Archives de catégorie : Nonfiction

VIRTUAL SOCIETY de Herman Narula

An eye-opening, myth-busting exploration of the metaverse, its ancient origins, and how the exchange of value and ideas within virtual words will expand the possibilities of human life—from the visionary co-founder of one of today’s most innovative technology companies

VIRTUAL SOCIETY:
The Metaverse and the New Frontiers of Human Experience
by Herman Narula
‎ Currency/Crown, October 2022

The concept of “the metaverse” has recently exploded in the public consciousness. But its contours remain elusive. Is it merely an immersive virtual reality playground, one which Facebook and other platforms will angle to control? Is it simply the next generation of massive multiplayer online games? Or is it something more revolutionary?
As Herman Narula shows, the metaverse is actually the latest manifestation of an ancient human tendency: the act of world building. From the Egyptians, whose conception of death inspired them to build the pyramids, to modern-day sports fans, whose passion for a game inspires extreme behavior, humans have long sought to supplement their day-to-day lives with a rich diversity of alternative experiences.
Rooting his vision in history and psychology, Narula argues that humans’ intrinsic need for autonomy, accomplishment, and connection can now best be met in virtual “worlds of ideas,” in which users will have the chance to create and exchange meaning and value. The metaverse is both the growing set of fulfilling digital experiences—ranging from advanced gaming, to entertainment experiences like concerts, and even virtual employment—as well as the empowering framework that allows these spaces to become “networks of useful meaning.”
Bloomberg Intelligence recently predicted the metaverse will become an $800 billon industry by 2024. But its potential, argues Narula, is far more awe-inspiring than as a spigot of cash. The arrival of the metaverse marks the beginning of a new age of exploration—not outward, but inward—with the potential to reshape society and open the door to a new understanding of the human species and its capabilities.
Rigorously researched and passionately argued, VIRTUAL SOCIETY will be a provocative and essential guide for anyone who wants to go beyond superficial headlines to understand the true shape and potential of our virtual future.

Herman Narula is the co-founder and CEO of Improbable, a London-based technology company. He holds a computer science degree from Cambridge. He’s interested in the unprecedented impact that powerful, virtual worlds have on how we think, play, and make decisions.

ALL ELSE FAILED de Dana Sachs

As a million displaced people sought refuge in Europe, the global relief system failed. This is the story of the volunteers who stepped forward to help.

ALL ELSE FAILED:
The Unlikely Volunteers at the Heart of the Migrant Aid Crisis
by Dana Sachs
‎ Bellevue Literary Press, March 2023
(via Kaplan/Defiore Rights)

In 2015, increasing numbers of refugees and migrants, most of them fleeing war-torn homelands, arrived by boat on the shores of Greece, setting off the greatest human displacement since WWII. As journalists reported horrific mass drownings, an ill-prepared and seemingly indifferent world looked on. Those who reached Europe needed food, clothing, medicine, and shelter, but the international aid system broke down completely.
ALL ELSE FAILED is Dana Sachs’s compelling eyewitness account of the successes—and failures—of the volunteer relief network that emerged to meet the enormous need. People from around the globe pitched in to address the crisis. Yet the most dedicated and effective volunteers were often migrants themselves, including Rima, a mother of six, who cooked for four hundred refugees in an abandoned schoolhouse in Athens; Ibrahim, who managed donations flowing to the grassroots effort; and Sami, whose language skills helped fellow migrants navigate a foreign world.
Closely following the odysseys of seven individual men and women, and their families, ALL ELSE FAILED tells a story of despair and resilience, revealing the humanity within an immense humanitarian disaster.

Dana Sachs is a journalist, novelist, and cofounder of the nonprofit Humanity Now: Direct Refugee Relief, which supports grassroots teams providing aid to displaced people. A former Fulbright Scholar, she is the author of three works of nonfiction, The House on Dream Street: Memoir of an American Woman in Vietnam; The Life We Were Given: Operation Babylift, International Adoption, and the Children of War in Vietnam; and All Else Failed: The Unlikely Volunteers at the Heart of the Migrant Aid Crisis (forthcoming from Bellevue Literary Press in March 2023), as well as the novels If You Lived Here and The Secret of the Nightingale Palace. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications, including the Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, and Mother Jones. Sachs lives in Wilmington, North Carolina.

BIGGER BETTER BOLDER de Jennifer Cohen

BIGGER BETTER BOLDER:
Live the Life You Want, Not the Life You Get
by Jennifer Cohen
Hachette Go, December 2022
(via Kaplan/Defiore Rights)

Jennifer Cohen is where she is today because one day, she learned how to be bold. When you become bold, good things start to happen. Then great things start to happen. You break free from what’s holding you back, you aren’t afraid to fail, and you learn from every shot you take—even when you miss the target, especially when you miss the target. And you definitely bust out of the “it’s good enough trap”.
When you become bold, you ask for what you want—and you get it. Why settle for taking what you can get, rather than going after the things you truly want? Instead, Jennifer has a better idea. Do what she did: Live the Life You Want, Not the Life You Get.
Be bold. Identify what you really want—and ask for it.
Be bold. Change your mindset and fail your way to success.
Be bold. Chase what you want, don’t take what you can get.

