Collection: Adult

From the coauthor of Algorithms to Live By, an exploration of the quest to use mathematics to describe the ways we think, from its origins three hundred years ago to the ideas behind modern AI systems and the ways in which they still differ from human minds

Everyone has a basic understanding of how the physical world works. We learn about physics and chemistry in school, letting us explain the world around us in terms of concepts like force, acceleration, and gravity--the Laws of Nature. But we don't have the same fluency with concepts needed to understand the world inside us--the Laws of Thought. While the story of how mathematics has been used to reveal the mysteries of the universe is familiar, the story of how it has been used to study the mind is not.

There is no one better to tell that story than Tom Griffiths, the head of Princeton's AI Lab and a renowned expert in the field of cognitive science. In this groundbreaking book, he explains the three major approaches to formalizing thought--rules and symbols, neural networks, and probability and statistics--introducing each idea through the stories of the people behind it. As informed conversations about thought, language, and learning become ever more pressing in the age of AI, The Laws of Thought is an essential read for anyone interested in the future of technology.

A "highly compelling" (Washington Post) work of popular science about scientists who have had to fight for their revolutionary ideas to be accepted

For two decades, Matt Kaplan has covered science for the Economist. He's seen breakthroughs often occur in spite of, rather than because of, the behavior of the research community, and how support can be withheld for those who don't conform or have the right connections. In this passionately argued and entertaining book, Kaplan narrates the history of the 19th century Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis, who realized that Childbed fever--a devastating infection that only struck women who had recently given birth--was spread by doctors not washing their hands. Semmelweis was met with overwhelming hostility by those offended at the notion that doctors were at fault, and is a prime example of how the scientific community often fights new ideas, even when the facts are staring them in the face.

In entertaining prose, Kaplan reveals scientific cases past and present to make his case. Some are familiar, like Galileo being threatened with torture and Nobel laureate Katalin Karikó being fired when on the brink of discovering how to wield mRNA-a finding that proved pivotal for the creation of the Covid-19 vaccine. Others less so, like researchers silenced for raising safety concerns about new drugs, and biologists ridiculed for revealing major flaws in the way rodent research is conducted. Kaplan shows how the scientific community can work faster and better by making reasonably small changes to the forces that shape it.

A new collection of evocative personal essays from one of America's most beloved nonfiction writers, Anne Fadiman.

In Frog, Anne Fadiman returns to her favorite genre, the essay, of which she is one of our most celebrated practitioners. Ranging in subject matter from her deceased frog, to archaic printer technology, to the fraught relationship between Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his son Hartley, these essays unlock a whole world--one overflowing with mundanity and oddity--through sly observation and brilliant wit.

The diverse subjects of Frog are bound together by the quality of Fadiman's attention, and subtly, they come to form a slantwise portrait of the artist, a writer dedicated to chronicling the world as it changes around her, in ways small and large, as time passes.

The POIGNANT, UTTERLY ORIGINAL story of two women separated across time but united by the arrival of Halley's comet, as blazing and as daring as their stories

"[A] PAGE-TURNER." --The Millions
"Beautiful, engrossing, and REVELATORY." --Nina de Gramont, NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author
"A DAZZLING, magical novel that entrances with every page." --Jason Mott, NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author

1986. The Earthshine Soap Company has given Nona Dixon everything, from making her the brand's first Earthshine Girl to launching her acting career. It also threatens to be the very thing that causes her to unravel when a group of Jane Does file a class action lawsuit accusing the company of putting harmful ingredients into their products. When Nona begins investigating Bertie Tuttle, the company's third-generation owner, she uncovers a complicated history involving her benefactor and a mysterious woman named Opal Doucet.

1910. Seventy-six years earlier, Opal Doucet, a rural doctor's wife, is pregnant, on the run, and desperate to get to Paris and to the charismatic spiritualist who supposedly communed with her first love. To save money, Opal goes to work in the Earthshine Soap factory as an Earthshine Girl where she uses her knowledge of medicine, and the spiritualist's teachings, to prescribe cures to the women who've come down with mystery ailments. As she and Bertie Tuttle secretly partner in a labor strike intended to improve the working conditions at the factory, Opal must decide the cost of her own freedom.

Gorgeously written and intricately constructed, Everything Lost Returns is a story of desire and friendship, guilt and redemption, and the power we have, in our own small way, to change the course of history.

A haunting, indelible novel of collective grief, resistance, and the radical, life-affirming virtue of testimony

A. is an amateur translator, living alone in an unforgiving, late-capitalist metropolis. Adrift and burdened by debt following a medical trauma, she makes rent caring for a young boy who is not and could never be her own. Her nights are spent on the dance floor, chasing spontaneous connection. There, she encounters N., who shares her numbed state and sometimes her bed.

