The Whale Song Translation


Howard Steven Pines - 2013
    . . When the Navy's controversial sonar experiments begin to destroy Maui's whales, an unlikely hero emerges. Inspired by his mentor's paradigm-busting challenge to open a communications channel with other big-brained species, acoustics professor David Dmitri begins analyzing the songs of humpback whales. The quest to decode their mysterious language leads him to an astonishing revelation. With more proof, Dmitri realizes he could rally public opinion and stanch the bloodshed. But as his team prepares to launch a voyage of discovery in the Straits of Lahaina, others are determined to stop him-whatever the consequences. In the spirit of Carl Sagan's Contact and Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters, The Whale Song Translation is a voyage of discovery into a new frontier: the excitement of first contact and the recognition of the intelligence, dignity, and wisdom of another earthly species. Built on fascinating, believable science, Part I of The Torch of Prometheus trilogy delivers thought-provoking "breakthroughs" about language and intelligence in earth's other big-brained beings, and explores the intertwined existential crises of humans and whales.

The Donkeys


Alan Clark - 1991
    In the three-and-a-half hours of the battle, they sustained 8,246 casualties. The Germans suffered no casualties at all. Why did the British Army fail so spectacularly? What can be said of the leadership of generals? And most importantly, could it have all been prevented? In The Donkeys, eminent military historian Alan Clark scrutinises the major battles of that fateful year and casts a steady and revealing light on those in High Command - French, Rawlinson, Watson and Haig among them - whose orders resulted in the virtual destruction of the old professional British Army. Clark paints a vivid and convincing picture of how brave soldiers, the lions, were essentially sent to their deaths by incompetent and indifferent officers – the donkeys. ‘An eloquent and painful book... Clark leaves the impression that vanity and stupidity were the main ingredients of the massacres of 1915. He writes searingly and unforgettably’ Evening Standard

Lie Like a Woman (A Bree and Richard Matthews Mystery)


Campbell Jones - 2010
    A GREAT READ THAT WILL KEEP YOU GUESSING! Richard Matthews is a private eye in San Diego who's bitten off more than he can chew with a simple infidelity case that ends in murder. Bree Matthews is his lovely wife, a detective novelist with a PhD in forensics that manages to keep a step ahead of her feckless husband as the two of them try to solve a puzzle involving missing persons, a kidnapping of a couple of dangerously psychotic adolescent twins, a suicide, a walled up skeleton, a plethora of obnoxious dogs, and several instances of mistaken identity. Suspenseful, humorous, and full of twists, LIE LIKE A WOMAN is the first in the Bree and Richard Matthews Mystery Series, and will leave you begging for more! Soon to come, the next Bree and Richard Matthews Mystery, DIE LIKE A MAN.