Astonishing Animals

Astonishing Animals
Author: Tim Flannery
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
Total Pages: 406
Release: 2012-03-01
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0802194176

From the authors of A Gap in Nature, a breathtaking visual adventure showcasing ninety of the world’s most astounding creatures. Sumptuous birds of paradise, amazing soft-shell turtles, frogs that look like tomatoes, and terrifying fish (including the deep-water angler fish from Finding Nemo) are just some of the extraordinary creatures that can be found in Tim Flannery and Peter Schouten’s new book, Astonishing Animals. Superbly illustrated with lifelike full-color paintings, Astonishing Animals details ninety of the world’s most amazing animals from around the world. In this book you will find the hairy seadevil; the spectacular Sulawesi naked bat; and in the depths of the limestone caves in Slovenia, the olm, a pink, four-legged, sightless salamander that lives for a hundred years. In fascinating vignettes, Flannery offers the true evolutionary tale of how each of these bizarre creatures came to look the way they do. Alongside each historical account is a stunning hand-painted color reproduction (life-size in the original painting) by Schouten. Filled with purple-faced apes, jagged-toothed dolphins, and antlered lizards, Astonishing Animals is a remarkable collection of the world’s most incredible creatures and the stories behind their remarkable survival into a modern age. “An elegant paean to some of the world’s strangest and/or most beautiful creatures.” —Mary Ann Gwinn, The Seattle Times “As beautiful as it is fascinating, this book will be relished by animal lovers of all stripes.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

Dark Remedy

Dark Remedy
Author: Trent Stephens
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2009-04-27
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0786731125

In this riveting medical detective story, Trent Stephens and Rock Brynner recount the history of thalidomide, from the epidemic of birth defects in the 1960's to the present day, as scientists work to create and test an alternative drug that captures thalidomide's curative properties without its cruel side effects. A parable about compassion-and the absence of it-Dark Remedy is a gripping account of thalidomide's extraordinary impact on the lives of individuals and nations over half a century.

Shocked

Shocked
Author: David Casarett
Publisher: Current
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2015-10-13
Genre: Death, Apparent
ISBN: 1617230227

Not too long ago, there was no coming back from death. But now, with revolutionary medical advances, death has become just another serious complication as David Casarett shows in this compelling volume. The entire history of resuscitation, from ancient times to today, is here explored, thus revealing exactly how malleable the term 'dead' actually is.

Sophie's World

Sophie's World
Author: Jostein Gaarder
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Total Pages: 599
Release: 2007-03-20
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1466804270

A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.