Science Winning

Ursula K. Le Guin has enthralled fans with her imagination, clarity, and moral vision. The recipient of numerous literary prizes, including the National Book Award, the Kafka Award, and five Hugo and five Nebula Awards, this renowned writer has created a provocative, ever-evolving universe filled with diverse worlds and rich characters reminiscent of our earthly selves. Now, in The Birthday of the World, this gifted artist returns to these worlds in eight brilliant short works, including a never-before-published novella, each of which probes the essence of humanity.

A cataclysmic explosion has given earthly teens astronomical powers-when the star Mentarsus-H went supernova at their conceptions, the teens absorbed the shattered soul of the star and inherited unimaginable abilities. Now the Star Shards have become like gods, drunk on their own power-and ripe for manipulation by The Bringer, a creature who would turn them against one another and transform the planet into his own personal feeding ground. But who is more dangerous: The Bringer or the Star Shards?

Artificial intelligence is no longer the stuff of science fiction—it's a tangible, transformative force reshaping industries and redefining business success. Yet for many business leaders, the journey from curiosity to AI implementation can be daunting. Where do you start? How do you navigate the technical jargon and hype? And, most importantly, how can you leverage AI to boost profits, streamline operations and gain a competitive edge?

Leading authorities analyze growing tensions in US-China relations and what this means for the future.

Don't make deals with the paranormal. They're better at it than you, and they never play fair. Paranormal investigator and soul-without-a-body Vincent Graves did just that - a deal made in desperation. Now it's coming back to bite him in the middle of a case. He has 57 hours to investigate a string of deaths involving people who've made some devilish bargains. Too bad devils don't deal in good faith.

In The Invisible Game: The Secrets and the Science of Winning Minds and Winning Deals, neuroscientist Kai-Markus Mueller and sales professional Gabriele Rehbock deliver a hands-on guide to the hidden dynamics that influence the outcomes of most business deals. In plain English, the book unpacks recently discovered insights from psychology, behavioral economics, and neuroscience, and explains how to apply them to your advantage in real-life business situations.

Sixteen-year-old Blake has always been the responsible one in his dysfunctional family. Quinn is his brother's opposite - a thrill-seeker who's always chasing the next scary rush. Quinn and Blake are in for the surprise of their lives when they're thrust into the world of a bizarre phantom carnival - and their souls are the price of admission. In order to save his brother, and himself, Blake must survive seven different carnival rides before dawn. Seven rides sounds easy. But each ride is full of unexpected dangers, because each ride is a reflection of one of Blake's deepest fears.

The wandering Cleric Chih returns home to the Singing Hills Abbey for the first time in almost three years, to be met with both joy and sorrow. Their mentor, Cleric Thien, has died, and rests among the archivists and storytellers of the storied abbey. But not everyone is prepared to leave them to their rest. Because Cleric Thien was once the patriarch of Coh clan of Northern Bell Pass—and now their granddaughters have arrived on the backs of royal mammoths, demanding their grandfather's body for burial.

Just as the Signalman stood and faced the void in Agents of Dreamland, so it falls to Ptolema, a chess piece in her agency's world-spanning game, to unravel what has become tangled and unknowable. Something strange is happening on the shores of New England. Something stranger still is happening to the world itself, chaos unleashed, rational explanation slipped loose from the moorings of the known. Two rival agencies stare across the Void at one another. Two sisters, the deadly, sickened products of experiments going back decades, desperately evade their hunters.

In his debut essay collection, award-winning poet Jaswinder Bolina meditates on "how race," as he puts it, "becomes metaphysical": the cumulative toll of the microaggressions and macro-pressures lurking in the academic market, on the literary circuit, in the dating pool, and on the sidewalks of any given US city. Training a keenly thoughtful lens on questions that are never fully abstract, Of Color is a bold, expansive, and finally optimistic diagnosis of present-day America.

Drunk, angry, abusive, and pathetic, Dan Gurlick exists at the very lowest level of human civilization, sleeping in junkyard cars and scrounging through garbage cans for his dinner. But his last rotting meal contains something unexpected: a spore that originated from a galaxy many light-years away. First, Dan eats the spore, then, the spore eats Dan; and the homeless alcoholic becomes a host for the Medusa. An insatiable alien hive mind, the Medusa has already consumed the life forms of a billion planets. Now, it hungers for the dominant species of Earth.

Nicole Hammond was just trying to survive on the streets of Philadelphia. Then she and her partner, Bungie, were abducted by a race of mysterious mothlike aliens and taken to a strange ship called the Fyrantha. Now, she is a Sibyl, a special human that has the ability to communicate with the aliens and their ship, and no one is happy. Competing factions control different parts of the Fyrantha with the humans and other sentient aliens caught in the middle. But Nicole is done being bullied, and now, she has a plan to take control of the ship.

An explosive, sweeping account of the scandal that has sent the Catholic Church into a tailspin - and the brave few who fought for justice. Part history, part journalism, and part true-crime thriller, Michael D'Antonio's Mortal Sins brings to mind landmark books such as All the President's Men, And the Band Played On, and The Informant, as it reveals a long and ferocious battle for the soul of the largest and oldest organization in the world.

In an era of digital transformation, disruptive innovation, transient competitive advantage, and industry convergence, mergers and acquisitions have become more complex than ever. Winning at the Acquisition Game presents the best materials, insights, and tools which comprise the comprehensive, cross-disciplinary Mergers and Acquisitions course taught in the MBA and Executive MBA programs at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford.

"Latino" is the most open-ended and loosely defined of the major race categories in the United States. Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of "Latino" assembles the Pulitzer Prize winner Héctor Tobar's personal experiences as the son of Guatemalan immigrants and the stories told to him by his Latinx students to offer a spirited rebuke to racist ideas about Latino people.

Remembering Satan is a lucid, measured, yet absolutely riveting inquest into a case that destroyed a family, engulfed a small town, and captivated an America obsessed by rumors of a satanic underground. It follows the increasingly bizarre accusations and confessions, as well as the claims and counterclaims of police, FBI investigators, and mental-health professionals.

This guide is arranged chronologically and will take you step by step through the entire process of suing an individual or a company in small claims court to get the compensation you deserve. You will learn about the small claims court system and how to go about filing your complaint. You will also learn about how to prepare for your case, what to and what not to do in court, and how to collect compensation from the individual or company you sue.

Arianna has gathered the outside clans to decide her fate in marriage. A tournament will be held, and she is the prize, whether she wants to be or not. The only thing for her to do is watch the clan leaders fight over her, or is it? Thanks to her team's well-made plans, Arianna has other strategies in place. Hopefully one of those plans will earn her freedom. As the contestants gather and she learns more about the night human world, there are new allies to keep close and more enemies to keep even closer.

The winner of France's prestigious Prix Femina Essai (2009), this imaginative and captivating audiobook explores the many dimensions of the room in which we spend so much of our lives - the bedroom. Eminent cultural historian Michelle Perrot traces the evolution of the bedroom from the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans to today, examining its myriad forms and functions, from royal king's chamber to child's sleeping quarters to lovers' trysting place to monk's cell.

In Winning Her Business, Bridget Brennan, advisor to some of the world’s biggest brands and businesses, provides a road map for selling in a world dominated by the rise of women’s economic power.