In “Acceptance,” Emi Nietfeld pushes back against the American presumption that survival should depend on personal excellence.
In “Acceptance,” Emi Nietfeld pushes back against the American presumption that survival should depend on personal excellence.
Our critic recommends old and new books.
Author: Padilla, Antonio, 1975- author.
Published: 2022
Call Number: 530.15
Format: Books
Summary: "The leading theoretical physicist and YouTube star Tony Padilla uses nine of the most extraordinary numbers in physics to build a picture of our current best understanding of how the universe works"-- For particularly brilliant theoretical physicists like James Clerk Maxwell, Paul Dirac, or Albert Einstein, the search for mathematical truths led to strange new understandings of the ultimate nature of reality. But what are these truths? What are the mysterious numbers that explain the universe? In Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them, the leading theoretical physicist and YouTube star Antonio Padilla takes us on an irreverent cosmic tour of nine of the most extraordinary numbers in physics, offering a startling picture of how the universe works. These strange numbers include Graham's number, which is so large that if you thought about it in the wrong way, your head would collapse into a singularity; TREE(3), whose finite nature can never be definitively proved, because to do so would take so much time that the universe would experience a Poincaré Recurrence--resetting to precisely the state it currently holds, down to the arrangement of individual atoms; and 10^{-120}, measuring the desperately unlikely balance of energy needed to allow the universe to exist for more than just a moment, to extend beyond the size of a single atom--in other words, the mystery of our unexpected universe. Leading us down the rabbit hole to a deeper understanding of reality, Padilla explains how these unusual numbers are the key to understanding such mind-boggling phenomena as black holes, relativity, and the problem of the cosmological constant--that the two best and most rigorously tested ways of understanding the universe contradict one another. Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them is a combination of popular and cutting-edge science--and a lively, entertaining, and even funny exploration of the most fundamental truths about the universe.
Author: Padilla, Antonio, 1975- author.
Published: 2022
Call Number: 530.15
Format: Books
Summary: "The leading theoretical physicist and YouTube star Tony Padilla uses nine of the most extraordinary numbers in physics to build a picture of our current best understanding of how the universe works"-- For particularly brilliant theoretical physicists like James Clerk Maxwell, Paul Dirac, or Albert Einstein, the search for mathematical truths led to strange new understandings of the ultimate nature of reality. But what are these truths? What are the mysterious numbers that explain the universe? In Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them, the leading theoretical physicist and YouTube star Antonio Padilla takes us on an irreverent cosmic tour of nine of the most extraordinary numbers in physics, offering a startling picture of how the universe works. These strange numbers include Graham's number, which is so large that if you thought about it in the wrong way, your head would collapse into a singularity; TREE(3), whose finite nature can never be definitively proved, because to do so would take so much time that the universe would experience a Poincaré Recurrence--resetting to precisely the state it currently holds, down to the arrangement of individual atoms; and 10^{-120}, measuring the desperately unlikely balance of energy needed to allow the universe to exist for more than just a moment, to extend beyond the size of a single atom--in other words, the mystery of our unexpected universe. Leading us down the rabbit hole to a deeper understanding of reality, Padilla explains how these unusual numbers are the key to understanding such mind-boggling phenomena as black holes, relativity, and the problem of the cosmological constant--that the two best and most rigorously tested ways of understanding the universe contradict one another. Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them is a combination of popular and cutting-edge science--and a lively, entertaining, and even funny exploration of the most fundamental truths about the universe.
Anthony Marra’s “Mercury Pictures Presents,” his long-awaited second novel, is a homage to the movies and to his immigrant family.
Anthony Marra’s “Mercury Pictures Presents,” his long-awaited second novel, is a homage to the movies and to his immigrant family.
In “Dead-End Memories,” five stories about lonely women who encounter ghosts, infidelities, betrayals — and human connection.
In “Dead-End Memories,” five stories about lonely women who encounter ghosts, infidelities, betrayals — and human connection.
Author: Fodor's Travel Publications, Inc.
Published: 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018
Call Number: 917.5924 2021
Format: Continuing Resources
Summary: Offers up-to-date coverage of every attraction in all theme parks, and includes hotels and restaurants in all price ranges.
