To Engineer Is Human

To Engineer Is Human

Henry Petroski

Henry Petroski

"Though ours is an age of high technology, the essence of what engineering is and what engineers do is not common knowledge. Even the most elementary of principles upon which great bridges, jumbo jets, or super computers are built are alien concepts to many. This is so in part because engineering as a human endeavor is not yet integrated into our culture and intellectual tradition. And while educators are currently wrestling with the problem of introducing technology into conventional academic curricula, thus better preparing today's students for life in a world increasingly technological, there is as yet no consensus as to how technological literacy can best be achieved. "I believe, and I argue in this essay, that the ideas of engineering are in fact in our bones and part of our human nature and experience. Furthermore, I believe that an understanding and an appreciation of engineers and engineering can be gotten without an engineering or technical education. Thus I...
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Trojan Orbit (UC)

Trojan Orbit (UC)

Mack Reynolds

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Island One, the U.S.'s first space colony & symbol of an American renaissance, is in trouble. Low morale, shoddy worknamship, unexplained malfunctions & avoidable accidents have become a way of life, & nobody seems to know why. Is it the Russians? Home-grown anti-technologists? Arabs afraid of cheap solar power from space--or something even more sinister? When the President ordered secret agent Peter Kapitz to find out what was going on, Peter's first discovery is that the Soviets are indeed involved. His second is that they are not alone. He will probably not live to make a third.
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Jewel of the Moon

Jewel of the Moon

William Kotzwinkle

Fiction / Mystery / Fantasy

Pain and pleasure, ecstasy and horror fuse in this splendid array of worldly parables from the pen of a master. What if you were a double amputee, singing for joy on the streets of New York . . . or a man who has actually held the earth in his hands? What if you were both the god and goddess in one of the most exalted erotic experiences in the universe . . . or the artist Correggio in the bitterness of his most sublime work . . . or a serving maid dreaming of love and luxury in a palace of death . . . or a man on a fatal mission, treading a battlefield ruled by a dying god? If you have the spirit and the longing to imagine, come along on a journey to the heart of passion—where love and hate are mirror images, where the alternating pulse beats of craving and denial define desire. Only William Kotzwinkle's extraordinary talent could chart such a course, could send his vision soaring through so many forms of fancy. In Jewel of the Moon, he transcends even his own marvelous powers of invention to create a cosmology of constant surprise—and irresistible enchantment.
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Agnes Mallory

Agnes Mallory

Andrew Klavan

Mystery & Thrillers

A chance encounter in the woods causes a recluse to dredge up old memoriesHe meets her in a stranger's backyard. Harry is a child walking home from school, and Agnes is a young girl playing in the creek behind her house. While their parents speak, the children play, and Agnes explains the supernatural. She uses cookie dough to make statues of ghosts, she tells him, which she sets free in the river. So begins an enchantment that will last the rest of Harry's life. Years later he is a disbarred lawyer, living a reclusive life outside a Westchester commuter town. Memories of Agnes, dead for a decade, haunt him. He befriends a shivering young runaway, an encounter which forces him to confront his past for the first time, unearthing a mystery which stretches back to the Holocaust, and revolves around that strange young girl he met so long ago.
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The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong

The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong

JaHyun Kim Haboush

JaHyun Kim Haboush

Lady Hyegyong's memoirs, which recount the chilling murder of her husband by his father, form one of the best known and most popular classics of Korean literature. From 1795 until 1805 Lady Hyegyong composed this masterpiece, depicting a court life Shakepearean in its pathos, drama, and grandeur. Presented in its social, cultural, and historical contexts, this first complete English translation opens a door into a world teeming with conflicting passions, political intrigue, and the daily preoccupations of a deeply intelligent and articulate woman.JaHyun Kim Haboush's accurate, fluid translation captures the intimate and expressive voice of this consummate storyteller. Reissued nearly twenty years after its initial publication with a new foreword by Dorothy Ko, The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong is a unique exploration of Korean selfhood and an extraordinary example of autobiography in the premodern era.
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Heaven

Heaven

V. C. Andrews

Horror / Romance

Of all the folks in the mountain shacks, the Casteels were the lowest -- the scum of the hills. Heaven Leigh Casteel was the prettiest, smartest girl in the backwoods, despite her ragged clothes and dirty face...despite a father meaner than ten vipers...despite her weary stepmother, who worked her like a mule. For her brother Tom and the little ones, Heaven clung to her pride and her hopes. Someday they'd get away and show the world that they were decent, fine and talented -- worthy of love and respect. Then Heaven's stepmother ran off, and her wicked, greedy father had a scheme -- a vicious scheme that threatened to destroy the precious dream of Heaven and the children forever!
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  • 604
Tanners Tiger

