Author: Diane Ackerman File Type: epub **Winner of the 2015 National Outdoor Book Award for Natural History Literature and the 2015 PEN New England Henry David Thoreau Prize. A dazzling, inspiring tour through the ways that humans are working with nature to try to save the planet.**Ackerman is justly celebrated for her unique insight into the natural world and our place in it. In this landmark book, she confronts the unprecedented reality that one prodigiously intelligent and meddlesome creature, Homo sapiens, is now the dominant force shaping the future of planet Earth. Humans have subdued 75 percent of the land surface, concocted a wizardry of industrial and medical marvels, strung lights all across the darkness. We tinker with nature at every opportunity we garden the planet with our preferred species of plants and animals, many of them invasive and we have even altered the climate, threatening our own extinction. Yet we reckon with our own destructive capabilities in extraordinary acts of hope-filled creativity we collect the DNA of vanishing species in a frozen ark, equip orangutans with iPads, and create wearable technologies and synthetic species that might one day outsmart us. With her distinctive gift for making scientific discovery intelligible to the layperson, Ackerman takes us on an exhilarating journey through our new reality, introducing us to many of the people and ideas now creatingperhaps savingour future and that of our fellow creatures.A beguiling, optimistic engagement with the changes affecting every part of our lives, The Human Age is a wise and beautiful book that will astound, delight, and inform intelligent life for a long time to come.**ReviewAn ode to the planet weve created for ourselves Rarely grim, and the overwhelming spirit is one of relentless optimism. (Nathanial Rich - New York Times) Ackerman has established herself over the last quarter of a century as one of our most adventurous, charismatic, and engrossing public science writersshe has demonstrated a rare versatility, a contagious curiosity, and a gift for painting quick, memorable tableaus drawn from research across a panoply of disciplines. The Human Age displays all of these alluring qualitiesThe Human Age is a dazzling achievement immensely readable, lively, polymathic, audacious. (Rob Nixon - New York Times Book Review) Diane Ackermans vivid writing, inexhaustible stock of insights, and unquenchable optimism have established her as a national treasure, and as one of our great authors. Youre now about to become addicted to Diane Ackerman. (Jared Diamond, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel and The World Until Yesterday) In this amazingly illuminating book, Diane Ackerman explains our future with her typically intoxicating blend of scholarship, wisdom, grace and humor. (Siddhartha Mukherjee, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies) The Human Age allows us to consider whether or not we will accept destruction or restoration as our legacy. I cannot imagine a richer text of image and insight, rendered with grace, intelligence and stamina. (Terry Tempest Williams, author of When Women Were Birds) With this stirringly vivid, darkbright manifesto, Diane Ackerman summons us to the wager of sheer possibility life against death, delight still (if only just barely) trouncing despair. (Lawrence Weschler, author of Everything that Rises, Pulitzer Prize finalist) A book to dip around inskimming some parts and perusing others with careas your interest guides you, enjoying Ackermans profound sense of mind play as you go. (Ben Dickinson - Elle) A hard look at the impact that humans have had on Earth thought provoking. (Kyle Anderson - Entertainment Weekly) Fascinating Ackerman offers a cross-cultural tour of human ingenuity Her words invite us to feel the hope she feels. (Barbara J. King - Washington Post) Part immersion memoir and part journalism The Human Age is also many parts poetry. (Beth Kephart - Chicago Tribune) [A] thought-provoking analysis of our connection to the earth A lens that magnifies and clarifies the fascinating, far-reaching effects humans have had on our planet and ourselves. (Lee E. Cart - Shelf Awareness) Ackerman is a gorgeous writer and perceptive observer. Here she writes with great empathy about the human plight. (Kate Tuttle - Boston Globe) A humdinger of a book Ackerman is optimistic, even exhilarated, and frequently giddy about the future of humanity. (Jon Christensen - San Francisco Chronicle) Exquisite and startling. (Tim Flannery - Harpers Magazine) About the Author Diane Ackerman has been the finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction in addition to many other awards and recognitions for her work, which include the best-selling The Zookeepers Wife and A Natural History of the Senses. She lives in Ithaca, New York.