Jennifer Cohen is a bestselling author of three books in the fitness and wellness space, including Strong Is The New Skinny, with a world-famous clientele that includes Hollywood celebrities, Olympic athletes, and others. She’s a trendspotting entrepreneur who has sold companies for millions of dollars; a sought-after brand strategist and influencer; host of a top-rated podcast she created with more than 3 million downloads and counting; and an in-demand motivational speaker for a range of companies as well as business schools, with a TEDx talk that has more than 2 million views on YouTube, and another 2 million-plus on the TED website.

PLAGUED! de Lindsey Fitzharris & Adrian Teal

An accessible, curious, playful book aimed at enlivening science and history in a way that is irresistible to young readers in the 8 –12 years range.

PLAGUED!
by Dr. Lindsey Fitzharris & Adrian Teal
‎ Bloomsbury, Fall 2023
(via Sterling Lord Literistic)

Guided by its eccentric, eponymous narrator, readers of PLAGUED! will learn the stories of history’s most virulent sicknesses—such as bubonic plague, rabies, scurvy, polio, tuberculosis, and smallpox—and how medicine tried to combat them through the ages. The book will look at successful measures, such as the closure of ports to halt the spread of the Black Death; to weird and hopeless remedies, such as urine mouthwashes to cure scurvy.
At the start of each chapter, an illustration of Dr. Lurgy with his jars—filled with body parts covered in buboes, poxed heads, and loose teeth from scurvy victims—will begin the focus on one particular disease. As he holds forth, we mix through to illustrations of terrible scenes, bizarre medical escapades, and funny episodes that color his tales. Chapters will conclude with a roll-call of famous victims claimed by each disease.
The book will be illustrated in a style reminiscent of popular comics and publications such as Ripley’s Believe it or Not, Tales from the Crypt, and Horrible Histories. It will feature a cast of characters including bird-masked plague doctors, rabid dogs, panicked citizens, an unwittingly heroic cow, and pioneering medical visionaries.

Dr. Lindsey Fitzharris is a bestselling and award-winning author, television host, and medical historian with a doctorate from the University of Oxford. Her debut book The Butchering Art won the 2018 PEN/E.O. Wilson Award for Literary Science in the United States; and was shortlisted for both the Wellcome Book Prize and the Wolfson History Prize in the UK. Lindsey is also the creator of the popular blog, The Chirurgeon’s Apprentice—which has had over 5 million hits since its launch—as well as the host of the YouTube series, Under the Knife. Her latest book, The Facemaker, was published in June 2022 and is a New York Times bestseller.
Adrian Teal is an internationally renowned caricaturist, cartoonist, illustrator and writer. In relation to his caricature work, Adrian has appeared on several British TV channels such as BBC1, Channel 5, and Sky One.
Lindsey and Adrian live together in the British countryside.

DEPORTED de Caitlin Dickerson

From an award-winning investigative reporter currently at The Atlantic and formerly of the New York Times, the definitive book to address the American deportation system.

DEPORTED: The Hidden Toll of American Expulsion
by Caitlin Dickerson
Random House, Autumn 2024
(via The Gernert Company)

Deportation is a system that pervades every aspect of American life, yet remains largely invisible. In popular discourse, it is treated as a discrete event affecting one person at a single time; in fact, the devastating ripple effect of deportation has a closer analogue in the destabilization felt by millions of Black American households when their sons and fathers are swept into our mass incarceration system. The households of deported immigrants, as well as those who live with the daily fear of expulsion, have been grappling with a similar reality on a massive and underrecognized scale.
Based on her many years of reporting on our immigration system, DEPORTED will be the definitive book to address the complexity and complicity of the American deportation system. Following the people caught in the middle of the system, it is a multi-generational story that spans cities, suburbs, and farmland and knits together an entire continent. Dickerson will reveal how the “deportation machine” has grown largely unchecked into both a multibillion dollar industry and a powerful lobbying force behind harsher policies designed to further increase profits. The narrative centers on the millions of “essential workers” we rely on every day to to pick and serve our food, to clean and build our houses, to care for our children and our elders. At its heart, DEPORTED asks: how did we come to subjugate an entire population living alongside us to a permanent lower class? What harms have resulted, and how can we begin to repair them?

Caitlin Dickerson is a staff writer at the Atlantic where she covers immigration and the American experience. She joined the Atlantic after five years at the New York Times, where she broke news about changes in deportation and detention policy and its consequences. She also served as a frequent guest and guest-host for “The Daily.” Dickerson is the winner of a Peabody and Edward R Murrow Award and three-time finalist for the Livingston Award. She lives in Brooklyn.