"Twelve eye-opening, mind-expanding, funny, and provocative essays on the implications of artificial intelligence for the way we live and the way we love from New York Times bestselling author Jeanette Winterson. "Talky, smart, anarchic and quite sexy," wrote Dwight Garner in the New York Times about Jeanette Winterson's last novel, Frankissstein, her first foray into the subject of AI. In 12 Bytes, Winterson's first nonfiction since her bestselling...

"In an age of pandemics, climate change, and political unrest, you don't have to be a prepper to worry about the future or to wonder how you can prepare for it. Many of us conjure up images of a post-apocalyptic world where life is simple, our needs and goals clear. We imagine the desolate, barren world of Cormac McCarthy's The Road, where starting fires, building shelters, and even picking locks are our most valuable skills. But as underwater archeologist,...

"Are we more like termites than we ever imagined? In Underbug, the award-winning journalist Lisa Margonelli introduces us to the enigmatic creatures that collectively outweigh human beings ten to one and consume $40 billion worth of valuable stuff annually. Over the course of a decade-long obsession with one of nature's most influential but least understood bugs, Margonelli pokes around termite mounds and high-tech research facilities, closely watching...

"Whether we are worried about the spread of COVID-19 or making a corporate budget, we depend on mathematical models to help us understand the world around us every day. But models aren't a mirror of reality. In fact, they are fantasies, where everything works out perfectly, every time. And relying on them too heavily can hurt us. In Escape from Model Land, statistician Erica Thompson illuminates the hidden dangers of models. She demonstrates how models...

"Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning author Richard Rhodes reveals the fascinating history behind energy transitions over time -- wood to coal to oil to electricity and beyond. People have lived and died, businesses have prospered and failed, and nations have risen to world power and declined, all over energy challenges. Ultimately, the history of these challenges tells the story of humanity itself. [...] Human beings have confronted the...

In a practical guide to creating meaningful and memorable written messages, the author explains how to write a well crafted letter to suit a variety of circumstances, ranging from condolence and congratulations to illness and fund-raising.

"In The Making of Home, Flanders traces the evolution of the house from the sixteenth to the early twentieth century across northern Europe and America, showing how the homes we know today bear only a faint resemblance to homes though history. What turned a house into a home? Why did northwestern Europe, a politically unimportant, sociologically underdeveloped region of the world, suddenly became the powerhouse of the Industrial Revolution, the capitalist...

In this book, Kristin Lawless argues that, because of the degradation of our diet, our bodies are literally changing from the inside out. The billion-dollar food industry is reshaping our food preferences, altering our brains, changing the composition of our microbiota, and even affecting the expression of our genes. Lawless chronicles how this is happening and what it means for our bodies, health, and survival, going beyond nutrition to issues of...

Moths are a crucial insect group encompassing more than 160,000 species, and they are among the most ancient of Earth's inhabitants, with some fossils believed to be 190 million years old. This richly illustrated guide to their biology, evolution, and history demonstrates the incredible diversity of these winged insects and reveals the ruthless survival tactics used by some -- including blood-sucking moths, cannibalism in the cocoon, and carnivorous...