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  Perfectly Reasonable Deviations...

  Richard P. Feynman, Timothy Ferris

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  A Nobel Prize-winning physicist, a loving husband and father, an enthusiastic teacher, a surprisingly accomplished bongo player, and a genius of the highest caliber--Richard P. Feynman was all these and more. Perfectly Reasonable Deviations From the Beaten Track--collecting over forty years' worth of Feynman's letters--offers an unprecedented look at the writer and thinker whose scientific mind and lust for life made him a legend in his own time. 
   Containing missives to and from such scientific luminaries as Victor Weisskopf, Stephen Wolfram, James Watson, and Edward Teller, as well as a remarkable selection of letters to and from fans, students, family, and people from around the world eager for Feynman's advice and counsel, Perfectly Reasonable Deviations From the Beaten Track not only illuminates the personal relationships that underwrote the key developments in modern science, but also forms the most intimate look at Feynman yet available. Feynman was a man many felt close to but few really knew, and this collection reveals the full wisdom and private passion of a personality that captivated everyone it touched.  
  Perfectly Reasonable Deviations From the Beaten Track is an eloquent testimony to the virtue of approaching the world with an inquiring eye; it demonstrates the full extent of the Feynman legacy like never before. Edited and with additional commentary by his daughter Michelle, it's a must-read for Feynman fans everywhere, and for anyone seeking to better understand one of the towering figures--and defining personalities--of the twentieth century.

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  The Pleasure of Their Company -...

  Doris Grumbach

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  A literary master looks ahead to her eighties As her eightieth birthday approaches, Doris Grumbach does not feel melancholy or saddened by the upcoming event, despite the loss of friends such as Kay Boyle and Dorothy Day—instead she takes it as an opportunity both to look backward and to grow. In this, her summer of unexpected content, Grumbach weaves the elegiac and the practical into a delightful tapestry of experience.   She looks deep into her own history, telling stories of her life in the hardscrabble New York of the 1940s, working as a copyeditor. She details her near encounter with a seventy-two-year-old Bertrand Russell, calling it the closest she has ever come to sleeping with a Nobel Laureate. Grumbach lets us into her life and introduces us to the characters that have peopled her nearly eight decades on Earth. As the fateful day of her celebration draws near, the main topic on Doris Grumbach’s mind is not herself; it’s her guests.  The Pleasure of Their Company is a meticulously planned party that any reader would be honored to attend.

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  Restoring Eden - Unearthing the...

  Elizabeth D. Hilborn

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  All spring, Dr. Elizabeth Hilborn watched as her family fruit farm of many years became increasingly diminished, suffering from a lack of bees.The plentiful wildlife, so abundant just weeks before, was gone. Everything was still, silent.As an environmental scientist trained to investigate disease outbreaks, she rose to the challenge. Despite facing headwinds from skeptical neighbors, environmental experts, and agricultural consultants, she'd assembled information.The chemicals found in her water samples showed beyond any doubt that not only her farm, but her greater farming community, was at risk from toxic chemicals that traveled with rain water over the land and deep within the soil.Even as a scientist, she'd been unaware of the risks to life from some common agricultural chemicals. Her goal was to protect her farm and the animals who lived there.But first she had to convince her rural neighbors of the risk to their way of life, too.A lyrical celebration of nature by a passionate citizen scientist who felt called to advocate for the land, earth, and creatures who don't have a voice, Restoring Eden ultimately offers hope that citizens can create change, that reform is possible.

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  Air Battle for Arnhem

  Alan W. Cooper

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  Over sixty years ago a battle took place that, if it had succeeded, could have shortened the Second World war by six months. The operation to take the bridges at Arnhem was given the code name 'Operation Market Garden', Market being the air side of the operation and Garden the subsequent ground operation. The main problem was communications between the ground forces and the re-supply aircraft of the Royal Air Force.Its their efforts and the courage on evident display at Arnhem that the book is based upon. Over a period of seven days troops of the 1st Airborne were taken by the RAF in towed gliders and then in subsequent days showed courage of the highest order to make sure that the ground troops were supplied with ammunition and food to sustain them in their efforts to take the bridges at Arnhem. Their efforts were costly, 309 aircrew and 79 Air Dispatchers were killed and 107 aircraft, which included the men and aircraft who supported the main re-supply armada.One of the re-supply aircraft, flown by F/Lt David Lord DFC, was shot down. Lord was later awarded the Victoria Cross. His courage and dedication are exemplary of the efforts of the men of Transport Command to make sure the men on the ground were re-supplied. The men of the Air Dispatchers, or AD's as they were known, must always be remembered when regarding Arnhem. Their efforts to make sure the supplies were released from the aircraft, and on to the besieged men on the ground, was a vital factor in getting vital supplies to the troops successfully.This is their story, vividly told, and serves a commemorative purpose, memorialising both the events and, most importantly, the men who participated.

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  The Terrible Speed of Mercy - A...

  Jonathan Rogers

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  “Many of my ardent admirers would be roundly shocked and disturbed if they realized that everything I believe is thoroughly moral, thoroughly Catholic, and that it is these beliefs that give my work its chief characteristics.” 
  —Flannery O’Connor 
  Flannery O’Connor’s work has been described as “profane, blasphemous, and outrageous.” Her stories are peopled by a sordid caravan of murderers and thieves, prostitutes and bigots whose lives are punctuated by horror and sudden violence. But perhaps the most shocking thing about Flannery O’Connor’s fiction is the fact that it is shaped by a thoroughly Christian vision. If the world she depicts is dark and terrifying, it is also the place where grace makes itself known. Her world—our world—is the stage whereon the divine comedy plays out; the freakishness and violence in O’Connor’s stories, so often mistaken for a kind of misanthropy or even nihilism, turn out to be a call to mercy. 
  In this biography, Jonathan Rogers gets at the heart of O’Connor’s work. He follows the roots of her fervent Catholicism and traces the outlines of a life marked by illness and suffering, but ultimately defined by an irrepressible joy and even hilarity. In her stories, and in her life story, Flannery O’Connor extends a hand in the dark, warning and reassuring us of the terrible speed of mercy.

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  My Most Unforgettable Character...

  Reader's Digest

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  From Reader's Digest magazine's popular series, “The Most Unforgettable Character I Ever Met” comes a collection of stories about people who made a big impact on the lives of these contributors. Each individual shares something in common: They struck home in the memory of the storyteller. These figures enriched lives through humor, wisdom, adventure, and affection, possessing a unique regard for humanity, each a gem reflecting its own light. The compilation includes: "A Life to Tell" by Lowell Thomas "The Brain & I" by Jackie Robinson "Lady Chimney Sweep" by Rumer Godden "Rare Benchley" by Marc Connelly "To the Gates of Troy" by Andromache Schliemann Melas "Cole Porter" by George Eells "Old-Timer" by Alex Haley

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