Helen Plum Library

New York Times Bestseller

A Summer Reading Pick for President Barack Obama, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg

From a renowned historian comes a groundbreaking narrative of humanity's creation and evolution—a #1 international bestseller—that explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it means to be "human."

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"Bringing his cosmic perspective to civilization on Earth, Neil deGrasse Tyson shines new light on the crucial fault lines of our time--war, politics, religion, truth, beauty, gender, and race--in a way that stimulates a deeper sense of unity for us all"--

"A trailblazing account of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution-from the development of agriculture and cities to the emergence of "the state," political violence, and social inequality-and revealing new possibilities for human emancipation. For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike--either free and equal innocents, or thuggish and warlike. Civilization, we are told,...

"Essays about 1990s popular culture, politics, sports, literature, music"-- At the beginning, everyone's name and address was listed in the phone book, and everyone answered their landline because you didn't know who it was. By the end, exposing someone's address was an act of emotional violence, and nobody picked up their cell phone if they didn't know who was calling. Klosterman shows that in the 1990s there was a wholesale shift in how society...

"Join "America's funniest science writer" (Peter Carlson, Washington Post) Mary Roach on an irresistible investigation into the unpredictable world where wildlife and humans meet. What's to be done about a jaywalking moose? A grizzly bear caught breaking and entering? A murderous tree? As New York Times best-selling author Mary Roach discovers, the answers are best found not in jurisprudence but in science: the curious science of human-wildlife conflict,...

"A 1980s cultural assessment of the fantastical future of online behavior continues the story that began in the internationally best-selling futuristic novel, Ready Player One, that inspired a blockbuster Steven Spielberg film"-- Days after winning control of OASIS, the immersive virtual reality environment in which most of humanity chooses to live, Wade Watts discovers a world-changing technological advancement and draws the attention of a merciless...

"An epic novel that spans thirty years in the lives of a farm family in Iowa, telling a parallel story of the changes taking place in America from 1920 through the early 1950s"--Provided by publisher

Sarah's cat Rotten Ralph tries to help her create a school project based on ancient Egypt, but he is more of a hindrance than a help

America's preeminent columnist presents his penetrating and surprising reflections on everything from embryo research to entitlement reform, from Halley's Comet to border collies, from Christopher Columbus to Martin Luther King, from drone warfare to American decline. Features a special, highly autobiographical introduction

"From the author of Good Morning, Midnight comes a hopeful, sweeping story of survival and resilience spanning one extraordinary woman's lifetime as she navigates the uncertainty, brutality, and arresting beauty of a rapidly changing world. Florida as we know it is slipping away. As devastating weather patterns and rising sea levels wreak gradual havoc on the state's infrastructure, a powerful hurricane approaches a small town on the southeastern...