This real-life legal and environmental thriller follows an epic confrontation between marine conservationists and the US Navy. The story centers on environmental attorney Joel Reynolds and marine biologist Ken Balcomb. Together, they investigate a series of mysterious whale mass strandings in the Bahamas. Their investigation uncovers a high-intensity, top-secret sonar submarine detection system deployed by the military that floods ocean basins with deafening sound waves, driving the whales ashore. The narrative tracks their multi-year "David vs. Goliath" legal battle that went all the way to the US Supreme Court, balancing national security interests against the protection of marine ecosystems.
A “playful, witty, and entertaining” book (The New York Times Book Review) that offers an exhilarating vision of the world, starting with the voyage of Noah’s ark and ending with a sneak preview of heaven—from the bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending. It’s a hilariously revisionist account of Noah’s ark, narrated by a passenger who doesn’t appear in Genesis. It’s a sneak preview of heaven. It encompasses the stories of a cruise ship hijacked by terrorists and of woodworms tried for blasphemy in sixteenth-century France. It explores the relationship of fact to fabulation and the antagonism between history and love. In short, A History of the World in 10½ Chapters is a grandly ambitious and inventive work of fiction, in the traditions of Joyce and Calvino, from the author of the widely acclaimed Flaubert’s Parrot.
The novel follows two main characters whose lives are connected by a shared family history and a mythical land called Isidora, where nothing is ever forgotten.
Seth Waller: A 15-year-old "science nerd" from Austin, Texas, who begins investigating his mother’s early-onset Alzheimer’s. His quest leads him to uncover surprising truths about his family's past.
Abel Haggard: An elderly, reclusive hunchback living on a family farm outside Dallas. He reflects on his lost love, Mae, and holds the key to the family's secrets.
Flying Sideways tells the thrilling but heartfelt story of how a misfit boy with nothing but a dream breaks the rules, beats the odds, and learns to bet on himself. Against a vibrant global backdrop that touches down everywhere from New York City to Mongolia to Madagascar, we follow Fred as he deserts the French Army (in roller skates), talks his way into flight school, becomes chief pilot for the world's greatest rally car and adventures races, gets mixed up with DEA in Miami, dodges death (many times), and―perhaps most improbably―falls in love.
