Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Despite the best efforts of educators, our nation’s schools are dangerously obsolete. Instead of teaching students to be critical thinkers and problem-solvers, we are asking them to memorize facts for multiple choice tests. This problem isn’t limited to low-income school districts: even our top schools aren’t teaching or testing the skills that matter most in the global knowledge economy. Our teens leave school... (more)

The Global Soul: Jet Lag, Shopping Malls, and the Search for Home (Vintage Departures)

The Global Soul: Jet Lag, Shopping Malls, and the Search for Home (Vintage Departures)

by Pico Iyer

From the acclaimed author of Video Nights in Kathmandu comes this intriguing new book that deciphers the cultural ramifications of globalization and the rising tide of worldwide displacement. Beginning in Los Angeles International Airport, where town life?shops, services, sociability?is available without a town, Pico Iyer takes us on a tour of the transnational village our world has become. From Hong Kong, where... (more)

Ask the Bones: Scary Stories from Around the World

Ask the Bones: Scary Stories from Around the World

by Howard Schwartz

What is real and what is imaginary? Do evil creatures lurk in the shadows? Do demons attack the helpless? Are there such things as invisible men? For generations, storytellers have given substance to our worst fears. In Ask the Bones, master storytellers Arielle North Olson and Howard Schwartz retell a varied selection of the world's most frightening folktales. Be warned-these stories could scare you to death! ... (more)

War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (Library Edition)

War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (Library Edition)

by Chris Hedges

As a veteran war correspondent, Chris Hedges has survived ambushes in Central America, imprisonment in Sudan, and a beating by Saudi military police. He has seen children murdered for sport in Gaza and petty thugs elevated into war heroes in the Balkans. Hedges, who is also a former divinity student, has seen war at its worst and knows too well that to those who pass through it, war can be exhilarating and even... (more)

Short & Shivery: Thirty Chilling Tales

by Robert D. San Souci

A collection of 30 short and spooky tales from the folklore of Russia, Virginia, Ireland, Canada, and other areas of the world.

The World Is Flat

A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century

by Thomas L. Friedman

When scholars write the history of the world twenty years from now, and they come to the chapter "Y2K to March 2004," what will they say was the most crucial development? The attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11 and the Iraq war? Or the convergence of technology and events that allowed India, China, and so many other countries to become part of the global supply chain for services and manufacturing, creating... (more)

An Inconvenient Truth

by Albert Gore

An Inconvenient Truth —Gore’s groundbreaking, battle cry of a follow-up to the bestselling Earth in the Balance —is being published to tie in with a documentary film of the same name. Both the book and film were inspired by a series of multimedia presentations on global warming that Gore created and delivers to groups around the world. With this book, Gore, who is one of our environmental heroes—and a leading... (more)

The Kite Runner

by Khaled Hosseini

In his debut novel, The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini accomplishes what very few contemporary novelists are able to do. He manages to provide an educational and eye-opening account of a country's political turmoil--in this case, Afghanistan--while also developing characters whose heartbreaking struggles and emotional triumphs resonate with readers long after the last page has been turned over. And he does this on... (more)

Development as Freedom

by Amartya Sen, Amartya Kumar Sen

By the winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize in Economics, an essential and paradigm-altering framework for understanding economic development--for both rich and poor--in the twenty-first century. Freedom, Sen argues, is both the end and most efficient means of sustaining economic life and the key to securing the general welfare of the world's entire population. Releasing the idea of individual freedom from... (more)

Emigre No. 67

by Rudy VanderLans

In his essay "Style is Not a Four Letter Word," Mr. Keedy looks at the continuing feud in design between style and content, form and function, and even pleasure and utility, and tries to pin down how style got such a bad reputation, and how restoring its value may save design. Kenneth FitzGerald in "Buzz Kill" continues to be amazed at the gyrations designers will go through to try and place themselves beyond... (more)

Mobile Communication and Society: A Global Perspective (Information Revolution and Global Politics)

