NYRB CLASSICS ORIGINAL: Simone Weil’s searing argument against partisan politics will speak to modern U.S. citizens who are fed up with Congressional infighting and legislative deadlock.“One of the most brilliant and original minds of 20th-century France.” —The New York TimesSimone Weil—philosopher, activist, mystic—is one of the most uncompromising of modern spiritual masters. In “On the Abolition of All Political Parties” she cha...

*New enhanced edition of the best-selling guide to sea creatures: The World Beneath!*Meet the world's most fascinating sea creatures, see the lives and curiosities of colorful fish and coral reefs. This spectacular volume has more than 300 color photos and extraordinary text from a leading marine biologist and underwater photographer who is the international expert on seahorses.In this richly informative volume, brimming with new d...

One of the Washington Post's 50 Best Nonfiction Books of 2024The bestselling author of Other Minds shows how we and our ancestors have reinvented our planet.If the history of the Earth were compressed down to a year, our species would arise in the last thirty minutes or so of the final hour. But life itself is not such a late arrival: It has existed on Earth for something like 3.7 billion years—most of our planet’s history...

A woman settles in a remote Polish village. It has few inhabitants, but it teems with the stories of its living and its dead. There's the drunk Marek Marek, who discovers that he shares his body with a bird, and Franz Frost, whose nightmares come to him from a newly discovered planet. There's the man whose death – with one leg on the Polish side, one on the Czech – was an international incident. And there are the Germans who still haunt a region that not long ago they called their own. Fro...

A captivating exploration of how underwater animals tap into sound to survive, and a clarion call for humans to address the ways we invade these critical soundscapes—from an award-winning science writer“Sing Like Fish is that rare book that makes you see the world differently.”—Mark Kurlansky, New York Times bestselling author of Salt and CodLONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE ...

An exploration of how perception, thought, and action are products of maps etched into your brain—and how technology can use them to read your mind.Your brain is a collection of maps. That is no metaphor: scrawled across your brain's surfaces are actual maps of the sights, sounds, and actions that hold the key to your survival. Scientists first began uncovering these maps over a century ago, but we are only now beginning to unlock their secrets—and comprehend their ...

In this beautiful story of adventure and survival from the New York Times bestselling author of Room, three men vow to leave the world behind them as they set out in a small boat for an island their leader has seen in a dream, with only faith to guide them.In seventh-century Ireland, a scholar and priest called Artt has a dream telling him to leave the sinful world behind. Taking two monks—young Trian and old Cormac—he rows down the river Shannon ...

A fun, dazzling exploration of the strange numbers that illuminate the ultimate nature of reality.For particularly brilliant theoretical physicists like James Clerk Maxwell, Paul Dirac, or Albert Einstein, the search for mathematical truths led to strange new understandings of the ultimate nature of reality. But what are these truths? What are the mysterious numbers that explain the universe?In Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them, the leading ...

What kind of object is the brain? And how does it really work? A neuroscientist offers a new vision of the brain as a fully integrated, networked organ.Popular neuroscience accounts often focus on specific mind-brain aspects like addiction, cognition, or memory, but The Entangled Brain tackles a much bigger question: What kind of object is the brain? Neuroscientist Luiz Pessoa describes the brain as a highly networked, interconne...

A revealing guide to understanding the principles of IslamWith more than 1.8 billion followers worldwide, Islam is one of the world's largest religions, but it is also one that is poorly understood by many Americans. Islam Explained offers an informative overview of the faith, helping those who are new to Islam foster cultural awareness while also providing those already familiar with it the opportunity to deepen their understanding.Whether you are...

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice SelectionOne of President Bill Clinton’s “Best Things I’ve Read This Year”From the acclaimed historian and New Yorker writer comes this urgent manifesto on the dilemma of nationalism and the erosion of liberalism in the twenty-first century.At a time of much despair over the future of liberal democracy, Jill Lepore makes a stirring case for the nation in This America

From the bestselling author of SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome, the fascinating story of how images of Roman autocrats have influenced art, culture, and the representation of power for more than 2,000 yearsWhat does the face of power look like? Who gets commemorated in art and why? And how do we react to statues of politicians we deplore? In this book—against a background of today’s “sculpture wars”—Mary Beard tells the story of how for more than ...