space Center in Houston. He has nearly 30 years of experience in design rationale usage in architectural design, planning, policy making and software design. He created the first hypertext systems for support of design rationale in the 1970s and 1980s and was the first to integrate support for rationale capture and delivery into 3D computer-aided design systems.

Ivan Mistrí­k is an independent consultant for software-intensive systems engineering. He has 40 years experience in both software and systems engineering as an information systems developer, R&D leader, research analyst, and ICT management consultant. He is the author or co-author of more than 80 articles and papers in international journals, conferences, books and workshops and was an editor of the Special Issue on "Relating Software Requirements and Architectures" published in 2005.

Intelligent Data Analysis: Developing New Methodologies Through Pattern Discovery and Recovery

Product Description

Pattern Recognition has a long history of applications to data analysis in business, military and social economic activities. While the aim of pattern recognition is to discover the pattern of a data set, the size of the data set is closely related to the methodology one adopts for analysis. Intelligent Data Analysis: Developing New Methodologies Through Pattern Discovery and Recovery tackles those data sets and covers a variety of issues in relation to intelligent data analysis so that patterns from frequent or rare events in spatial or temporal spaces can be revealed. This book brings together current research, results, problems, and applications from both theoretical and practical approaches.
Product Details

* Amazon Sales Rank: #7286201 in Books
* Published on: 2008-07-02
* Original language: English
* Number of items: 1
* Binding: Hardcover
* 366 pages

Editorial Reviews

About the Author
Hsiao-Fan Wang is the Tsing Hua Chair Professor and the Vice Dean of the College of Engineering of National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan, Republic of China. She has been teaching at the Department of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management at the same university, NTHU after she graduated from Cambridge University, UK in 1981. She used to be the Head of the Department of IEEM, NTHU, President of Chinese Fuzzy Systems Association, Vice President of International Fuzzy Systems Association and Erskine Fellow of Canterbury University, NZ. Also, she has been awarded the Distinguished Research Award from National Science Council of Taiwan, ROC; Distinguished Contracted Research Fellow of NSC and Distinguished Teaching Award of Engineering College, NTHU. She used to be the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Chinese Industrial Engineering Association; also the Journal of Chinese Fuzzy Set and Theories and now is the area editor of several international journals. Her research interests are in Multicriteria Decision Making, Fuzzy Set Theory and Operations Research.

10 Questions Science Can't Answer Yet : A Guide to the Scientific Wilderness

Product Description

From the author of the bestselling The Science of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy comes another incredible trip to an even more mysterious terrain. Michael Hanlon identifies ten scientific questions that we simply can't seem to answer and explains why these compelling mysteries will remain unsolved for years to come
How did life begin? Why are there two sexes? Where did language originate? In Hanlon's characteristically witty style, he ponders the ways these questions have persisted in frustrating the best minds and asks what might be needed to get to the bottom of it all. From politics to lack of technology, each question has its own set of circumstances holding it back. By exploring these unanswerable questions, Hanlon exposes some of science's greatest failings and missteps--and charts a hopeful direction for getting science back on the road to discovery.

Product Details

* Amazon Sales Rank: #411069 in Books
* Published on: 2007-05-29
* Released on: 2007-05-29
* Original language: English
* Number of items: 1
* Binding: Hardcover
* 208 pages

Editorial Reviews

About the Author
Michael Hanlon is the author of The Science of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Worlds of Galileo, and The Real Mars.
Customer Reviews

Decent enough3
About: Hanlon (Science Editor at the Daily Mail newspaper) explains 10 unanswered questions in science. Not including the introduction, there are 10 chapters, one for each question:

Is Fido a zombie? (that is, how intelligent, self-aware and clever are animals?)
Why is time so weird?
Can I live forever please?
What are we going to do with the stupid?
What is the dark side? (think dark energy and dark matter, not Darth Vader)
Is the universe alive?
Are you the same person you were a minute ago?
Why are we all so fat...and does it really matter?
Can we really be sure the paranormal is bunkum?
What is reality, really?

Pros: Quick read (if you don't like one topic, the next topic will be upon you quickly.) Nice range of questions and fields of science covered. Scientists you would expect to be mentioned are (i.e. Elizabeth Loftus on memory, Richard Dawkins on pseudoscience, and Stephen Hawking on the Big Bang) Mostly accessible writing on heady topics.

Cons: It doesn't appear that all references are cited. A conclusion would have been helpful, rather than an abrupt end of the book when the last topic is explained. Suggestions for further reading on each topic would have been welcome as well. Some topics get bogged down (albeit necessarily) with complexities and jargon.

Grade: B

Consideration on the construction process and the sandstone quarries during the Angkor period based on the magnetic susceptibility

Product Description
This digital document is a journal article from Journal of Archaeological Science, published by Elsevier in 2007. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Description:
Detailed magnetic susceptibility measurement was conducted on the sandstones used for the Angkor monuments constructed in the period spanning the Preah Ko and Angkor Wat styles, and the construction process of the buildings and quarries of the sandstones was considered. Combined with the previous study on the sandstones of the Bayon style [Uchida, E., Cunin, O., Shimoda, I., Suda, C., Nakagawa, T., 2003. The construction process of the Angkor monuments elucidated by the magnetic susceptibility of sandstone, Archaeometry 45, 221-232], the magnetic susceptibility measurement revealed that there were 7 sandstone quarries corresponding to Stages I, II, III, IVa, V, VII and VIIIb during the Angkor period. The sandstones used for the monuments belonging to Stage I show average magnetic susceptibility values ranging from 1.1 to 2.3x10^-^3 SI units. In the Bakheng style period (Stage II), the average magnetic susceptibility of the supplied sandstones decreased gradually from around 10 to 1x10^-^3 SI units over time. The magnetic susceptibility range of the sandstones used for the monuments of Stage III was from 2.3 to 3.0x10^-^3 SI units. In the early Angkor Wat style period (IVb), the average magnetic susceptibility of the supplied sandstones increased over time, reflecting the supply of the sandstones from two different quarries, that is, the quarry corresponding to the Khleang and Baphuon style monuments (Stage IVa), with low average magnetic susceptibilities of 1.1 to 2.4x10^-^3 SI units, and the quarry corresponding to the main Angkor Wat style monuments (Stage V), with high average magnetic susceptibilities ranging from 2.8 to more than 4.3x10^-^3 SI units. The sandstones of Stage VII show low average magnetic susceptibility around 1x10^-^3 SI unit. The sandstones of Stage VId is a mixture of sandstones of Stages V and those of Stage VII. The sandstones with high magnetic susceptibilities are found in the monuments belonging to Stage VIIIb, reflecting the supply from the new sandstone quarry.

Science and the Akashic Field: An Integral Theory of Everything

Review
“A seminal book from one of the best thinkers of our time. Ervin Laszlo charts the ­frontiers to which science is inexorably headed. In years to come people will look back at the amazing foresight of this work.”
(Peter Russell, fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences and the Findhorn Foundation and author of From Science to God )

". . . Laszlo's new book is a provocative overview and a masterful synthesis of knowledge at the frontiers of cosmology, physics, neurobiology, and consciousness studies. . . . provides strong support for the idea that finally we have a common unifying concept for science and spirituality."
(Christian De Quincey, Ph.D., Shift, Mar-May, 2005 )

". . . will be of aid to those students interested in utilising modern science to explain the subtle and unseen."
(The Beacon, Mar-Apr, 2005 )

". . . highly empirical and impressive . . . manages to reveal the connectivity of a wide range of established principles . . . . expands the mind to the point that readers will exit this changed."
(New Age Retailer, Trade Show Issue 2005, Vol. 19, No. 4 )

“Ervin Laszlo presents readers with a tour de force, nothing less than a theory of everything. This book introduces such provocative concepts as the 'A-field' and the 'informed universe,' making the case that a complete understanding of reality is woefully lacking without them. Readers of this book will never view the universe in quite the same way again.”
(Stanley Krippner, Ph.D., professor of psychology, Saybrook Graduate School, and author and co-editor of Varieties of Anomalous Experience )

“Over the last 30 years, Ervin Laszlo has consistently been at the forefront of scientific inquiry, exploring the frontiers of knowledge with insight, wisdom and integrity. With Science and the Akashic Field he takes another quantum leap forward in our understanding of the universe and ourselves. This enthralling vision of mind, science, and universe is essential reading for the 21st century.”
(Alfonso Montuori, Ph.D., California Institute of Integral Studies, and author of Creators on Creating )

“It is rare indeed that a revolution in thought can open our eyes to a new universe that transforms our inner experience as well as our relationships with others and even with the cosmos. Martin Buber did it with I and Thou. Now, Ervin Laszlo, one of the most profound minds of our generation, has given us a great gift in this readable book that explores how we are connected to each other in fields of resonance that penetrate to the deepest levels of being.”
(Allan Combs, Ph.D., professor of psychology, University of North Carolina at Asheville, and author of The Radiance of Being )

