Losing the Atmosphere


Book Description

Born in 1940s Brooklyn to a father prone to rages and an emotionally erratic mother, Vivian Conan grew up in two different worlds: Outside and Inside. Outside, she had friends, excelled in school, and was close to her cousins and brother. Inside, she saw faces that weren't hers in her bedroom mirror and was surrounded by an invisible Atmosphere that bathed her in the love and understanding she craved. Moving between these worlds enabled Vivian to survive her childhood but limited her ability to live fully as an adult. To others, her life seemed to brim with work, friends, music, and boyfriends. But her mind and soul were filled with chaos and pain. Neither she nor her therapists could figure out why. Losing the Atmosphere is Vivian Conan's riveting account of her journey toward self-understanding and wholeness; her encounters with a string of more and less helpful therapists; and her unconventional relationship with the therapist who was finally able to guide her through the courageous, messy work healing required. Told with honesty, humor, and grace, Losing the Atmosphere is a never-too-late story about the growth possible for anyone with the guts to pursue it, and a testament to the redemptive power of love: not the perfect kind Vivian experienced in her imaginary world, but the imperfect kind that connects us, flawed human being to flawed human being, in the real world she lives in now.




Losing Earth


Book Description

By 1979, we knew all that we know now about the science of climate change - what was happening, why it was happening, and how to stop it. Over the next ten years, we had the very real opportunity to stop it. Obviously, we failed.Nathaniel Rich's groundbreaking account of that failure - and how tantalizingly close we came to signing binding treaties that would have saved us all before the fossil fuels industry and politicians committed to anti-scientific denialism - is already a journalistic blockbuster, a full issue of the New York Times Magazine that has earned favorable comparisons to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring and John Hersey's Hiroshima. Rich has become an instant, in-demand expert and speaker. A major movie deal is already in place. It is the story, perhaps, that can shift the conversation.In the book Losing Earth, Rich is able to provide more of the context for what did - and didn't - happen in the 1980s and, more important, is able to carry the story fully into the present day and wrestle with what those past failures mean for us in 2019. It is not just an agonizing revelation of historical missed opportunities, but a clear-eyed and eloquent assessment of how we got to now, and what we can and must do before it's truly too late.




Changing the Atmosphere


Book Description

Incorporating historical, sociological, and philosophical approaches, Changing the Atmosphere presents detailed empirical studies of climate science and its uptake into public policy.




This Place Has No Atmosphere


Book Description

Aurora loves her life on Earth in the twenty-first century, until she learns that her family is moving to the colony on the Moon.




The Age of Miracles


Book Description

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY People ∙ O: The Oprah Magazine ∙ Financial Times ∙ Kansas City Star ∙ BookPage ∙ Kirkus Reviews ∙ Publishers Weekly ∙ Booklist NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “A stunner.”—Justin Cronin “It’s never the disasters you see coming that finally come to pass—it’s the ones you don’t expect at all,” says Julia, in this spellbinding novel of catastrophe and survival by a superb new writer. Luminous, suspenseful, unforgettable, The Age of Miracles tells the haunting and beautiful story of Julia and her family as they struggle to live in a time of extraordinary change. On an ordinary Saturday in a California suburb, Julia awakes to discover that something has happened to the rotation of the earth. The days and nights are growing longer and longer; gravity is affected; the birds, the tides, human behavior, and cosmic rhythms are thrown into disarray. In a world that seems filled with danger and loss, Julia also must face surprising developments in herself, and in her personal world—divisions widening between her parents, strange behavior by her friends, the pain and vulnerability of first love, a growing sense of isolation, and a surprising, rebellious new strength. With crystalline prose and the indelible magic of a born storyteller, Karen Thompson Walker gives us a breathtaking portrait of people finding ways to go on in an ever-evolving world. “Gripping drama . . . flawlessly written; it could be the most assured debut by an American writer since Jennifer Egan’s Emerald City.”—The Denver Post “Pure magnificence.”—Nathan Englander “Provides solace with its wisdom, compassion, and elegance.”—Curtis Sittenfeld “Riveting, heartbreaking, profoundly moving.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Look for special features inside. Join the Circle for author chats and more.




