  | The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution In 2008, a Gallup poll showed that 44 percent of Americans believed God had created man in his present form within the last 10,000 years. In a Pew Forum poll in the same year, 42 percent believed that all life on earth has existed in its present form since the beginning of time.In 1859 Charles Darwin's masterpiece, On the Origin of Species, shook society to its core. Darwin was only too aware of the storm his theory of evolution would provoke. But he surely would have raised an incredulous eyebrow at the controversy still raging a century and a half later. Evolution is accepted as scientific fact by all reputable scientists and indeed theologians, yet millions of people continue to question its veracity. Now the author of the iconic work The God Delusion takes them to task. The Greatest Show on Earth is a stunning counterattack on advocates of "Intelligent Design," explaining the evidence for evolution while exposing the absurdities of the creationist "argument." Dawkins sifts through rich layers of scientific evidence: from living examples of natural selection to clues in the fossil record; from natural clocks that mark the vast epochs wherein evolution ran its course to the intricacies of developing embryos; from plate tectonics to molecular genetics. Combining these elements and many more, he makes the airtight case that "we find ourselves perched on one tiny twig in the midst of a blossoming and flourishing tree of life and it is no accident, but the direct consequence of evolution by non-random selection." The Greatest Show on Earth comes at a critical time: systematic opposition to the fact of evolution is menacing as never before. In American schools, and in schools around the world, insidious attempts are made to undermine the status of science in the classroom. Dawkins wields a devastating argument against this ignorance, but his unjaded passion for the natural world turns what might have been a negative argument into a positive offering to the reader: nothing less than a master's vision of life, in all its splendor. |
The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution
Noisy Outlaws, Unfriendly Blobs, and Some Other Things . . .: That Aren't as Scary, Maybe, Depending on How You Feel About Lost Lands, Stray Cellphones, ... So Maybe You Could Help Us Out (Mcsweeneys)
 | Noisy Outlaws, Unfriendly Blobs, and Some Other Things . . .: That Aren't as Scary, Maybe, Depending on How You Feel About Lost Lands, Stray Cellphones, ... So Maybe You Could Help Us Out (Mcsweeneys) A collection of stories for wise young people and immature old people, written by favorites of all ages: Nick Hornby (High Fidelity, About a Boy), John Scieszka (The Stinky Cheese Man), Neil Gaiman (The Sandman, American Gods), and many others. Each story features color illustrations by a different artist, including Barry Blitt, Marcel Dzama, and Lane Smith. Lemony Snicket adds an introduction and a story of his ownโ€”at least, he starts one, and then it is up to the reader to finish. The story appears on the inside of the dust jacket; you add your own thrilling, joyful, or disgusting ending. The jacket then folds up into a fancy envelope, addressed to us. Our favorite ending will receive a fabulous prize of some sort. |
Everything is Illuminated
 | Everything is Illuminated 'An astonishing feat' - "The Times". A young man arrives in the Ukraine, clutching in his hand a tattered photograph. He is searching for the woman who fifty years ago saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Unfortunately, he is aided in his quest by Alex, a translator with an uncanny ability to mangle English into bizarre new forms; a 'blind' old man haunted by memories of the war; and an undersexed guide dog named Sammy Davis Jr, Jr. What they are looking for seems elusive - a truth hidden behind veils of time, language and the horrors of war. What they find turns all their worlds upside down. |
Joe
 | Joe When renowned Hiroshi Sugimoto was invited to photograph the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, St. Louis, his attention immediately focused on an immense steel sculpture, Richard Serraโ€�s Joe, one of the artistโ€�s torqued spirals, which occupies a small courtyard of the museum. Joe allows viewers to walk in through a narrow passage between towering, sloping walls. The path leads to a surprising central space from which only the curving steel walls and the sky are visible. Combining extremely soft light and blurred darkness, Sugimotoโ€�s pictures in this book capture the elliptical nature of Serraโ€�s piece. His images are complemented by the words of Jonathan Safran Foer, whose affecting prose poemโ€”about an "average Joe" experiencing the circular passage of timeโ€”echoes, without directly referencing, Serraโ€�s sculpture. Designed by Takaaki Matsumoto, this beautiful, large-format book features tritone reproductions printed on luxurious uncoated stock. The result is an eloquent and visually arresting commentary on time, impermanence, and memory. |
Everything Is Illuminated: A Novel
 | Everything Is Illuminated: A Novel With only a yellowing photograph in hand, a young man -- also named Jonathan Safran Foer -- sets out to find the woman who may or may not have saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Accompanied by an old man haunted by memories of the war; an amorous dog named Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior; and the unforgettable Alex, a young Ukrainian translator who speaks in a sublimely butchered English, Jonathan is led on a quixotic journey over a devastated landscape and into an unexpected past. |
The Future Dictionary of America