Author: Ackerman, Sara, author.
Published: 2022
Call Number: F ACKERMAN
Format: Books
Summary: A brilliant female codebreaker. An "unbreakable" Japanese naval code. A pilot on a top-secret mission that could change the course of WWII. The Codebreaker's Secret is a dazzling story of love and intrigue set during America's darkest hour. A dual-timeline historical novel of codebreaking, secrets, murder, and romance, set in Hawaii in 1943 and 1965, follows two women--a cryptanalyist working to defeat the Japanese Army, and a rookie journalist investigating the disappearance of a high-profile guest during the grand opening of the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel. 1943. As war in the Pacific rages on, Isabel Cooper and her codebreaker colleagues huddle in "the dungeon" at Station HYPO in Pearl Harbor, deciphering secrets plucked from the airwaves in a race to bring down the enemy. Isabel has only one wish: to avenge her brother's death. But she soon finds life has other plans when she meets his best friend, a hotshot pilot with secrets of his own. 1965. Fledgling journalist Lu Freitas comes home to Hawai'i to cover the grand opening of the glamorous Mauna Kea Beach Hotel, Rockefeller's newest and grandest project. When a high-profile guest goes missing, Lu forms an unlikely alliance with an intimidating veteran photographer to unravel the mystery. The two make a shocking discovery that stirs up memories and uncovers an explosive secret from the war days. A secret that only a codebreaker can crack.
Author: Bowen, Rhys, author.
Published: 2022
Call Number: F BOWEN
Format: Books
Summary: London, 1940. Bombs fall and Josie Banks's world crumbles around her. Her overbearing husband, Stan, is unreachable, called to service. Her home, a ruin of rubble and ash. Josie's beloved tearoom boss has been killed, and Josie herself is injured, with nothing left and nowhere to go. Evacuated to the English countryside, Josie ends up at the estate of the aristocratic Miss Harcourt, a reluctant host to the survivors of the Blitz. Awed as she is by the magnificent landscape, Josie sees opportunity. Josie convinces Miss Harcourt to let her open a humble tea shop, seeing it as a chance for everyone to begin again. When Josie meets Mike Johnson, a handsome Canadian pilot stationed at a neighboring bomber base, a growing intimacy brings her an inner peace she's never felt before. Then Stan returns from the war. Now a threat looms larger than anyone imagined. And a dangerous secret is about to upend Josie's life again. Her newfound courage will be put to the test if she is to emerge, like a survivor, triumphant.
Author: Baldacci, David, author.
Published: 2022
Call Number: F BALDACCI
Format: Books
Summary: "Private Investigator and ex-World War II veteran Aloysius Archer heads to Los Angeles, the city where dreams are made and shattered, and is ensnared in a lethal case"-- It's the eve of 1953, and Aloysius Archer is in Los Angeles to ring in the New Year with an old friend, aspiring actress Liberty Callahan, when their evening is interrupted by an acquaintance of Callahan's: Eleanor Lamb, a screenwriter in dire straits. After a series of increasingly chilling events--mysterious phone calls, the same blue car loitering outside her house, and a bloody knife left in her sink--Eleanor fears that her life is in danger, and she wants to hire Archer to look into the matter. Archer suspects that Eleanor knows more than she's saying, but before he can officially take on her case, a dead body turns up inside of Eleanor's home...and Eleanor herself disappears. Missing client or not, Archer is dead set on finding both the murderer and Eleanor. With the help of Callahan and his partner Willie Dash, he launches an investigation that will take him from mob-ridden Las Vegas to the glamorous world of Hollywood to the darkest corners of Los Angeles--a city in which beautiful faces are attached to cutthroat schemers, where the cops can be more corrupt than the criminals...and where the powerful people responsible for his client's disappearance will kill without a moment's hesitation if they catch Archer on their trail.
Author: Lemire, Jonathan, 1979- author.
