The End of Time: The Next Revolution in Physics
Two views of the world clashed at the dawn of thought. In the great debate between the earliest Greek philosophers, Heraclitus argued for perpetual change, but Parmenides maintained there was neither time nor motion. Over the ages, few thinkers have taken Parmenides seriously, but I shall argue that Heraclitan flux, depicted nowhere more dramatically than in Turner’s painting below, may well be nothing but a well-founded illusion. I shall take you to a prospect of the end of time. In fact, you see it in Turner’s painting, which is static and has not changed since he painted it. It is an illusion of flux. Modern physics is beginning to suggest that all the motions of the whole universe are a similar illusion – that in this respect Nature is an even more consummate artist than Turner. This is the story of my book. Richard Feynman once quipped that "Time is what happens when nothing else does." But Julian Barbour disagrees: if nothing happened, if nothing changed, then time would stop. For time is nothing but change. It is change that we perceive occurring all around us, not time. Put simply, time does not exist. In this highly provocative volume, Barbour presents the basic evidence for a timeless universe, and shows why we still experience the world as intensely temporal. It is a book that strikes at the heart of modern physics. It casts doubt on Einstein's greatest contribution, the spacetime continuum, but also points to the solution of one of the great paradoxes of modern science, the chasm between classical and quantum physics. Indeed, Barbour argues that the holy grail of physicists--the unification of Einstein's general relativity with quantum mechanics--may well spell the end of time. Barbour writes with remarkable clarity as he ranges from the ancient philosophers Heraclitus and Parmenides, through the giants of science Galileo, Newton, and Einstein, to the work of the contemporary physicists John Wheeler, Roger Penrose, and Steven Hawking. Along the way he treats us to enticing glimpses of some of the mysteries of the universe, and presents intriguing ideas about multiple worlds, time travel, immortality, and, above all, the illusion of motion. The End of Time is a vibrantly written and revolutionary book. It turns our understanding of reality inside-out.
Many strong minded women have headstrong daughters. But this isn't supposed to extend to their cats... Some say your previous cat chooses their successor. If so, what in cat heaven's name was Helen Brown's beloved Cleo thinking when she sent a crazy kitten like Jonah? When Cleo died, Helen Brown swore she'd never get another kitten. But after she was diagnosed with breast cancer an unscheduled visit to a pet shop resulted in the explosive arrival of a feisty kitten called Jonah. Like Cleo, Jonah possessed great energy and charm. But unlike Cleo, he often morphed into a highly strung and capricious escape artist. Still, as Helen recovered from a mastectomy, he also proved to be a healer in his own right. While struggling to deal with her own mortality, Helen helped arrange her son Rob's wedding, completed her international best seller, *Cleo* , and was confronted with her eldest daughter Lydia's determination to abandon university studies to embark on a spiritual life....
The old world is gone. Ten years have passed since a parasitic Worm nearly drove humanity to extinction. When the Worm infected its human host, it crawled up into the brain, latching on and taking command. The result was shambling hordes of infected people called zombies. When the Worm vanished, bringing the majority of humans with it, it left a ravaged landscape. Small communities struggle to survive while bandits prey on the weak and hunger marches in through winter’s gate. The stand-alone sequel to the award-winning The World Without Crows, The World Without Flags is a story of survival, loyalty, and what we suffer for the ones we love.
In 1990, the world ended. A disease turned people into walking shells of themselves. Zombies. Most of them were harmless, but some were broken by the pressure of the disease. The cracked became ravenous killers whose bite infected. To escape the apocalypse, Eric, a young, overweight boy of 16, sets off on a journey across the United States. His plan is to hike from Ohio to an island in Maine, far from the ruins of cities, where the lake and the fierce winters will protect him from both Zombies and the gangs that roam the country. Along the way, Eric finds friends and enemies, hope and despair, love and hatred. The World Without Crows is the story of what he must become to survive. For him and the people he would come to love, the end is only the beginning.
