The fate of the world is in her hands! How I wish I could see what the Ancients saw, but a mystery it remains, and the answers elude us all. The end of the world so very near, according to the Maya of old, but something tells me this Crystal holds that which is yet to be told. Maya mythistory tells of a Fire Macaw, who on one sunny day, destroyed the evil world we have, and nothing remained to claim. But if this Crystal is that which everyone seeks to find, I hold here in my very own hands, that which could save mankind.

In the beginning, before Man and the insect Thranx became allies, in the days when the reptilian AAnn were just occasional raiders of the Thranx colony worlds, one young Thranx agricultural expert lived a life of quiet desperation. A dreamer in a world of sensible well adjusted socialised beings, Ryo buried himself in his work of reclaiming marshland until... Until he met the Aliens. Grotesque two legged creatures, unpleasingly soft skinned, gross in their appetites, alarming in their movements, all in all pretty revolting species, yet his curiosity overcame his queasiness and he befriended them. And discovered they were called Man.

This bestselling "lyrical, moving book: part essay, part memoir, part surprising cultural study" is an examination of why we cry, how we cry, and what it means to cry from a woman on the cusp of motherhood confronting her own depression (The New York Times Book Review). Heather Christle has just lost a dear friend to suicide and now must reckon with her own depression and the birth of her first child. As she faces her grief and impending parenthood, she decides to research the act of crying: what it is and why people do it, even if they rarely talk about it. Along the way, she discovers an artist who designed a frozen–tear–shooting gun and a moth that feeds on the tears of other animals. She researches tear–collecting devices (lachrymatories) and explores the role white women’s tears play in racist violence. Honest, intelligent, rapturous, and surprising, Christle’s investigations look through a mosaic of science, history, and her own lived experience to find new ways of understanding life, loss, and mental illness. The Crying Book is a deeply personal tribute to the fascinating strangeness of tears and the unexpected resilience of joy.

Takes a scientific approach to paranormal mysteries, taking readers on a series of case studies from spontaneous human combustion and hauntings to aliens and stigmata, employing forensic and investigative techniques to their analysis.

In this modern-day fable, a woman who has suffered a terrible loss cooks up a special batch of "tear soup," blending the unique ingredients of her life into the grief process. Along the way she dispenses a recipe of sound advice for people who are in mourning.

This deeply personal account of emotion and vulnerability draws upon anecdotes related to individual works of art to present a chronicle of how people have shown emotion before works of art in the past.