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Drawn from the cutting-edge frontiers of science, This Explains Everything will revolutionize your understanding of the world.What is your favorite deep, elegant, or beautiful explanation? This is the question John Brockman, publisher of Edge.org ("The world's smartest website"—The Guardian), posed to the world's most influential minds. Flowing from the horizons of physics, economics, psychology, neuroscience, and more, This Explains Everything presents 150 of the most surprising and brilliant theories of the way of our minds, societies, and universe work.Jared Diamond on biological electricity • Nassim Nicholas Taleb on positive stress • Steven Pinker on the deep genetic roots of human conflict • Richard Dawkins on pattern recognition • Nobel Prize-winning physicist Frank Wilczek on simplicity • Lisa Randall on the Higgs mechanism • BRIAN Eno on the limits of intuition • Richard Thaler on the power of commitment • V. S. Ramachandran on the "neural code" of consciousness • Nobel Prize winner ERIC KANDEL on the power of psychotherapy • Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on "Lord Acton's Dictum" • Lawrence M. Krauss on the unification of electricity and magnetism • plus contributions by Martin J. Rees • Kevin Kelly • Clay Shirky • Daniel C. Dennett • Sherry Turkle • Philip Zimbardo • Lee Smolin • Rebecca Newberger Goldstein • Seth Lloyd • Stewart Brand • George Dyson • Matt Ridley

One of The Atlantic's Great American Novels"One of the greats. . . . Not just a science fiction writer; a literary icon." --Stephen King"Engrossing. . . . [Le Guin] is a philosopher; an explorer in the landscape of the mind." --Cincinnati EnquirerUrsula K. Le Guin's award-winning classic--a profound and thoughtful tale of anarchism and capitalism, individualism and collectivism, and one ambitious man's quest to bridge the ideological chasm separating two worldsA bleak moon settled by utopian anarchists, Anarres has long been isolated from other worlds, including its mother planet, Urras--a civilization of warring nations, great poverty, and immense wealth. Now Shevek, a brilliant physicist, is determined to reunite the two planets, which have been divided by centuries of distrust. He will seek answers, question the unquestionable, and attempt to tear down the walls of hatred that have kept them apart.To visit Urras--to learn, to teach, to share--will require great sacrifice and risks, which Shevek willingly accepts. But the ambitious scientist's gift is soon seen as a threat, and in the profound conflict that ensues, he must reexamine his beliefs even as he ignites the fires of change.

From a member of Parliament and best-selling author of The Places in Between, an exploration of the Marches--the borderland between England and Scotland--and the political turmoil and vivid lives that created it.In The Places in Between, Rory Stewart walked some of the most dangerous borderlands in the world. Now he travels with his eighty-nine-year-old father--a comical, wily, courageous, and infuriating former British intelligence officer--along the border they call home.On Stewart's four-hundred-mile walk across a magnificent natural landscape, he sleeps on mountain ridges and in housing projects, in hostels and farmhouses. With every fresh encounter--from an Afghanistan veteran based on Hadrian's Wall to a shepherd who still counts his flock in sixth-century words--Stewart uncovers more about the forgotten peoples and languages of a vanished country, now crushed between England and Scotland.Stewart and his father are drawn into unsettling reflections on landscape, their parallel careers in the bygone British Empire and Iraq, and the past, present, and uncertain future of the United Kingdom. This is a profound reflection on family, landscape, and history by a powerful and original writer.“An unforgettable tale.¿ -- National Geographic¿The miracle of The Marches is not so much the treks Stewart describes, pulling in all possible relevant history, as the monument that emerges to his beloved father.¿ -- New York Times Book Review