The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches
On a spring morning in 1951, eleven-year-old chemist and aspiring detective Flavia de Luce gathers with her family at the railway station, awaiting the return of her long-lost mother, Harriet. Yet upon the train’s arrival in the English village of Bishop’s Lacey, Flavia is approached by a tall stranger who whispers a cryptic message into her ear. Moments later, he is dead, mysteriously pushed under the train by someone in the crowd. Who was this man, what did his words mean, and why were they intended for Flavia? Back home at Buckshaw, the de Luces’ crumbling estate, Flavia puts her sleuthing skills to the test. Following a trail of clues sparked by the discovery of a reel of film stashed away in the attic, she unravels the deepest secrets of the de Luce clan, involving none other than Winston Churchill himself. Surrounded by family, friends, and a famous pathologist from the Home Office—and making spectacular use of Harriet’s beloved Gipsy Moth plane, *Blithe Spirit* —Flavia will do anything, even take to the skies, to land a killer. **Acclaim for Alan Bradley’s beloved Flavia de Luce novels, winners of the Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger Award, Barry Award, Agatha Award, Macavity Award, Dilys Winn Award, and Arthur Ellis Award** “If ever there were a sleuth who’s bold, brilliant, and, yes, adorable, it’s Flavia de Luce.” *—USA Today* “Irresistibly appealing.” *—The New York Times Book Review* , on A Red Herring Without Mustard “Original, charming, devilishly creative.”—Bookreporter, on I Am Half-Sick of Shadows “Delightful and entertaining.”*—San Jose Mercury News, *on* Speaking from Among the Bones* From the Hardcover edition. ### Review **Acclaim for Alan Bradley’s beloved Flavia de Luce novels, winners of the Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger Award, Barry Award, Agatha Award, Macavity Award, Dilys Winn Award, and Arthur Ellis Award** **** “If ever there were a sleuth who’s bold, brilliant, and, yes, adorable, it’s Flavia de Luce.” *—USA Today* “Irresistibly appealing.” *—The New York Times Book Review* , on A Red Herring Without Mustard “Original, charming, devilishly creative.”—Bookreporter, on I Am Half-Sick of Shadows “Delightful and entertaining.”*—San Jose Mercury News, *on* Speaking from Among the Bones*
The Shondell and Balangie families are longtime enemies in the New Iberia criminal underworld and show each other no mercy. Yet their youngest heirs, Johnny Shondell and Isolde Balangie, rock and roll-musician teenagers with magical voices, have fallen in love and run away after Isolde was given as a sex slave to Johnny’s uncle.
As he seeks to uncover why, Detective Dave Robicheaux gets too close to both Isolde’s mother and the mistress of her father, a venomous New Orleans mafioso whose jealousy has no bounds. In retribution, he hires a mysterious assassin to go after Robicheaux and his longtime partner, Clete Purcel. This hitman is unlike any the “Bobbsey Twins from Homicide” have ever faced. He has the ability to induce horrifying hallucinations and travels on a menacing ghost ship that materializes without warning. In order to defeat him and rescue Johnny and Isolde, Robicheaux will have to overcome the demons that have tormented him throughout his adult life — alcoholism, specters from combat in Vietnam, and painful memories of women to whom he opened his heart only to see killed.
******Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2020 by *O, the Oprah Magazine, The Washington Post, Harper's Bazaar, Buzzfeed, Vogue, PureWow, New York Magazine* and more** ** **"Bennett's tone and style recalls James Baldwin and Jacqueline Woodson, but it's especially reminiscent of Toni Morrison's 1970 debut novel, *The Bluest Eye."* **--** Kiley Reid, *Wall Street Journal*** ** ** "A page-turner." -- *O, The Oprah Magazine * **"Sure to be one of 2020s best and boldest."** * **- *Elle****** From *The* *New York Times* -bestselling author of *The Mothers* , a stunning new novel about twin sisters, inseparable as children, who ultimately choose to live in two very different worlds, one black and one white.**** The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of...
For readers of Station Eleven and The Martian, Lily Brooks-Dalton’s haunting debut is the unforgettable story of two outsiders—a lonely scientist in the Arctic and an astronaut trying to return to Earth—as they grapple with love, regret, and survival in a world transformed. Augustine, a brilliant, aging astronomer, is consumed by the stars. For years he has lived in remote outposts—from Chile to Hawaii to Australia—studying the sky for evidence of how the universe began. At his latest posting, in a research center in the Arctic, news of a catastrophic event arrives. The scientists are forced to evacuate, but Augustine stubbornly refuses to abandon his work. Shortly after the others have gone, Augustine discovers a mysterious child, Iris, and realizes that the airwaves have gone silent. They are alone. At the same time, Mission Specialist Sullivan is aboard the Aether on its return flight from Jupiter. The astronauts are the first human beings to delve this deep into space, and Sully has made peace with the sacrifices required of her: a daughter left behind, a marriage ended. So far the journey has been a success, but when Mission Control falls inexplicably silent, Sully and her crew mates are forced to wonder if they will ever get home. As Augustine and Sully each face an uncertain future against forbidding yet beautiful landscapes, their stories gradually intertwine in a profound and unexpected conclusion. In crystalline prose, Good Morning, Midnight poses the most important questions: What endures at the end of the world? How do we make sense of our lives?
