Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

ENDURING LITERATURE ILLUMINATED BY PRACTICAL SCHOLARSHIP A timeless, terrifying tale of one man's obsession to create life -- and the monster that became his legacy. EACH ENRICHED CLASSIC EDITION INCLUDES: • A concise introduction that gives readers important background information • A chronology of the author's life and work • A timeline of significant events that provides the book's... (more)

The Cellist of Sarajevo

by Steven Galloway

A spare and haunting, wise and beautiful novel about the endurance of the human spirit and the subtle ways individuals reclaim their humanity in a city ravaged by war. In a city under siege, four people whose lives have been upended are ultimately reminded of what it is to be human. From his window, a musician sees twenty-two of his friends and neighbors waiting in a breadline. Then, in a flash, they are killed... (more)

Guns, Germs, and Steel

The Fates of Human Societies

by Jared Diamond

With a new chapter. The phenomenal bestseller—over 1.5 million copies sold—is now a major PBS special. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Guns, Germs, and Steel is a brilliant work answering the question of why the peoples of certain continents succeeded in invading other continents and conquering or displacing their peoples. This edition includes a new chapter on Japan and all-new illustrations drawn from the... (more)

Dune Chronicles: Book 2

Dune Messiah

by Frank Herbert

Paul Atreides, genetically bred and trained to become the leader of his planet, is still subject to human frailties. The second book of the series.

Cat's Cradle

by Kurt Vonnegut

One of Vonnegut's major works, this is an apocalyptic tale of the planet's ultimate fate, featuring a cast of unlikely heroes.

Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation

Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation

by Joseph Campbell

Joseph Campbell is one of this century's great disseminators of the psychological wisdom of mythology. One of the basic functions of myth, he contends, is to help each individual through the journey of life, providing a travel guide to reach fulfillment — a map to discover "bliss." In Pathways to Bliss , Campbell once again draws on his masterful gift of storytelling to apply the larger themes of world mythology... (more)

Modoc: The True Story of the Greatest Elephant That Ever Lived

Modoc: The True Story of the Greatest Elephant That Ever Lived

by Ralph Helfer

Spanning several decades and three continents, Modoc is one of the most amazing true animal stories ever told. Raised together in a small German circus town, a boy and an elephant formed a bond that would last their entire lives, and would be tested time and again; through a near-fatal shipwreck in the Indian Ocean, an apprenticeship with the legendary Mahout elephant trainers in the Indian teak forests, and... (more)

Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections Between Sexuality And Spirituality

Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections Between Sexuality And Spirituality

by Rob Bell

God and sex go together. You can’t separate the two, says Rob Bell, because this physical world is intimately linked to deeper spiritual realities. And so, in order to make sense of sexuality, at some point you have to talk about God. With beauty and unusual insight, Sex God explores this connection.

Notes from My Travels: Visits with Refugees in Africa, Cambodia, Pakistan and Ecuador

Notes from My Travels: Visits with Refugees in Africa, Cambodia, Pakistan and Ecuador

by Angelina Jolie

Three years ago, award-winning actress Angelina Jolie took on a radically different role as a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Here are her memoirs from her journeys to Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Pakistan, Cambodia, and Ecuador, where she lived and worked and gave her heart to those who suffer the world's most shattering violence and victimization. Here are her revelations of joy... (more)

The Host

A Novel

by Stephenie Meyer

The author of the Twilight series of # 1 bestsellers delivers her brilliant first novel for adults: a gripping story of love and betrayal in a future with the fate of humanity at stake. Melanie Stryder refuses to fade away. The earth has been invaded by a species that take over the minds of their human hosts while leaving their bodies intact, and most of humanity has succumbed. Wanderer, the invading "soul"... (more)

Utopia

by Thomas More

First published in 1516, Saint Thomas More's Utopia is one of the most important works of European humanism. Through the voice of the mysterious traveler Raphael Hythloday, More describes a pagan, communist city-state governed by reason. Addressing such issues as religious pluralism, women's rights, state-sponsored education, colonialism, and justified warfare, Utopia seems remarkably contemporary nearly... (more)

The Last Man

by Mary Shelley

A futuristic story of tragic love and of the gradual extermination of the human race by plague, The Last Man is Mary Shelley's most important novel after Frankenstein. With intriguing portraits of Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, the novel offers a vision of the future that expresses a reaction against Romanticism, and demonstrates the failure of the imagination and of art to redeem the doomed characters.

Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming

by Howard Rheingold, Stephen Laberge

"<A> solid how-to book...For amateur dream researchers, this is a must." WHOLE EARTH REVIEW This book goes far beyond the confines of pop dream psychology, establishing a scientifically researched framework for using lucid dreaming--that is, consciously influencing the outcome of your dreams. Based on Dr. Stephen LaBerge's extensive laboratory work at Stanford University mapping mind/body relationships... (more)

Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud

Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud

by Peter Watson

Peter Watson's hugely ambitious and stimulating history of ideas from deep antiquity to the present day&#8212from the invention of writing, mathematics, science, and philosophy to the rise of such concepts as the law, sacrifice, democracy, and the soul&#8212offers an illuminated path to a greater understanding of our world and ourselves.

Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

by Ken Robinson

"This really is a remarkable book. It does for human resources what Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring did for the environment. It makes you wonder why we insist on sustaining an education system that is narrow, partial, entirely inappropriate for the 21st century and deeply destructive of human potential when human beings have so much latent creative ability to offer. A brilliant analysis." Wally Olins, Founder,... (more)

All Quiet on the Western Front

by Susan Van Kirk, A. W. Wheen, Erich Maria Remarque, Erich M. Remarqu, A. W. Wheen

ONE OF TWELVE TITLES IN VINTAGE'S A FORMAT WAR PROMOTION The Greatest Novel about the First World War and an International Bestseller All Quiet on the Western Front is probably the most famous anti-war novel ever written. The story is told by a young 'unknown soldier' in the trenches of Flanders during the First World War. Through his eyes we see all the realities of war; under fire, on patrol, waiting in the... (more)

Federation

by Mark Lenard, Star Trek (Related Recordings), Judith Reeves-Stevens, Garfield Reeves-Stevens

At last! The long awaited novel featuring both famous crews of the Starship Enterprise in an epic adventure that spans time and space. Captain Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 are faced with their most challenging mission yet--rescuing renowned scientist Zefram Cochrane from captors who want to use his skills to conquer the galaxy. Meanwhile, ninety-nine years in the future on the ... (more)

Great Apes

by Will Self

In this new novel, Will Self turns his wicked gift for satire on a favorite victim--his fellow man. After a night of routine, pedestrian debauchery, a successful, middle-aged London painter, wakes up to find that his girlfriend has turned into a chimpanzee.

The Order of Things: An Archaeology of Human Sciences (Vintage)

The Order of Things: An Archaeology of Human Sciences (Vintage)

by Michel Foucault

Possibly one of the most significant, yet most overlooked, works of the twentieth century, it was The Order of Things that established Foucault's reputation as an intellectual giant.

Everyman

by Philip Roth

Philip Roth's new novel is a candidly intimate yet universal story of loss, regret, and stoicism. The bestselling author of The Plot Against America now turns his attention from "one family's harrowing encounter with history" ( New York Times ) to one man's lifelong skirmish with mortality. The fate of Roth's everyman is traced from his first shocking confrontation with death on the idyllic beaches of his... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: humanity

by Mary Shelley

by Steven Galloway

The Fates of Human Societies

by Jared Diamond

by Frank Herbert

by Kurt Vonnegut

by Joseph Campbell

by Ralph Helfer

by Rob Bell

by Angelina Jolie

A Novel

by Stephenie Meyer

by Thomas More

by Mary Shelley

by Howard Rheingold, Stephen Laberge

by Peter Watson

by Ken Robinson

by Susan Van Kirk, A. W. Wheen, Erich Maria Remarque, Erich M. Remarqu, A. W. Wheen

by Mark Lenard, Star Trek (Related Recordings), Judith Reeves-Stevens, Garfield Reeves-Stevens

by Will Self

by Michel Foucault

by Philip Roth