A literary exploration that asks seeks to answer the question: Have I lived the life I intended?Jesse Browner, a novelist with a full-time job at the United Nations, has written a book reminiscent of the Talking Heads classic song "Once in a Lifetime." Based on an essay he wrote for Poets and Writers Magazine, Browner asks hard questions about life choices, about the tendency to believe there is a parallel life that might have been more fulfilling or more free. He wonders: Is the true artist made by single-minded devotion to his craft? Do we compromise our dreams in service to responsibilities to family and jobs?These questions prompted Browner to take a hard look at himself and the evolution that brought him to this moment of existential doubt. In How Did I Get Here? he divides his adult life into five distinct phases--ambition, love, work, fulfillment, and serenity. Sketching portraits of himself at every stage, he looks for idiosyncrasies, commonalities, and clues--signposts that lead him to today. He also draws on the lives of others, from Franz Kafka to his sister to indie rocker Elliott Smith, in search of understanding. What he finds in his courageous quest is bravely honest and inspiring, touching on what it means to live a life with intention and meaning.

For centuries, people around the world have prayed for good luck and warded against bad. Every language features a good luck greeting. Sailors have long looked for an albatross on the horizon as an auspicious symbol. Jade, clovers, rabbits’ feet, wishbones: these items have lined the pockets of those seeking good fortune. For some, it’s bad luck to walk under a ladder, to enter and leave a home through different doors, or to say “Macbeth” in a theatre. But is there such a thing as luck, or does luck often simply explain common sense? Don’t walk under a ladder because, well, that’s just dangerous. You won the lottery not because of any supernatural force but because a random number generator selected the same numbers that you picked out at the corner store. You run into a neighbour from your street on the other side of the world: chance or pure fate? (Or does it depend on how much you like your neighbour?)Jeffrey S. Rosenthal, author of the bestseller Struck by Lightning: The Curious World of Probabilities, was born on a Friday the Thirteenth, a fact that he discovered long after he had become one of the world’s preeminent statisticians. Had he been living ignorantly and innocently under an unlucky cloud for all those years? Or is thirteen just another number? As a scientist and a man of reason, Rosenthal has long considered the value of luck, good and bad, seeking to measure chance and hope in formulas scratched out on chalkboards. In Knock on Wood, Rosenthal, with great humour and irreverence, divines the world of luck, fate, and chance, putting his considerable scientific acumen to the test in deducing whether luck is real or the mere stuff of superstition.

The Marbled Swarm is Dennis Cooper’s most haunting work to date. In secret passageways, hidden rooms, and the troubled mind of our narrator, a mystery perpetually takes shape—and the most compelling clue to its final nature is “the marbled swarm” itself, a complex amalgam of language passed down from father to son.Cooper ensnares the reader in a world of appearances, where the trappings of high art, old money, and haute cuisine obscure an unspeakable system of coercion and surrender. And as the narrator stalks an elusive truth, traveling from the French countryside to Paris and back again, the reader will be seduced by a voice only Dennis Cooper could create.

In this electric and provocative debut novel, Amber Tamblyn blends genres of poetry and prose with elements of suspense to give shape to the shocking narratives of victims of sexual violence, and maps the destructive ways in which society perpetuates rape culture.A violent serial rapist, who goes by the name Maude, is on the loose. She hunts for men at bars and online—the place doesn’t matter, neither does the man. Her victims then must grapple with the aftermath of their assault—doubts from the police, feelings of shame and alienation from their friends and family, and the haunting of a horrible woman who becomes the phantom on which society pro-jects its greatest fears, fascinations, and even misogyny. All the while, the police are without leads, and the media hounds the victims, publicly dissecting the details of their attack.As the years pass, these men learn to heal by banding together and finding a space to raise their voices. Told in alternating viewpoints, signature to each voice and experience of the victim, these pages crackle with emotion ranging from horror to breathtaking empathy.As bold as it is timely, Any Man is a tribute to those who have lived through the nightmare of sexual assault and asserts how the power of speaking out can change not only the life of survivors, but so too the world around them.