Published: 2022
Call Number: 324.973
Format: Books
Summary: "A probing and illuminating analysis of current state of American politics, focusing on Donald Trump's lie about election fraud, by the White House Bureau Chief of Politico and the host of MSNBC's Way Too Early Donald Trump first tried it out in 2016, at an August rally in Ohio. He said that perhaps he wouldn't accept the election results in his race against Hillary Clinton, that the election was "rigged." He then mentioned it at more rallies and even at one of the fall debates. He didn't have to challenge the result that year, but the stage was set. When he lost in 2020, he started the lie back up again and to devastating results: an insurrection at the Capitol in January 2021. In the more than five tumultuous, paradigm-shifting years of Donald Trump's presidency and beyond, his near-constant lying has become a fixture of political life. It is inextricably linked with how his party behaves, how the Democrats respond to it, and how he remains relevant, even after a decisive loss in 2020. Jonathan Lemire brings his connections, profile, and dogged reportorial instincts to bear in his first book that explores how this phenomenon shapes our politics. He uncovers that "The Big Lie," as it's been termed, isn't just about the 2020 election. It's become a political philosophy that has only further divided the two parties. Republicans are still wholly under Trump's sway. From his retirement at his Florida and New Jersey clubs he meets with Republican officials, aspiring candidates, and advisers and demands loyalty about this twisted way of thinking. And Democrats still deal with him as their opposition party is driven by a blatant lie. The parties aren't divided by the aisle-they're on different planets. Written with sharp political insight and detailed with dozens of interviews, The Big Lie is the first book to examine this unprecedented and tenuous moment in our nation's politics"--
Author: Sweet, John Wood, 1966- author.
Published: 2022
Call Number: 345.7302
Format: Books
Summary: "A riveting historical drama that tells the story of the first rape trial on record in American history and the fault lines of class privilege and gender bias that it exposed, showing how much has changed over two centuries and how much has not"-- Summer, 1793. A crime was committed in the back room of a New York brothel-- the kind of crime that even victims usually kept secret. Instead, seventeen-year-old seamstress Lanah Sawyer charged a gentleman with rape. Her accusation sparked a raw courtroom drama and a relentless struggle for vindication that threatened both Lanah's and her assailant's lives. The trial exposed a predatory sexual underworld, sparked riots in the streets, and ignited a vigorous debate about class privilege and sexual double standards. Sweet takes us from a chance encounter in the street, and shows that if our laws and our culture were changed by a persistent young woman and the power of words two hundred years ago, they can be changed again. - adapted from jacket
Author: Sussman, Elissa, author.
Published: 2022
Call Number: F SUSSMAN
Format: Books
Summary: "A restless young journalist with big dreams interviews a Hollywood heartthrob--and, ten years later, it's clear that their time together meant more than meets the eye in this sexy, engrossing debut novel. Then. Twentysomething writer Chani Horowitz is stuck. While her former MFA classmates are nabbing book deals, she's in the trenches writing puff pieces. Then she's hired to write a profile of movie star Gabe Parker. The Gabe Parker--her forever celebrity crush, the object of her fantasies, the background photo on her phone--who's also just been cast as the new James Bond. It's terrifying and thrilling all at once... yet if she can keep her cool and nail the piece, it could be a huge win. Gabe will get good press, and her career will skyrocket. But what comes next proves to be life-changing in ways Chani never saw coming, as the interview turns into a whirlwind weekend that has the tabloids buzzing..."--
Author: Turtledove, Harry, author.
Published: 2022
Call Number: F TURTLEDO
Format: Books
Summary: "From New York Times bestselling author Harry Turtledove, the modern master of alternate history, a novel of alien contact set in the tumultuous year of the Watergate scandal. It's 1974, and Jerry Stieglitz is a grad student in marine biology at UCLA with a side gig selling short stories to science fiction magazines, just weeks away from marrying his longtime fiancée. Then his life is upended by grim-faced men from three-letter agencies who want him to join a top-secret "Project Azorian" in the middle of the north Pacific Ocean-and they really don't take "no" for an answer. Further, they're offering enough money to solve all of his immediate problems. Joining up and swearing to secrecy, what he first learns is that Project Azorian is secretly trying to raise a sunken Russian submarine, while pretending to be harvesting undersea manganese nodules. But the dead Russian sub, while real, turns out to be a cover story as well. What's down on the ocean floor next to it is the thing that killed the sub: an alien spacecraft. Jerry's a scientist, a longhair, a storyteller, a dreamer. He stands out like a sore thumb on the Glomar Explorer, a ship full of CIA operatives, RAND Corporation eggheads, and roustabout divers. But it turns out that he's the one person in the North Pacific who's truly thought out all the ways that human-alien first contact might go. And meanwhile, it's still 1974 back on the mainland. Richard Nixon is drinking heavily and talking to the paintings on the White House walls. The USA is changing fast-and who knows what will happen when this story gets out? Three Miles Down is both a fresh and original take on First Contact, and a hugely enjoyable romp through the pop culture, political tumult, and conspiracies-within-conspiracies atmosphere that was 1974"--
Author: Mackintosh, Clare, author.
