Root Science

In this part heart-rending memoir, part expose of fundamentalist Islamic terrorism, finance expert Janet Tavakoli bears witness to the incompatibility of Western values and fundamentalist Islam. >In 1978, Janet Tavakoli moved to Tehran with her Iranian husband and witnessed the overthrow of the progressive Shah and the birth of the fundamentalist Islamic Republic of Iran.

Geneva Fielding is a researcher in the Archives of the Applied History department, prepping time travelers for their destinations. She loves the smell of old paper and chocolate croissants. One day, a Traveler fails an important test and cannot go. Instead of canceling the Trip, the dean appoints Geneva and her friend Peter Donatelli, a physicist, to take his place. They have three days to prepare to Travel to 1630s New England.

Roslyn is still healing from her losses of the past couple of months, and is finally accepting what her ancestors and the gods have in store for her: being Queen of Jay'Al. There is much to be done though, from dealing with werewolves and the Tribes of the Archipelago, to bringing the orcs into the Clans. Things get more complicated though when Roslyn learns of trouble back home, and more earthquakes bring forth even more mysteries to be solved.

Sex. Drugs. Loud music. Wild costumes. Dazzling light shows. These words can all describe a great rock concert or a hot dance club, but they were also part and parcel of the ancient cultural phenomenon known as the "Mystery religions". In this book, author Christopher Knowles shows how the long-dead Mystery religions got a secular reincarnation when a new musical form called rock 'n' roll burst onto the scene.

A dying goddess. A fractured prophecy. A magicless elf who shouldn’t exist. Elliah grew up in hiding, her mother’s whispered warnings of treachery and death trailing her every step. A single misstep draws the attention of those who fear what her survival heralds. Her escape rests in the hands of a dragon-hunted warrior blinded by faith. The truth of her existence is a weapon, foretold yet unfulfilled.

After the harrowing events of The Acrid Sky, Anika Lawson flees from her grief, burdened by a prophecy she doesn’t yet fully understand. With no sense of belonging, her newfound powers carry her into the heart of Karrane, where the truth of her birth hides within the intricate web of a foreign kingdom’s politics. Anika must navigate a dark, winding path to uncover her true heritage. Meanwhile, her brother Gage battles the encroaching Shadow, a darkness eager to fill the void left by a brutal assassination attempt by the Light.

As the people of Azela morn the loss of another king, the heirs of the ten kingdoms are thrust into the harsh light of leadership without warning. They must now unify their nations and their forces to drive the mysterious conquerors out of their land. Several of the young rulers are already at war or enslaved as they take over, requiring a devious plan to escape.

The Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education is widely considered a seminal point in the battle to end segregation, but it was in fact the culmination of a decades-long legal campaign. Root and Branch is the epic story of the two fiercely dedicated lawyers who led the fight from county courthouses to the marble halls of the Supreme Court, and, in the process, laid the legal foundations of the civil rights movement.

Roslyn never wanted to be a princess, but when the King and his family die during a sickness her father is crowned king. Roslyn is the bastard daughter of the king and she was very different from the other young noblewomen: she was trained to be a warrior as well as a mage. Unsure of where she belongs, Roslyn embarks on a quest across the ocean to the lands of her mother, a continent that had been cut off from them for the last eighteen years. There she will not only discover who she truly is, but her ancestors have a plan for her as well.

The world of Pagalan is one of mystery and warfare, where conflict ravages the land, gradually swallowing up peaceful societies. Morganuke and his friends are drawn into dangerous and radical life-changing quests to protect their way of life and those they love. They are taken far away from their homelands to find Morganuke’s mysterious origins in a bid to stop their world crumbling into chaos. As the mysteries of a secret and strange civilization unfold in their quest to right the world, the challenges faced in finding a successful outcome become more acute.

Quinn Robbins has just returned from spending ten days in Eirentheos, a world she had never known existed. Trying to settle back into her familiar life and establish a relationship with her new boyfriend, Zander, is more of a challenge than she ever dreamed it would be. Things are just beginning to feel normal again when Thomas shows up in her world, and invites her back to Eirentheos for a royal wedding. She's excited at the chance to reconnect with the people and places she had begun to fall in love with.

Drayton can’t leave the Lowcountry. He once believed he was a vampire when he terrorized villages and slaughtered for blood. Now he absorbs essence from the dying’s final breath and rarely stays in one place. He has been in the Lowcountry far too long. Everything is about to change. After witnessing an elderly man’s death, Drayton vows to protect his wife. He assumes the job of her gardener in Charleston’s historic district. But when a young woman named Amber enters the garden, he soon questions who he is protecting. And from whom.

Ewan Forbes was born to a wealthy, landowning family, holders of a baronetcy, in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, in 1912. Assigned female at birth, his true identity was nevertheless clear even in childhood - and so, with the support of his mother, he was taken to European specialists and eventually treated with early preparations of synthetic testosterone. Socially obliged to present himself as a girl in public until his official coming out to the Queen, Ewan lived a quiet life as a husband, doctor, and a pillar of the local community.

Cordelia Beecher is on the run. In search of her missing brother Edward, she has fled the oppressive charity school she was raised in, desperate to find the only family she knows. Using clues from his past letters, she sets off for the sleepy town of Farrow but everyone there claims to have never heard of Edward—not even the man he was supposedly working for as an apprentice.

In the third installment of The Daughters of Dark Root series, Maggie's life is endangered by a malicious curse. Her only chance at saving herself and the life of her unborn child is to reveal the memories kept within a set of crystal globes. They alone hold the key to Dark Root’s secret past, and who she really is. This is a stand alone novel and should be listened to after The Witches of Dark Root and The Magick of Dark Root.

In the second installment of The Daughters of Dark Root series, Maggie Maddock and her sisters are back, training under their coven-leading mother Miss Sasha Shantay to take over as the new leaders of The Council. But life isn’t as smooth as Maggie had hoped it would be. Harvest Home’s taxes have come due, and her mother’s illness has returned, stronger than ever. Desperate, Maggie and Eve devise a scheme to make money through witchcraft. And that’s when things go terribly wrong.

When free-spirited Merisande flees into a cursed wood to avoid an unwanted marriage to Sir Avry, she finds herself in a hidden kingdom full of winged people who keep human slaves. Her betrothed follows her there, and they are both captured and enslaved.

In the last five years, eight states have legalized recreational marijuana. To many, continued progress seems certain. But pot was on a similar trajectory 40 years ago, only to encounter a fierce backlash. In Grass Roots, historian Emily Dufton tells the remarkable story of marijuana's crooked path from acceptance to demonization and back again and of the thousands of grassroots activists who made changing marijuana laws their life's work.

Is privilege real or imagined? It's clear that issues of race and equality have come to the forefront in our nation's consciousness. Every week yet another incident involving racial tension splashes across headlines and dominates our news feeds. But it's not easy to unpack the origins of these tensions, and perhaps we wonder whether any of these issues really has anything to do with us. Ken Wytsma, founder of The Justice Conference, understands these questions.

In the tradition of Daniel Boorstin, the co-founder of Omni delivers an original work of history that demonstrates why modern science rests on a foundation built by ancient and medieval non-European societies. "If you think that modern science is rooted in the golden age of Greece, you owe it to yourself to [hear this] book," says Library Journal.