Mass-Losing Pulsating Stars and their Circumstellar Matter


Book Description

Editing the proceedings of a scientific meeting is not an easy task. Sometimes people who give an excellent talk do not send the manuscript by the deadline. However, this time, thanks to the punctuality of all the participants, we have this excellent volume for the workshop on mass losing pulsating stars and their circumstellar matter prepared in time. Almost all of the oral presentations including the summary are collected in this volume. We regret that we cannot put in this volume a few posters that we failed to receive before the editorial work. The workshop was planned as a small meeting with less than fifty attendants because the city of Sendai was far from the most of the active institutions. However, the number of submitted papers exceeded the SOC's expectation; many interesting contributions had to be scheduled in the poster session. Still, the oral sessions were so tight that many participants might have felt frustrated for the shortage of discussions. The organizers of the workshop have to apologize to the attendants for the inconvenience caused from such a happy underestimate about the size of the workshop.




An Ocean of Air


Book Description

The science and history of what lies between us and space: “I never knew air could be so interesting.” —Bill Bryson, New York Times bestselling author of The Body: A Guide for Occupants A flamboyant Renaissance Italian discovers how heavy our air really is (the air filling Carnegie Hall, for example, weighs seventy thousand pounds). A one-eyed barnstorming pilot finds a set of winds that constantly blow five miles above our heads. An impoverished American farmer figures out why hurricanes move in a circle by carving equations with his pitchfork on a barn door. A well-meaning inventor nearly destroys the ozone layer (he also came up with the idea of putting lead in gasoline). A reclusive mathematical genius predicts, thirty years before he’s proven right, that the sky contains a layer of floating metal fed by the glowing tails of shooting stars. We don’t just live in the air; we live because of it. It’s the most miraculous substance on earth, responsible for our food, our weather, our water, and our ability to hear. In this exuberant book, science writer Gabrielle Walker peels back the layers of our atmosphere with the stories of the people who have uncovered its secrets. “A sense of wonder . . . animates Ms. Walker’s high-spirited narrative and speeds it along like a fresh-blowing westerly.” —The New York Times “A fabulous introduction to the world above our heads.” —Daily Mail on Sunday “A lively history of scientists’ and adventurers’ exploration of this important and complex contributor to life on Earth . . . readers will find this informative book to be a breath of fresh air.” —Publishers Weekly




Life as We Knew it


Book Description

I guess I always felt even if the world came to an end, McDonald's still would be open. High school sophomore Miranda's disbelief turns to fear in a split second when an asteroid knocks the moon closer to Earth, like "one marble hits another." The result is catastrophic. How can her family prepare for the future when worldwide tsunamis are wiping out the coasts, earthquakes are rocking the continents, and volcanic ash is blocking out the sun? As August turns dark and wintery in northeastern Pennsylvania, Miranda, her two brothers, and their mother retreat to the unexpected safe haven of their sunroom, where they subsist on stockpiled food and limited water in the warmth of a wood-burning stove. Told in a year's worth of journal entries, this heart-pounding story chronicles Miranda's struggle to hold on to the most important resource of all--hope--in an increasingly desperate and unfamiliar world. An extraordinary series debut Susan Beth Pfeffer has written several companion novels to Life As We Knew It, including The Dead and the Gone, This World We Live In, and The Shade of the Moon.




Project Hail Mary


Book Description

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of The Martian, a lone astronaut must save the earth from disaster in this “propulsive” (Entertainment Weekly), cinematic thriller full of suspense, humor, and fascinating science—in development as a major motion picture starring Ryan Gosling. HUGO AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF THE YEAR’S BEST BOOKS: Bill Gates, GatesNotes, New York Public Library, Parade, Newsweek, Polygon, Shelf Awareness, She Reads, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal • “An epic story of redemption, discovery and cool speculative sci-fi.”—USA Today “If you loved The Martian, you’ll go crazy for Weir’s latest.”—The Washington Post Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company. His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species. And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone. Or does he? An irresistible interstellar adventure as only Andy Weir could deliver, Project Hail Mary is a tale of discovery, speculation, and survival to rival The Martian—while taking us to places it never dreamed of going.




Breathe


Book Description

When oxygen levels plunge in a treeless world, a state lottery decides who will live inside the pod. Everyone else will slowly suffocate. Years later, society has divided into Premiums and Auxiliaries. Only Premiums can afford enough oxygen to live a normal life