Books for alternative people
Discover the best books for alternative people—from Al Gore's *Our Choice* to Chuck Klosterman's *Eating the Dinosaur*—exploring nature, science, and offbeat economics.
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Brida
by Paulo Coelho
Brida, a young Irish girl, has long been interested in various aspects of magic but is searching for something more. Her search leads her to people of great wisdom. She meets a wise man who dwells in a forest, who teaches her to trust in the goodness of the world, and a woman who teaches her how to dance to the music of the world. As Brida seeks her destiny, she struggles to find a balance between her relationships and her desire to become a witch. This enthralling novel incorporates themes that fans of Paulo Coelho will recognize and treasure. It is a tale of love, passion, mystery, and spirituality from the master storyteller.
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Super Freakonomics
by Steven D. Levitt
The New York Times best-selling Freakonomics was a worldwide sensation, selling over four million copies in thirty-five languages and changing the way we look at the world. Now, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner return with SuperFreakonomics, and fans and newcomers alike will find that the freakquel is even bolder, funnier, and more surprising than the first. Four years in the making, SuperFreakonomics asks not only the tough questions, but the unexpected ones: What's more dangerous, driving drunk or walking drunk? Why is chemotherapy prescribed so often if it's so ineffective? Can a sex change boost your salary? SuperFreakonomics challenges the way we think all over again, exploring the hidden side of everything with such questions as: How is a street prostitute like a department-store Santa? Why are doctors so bad at washing their hands? How much good do car seats do? What's the best way to catch a terrorist? Did TV cause a rise in crime? What do hurricanes, heart attacks, and highway deaths have in common? Are people hard-wired for altruism or selfishness? Can eating kangaroo save the planet? Which adds more value: a pimp or a Realtor? Levitt and Dubner mix smart thinking and great storytelling like no one else, whether investigating a solution to global warming or explaining why the price of oral sex has fallen so drastically. By examining how people respond to incentives, they show the world for what it really is – good, bad, ugly, and, in the final analysis, super freaky. Freakonomics has been imitated many times over – but only now, with SuperFreakonomics, has it met its match.
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Our Choice
by Al Gore
The former vice president and author of such best-sellers as "An Inconvenient Truth" and "Earth in the Balance" presents a follow-up work to address key environmental issues while profiling and evaluating possible solutions.
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The Zahir
by Paulo Coelho
The narrator of The Zahir is a bestselling novelist who lives in Paris and enjoys all the privileges money and celebrity bring. His wife of ten years, Esther, is a war correspondent who has disappeared along with a friend, Mikhail, who may or may not be her lover. Was Esther kidnapped, murdered, or did she simply escape a marriage that left her unfulfilled? The narrator doesn't have any answers, but he has plenty of questions of his own. Then one day Mikhail finds the narrator and promises to reunite him with his wife. In his attempt to recapture a lost love, the narrator discovers something unexpected about himself.
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A Simple Christmas: Twelve Stories That Celebrate the True Holiday Spirit
by Huckabee, Mike
No summary available.
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The Lost Symbol
by Dan Brown
#1 WORLDWIDE BESTSELLER • An intelligent, lightning-paced thriller set within the hidden chambers, tunnels, and temples of Washington, D.C., with surprises at every turn. • Don’t miss the Peacock original series Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol! Famed Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon answers an unexpected summons to appear at the U.S. Capitol Building. His plans are interrupted when a disturbing object—artfully encoded with five symbols—is discovered in the building. Langdon recognizes in the find an ancient invitation into a lost world of esoteric, potentially dangerous wisdom. When his mentor Peter Solomon—a long-standing Mason and beloved philanthropist—is kidnapped, Langdon realizes that the only way to save Solomon is to accept the mystical invitation and plunge headlong into a clandestine world of Masonic secrets, hidden history, and one inconceivable truth ... all under the watchful eye of Dan Brown's most terrifying villain to date.
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Your Inner Fish
by Neil Shubin
The paleontologist and professor of anatomy who co-discovered Tiktaalik, the “fish with hands,” tells a “compelling scientific adventure story that will change forever how you understand what it means to be human” (Oliver Sacks). By examining fossils and DNA, he shows us that our hands actually resemble fish fins, our heads are organized like long-extinct jawless fish, and major parts of our genomes look and function like those of worms and bacteria. Your Inner Fish makes us look at ourselves and our world in an illuminating new light. This is science writing at its finest—enlightening, accessible and told with irresistible enthusiasm.
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Googled
by Ken Auletta
"In 'Googled,' esteemed media writer Ken Auletta uses the story of Google's rise to explore the future of media at large."--p.[4] of cover.
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Bright-sided
by Barbara Ehrenreich
Exposes the downside of America's penchant for positive thinking, which the author believes leads to self-blame and a preoccupation with stamping out "negative" thoughts on a personal level, and, on a national level, has brought on economic disaster.
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Eating the Dinosaur
by Chuck Klosterman
The bestselling author of "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs" returns with an all-original nonfiction collection of questions and answers about pop culture, sports, and the meaning of reality.
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Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives
No summary available.