“In this impressive and transformative work Laszlo brings the reader into an integral worldview for our time. The reader who encounters this book will be irrevocably transformed and will henceforth experience the world through a global lens.”
(Ashok Gangadean, Ph.D., professor of philosophy, Haverford College, founder-director of the Global Dialogue Institute, and author of The Awakening of the Global Mind )

“In a visionary way based on profound knowledge of modern science, Laszlo creates a genuine architecture of human and cosmic evolution. He provides the bridge between all the different puzzle-stones of science and unifies them in a most remarkable and bold ‘integral theory of everything.’”
(Fritz-Albert Popp, Ph.D., director of the International Institute of Biophysics and editor of Recent Advances in Biophoton Research )

“This is one of the most important books to be published in the last decades. Ervin Laszlo’s Science and the Akashic Field has the power and coherence to explain the major phenomena of cosmos, life, and mind as they occur at the various levels of nature and society. In demonstrating that an information field is a fundamental factor in the universe, Ervin Laszlo catalyzes a radical paradigm-shift in the contemporary sciences.”
(Ignazio Masulli, Ph.D., professor of history, University of Bologna, Italy, and coauthor of The Evolution of Cognitive Maps )

“Laszlo’s book opens the way toward a great synthesis. Whoever reads Laszlo’s book witnesses the greatest awakening of the human spirit. Not since Plato and Democritus has there been such a transformation in the history of thought!”
(László Gazdag, Ph.D., physicist and professor of Social Sciences, Science University of Pécs, Hungary, and author of Beyond the Theory of Relativity )

“In his admirable 40-year quest for an integral theory of everything, Laszlo has. . . presented a coherent global hypothesis of connectivity between quantum, cosmos, life and consciousness."
(Zev Naveh, Ph.D., professor emeritus, Israel Institute of Technology, and author of Landscape Ecology )

"Science and the Akashic Field provides the pioneering scientific answer to . . . fundamental questions our species faces at this critical time in human evolution.”
(David Loye, Ph.D., former research director of the Program on Psychosocial Adaptation and the Future, UCLA School of Medicine, and author of An Arrow Through Chaos )

“Science and the Akashic Field . . . . offers humanity the perspective of more peace and security, not as an idealistic goal but as a reflection of reality.”
(Jurriaan Kamp, editor in chief of Ode Magazine and author of Because People Matter )

“. . . Ervin Laszlo’s brilliant new work, Science and the Akashic Field, surpasses previous explorations. . . . This is a 'make-sense-of-the-complex' opus, accessible to every reader.”
(A. Harris Stone, Ed.D., founder of The Graduate Institute in Milford, Connecticut, and author of The Last Free Bird )

“This is a solidly grounded vision of our cosmos, with perspectives that are wide and deep and have profound implications for all of us.”
(Henrik B. Tschudi, chairman of the Flux Foundation, Oslo, Norway )

“If you ever wanted to hold the universe in your hand . . . . You can hardly do better than join cosmologist Ervin Laszlo in the ultimate quest: for a theory of everything.”
(Christian de Quincey, Ph.D., professor of philosophy, John F. Kennedy University, editor of Institute of Noetic Sciences’ IONS Review, and author of Radical Nature: Rediscovering the Soul of Matter )

“Ervin Laszlo is, arguably, the most profound thinker alive today.”
(Lady Montagu of Beaulieu, First Ambassador of the Club of Budapest )

"Decoding GUTs, WIMPs, and The Big Crunch, Ervin Laszlo brings the ancient Indian concept of akasha into the new millennium and convincingly details how science is turning this metaphor into a viable scientific theory.”
(Spirit of Change, March-April 2005 )

". . . lends credance to our deepest intuitions of the oneness of life and the whole of creation."
(Share Guide, Sept-Oct 2005, Issue #81 )

“This important work unifies the realms of science and consciousness in a truly integral ‘theory of everything.’”
(Ralph Abraham, Ph.D., professor of mathematics, University of California, and coauthor of Chaos, Creativity, and Cosmic Consciousness )

"With extraordinary intellectual clarity, Laszlo provides a vision that links the best of modern science to the wisdom of the great spiritual traditions."
(Stanislav Grof, M.D., Ph.D., president and founder of the International Transpersonal Association and author of The Holotropic Mind )

Book Description
.

Product Description
Presents the unifying world-concept long sought by scientists, mystics, and sages: an Integral Theory of Everything

• Explains how modern science has rediscovered the Akashic Field of perennial philosophy

• New edition updates ongoing scientific studies, presents new research inspired by the first edition, and includes new case studies and a section on animal telepathy

Mystics and sages have long maintained that there exists an interconnecting cosmic field at the roots of reality that conserves and conveys information, a field known as the Akashic record. Recent discoveries in vacuum physics show that this Akashic Field is real and has its equivalent in science’s zero-point field that underlies space itself. This field consists of a subtle sea of fluctuating energies from which all things arise: atoms and galaxies, stars and planets, living beings, and even consciousness. This zero-point Akashic Field is the constant and enduring memory of the universe. It holds the record of all that has happened on Earth and in the cosmos and relates it to all that is yet to happen.

In Science and the Akashic Field, philosopher and scientist Ervin Laszlo conveys the essential element of this information field in language that is accessible and clear. From the world of science he confirms our deepest intuitions of the oneness of creation in the Integral Theory of Everything. We discover that, as philosopher William James stated, “We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.”


From the Back Cover
“This important work unifies the realms of science and consciousness in a truly integral ‘theory of everything.’”
--Ralph Abraham, Ph.D., professor of mathematics, University of California, and coauthor of Chaos, Creativity, and Cosmic Consciousness

“A seminal book from one of the best thinkers of our time. Ervin Laszlo charts the ­frontiers to which science is inexorably headed. In years to come people will look back at the amazing foresight of this work.”
--Peter Russell, fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences and the Findhorn Foundation and author of From Science to God

“With extraordinary intellectual clarity, Laszlo provides a vision that links the best of modern science to the wisdom of the great spiritual traditions.”
--Stanislav Grof, M.D., Ph.D., president and founder of the International Transpersonal Association and author of The Holotropic Mind

Mystics and sages have long maintained that there exists an interconnecting cosmic field at the roots of reality that conserves and conveys information, a field known as the Akashic record. Recent discoveries in vacuum physics show that this Akashic Field is real and has its equivalent in science’s zero-point field that underlies space itself. This field consists of a subtle sea of fluctuating energies from which all things arise: atoms and galaxies, stars and planets, living beings, and even consciousness. This zero-point Akashic Field is the constant and enduring memory of the universe. It holds the record of all that has happened on Earth and in the cosmos and relates it to all that is yet to happen.

In Science and the Akashic Field, philosopher and scientist Ervin Laszlo conveys the essential element of this information field in language that is accessible and clear. From the world of science he confirms our deepest intuitions of the oneness of creation in the Integral Theory of Everything. We discover that, as philosopher William James stated, “We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.”

ERVIN LASZLO, holder of the highest degree of the Sorbonne (the State Doctorate), is recipient of four Honorary Ph.D.s and numerous awards and distinctions, including the 2001 Goi Award (the Japan Peace Prize) and nominations for the 2004 and 2005 Nobel Peace Prizes. He is a former professor of philosophy, systems theory, and futures studies in the U.S., Europe, and the Far East and founder and president of the international think-tank the Club of Budapest as well as of the General Evolution Research Group. The author of 75 books, translated into 20 languages, he lives in Italy.

About the Author
Ervin Laszlo, holder of the highest degree of the Sorbonne (the State Doctorate), is recipient of four Honorary Ph.D.s and numerous awards and distinctions, including the 2001 Goi Award (the Japan Peace Prize) and a nomination for the 2004 and 2005 Nobel Peace Prize. He is a former professor of philosophy, systems theory, and futures studies in the U.S., Europe, and the Far East and founder and president of the international think-tank The Club of Budapest as well as of the General Evolution Research Group. The author of 75 books, translated into 20 languages, he lives in Italy.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

from Chapter 4

The Crucial Science Fable--In-formation in Nature

Our review of the puzzles encountered at the frontiers of science has set the stage for the quest to which Part One of this book is dedicated: to discover the basis for a scientifically founded Integral Theory of Everything (I-TOE). We have gained an important insight. We have found that in order to account for a growing number of things and processes that are undoubtedly real and are likely to be fundamental, a new factor needs to be added to the repertory of laws and concepts of contemporary science. What is this new factor? Let us look at the principal findings:

• Astonishingly close connections exist on the level of the quantum: every particle that has ever occupied the same quantum state as another particle remains correlated with it in a mysterious, non-energetic way.
• The universe as a whole manifests fine-tuned connections that defy commonsense explanation.
• Post-Darwinian evolutionary theory and quantum biology discover similarly puzzling connections within the organism, as well as between the organism and its milieu.
• The connections that come to light in the farther reaches of consciousness research are just as strange: they are connections between the consciousness of one person and the mind and body of another.

