Book Log

The Worldly Philosopher

The Worldly Philosophers not only enables us to see more deeply into our history but helps us better understand our own times. In this seventh edition, Robert L. Heilbroner provides a new theme that connects thinkers as diverse as Adam Smith and Karl Marx. The theme is the common focus of their highly varied ideas—namely, the search to understand how a capitalist society works. It is a focus never more needed than in this age of confusing economic headlines.
In a bold new concluding chapter entitled “The End of the Worldly Philosophy?” Heilbroner reminds us that the word “end” refers to both the purpose and limits of economics. This chapter conveys a concern that today’s increasingly “scientific” economics may overlook fundamental social and political issues that are central to economics. Thus, unlike its predecessors, this new edition provides not just an indispensable illumination of our past but a call to action for our future. 

The Rosetta Key

“An utterly captivating romp from the treacherous tunnels beneath Jerusalem to the lost City of Ghosts (Petra, Jordan) to the tumult of revolutionary Paris….Dietrich spins a merry magical mystery tour, winningly intricate and anchored to actual historical figures and events….Mr. Spielberg! Mr. Lucas! It’s your move.”
—Seattle Times
 
Dashing and courageous American adventurer Ethan Gage returns in William Dietrich’s The Rosetta Key—the thrilling sequel to the Pulitzer Prize-winning author’s acclaimed Napoleon’s Pyramids. An eighteenth century Indiana Jones, Gage swashbuckles once again, this time in pursuit of a precious Egyptian relic that would give its owner the power to rule the world. The Rosetta Key an adventure in reading that is not to be missed, especially by fans of George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman novels and aficionados of a grand literary tradition dating back to Jack London, Robert Lewis Stevenson, and H. Rider Haggard, and carried on today by such notables as James Rollins, David Liss, Steve Berry, and Kate Mosse.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Japan's most highly regarded novelist now vaults into the first ranks of international fiction writers with this heroically imaginative novel, which is at once a detective story, an account of a disintegrating marriage, and an excavation of the buried secrets of World War II.

Nano Time

William Gibson meets Tom Clancy in this brilliant and chilling cyberthriller set in the multimedia world of the near furture--where oil is running out, wars are smart, and intelligent software agents may be the only friends you can trust. In the year 2030--when the world has doubled in population and no one escape the prying eyes of the State--John Grant wants to save the Earth from its addiction to oil and get rich in the process. But the revoultionary new molecule he has patented--an astonishing advance that can split water and produce a virtually limitless supply of the cheap fuel hydrogen--has marked him as a traitor to his country. . .and as a target. Sufi mystic, genius mathematician and master terroist Hamid Tabriz wants Grant's patent and his mind. Now both goals are within Tabriz's reach, thanks to a chip he has perfected which enables him to place his own mind in another's head.

An increasingly chatic world is racing toward annihilation. And John Grant will have to defend it--and himself--from a disembodied place far beyond the confines of space and time: in NANOTIME.

A Second Chance at Eden

From the author of the bestselling 'Night's Dawn' trilogy, a novella and six stories set in the same brilliantly realised universe.

Prayers for the Assissin

SEATTLE, 2040. The Space Needle lies crumpled. Veiled women hurry through the busy streets. Alcohol is outlawed, replaced by Jihad Cola, and mosques dot the skyline. New York and Washington, D.C., are nuclear wastelands. Phoenix is abandoned, Chicago the site of a civil war battle. At the edges of the empire, Islamic and Christian forces fight for control of a very different United States.

Enormous in scope and brilliantly imagined, Prayers for the Assassin promises to be the powerhouse read of the year. Burning with cinematic violence, fiendish betrayal, and global intrigue, Robert Ferrigno's sensational thriller asks: What would happen to America if the terrorists won?

