Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was first published in three serialized excerpts in the New Yorker in June of 1962. The book appeared in September of that year and the outcry that followed its publication forced the banning of DDT and spurred revolutionary changes in the laws affecting our air, land, and water. Carson’s passionate concern for the future of our planet reverberated powerfully throughout the world, and her eloquent book was instrumental...

Recounts the story of the 1820 wreck of the whaleship Essex, which inspired Melville's classic "Moby-Dick," and describes its doomed crew's ninety-day attempt to survive whale attacks and the elements on three tiny lifeboats.

The freeway is coming. It will cut the neighborhood in two. Construction has already started, pushing toward this corridor of condemned houses and cracked concrete with the momentum of the inevitable. The victim of the bet between two manufactured gods, Roxy and Addison, Roxicodone and Adderall, the low-level cronies of more illustrious bosses, who more than anything else want to prove their own lethality. The wager, a contest to see who can induce...

Henry D. Thoreau (1817–62) was an American author, naturalist, poet, and philosopher. He wrote many essays and books, including Civil Disobedience, Walking, and The Maine Woods, among others. John Updike (1932–2009) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, short story writer, and poet. One of the most influential and compelling books in American literature, Walden is a vivid account of the years that Henry D. Thoreau spent alone in a secluded...

Discusses how scientists use grave sites to determine a lot about a civilization and the people who lived in it.

Discusses the international competition to create the first atomic bomb.

"When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a prosperous Syrian-American and father of four, chose to stay through the storm to protect his house and contracting business. In the days after the storm, he traveled the flooded streets in a secondhand canoe, passing on supplies and helping those he could. A week later, on September 6, 2005, Zeitoun abruptly disappeared. This book explores Zeitoun's roots in Syria, his marriage to...