These connections indicate links between the particles that make up the material substance of the universe, as well as between the parts or elements of the integrated systems constituted of the particles. The links fine-tune the particles and the elements of the systems, creating space- and time-transcending coherence among them.

The surprising “nonlocal” forms of coherence crop up in fields as diverse as quantum physics, cosmology, evolutionary biology, and consciousness research. Some physicists--John Bell and Chris Clarke among them--suggest that nonlocality may be in fact the deeper reality; ordinary, so-called “classical” or “decoherent” states (states where things have a unique location and a unique set of physical characteristics) may appear merely as a consequence of the way we interact with medium-sized things--things that are neither as small as quanta nor as large as the cosmos.

Independent of the truth of such speculations, it is clear that nonlocal coherence has important implications. It signals that there is not only matter and energy in the universe, but also a more subtle yet real element: an element that connects and produces the observed quasi-instant forms of coherence.

ENTER THE AKASHIC FIELD

The idea that information is present throughout nature is a recurrent theme in cultural history, but it is new to Western science. It calls for the recognition that information is not an abstract concept: as “in-formation” it has a reality of its own. It is a part of the physical universe. And since it is present throughout nature, it is best conceptualized as an extended field.

Rationale for an In-formation Field

The evidence for a field that would conserve and convey information is not direct; it must be reconstructed in reference to more immediately available evidence. Like other fields known to modern physics, such as the gravitational field, the electromagnetic field, the quantum fields, and the Higgs field, the in-formation field cannot be seen, heard, touched, tasted, or smelled. However, this field produces effects, and these can be perceived. This is the same in regard to all the fields known to science. For example, the gravitational or G-field cannot be perceived: when we drop an object to the ground, we see the object falling but not the field that makes it fall--we see the effect of the G-field but not the G-field itself.

In the case of the field that could account for the presence of in-formation in nature, the evidence is the puzzling, quasi-instant form of coherence that comes to light in the physical, cosmological, and biological sciences, as well as in consciousness research. These phenomena call for an explanation, and the simplest and most logical explanation is a field that links the entities that prove to be nonlocally coherent.

Although fields, like other entities, are not to be multiplied beyond the scope of necessity, it seems evident that a further field is required to account for the special kind of coherence revealed at all scales and domains of nature, from the microdomain of quanta, through the meso-domain of life, to the macrodomain of the cosmos. We need to recognize that just as electric and magnetic effects are conveyed by the EM-field, attraction among massive objects by the G-field, and attraction and repulsion among the particles of the nucleus by quantum fields, so nonlocal coherence is conveyed by a field: the universal in-formation field.

The Akashic Field

In my previous books I named the universal in-formation field the Akashic Field, or A-field for short. What is the reason for this name?

In the Sanskrit and Indian cultures, Akasha is an all-encompassing medium that underlies all things and becomes all things. It is real, but so subtle that it cannot be perceived until it becomes the many things that populate the manifest world. Our bodily senses do not register Akasha, but we can reach it through spiritual practice. The ancient Rishis reached it through a disciplined, spiritual way of life, and through yoga. They described their experience, and made Akasha an essential element of the philosophy and mythology of India.

The Akashic vision of a cyclic universe--of a Metaverse that creates universe after universe--is essentially the vision we now get from cosmology. In the new physics the unified, physically real vacuum is the equivalent of Akasha. It is the original field out of which emerged particles and atoms, stars and planets, human and animal bodies, and all the things that can be seen and touched. It is a dynamic, energy-filled medium in ceaseless fluctuation. The vacuum is Akasha and Prana rolled into one--the womb of all the “matter” and all the “force” in the universe.

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex

From Publishers Weekly
Roach is not like other science writers. She doesn't write about genes or black holes or Schrödinger's cat. Instead, she ventures out to the fringes of science, where the oddballs ponder how cadavers decay (in her debut, Stiff) and whether you can weigh a person's soul (in Spook). Now she explores the sexiest subject of all: sex, and such questions as, what is an orgasm? How is it possible for paraplegics to have them? What does woman want, and can a man give it to her if her clitoris is too far from her vagina? At times the narrative feels insubstantial and digressive (how much do you need to know about inseminating sows?), but Roach's ever-present eye and ear for the absurd and her loopy sense of humor make her a delectable guide through this unesteemed scientific outback. The payoff comes with subjects like female orgasm (yes, it's complicated), and characters like Ahmed Shafik, who defies Cairo's religious repressiveness to conduct his sex research. Roach's forays offer fascinating evidence of the full range of human weirdness, the nonsense that has often passed for medical science and, more poignantly, the extreme lengths to which people will go to find sexual satisfaction. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product Description
The best-selling author of Stiff turns her outrageous curiosity and infectious wit on the most alluring scientific subject of all: sex.

The study of sexual physiology—what happens, and why, and how to make it happen better—has been a paying career or a diverting sideline for scientists as far-ranging as Leonardo da Vinci and James Watson. The research has taken place behind the closed doors of laboratories, brothels, MRI centers, pig farms, sex-toy R&D labs, and Alfred Kinsey's attic.

Mary Roach, "the funniest science writer in the country" (Burkhard Bilger of The New Yorker), devoted the past two years to stepping behind those doors. Can a person think herself to orgasm? Can a dead man get an erection? Is vaginal orgasm a myth? Why doesn't Viagra help women—or, for that matter, pandas? In Bonk, Roach shows us how and why sexual arousal and orgasm, two of the most complex, delightful, and amazing scientific phenomena on earth, can be so hard to achieve and what science is doing to slowly make the bedroom a more satisfying place. 16 illustrations.

About the Author
Mary Roach is the author of Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers and Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife. Her writing has appeared in such publications as Salon, GQ, Vogue, and the New York Times Magazine. She lives in Oakland, California.

Valiant

Product Description
“Black Jack” Geary has ordered his fleet back to the Lakota Star System where the Syndics nearly destroyed them, a desperate gamble that may give them a fighting chance of survival—or tear them apart.

The Gypsy Morph

Review
Praise for Terry Brooks

“A great storyteller, Terry Brooks creates rich epics filled with mystery, magic, and memorable characters. If you haven’t read Terry Brooks, you haven’t read fantasy.”
–Christopher Paolini, author of Eragon and Brisingr

“Terry’s place is at the head of the fantasy world.”
–Philip Pullman, author of The Golden Compass

The Elves of Cintra

“Hair-raising . . . [a] fascinating group of characters tackling harrowing and inspiring life and death issues.”
–Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Plenty of thrills.”
–Entertainment Weekly

Product Description
Terry Brooks won instant acclaim with his phenomenal New York Times bestseller The Sword of Shannara. Its sequels earned Brooks legendary status. Then his darkly enthralling The Word and the Void trilogy revealed new depths and vistas to his mastery of epic fantasy. Armageddon’s Children and The Elves of Cintra took Brooks’s remarkable mythos to a breathtaking new level by delving deep into the history of Shannara. And now, The Gypsy Morph rounds out–with an adventure of unforgettably imaginative scope–the first phase of a new chapter in this classic series.

Eighty years into the future, the United States is a no-man’s-land: its landscape blighted by chemical warfare, pollution, and plague; its government collapsed; its citizens adrift, desperate, fighting to stay alive. In fortified compounds, survivors hold the line against wandering predators, rogue militias, and hideous mutations spawned from the toxic environment, while against them all stands an enemy neither mortal nor merciful: demons and their minions bent on slaughtering and subjugating the last of humankind.

But from around the country, allies of good unite to challenge the rampaging evil. Logan Tom, wielding the magic staff of a Knight of the Word, has a promise to keep–protecting the world’s only hope of salvation–and a score to settle with the demon that massacred his family. Angel Perez, Logan’s fellow Knight, has risked her life to aid the elvish race, whose peaceful, hidden realm is marked for extermination by the forces of the Void. Kirisin Belloruus, a young elf entrusted with an ancient magic, must deliver his entire civilization from a monstrous army. And Hawk, the rootless boy who is nothing less than destiny’s instrument, must lead the last of humanity to a latter-day promised land before the final darkness falls.

The Gypsy Morph is an epic saga of a world in flux as the mortal realm yields to a magical one; as the champions of the Word and the Void clash for the last time to decide what will be and what must cease; and as, from the remnants of a doomed age, something altogether extraordinary rises.