Among N.'s meager possessions, A. comes across a slim book about an unnamed foreign town of disappearing boys. The book, Field Notes, documents the stories of a community of mothers who assemble to mourn their missing sons together. A. is transfixed by this collective chorus of primal grief, the mothers' preternatural strength, and their intuitive care for one another. When a near-assault stuns A. out of her inertia, she takes off for the city where Field Notes was written in search of its author and the end of the story. But A.'s digging leads her instead to the traces of a murdered poet, a mysterious woman whose legacy will intersect unexpectedly and pivotally with A.'s own life.

Poignant and profoundly humane, Mass Mothering is told through layered voices, written fragments, and recorded testimonies. It is a luminous story of the mutuality of grief, the aftershocks of violence in a globalized era, and the world-bending force of a mother's love.

A Foreign Policy most anticipated book of the year

From a renowned Yale historian comes a chilling look at the looming threat of the next Great Power war and the urgent interventions necessary to avoid it in the twenty-first century.

The vast majority of people alive today have come of age in a world of remarkable stability, presided over by either one or two Superpowers. This is not to say the world has been peaceful; but it has, to a great extent, been predictable. As an increasing number of Great Powers jostle for regional supremacy, as well as competitive advantage in nuclear technology, artificial intelligence, space exploration, and trade, our world has become more fragile, unpredictable--and combustible. The outbreak of global war among today's Great Powers seems increasingly likely. Such war, as Odd Arne Westad powerfully argues in this urgent book, would be of a magnitude and devastation never before seen.

To understand the threats that face us in this complex new terrain, we must look to the lessons of the past, and especially the late nineteenth and early twentieth century--a time when Great Powers clashed and sought regional dominance, nationalism and populism were on the rise, and many felt that globalization had failed them; a time when tariffs increased, immigration and terrorism were among the biggest issues of the day, and a growing number of people blamed the citizens of other countries for their problems. A time, in other words, that carries eerie parallels with our own.

This stunning cultural and personal reclamation of Black history and Black botanical mastery offers up lessons from the natural world shared through the stories of long-lived trees.

The histories of trees in America are also the histories of Black Americans. Pecan trees were domesticated by an enslaved African named Antoine; sycamore trees were both havens and signposts for people trying to escape enslavement; poplar trees are historically associated with lynching; and willow bark has offered the gift of medicine. These trees, and others, testify not only to the complexity of the Black American narrative but also to a heritage of Black botanical expertise that, like Native American traditions, predates the United States entirely.

In When Trees Testify, award-winning plant biologist Beronda L. Montgomery explores the ways seven trees--as well as the cotton shrub--are intertwined with Black history and culture. She reveals how knowledge surrounding these trees has shaped America since the very beginning. As Montgomery shows, trees are material witnesses to the lives of enslaved Africans and their descendants.

Combining the wisdom of science and history with stories from her own path to botany, Montgomery talks to majestic trees, and in this unique and compelling narrative, they answer.

The Dust Bowl sweeps a handsome stranger into a small Colorado town to dangerous effect

1937. It's been seven years since the dust storms started in Colorado. Folks can barely remember a time when the clouds were filled with rain instead of dirt, and when the fields were green instead of brown. High school student Martha Helen Kessler and her family are luckier than most; they still eke out a living from the land. Even so, evidence of the Dust Bowl's grim impact on families, especially on the women who bear the brunt of their husbands' frustration and their children's hunger, is everywhere.

When Martha Helen's compassionate mother insists they take in Otis Hobbs, a handsome drifter who saves a local boy from a vicious storm, she quickly discovers a darker side to their rural community. Suspicion, jealousy, and prejudice grip their neighbors - and emotions reach a frenzy after Martha Helen's best friend, Frankie, disappears and is then found murdered. Ultimately, Martha Helen is forced to make sense of her conflicting feelings and loyalties in order to help find retribution and to reconcile the difference between the law and justice.

Full of period detail and Sandra Dallas's trademark focus on the lives of women, The Hired Man entertains and ultimately surprises.

"A definitive history of bird conservation in America." (Kirkus Reviews, starred)

From the time the country was founded, early Americans assumed that the land's natural resources were infinite, including its birds, which were zealously hunted for food, game, and fashion. With the rapid extinction of the passenger pigeon--a bird once so numerous that its flocks darkened the sky in flight--many realized actions needed to be taken if other birds were to be saved. What followed was both a spiritual awakening and a great crusade to save birds and their habitat. The campaign took place on many battlefields: society teas in Boston, hunt clubs on the East Coast, the mangroves in the Everglades, and in the editorial pages of newspapers and periodicals. From many corners of the country the bird protection movement was born and brought together a remarkable coalition of people and organizations to save America's birds.

The Feather Wars is an entertaining and expansive work of American history, an incredible story about how disparate characters--progressive politicians, free-thinking society belles, nature writers and artists, bird-loving U.S. presidents, gunmakers, business titans, and brave game wardens--came together to save hundreds of species of birds. Heroes, martyrs, villains, and conflicted do-gooders--the early bird conservation movement had them all. Together they transformed how Americans thought and cared about birds, forever altering the American landscape.

