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Nonfiction
The poisoner's handbook : murder and the birth of forensic medicine in Jazz Age New York
Deborah Blum
2010
ISBN: 9781594202438
The untold story of how poison rocked Jazz Age New York City. A pair of forensic scientists began their trailblazing chemical detective work, fighting to end an era when untraceable poisons offered an easy path to the perfect crime. Chief medical examiner Charles Norris and toxicologist Alexander Gettler investigate a family mysteriously stricken bald, factory workers with crumbling bones, a diner serving poisoned pies, and many others. Each case presents a deadly new puzzle and Norris and Gettler create revolutionary experiments to tease out even the wiliest compounds from human tissue. From the vantage of their laboratory it also becomes clear that murderers aren't the only toxic threat--modern life has created a kind of poison playground, and danger lurks around every corner.
Ebook available from the Alaska Digital Library.
Finding the mother tree : discovering the wisdom of the forest
Suzanne Simard
2021
ISBN: 9780525656098
From the world's leading forest ecologist who forever changed how people view trees and their connections to one another and other living things in the forest--a moving, inspiring journey of discovery. Suzanne Simard is a pioneer on the frontier of plant communciation and intelligence; she's been compared to Rachel Carson, hailed as a scientist who conveys complex, technical ideas in a way that is dazzling and profound. Her work has influenced filmmakers (the Tree of Souls from James Cameron's Avatar), and her TED talks have been viewed by more than 10 million people worldwide. Now, in her first book, Simard brings us into her world, the intimate world of the trees, in which she brilliantly illluminates the fascinating and vital truths--that trees are not simply the source of timber or pulp but are a complicated, interdependent circle of life; that forests are social, cooperative creatures connected through underground networks by which trees communicate their vitality and vulnerabilities with communal lives not that different from our own. Simard describes up close--in revealing and accessible ways--how trees, lving side by side for hundreds of years, have evolved; how they perceive one another, learn and adapt their behaviors, recognize neighbors, and remember the past; how they have agency about their future; how they elicit warnings and mount defenses, compete and cooperate with one another with sophistication: characteristics previously ascribed to human intelligence, traits that are the essence of civil societies. And, at the center of it all, the Mother Trees: the mysterious, powerful forces that connect and sustain the others that surround them. Simard, born and raised in the rain forests of British Columbia, spent her days as a child cataloging the trees from the forest; she came to love and respect them and embarked on a journey of discovery and struggle. Her powerful story is one of love and loss, of observation and change, of risk and reward. And it is a testament to how deeply human scientific inquiry exists beyond data and technology; it's about understanding who we are and our place in the world. In her book, as in her groundbreaking research, Simard proves the true connectedness of the Mother Tree to the forest, nurturing it in the profound ways that families and human societies nurture one another, and how these inseperable bonds enable all our survival. -- From dust jacket.
Ebook and audiobook available from the Alaska Digital Library.
The glitter in the green : in search of hummingbirds
Jon Dunn
2021
ISBN: 9781541618190
"Hummingbirds are a glittering, sparkling collective of over three hundred wildly variable, colorful species. For centuries they have captured our imaginations - revered by indigenous Americans, coveted by European collectors, and to this day admired worldwide for their unsurpassed metallic, jewel-like plumage, acrobatic flight, and immense character. Yet they exist on a knife-edge -- theirs is a precarious life, dependent upon finding sufficient nectar to provide the high energy their bodies demand daily. They live fast and die young. And they do this in habitats that range from boreal woodlands to deserts, from dripping cloud-forests to montane paramo, and on islands both tropical and sub-polar. They are, perhaps, the ultimate embodiment of evolution's power to carve a niche for a seemingly delicate creature in even the harshest of places. This tells the colorful story of these fabulous birds -- their history, their compelling life cycles, and their perilous position in a changing landscape -- and the stories of the people, past and present, whose lives have been shaped by the zealous passion hummingbirds inspire. Enthusiastic amateur birdwatchers, conservation workers, scientists, smugglers, witches, and celebrities -- all have been consumed in one way or another with passion for the most remarkable family of all the birds. Travelling the full length of their worldwide range, from the very edge of the Arctic Circle to the sub-Antarctic islands off the tip of South America, nature writer Jon Dunn embarks on a search for the most remarkable examples of their kind, exploring their rich cultural heritage, and encountering a host of human characters as colorful as the birds themselves"-- Provided by publisher.
Transcendence : how humans evolved through fire, language, beauty, and time
Gaia Vince
2020
ISBN: 9780465094905
What enabled us to go from simple stone tools to smartphones? How did bands of hunter-gatherers evolve into multinational empires? Readers of Sapiens will say a cognitive revolution -- a dramatic evolutionary change that altered our brains, turning primitive humans into modern ones -- caused a cultural explosion. In Transcendence, Gaia Vince argues instead that modern humans are the product of a nuanced coevolution of our genes, environment, and culture that goes back into deep time. She explains how, through four key elements -- fire, language, beauty, and time -- our species diverged from the evolutionary path of all other animals, unleashing a compounding process that launched us into the Space Age and beyond. Provocative and poetic, Transcendence shows how a primate took dominion over nature and turned itself into something marvelous.
Fiction
The long way to a small, angry planet
Becky Chambers
2016
ISBN: 9780062444134
"When Rosemary Harper joins the crew of the Wayfarer, she isn't expecting much. The patched-up ship has seen better days, but it offers her everything she could possible want: a spot to call home, a chance to explore the far-off corners of the galaxy and some distance from her past. And nothing could be further from what she's known than the crew of the Wayfarer."--Page [4] of cover.
Termination shock : a novel
Neal Stephenson
2021
ISBN: 9780063028050
A billionaire has an idea for reversing global warming, but will it work? And what will the consequences for the planet be? A disparate group of characters from around the globe fight to solve the problem of global warming, but some of their ideas may be worse than climate change itself.
Ebook available from the Alaska Digital Library.
The ministry for the future
Kim Stanley Robinson
2020
ISBN: 9780316300131
"From legendary science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson comes a vision of climate change unlike any ever imagined. Kim Stanley Robinson is one of contemporary science fiction's most acclaimed writers, and with this new novel, he once again turns his eye to themes of climate change, technology, politics, and the human behaviors that drive these forces. But his setting is not a desolate, post-apocalyptic world - rather, he imagines a more hopeful future, one where humanity has managed to overcome our challenges and thrive. It is a novel both immediate and impactful, perfect for his many fans and for readers who crave powerful and thought-provoking sci-fi stories"--Provided by publisher.
Ebook available from the Alaska Digital Library.
New suns : original speculative fiction by people of color
edited by Nisi Shawl
2019
ISBN: 9781781085783
Ebook available from the Alaska Digital Library.