In this eye-opening, authoritative biography, Adam Begley offers a captivating portrait of John Updike, the author who saw himself as a literary spy in small-town and suburban America, and who dedicated himself to the task of transcribing "middleness with all its grits, bumps, and anonymities." Updike explores the stages of the writer's pilgrim's progress: his beloved home turf of Berks County, Pennsylvania; his escape to Harvard; his brief, busy working life as the golden boy at The New Yorker; his family years in suburban Ipswich, Massachusetts; his extensive travel abroad; and his retreat to another Massachusetts town, Beverly Farms, where he remained until his death in 2009. Begley examines how Updike's fiction was shaped by his tumultuous personal life—including his enduring religious faith, his two marriages, and his firsthand experience of the "adulterous society" he was credited with exposing in the bestselling novel Couples. With a sharp critical sensibility, Begley probes Updike's best-loved works and reveals a surprising and deeply complex character fraught with contradictions: a kind man with a vicious wit, a gregarious charmer who was ruthlessly competitive, a private person compelled to spill his secrets on the printed page.Candid, intimate, and utterly absorbing, Updike is a masterful biography of a national treasure whose writing continues to resonate like no one else's.

America's greatest idea factory isn't Bell Labs, Silicon Valley, or MIT's Media Lab. It's the secretive, Pentagon-led agency known as DARPA. Founded by Eisenhower in response to Sputnik and the Soviet space program, DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) mixes military officers with sneaker-wearing scientists, seeking paradigm-shifting ideas in varied fields—from energy, robotics, and rockets to doctorless operating rooms, driverless cars, and planes that can fly halfway around the world in just a few hours. Michael Belfiore was given unpre-cedented access to write this first-ever popular account of DARPA. The Department of Mad Scientists contains material that has barely been reported in the general media—in fact, only 2 percent of Americans know much of anything about the agency. But as this fascinating read demonstrates, DARPA isn't so much frightening as it is inspiring—it is our future.

"Crazy Heart just might be the finest country-western novel ever written, bar none." -- Houston Post"A masterpiece. . . . Cobb has created an unforgettable character who engages not only your interest but your emotion . . . and who proceeds to take you on a roller-coaster ride through his tawdrily tumultuous life." -- Chicago TribuneThomas Cobb's riveting novel tells the unforgettable story of a former country music star hoping to take one last shot at a better life.At the age of fifty-seven--living a life riddled with ex-wives, one night stands, and daily diet of Jack Daniels--Bad Blake is on his last legs. His ticker, his liver, even his pick-up truck are all giving him trouble. A renowned songwriter and "picker" who hasn't recorded in five years, Bad now travels the countryside on gigs that take him mostly to motels and bowling alleys. Enter Jean Craddock, a young journalist sent to interview him after a beautiful concert, and a tentative romance blooms. Can Bad stop living the life of a country-western song and tie a rope around his crazy heart?

"Pearlman's book develops a stark, unsparing picture of Clemens's life that surpasses anything that's come before." --Boston GlobeNew York Times bestselling author Jeff Pearlman reconstructs pitcher Roger Clemens's life--from his Ohio childhood to the mounds of Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium--to reveal a flawed and troubled man whose rage for baseball immortality took him to superhuman heights before he crashed down to earth.A fearless, hard-nosed Texan with a 98-mph fastball and a propensity to throw at the heads of opposing hitters, Roger "the Rocket" Clemens won 354 games, an unprecedented seven Cy Young Awards, and two World Series trophies over the course of twenty-four seasons. But the statistics and hoopla obscured a far darker story--one of playoff chokes, womanizing (including a long-term affair with a teenage country singer), violent explosions, steroid and human growth hormone use. . . and an especially dark secret that Clemens spent a lifetime trying to hide: a family tragedy involving drugs and, ultimately, death.

In the heart of a civil war–torn African nation, primate researcher Hope Clearwater made a shocking discovery about apes and man. . . .Young, alone, and far from her family in Britain, Hope Clearwater contemplates the extraordinary events that left her washed up like driftwood on Brazzaville Beach. It is here, on the distant, lonely outskirts of Africa, where she must come to terms with the perplexing and troubling circumstances of her recent past. For Hope is a survivor of the devastating cruelties of apes and humans alike. And to move forward, she must first grasp some hard and elusive truths: about marriage and madness, about the greed and savagery of charlatan science, and about what compels seemingly benign creatures to kill for pleasure alone.