After simultaneous suitcase-nuke attacks destroy New York, Washington, D.C., and Mecca—attacks blamed on Israel—a civil war breaks out. An uneasy truce leaves the nation divided between an Islamic republic with its capital in Seattle, and the Christian Bible Belt in the old South. In this frightening future there are still Super Bowls and Academy Awards, but calls to Muslim prayer echo in the streets and terror is everywhere. Freedom is controlled by the state, paranoia rules, and rebels plot to regain free will...

One of the most courageous is the beautiful young historian Sarah Dougan, who uncovers shocking evidence that the nuclear attacks might not have been planned by Israel, evidence that, if true, will destabilize the nation. When Sarah suddenly goes missing, the security chief of the Islamic republic calls upon Rakkim Epps, her secret lover and a former elite warrior, to find her—no matter what the risk.

But as Rakkim searches for Sarah, he is tracked by Darwin, a brilliant psychopathic killer trained in the same secretive unit as Rakkim. To survive, Rakkim must become Darwin's assassin—a most forbidding challenge. A bloody, nerve-racking chase takes them through the looking-glass world of the Islamic States of America, and culminates dramatically as Rakkim and Sarah battle to expose the truth to the entire world.

Can the couple outrun Darwin? Who is really behind the nuke attacks? Will Sarah and Rakkim stay alive long enough to deliver the truth? Does a nation divided have a prayer?

Robert Ferrigno's Prayers for the Assassin shows the novelist at the height of his powers, and delivers a masterful, unforgettable read.

Slant

In the sixth decade of the 21st century, the world has been transformed. Nanotechnology has been perfected, giving humans the ability to change their environment and themselves on the cellular level. And the study of the mind has brought about a revolution in both human psychotherapy and artificial intelligence.

It's a sane and perfect world. Almost.

A man called Jack Giffey is planning to break into the Omphalos, the most secure building in all of separatist Green Idaho. Rumor says that the Omphalos houses the not-quite-dead, the very wealthy deceased who are still alive, their brains connected directly into Thinkers, Artificial Intelligences that provide a virtual reality. Data is the great treasure of the new millennium, and Giffey plans to tap into the Omphalos datastream, to steal the knowledge gathered by the inhabitants of the Omphalos.
In the offices of Mind Design, Inc., the most advanced Artificial Intelligence in the world has had a unique experience. She has received a request for contact from a new AI, one she does not know and did not help to design. Jill has never met a stranger of her own kind before; is it an alien Thinker, or the offspring of some vast conspiracy?

Slant is set in Bear's Queen of Angels universe, and is one of the great science fiction novels of the 1990s.

Devil's Pulpit

With a sketch of his life and an astronomical introduction. This book is a collection of sermons delivered by the Rev. Robert Taylor. Everywhere he lectured he challenged the clergy to debate him. He was arrested for blasphemy and a persecution began. A Quaker banker took this opportunity to press a debt, and threw the orator into prison. It was there that he wrote the Diegesis and Syntagma. Contents: Star of Bethlehem; John the Baptist; Raising the Devil ; The Temple; Unjust Judge; Virgo Paritura; St. Peter; Judas Iscariot Vindicated; St. Thomas; St. James and John the Sons of Thunder; The Crucifixion of Christ; Cup of Salvation; Lecture on Free Masonry; The Holy Ghost; St. Philip; St. Matthew; The Redeemer.

One Summer

It's almost Christmas, but there is no joy in the house of terminally ill Jack and his family. With only a short time left to live, he spends his last days preparing to say goodbye to his devoted wife, Lizzie, and their three children. Then, unthinkably, tragedy strikes again: Lizzie is killed in a car accident. With no one able to care for them, the children are separated from each other and sent to live with family members around the country.

Just when all seems lost, Jack begins to recover in a miraculous turn of events. He rises from what should have been his deathbed, determined to bring his fractured family back together. Struggling to rebuild their lives after Lizzie's death, he reunites everyone at Lizzie's childhood home on the oceanfront in South Carolina. And there, over one unforgettable summer, Jack will begin to learn to love again, and he and his children will learn how to become a family once more.

