San Antonio College Library

Partly abridged.

There is only one thing on which almost everyone agrees: there is something very wrong in Washington. The questions is: Why? The more urgent question is: What can be done about it? In the fascinating conclusion, the author gives thoughtful solutions that just may get us out of this mess--especially if any of the 2008 candidates happen to be paying attention.

What should we have for dinner? When you can eat just about anything nature (or the supermarket) has to offer, deciding what you should eat will inevitably stir anxiety, especially when some of the foods might shorten your life. Today, buffeted by one food fad after another, America is suffering from a national eating disorder. As the cornucopia of the modern American supermarket and fast food outlet confronts us with a bewildering and treacherous...

Considers the global impact of the 1883 eruption of the Krakatoa volcano, documenting its cause of an immense tsunami that killed 40,000 people, its impact on the weather for several years, and its role in anti-Western Islamic fundamentalism.

The Odyssey is considered to be one of the greatest pieces of world literature. Its basic story--the homecoming of Odysseus--is widely known. Although it has often been translated, earlier versions do not give the reader the full sense of its oral epic nature as a song that came into being through a long tradition of sung performances before writing was widely practiced. When finally written down, it retained its oral-formulaic nature in ways that...

An account of the race to solve the world's greatest scientific challenge--the sequencing of the human genome--describes the competition between rival researchers Craig Venter and Francis Collins.

The extraordinary story of Joseph Needham, the brilliant Cambridge scientist who unlocked the most closely held secrets of China--long the world's most technologically advanced country. This married Englishman, a freethinking intellectual, while working at Cambridge University in 1937, fell in love with a visiting Chinese student, with whom he began a lifelong affair. He became fascinated with China, and embarked on a series of extraordinary expeditions...

In this sardonic collection of essays, humorist, Rakoff defends the commonsensical notion that you should always assume the worst, because you'll never be disappointed. Through stories both reportorial and personal, Rakoff follows several paths we are told will lead to bliss only to discover that his real subject is the variety of human disappointment.

A collection of short stories, punctuated by excerpts from an archival recording of the author reading his works.