Along the way, Wells considers such diverse subjects as the Neolithic era, the rise of Judaism, the Golden Age of Athens, the life of Christ, the rise of Islam, the discovery of America and the Industrial Revolution. Breathtaking in its scope and passionate in its intensity, this history remains one of the most readable of its kind.

    Topics range from ruminations on why Charles Dickens was among the best of writers and the worst of men to the haunting science fiction of J.G. Ballard; from the enduring legacies of Thomas Jefferson and George Orwell to the persistent agonies of anti-Semitism and jihad. Hitchens even looks at the recent financial crisis and argues for the enduring relevance of Karl Marx. The book forms a bridge between the two parallel enterprises of culture and politics. It reveals how politics justifies itself by culture, and how the latter prompts the former. In this fashion, Arguably burnishes Christopher Hitchens' credentials as (to quote Christopher Buckley) our "greatest living essayist in the English language."

    Whether puncturing the lies of politicians, wittily dissecting the English character or telling unpalatable truths about war, Orwell's timeless, uncompromising essays are more relevant, entertaining and essential than ever in today's era of spin.Contents:"Why I Write", first published 1946"The Lion and the Unicorn", first published 1940"A Hanging", first published 1931"Politics and the English Language", first published 1946

    Clearly, geeks know something about life in the 21st century that other folks don’t—something we all can learn from. Geek Wisdom takes as gospel some 200 of the most powerful and oft-cited quotes from movies (“Where we’re going, we don’t need roads”), television (“Now we know—and knowing is half the battle”), literature (“All that is gold does not glitter”), games, science, the Internet, and more. Now these beloved pearls of modern-day culture have been painstakingly interpreted by a diverse team of hardcore nerds with their imaginations turned up to 11. Yes, this collection of mini-essays is by, for, and about geeks—but it’s just so surprisingly profound, the rest of us would have to be dorks not to read it. So say we all.

    Enterprise NCC-1701-D models, bags of wigs, and bins of plastic phasers, sits a dusty cardboard box. Inside is a pile of VHS tapes that contain never-before-seen episodes and behind-the-scenes footage for something truly amazing. The world thinks there are only seven seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation, but there’s one more. A secret season.Actually, not really. But that didn’t stop Mike McMahan, creator of the parody Twitter account @TNG_S8, from making a guide full of:REAL* TNG SEASON 8 FACTS AND STORIES!REAL* TNG SEASON 8 DIALOGUE AND IMAGES!(* Again, not really, of course. This is humor. Sorry.)So impress your friends and bewilder your enemies with your newfound knowledge of these very lost Star Trek episodes! Engage!

    We could find ourselves facing myriad serious problems from massive unemployment to a food shortage to an infrastructure failure that cuts off our power or water supply. If something terrible happens, we won't be able to rely on the government or our communities. We'll have to take care of ourselves.In How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It, James Rawles, founder of SurvivalBlog.com, clearly explains everything you need to know to protect yourself and your family in the event of a disaster-from radical currency devaluation to a nuclear threat to a hurricane. Rawles shares essential tactics and techniques for surviving completely on your own, including how much food is enough, how to filter rainwater, how to protect your money, which seeds to buy for your garden, why goats are a smart choice for livestock, and how to secure your home. It's the ultimate guide to total preparedness and self-reliance in a time of need.

    Where do we come from? Who created us? Why are we here? These questions have puzzled us since the dawn of time, but when it became apparent to Jon Stewart and the writers of The Daily Show that the world was about to end, they embarked on a massive mission to write a book that summed up the human race: What we looked like; what we accomplished; our achievements in society, government, religion, science and culture -- all in a tome of approximately 256 pages with lots of color photos, graphs and charts. After two weeks of hard work, they had their book. EARTH (The Book) is the definitive guide to our species. With their trademark wit, irreverence, and intelligence, Stewart and his team will posthumously answer all of life's most hard-hitting questions, completely unburdened by objectivity, journalistic integrity, or even accuracy. Also available as an ebook and as an audiobook.