"If one had to identify the single most influential shaping force in modern Black literary history, one would probably have to point to Wright and the publication of Native Son." --Henry Louis Gates Jr.Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it was for murder and rape. Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic.Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Richard Wright's powerful novel is an unsparing reflection on the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in inner cities across the country and of what it means to be black in America.This beautifully designed Harper Perennial Deluxe Edition--the restored text of Native Son established by the Library of America--also includes an essay by Wright titled, How "Bigger" was Born, along with notes on the text.

Childhood best friends Bassam and George have grown to be men in war-ravaged Beirut. Now they must choose between the only two futures available to them: to stay in the devastated city and consolidate power through crime or to go into exile abroad, alienated from the only existence they have ever known. Told in a distinctive, captivating voice that fuses vivid cinematic imagery, a page-turning plot, and exquisite, dark poetry, De Niro's Game is an explosive portrait of life in a war zone and a powerful meditation on what comes after. It won the prestigious International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2008.

The follow-up to her million-copy bestseller The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands, Dr. Laura focuses on both partners in the relationship and reveals how to bring marriage back from the brink of disaster.Jumping off her million-copy bestseller The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands, Dr. Laura now exposes the sensitive and loving truth in appreciating the polarity between masculine and feminine in order to produce and sustain a wonderfully satisfying marriage. Both husband and wife have power in the relationship, and each needs to realize this in order to ensure personal satisfaction. Using real-life examples and solutions from her call-in radio show, Dr. Laura focuses on the typical mistakes made by men and women in their relationships, and shows how marriages can come back from the brink of disaster and divorce.

It's no secret that parents want their children to have the lifelong cultural and intellectual advantages that come from being bilingual. Parents spend millions of dollars every year on classes, computer programs, and toys, all of which promise to help children learn a second language. But many of their best efforts (and investments) end in disappointment.In The Bilingual Edge, professors and parents King and Mackey wade through the hype and provide clear insights into what actually works. No matter what your language background is--whether you never passed Spanish in high school or you speak Mandarin fluently--King and Mackey will help you: select the language that will give your child the most benefitsfind materials and programs that will assist your child in achieving fluencyidentify and use your family's unique traits to maximize learningFancy private schools and expensive materials aren't needed. Instead, The Bilingual Edge translates the latest research into interactive strategies and quick tips that even the busiest parents can use.

"If courage is the antidote to pain and grief, the disease and the cure are both in this book. . . . A story of great unselfishness and great heroism." --New York TimesJohnny Gunther was only seventeen years old when he died of a brain tumor. During the months of his illness, everyone near him was unforgettably impressed by his level-headed courage, his wit and quiet friendliness, and, above all, his unfaltering patience through times of despair. This deeply moving book is a father's memoir of a brave, intelligent, and spirited boy.

In a memoir of staggering power and candour, award-winning journalist Fergal Keane addresses his experience of wars of different kinds, some very public and others acutely personal. During his years of reporting from the world's most savage and turbulent regions, Fergal Keane has witnessed the violence of the South African townships and the terror in Rwanda, the most extreme kinds of human behaviour, the horror of genocide and the bravery of peacekeepers faced with overwhelming odds. As one of the BBC's leading correspondents, he recounts extraordinary encounters on the front lines. Alongside his often brutal experiences in the field, he also describes unflinchingly the challenges and demons he has faced in his personal life growing up in Ireland. Keane's existence as a war reporter is all that we imagine: frantic filing of reports and dodging shells, interspersed with rest in bombed-out hotels and concrete shelters. Life in such vulnerable areas of the globe is emotionally draining, but full of astonishing moments of camaraderie and human bravery. And so this is also a memoir of the human connections, at once simple and complex, that are made in extreme circumstances. These pages are filled with the memories of remarkable people. At the heart of Fergal Keane's story is a descent into and recovery from alcoholism, spanning two generations, father and son; a different kind of war, but as much part of the journey of the last twenty-five years as the bullets and bombs.