 | The Future Dictionary of America This book was conceived by Jonathan Safran Foer, Dave Eggers, Nicole Krauss, and the staff of McSweeney's as a way to bring over a hundred authors together to promote progressive causes in the November 2004 election. An imagining of what a dictionary might look like about thirty years hence, when the world's problems are solved and our current president is a distant memory, the book is by turns funny, outraged, utopian, and dyspeptic. 100 percent of the proceeds will go to a mix of political organizations to support progressive candidates in the upcoming elections. Over 150 writers contributed to the book, including: Stephen King, Robert Olen Butler, Glen David Gold, Richard Powers, Susan Straight, Sarah Vowell, Billy Collins, C.K. Williams, Colson Whitehead, Donald Antrim, Jonathan Franzen, Edwidge Danticat, Edward Hirsch, Joyce Carol Oates, Katha Pollitt, Padgett Powell, Paul Auster, Anthony Swofford, Julia Alvarez, Susan Choi, Jim Shepard, Aimee Bender, and Art Spiegelman. Released in partnership with Barsuk Records, the book will include a CD compilation, with exclusive songs by the best musicians working. Among them: David Byrne, R.E.M., Death Cab for Cutie, Sleater-Kinney, Flaming Lips, Tom Waits, Bright Eyes, They Might Be Giants, Nada Surf, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. |
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel
 | Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel Jonathan Safran Foer emerged as one of the most original writers of his generation with his best-selling debut novel, Everything Is Illuminated. Now, with humor, tenderness, and awe, he confronts the traumas of our recent history. Nine-year-old Oskar Schell has embarked on an urgent, secret mission that will take him through the five boroughs of New York. His goal is to find the lock that matches a mysterious key that belonged to his father, who died in the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11. This seemingly impossible task will bring Oskar into contact with survivors of all sorts on an exhilarating, affecting, often hilarious, and ultimately healing journey. |
Eating Animals
 | Eating Animals Jonathan Safran Foer spent much of his teenage and college years oscillating between omnivore and vegetarian. But on the brink of fatherhood-facing the prospect of having to make dietary choices on a child's behalf-his casual questioning took on an urgency His quest for answers ultimately required him to visit factory farms in the middle of the night, dissect the emotional ingredients of meals from his childhood, and probe some of his most primal instincts about right and wrong. Brilliantly synthesizing philosophy, literature, science, memoir and his own detective work, Eating Animals explores the many fictions we use to justify our eating habits-from folklore to pop culture to family traditions and national myth-and how such tales can lull us into a brutal forgetting. Marked by Foer's profound moral ferocity and unvarying generosity, as well as the vibrant style and creativity that made his previous books, Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, widely loved, Eating Animals is a celebration and a reckoning, a story about the stories we've told-and the stories we now need to tell. |
Egan, Timothy. The worst hard time; the untold story of those who survived the Great American Dust Bowl.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Audiobook review): An article from: Kliatt
 | Egan, Timothy. The worst hard time; the untold story of those who survived the Great American Dust Bowl.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Audiobook review): An article from: Kliatt This digital document is an article from Kliatt, published by Thomson Gale on September 1, 2006. The length of the article is 432 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser. Citation Details Title: Egan, Timothy. The worst hard time; the untold story of those who survived the Great American Dust Bowl.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Audiobook review) Author: Janet Julian Publication: Kliatt (Magazine/Journal) Date: September 1, 2006 Publisher: Thomson Gale Volume: 40 Issue: 5 Page: 61(1) Article Type: Brief article, Audiobook review, Young adult review Distributed by Thomson Gale |
Down Tick
 | Down Tick The stock market is a place for those who can stand a fast pace. DOWN TICK is a factional read that revolves around a high pressured sales force. The story is mixed with humor, mystery, justice, and survival. It is a must read from the "player" to the workplace investor who follows an IRA investment. |
The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl
 | The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl The dust storms that terrorized the High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since. Timothy Eganโ€�s critically acclaimed account rescues this iconic chapter of American history from the shadows in a tour de force of historical reportage. Following a dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, Egan tells of their desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black dust blizzards, crop failure, and the death of loved ones. Brilliantly capturing the terrifying drama of catastrophe, Egan does equal justice to the human characters who become his heroes, โ€�the stoic, long-suffering men and women whose lives he opens up with urgency and respectโ€� (New York Times). In an era that promises ever-greater natural disasters, The Worst Hard Time is โ€�arguably the best nonfiction book yetโ€� (Austin Statesman Journal) on the greatest environmental disaster ever to be visited upon our land and a powerful cautionary tale about the dangers of trifling with nature. |
The Winemaker's Daughter