Mobile Communication and Society: A Global Perspective (Information Revolution and Global Politics)

by Manuel Castells

Wireless networks are the fastest growing communications technology in history. Are mobile phones expressions of identity, fashionable gadgets, tools for life—or all of the above? Mobile Communication and Society looks at how the possibility of multimodal communication from anywhere to anywhere at any time affects everyday life at home, at work, and at school, and raises broader concerns about politics and... (more)

Sheila Lukins All Around the World Cookbook

Sheila Lukins All Around the World Cookbook

by Sheila Lukins

A culinary genius who helped change the way America eats, Sheila Lukins is the cook behind the phenomenal success of The Silver Palate Cookbooks and The New Basics Cookbook, with over 5 million copies in print. Now Sheila embarks on her first solo journey, visiting 33 countries on a cooks tour of cuisines, ingredients, and tastes. The result is pure alchemy--a new kind of American cookbook that reinterprets the... (more)

Wilderness: Earth's Last Wild Places

by Russell A. Mittermeier, Cristina Goettsch Mittermeier, Patricio Robles Gil, John Pilgrim

Conservation International's Hotspots placed that organization at the forefront of global conservation efforts. Wilderness: Earth's Last Wild Places continues the efforts made in that previous volume, combining nearly 500 breathtaking images of untamed lands and rare glimpses of the people who inhabit them with the most current scientific analyses of their endangered ecosystems. To qualify as "wilderness,"... (more)

DogDogsElliot Erwitt

DogDogs

by Elliot Erwitt

A Home in the World: Houses and Cultures

A Home in the World: Houses and Cultures

by Martine Laffon, Caroline Laffon

Humans perch homes in trees and float them in lakes; they build them to last for centuries and make them portable enough to carry on their backs; they look for design inspiration in the landscape, in the human body, and in flora and fauna. A Home in the World offers a deep perspective on home design by revealing how different cultures have handled the essential task of building houses that reflect their ideals... (more)

The Snail and the Whale

by Julia Donaldson, Axel Scheffler

This is the tale of a tiny snail and a great big whale. The snail may be small, but she has huge dreams of seeing the world. So she hitches a ride on a friendly whale’s back to see amazing sights. Icebergs and volcanoes, storms and sharks—the two friends see it all together. And when the whale runs into trouble, the snail proves that even the tiniest creature can help a friend in a very big way. The creators... (more)

Human Rights in the Global Information Society (The Information Revolution & Global Politics)

Human Rights in the Global Information Society (The Information Revolution & Global Politics)

International organizations, governments, academia, industry, and the media have all begun to grapple with the information society as a global policy issue. The first United Nations World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), held in December 2003, recognized the connections between information technology and human rights with a Declaration of Principles—in effect, the first "constitution" for cyberspace—that... (more)

The Anatomist

by Federico Andahazi

A lyrically written, sensual, and extraordinarily enjoyable novel in which a Renaissance anatomist's astonishing discovery forever changes the female erotic universe. In sixteenth-centruy Venice, celebrated physician Mateo Colombo finds himself behind bars at the behest of the Church authorities. His is a crime of disclosure, heinous and heretical in the Church's eyes, in that his research threatens to subvert... (more)

Comunidade do Futuro: Idéias para uma Nova Comunidade, A

Peacemaking: How to Be It, How to Do It : Transforming Anger Through Awareness With a Zen Master and Nobel Peace Prize Nominee

Peacemaking: How to Be It, How to Do It : Transforming Anger Through Awareness With a Zen Master and Nobel Peace Prize Nominee

by Thich Nhat Hanh

Known and loved worldwide for his teachings on mindfulness and compassion, Thich Nhat Hanh was once nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King Jr. On Peacemaking, this beloved Zen master returns to the theme that first brought him to the world’s attention: peace, and how to embody it. Looking deeply into the roots of anger, Thich Nhat Hanh emerges with real solutions to the violence we commit... (more)

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Tags: global

by Tony Wagner