Twenty Thirty

June 12, 2030 started out like any other day in memory―and by then, memories were long. Since cancer had been cured fifteen years before, America's population was aging rapidly. That sounds like good news, but consider this: millions of baby boomers, with a big natural predator picked off, were sucking dry benefits and resources that were never meant to hold them into their eighties and beyond. Young people around the country simmered with resentment toward "the olds" and anger at the treadmill they could never get off of just to maintain their parents' entitlement programs.

But on that June 12th, everything changed: a massive earthquake devastated Los Angeles, and the government, always teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, was unable to respond.
The fallout from the earthquake sets in motion a sweeping novel of ideas that pits national hope for the future against assurances from the past and is peopled by a memorable cast of refugees and billionaires, presidents and revolutionaries, all struggling to find their way. In 2030, Albert Brooks' all-too-believable, dystopian imagining of where today's challenges could lead us tomorrow makes gripping and thought-provoking reading.

The Fate of Worlds

This is the fifth and last novel in Larry Niven's "Ringworld" series. This series began in 1970, with the publication of Ringworld, now, in conjunction with Edward M. Lerner, Niven brings the series to its conclusion.

For decades, the spacefaring species of Known Space have battled over the largest artifact—and grandest prize—in the galaxy: the all-but-limitless resources and technology of the Ringworld, but without warning the Ringworld has vanished, leaving behind three rival war fleets. Something must justify the blood and treasure that have been spent. If the fallen civilization of the Ringworld can no longer be despoiled of its secrets, the nearby advanced, but pacifistic species known as "Puppeteers" will be forced to surrender theirs. Yet, the danger to the Puppeteers goes far beyond mere invasion fleets, the survival of their planet is at stake, plus political intrigue, deadly rivalries, risk and danger at every turn.

The Great Crash Ahead

In his most recent New York Times bestselling book, The Great Depression Ahead, Harry S. Dent, Jr., predicted that the stimulus plan created in response to the first crisis would hit demographic and debt saturation headwinds and ultimately fail. In 2010, the stimulus plan had started to fail, and it was already stalling by the first quarter of 2011. The Great Crash Ahead outlines why the next crash and crisis is inevitable, and just around the corner—coming between 2012 and 2014.

With incisive critical analysis and historical examples, this book lays bare the traditional assumptions of economics. Dent shows that the government doesn’t drive our economy, consumers and businesses do; that the Fed does not create most of the money in our economy, the private banking system does; and that the largest generation in history is now saving for or moving into retirement, meaning slowing growth. This is the new normal! Our banking system borrowed to lend for the first time in history with unprecedented leverage and debt levels of $42 trillion, way beyond the massive government debt. But the government’s promises and unfunded liabilities take the cake, at an estimated $66 trillion and growing!

These massive debts will have to be restructured in a time of slowing spending, and this means a deflationary crisis, which is very different from the inflationary crisis of the 1970s and requires very different personal, investment, and business strategies. Dent and Johnson outline these strategies in very practical detail. In the coming years, the greatest surprise will be that the U.S. dollar becomes the safe haven and appreciates just when everyone is calling for it to crash, while the gold and silver bubbles burst along with the stock and commodity bubbles. And real estate will see another round of declines just when everyone thought it could go no lower. The Great Crash Ahead is about making smart, cautious investments—avoiding the sort of high-risk, high-profit investment schemes that sank the world economy.

The road to recovery will be filled with challenges and will require massive change, such as debt restructuring, plans for greater employment, the restructuring of social welfare programs such as social security and health care, budget cuts, and higher taxes—in short, a revision of the kind of lifestyle that characterized the “Roaring 2000s.” The good news is this process will eliminate tens of trillions of dollars of debt and can make way for growth again as the echo boom generation ascends. Or we can continue on our present course and end up like the Japanese, with no growth and high debt two decades later.