Showing results by narrator "Bruce Mann"

Visionary physicist Geoffrey West is a pioneer in the field of complexity science, the science of emergent systems and networks. The term complexity can be misleading, however, because what makes West's discoveries so beautiful is that he has found an underlying simplicity that unites the seemingly complex and diverse phenomena of living systems, including our bodies, our cities, and our businesses.

On the alien, sunless planet they call Eden, the 532 members of the Family shelter beneath the light and warmth of the Forest's lantern trees. Beyond the Forest lie the mountains of the Snowy Dark and a cold so bitter and a night so profound that no man has ever crossed it. The Oldest among the Family recount legends of a world where light came from the sky, where men and women made boats that could cross the stars. These ships brought us here, the Oldest say - and the Family must only wait for the travelers to return.

Before Miss Peregrine gave them a home, the story of peculiars was written in the Tales. Wealthy cannibals who dine on the discarded limbs of peculiars. A fork-tongued princess. These are but a few of the truly brilliant stories in Tales of the Peculiar - the collection of fairy tales known to hide information about the peculiar world, including clues to the locations of time loops - first introduced by Ransom Riggs in his number-one best-selling Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children series.

Commissioned by the Amsterdam Surgeons’ Guild, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp was the first major Rembrandt work to catapult the young painter to international fame. Taking this painting as its inspiration, Nina Siegal’s novel The Anatomy Lesson opens on the morning of the medical dissection and follows several characters as they prepare for the evening’s big event:

All work and no play makes Jack extremely bored. And when Jack gets bored, he makes mischief. It’s not that he’s bad; he just longs for adventure - and there's nothing adventurous about toiling day and night to grow yucky green stuff. Adventure finally arrives one day in the form of giants, and soon Jack is chasing them to a land beyond the clouds, with his little sister, Annabella, in tow.

While on vacation with their parents, Matthew Homes and his older brother snuck out in the middle of the night. Only Matthew came home safely. Ten years later, Matthew tells us, he has found a way to bring his brother back... What begins as the story of a lost boy turns into a story of a brave man yearning to understand what happened that night, in the years since, and to his very person.

Civilization has come to the alien, sunless planet its inhabitants call Eden. Just a few generations ago, the planet's 500 inhabitants huddled together in the light and warmth of the Forest's lantern trees, afraid to venture out into the cold darkness around them.

It's 1242. On a dark night, travelers from across France cross paths at an inn and begin to tell stories of three children: William, an oblate on a mission from his monastery; Jacob, a Jewish boy who has fled his burning village; and Jeanne, a peasant girl who hides her prophetic visions. They are accompanied by Jeanne's loyal greyhound, Gwenforte...recently brought back from the dead.

Leif Erikson was born to be an explorer. His father, Erik the Red, had established the first European settlement in present-day Greenland, and although he didn't yet know it, Leif was destined to embark on an adventure of his own. The wise and striking Viking landed in the area known as Vinland almost five centuries before Christopher Columbus even set sail! "Leif the Lucky" and the other fierce, sea-fearing pirates were accomplished navigators who raided foreign lands for resources, hunted for their food, and passed down Old Norse myths from one generation to the next.

Seventeen-year-old Nedra Brysstain leaves her home in the rural, northern territories of Lunar Island to attend the prestigious Yugen Academy with only one goal in mind: master the trade of medicinal alchemy. Nedra doesn't quite fit in with the other kids at Yugen. Until she meets Greggori "Grey" Astor. Grey is immediately taken by the brilliant and stubborn Nedra, who he notices is especially invested in her studies. And that's for a good reason: A deadly plague has been sweeping through the north, and it's making its way toward the cities, and Nedra is determined to find a cure.

In these lively and fascinating essays, scientists from around the world weigh in on the latest advances in the search for intelligent life in the universe and discuss just what that might look like. Since 2000, science has seen a surge in data and interest on several fronts related to ET (extraterrestrials); AI (artificial intelligence); and SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence). The debate has intensified over whether life exists outside our solar system, what that life would look like, and whether we'll ever make contact.

Three years after the storming of the Bastille, the streets of Paris are roiling with the spirit of revolution. The citizens of France are enlivened by the ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity. The monarchy of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette has been dismantled - with the help of the guillotine - and a new nation is rising in its place. Jean-Luc, an idealistic young lawyer, moves his wife, Marie, and their infant son from their comfortable life in Marseille to Paris in the hopes of joining the cause.

What William Gibson did for science fiction, China Miéville has done for fantasy, shattering old paradigms with fiercely imaginative works of startling, often shocking, intensity. Now from this brilliant writer comes a groundbreaking collection of stories, many of them previously unavailable in the United States, and including four never-before-published tales - one set in Miéville’s signature fantasy world of New Crobuzon.

Brodick McJames is an earl in name only. To secure his clan's future he needs an English wife. Mary Stanford, daughter of the Earl of Warwickshire, will suit perfectly. He's never met her, but what matter? She'll grace his bed eventually, and once she bears his child he need see her no more.Anne Copper looks just like her noble half-sister, but she was born illegitimate, and can never forget it. The best she can hope for is to stay a serving girl in her own father's house.

Laird Keir McQuade is a newcomer to his title, and has much work before him to restore the McQuade honor. Finding a wife is an excellent start. He's duty-bound to go to court and swear homage to his king anyway, a perfect opportunity - were not court women trussed in stupid fashions and corrupted with false mannerisms. Of course, not every lady hides behind a powdered face...

Cullen McJames will not have his honor sullied, certainly not by his clan's nemesis Laird Erik McQuade. So when McQuade tells the Court of Scotland that Cullen has stolen his daughter's virtue, Cullen steals the daughter instead. Since his brother wed a fetching lass, Cullen's been thinking he, too, needs a wife. A marriage could end the constant war between the clans. And looking on Bronwyn McQuade but once has put her in his dreams for a week.... But Bronwyn won't go quietly.

London awakes one morning to find itself besieged by a sky full of floating icebergs. Destroyed oil rigs, mysteriously reborn, clamber from the sea and onto the land, driven by an obscure but violent purpose. An anatomy student cuts open a cadaver to discover impossibly intricate designs carved into a corpse's bones - designs clearly present from birth, bearing mute testimony to...what? Of such concepts and unforgettable images are made the 28 stories in this collection - many published here for the first time.

Why Shakespeare? What explains our continued fascination with his poems and plays? In Living with Shakespeare, Susannah Carson invites 40 actors, directors, scholars, and writers to reflect on why his work is still such a vital part of our culture.

Following the execution of the king in 1649, the new Commonwealth and then Oliver Cromwell set out to drive forward a puritan reformation of manners. They wanted to reform the church and its services, enforce the Sabbath, suppress Christmas, and spread the gospel. They sought to impose a stern moral discipline to regulate and reform sexual behaviour, drinking practices, language, dress, and leisure activities ranging from music and plays to football.

Meet Ash Mistry: eighth grader, pretty good video gamer, guy with a massive crush on the beautiful Gemma... Oh, and the Eternal Warrior of the death goddess Kali. Just when Ash has settled back into his everyday London life, his friend Parvati arrives with a mission: The evil Lord Alexander Savage is plotting to steal the Koh-I-Noor diamond from England's crown jewels. Ash and Parvati manage to intercept it, but at a terrible price - Gemma's death. Outcast and heartbroken, Ash returns with Parvati to India, where he meets up with old friends and develops new powers. But he's haunted by Gemma....