Y. York

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

In the future, after the global ecological disaster, so much that makes life worth living has been outlawed. One family refuses to submit. Will their small act of rebellion lead to a future where science no longer dominates humanity but serves it? "In Y York's futuristic comedy RAIN. SOME FISH. NO ELEPHANTS., genetic engineering has produced a submissive nation of clones and drones. Everything is gene coded so all individuality can be obliterated, except for one stubbornly old-fashioned family trying to thaw the perpetual nuclear winter. That winter is actually an endless floodlike rainy season. The play...begins as a kind of science-fiction variation on YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU with a wildly eccentric family resolutely staying out of the mainstream. In this case, the father is a crank who has quit his scientific post in a dehumanizing laboratory to go fishing. He neglects his suicidal wife and their two very odd daughters. The catalyst for renewal is a black man, cloned to be a member of a faceless servant class. Removed from his diet of 'stoppers', pills that deny incentive, he becomes a rebel. As conceived by York...he is an engaging figure, awakening to his personality as well as to his racial identity... [Y York] has created a thought provoking comic parable about mankind's indomitability. As much as anything, the play is concerned with the survival of history itself ..." Mel Gussow, The New York Times

Rain. Some Fish. No Elephants

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Leonard Mlodinow

How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior

An examination of the ways in which the unconscious mind shapes everyday life traces recent scientific advances to reveal the pivotal role of the subliminal mind in influencing experiences and relationships. By the author of The Drunkard's Walk. 100,000 first printing.

Subliminal

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Steve Hagen

The Practice of Being Aware, Right Now, Every Day

Shares the fundamental teachings of the Buddha, explains the twelvefold path, and includes Zen stories

Buddhism Plain and Simple

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Peter Godfrey-Smith

The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness

Philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith dons a wet suit and journeys into the depths of consciousness in Other Minds

Although mammals and birds are widely regarded as the smartest creatures on earth, it has lately become clear that a very distant branch of the tree of life has also sprouted higher intelligence: the cephalopods, consisting of the squid, the cuttlefish, and above all the octopus. In captivity, octopuses have been known to identify individual human keepers, raid neighboring tanks for food, turn off lightbulbs by spouting jets of water, plug drains, and make daring escapes. How is it that a creature with such gifts evolved through an evolutionary lineage so radically distant from our own? What does it mean that evolution built minds not once but at least twice? The octopus is the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien. What can we learn from the encounter?

In Other Minds, Peter Godfrey-Smith, a distinguished philosopher of science and a skilled scuba diver, tells a bold new story of how subjective experience crept into being--how nature became aware of itself. As Godfrey-Smith stresses, it is a story that largely occurs in the ocean, where animals first appeared. Tracking the mind's fitful development, Godfrey-Smith shows how unruly clumps of seaborne cells began living together and became capable of sensing, acting, and signaling. As these primitive organisms became more entangled with others, they grew more complicated. The first nervous systems evolved, probably in ancient relatives of jellyfish; later on, the cephalopods, which began as inconspicuous mollusks, abandoned their shells and rose above the ocean floor, searching for prey and acquiring the greater intelligence needed to do so. Taking an independent route, mammals and birds later began their own evolutionary journeys.

But what kind of intelligence do cephalopods possess? Drawing on the latest scientific research and his own scuba-diving adventures, Godfrey-Smith probes the many mysteries that surround the lineage. How did the octopus, a solitary creature with little social life, become so smart? What is it like to have eight tentacles that are so packed with neurons that they virtually "think for themselves"? What happens when some octopuses abandon their hermit-like ways and congregate, as they do in a unique location off the coast of Australia?

By tracing the question of inner life back to its roots and comparing human beings with our most remarkable animal relatives, Godfrey-Smith casts crucial new light on the octopus mind--and on our own.

Other Minds

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Michael Frayn

TONY AWARD WINNER * An explosive re-imagining of the mysterious wartime meeting between two Nobel laureates to discuss the atomic bomb.

"Endlessly fascinating.... The most invigorating and ingenious play of ideas in many a year....  An electrifying work of art." --Ben Brantley, The New York Times

In 1941 the German physicist Werner Heisenberg made a clandestine trip to Copenhagen to see his Danish counterpart and friend Niels Bohr. Their work together on quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle had revolutionized atomic physics. But now the world had changed and the two men were on opposite sides in a world war. Why Heisenberg went to Copenhagen and what he wanted to say to Bohr are questions that have vexed historians ever since. In Michael Frayn's ambitious, fiercely intelligent, and daring new play Heisenberg and Bohr meet once again to discuss the intricacies of physics and to ponder the metaphysical--the very essence of human motivation.

Copenhagen

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Bertolt Brecht

Dramatizes Galileo's conflict with the church over his assertion that the Earth revolves around the sun.

Galileo

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Sierra Simone

There are many rules a priest can't break. A priest cannot marry. A priest cannot abandon his flock. A priest cannot forsake his God.I've always been good at following rules.Until she came. Then I learned new rules.My name is Tyler Anselm Bell. I'm twenty-nine years old. Six months ago, I broke my vow of celibacy on the altar of my own church, and God help me, I would do it again.I am a priest and this is my confession.

Brooke Wagner

@brooke188378

Books Listed

Following

Followers

Y. York

Rain. Some Fish. No Elephants

Leonard Mlodinow

Subliminal

Steve Hagen

Buddhism Plain and Simple

Peter Godfrey-Smith

Other Minds

Michael Frayn

Copenhagen

Bertolt Brecht

Galileo

Sierra Simone

Priest

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Y. York

Rain. Some Fish. No Elephants

Leonard Mlodinow

Subliminal

Steve Hagen

Buddhism Plain and Simple

Peter Godfrey-Smith

Other Minds

Michael Frayn

Copenhagen

Bertolt Brecht

Galileo

Sierra Simone

Priest

Get The App