 | The Winemaker's Daughter Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times national correspondent Timothy Egan turns to fiction with The Winemaker's Daughter, a lyrical and gripping novel about the harsh realities and ecological challenges of turning water into wine. When Brunella Cartolano visits her father on the family vineyard in the basin of the Cascade Mountains, she's shocked by the devastation caused by a four-year drought. Passionate about the Pacific Northwest ecology, Brunella, a cultural impact analyst, is embroiled in a battle to save the Seattle waterfront from redevelopment and to preserve a fisherman's livelihood. But when a tragedy among fire-jumpers results from a failure of the water supplyโ€“her brother Niccolo is among those lost--Brunella finds herself with another mission: to find out who is sabotaging the area's water supply. Joining forces with a Native American Forest Ranger, she discovers deep rifts rooted in the region's complicated history, and tries to save her father's vineyard from drying up for good . . . even as violence and corruption erupt around her. |
Lasso the Wind: Away to the New West
 | Lasso the Wind: Away to the New West A New York Times Notable Book of the Year Winner of the Mountains and Plains Book Seller's Association Award "Sprawling in scope. . . . Mr. Egan uses the past powerfully to explain and give dimension to the present." --The New York Times "Fine reportage . . . honed and polished until it reads more like literature than journalism." --Los Angeles Times "They have tried to tame it, shave it, fence it, cut it, dam it, drain it, nuke it, poison it, pave it, and subdivide it," writes Timothy Egan of the West; still, "this region's hold on the American character has never seemed stronger." In this colorful and revealing journey through the eleven states west of the 100th meridian, Egan, a third-generation westerner, evokes a lovely and troubled country where land is religion and the holy war between preservers and possessors never ends. Egan leads us on an unconventional, freewheeling tour: from America's oldest continuously inhabited community, the Ancoma Pueblo in New Mexico, to the high kitsch of Lake Havasu City, Arizona, where London Bridge has been painstakingly rebuilt stone by stone; from the fragile beauty of Idaho's Bitterroot Range to the gross excess of Las Vegas, a city built as though in defiance of its arid environment. In a unique blend of travel writing, historical reflection, and passionate polemic, Egan has produced a moving study of the West: how it became what it is, and where it is going. "The writing is simply wonderful. From the opening paragraph, Egan seduces the reader. . . . Entertaining, thought provoking." --The Arizona Daily Star Weekly "A western breeziness and love of open spaces shines through Lasso the Wind. . . . The writing is simple and evocative." --The Economist |
Breaking Blue
 | Breaking Blue In 1935, the Spokane police regularly extorted sex, food, and money from the reluctant hobos (many of them displaced farmers who had fled the Midwestern dust bowls), robbed dairies, and engaged in all manner of nefarious crimes, including murder. This history was suppressed until 1989, when former logger, Vietnam vet, and Spokane cop Tony Bamonte discovered a strange 1955 deathbed confession while researching a thesis on local law enforcement history. Bamonte began to probe what had every appearance of widespread police crime and a massive cover-up whose highlight was the unsolved murder of Town Marshall George Conff. The fact that many of those involved, now in their 80s and 90s, were still alive made it imperative that Bamonte unravel this mystery. The result is Breaking Blue, a white-knuckle ride through institutional corruption and cover-up that vividly documents Depression-era Spokane and an extraordinary case that few believed would ever be brought to light. |
The Good Rain: Across Time and Terrain in the Pacific Northwest (Vintage Departures)
 | The Good Rain: Across Time and Terrain in the Pacific Northwest (Vintage Departures) A fantastic book! Timothy Egan describes his journeys in the Pacific Northwest through visits to salmon fisheries, redwood forests and the manicured English gardens of Vancouver. Here is a blend of history, anthropology and politics. |
The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America
 | The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America On the afternoon of August 20, 1910, a battering ram of wind moved through the drought-stricken national forests of Washington, Idaho, and Montana, whipping the hundreds of small blazes burning across the forest floor into a roaring inferno that jumped from treetop to ridge as it raged, destroying towns and timber in the blink of an eye. Forest rangers had assembled nearly ten thousand men โ€�โ€”โ€� college boys, day workers, immigrants from mining camps โ€�โ€”โ€� to fight the fire. But no living person had seen anything like those flames, and neither the rangers nor anyone else knew how to subdue them. Egan narrates the struggles of the overmatched rangers against the implacable fire with unstoppable dramatic force. Equally dramatic is the larger story he tells of outsized president Teddy Roosevelt and his chief forester, Gifford Pinchot. Pioneering the notion of conservation, Roosevelt and Pinchot did nothing less than create the idea of public land as our national treasure, owned by and preserved for every citizen. The robber barons fought Roosevelt and Pinchotโ€�s rangers, but the Big Burn saved the forests even as it destroyed them: the heroism shown by the rangers turned public opinion permanently in their favor and became the creation myth that drove the Forest Service, with consequences still felt in the way our national lands are protectedโ€� โ€” โ€�or not โ€”โ€� today. |
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