NCW Libraries

This look at the near future presents the story of Offred, a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, once the United States, an oppressive world where women are no longer allowed to read and are valued only as long as they are viable for reproduction. In this Orwellian dramatization, religion becomes a tool of repression and social control to force women into the roles of stay-at-home wives, domestic staff, prostitutes, or surrogate mothers. They have...

"A journalist recounts his upbringing and eventual break from an influential evangelical church to diagnose broader political and cultural issues"--

Naomi Oreskes is the Henry Charles Lea Professor of the History of Science and affiliated professor of Earth and planetary sciences at Harvard University. Twitter @NaomiOreskes Why the social character of scientific knowledge makes it trustworthy Are doctors right when they tell us vaccines are safe? Should we take climate experts at their word when they warn us about the perils of global warming? Why should we trust science when so many of our...

There's a well-known story about an older fish who swims by two younger fish and asks, "How's the water?" The younger fish are puzzled. "What's water?" they ask. Many of us today might ask a similar question: What's technology? Technology defines the world we live in, yet we're so immersed in it, so encompassed by it, that we mostly take it for granted. Seldom, if ever, do we stop to ask what technology is. Failing to ask that question, we fail...

"Shortlisted for the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, Phi Beta Kappa Society" "Finalist for the 2019 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Science & Technology" "Winner of the 2019 PROSE Award in Popular Science & Popular Mathematics, Association of American Publishers" "Longlisted for the 2019 PEN/E.O. Wilson Prize for Literary Science Writing Award, PEN American Center" "One of EcoLit Books' Best Environmental Books of 2018" "A Choice Outstanding Academic...

An "insightful" and in-depth look at anti-science politics and its deadly results (Maria Konnikova, New York Times-bestselling author of The Biggest Bluff). Thomas Jefferson said, "Wherever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government." But what happens when they aren't? From climate change to vaccinations, transportation to technology, health care to defense, we are in the midst of an unprecedented expansion of scientific...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • MORE THAN 3 MILLION COPIES SOLD • This instant classic explores how we can change our lives by changing our habits.

“Few [books] become essential manuals for business and living. The Power of Habit is an exception.”—Financial Times

A WALL STREET JOURNAL AND FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

In...

The presidential inaugural poet--and unforgettable new voice in American poetry--presents a collection of poems that includes the stirring poem read at the inauguration of the 46th President of the United States. Gorman explores history, language, identity, and erasure through an imaginative and intimate collage. Harnessing the collective grief of a global pandemic, her poems shine a light on a moment of reckoning and reveal that Gorman has become...

A NEW YORK TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, AND WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER • One of the most beloved books of our time: an illuminating account of the forest, and the science that shows us how trees communicate, feel, and live in social networks. After reading this book, a walk in the woods will never be the same again.

"Breaks entirely new ground ... [Peter Wohlleben] has listened to trees and decoded their language.

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Decades before the American Revolution, Benjamin Franklin lamented that English settlers were constantly fleeing over to the Indians -- but Indians almost never did the same. Tribal society has been exerting an almost gravitational pull on Westerners for hundreds of years, and the reason lies deep in our evolutionary past as a communal species. The most recent example of that attraction is combat veterans who come home to find themselves missing the...