    Garbage time is running out.Can what is playing you make it to Level 2?Fanged Noumena assembles for the first time the writings of Nick Land, variously described as 'rabid nihilism', 'Deleuzian Thatcherism', 'accelerationism', and 'cybergothic'. Wielding weaponised, machinically-recombined versions of Deleuze and Guattari, Reich and Freud, in the company of fellow 'werewolves' such as Nietzsche, Bataille, Artaud, Trakl, and Cioran, to a cut-up soundtrack of Bladerunner, Terminator, and Apocalypse Now, Land plotted a rigorously schizophrenic escape route out of academic philosophy, and declared all-out war on the Human Security System. Despite his 'disappearance', Land's output has been a crucial underground influence both on recent Speculative Realist thought, and on artists, writers, musicians, and filmmakers invigorated by his uncompromising and abrasive philosophical vision.Beginning with Land's radical rereadings of Heidegger, Nietzsche, and Kant, and ending with Professor Barker's cosmic theory of geo-trauma and neo-qabbalistic attempts to formulate a numerical anti-language, Fanged Noumena rescues from obscurity papers, talks and articles some of which have never previously appeared in print. Long the subject of rumour and vague legend, Land's turbulent post-genre theory-fictions of cybercapitalist meltdown smear cyberpunk, philosophy, arithmetic, poetics, cryptography, anthropology, grammatology, and the occult into unrecognisable and gripping hybrids.Fanged Noumena is a dizzying trip through Land's rigorous, incisive, and provocative work, establishing it as an indispensable resource for radically inhuman thought in the twenty-first century.

    Out pops a six-legged, two-armed alien, who says, in perfect English, "Take me to a paleontologist."It seems that Earth, and the alien's home planet, and the home planet of another alien species traveling on the alien mother ship, all experienced the same five cataclysmic events at about the same time, including events exactly like the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs. Both alien races believe this proves the existence of God: i.e. he's obviously been manipulating the evolution of life on each of these planets.

    A scholar, wit, lawyer and statesman, he wrote widely on politics, philosophy and science - declaring early in his career that 'I have taken all knowledge as my province'. In this, his most famous work, he considers a diverse range of subjects, such as death and marriage, ambition and atheism, in prose that is vibrant and rich in Renaissance learning. Bacon believed that rhetoric - the force of eloquence and persuasion - could lead the mind to the pure light of reason, and his own rhetorical genius is nowhere better expressed than in these vivid essays.

    He is also one of its most controversial. The author of important books such as Animal Liberation, Practical Ethics, Rethinking Life and Death, and The Life You Can Save, he helped launch the animal rights and effective altruism movements and contributed to the development of bioethics. Now, in Ethics in the Real World, Singer shows that he is also a master at dissecting important current events in a few hundred words.In this book of brief essays, he applies his controversial ways of thinking to issues like climate change, extreme poverty, animals, abortion, euthanasia, human genetic selection, sports doping, the sale of kidneys, the ethics of high-priced art, and ways of increasing happiness. Singer asks whether chimpanzees are people, smoking should be outlawed, or consensual sex between adult siblings should be decriminalized, and he reiterates his case against the idea that all human life is sacred, applying his arguments to some recent cases in the news. In addition, he explores, in an easily accessible form, some of the deepest philosophical questions, such as whether anything really matters and what is the value of the pale blue dot that is our planet. The collection also includes some more personal reflections, like Singer’s thoughts on one of his favorite activities, surfing, and an unusual suggestion for starting a family conversation over a holiday feast.Provocative and original, these essays will challenge—and possibly change—your beliefs about a wide range of real-world ethical questions.

    The Universe, of course, is our own. And Roundworld is Earth. As the wizards watch their accidental creation grow, we follow the story of our universe from the primal singularity of the Big Bang to the Internet and beyond. Through this original Terry Pratchett story (with intervening chapters from Cohen and Stewart) we discover how puny and insignificant individual lives are against a cosmic backdrop of creation and disaster. Yet, paradoxically, we see how the richness of a universe based on rules, has led to a complex world and at least one species that tried to get a grip of what was going on.

    Contents include Cthulhu Club and Cybergothic commentary, a multitude of hyperstitional portraits, theory-fiction diagonals, Mu ethnography, a detailed elaboration of the Pandemonium system, The Book of Paths, Axsys-AOE exposures, and more.

    Following the tragedy, their father, John, set out to teach his boys everything about the paranormal evil that lives in the dark corners and on the back roads of America . . . and how to kill it.Fans of the blockbuster television phenomenon can rejoice! A one-of-a-kind compilation of all of Sam and Dean's demon-busting knowledge, The Supernatural Book of Monsters, Spirits, Demons, and Ghouls contains illustrations and detailed descriptions that catalogue the more than two dozen otherworldly enemies that most people believe exist only in folklore, superstition, and nightmares: vampires, ghosts, revenants, reapers, and even bloody clowns. You'll find within these pages Sam and Dean's notes, observations, and memories interwoven with sections of John Winchester's invaluable journal, making this book the perfect companion to every thrilling episode — and an essential weapon in the secret war against the hidden creatures of the darkness!

    Jameson’s inquiry looks at the postmodern across a wide landscape, from “high” art to “low” from market ideology to architecture, from painting to “punk” film, from video art to literature.