When the great Russian writer Tolstoy was first offered the use of a brand new invention called the Dictaphone, he refused it, saying that it was sure to be "too dreadfully exciting" and would distract him from his literary endeavors.

For this provocative launch of the Graywolf Forum series, Sven Birkerts invited a number of literary writers to tell him how they were reacting to the technological innovatios of our day. Do the "dreadful excitements" promised by a digital future cause us to forfeit our time-honored cultural traditions for dubious gain? Or will the electronic millennium ...
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Basher Science: Chemistry, Getting a Big Reaction created and illustrated by Simon Basher, Written by Dan Green:

Discover the secrets of chemistry, and learn about the properties of matter and the ways in which they interact, combine and change. Chemistry is a compelling guide to a community of characters who make up everything around us.

Discover the Stars leads you on a tour of all the stars and constellations visible with the naked eye and introduces you to deep-sky objects that can be seen with binoculars or a simple telescope. The tour is conducted by the editor of Astronomy magazine, Richard Berry, whose two-color, computer-plotted sky maps and clear instructions make stargazing fun and productive from your first night out.

The heart of Discover the S...
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In Unnatural Harvest, Ingeborg Boyens presents the startling implica...
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What does it mean to never get lost? You Are Here examines the rise of our technologically aided era of navigational omniscience-or how we came to know exactly where we are at all times. In a sweeping history of the development of location technology in the past century, Bray shows how radio signals created to carry telegraph messages were transformed into invisible beacons to guide ships and how a set of rapidly-spinning wheels steered submarines beneath th...
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In Patterns of Behavior, Richard W. Burkhardt Jr. traces the scientific theories, practices, subjects, and settings integral to the construction of a discipline pivotal to our understanding of the diversity of life. ...
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In September of 1859, the entire Earth was engulfed in a gigantic cloud of seething gas, and a blood-red aurora erupted across the planet from the poles to the tropics. Around the world, telegraph systems crashed, machines burst into flames, and electric shocks rendered operators unconscious. Compasses and other sensitive instruments reeled as if struck by a massive magnetic fist. For the first time, people began to suspect that the Earth was not isolated from the rest of the universe. However, nobody knew what could have released such strange forces upon the Earth--nobody, that is, except ...
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Based on a series of viral videos that have garnered more than 7.2 million views, this visually appealing book gives readers-be they global warming activists, soccer moms, or NASCAR dads-a way to decide on the best course of action, by asking them to consider, "What's the worst that could happen?" And for those who decide that action is needed, Craven provides a solution that is not only powerful but also happens to be stunningly easy. Not just another "change your light bu...
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