About the Author
Terry Brooks is the New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty-five books, including the Genesis of Shannara novels Armageddon’s Children and The Elves of Cintra; The Sword of Shannara; the Voyage of the Jerle Shannara trilogy: Ilse Witch, Antrax, and Morgawr; the High Druid of Shannara trilogy: Jarka Ruus, Tanequil, and Straken; the nonfiction book Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons from a Writing Life; and the novel based upon the screenplay and story by George Lucas, Star Wars®: Episode I The Phantom Menace.™ His novels Running with the Demon and A Knight of the Word were selected by the Rocky Mountain News as two of the best science fiction/fantasy novels of the twentieth century. The author was a practicing attorney for many years but now writes full-time. He lives with his wife, Judine, in the Pacific Northwest.

www.shannara.com
www.terrybrooks.net

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
CHAPTER ONE

Wills walked the empty corridors of Hell, looking for the code. He walked these same corridors every day, all day, searching, thinking that there had to be someplace he had overlooked and that on this day he would find it. But he never did. And knew in his heart that he never would.

It was over. For all of them. In more ways than one. The others were already a long time dead. The entire command, wiped out by whatever virus had wormed its way in, sliding down through the air vents past the filters and cleaners and medico screens and whatever other safeguards the builders had installed all those years ago. They hadn’t all died at once, of course. Eight of them had, and that was now more than two years ago. At least, that’s how long he thought it had been. Time was uncertain. The rest had died one by one, some sickening right away, others staying healthy and providing false hope that a few might survive.

But none of them had. Only him. He had no idea why. He had no sense of being different from the others, but obviously he was. Some small genetic trait. Some antibody peculiar to him. Or maybe he was mistaken and it was just plain old luck. He was alive; they were dead. No sense to any of it. No prize awarded to the last man standing. Just a mystery without a solution.

Abramson and Perlo had been the last to go. If you didn’t count Major ?whatever-?her-?name-?was. Anders, Andrews, something like that. He couldn’t remember anymore. Anyway, there was never much hope for her. She got sick and stayed sick. By the time she died, she had already been dead for weeks in every way that mattered, her brain fried, memory emptied, mouth drooling. Just lying on the floor making weird sounds and staring at them. Just gibbering about nothing, her eyes wide and rolling, her face all twisted. He would have put a stop to it if he could have made himself do so. But he couldn’t. It took Perlo to do that. Perlo hadn’t harbored the same reservations he had. He ?hadn’t liked her anyway, he told them. Even when she hadn’t been sick, when she was normal, she was irritating. So it was easy, putting the gun to her head and pulling the trigger. She probably would have thanked him if she could have, he said afterward.

Two weeks later, Perlo was dead, too, shot with the same gun. He’d decided he couldn’t stand the waiting and pulled the trigger a second time. Left the gun with an almost full clip for the other two, an unspoken suggestion that they might be wise to follow him.

They hadn’t taken the hint. Abramson had lasted almost seven months longer, and he and Wills made a good pair in that short time. They were both midwestern boys married young, gone into the service of their country, officer training, fast track to promotion, full of patriotic duty and a sense of pride in wearing the uniform. Both had been pilots before assuming command positions. All that was dead and gone, but they liked talking about how it had been when things were better. They liked remembering because it made them feel that even though things had turned out the way they had, there had been a reason for sticking with it, a purpose to their lives.

It was hard for Wills to remember what that purpose was, now. Once Abramson was gone there had been no one to discuss it with, and over time the nature of the reason had eroded in the silence of the complex. Sometimes he sang or talked to himself, but that wasn’t the same as having someone else there. Rather, it made him think of all the stories of prisoners who went slowly mad in solitary confinement, left alone with themselves and the sound of their own voice for too many months. Or too many years. It would be years for him if nothing changed, if he didn’t find anyone, if no one came.

Major Adam Wills. That was who he had been, who the military would say he still was, serving his country deep in the bowels of the earth, a quarter mile underground beneath tons of rock and steel-? reinforced concrete, somewhere in the middle of the Rocky Mountains. Where he had been now for five long years, waiting.

He thought about that word. Waiting. He stopped walking and stood in the center of one of the endless corridors and thought about it. Waiting. For what? It seemed to change with the passing of time. At first, he had been waiting for the wars to be over. Then he had been waiting for someone to come to relieve those on duty in the missile command center who were left alive. Then he had been waiting to be let out because he couldn’t get out if someone in authority, someone who could tell him it was time to leave, didn’t key the locks to the elevators from the surface.

For a long time after he knew that there might be no one left in authority, he had simply been waiting for his transmitter signals to raise a response from any source. He no longer used a secure code. He simply opened all channels and broadcast mayday. He knew what was happening aboveground. The cameras told him much of the story. A bleak, barren countryside, a few wandering bands of what appeared to be raiders, a handful of creatures he had never seen before and hoped never to see again, and endless days of sunshine and no rain. Colorado had always been dry, but never like this. It had to rain sooner or later, he kept telling himself.

Didn’t it?

Waiting for it to rain.

The government had been all but obliterated even before he had been sent to Deep Rock, the nickname given to the missile command complex. He was still on the surface then, stationed at a base in North Dakota, living in military housing with his family. Washington had been taken out in the first strike, and most of the East Coast cities shortly after. The environment was already in upheaval, huge portions of the country all but uninhabitable. Terrorists were at work. Plague had begun to spread. His last orders had sent him here, joining the others who had been dispatched to the bunkers and the redoubts and the protected complexes that honeycombed the country. A general from the National Command Authority was issuing the orders by then and not just to them but to the whole country. The orders had been grim and everyone had known that things were bad, but they had also known that they would get through it. There had been camaraderie, a sense of sharing a disaster where everyone would have to help everyone else. No one had doubted that they would survive, that they could withstand the worst.

After all, Americans always had. No matter how bad it had gotten, they had managed to find a way. They would this time, too. They were infused with pride and confidence, the certainty that they had the training, the skills, and the determination that were needed. They had even accepted without question that they would have to leave their families behind.

Wills smiled despite himself. What blind fools they had been.

He had quit believing when he heard the last radio broadcasts, heard the descriptions of mass hysteria, and listened to the final pleas and desperate prayers of the few reporters and announcers still on the air. The destruction was complete and total and worldwide. No one had been spared. Armed strikes, chemical warfare, plague infestation, environmental collapse, terrorist attacks—a checklist of assorted forms of madness that proved overwhelming. Millions were dead and millions more dying. Hundreds of millions worldwide. Entire cities had been obliterated. Governments were gone, armies were gone, everything even faintly resembling order was gone. He had tried to reach his family at the base in North Dakota, but there had been no response. After a while, he accepted that there never would be. They were gone, too—his wife, his two boys, his parents, all of his aunts and uncles and cousins and maybe everyone else he had ever known.

It began to feel like everyone was gone except for those few hunkered down in Deep Rock, waiting their turn to go, too.

Which, of course, had arrived all too soon.

Wills walked on, walked on, walked on. He had no destination, no particular route, and no plan. He walked to have something to do. Even though the complex had only eight rooms, not counting storage lockers and the cold room. Even though there were only three short corridors that, when added together, measured no more than a hundred yards. He carried his handheld receiver, which was linked to the communications center, which in turn was linked to the satellite system. It was a waste of time, but he carried it out of habit. Someone might call. You never knew.

At the cold room, he stopped and stared at the heavy iron doors. He imagined what lay behind them, but only for a moment, because that was all he could bear. Seventeen men and women, stacked like cordwood in an ?eight-?by-?ten space. Stacked with the perishable food, which had long since perished. He couldn’t bear thinking about what was happening to the bodies, even at the freezing temperatures the cooling system maintained. He hadn’t gone in there since he had added Abramson to the pile, and he was pretty sure he would never go in there again. What was the point?

Still, he stood at the doors and stared at them for a long time, his mind conjuring dark images. In the old days, this wouldn’t have happened; they wouldn’t have all been grouped together where a virus could wipe them out. They would have been assigned to a dozen different command centers. You wouldn’t have found more than two or three staffing any one, each center responsible for only a handful of silos. But near the end, when it became clear to someone in authority that an enemy strike was imminent, they had established this base, believing a central command center necessary. It had become home to dozens of teams moving in and out over a ?twenty-?year period, each waiting for the call. His group of nine had been the last, but the team before his, the one on which Abramson served, had been unable to leave. The National Command Authority had decided to ...

Atlas Shrugged

Publishers Weekly, January 6, 1997
Winner of the Listen Up Award-Best Packaging/Cover Art of 1996 [brought to you by HighBridge Audio] --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Book Description
At last, Ayn Rand's masterpiece is available to her millions of loyal readers in trade paperback.

With this acclaimed work and its immortal query, "Who is John Galt?", Ayn Rand found the perfect artistic form to express her vision of existence. Atlas Shrugged made Rand not only one of the most popular novelists of the century, but one of its most influential thinkers.

Atlas Shrugged is the astounding story of a man who said that he would stop the motor of the world--and did. Tremendous in scope, breathtaking in its suspense, Atlas Shrugged stretches the boundaries further than any book you have ever read. It is a mystery, not about the murder of a man's body, but about the murder--and rebirth--of man's spirit.

* Atlas Shrugged is the "second most influential book for Americans today" after the Bible, according to a joint survey conducted by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club

Download Description
Who is John Galt?

