The Soul of an Octopus

The Soul of an Octopus
Author: Sy Montgomery
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2016-07-12
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1501161148

Finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction * New York Times Bestseller * A Huffington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of the Year * One of the Best Books of the Month on Goodreads * Library Journal Best Sci-Tech Book of the Year * An American Library Association Notable Book of the Year “Sy Montgomery’s The Soul of an Octopus does for the creature what Helen Macdonald’s H Is for Hawk did for raptors.” —New Statesman, UK “One of the best science books of the year.” —Science Friday, NPR Another New York Times bestseller from the author of The Good Good Pig, this “fascinating…touching…informative…entertaining” (The Daily Beast) book explores the emotional and physical world of the octopus—a surprisingly complex, intelligent, and spirited creature—and the remarkable connections it makes with humans. In pursuit of the wild, solitary, predatory octopus, popular naturalist Sy Montgomery has practiced true immersion journalism. From New England aquarium tanks to the reefs of French Polynesia and the Gulf of Mexico, she has befriended octopuses with strikingly different personalities—gentle Athena, assertive Octavia, curious Kali, and joyful Karma. Each creature shows her cleverness in myriad ways: escaping enclosures like an orangutan; jetting water to bounce balls; and endlessly tricking companions with multiple “sleights of hand” to get food. Scientists have only recently accepted the intelligence of dogs, birds, and chimpanzees but now are watching octopuses solve problems and are trying to decipher the meaning of the animal’s color-changing techniques. With her “joyful passion for these intelligent and fascinating creatures” (Library Journal Editors’ Spring Pick), Montgomery chronicles the growing appreciation of this mollusk as she tells a unique love story. By turns funny, entertaining, touching, and profound, The Soul of an Octopus reveals what octopuses can teach us about the meeting of two very different minds.

The Octopus Man

The Octopus Man
Author: Jasper Gibson
Publisher: Hachette UK
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2021-01-21
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1474616100

'An exceptional work . . . A brilliant and necessary book' Douglas Stuart, author of the Booker Prize-winning SHUGGIE BAIN 'THE OCTOPUS MAN reminds us that behind the words "mental health" lies a universe of WILD CREATIVITY, HUMANITY and SPANKING BIG LIFE. Now is the time for this book.' DBC Pierre, author of the Booker Prize-winning VERNON GOD LITTLE 'Funny. Disturbing. Brilliant' Lily Allen 'A joy to read' Johnny Flynn Once an outstanding law student Tom is now lost in the machinery of the British mental health system, talking to a voice no one else can hear: the voice of Malamock, the Octopus God - sometimes loving, sometimes cruel, but always there to guide him through life. After a florid psychotic break, the pressure builds for Tom to take part in an experimental drugs trial that promises to silence the voice forever. But no one, least of all Tom, is prepared for what happens when the Octopus God is seriously threatened. Deeply moving and tragi-comic, THE OCTOPUS MAN takes us into the complex world of voice-hearing in a bravura literary performance that asks the fundamental questions about belief, meaning, and love.

Takashi Murakami

Takashi Murakami
Author: Michael Darling
Publisher: Rizzoli Publications
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2017-05-30
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0847859118

The first major U.S. monograph in ten years on Murakami is the definitive survey of the paintings of one of today’s most influential artists. Takashi Murakami (b. 1962), one of contemporary art’s most widely recognized exponents, receives a long-awaited critical consideration in this important volume. Accompanying the first retrospective exhibition devoted solely to Murakami’s paintings, this book traces Murakami’s career from his earliest training to his current studio practice. Where other books address the commercial aspects of Murakami’s work, this is the first serious survey of his work as a painter. Through essays and illustrations— many previously unpublished—it explores the artist’s relationship to the tradition of Japanese painting and his facility in straddling high and low, ancient and modern, Eastern and Western, commercial and high art. New texts address Murakami’s output in the context of postwar Japan, situating the artist in relation to folklore, traditional Japanese painting, the Tokyo art scene in the 1980s and 1990s, and the threat of nuclear annihilation. This richly illustrated volume also includes a detailed biography and exhibition history. Takashi Murakami is a true essential for collectors and fans alike.

Lily and the Octopus

Lily and the Octopus
Author: Steven Rowley
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2016-06-07
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1501126245

A national bestseller combining the emotional depth of The Art of Racing in the Rain with the magical spirit of The Life of Pi, “Lily and the Octopus is the dog book you must read this summer” (The Washington Post). Ted—a gay, single, struggling writer is stuck: unable to open himself up to intimacy except through the steadfast companionship of Lily, his elderly dachshund. When Lily’s health is compromised, Ted vows to save her by any means necessary. By turns hilarious and poignant, an adventure with spins into magic realism and beautifully evoked truths of loss and longing, Lily and the Octopus reminds us how it feels to love fiercely, how difficult it can be to let go, and how the fight for those we love is the greatest fight of all. Introducing a dazzling and completely original new voice in fiction and an unforgettable hound that will break your heart—and put it back together again. Remember the last book you told someone they had to read? Lily and the Octopus is the next one. “Startlingly imaginative...this love story is sure to assert its place in the canine lit pack...Be prepared for outright laughs and searing or silly moments of canine and human recognition. And grab a tissue: “THERE! WILL! BE! EYE! RAIN!” (New York Newsday).

Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life

Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life
Author: Peter Godfrey-Smith
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2017-03-09
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0008226288

BBC R4 Book of the Week ‘Brilliant’ Guardian ‘Fascinating and often delightful’ The Times What if intelligent life on Earth evolved not once, but twice? The octopus is the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien. What can we learn from the encounter?

The Cardboard Kingdom

The Cardboard Kingdom
Author: Chad Sell
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Total Pages: 147
Release: 2018-06-05
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1524719390

Perfect for fans of Raina Telgemeier, Awkward, and All's Faire in Middle School, this graphic novel follows a neighborhood of kids who transform ordinary cardboard into fantastical homemade costumes as they explore conflicts with friends, family, and their own identity. "A breath of fresh air, this tender and dynamic collection is a must-have." --Kirkus, Starred Welcome to a neighborhood of kids who transform ordinary boxes into colorful costumes, and their ordinary block into cardboard kingdom. This is the summer when sixteen kids encounter knights and rogues, robots and monsters--and their own inner demons--on one last quest before school starts again. In the Cardboard Kingdom, you can be anything you want to be--imagine that! The Cardboard Kingdom was created, organized, and drawn by Chad Sell with writing from ten other authors: Jay Fuller, David DeMeo, Katie Schenkel, Kris Moore, Molly Muldoon, Vid Alliger, Manuel Betancourt, Michael Cole, Cloud Jacobs, and Barbara Perez Marquez. The Cardboard Kingdom affirms the power of imagination and play during the most important years of adolescent identity-searching and emotional growth. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY KIRKUS REVIEWS * THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY * SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL * A TEXAS BLUEBONNET 2019-20 MASTER LIST SELECTION "There's room for everyone inside The Cardboard Kingdom, where friendship and imagination reign supreme." --Ingrid Law, New York Times bestselling author of Savvy "A timely and colorful graphic novel debut that, like its many offbeat but on-point characters, marches to the beat of its own cardboard drum." --Tim Federle, award-winning author of Better Nate Than Ever

The Octopus Museum

The Octopus Museum
Author: Brenda Shaughnessy
Publisher: Knopf
Total Pages: 97
Release: 2021-06-29
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 1524711497

Now in paperback, this collection of bold and scathingly beautiful feminist poems imagines what comes after our current age of environmental destruction, racism, sexism, and divisive politics. Informed as much by Brenda Shaughnessy's worst fears as a mother as they are by her superb craft as a poet, the poems in The Octopus Museum blaze forth from her pen: in these pages, we see that what was once a generalized fear for our children is now hyper-reasonable, specific, and multiple: school shootings, nuclear attack, loss of health care, a polluted planet. As Shaughnessy conjures our potential future, she movingly (and often with humor) envisions an age where cephalopods might rule over humankind, a fate she suggests we may just deserve after destroying their oceans. These heartbreaking, terrified poems are the battle cry of a woman who is fighting for the survival of the world she loves, and a stirring exhibition of who we are as a civilization.

Octopus!

Octopus!
Author: Katherine Harmon Courage
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2014-11-25
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1617230146

“A pleasant, chatty book on a fascinating subject.” — Kirkus Reviews Octopuses have been captivating humans for as long as we have been catching them. Yet for all of our ancient fascination and modern research, we still have not been able to get a firm grasp on these enigmatic creatures. Katherine Harmon Courage dives into the mystifying underwater world of the octopus and reports on her research around the world. She reveals, for instance, that the oldest known octopus lived before the first dinosaurs; that two thirds of an octopus’s brain capacity is spread throughout its arms, meaning each literally has a mind of its own; and that it can change colors within milliseconds to camouflage itself, yet appears to be colorblind.

Playing the Octopus

Playing the Octopus
Author: Mary O'Malley
Publisher: Carcanet Press Ltd
Total Pages: 109
Release: 2016-08-15
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 1784102814

Joint Winner of the Michael Hartnett Poetry Award 2018. In Playing the Octopus, her eighth collection of poems, Mary O'Malley's sensitivity to the spirit of Ireland's west coast is as attuned as ever. In a world both earthen and dreamlike, bodily and mythical, a trout is seen to 'swallow light through his skin', a wolf 'howls the great open vowel of his need', and in the emptiness where a tree once stood, 'a tree-shaped brightness dances'. Over the course of the collection, O'Malley twins the Irish west coast with the American east coast, Inis Mór with Coney Island, the parish with the metropolis, the pipes with the axe, each offering its own comfort and wonder. Sylvia Plath, Lois Lane and Antigone feature in an unlikely cast of heroines through which O'Malley tests the mythologies of motherhood and femininity ('no mother is ever good enough until she's dead', writes the poet, with characteristic wit). Playing the Octopus is a body of writing buoyed by the redemptive power and sustaining joy of music, and it closes with O'Malley's translations of the Irish poet Seán Ó Ríordáin and the Spaniard Federico García Lorca.

Inky's Great Escape

Inky's Great Escape
Author: Casey Lyall
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2017
Genre: Aquarium animals
ISBN: 9781454926351

Inky, worn out from his exciting life in the ocean, has retired to the aquarium. There he quietly regales his tank mate Blotchy with tales of his past adventures. Then Blotchy dares Inky to make one more daring escape. Will Inky succeed?