Inyo County Free Library - New Acquisitions
May 2018 - June 2018
These are books and media new to the library and cataloged by the Inyo County Free Library.
Additional information about each title can be found in the catalog (click on the title). For older acquisition lists choose from Select another list. To request any of these titles please contact your local library branch.
| Non-Fiction | Computer science, information & general worksPhilosophy & psychologyReligionSocial sciencesLanguage Science TechnologyArts & recreationLiteratureHistory & geography |
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Brief candle in the dark: my life in science By Dawkins, Richard Publishing Date: [2015] Classification: 500 Call Number: 509.2 DAW "Dawkins shares with us his infectious sense of wonder at the natural world, his enjoyment of the absurdities of human interaction, and his bracing awareness of life's brevity: all of which have made a deep imprint on our culture" -- |
Finding zero: a mathematician's odyssey to uncover the origins of numbers By Aczel, Amir D. Publishing Date: 2016 Classification: 500 Call Number: 513.5 ACZ "The invention of numerals is perhaps the greatest abstraction the human mind has ever created. Virtually everything in our lives is digital, numerical, or quantified. The story of how and where we got these numerals, which we so depend on, has for thousands of years been shrouded in mystery. Finding Zero is an adventure filled saga of Amir Aczel's lifelong obsession: to find the original sources of our numerals. Aczel has doggedly crisscrossed the ancient world, scouring dusty, moldy texts, cross examining so-called scholars who offered wildly differing sets of facts, and ultimately penetrating deep into a Cambodian jungle to find a definitive proof. Here, he takes the reader along for the ride. The history begins with the early Babylonian cuneiform numbers, followed by the later Greek and Roman letter numerals. Then Aczel asks the key question: where do the numbers we use today, the so-called Hindu-Arabic numerals, come from? It is this search that leads him to explore uncharted territory, to go on a grand quest into India, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and ultimately into the wilds of Cambodia. There he is blown away to find the earliest zero--the keystone of our entire system of numbers--on a crumbling, vine-covered wall of a seventh-century temple adorned with eaten-away erotic sculptures. While on this odyssey, Aczel meets a host of fascinating characters: academics in search of truth, jungle trekkers looking for adventure, surprisingly honest politicians, shameless smugglers, and treacherous archaeological thieves--who finally reveal where our numbers come from." |
The hidden life of trees: what they feel, how they communicate : discoveries from a secret world By Wohlleben, Peter Publishing Date: [2016] Classification: 500 Call Number: 582.16 WOH "A forester's fascinating stories, supported by the latest scientific research, reveal the extraordinary world of forests and illustrate how trees communicate and care for each other"-- |
By Prum, Richard O. Publishing Date: [2017] Classification: 500 Call Number: 591.562 PRU What can explain the incredible diversity of beauty in nature? Richard O. Prum, an award-winning ornithologist, discusses Charles Darwin's second and long-neglected theory--aesthetic mate choice--and what it means for our understanding of evolution. In addition, Prum connects those same evolutionary dynamics to the origins and diversity of human sexuality, offering riveting new thinking about the evolution of human beauty and the role of mate choice, thereby transforming our ancestors from typical infanticidal primates into socially intelligent, pair-bonding caregivers. Prum's book is an exhilarating tour de force that begins in the trees and ends by fundamentally challenging how we understand human evolution and ourselves. -- |
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