Dispatches from Ray's Planet

Dispatches from Ray's Planet
Author: Claire Finlayson
Publisher: Caitlin Press
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2020-09-11
Genre:
ISBN: 9781773860305

As a child, Claire's big brother Ray was always bright and inquisitive, and she looked up to him. But as the two became teenagers, Ray struggled to acquire the social skills that came more easily to Claire and their friends. Claire tried to help, pointing out what he should or shouldn't have said or done. Ray insisted that he wasn't the problem--"On my planet...", he would explain, there were no social climbers, no cocktail parties, no subtle hints or subliminal messages to miss. On his planet, the telling of little white lies would be a capital offence. At sixteen, sitting with him in the high school cafeteria, Claire vowed to find Ray's "planet." After graduation, Ray took a job as a letter carrier with Canada Post, but after thirty-three years on the job he had developed plantar fasciitis, his feet so painful he couldn't walk. Instead of seeking medical help, he began leaving mail in his truck overnight--a serious dereliction of duty. He was fired, blew his appeal, and spiralled into a suicidal depression. Claire didn't know he was in trouble until he reached out to her by email. Thus began a remarkable email correspondence that pulled back the curtain on an inner life Claire couldn't have imagined. Where in-person interactions plunged him into hot water, by email, Ray's writing revealed a compassionate, funny, sad man who showed extraordinary insight into his often self-destructive way of navigating the world. Ray was fifty when Claire realized he might have Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), but by then, having survived without a diagnosis his whole life, Ray was reluctant to have a label pinned on him and resisted Claire's efforts to fix him by trying, in all sincerity, to make him more like her. Dispatches From Ray's Planet draws on Ray and Claire's correspondence to tell the story of two siblings from two very different planets. There are thousands of Rays in our world, hiding in basements or holding up walls at social functions. In this collective memoir, Claire and Ray share their journey with the hope that others can also learn that we all perceive the world in different ways, and that "different" does not necessarily mean dangerous.

Dispatches from Planet 3

Dispatches from Planet 3
Author: Marcia Bartusiak
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2018-01-01
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0300235747

An award-winning science writer presents a captivating collection of cosmological essays for the armchair astronomer The galaxy, the multiverse, and the history of astronomy are explored in this engaging compilation of cosmological tales by multiple-award-winning science writer Marcia Bartusiak. In thirty-two concise and engrossing essays, the author provides a deeper understanding of the nature of the universe and those who strive to uncover its mysteries. Bartusiak shares the back stories for many momentous astronomical discoveries, including the contributions of such pioneers as Beatrice Tinsley, with her groundbreaking research in galactic evolution, and Jocelyn Bell Burnell, the scientist who first discovered radio pulsars. An endlessly fascinating collection that you can dip into in any order, these pieces will transport you to ancient Mars, when water flowed freely across its surface; to the collision of two black holes, a cosmological event that released fifty times more energy than was radiating from every star in the universe; and to the beginning of time itself.

The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars

The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars
Author: Michael E. Mann
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 450
Release: 2012
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 023115254X

A member of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change examines the fossil-fuel industry's public relations campaign to discredit the science of climate change and deny the reality of global warming.

Cosmic Dispatches

Cosmic Dispatches
Author: John Noble Wilford
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 362
Release: 2002
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 9780393322774

The scientists seeking to unravel the mysteries of the universe are among the most imaginative and provocative explorers of our time. Like the geographic explorers of earlier centuries, they venture into uncharted spaces, come upon new worlds, expand the knowable, and challenge thinking about the place of humans in all things. Collected here are the most exciting moments of recent astronomical explorations, presented by the award-winning science reporters of The New York Times. Recent leaps in technology have allowed astronomers to peer deeply into the universe and to bring into focus fascinating and unsuspected phenomena. Cosmic Dispatches conveys in thrilling detail the meaning and significance of what scientists have been learning about our universe.

Rising

Rising
Author: Elizabeth Rush
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2018-06-12
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1571319700

A Pulitzer Prize Finalist, this powerful elegy for our disappearing coast “captures nature with precise words that almost amount to poetry” (The New York Times). Hailed as “the book on climate change and sea levels that was missing” (Chicago Tribune), Rising is both a highly original work of lyric reportage and a haunting meditation on how to let go of the places we love. With every record-breaking hurricane, it grows clearer that climate change is neither imagined nor distant—and that rising seas are transforming the coastline of the United States in irrevocable ways. In Rising, Elizabeth Rush guides readers through these dramatic changes, from the Gulf Coast to Miami, and from New York City to the Bay Area. For many of the plants, animals, and humans in these places, the options are stark: retreat or perish. Rush sheds light on the unfolding crises through firsthand testimonials—a Staten Islander who lost her father during Sandy, the remaining holdouts of a Native American community on a drowning Isle de Jean Charles, a neighborhood in Pensacola settled by escaped slaves hundreds of years ago—woven together with profiles of wildlife biologists, activists, and other members of these vulnerable communities. A Guardian, Publishers Weekly, and Library Journal Best Book Of 2018 Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award A Chicago Tribune Top Ten Book of 2018