**F** **BI Agent Atlee Pine's search for her sister Mercy clashes with military investigator John Puller's high-stakes case, leading them both deep into a global conspiracy -- from which neither of them will escape unscathed.** For many long years, Atlee Pine was tormented by uncertainty after her twin sister, Mercy, was abducted at the age of six and never seen again. Now, just as Atlee is pressured to end her investigation into Mercy's disappearance, she finally gets her most promising breakthrough yet: the identity of her sister's kidnapper, Ito Vincenzo. With time running out, Atlee and her assistant Carol Blum race to Vincenzo's last known location in Trenton, New Jersey -- and unknowingly stumble straight into John Puller's case, blowing his arrest during a drug ring investigation involving a military installation. Stunningly, Pine and Puller's joint investigation uncovers a connection between Vincenzo's family and a breathtaking scheme that strikes at the very heart of global democracy. Peeling back the layers of deceit, lies and cover-ups, Atlee finally discovers the truth about what happened to Mercy. And that truth will shock Pine to her very core.
The Gulp: Five Tales of Horror
Strange things happen in The Gulp. The residents have grown used to it. The isolated Australian harbour town of Gulpepper is not like other places. Some maps don’t even show it. And only outsiders use the full name. Everyone who lives there calls it The Gulp. The place has a habit of swallowing people. A truck driver thinks the stories about The Gulp are made up to scare him. Until he gets there. Teenage siblings try to cover up the death of their mother, but their plans go drastically awry. A rock band invite four backpackers to a party at their house, where things get dangerously out of hand. A young man loses a drug shipment and his boss gives him 48 hours to make good on his mistake. Under the blinking eye of the old lighthouse, a rock fisher makes the strangest catch of his life. Five novellas. Five descents into darkness. Welcome to The Gulp, where nothing is as it seems.
In this beautiful, lyrical sequel to the critically acclaimed We Were the Salt of the Sea, Detective Moralès finds that a seemingly straightforward search for a missing fisherwoman off Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula is anything but…
The death of the pilot was as indisputable as the loss of the plane. The status of the passengers was more difficult to define… Four men had arranged to fly to Dublin. When their aeroplane descended as a fireball into the Irish Sea, only three of them were on board. With the identities of the passengers lost beneath the waves, a tense and perplexing investigation begins to determine the living from the dead, with scarce evidence to follow beyond a few snippets of overheard conversation and one family’s patchy account of the three days prior to the flight. Who was the man who didn’t fly? What did he have to gain? And would he commit such an explosive murder to get it? First published in 1955, Bennett’s ingenious mystery remains an innovative and thoroughly entertaining inversion of the classic whodunit. This edition also includes the rare short story “No Bath for the Browns” and an introduction by CWA Diamond Dagger Award winning author Martin Edwards.
### From School Library Journal Gr 4-8–When Kate's wood-carver father dies, she is left to support herself with her woodworking talent while living in her father's former market stall with a cat named Taggle. When Linay, a mysterious and magical stranger, comes to town and buys Kate's shadow, he gives her the money she needs to escape her village home, where people are blaming her for the hard times that have fallen on them. It is rumored that her talent comes from magic, but Kate's journey leads to unexpected consequences and danger for her and the Roamer family whom she joins. It's up to Kate; her new friend, Drina; and Taggle to defeat Linay with their own magic, as they come to discover the truth about his past and his desire for revenge. Kate's journey involves physical, mental, and magical growth, presenting a character who truly matures and changes over the course of her story, and the bittersweet conclusion reflects honest choices and Kate's newfound strength. Supporting characters, from villagers to the tormented Linay, are presented realistically and move the story forward smoothly. Bow's first novel shows a solid control of story and characters, and the careful and evocative writing reflects her work as a published poet. *Beth L. Meister, Milwaukee Jewish Day School, WI* © Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. ### From Booklist Young Kate is plain as a stick but a gifted wood carver. Her father had warned her that foolish people might think that she guides her knife with magic, and after he dies of fever, Kate becomes the target of suspicion and fear. As a plague worsens, Kate realizes that she must flee her village, and she reluctantly makes an odd bargain with a stranger: in exchange for her shadow, the stranger will provide essential supplies and grant a single wish. Soon Plain Kate is entangled in an elaborate noose of magic and revenge. In her debut novel, poet Bow writes with an absorbing cadence, creating evocative images that trigger the senses and pierce the heart. With familiar folktale elements, she examines the dark corners of human fear and creates intriguing, well-drawn characters, including Taggle, Kate’s talking cat, who adds a welcome lightness. The taut, bleak tale builds to a climax that unfortunately falters, solving a central dilemma with magical convenience. Still, with this debut, Bow establishes herself as a novelist to watch. Grades 7-12. --Lynn Rutan
**FOUR BESTSELLERS FOR THE PRICE OF THREE!