The masterpiece of Britain's leading Renaissance scholar. Winner of the Time-Life Silver Pen Award and The Royal Society of Literature Award. 'A superb evocation of the Europe of the ?long 16th-century?, wonderfully fresh and rich in its copious illustrative detail, full of innumerable delights. The book is the summation of John Hale's career as a historian, and as the crowning achievement of a master-designer whose richly fabricated works have given so much pleasure.' John Elliot, Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford. 'The Civilisation of Europe in the Renaissance' is the most ambitious achievement of Britain's leading Renaissance historian. John Hale has painted on a grand canvas an enthralling portrait of Europe and its civilisation at a moment when 'Europe' first became an entity in the minds of its inhabitants. John Hale's Renaissance has no compartments. With astonishing range and subtlety of learning, he paints a gigantic picture of the age, enlivened by a multiplicity of themes, people and ideas. It contains memorable descriptions of painting, sculpture, poetry, architecture and music, but Hale is not simply concerned with the arts. He examines the dramatic changes during the period in religion, politics, economics and global discoveries. And throughout his book approaches the art of war and the art created for princes from the point of view of their impact on the imaginations, sensibilities and lives of ordinary people.

The rivalry between the brilliant seventeenth-century Italian architects Gianlorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini is the stuff of legend. Enormously talented and ambitious artists, they met as contemporaries in the building yards of St. Peter's in Rome, became the greatest architects of their era by designing some of the most beautiful buildings in the world, and ended their lives as bitter enemies. Engrossing and impeccably researched, full of dramatic tension and breathtaking insight, The Genius in the Design is the remarkable tale of how two extraordinary visionaries schemed and maneuvered to get the better of each other and, in the process, created the spectacular Roman cityscape of today.

"Made up of poems that are so original in their style and so startlingly accomplished in their confessional voice that they helped change the direction of contemporary poetry, Ariel is a masterpiece." -- New York ObserverSylvia Plath's famous collection, as she intended it.When Sylvia Plath died, she not only left behind a prolific life but also her unpublished literary masterpiece, Ariel. When her husband, Ted Hughes, first brought this collection to the public, it garnered worldwide acclaim, but it wasn't the draft Sylvia had wanted her readers to see. This facsimile edition restores, for the first time, Plath's original manuscript--including handwritten notes--and her own selection and arrangement of poems. This edition also includes in facsimile the complete working drafts of her poem "Ariel," which provide a rare glimpse into the creative process of a beloved writer. This publication introduces a truer version of Plath's works, and will alter her legacy forever.

From the bestselling author of 'The Queen's Conjuror', comes the story of Nicholas Culpeper ? legendary rebel, radical, Puritan, and author of the great 'Herbal'. This is a powerful history of medicine's first freedom fighter set in London during Britain's age of revolution. In the mid-17th century, England was visited by the four horsemen of the apocalypse: a civil war which saw levels of slaughter not matched until the Somme, famine in a succession of failed harvests that reduced peasants to 'anatomies', epidemics to rival the Black Death in their enormity, and infant mortality rates that left childless even women who had borne eight or nine children. In the midst of these terrible times came Nicholas Culpeper's 'Herbal' ? one of the most popular and enduring books ever published. Culpeper was a virtual outcast from birth. Rebelling against a tyrannical grandfather and the prospect of a life in the church, he abandoned his university education after a doomed attempt at elopement. Disinherited, he went to London, where he was to find his vocation in instigating revolution. London's medical regime was then in the grip of the College of Physicians, a powerful body personified in the 'immortal' William Harvey, anatomist, royal physician and discoverer of the circulation of the blood. Working in the underground world of religious sects, secret printing presses and unlicensed apothecary shops, Culpeper challenged this stronghold at the time it was reaching the very pinnacle of its power ? and in the process helped spark the revolution that toppled a monarchy. In a spellbinding narrative of impulse, romance and heroism, Benjamin Woolley vividly recreates these momentous struggles and the roots of today's hopes and fears about the power of medical science, professional institutions and government. 'The Herbalist' tells the story of a medical rebel who took on the authorities and paid the price.