I Overcame My Autism and All I Got Was This Lousy Anxiety Disorder

I Overcame My Autism and All I Got Was This Lousy Anxiety Disorder
Author: Sarah Kurchak
Publisher: Douglas & McIntyre
Total Pages: 186
Release: 2020-04-02
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1771622474

Sarah Kurchak is autistic. She hasn’t let that get in the way of pursuing her dream to become a writer, or to find love, but she has let it get in the way of being in the same room with someone chewing food loudly, and of cleaning her bathroom sink. In I Overcame My Autism and All I Got Was This Lousy Anxiety Disorder, Kurchak examines the Byzantine steps she took to become “an autistic success story,” how the process almost ruined her life and how she is now trying to recover. Growing up undiagnosed in small-town Ontario in the eighties and nineties, Kurchak realized early that she was somehow different from her peers. She discovered an effective strategy to fend off bullying: she consciously altered nearly everything about herself—from her personality to her body language. She forced herself to wear the denim jeans that felt like being enclosed in a sandpaper iron maiden. Every day, she dragged herself through the door with an elevated pulse and a churning stomach, nearly crumbling under the effort of the performance. By the time she was finally diagnosed with autism at twenty-seven, she struggled with depression and anxiety largely caused by the same strategy she had mastered precisely. She came to wonder, were all those years of intensely pretending to be someone else really worth it? Tackling everything from autism parenting culture to love, sex, alcohol, obsessions and professional pillow fighting, Kurchak’s enlightening memoir challenges stereotypes and preconceptions about autism and considers what might really make the lives of autistic people healthier, happier and more fulfilling.

The Day We Found the Universe

The Day We Found the Universe
Author: Marcia Bartusiak
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2010-03-09
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0307276600

The riveting and mesmerizing story behind a watershed period in human history, the discovery of the startling size and true nature of our universe. On New Years Day in 1925, a young Edwin Hubble released his finding that our Universe was far bigger, eventually measured as a thousand trillion times larger than previously believed. Hubble’s proclamation sent shock waves through the scientific community. Six years later, in a series of meetings at Mount Wilson Observatory, Hubble and others convinced Albert Einstein that the Universe was not static but in fact expanding. Here Marcia Bartusiak reveals the key players, battles of will, clever insights, incredible technology, ground-breaking research, and wrong turns made by the early investigators of the heavens as they raced to uncover what many consider one of most significant discoveries in scientific history.

The Story of Earth & Life

The Story of Earth & Life
Author: Terence McCarthy
Publisher: Penguin Random House South Africa
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2013-07-10
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1775840964

Geologically speaking, southern Africa is without equal, a treasure house of valuable minerals with a geological history dating back some 3 600 million years. In addition, the evolution of plants and animals, especially mammals and dinosaurs, is well preserved in the region, which also probably has the best record of the origin of modern man. This book provides a fascinating insight into that remarkable history: how southern Africa, and to some extent the world, came to be the way it is - how its mineral deposits formed, its life evolved and its landscape was shaped. Along the way readers will be enthralled by accounts of the Big Bang that marked the beginning of time and matter, by drifting and colliding continents, folding and fracturing of rocks, meteors colliding with the Earth, the time when the Earth froze over, volcanic eruptions and the start of life. Anyone interested in the landscape and ecosystems in which we live will be intrigued to discover how our natural landmarks were formed, from the deserts of Namibia to the mountains of the Western Cape or Mpumalanga. Why is South Africa so rich in minerals? How did glacial deposits come to be found in the Karoo? Why did dinosaurs become extinct? How did mammals develop from reptiles? How closely related are we to the apes? The answers to many such questions are found in this lavishly illustrated volume. The authors also suggest how we can learn from the past in order to anticipate the future - for instance, to be able to predict earthquakes, deal with volcanic eruptions and meet the challenges of global climate change.

Strange New Worlds

Strange New Worlds
Author: Ray Jayawardhana
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2013-04-21
Genre: Science
ISBN: 069115807X

Describes the science of planet hunters, the prospects for the discovery of alien life, and discusses the controversies surrounding extrasolar-planet research.