Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

For over three decades, Ray Kurzweil has been one of the most respected and provocative advocates of the role of technology in our future. In his classic The Age of Spiritual Machines , he argued that computers would soon rival the full range of human intelligence at its best. Now he examines the next step in this inexorable evolutionary process: the union of human and machine, in which the knowledge and... (more)

The Extreme Future: The Top Trends That Will Reshape the World for the Next 5, 10, and 20 Years

The Extreme Future: The Top Trends That Will Reshape the World for the Next 5, 10, and 20 Years

by James Canton

Dr. James Canton, a renown futurist, CEO of the Institute for Global Futures, and Fortune 1000 advisor, charts a course to steer you through the volatile changes that lie 5, 10, and 20 years ahead. The Extreme Future is this generation’s Future Shock, Alvin Toffler’s classic book on what’s next and how to prepare for tomorrow. Get ready for fast, radical, and complex change. Get ready for the Extreme... (more)

Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow's Big Changes

Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow's Big Changes

by Mark Penn, E. Kinney Zalesne, Mark J. Penn

"The ideas in his book will help you see the world in a new way." -Bill Clinton "Mark Penn has a keen mind and a fascinating sense of what makes America tick, and you see it on every page of Microtrends ." -Bill Gates In 1982, readers discovered Megatrends . In 2000, The Tipping Point entered the lexicon. Now, in Microtrends , one of the most respected and sought-after analysts in the world... (more)

Radical Evolution : The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies -- and What It Means to Be Human

Radical Evolution : The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies -- and What It Means to Be Human

by Joel Garreau

Taking us behind the scenes with today’s foremost researchers and pioneers, bestselling author Joel Garreau shows that we are at a turning point in history. At this moment we are engineering the next stage of human evolution. Through advances in genetic, robotic, information, and nanotechnologies, we are altering our minds, our memories, our metabolisms, our personalities, our progeny–and perhaps our very... (more)

Accelerando

by Charles Stross

Expanding on his award-winning short story cycle from the pages of Asimov's Science Fiction, Charles Stross delivers the story fans and peers have been expecting with Accelerando, a novel destined to change the face of the genre.

Otherland: City Of Golden Shadow

by Tad Williams

ANYONE CAN GO THERE... COMING BACK IS ANOTHER STORY. New York Times best-selling author Tad Williams has become a force to be reckoned with in the publishing world, as is evident from the enormous popularity and critical acclaim for his spectacular Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series. Now, DAW Books is proud to present Tad Williams' groundbreaking new masterpiece, his most compelling work to date -- ... (more)

The Future and Its Enemies: The Growing Conflict Over Creativity, Enterprise, and Progress

The Future and Its Enemies: The Growing Conflict Over Creativity, Enterprise, and Progress

by Virginia I. Postrel

Today we have greater wealth, health, opportunity, and choice than at any time in history. Yet a chorus of intellectuals and politicians laments our current condition -- as slaves to technology, coarsened by popular culture, and insecure in the face of economic change. The future, they tell us, is dangerously out of control, and unless we precisely govern the forces of change, we risk disaster. In The Future... (more)

Apocalypse 2012: A Scientific Investigation Into Civilization's End

Apocalypse 2012: A Scientific Investigation Into Civilization's End

by Lawrence E. Joseph

Don’t look up It won’t help. You can’t get out of the way, you can’t dig a hole deep enough to hide. The end is coming, and there’s nothing you can do about it. So why read this book? Because you can’t look away when not just the religious fanatics are saying we’re all going to be destroyed but the scientists are in on the act too. Here’s what they’re saying: We’re a million years over due for a mass... (more)

Brave New War: The Next Stage of Terrorism and the End of Globalization

Brave New War: The Next Stage of Terrorism and the End of Globalization

by John Robb

"For my money, John Robb, a former Air Force officer and tech guru, is the futurists' futurist." — Slate The counterterrorism expert John Robb reveals how the same technology that has enabled globalization also allows terrorists and criminals to join forces against larger adversaries with relative ease and to carry out small, inexpensive actions—like sabotaging an oil pipeline—that generate a huge... (more)