This famous rhetorical question rings through Ayn Rand's best-selling novel as the people's anthem of despair in depressed economic times.

Set in the future, the novel follows capitalist magnates as they battle looters, strikers, and the impending ruin of the United States' economy. The romantic and intellectual relationship between Dagny Taggart, the heroine, and John Galt, whose identity as the leader of the strike is eventually revealed, carries the novel to its climax.

This novel, controversial when it first appeared in 1957, purports Rand's objectivist philosophy that the individual is free to pursue his or her own happiness without bowing to God or society. Objectivism in action upholds full laissez-faire capitalism as the only philosophy that can protect humankind's freedom to think, to be inventive, and to live productively.

The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature
Novel by Ayn Rand, published in 1957. The book's female protagonist, Dagny Taggart, struggles to manage a transcontinental railroad amid the pressures and restrictions of massive bureaucracy. Her antagonistic reaction to a libertarian group seeking an end to government regulation is later echoed and modified in her encounter with a utopian community, Galt's Gulch, whose members regard self-determination rather than collective responsibility as the highest ideal. The novel contains the most complete presentation of Rand's personal philosophy, known as objectivism, in fictional form. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Clinically Oriented Anatomy

Review
Doody's Review Service -- "This is the ideal book


Product Description
Clinically Oriented Anatomy, Fifth Edition provides first-year medical and allied health students with the clinically oriented anatomical information that they need in study and practice. This book is renowned for its comprehensive coverage of anatomy, presented as it relates to the practice of medicine, dentistry, and physical therapy. This latest edition is fully updated with new content and additional features, including new surface anatomy and updated diagnostic images, new "Bottom Line" summaries that reinforce important concepts, and new clinical "Blue" boxes. Two bound-in CD-ROMs contain interactive case studies, USMLE-style review questions, and layered, rotatable anatomical illustrations generated from three-dimensional models of MRI images.


Book Info
Univ. of Toronto, Canada. Brandon/Hill Medical List first-purchase selection (#28). Textbook on anatomy for students. Beautifully illustrated and includes figures from Grants's Atlas of Anatomy. Also includes, clinical comments, 'blue boxes', and diagnostic images. New case studies and discussions at the end of each chapter. Previous edition: c1992. Softcover. DNLM: Anatomy. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

V for Vendetta

Amazon.com
V for Vendetta is, like its author's later Watchmen, a landmark in comic-book writing. Alan Moore has led the field in intelligent, politically astute (if slightly paranoid), complex adult comic-book writing since the early 1980s. He began V back in 1981 and it constituted one of his first attempts (along with the criminally neglected but equally superb Miracleman) at writing an ongoing series. It is 1998 (which was the future back then!) and a Fascist government has taken over the U.K. The only blot on its particular landscape is a lone terrorist who is systematically killing all the government personnel associated with a now destroyed secret concentration camp. Codename V is out for vengeance ... and an awful lot more. V feels slightly dated like all past premonitions do. The original series was black and white and that added to the grittiness of the feel while the coloring here in the graphic novel sometimes blurs David Lloyd's fine drawing. But these are small concerns. Skillfully plotted, V is an essential read for all those who love comics and the freedom, as a medium, they allow a writer as skilled as Moore. --Mark Thwaite

From School Library Journal
Grade 9 Up–The date is November 5th, 1997. War has ravaged England, entire races have been eradicated, the entire British populace is under constant surveillance, and the absolute power is absolutely corrupt. On this historic day, a man with a strong resemblance to Guy Fawkes (in action and dress) blows up Parliament. The bomber, a masked character named V, saves a girl named Eve from a violent crime and takes her under his wing. Moore's dystopian, fascist version of England, ruled by one central leader and his sects (named after parts of the body, such as Finger, Nose, and Voice), is systematically dismantled by the enigmatic V. Readers must ultimately decide if V is a mad anarchist/terrorist or a freedom-fighting avenger for good. Originally published in 1989, V has been reissued as a hardcover book with never-seen-before sketches and two new vignettes. This story is slated to be released as a major motion picture in 2006, and demand should intensify as the movie trailers come out. Combining alternate history with moral questions about freedom and identity, this book would work well in a school setting; and while there is some slight nudity and violence, they fit well within the framework of the story.–Jennifer Feigelman, Plattekill Public Library, Modena, NY
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Description
V for Vendetta is, like its author's later Watchmen, a landmark in comic-book writing. Alan Moore has led the field in intelligent, politically astute (if slightly paranoid), complex adult comic-book writing since the early 1980s. He began V back in 1981 and it constituted one of his first attempts (along with the criminally neglected but equally superb Miracleman) at writing an ongoing series. It is 1998 (which was the future back then!) and a Fascist government has taken over the U.K. The only blot on its particular landscape is a lone terrorist who is systematically killing all the government personnel associated with a now destroyed secret concentration camp. Codename V is out for vengeance ... and an awful lot more. V feels slightly dated like all past premonitions do. The original series was black and white and that added to the grittiness of the feel while the coloring here in the graphic novel sometimes blurs David Lloyd's fine drawing. But these are small concerns. Skillfully plotted, V is an essential read for all those who love comics and the freedom, as a medium, they allow a writer as skilled as Moore. --Mark Thwaite

Slaughterhouse-Five

Amazon.com
Kurt Vonnegut's absurdist classic Slaughterhouse-Five introduces us to Billy Pilgrim, a man who becomes unstuck in time after he is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. In a plot-scrambling display of virtuosity, we follow Pilgrim simultaneously through all phases of his life, concentrating on his (and Vonnegut's) shattering experience as an American prisoner of war who witnesses the firebombing of Dresden.

Don't let the ease of reading fool you--Vonnegut's isn't a conventional, or simple, novel. He writes, "There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick, and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters..." Slaughterhouse-Five (taken from the name of the building where the POWs were held) is not only Vonnegut's most powerful book, it is as important as any written since 1945. Like Catch- 22, it fashions the author's experiences in the Second World War into an eloquent and deeply funny plea against butchery in the service of authority. Slaughterhouse-Five boasts the same imagination, humanity, and gleeful appreciation of the absurd found in Vonnegut's other works, but the book's basis in rock-hard, tragic fact gives it a unique poignancy--and humor. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly
"Listen: Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time." So begins Vonnegut's absurdist 1969 classic. Hawke rises to the occasion of performing this sliced-and-diced narrative, which is part sci-fi and partially based on Vonnegut's experience as a American prisoner of war in Dresden, Germany during the firebombing of 1945 that killed thousands of civilians. Billy travels in time and space, stopping here and there throughout his life, including his long visit to the planet Tralfamador, where he is mated with a porn star. Hawke adopts a confidential, whisper-like tone for his reading. Listening to him is like listening to someone tell you a story in the back of a bus—the perfect pitch for this book. After the novel ends, Vonnegut himself speaks for a short while about his survival of the Dresden firestorm and describes and names the man who inspired this story. Tacked on to the very end of this audio smorgasbord is music, a dance single that uses a vintage recording of Vonnegut reading from the book. Though Hawke's reading is excellent, one cannot help but wish Vonnegut himself had read the entire text.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

From AudioFile
Here it is in all its glory: the book that has baffled high schoolers for two generations. From Dresden to Tralfamadore and all the places in between, Vonnegut tells a story that's impossible to put down. To make matters even better, the book gets star treatment from narrator Ethan Hawke, who immerses us in the author's words. Hawke almost whispers his way through the text as if letting us in on a big secret, and he is marvelously effective. He uses impeccable diction and effective pauses to create an atmospheric world that gives the book an authentic otherworldly feel. By the end, Hawke has taken us on a journey that both illuminates the author's words and reflects our understanding of them. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

Product Description
Slaughterhouse-Five is one of the world's great anti-war books. Centering on the infamous fire-bombing of Dresden, Billy Pilgrim's odyssey through time reflects the mythic journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we are afraid to know.

Download Description
Unstuck in time, Billy Pilgrim, Vonnegut´s shattered survivor of the Dresden bombing, relives his life over and over again under the gaze of aliens; he comes at last to some understanding of the human comedy.

From the Publisher
Slaughterhous-Five is one of the world's great anti-war books. Centering on the infamous fire-bombing of Dresden, Billy Pilgrim's odyssey through time reflects the mythic journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we are afraid to know. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

Inside Flap Copy
Slaughterhous-Five is one of the world's great anti-war books. Centering on the infamous fire-bombing of Dresden, Billy Pilgrim's odyssey through time reflects the mythic journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we are afraid to know.


From the Paperback edition.