Published: 2022 2021
Call Number: F MACKINTO
Format: Books
Summary: "A claustrophobic thriller set over twenty hours on one airplane flight, with the heart-stopping tension of The Last Flight and the wrenching emotional intensity of Room, Hostage takes us on board the inaugural nonstop flight from London to Sydney. Mina is trying to focus on her job as a flight attendant, not the problems of her five-year-old daughter back home, or the fissures in her marriage. But the plane has barely taken off when Mina receives a chilling note from an anonymous passenger, someone intent on ensuring the plane never reaches its destination. Someone who needs Mina's assistance and who knows exactly how to make her comply. It's twenty hours to landing. A lot can happen in twenty hours.."--
Author: Foley, Lucy (Novelist), author.
Published: 2022
Call Number: F FOLEY
Format: Books
Summary: Jess needs a fresh start. She's broke and alone, and she's just left her job under less than ideal circumstances. Her half-brother Ben didn't sound thrilled when she asked if she could crash with him for a bit, but he didn't say no, and surely everything will look better from Paris. Only when she shows up, to find a very nice apartment, (could Ben really have afforded this?) he's not there. The longer Ben stays missing, the more Jess starts to dig into her brother's situation, and the more questions she has. Ben's neighbors are an eclectic bunch, and not particularly friendly. Jess may have come to Paris to escape her past, but it's starting to look like it's Ben's future that's in question. The socialite. The nice guy. The alcoholic. The girl on the verge. The concierge. Everyone's a neighbor. Everyone's a suspect. And everyone knows something they're not telling.
Author: Grisham, John, author. container of (work) : Grisham, John. Homecoming. container of (work) : Grisham, John. Strawberry moon. container of (work) : Grisham, John. Sparring partners.
Published: 2022
Call Number: F GRISHAM
Format: Books
Summary: Jake Brigance is called upon to help his old friend, disgraced former attorney Mack Stafford, make his return; young death row inmate Cody Wallace has one final request just several hours before execution; two young attorney brothers, Kirk and Rusty Malloy, look to Diantha Bradshaw to help save their once prosperous firm which they inherited from their father. "Homecoming" takes us back to Ford County, the fictional setting of many of John Grisham's unforgettable stories. Jake Brigance is back, but he's not in the courtroom. He's called upon to help an old friend, Mack Stafford, a former lawyer in Clanton, who three years earlier became a local legend when he stole money from his clients, divorced his wife, filed for bankruptcy, and left his family in the middle of the night, never to be heard from again--until now. Now Mack is back, and he's leaning on his old pals, Jake and Harry Rex, to help him return. His homecoming does not go as planned. In "Strawberry Moon," we meet Cody Wallace, a young death row inmate only three hours away from execution. His lawyers can't save him, the courts slam the door, and the governor says no to a last-minute request for clemency. As the clock winds down, Cody has one final request. The "Sparring Partners" are the Malloy brothers, Kirk and Rusty, two successful young lawyers who inherited a once prosperous firm when its founder, their father, was sent to prison. Kirk and Rusty loathe each other, and speak to each other only when necessary. As the firm disintegrates, the resulting fiasco falls into the lap of Diantha Bradshaw, the only person the partners trust. Can she save the Malloys, or does she take a stand for the first time in her career and try to save herself? By turns suspenseful, hilarious, powerful, and moving, these are three of the greatest stories John Grisham has ever told.
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