Author: Paul Kix File Type: epub In the tradition of Agent Zigzag comes this breathtaking biography, as fast-paced and emotionally intuitive as the very best spy thrillers, which illuminates an unsung hero of the French Resistance during World War IIRobert de La Rochefoucald, an aristocrat turned anti-Nazi saboteurand his daring exploits as a resistant trained by Britains Special Operations Executive.A scion of one of the most storied families in France, Robert de La Rochefoucald was raised in magnificent chateaux and educated in Europes finest schools. When the Nazis invaded and imprisoned his father, La Rochefoucald escaped to England and learned the dark arts of anarchy and combatcracking safes and planting bombs and killing with his bare handsfrom the officers of Special Operations Executive, the collection of British spies, beloved by Winston Churchill, who altered the war in Europe with tactics that earned it notoriety as the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. With his newfound skills, La Rochefoucauld returned to France and organized Resistance cells, blew up fortified compounds and munitions factories, interfered with Germans war-time missions, and executed Nazi officers. Caught by the Germans, La Rochefoucald withstood months of torture without cracking, and escaped his own death, not once but twice.The Saboteur recounts La Rochefoucaulds enthralling adventures, from jumping from a moving truck on his way to his execution to stealing Nazi limos to dressing up in a nuns habitone of his many disguises and impersonations. Whatever the mission, whatever the dire circumstance, La Rochefoucauld acquitted himself nobly, with the straight-back aplomb of a man of aristocratic breeding James Bond before Ian Fleming conjured him.More than just a fast-paced, true thriller, The Saboteur is also a deep dive into an endlessly fascinating historical moment, telling the untold story of a network of commandos that battled evil, bravely worked to change the course of history, and inspired the creation of Americas own Central Intelligence Agency. **ReviewThe Saboteur is a mesmerizing book that builds up propulsive momentum until its final twists. It was a joy to disappear into this story. Like only the very best historical biographers, Paul Kix has turned years of deep reporting into a tightly coiled narrative that you never want to put down. (Eli Saslow, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of *Ten Letters The Stories Americans Tell Their President*) A winner the stories are fascinating, the pages nearly turn themselves, and La Rochefoucauld is a true hero. (Kirkus Reviews (starred review)) Journalist Kix had to do first-class detective work using primary sources to create this riveting story. Fans of World War II history will eagerly read this story, which is almost as exciting as a James Bond novel. (Library Journal) This thoroughly sourced account is highly readable and effectively showcases the life of a fascinating, complex man whose too-little-known role in the Resistance will be of great interest to followers of WWII history. (Booklist) Set in motion by a steamed-open letter and a burning hatred of Hitler, a dashing young aristocrat embarks on a campaign of clandestine warfare. The Saboteur sounds like a World War II spy thriller, but in fact it is a rip-roaring true story, wonderfully told by Paul Kix. (Mitchell Zuckoff, New York Times bestselling author of 13 Hours and Lost in Shangri-La) From the Back CoverA breathtaking work of narrativenonfiction, as fast-paced and emotionally intuitive as the very best spy thrillers, The Saboteur illuminates an unsung hero of the French ResistanceRobert de La Rochefoucauld, an aristocrat turned undercover anti-Nazi Leader.Ascion of one of the most storied families in France, Robert de La Rochefoucauld was raised in a magnificent chateaux and educated in Europes finest schools. When the Nazis invaded and imprisoned his father, La Rochefoucauld escaped to England and learned the dark arts of anarchy and combatcracking safes and planting bombs and killing with his bare handsfrom a collection of British spies, beloved by Winston Churchill, who altered the war in Europe with their covert tactics. With his newfound skills, La Rochefoucauld returned to France and organized Resistance cells, blew up fortified compounds and munitions factories, interfered with Germanys wartime missions, and executed Nazi officers. Caught by the Germans, La Rochefoucauld withstood months of torture and escaped his own death sentence, not once but twice. More than just a fast-paced, real-life thriller, The Saboteur is also a deep dive into an endlessly fascinating historical moment, revealing the previously untold story of a network of commandos who battled evil, bravely worked to change the course of history, and helped inspire the creation of Americas own Central Intelligence Agency.