About the Author
Kurt Vonnegut was a master of contemporary American literature. His black humor, satiric voice, and incomparable imagination first captured America's attention in The Sirens of Titan in 1959 and established him as "a true artist" with Cat's Cradle in 1963. He was, as Graham Greene declared, "one of the best living American writers.” Mr. Vonnegut passed away in April 2007.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter One

All this happened, more or less. The war parts, anyway, are pretty much true. One guy I knew really was shot in Dresden for taking a teapot that wasn't his. Another guy I knew really did threaten to have his personal enemies killed by hired gunmen after the war. And so on. I've changed all the names.

I really did go back to Dresden with Guggenheim money (God love it) in 1967. It looked a lot like Dayton, Ohio, more open spaces than Dayton has. There must be tons of human bone meal in the ground.

I went back there with an old war buddy, Bernard V. O'Hare, and we made friends with a cab driver, who took us to the slaughterhouse where we had been locked up at night as prisoners of war. His name was Gerhard Müller. He told us that he was a prisoner of the Americans for a while. We asked him how it was to live under Communism, and he said that it was terrible at first, because everybody had to work so hard, and because there wasn't much shelter or food or clothing. But things were much better now. He had a pleasant little apartment, and his daughter was getting an excellent education. His mother was incinerated in the Dresden fire-storm. So it goes.

He sent O'Hare a postcard at Christmastime, and here is what it said:

"I wish you and your family also as to your friend Merry Christmas and a happy New Year and I hope that we'll meet again in a world of peace and freedom in the taxi cab if the accident will."

I like that very much: "If the accident will."

I would hate to tell you what this lousy little book cost me in money and anxiety and time. When I got home from the Second World War twenty-three years ago, I thought it would be easy for me to write about the destruction of Dresden, since all I would have to do would be to report what I had seen. And I thought, too, that it would be a masterpiece or at least make me a lot of money, since the subject was so big.

But not many words about Dresden came from my mind then -- not enough of them to make a book, anyway. And not many words come now, either, when I have become an old fart with his memories and his Pall Malls, with his sons full grown.

I think of how useless the Dresden part of my memory has been, and yet how tempting Dresden has been to write about, and I am reminded of the famous limerick:

There was a young man from Stamboul, Who soliloquized thus to his tool: "You took all my wealth And you ruined my health, And now you won't pee, you old fool."

And I'm reminded, too, of the song that goes:


My name is Yon Yonson, I work in Wisconsin, I work in a lumbermill there. The people I meet when I walk down the street, They say, "What's your name?" And I say, My name is Yon Yonson, I work in Wisconsin..."

And so on to infinity.

Over the years, people I've met have often asked me what I'm working on, and I've usually replied that the main thing was a book about Dresden.

I said that to Harrison Starr, the movie-maker, one time, and he raised his eyebrows and inquired, "Is it an anti-war book?"

"Yes," I said. "I guess."

"You know what I say to people when I hear they're writing anti-war books?"

"No. What do you say, Harrison Starr?"

"I say, 'Why don't you write an anti-glacier book instead?' "

What he meant, of course, was that there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers. I believe that, too.

And even if wars didn't keep coming like glaciers, there would still be plain old death.

When I was somewhat younger, working on my famous Dresden book, I asked an old war buddy named Bernard V. O'Hare if I could come to see him. He was a district attorney in Pennsylvania. I was a writer on Cape Cod. We had been privates in the war, infantry scouts. We had never expected to make any money after the war, but we were doing quite well.

I had the Bell Telephone Company find him for me. They are wonderful that way. I have this disease late at night sometimes, involving alcohol and the telephone. I get drunk, and I drive my wife away with a breath like mustard gas and roses. And then, speaking gravely and elegantly into the telephone, I ask the telephone operators to connect me with this friend or that one, from whom I have not heard in years.

I got O'Hare on the line in this way. He is short and I am tall. We were Mutt and Jeff in the war. We were captured together in the war. I told him who I was on the telephone. He had no trouble believing it. He was up. He was reading. Everybody else in his house was asleep.

"Listen--" I said, "I'm writing this book about Dresden. I'd like some help remembering stuff. I wonder if I could come down and see you, and we could drink and talk and remember."

He was unenthusiastic. He said he couldn't remember much. He told me, though, to come ahead.

"I think the climax of the book will be the execution of poor old Edgar Derby," I said. "The irony is so great. A whole city gets burned down, and thousands and thousands of people are killed. And then this one American foot soldier is arrested in the ruins for taking a teapot. And he's given a regular trial, and then he's shot by a firing squad."

"Um," said O'Hare.

"Don't you think that's really where the climax should come?"

"I don't know anything about it," he said. "That's your trade, not mine."

As a trafficker in climaxes and thrills and characterization and wonderful dialogue and suspense and confrontations, I had outlined the Dresden story many times. The best outline I ever made, or anyway the prettiest one, was on the back of a roll of wallpaper.

I used my daughter's crayons, a different color for each main character. One end of the wallpaper was the beginning of the story, and the other end was the end, and then there was all that middle part, which was the middle. And the blue line met the red line and then the yellow line, and the yellow line stopped because the character represented by the yellow line was dead. And so on. The destruction of Dresden was represented by a vertical band of orange cross-hatching, and all the lines that were still alive passed through it, came out the other side.

The end, where all the lines stopped, was a beetfield on the Elbe, outside of Halle. The rain was coming down. The war in Europe had been over for a couple of weeks. We were formed in ranks, with Russian soldiers guarding us -- Englishmen, Americans, Dutchmen, Belgians, Frenchmen, Canadians, South Africans, New Zealanders, Australians, thousands of us about to stop being prisoners of war.

And on the other side of the field were thousands of Russians and Poles and Yugoslavians and so on guarded by American soldiers. An exchange was made there in the rain -- one for one. O'Hare and I climbed into the back of an American truck with a lot of others. O'Hare didn't have any souvenirs. Almost everybody else did. I had a ceremonial Luftwaffe saber, still do. The rabid little American I call Paul Lazzaro in this book had about a quart of diamonds and emeralds and rubies and so on. He had taken these from dead people in the cellars of Dresden. So it goes.

An idiotic Englishman, who had lost all his teeth somewhere, had his souvenir in a canvas bag. The bag was resting on my insteps. He would peek into the bag every now and then, and he would roll his eyes and swivel his scrawny neck, trying to catch people looking covetously at his bag. And he would bounce the bag on my insteps.

I thought this bouncing was accidental. But I was mistaken. He had to show somebody what was in the bag, and he had decided he could trust me. He caught my eye, winked, opened the bag. There was a plaster model of the Eiffel Tower in there. It was painted gold. It had a clock in it.

"There's a smashin' thing," he said.

And we were flown to a rest camp in France, where we were fed chocolate malted milkshakes and other rich foods until we were all covered with baby fat. Then we were sent home, and I married a pretty girl who was covered with baby fat, too.

And we had babies.

And they're all grown up now, and I'm an old fart with his memories and his Pall Malls. My name is Yon Yonson, I work in Wisconsin, I work in a lumbermill there.

Sometimes I try to call up old girl friends on the telephone late at night, after my wife has gone to bed. "Operator, I wonder if you could give me the number of a Mrs. So-and-So. I think she lives at such-and-such."

"I'm sorry, sir. There is no such listing."

"Thanks, Operator. Thanks just the same."

And I let the dog out, or I let him in, and we talk some. I let him know I like him, and he lets me know he likes me. He doesn't mind the smell of mustard gas and roses.

"You're all right, Sandy," I'll say to the dog. "You know that, Sandy? You're O.K."

Sometimes I'll turn on the radio and listen to a talk program from Boston or New York. I can't stand recorded music if I've been drinking a good deal.

Sooner or later I go to bed, and my wife asks me what time it is. She always has to know the time. Sometimes I don't know, and I say, "Search me."

I think about my education sometimes. I went to the University of Chicago for a while after the Second World War. I was a student in the Department of Anthropology. At that time, they were teaching that there was absolutely no difference between anybody. They may be teaching that still.

Another thing they taught was that nobody was ridiculous or bad or disgusting. Shortly before my father died, he said to me, "You know -- you never wrote a story with a villain in it."

I told him that was one of the things I learned in college after the war.

Whil...

By Schism Rent Asunder

Review

“Gripping…Shifting effortlessly between battles among warp-speed starships and among oar-powered galleys, Weber brings the political maneuvering, past and future technologies, and vigorous protagonists together for a cohesive, engrossing whole.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) on Off Armageddon Reef

“Splendid!” —Booklist (starred review) on Off Armageddon Reef

“Vast, complex, intricate, subtle, and unlaydownable. This looks like the start of the biggest thing in science fiction since Isaac Asimov's Foundation series.” —Dave Duncan on Off Armageddon Reef

“A new SF epic.” —Library Journal (starred review) on Off Armageddon Reef

“Fantastic in every sense of the word—the kind of book that makes you sit back and think about this reality that we call life. Who can ask for more than that?” —R. A. Salvatore on Off Armageddon Reef


Product Description
The world has changed. The mercantile kingdom of Charis has prevailed over the alliance designed to exterminate it. Armed with better sailing vessels, better guns and better devices of all sorts, Charis faced the combined navies of the rest of the world at Darcos Sound and Armageddon Reef, and broke them. Despite the implacable hostility of the Church of God Awaiting, Charis still stands, still free, still tolerant, still an island of innovation in a world in which the Church has worked for centuries to keep humanity locked at a medieval level of existence.

