English Culture

We are entering a new technological age in which artificial intelligence and immersive media will transform society at all levels, mediating our lives by altering what we see, hear, and experience. If managed well, this could unleash a new age of abundance. If managed poorly, this technological revolution could easily go astray, compromising our privacy, autonomy, agency, and humanity. Two industry veterans provide a data-driven debate on whether the new world we're creating will be a technological utopia or an AI-powered dystopia and give guidance on how to aim for the best future we can.

Many corporations have slick, flashy mission statements that ultimately do little to motivate employees and less to impress customers, investors, and partners. But there is a way to share your excitement for the future of your company in a clear, compelling, and powerful way, and entrepreneur and business growth expert Cameron Herold can show you how.

The New York Times best-selling Freakonomics changed the way we see the world, exposing the hidden side of just about everything. Then came SuperFreakonomics, a documentary film, an award-winning podcast, and more. Now, with Think Like a Freak, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner have written their most revolutionary book yet. With their trademark blend of captivating storytelling and unconventional analysis, they take us inside their thought process and teach us all to think a bit more productively, more creatively, more rationally.

What would you do if a time machine hurled you thousands of years into the past...and then broke? How would you survive? With this book as your guide, you'll survive - and thrive - in any period in Earth's history. Best-selling author and time-travel enthusiast Ryan North tells you how to invent all the modern conveniences we take for granted - from first principles. This manual contains all the science, engineering, art, philosophy, facts, and figures required for even the most clueless time traveler to build a civilization from the ground up.

The retired four-star general and and best-selling author of My Share of the Task shares a powerful new leadership model. Former General Stanley McChrystal held a key position for much of the War on Terror, as head of the Joint Special Operations Command. In Iraq, he found that despite the vastly superior resources, manpower, and training of the US Military, Al Qaeda had an advantage because of its structure as a loose network of small, independent cells. To defeat such an agile enemy, JSOC had to change its focus from efficiency to adaptability.

The last time New Orleans attorney Jean-Luc Valmont saw Maribel Cordoba, a Spanish nobleman's daughter, she was an 11-year-old orphan perched in the riggings of his privateering vessel proving herself as the best lookout on his crew. Until the day his infamy caught up with them all, and innocent lives were lost. Unsure why he survived, but vowing to make something of the chance he was given, Jean-Luc has buried his past life so deep that no living person will ever find it - until a very much alive and very grown-up Maribel Cordoba arrives on his doorstep.

By the end of on average day in the early 21st century, human beings searching the Internet will amass eight trillion gigabytes of data. This staggering amount of information - unprecedented in history - can tell us a great deal about who we are - the fears, desires, and behaviors that drive us, and the conscious and unconscious decisions we make. From the profound to the mundane, we can gain astonishing knowledge about the human psyche that less than 20 years ago seemed unfathomable.

As a Hillary voter, a New York Times reporter, and frequent attendee at her local gay bars, Nellie Bowles fit right in with her San Francisco neighbors and friends—until she started questioning whether the progressive movement she knew and loved was actually helping people. When her colleagues suggested that asking such questions meant she was “on the wrong side of history,” Bowles did what any reporter worth her salt would do: she started investigating for herself. The answers she found were stranger—and funnier—than she expected.

Andrew Lambert, author of The Challenge - winner of the prestigious Anderson Medal - turns his attention to Athens, Carthage, Venice, the Dutch Republic, and Britain, examining how their identities as "seapowers" informed their actions and enabled them to achieve success disproportionate to their size. Lambert demonstrates how creating maritime identities made these states more dynamic, open, and inclusive than their lumbering continental rivals. Only when they forgot this aspect of their identity did these nations begin to decline.

Was it a typo when the CEO mandated that the organization "institutionalize incompetents"? If not, how did the company wind up institutionalizing incompetence instead? How to Work for an Idiot is still the confessions of a recovering Idiot Boss. After decades of writing and consulting, Dr. Hoover finally realized that many of the people he kept trying to "energize" and "enlighten" were, well, idiots. More importantly, he was an idiot for thinking he could change them. This new edition is bigger and better - and filled with even more idiots - than before.

In this fictionalized journal, Anastasia Romanov lives again. Through her eyes, we witness the day-to-day splendor the czar's family experienced before the onslaught of the Russian Revolution. However, one senses also that crowding the outskirts of Anastasia's ornate diary are hundreds of thousands of teeming serfs, just beginning to percolate.

In Mindmasters, Columbia Business School professor Sandra Matz reveals in fascinating detail how big data offers insights into the most intimate aspects of our psyches and how these insights empower an external influence over the choices we make. This can be creepy, manipulative, and downright harmful, with scandals like that of British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica being merely the tip of the iceberg. Yet big data also holds enormous potential to help us live healthier, happier lives—for example, by improving our mental health or enabling us to break out of our echo chambers.

Although the legend of King Arthur has been told many times, rarely have the villains of the tale been given voices. Here, the treacherous half-sister of Arthur tells the fantastic story of her life, from her tragic childhood to the moment she realizes her fated role in the King's downfall. This is the perfect companion to Nancy Springer's I Am Mordred, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults.

This title is the third in the series of delightful stories about Anna Hibiscus, a little girl who lives in Africa. Anna Hibiscus is looking forward to visiting her grandmother in Canada, where she will see snow for the first time! But before she goes, she must find suitable clothes to keep her warm in the cold winter weather, and say goodbye to the family she loves. Anna Hibiscus, the first book in the series, was shortlisted for the Branford Boase Award 2008.

Two and a half millennia ago, the artifact appeared in a remote corner of space, beside a trillion-year-old dying sun from a different universe. It was a perfect black-body sphere, and it did nothing. Then it disappeared.

In the ancient South Pacific world of Oceania, Moana, a born navigator, sets sail in search of a fabled island. During her incredible journey, she teams up with her hero, the legendary demi-god Maui, to traverse the open ocean on an action-packed voyage. They encounter enormous sea creatures, breathtaking underworlds, and ancient folklore.

Cordelia Carstairs is a Shadowhunter, a warrior trained since childhood to battle demons. When her father is accused of a terrible crime, she and her brother travel to London in hopes of preventing the family’s ruin. Cordelia’s mother wants to marry her off, but Cordelia is determined to be a hero rather than a bride. Soon Cordelia encounters childhood friends James and Lucie Herondale and is drawn into their world of glittering ballrooms, secret assignations, and supernatural salons, where vampires and warlocks mingle with mermaids and magicians.

Some people insist that culture is strictly a human feat. What are they afraid of? This book looks into three cultures of other-than-human beings in some of Earth's remaining wild places. It shows how if you're a sperm whale, a scarlet macaw, or a chimpanzee, you too experience your life with the understanding that you are an individual in a particular community. You too are who you are not by genes alone; your culture is a second form of inheritance. And your culture, too, changes and evolves.

Written by Virginia Grohl, the mother of Dave Grohl - former Nirvana drummer and current frontman for the Foo Fighters - From Cradle to Stage shares stories and exclusive photos featuring mothers of rock icons, the icons themselves, and their behind the music-style relationships. As Virginia watched her son's star rise, she often wondered about the other mothers who raised sons and daughters who became rock stars. Virginia decided to seek out other rock star mothers to ask these questions, and so began a two-year odyssey.

Weaving insights from philosophy, neuroscience, and history into a rich narrative, The Shallows explains how the internet is rerouting our neural pathways, replacing the subtle mind of the book reader with the distracted mind of the screen watcher. A gripping story of human transformation played out against a backdrop of technological upheaval, The Shallows will forever alter the way we think about media and our minds.