Reprint of the original, first published in 1876.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1874.

In Alan Lightman's new book, a verse narrative, we meet a man who has lost his faith in all things following a mysterious personal tragedy. After decades of living "hung like a dried fly," emptied and haunted by his past, the narrator awakens one morning revitalized and begins a Dante-like journey to find something to believe in, first turning to t

Reprint of the original, first published in 1875.

"In these dark days, Saleema Nawaz dares to write of hope. Songs for the End of the World is a loving, vivid, tenderly felt novel about men, women, and a possible apocalypse. I couldn't put it down." -- Sean Michaels, author of Us Conductors and The Wagers From the award-winning, Canada Reads-shortlisted author of Bone and Bread comes a spellbinding and immersive novel about the power of community and the triumph of human connection, as the bonds of love, family, and duty are tested by an impending pandemic. How quickly he'd forgotten a fundamental truth: the closer you got to the heart of a calamity, the more resilience there was to be found. This is the story of a handful of people who find themselves living through an unfolding catastrophe. Elliot is a first responder in New York, a man running from past failures and struggling to do the right thing. Emma is a pregnant singer preparing to headline a benefit concert for victims of the outbreak--all while questioning what kind of world her child is coming into. Owen is the author of a bestselling plague novel with eerie similarities to the real-life pandemic. As fact and fiction begin to blur, he must decide whether his lifelong instinct for self-preservation has been worth the cost. As the novel moves back and forth in time, we discover these characters' ties to one another and to those whose lives intersect with theirs, in an extraordinary web of connection and community that reveals none of us is ever truly alone. Linking them all is the mystery of the so-called ARAMIS Girl, a woman at the first infection site whose unknown identity and whereabouts cause a furor. Written and revised between 2013 and 2019, and brilliantly told by an unforgettable chorus of voices, Saleema Nawaz's glittering novel is a moving and hopeful meditation on what we owe to ourselves and to each other. It reminds us that disaster can bring out the best in people--and that coming together may be what saves us in the end.

The author of the New York Times bestseller This Is Your Brain on Music reveals music’s role in the evolution of human culture in this thought-provoking book that “will leave you awestruck” (The New York Times). Daniel J. Levitin's astounding debut bestseller, This Is Your Brain on Music, enthralled and delighted readers as it transformed our understanding of how music gets in our heads and stays there. Now in his second New York Times bestseller, his genius for combining science and art reveals how music shaped humanity across cultures and throughout history. Here he identifies six fundamental song functions or types—friendship, joy, comfort, religion, knowledge, and love—then shows how each in its own way has enabled the social bonding necessary for human culture and society to evolve. He shows, in effect, how these “six songs” work in our brains to preserve the emotional history of our lives and species. Dr. Levitin combines cutting-edge scientific research from his music cognition lab at McGill University and work in an array of related fields; his own sometimes hilarious experiences in the music business; and illuminating interviews with musicians such as Sting and David Byrne, as well as conductors, anthropologists, and evolutionary biologists. The World in Six Songs is, ultimately, a revolution in our understanding of how human nature evolved—right up to the iPod.

From the author of Infinite Detail, The Guardian's Pick for Best Science Fiction Book of 2019! Three short stories set in the near-future dystopia of Infinite Detail After an act of anonymous cyberterrorism has permanently switched off the internet, causing global trade, travel, and communication to collapse and modern luxuries to become scarce, life in the Croft and beyond . . . carries on. In “Ghost Hardware,” we meet Anika, an artist who uses VR to uncover layers of street art in pursuit of the work of another elusive artist. In a desolate future, she is chasing the past. “Limited Edition” takes us to a time before the crash to introduce us to Grids, College, and Melody—a tight-knit, sneaker-obsessed South Bristol crew. When a new pair of limited-edition trainers drops, they won't let a little thing like being broke get in their way—even if they have to do some VR hacking to pull off an IRL heist. And in the pre-internet-crash world of “Gulls” we meet Mary, who lives in the Tip, where Gulls like her dig through landfills in search of treasure. But Mary wants out. And the strange, glowing pair of glasses she found in a dead man’s jacket pocket just might be her ticket. Expanding on Tim Maughan’s vision of a world disconnected in Infinite Detail, the stories in Ghost Hardware give a closer look at the End of the Internet, the End of the World as We Know It.