A New York Times / National Bestseller "America's funniest science writer" (Washington Post) Mary Roach explores the science of keeping human beings intact, awake, sane, uninfected, and uninfested in the bizarre and extreme circumstances of war. Grunt tackles the science behind some of a soldier's most challenging adversaries—panic, exhaustion, heat, noise—and introduces us to the scientists who seek to conquer them. Mary Roach dodges hostile fire with the U.S. Marine Corps Paintball Team as part of a study on hearing loss and survivability in combat. She visits the fashion design studio of U.S. Army Natick Labs and learns why a zipper is a problem for a sniper. She visits a repurposed movie studio where amputee actors help prepare Marine Corps medics for the shock and gore of combat wounds. At Camp Lemmonier, Djibouti, in east Africa, we learn how diarrhea can be a threat to national security. Roach samples caffeinated meat, sniffs an archival sample of a World War II stink bomb, and stays up all night with the crew tending the missiles on the nuclear submarine USS Tennessee. She answers questions not found in any other book on the military: Why is DARPA interested in ducks? How is a wedding gown like a bomb suit? Why are shrimp more dangerous to sailors than sharks? Take a tour of duty with Roach, and you’ll never see our nation’s defenders in the same way again.

THESE ARE THE REAL BOOKS BY CUBE KID! DIARY OF AN 8-BIT WARRIOR WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AS WIMPY VILLAGER KINDLES 1-4. The first volume of this best-selling unofficial Minecraft adventure series begins with Runt, our 12-year-old hero, about to choose his future vocation at the Minecraftia school. His options are less than thrilling: farmer, crafter, miner. But what this noob really wants is to be a warrior like his hero, Steve. So when he learns that the five best students in school that year will get the chance to start warrior training, it’s ON.

Competition stiffens in book three of the 8-Bit Diary series, as Runt’s training is intensifying! After the recent mob attacks, the entire village decides to prepare for the next offensive. Fortifying the defenses, tracking down a spy, searching for new alliances . . . But Herobrine isn’t having any of it . . . Can Runt increase his efforts to be one of the five best students in school and finally become the warrior of his dreams? With the help of his friends—Breeze, Max, Emerald, and Stump—Runt will face a peril greater than anything he has ever known. With fun text changes, full-color illustrations throughout, and shorter text blocks to reward readers balanced with longer text blocks to challenge readers, this book will get Minecraft fans off the screen and into reading!

What if we are stubbing our toes on the sacred every day and not realizing it? We are the most connected culture in history but arguably the most disconnected from the awareness of God’s presence. Waking Up Slowly is author Dave Burchett’s personal challenge to live “in the moment” and find the everyday joys he misses in disconnected busyness. What moments of joy do we inadvertently miss as we stare at our screens? What performance idols destroy our ability to appreciate God’s gifts? Dave Burchett sets out to find out how life might look differently if he awoke each morning consciously looking for the easy to miss “postcards from God.” Waking Up Slowly is an intimate, warm, and touching story of discovering how to more fully appreciate living in the moment. During his discovery, the author finds regular reminders of daily joys from his Labrador pal, Maggie. Waking Up Slowly challenges the reader to recognize, appreciate, and celebrate the ways that God reveals himself daily. Through regular people, everyday situations, cuddly creatures, and stunning nature, God’s presence is real and discoverable. We just need to wake up to it.

"In loving yet unsentimental prose, Sy Montgomery captures the richness that animals bring to the human experience. Sometimes it takes a too-smart-for-his-own-good pig to open our eyes to what most matters in life.” —John Grogan, author of Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World’s Worst Dog A naturalist who spent months at a time living on her own among wild creatures in remote jungles, Sy Montgomery had always felt more comfortable with animals than with people. So she gladly opened her heart to a sick piglet who had been crowded away from nourishing meals by his stronger siblings. Yet Sy had no inkling that this piglet, later named Christopher Hogwood, would not only survive but flourish—and she soon found herself engaged with her small-town community in ways she had never dreamed possible. Unexpectedly, Christopher provided this peripatetic traveler with something she had sought all her life: an anchor (eventually weighing 750 pounds) to family and home. The Good Good Pig celebrates Christopher Hogwood in all his glory, from his inauspicious infancy to hog heaven in rural New Hampshire, where his boundless zest for life and his large, loving heart made him absolute monarch over a (mostly) peaceable kingdom. At first, his domain included only Sy’s cosseted hens and her beautiful border collie, Tess. Then the neighbors began fetching Christopher home from his unauthorized jaunts, the little girls next door started giving him warm, soapy baths, and the villagers brought him delicious leftovers. His intelligence and fame increased along with his girth. He was featured in USA Today and on several National Public Radio environmental programs. On election day, some voters even wrote in Christopher’s name on their ballots. But as this enchanting book describes, Christopher Hogwood’s influence extended far beyond celebrity; for he was, as a friend said, a great big Buddha master. Sy reveals what she and others learned from this generous soul who just so happened to be a pig—lessons about self-acceptance, the meaning of family, the value of community, and the pleasures of the sweet green Earth. The Good Good Pig provides proof that with love, almost anything is possible.