The semi-periodical look into the expansive art practice of an acclaimed cartoonist

Palookaville 25 houses three benchmark projects from the artistic practice of cartoonist and New Yorker cover artist Seth (Clyde Fans). His highly-acclaimed memoir "Nothing Lasts" returns. A wave farewell to his youth and a love letter to Toronto in the 1980s, this installment of his memoir caps off his teenage years and the budding romance at the Cove Inn, and sees Seth setting off for the big city where he moves to attend art school.

Showcasing Seth's fine-art practice, Palookaville 25 also includes a photo essay about the creation of "Living Room Suite," his bronze sculpture installation in Guelph. Through text and photographs, Seth documents early pieces in the same series, followed by maquettes of the sculpture, photos showing the fabrication process, and then, finally, a series of photos showing the completed installation.

Lastly, the life and death of post-humorously renowned Dominion painter Owen Moore is told through comics in ten episodes. Originally serialized in The Walrus, this is the first time the story has been collected. Pages from the original sketchbook version and the final art are presented in pairs, revealing Seth's process to readers.

A rarity in the world of publishing, Seth's Palookaville series has become an ongoing monograph of sorts, a deep look into an idiosyncratic mind, and a survey of a singular artist's multifaceted output.

An illuminating, hilarious, and practical guide to 99 of the most terrifying ways to die and how to avoid them from an emergency medicine doctor.

Dr. Ashely Alker is a self-described death escapologist--or, in more familiar terms, an emergency medicine doctor. She has seen it all, from flesh-eating bacteria to the work of a serial killer to the more mundane but no less deadly, and her work outwitting the end has uniquely prepared her to write this book.

Dr. Alker manages to shock readers while making them laugh, educating them on how to outsmart a wide range of deadly situations and conditions. Many of the chapters include stories from her experiences in life and medicine, at times heartwarming, others heartbreaking. Sections include explorations of sex, poison, drugs, biological warfare, disease, animals, crime, the elements, and much more.

An Anthony Bourdain-style greatest hits tour of death, 99 Ways to Die is entertaining while it informs. Full of valuable advice and wild stories, this riveting read might just save your life.

An untold story of idealism, betrayal, and behind-the-scenes American-Japanese contacts in World War II.

Safe Passage tells one of World War II's great and neglected stories. In the fall of 1943, amid the Pacific theater's bloodiest battles, the United States and Japan pulled off an unlikely diplomatic coup: the warring nations agreed to exchange civilian nationals via two ocean liners. Nearly fifteen hundred Allied civilians who'd been trapped in Asia since the attack on Pearl Harbor sailed through dangerous waters to the port city of Goa, India, where they were traded for an equivalent number of Japanese diplomats and immigrants, sent from the Americas. The future return of some ten thousand Americans still in Japan would depend on the mission's success.

In this revelatory history, Evelyn Iritani tells a dramatic tale of humanitarian action in wartime and its darker complications. She reveals the herculean efforts of the U.S. diplomat James Keeley to repatriate civilians despite stiff resistance from within and outside his government; the shipboard adventures of passengers, including hymn-singing missionaries, drunken revelers, and sharp-tongued journalists such as the New Yorker's celebrated Emily Hahn; and the fraught compromises involved in securing their safe passage. Faced with too few bodies to trade and desperate to free Americans from perilous conditions, the United States uprooted and repatriated Latin American citizens of Japanese descent, sometimes against their will, while also forcing some Japanese Americans who had been held in internment camps to choose between expulsion to a war zone or remaining behind barbed wire. Intimate, energetic, and enriched by previously untapped archives and sources, Safe Passage is a crucial addition to the moral history of World War II.

Holler's photographic time capsule of Seattle's music scene captures the early years of Interpol, Fleet Foxes, Death Cab for Cutie, Foo Fighters and more

As an avid fan of Seattle's music scene during the late 1990s and early 2000s, photographer Bootsy Holler created a remarkable portfolio documenting the little-known bands who later defined a decade in music history. She captured live gigs, band portraits, backstage moments, rapt audiences and more, chronicling the formative years of artists such as Death Cab for Cutie, Fleet Foxes, Interpol, Modest Mouse, Gossip, Beck, Moby, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Foo Fighters. Says Holler: "I was documenting my life. The musicians, promoters and bouncers were my friends, and I went to see bands I enjoyed and places I could get in for free. I didn't know I was in the middle of something new."
With open spine binding and cold glue bright orange thread, this collection of Holler's energetic, raw images, together with her own personal recollections, reflects on the second generation of Seattle's music scene, as the world transitioned from celluloid to digital, grunge to indie. It is a pilgrimage back in time, a nostalgic trip for anyone who cherishes music or yearns for a time when nobody texted or had a camera in their pocket. The book opens with a nod to a truly independent woman, with a foreword from Megan Jasper, CEO of Sub Pop Records.
Bootsy Holler was born in Washington in 1969 and moved to Seattle as a young adult. Her editorial and art photography has been featured in Vogue, House & Garden and NPR. She lives and works in Los Angeles.