Get There Early: Sensing the Future to Compete in the Present

Get There Early: Sensing the Future to Compete in the Present

by Robert Johansen

It's the ultimate paradox for leaders: you can't predict the future, but you must make sense of it in order to thrive. To be successful, leaders need to sort out what's important, devise strategies based on their own point of view, and get there ahead of the crowd. But most leaders today are just concerned about getting there in time. Many are even willing to settle for getting there fashionably late. They focus... (more)

The Coming China Wars: Where They Will Be Fought and How They Can Be Won

The Coming China Wars: Where They Will Be Fought and How They Can Be Won

by Peter Navarro

China's breakneck industrialization is placing it on a collision course with the entire world. Tomorrow's China Wars will be fought over everything from decent jobs, livable wages, and leading-edge technologies to strategic resources such as oil, copper, and steel...even food, water, and air. In The Coming China Wars, best-selling author Peter Navarro previews all these potential conflicts--and reveals the urgent,... (more)

Republic: A Novel of America's Future

by Charles Sheehan-Miles

A domestic terrorist attack evokes a violent and oppressive response from the U.S. government... a labor dispute ends in violence... a young boy lies dying of a rare disease with no hope in sight. When the conflict focuses on a small town in West Virginia, Ken Murphy, Iraq veteran and Lieutenant Colonel in the West Virginia National Guard, must find a way to protect his family and community in a world turned... (more)

Ape and Essence

by Aldous Huxley

In this savage novel Huxley transports us to Los Angeles in the year 2018, where we learn to our dismay about the 22nd-century way of life.

Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution

Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution

by Francis Fukuyama

A decade after his now-famous pronouncement of “the end of history,” Francis Fukuyama argues that as a result of biomedical advances, we are facing the possibility of a future in which our humanity itself will be altered beyond recognition. Fukuyama sketches a brief history of man’s changing understanding of human nature: from Plato and Aristotle to the modernity’s utopians and dictators who sought to remake... (more)

The Next Fifty Years: Science in the First Half of the Twenty-first Century (Vintage)

The Next Fifty Years: Science in the First Half of the Twenty-first Century (Vintage)

by John Brockman

A brilliant ensemble of the world’s most visionary scientists provides twenty-five original never-before-published essays about the advances in science and technology that we may see within our lifetimes. Theoretical physicist and bestselling author Paul Davies examines the likelihood that by the year 2050 we will be able to establish a continuing human presence on Mars. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi... (more)

Powerful Times: Rising to the Challenge of Our Uncertain World

Powerful Times: Rising to the Challenge of Our Uncertain World

by Eamonn Kelly

Understand the most revolutionary human transformation in four centuries...and prepare for it! We're not just living through an age of change: we're living through a 'change of age': the most profound inflection point in human history since the Enlightenment. That's the thesis of Eamonn Kelly's remarkable new book Powerful Times. From terrorism and nuclear proliferation to emerging technologies and economic... (more)

Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution

by Howard Rheingold

Smart Mobs takes us on a journey around the world for a preview of the next techno-cultural shift. The coming wave, says Rheingold, is the result of super-efficient mobile communications-cellular phones, wireless-paging, and Internet-access devices-that will allow us to connect with anyone, anytime, anywhere. Rheingold offers a penetrating perspective on the new convergence of pop culture, cutting-edge... (more)

1984

by George Orwell

George Orwell's prophetic, nightmarish vision of "Negative Utopia" is timelier than ever-and its warnings more powerful.

Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software

Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software

by Steven Johnson

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK A VOICE LITERARY SUPPLEMENT TOP 25 FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR AN ESQUIRE MAGAZINE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR In the tradition of Being Digital and The Tipping Point, Steven Johnson, acclaimed as a "cultural critic with a poet's heart" (The Village Voice), takes readers on an eye-opening journey through emergence theory and its applications. Explaining why the whole is... (more)

The Iron Heel

by Jack London

Written in 1908, this visionary novel about class struggle anticipates the political upheavals of the 1930s and beyond.

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: futurism

When Humans Transcend Biology

by Ray Kurzweil