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In this profoundly affecting memoir from the internationally
renowned author of The Caged Virgin, Ayaan Hirsi Ali tells her astonishing
life story, from her traditional Muslim childhood in Somalia, Saudi
Arabia, and Kenya, to her intellectual awakening and activism in the
Netherlands, and her current life under armed guard in the West.

One of today's most admired and controversial political figures, Ayaan
Hirsi Ali burst into international headlines following an Islamist's
murder of her colleague, Theo van Gogh, with whom she made the movie
Submission.

Infidel is the eagerly awaited story of the coming of age of this elegant,
distinguished -- and sometimes reviled -- political superstar and champion
of free speech. With a gimlet eye and measured, often ironic, voice,
Hirsi Ali recounts the evolution of her beliefs, her ironclad will,
and her extraordinary resolve to fight injustice done in the name of
religion. Raised in a strict Muslim family and extended clan, Hirsi
Ali survived civil war, female mutilation, brutal beatings, adolescence
as a devout believer during the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, and
life in four troubled, unstable countries largely ruled by despots.
In her early twenties, she escaped from a forced marriage and sought
asylum in the Netherlands, where she earned a college degree in political
science, tried to help her tragically depressed sister adjust to the
West, and fought for the rights of Muslim immigrant women and the reform
of Islam as a member of Parliament. Even though she is under constant
threat -- demonized by reactionary Islamists and politicians, disowned
by her father, and expelled from her family and clan -- she refuses
to be silenced.

Ultimately a celebration of triumph over adversity, Hirsi Ali's story
tells how a bright little girl evolved out of dutiful obedience to become
an outspoken, pioneering freedom fighter. As Western governments struggle
to balance democratic ideals with religious pressures, no story could
be timelier or more significant.

The world's biggest supercollider, locked in an Arizona
mountain, was built to reveal the secrets of the very moment of creation:
the Big Bang itself.

The Torus is the most expensive machine ever created by humankind, run
by the world&8217;s most powerful supercomputer. It is the brainchild
of Nobel Laureate William North Hazelius. Will the Torus divulge the
mysteries of the creation of the universe? Or will it, as some predict,
suck the earth into a mini black hole? Or is the Torus a Satanic attempt,
as a powerful televangelist decries, to challenge God Almighty on the
very throne of Heaven?

Twelve scientists under the leadership of Hazelius are sent to the remote
mountain to turn it on, and what they discover must be hidden from the
world at all costs. Wyman Ford, ex-monk and CIA operative, is tapped
to wrest their secret, a secret that will either destroy the world&8230;or
save it. The countdown begins&8230;

Coincidences, Chaos, and All That Math Jazz: Making Light of Weighty Ideas By Edward
B. Burger, Michael Starbird

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As if they were comedy-club stand-ups, Burger and Starbird
employ puns and silly scenarios to tickle those who wouldn't ordinarily
pick up a math book. Everyone, however fearful of the topic, uses math
in daily life. Two popular fixations with numbers that the authors home
in on include the amazing similarities between John Kennedy and Abraham
Lincoln and playing the lottery. Describing the easy math beneath superficially
wondrous things, often no more complicated than enumeration and arithmetic,
Burger and Starbird dispel the astounding to reveal what a little logical
rigor can do, and they use their schtick to keep things light. Avoiding
alarming announcements, they never charge headlong into a topic such
as the Golden Ratio, but circumscribe it by counting swirls on pineapples
and noting the ratio's frequent appearance in nature and in art. Likewise,
Burger and Starbird don't bludgeon readers with number theory, geometry,
or topology; they take up origami or spin a yarn about a tsetse fly.
A profusely illustrated, bemusingly unorthodox introduction to math.
Gilbert Taylor

Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

The Republican War on Science By Chris Mooney

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Science has never been more crucial to deciding the
political issues facing the country. Yet science and scientists have
less influence with the federal government than at any time since the
Eisenhower administration. In the White House and Congress today, findings
are reported in a politicized manner; spun or distorted to fit the speaker's
agenda; or, when they're too inconvenient, ignored entirely. On a broad
array of issues-stem cell research, climate change, missile defense,
abstinence education, product safety, environmental regulation, and
many others-the Bush administration's positions fly in the face of overwhelming
scientific consensus. Federal science agencies, once fiercely independent
under both Republican and Democratic presidents, are increasingly staffed
by political appointees and fringe theorists who know industry lobbyists
and evangelical activists far better than they know the science. This
is not unique to the Bush administration, but it is largely a Republican
phenomenon, born of a conservative dislike of environmental, health,
and safety regulation, and at the extremes, of evolution and legalized
abortion. In The Republican War on Science, Chris Mooney ties together
the disparate strands of the attack on science into a compelling and
frightening account of our government's increasing unwillingness to
distinguish between legitimate research and ideologically driven pseudoscience.

Letter
to a Christian Nation By Sam Harris

The
End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason By Sam Harris

Guns,
Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies By Jared Diamond

The
Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark By Carl Sagan

God:
The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist, By
Victor J Stenger

Meet
the Author Preface
Chapter
One: Models and Methods Chapter
Two: The Illusion of Design Chapter
Three: Searching for a World Beyond Matter Chapter
Four: Cosmic Evidence Chapter
Five: The Uncongenial Universe Chapter
Six: The Failures of Revelation Chapter
Seven: Do Our Values Come From God? Chapter
Eight: The Argument from Evil Chapters
Nine and Ten: Possible and Impossible Gods & Living in the Godless Universe

Darwinism
and Its Discontents by Michael Ruse

Meet
the Author Chapter
One Chapter
Two Chapter
Three Chapter
Four Chapter
Five Chapter
Six Chapter
Seven Chapter
Eight Chapter
Nine Chapter
Ten Chapter
Eleven Chapter
Twelve

The
Science of Good and Evil by Michael Shermer

Meet
Michael Shermer, author of The Science of Good and Evil Part
One Part
Two

LIFE!
Why We Exist... And What We Must Do To Survive by Martin G. Walker

Meet
the Author Discussion
on the Book

The
Top 10 Myths About Evolution by Cameron M. Smith and Charles Sullivan

Meet
the Authors Discussion
on the Book

The
Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for
God by Carl Sagan

Discussion
on the Book

Breaking
the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by Daniel C. Dennett

Discussion
on the Book

God
Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything By Christopher Hitchens

Discussion
on the Book

What
We Believe but Cannot Prove: Today’s Leading Thinkers on Science in
the Age of Certainty By John Brockman

Discussion
on the Book

The
Golden Compass By Phillip Pullman

Discussion
on the Book

The
Kite Runner By Khaled Hosseini

Discussion
on the Book

Plato
and Playtupus Walk Into a Bar

Discussion
on the Book

Parenting
Beyond Belief

1)
Personal Reflections

2)
Living with Religion

Should
we abolish religion or co-exist with it?

3)
Holidays and Celebrations

4)
On Being and Doing Good

5) Values and Virtues, Purpose and Meaning

6)
Death and Consolation

7)Wondering
and Questioning

8)
Jaw-dropping, Mind-buzzing science

9)
Seeking Community

Why
I am Not a Christian

Discussion
on the Book