But the powerful men who run the Church aren’t going to take their defeat lying down. Charis may control the world’s seas, but it barely has an army worthy of the name. And as King Cayleb knows, far too much of the kingdom’s recent good fortune is due to the secret manipulations of the being that calls himself Merlin—a being that, the world must not find out too soon, is more than human. A being on whose shoulders rests the last chance for humanity’s freedom.

Now, as Charis and its archbishop make the rift with Mother Church explicit, the storm gathers. Schism has come to the world of Safehold. Nothing will ever be the same.


About the Author

David Weber is the author of the New York Times-bestselling Honor Harrington series, the most recent of which was At All Costs. His many other novels include Mutineers' Moon, The Armageddon Inheritance, Heirs of Empire, Path of the Fury, and Wind Rider's Oath. He lives in South Carolina.


Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter One

Eraystor Bay,
Princedom of Emerald

Bright morning sunlight glittered on the crossed golden scepters of the green banner of the Church of God Awaiting. The twin-masted courier ship flying that wind-starched banner as she scudded along on the brisk breeze was little more than seventy feet long, built for speed rather than endurance . . . or even seakeeping and stability. Her crew of sixty was small for any galley, even one as diminutive as she was, but her slender, lightly constructed hull was well suited for rowing, and her lateen sails drove her in a rapid flurry of foam as she went slicing across the brilliant sun-splintered water and foaming white horses of the thirty-mile-wide passage between Callie’s Island and the northeastern shore of Eraystor Bay.

Father Rahss Sawal, the small fleet vessel’s commander, stood on his tiny quarterdeck, hands clasped behind him, and concentrated on looking confident while he gazed up at the seabirds and wyverns hovering against the painfully blue sky. It was harder than it ought to have been to maintain the outward assurance (it would never have done to call it arrogance) proper to the master of one of Mother Church’s couriers, and Sawal didn’t much care for the reason he found it so.

The Temple’s messengers, whether landbound or afloat, enjoyed absolute priority and freedom of passage. They carried God’s own messages and commands, with all the authority of the archangels themselves, and no mortal had the temerity to challenge their passage wherever God or His Church might send them. That had been true literally since the Creation, and no one had ever dared to dispute it. Unfortunately, Sawal was no longer certain the centuries-old inviolability of Mother Church’s messengers continued to hold true.

The thought was . . . disturbing, in more ways than one. Most immediately, because of the potential consequences for his own current mission. In the long run, because the failure of that inviolability was unthinkable. Defiance of the authority of God’s Church could have only one consequence for the souls of the defiers, and if their example led others into the same sin . . .

Sawal pushed that thought aside once more, telling himself—insisting to himself—that whatever madness had infected the Kingdom of Charis, God would never permit it to spread beyond Charis’ borders. The universal authority of Mother Church was the linchpin not simply of the world in which he lived, but of God’s very plan for Man’s salvation. If that authority were challenged, if it failed, the consequences would be unthinkable. Shanwei, lost and damned mother of evil, must be licking her fangs at the very possibility in the dark, dank corner of Hell to which the Archangel Langhorne had consigned her for her sins. Even now she must be testing the bars, trying the strength of her chains, as she tasted the overweening, sinful pride of those who sought to set their own fallible judgment in place of God’s. Langhorne himself had locked that gate behind her, with all the authority of eternity, but Man had free will. Even now, he could turn the key in that lock if he so chose, and if he did . . .

Damn those Charisians, he thought grimly. Don’t they even realize what door they’re opening? Don’t they care? Don’t—

His jaw tightened and he forced himself to relax his shoulders and draw a deep, cleansing breath. It didn’t help very much.

His instructions from Bishop Executor Thomys had been abundantly clear. Sawal was to deliver the bishop executor’s dispatches to Bishop Executor Wyllys in Eraystor at all costs. That phrase—“at all costs”—had never before been part of Sawal’s orders. There’d never been any need for it, but there was now, and—

“Deck there!” The shout came down from the crow’s nest. “Deck there! Three sail on the port bow!”

“Well, well,” Commander Paitryk Hywyt, Royal Charisian Navy, murmured to himself as he peered through the spyglass. “This should be interesting.”

He lowered the glass and frowned thoughtfully. His orders were perfectly clear on this point. They’d made him more than a little nervous when he first received them, but they were definitely clear, and now he discovered that he was actually looking forward to obeying them. Odd. He wouldn’t have thought that was likely to happen.

“It’s a Church courier, all right,” he said a bit louder, and Zhak Urvyn, HMS Wave’s first lieutenant, made a distinctly unhappy sound.

“Some of the men may not like it, Sir,” Urvyn said softly. Hywyt glanced sideways at him, then shrugged.

“I’ve got a feeling the men’s attitude may just surprise you a bit, Zhak,” he said dryly. “They’re still about as pissed off as I’ve ever seen them, and they know who that courier’s really working for this morning.”

Urvyn nodded, but he looked gloomier than ever, and Hywyt grimaced mentally. It wasn’t the men Urvyn expected to be unhappy; it was Urvyn himself.

“Bring her three points to port, if you please, Lieutenant,” Hywyt said, speaking rather more formally than was his wont. “Let’s lay out a course to intercept her.”

“Aye, aye, Sir.” Urvyn’s expression was worried, but he saluted and passed the order to the helmsman while other hands pattered across the wooden decks to tend sheets and braces.

Wave changed course, slicing across the water close-hauled on the port tack, and Hywyt felt a familiar surge of pleasure as his vessel responded. The sleek, flush-decked, twin-masted schooner was just over ninety-five feet long on the waterline, and mounted fourteen thirty-pounder carronades. Unlike some of her sisters, Wave had been designed and built from the keel up as a light cruiser for the Royal Charisian Navy. Her revolutionary sail plan made her faster and far more weatherly than any other ship Hywyt had ever encountered, far less commanded, and she’d already taken no less than seven prizes—almost half of those captured by the entire blockading squadron—here in Emeraldian waters since the Battle of Darcos Sound. That was what speed and handiness meant, and the comfortable sound prize money made falling into their purses had helped overcome any lingering qualms his crew might have cherished. They were Charisians, after all, he thought with a gleam of humor. Charis’ numerous detractors were wont to refer to the Kingdom as a “kingdom of shopkeepers and moneylenders,” and not in tones of approval. Hywyt had listened to their rancorous envy for years, and he had to admit there was at least a little truth to the stereotype of the Charisian constantly on the prowl for ways to make a quick mark.

Of course, we’re also very good at it, aren’t we? he reflected, and felt himself smiling as the courier boat with the dark green flag drew rapidly nearer.

He couldn’t be positive the other ship had come from Corisande, but no other explanation seemed very likely. The dispatch boat had obviously approached through Dolphin Reach, which certainly meant it had also crossed the Sea of Zebediah. No courier from Haven or Howard would have been coming from that direction, and Hywyt rather doubted Sharleyan of Chisholm was particularly interested in corresponding with Nahrmahn of Emerald at the moment. And judging from the way the fellow had chosen the strait between Callie’s Island and the Emeraldian coast, he definitely didn’t want to attract the attention of the blockade squadron.

Unfortunately for him, he already had, and it was evident that his ship, for all its sleek design, was quite a bit slower than Wave under these conditions.

“Clear for action,” he said, and watched the gap between the two ships narrow as the drum began to beat.

Rahss Sawal tried very hard not to swear as the Charisian schooner swept towards him. Obviously, his information was even more out-of-date than he’d feared when Bishop Executor Thomys gave him his orders. He hadn’t expected to see Charisian warships actually inside Eraystor Bay proper. Then again, he hadn’t expected to see the gold kraken on black of the Charisian flag flying above what used to be the Emeraldian fortress on Callie’s Island, either.

The dispersal of the Charisian warships was the clearest possible evidence of the totality of their victory at the Battle of Darcos Sound. The true extent of the allied fleet’s defeat had still been unclear when Sawal left Manchyr. That it had been crushing was obvious, but everyone in Corisande had clung to the hope that the majority of the ships which had not returned had found refuge in Emerald, where they were even then helping Nahrmahn defend their anchorage.

Obviously not, Sawal thought sourly.

He could see exactly four ships now, counting the schooner charging down on his own command, and every one of them flew Charisian colors. They were spread out widely, as well, to cover as much of the bay as they could, and they wouldn’t have been doing that if there’d been any possibility at all that someone might consider attacking them. That, coupled with the fact that all the island fortifications Sawal could see from his quarterdeck had clearly become Charisian bases, not Emeraldian ones, made it abundantly clear that there was no “allied fleet” any longer, much less one that was still defending its anchorage.

