From New York Times bestselling authors Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff comes an Illuminae prequel digital novella that gives readers a hair-raising glimpse into the calamity that befell the invincible AI system known as AIDAN--and the daring young programmer who would risk her life to keep it from crashing. AIDAN is the AI you'll love to hate. The advanced AI system was supposed to protect a fleet of survivors who'd escaped the deadly attack on Kerenza IV. AIDAN was supposed to be infallible. But in the chaotic weeks and months that followed, it became clear that something was terribly, terribly wrong with AIDAN...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this lovely, easy-to-use illustrated guide to decluttering, the beloved author of The Happiness Project shows us how to take control of our stuff—and, by extension, our lives. Gretchen Rubin knows firsthand that creating order can make our lives happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative. But for most of us, a rigid, one-size-fits-all solution doesn't work. When we tailor our approach to suit our own particular challenges and habits, we can find inner calm. With a sense of fun, and a clear idea of what’s realistic for most people, Rubin suggests dozens of manageable tips and tricks for creating a more serene, orderly environment, including: • Never label anything “miscellaneous.” • Ask yourself, “Do I need more than one?” • Don’t aim for minimalism. • Remember: If you can’t retrieve it, you won’t use it. • Stay current with a child’s interests. • Beware the urge to “procrasticlear.” By getting rid of things we don’t use, don’t need, or don’t love, we free our minds (and our shelves) for what we truly value.

People ask: "Why do you use photographic prompts when you write short stories and flash fiction?" Larry Sultan, an American photographer from the San Fernando Valley in California, provides one answer: "Photography is there to construct the idea of us as a great family and we go on vacations and take these pictures and then we look at them later and we say, 'Isn't this a great family?' So photography is instrumental in creating family not only as a memento, a souvenir, but also a kind of mythology." Beyond the physical, however, lie our memories and in them, the pictures stored in our minds' eyes. As writers, aren't these memories-both the physical and the "mementos of the mind"-the essence of our works, the prompts we use to spin words and phrases into literary tapestries our readers can use to discover something about life, a bit about us, perhaps, and, in the process, maybe even a little about themselves? In this volume, you'll find a story inspired by a 1973 PBS television show in which a steam bath is presented as the afterlife; here, however, the afterlife is a bowling alley overseen by the shoe attendant. In another story, we read a Civil War soldier's last letter home to his father, a letter filled with horrible descriptions of his imprisonment in Andersonville and his concern for the steamboat journey upon which he is about to embark. And not to leave you without something of the paranormal, there's even a story about the deep South and the superstitions that abound in Cajun Country. In short (pun intended), there is something in this book for almost every genre and taste.

Within a short space of time, the film Memento has already been hailed as a modern classic. Memorably narrated in reverse, from the perspective of Leonard Shelby, the film’s central character, it follows Leonard’s chaotic and visceral quest to discover the identity of his wife’s killer and avenge her murder, despite his inability to form new long-term memories. This is the first book to explore and address the myriad philosophical questions raised by the film, concerning personal identity, free will, memory, knowledge, and action. It also explores problems in aesthetics raised by the film through its narrative structure, ontology, and genre. Beginning with a helpful introduction that places the film in context and maps out its complex structure, specially commissioned chapters examine the following topics: memory, emotion, and self-consciousness agency, free will, and responsibility personal identity narrative and popular cinema the film genre of neo-noir Memento and multimedia Including annotated further reading at the end of each chapter, Memento is essential reading for students interested in philosophy and film studies.

A son learns more about his father than he ever could have imagined when a mysterious piece of art is unexpectedly restored to him After receiving an unexpected call from the Australian consulate, Matt Santos becomes aware of a painting that he believes was looted from his family in Hungary during the Second World War. To recover the painting, he must repair his strained relationship with his harshly judgmental father, uncover his family history, and restore his connection to his own Judaism. Along the way to illuminating the mysteries of his past, Matt is torn between his doting girlfriend, Tracy, and his alluring attorney, Rachel, with whom he travels to Budapest to unearth the truth about the painting and, in turn, his family. As his journey progresses, Matt’s revelations are accompanied by equally consuming and imaginative meditations on the painting and the painter at the center of his personal drama, Budapest Street Scene by Ervin Kálmán. By the time Memento Park reaches its conclusion, Matt’s narrative is as much about family history and father-son dynamics as it is about the nature of art itself, and the infinite ways we come to understand ourselves through it. Of all the questions asked by Mark Sarvas’s Memento Park—about family and identity, about art and history—a central, unanswerable predicament lingers: How do we move forward when the past looms unreasonably large?