** The best of their best from New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Annette Blair, with Cheryl Bolen, Lucinda Brant, and Brenda Hiatt. Fall in love with bewitchingly scandalous brides and their dashing grooms in this box set of 4 full-length Regencies. These bestsellers average over 4.4 stars from hundreds of combined bookseller reviews worldwide. **UNFORGETTABLE ROGUE** by Annette Blair. Beauty and the Beast trade places. After being reported dead, handsome as sin Bryceson Wakefield, Duke of Hawksworth, returns home scarred and beaten by war, only to find his hoyden of a wife blossomed into a beauty and set to wed another. Can Beauty seduce her unforgettable Beast? Will the beast ever consider himself worthy? **A LADY BY CHANCE** by Cheryl Bolen. Manipulated into a marriage of convenience, Anna and Charles, the Marquess of Haverstock, question each other's loyalties. But there's no question that Anna's silken touch has bewitched the powerful lord who has become her husband, and no question that she craves every moment in his arms. **SALT BRIDE** by Lucinda Brant. The Earl of Salt Hendon and squire's daughter Jane Despard share a secret past of mistrust, heartache, and misery. Forced into a marriage neither wants, Jane believes love conquers all; Salt will take some convincing. Can the newlyweds overcome past prejudices and sinister opposition to fall in love all over again? **SCANDALOUS VIRTUE** by Brenda Hiatt. First impressions can be most deceiving! Nessa, Lady Haughton, has been trained all her life to be a model of English propriety and virtue. Notorious rakehell and war hero Jack Ashecroft must renounce his wild ways and establish himself as a respectable member of Society. When Jack and Nessa meet, each thinks the other is exactly the ticket to the changes they are seeking; then the sparks fly! * **Annette Blair** is a *New York Times* and *USA Today* bestselling author of over forty books. She writes cozy mysteries, bewitching romantic comedies and award-winning historical romances. Annette has also stepped into the amazing world of self-publishing. Visit Annette at *annetteblair.com* * **Cheryl Bolen** is an award winning and bestselling author of more than a dozen Regency-set historical romance novels. Cheryl's books have been translated into 11 languages and won numerous awards, including the Holt Medallion and Best Historical in the International Digital Awards for eBooks. Visit Cheryl at *cherylbolen.com* * **Lucinda Brant** writes award winning bestselling Georgian historical romances and crimances (crime with lashings of romance). Her novels have been described as from " *the Golden Age of romance with a modern voice* " and " *heart wrenching drama with a happily ever after* ". Visit Lucinda at *lucindabrant.com* * **Brenda Hiatt** writes sparkling romantic adventure stories and is author of six traditional Regency romances, one time travel romance, eight historical romances (most set in Regency England), one upbeat mystery, and her teen sci-fi romance launched in September 2013. Visit Brenda at *brendahiatt.com* Annette, Cheryl, Lucinda, and Brenda are proud members of the 12 **Jewels of Historical Romance** author group. Visit them at *jewelsofhistoricalromance.com*
For fans of Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light comes an historical espionage novel with a contemporary edge from Michelle Butler Hallett. The time is 1937. The place: the Basque Country, embroiled in the Spanish Civil War. Polyglot and British intelligence agent Temerity West encounters Kostya Nikto, a Soviet secret police agent. Kostya has been dispatched to assassinate a doctor as part of the suppression of a rogue communist faction. When Kostya finds his victim in the company of Temerity, she expects Kostya to execute her — instead, he spares her. Several weeks later, Temerity is reassigned to Moscow. When she is arrested by the secret police, she once again encounters Kostya. His judgement impaired by pain, morphine, and alcohol, he extricates her from a dangerous situation and takes her to his flat. In the morning, they both awaken to the realities of what Kostya has done. Although Kostya wants to keep Temerity safe, the cost will be high. And Temerity must decide where her loyalties lie. Writing about violence with an unusual grace, Michelle Butler Hallett tells a story of complicity, love, tyranny, and identity. Constant Nobody is a thrilling novel that asks how far an individual will go to protect another — whether out of love or fear.
Evie is a near-perfect bioengineered human. In a broken-down future England where her kind has been outlawed, her ‘husband’ Matthew keeps her safe but hidden. When her existence is revealed, she must take her chances on the dark and hostile streets where more than one predator is on the hunt.
A family on the verge of self-destruction finds themselves isolated in their bathroom during a tornado warning.
EDITORIAL REVIEW: It should have been a case like any other: a missing princess, a king willing to pay in gold for her return. But before he realizes it, private investigator Eddie LaCrosse, a slightly shopworn sword jockey with a talent for discretion and detection, is swept up in a web of mystery and deceit involving a brutally murdered royal heir, a queen accused of an unspeakable crime and the tragic past he thought he'd left behind.First in a series of hard-boiled fantasy detective novels, in the vein of Glen Cook's Garrett series.