Tanners Tiger

Lawrence Block

Mystery & Thrillers / Fiction

The Cold War's boiling over. Global tensions are near the breaking point. So what's the perfect assignment for a super-spy who hasn't slept since the Korean conflict? A fun-filled trip to the Montreal World's Fair! The adorable little girl he's escorting—who, under different circumstances, would be sitting on the Lithuanian throne—can hardly contain her excitement, but it isn't all playtime for Evan Tanner. Some mysterious disappearances, apparently linked to the fair's Cuban exhibition, need to be looked into. Keeping his mind on business, however, won't be easy after an insatiable lovely in a tiger skin falls into Tanner's arms, and a mother lode of dangerous drugs falls into his lap. But the biggest, deadliest suprise is the terrorist plot Tanner's tumbling into, and he'll have to think and act quickly to prevent the visiting queen of England from being blown to smithereens.
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The Fairy Rebel

The Fairy Rebel

Lynne Reid Banks

Children's Books / Literature & Fiction / Nonfiction

The Fairy Queen strictly forbids fairies from using their magic power on humans. But after Tiki accidentally meets Jan, a woman who is desperate for a baby daughter, she finds it impossible to resist fulfilling her wish. Now up against the dark and vicious power of evil, this fairy rebel must face the Queen’s fury with frightening and possibly fatal results. From the Hardcover edition.
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Nowhere: A Novel

Nowhere: A Novel

Thomas Berger

Literature & Fiction / Mystery & Thrillers

Detective Russel Wren takes a case in what just might be the oddest country on earth A phone call warning of a bomb threat is all Detective Russel Wren needs to get out the door. He makes it to the next block before an enormous explosion destroys his entire building. Without his Manhattan office, Wren finds himself forced to accept a strange mission to the tiny central European nation of Saint Sebastian.  Saint Sebastian is unlike any country Wren has ever seen, and as his stay there continues, its oddities merely multiply: blond-haired citizens are consigned to the underclass; rudeness is a capital crime; and the Ministry of Clams is the go-to for any problem that can’t be solved by the Ministries of Hoaxes, Disaffection, Irony, or Allergies. No matter where Wren finds himself, he stumbles upon something puzzling, hilarious, and extraordinary—all leading up to a stunning turn of events. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Thomas Berger including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection.
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The Good Apprentice

The Good Apprentice

Iris Murdoch

Fiction / Philosophy

A sly, witty, and beautifully orchestrated tale about the difficulty of being good Edward Baltram is overwhelmed with guilt. His nasty little prank has gone horribly wrong: he has fed his closest friend a sandwich laced with a hallucinogenic drug and the young man has fallen out of a window to his death. Consumed with guilt, Edward experiences a debilitating crisis of conscience. While Edward torments himself for not being good, his stepbrother, Stuart, a brilliant mathematics student, quits his promising scholastic career to live like a monk, devoting himself to the difficult task of becoming good. As Stuart seeks salvation, Edward searches for redemption through a reunion with his famous father, the reclusive painter Jesse Baltram. Funny and compelling, The Good Apprentice, first published in 1986*, is at once a supremely sophisticated entertainment and an inquiry into the spiritual crises that afflict the modern world. *First published in the United States of America by Viking Penguin Inc. 1986
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Night of the Red Horse

Night of the Red Horse

Patricia Leitch

Patricia Leitch

Secretly, Jinny was afraid of the Horse. There was a strangeness about it, a power. Something is happening to the red horse mural on Jinny's bedroom wall. At night it haunts Jinny. Terrified, too terrified to sleep, she tries to escape the stalking horror of the red horse, filling her life with anything that will stop her thinking about it. Sue and Pippen are back on the moors, and together they go to visit a dig. The archaeologists are searching for traces of a Celtic pony cult. Even the dig does not prove the distraction Jinny craves. The red horse is still there, and it wants something from Jinny. Can she find the answer to stop the terror of the red horse?
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Exit to Eden

Exit to Eden

Anne Rice

Horror / Historical Fiction / Romance

Welcome to the club to satisfy all your desires. In the Caribbean sun, the champagne flows and the games of pain and pleasure never stop. Lisa is the perfectionist. Elliot, the client. In their meeting, they discover that Eden is a state of heart and mind where innocence and love can be recaptured.
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Still Life

Still Life

A. S. Byatt

Literature & Fiction / Nonfiction

Frederica Potter arrives at Cambridge University greedy for knowledge, sex and love. It isn't long before she becomes infatuated with a mysterious and controlling poet. Back in Yorkshire, her sister Stephanie abandons academia and is confronted with the boredom and frustrations of motherhood. Meanwhile, their younger brother Marcus begins to recover from a nervous breakdown. Each sibling is desperate to shape their own future, but a horrifying event will soon change their lives forever.
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