Central Skagit Library District

A researcher at a pharmaceutical company, Marina Singh journeys into the heart of the Amazonian delta to check on a field team that has been silent for two years--a dangerous assignment that forces Marina to confront the ghosts of her past.

Connie Willis has won more Hugo and Nebula awards than any other science fiction author. Now, with her trademark wit and inventiveness, she explores the intimate relationship between science, pop culture, and the arcane secrets of the heart.
Sandra Foster studies fads—from Barbie dolls to the grunge look—how they start and what they mean. Bennett O'Reilly is a chaos theorist studying monkey group behavior. They both work for...

"An illuminating debut memoir of a woman in science; a moving portrait of a longtime friendship; and a stunningly fresh look at plants that will forever change how you see the natural world,"--Amazon.com. Jahren has built three laboratories in which she's studied trees, flowers, seeds, and soil. She tells about her childhood in rural Minnesota with an uncompromising mother and a father who encouraged hours of play in his classroom’s labs;...

"Out in the desert in a place called the Palace, a young man to a dying soul, someone he once knew briefly but who has haunted the edges of his life: Juan Gay. Playful raconteur, child lost and found and lost, guardian of the institutionalized, Juan has a project to pass along, one built around a true artifact of a book--Sex Variants: A Study of Homosexual Patterns--and its devastating history. The book contains accounts collected in the early twentieth...

"In a near-future northern settlement, the fate of a young woman intertwines with those of a college professor and a collective of women soldiers in this mesmerizing and transportive novel in the vein of Station Eleven and The Power. In the far north of Canada, a team led by a visionary American architect is building a project called Camp Zero. With its fresh, clean air and cold climate, it's intended to be the beginning of a new community and a new...

Paco Underhill's "delightful and engrossing" (Newsday) look at consumer culture is now available on CD!

Is there a method to our madness when it comes to shopping? Hailed by the San Francisco Chronicle as "a Sherlock Holmes for retailers," author and research company CEO Paco Underhill answers with a definitive "yes" in this witty, eye-opening report on our ever-evolving consumer culture. WHY WE BUY is based on hard

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"A neurologist regales readers with extraordinary stories of the brain under siege. Our brains are the most complex machines known to humankind, but they have an Achilles heel: The very molecules that allow us to exist can also sabotage our minds. Here are true accounts of unruly molecules and the diseases that form in their wake, from total loss of inhibitions to florid psychosis to compulsive lying. Cognitive neurologist Sara Manning Peskin demystifies...

"Lee Mandelo dives into the minds of wolves in Feed Them Silence, a novella of the near future. What does it mean to "be-in-kind" with a nonhuman animal? Or in Dr. Sean Kell-Luddon's case, to be in-kind with one of the last remaining wild wolves? Using a neurological interface to translate her animal subject's perception through her own mind, Sean intends to chase both her scientific curiosity and her secret, lifelong desire to experience the intimacy...

When a time-travel lab suddenly cancels assignments for no apparent reason and switches around everyone's schedules, time-traveling historians Michael, Merope, and Polly find themselves in World War II, facing air raids, blackouts, unexploded bombs, dive-bombing Stukas, rationing, shrapnel, V-1s, and two of the most incorrigible children in all of history--to say nothing of a growing feeling that not only their assignments but the war and history...

"Buettner uncovers the traditional roots of plant-forward cuisine in the United States. Following the acumen of heritage cooks who have passed their recipes from generation to generation, Buettner uncovers the regions and cultures that have shaped America's healthiest food landscapes, from Hmong elders living in Minnesota to Quakers in New England. Along the way, he illuminates both traditional and revolutionary ideas in vegetarian food ... With wisdom...