Publisher: GIANLUCA
The Origin of Species was the first mature and persuasive work to explain how species change through the process of natural selection. Upon its publication, the book began to transform attitudes about society and religion, and was soon used to justify the philosophies of communists, socialists, capitalists, and even Germany's National Socialists.
Former astronaut and senator John Glenn has died at age 95. In every chapter of his life, whether on Earth or above it, Glenn accumulated achievements -- serving as a Marine fighter pilot in two wars and later launching into space exploration. After retiring from politics, he continued to advocate for NASA. Hari Sreenivasan speaks with science correspondent Miles O’Brien about this American icon.Show book
Award-winning journalist Kati Marton set out on a wrenching personal journey to uncover the truth about her parents during her childhood in Cold War Budapest. She exposes the cruel mechanics of the communist state using the secret police files on her parents as well as dozens of interviews that reveal how her family was spied on and betrayed by friends, colleagues, and even their children's babysitter. She learned details of her parents' love affairs and the full nightmare of her parents' incarceration in a communist prison. Marton relates her own eyewitness account of her mother's and father's arrests and the terrible separation that followed. There were things she didn't want to know about and disappointments she didn't want to revisit. But as she dug deeper into their lives, she found the truth about her parents' lives-and her own.Show book
Val James became the first African American player in the NHL when he took to the ice with the Buffalo Sabres in 1982, and in 1987 he became the first black player of any nationality to skate for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Born in central Florida, James grew up on Long Island and received his first pair of skates for his 13th birthday. At 16, James left home to play in Canada, where he was the only black person in junior and, often, in the whole town. While popular for his tough play and winning personality, the teenager faced racist taunts at opposing arenas, and the prejudice continued at all levels of the game. In his two NHL stints, James defined himself as a smart team player and opponent, known for his pugilistic skills. Black Ice is the untold story of a trail-blazing athlete who endured and overcame discrimination to realize his dreams and become an inspiration for future generations.Show book
Everybody knows the picture: a man, meticulously rendered by Leonardo da Vinci, standing with arms and legs outstretched in a circle and a square. Deployed today to celebrate subjects as various as the grandeur of art, the beauty of the human form, and the universality of the human spirit, the drawing turns up just about everywhere: in books, on coffee cups, on corporate logos, even on spacecraft. It has, in short, become the world's most famous cultural icon-and yet almost nobody knows about the epic intellectual journeys that led to its creation. In this modest drawing that would one day paper the world, da Vinci attempted nothing less than to calibrate the harmonies of the universe and understand the central role man played in the cosmos.Journalist and storyteller Toby Lester brings Vitruvian Man to life, resurrecting the ghost of an unknown Leonardo. Populated by a colorful cast of characters, including Brunelleschi of the famous Dome, Da Vinci's Ghost opens up a surprising window onto the artist and philosopher himself and the tumultuous intellectual and cultural transformations he bridged. With sparkling prose, Lester captures the brief but momentous time in the history of western thought when the Middle Ages gave way to the Renaissance, art and science and philosophy converged as one, and all seemed to hold out the promise that a single human mind, if properly harnessed, could grasp the nature of everything.Show book
Award-winning author Jesmyn Ward writes the stories of the people and places she found absent in literature while growing up. Her new fiction novel, Sing, Unburied, Sing, weaves the supernatural with genuine characters that are molded by the rural and poverty-stricken life in her Mississippi hometown. Ward joins Jeffrey Brown to talk about her community and the stories that have come from it.Show book
Saki (December 18, 1870 – November 14, 1916) was the pen name of British author Hector Hugh Munro. Saki's world contrasts the effete conventions and hypocrisies of Edwardian England with the ruthless but straightforward life-and-death struggle?????s of nature. Nature generally wins in the end. (Summary from Wikipedia)Show book