In this follow-up to his international bestsellers Anam Cara and Eternal Echoes, John O'Donohue turns his attention to the subject of beauty--the divine beauty that calls the imagination and awakens all that is noble in the human heartBeauty is a gentle but urgent call to awaken. O'Donohue opens our eyes, hearts, and minds to the wonder of our own relationship with beauty by exposing the infinity and mystery of its breadth. His words return us to the dignity of silence, profundity of stillness, power of thought and perception, and the eternal grace and generosity of beauty's presence. In this masterful and revelatory work, O'Donohue encourages our greater intimacy with beauty and celebrates it for what it really is: a homecoming of the human spirit. As he focuses on the classical, medieval, and Celtic traditions of art, music, literature, nature, and language, O'Donohue reveals how beauty's invisible embrace invites us toward new heights of passion and creativity even in these uncertain times of global conflict and crisis.

'Irresistible...history at its most human. Elegant and addictively readable.' William Dalrymple During the course of the 18th- and 19th-century a small group of women rose from impoverished obscurity to positions of great power, independence and wealth. In doing so they took control of their lives ? and those of other people ? and made the world do their will. Men ruined themselves in desperate attempts to gain and retain a courtesan's favours, but she was always courted for far more than sex. In an age in which women were generally not well educated she was often unusually literate and literary, courted for her conversation as well as her physical company. Courtesans were extremely accomplished, and exerted a powerful influence as leaders of fashion and society. They were not received at Court, but inhabited their own parallel world ? the demi-monde ? complete with its own hierarchies, etiquette and protocol. They were queens of fashion, linguists, musicians, accomplished at political intrigue and, of course, possessors of great erotic gifts. Even to be seen in public with one of the great courtesans was a much-envied achievement. In 'Courtesans' Katie Hickman, author of the bestselling 'Daughters of Britannia', focuses on the exceptional stories of five outstanding women. Sophia Baddeley, Elizabeth Armistead, Harriette Wilson, Cora Pearl and Catherine Walters may have had very different personalities and talents, but their lives exemplify the dazzling existence of the courtesan.

Named "the direct heir to Patrick O'Brian" by The Economist, Bernard Cornwell is the undisputed master of historical battle fi ction, and for more than twenty years, his Richard Sharpe series has thrilled millions of readers worldwide on both the page and on television.Now author Mark Adkin, a major in the British army, has created this indispensable guide covering Sharpe's early career, from his beginnings as an illiterate private fighting on the battlefields of India to his legendary command of the Light Company.A treasure not only for fans of the series but also for anyone interested innineteenth-century warfare, The Sharpe Companion includes: A chapter devoted to each Sharpe bookGlossary of characters, both real and fictionalIllustrations and photographsMaps of every battle and skirmishFull of fascinating historical details, thrilling contemporary accounts of actual battles, and impeccable research, The Sharpe Companion is a must for every student of military history and an essential addition to every Sharpe fan's library.

"Kundera once more delivers a seductive, intelligent entertainment ... [with] elegance and grace." -- Washington Post Book World"Nothing short of masterful." -- NewsweekA brilliant novel set in contemporary Prague, by one of the most distinguished writers of our time.A man and a woman meet by chance while returning to their homeland, which they had abandoned 20 years earlier when they chose to become exiles. Will they manage to pick up the thread of their strange love story, interrupted almost as soon as it began and then lost in the tides of history? The truth is that after such a long absence "their memories no longer match." We always believe that our memories coincide with those of the person we loved, that we experienced the same thing. But this is just an illusion. Only those who return after 20 years, like Ulysses returning to his native Ithaca, can be dazzled and astounded by observing the goddess of ignorance first-hand.Kundera is the only author today who can take dizzying concepts such as absence, memory, forgetting, and ignorance, and transform them into material for a novel, masterfully orchestrating them into a polyphonic and moving work.

All loved, and were loved by, their artists, and inspired them with an intensity of emotion akin to Eros.In a brilliant, wry, and provocative book, National Book Award finalist Francine Prose explores the complex relationship between the artist and his muse. In so doing, she illuminates with great sensitivity and intelligence the elusive emotional wellsprings of the creative process.