Sawal had never before encountered one of the Charisians’ new schooners, and he was astonished at how close to t...

The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Joseph Needham (1900–1995) is the man who made China China, forming the West's understanding of a sophisticated culture with his masterpiece, Science and Civilization in China, says bestselling author Winchester. In a life devoted to recording the Middle Kingdom's intellectual wealth, Needham, an eccentric, brilliant Cambridge don, made a remarkable journey from son of a London doctor through scientist-adventurer to red scare target. In Winchester's (The Professor and the Madman) estimable hands, Needham's story comes to life straightaway. From the biochemist's arrival in WWII Chongqing (the smells, of incense smoke, car exhaust, hot cooking oil, a particularly acrid kind of pepper, human waste, oleander, and jasmine) to his steely discipline when crafting his research into prose (to an old friend: I am frightfully busy. You come without an appointment, so I am afraid I cannot see you), Winchester plunges the reader into the action with hardly a break. As the author notes in an outstanding epilogue—a swirling 12-page trip through the kaleidoscope of contemporary China—he is at pains to place Needham front and center in our understanding of the nation that now plays such a huge role in American life. B&w photos, maps. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com

Reviewed by Judith Shapiro

The great Sinologist Joseph Needham (1900-1995) is a legend for his Science and Civilization in China, an encyclopedic account of China's achievements in science and technology. But it is the famous "Needham question," which asks why the country failed to industrialize when Europe did, despite its prior achievements in printing, explosives, navigation, hydraulics, ceramics and statecraft, that may revive his legacy and compel re-reading of his 24-volume masterwork. As China transforms into an industrial powerhouse, we may ask the inverse question: Why is China now booming after centuries of relative stagnation, and on what traditions will it draw?

In The Man Who Loved China, Simon Winchester, author of The Professor and the Madman, builds on his success in writing about eccentric British intellectuals. Needham makes a great subject. A Cambridge University polymath who made his youthful mark as a biochemist, he was also a nudist, a performer of English folk dances involving ankle bells and sticks, an accordion player and an active Communist. His happy marriage to chemist Dorothy Needham survived his lifelong passion for his mistress, Lu Gwei-djen, the biochemist who taught him Chinese and collaborated with him on his master project. Their "peculiarly organized love life" was so cordial that the three lived on the same Cambridge street and often took tea together. Above all, Needham was an indefatigable researcher, whether he was stranded by a broken truck in northwest China's desert or working long hours in his Cambridge study so crammed with materials that assistants were sometimes chosen for their small size.

Needham's career shifted dramatically in 1943, when his government tapped him to establish a Sino-British cultural and scientific exchange behind the front lines of Japanese-occupied China. From Chongqing, a base in the interior to which the Nationalist government had fled, Needham provided struggling Chinese scientists with laboratory equipment and textbooks while pursuing his research on Chinese inventions.

Needham's notable side trips included one to the Dunhuang caves in Western China, where the woodblock Diamond Sutra (868 A.D.), the world's first printed book, had been discovered. Along the way, he stopped at Dujiangyan, the great diversion dam project, built around 250 B.C., which was recently in the news because it lies near the epicenter of the horrific Sichuan earthquake. (Miraculously, it seems to have survived.) Needham's journey to southeastern Fujian province was cut short when the Japanese moved in, bombing bridges as he fled back to Chongqing. His intellectual curiosity and energy turned every hair's-breadth wartime escape into an opportunity to gather the materials that would inform his life's work. He kept impeccable notes and shipped out antique manuscripts by the crate.

On his return to Cambridge in 1948 after two years at UNESCO, Needham began cataloguing and writing up his findings. When Science and Civilization in China started to appear in 1954, it was intended to fill two volumes. But the project expanded -- first to the consternation, later to the pride of Cambridge University Press -- to reach 18 volumes by his death in 1995. It continues to grow today as his collaborators complete work on topics such as ceramics and metallurgy.

The volumes, some of which were co-authored with Lu Gwei-djen and other Chinese researchers, cover mechanical engineering, paper and printing, alchemy, chemistry and military technology. The classic Civil Engineering and Nautics details inventions designed to harness nature; the Chinese were masters at building bridges, walls, canals and boats, and also designed "anchors, moorings, dock and lights, towing and tracking, caulking, hull-sheathing and pumps, diving and pearling, the ram, armor plating, grappling irons, and the tactics of firing naval projectiles." Other Chinese innovations of interest to Needham ranged from wheelbarrows to fishing reels, "the umbrella, the spinning wheel, the kite . . . playing cards, tuned drums, fine porcelain, perfumed toilet paper, the game of chess."

During the McCarthy years, the staunchly pro-communist Needham was barred from the United States and shunned in England, in part because he supported charges that U.S. forces had dropped plague-infested rodents on northeast China during the Korean War. As head of an investigative commission of international scientists, he interviewed Chinese people who reported outbreaks of vermin and disease, which convinced him of a biological warfare campaign. Winchester reports that Needham was hoodwinked. If, however, Needham was correct, that puts a different slant on his disgrace, which in any event was temporary. As the political climate shifted and his books collected accolades, he was made master of Caius College at Cambridge, where he enjoyed decades of honors and respect. Two years after his wife's death at 92 from Alzheimer's, he married Lu Gwei-djen in a union of elderly soul mates; she passed away shortly thereafter.

Despite Winchester's extraordinary narrative skills, he gets some details wrong. The assertion that China became "more stable" after the Japanese defeat in 1945 is a surprising clunker given his masterful depiction of war-torn China. (A footnote mentions the civil war between Nationalists and Communists.) More troubling is the depiction of the Yangtze River as the only unchanged feature of modern Chongqing. As the author of an excellent book on the Yangtze, Winchester should have known better than to ignore the devastating changes wrought by the Three Gorges Dam, which has profoundly altered the flow of that great river.

The importance of Needham's work lies not only in the mega-projects for which China is most famous but also in the small-scale technologies that he lovingly detailed. If China follows the model of the industrialized West (and if we ourselves persist on our current path), the exploitation of fossil fuels, minerals, forests and other resources may push the Earth past the tipping point. In retelling Needham's story, Winchester focuses on the inventiveness of the Chinese people, whose creativity once surpassed that of all other civilizations. If this resourcefulness can be renewed and harnessed in the service of sustainability, then perhaps there is hope not only for China but for the planet.


Copyright 2008, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine
With The Man Who Loved China, Simon Winchester turns out another compelling, readable, and relevant tale. Any good storyteller will embellish his subject, and Winchester effortlessly keeps readers interested in Needham’s adventuresâ€"even when they flag a bit. For the most part, though, Needham’s life is one that relatively few readers will knowâ€"and one that Winchester brings to life with a passel of research and an ever-present sense of wonder for his unique subject. Despite some errors and repetition, the book is also a good starting point for any reader who seeks another path to understanding the roots of Chinese civilization.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

Product Description

In sumptuous and illuminating detail, Simon Winchester, the bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman ("Elegant and scrupulous"—New York Times Book Review) and Krakatoa ("A mesmerizing page-turner"—Time) brings to life the extraordinary story of Joseph Needham, the brilliant Cambridge scientist who unlocked the most closely held secrets of China, long the world's most technologically advanced country.

No cloistered don, this tall, married Englishman was a freethinking intellectual, who practiced nudism and was devoted to a quirky brand of folk dancing. In 1937, while working as a biochemist at Cambridge University, he instantly fell in love with a visiting Chinese student, with whom he began a lifelong affair.

He soon became fascinated with China, and his mistress swiftly persuaded the ever-enthusiastic Needham to travel to her home country, where he embarked on a series of extraordinary expeditions to the farthest frontiers of this ancient empire. He searched everywhere for evidence to bolster his conviction that the Chinese were responsible for hundreds of mankind's most familiar innovations—including printing, the compass, explosives, suspension bridges, even toilet paper—often centuries before the rest of the world. His thrilling and dangerous journeys, vividly recreated by Winchester, took him across war-torn China to far-flung outposts, consolidating his deep admiration for the Chinese people.

After the war, Needham was determined to tell the world what he had discovered, and began writing his majestic Science and Civilisation in China, describing the country's long and astonishing history of invention and technology. By the time he died, he had produced, essentially single-handedly, seventeen immense volumes, marking him as the greatest one-man encyclopedist ever.

Both epic and intimate, The Man Who Loved China tells the sweeping story of China through Needham's remarkable life. Here is an unforgettable tale of what makes men, nations, and, indeed, mankind itself great—related by one of the world's inimitable storytellers.


About the Author

Simon Winchester's many books include The Professor and the Madman, The Map That Changed the World, Krakatoa, and A Crack in the Edge of the World. Each of these has been a New York Times bestseller and has appeared on numerous best and notable lists. Mr. Winchester was made Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by HM The Queen in 2006. He lives in western Massachusetts.