N Books | Kwaj Today

Books N-Nz

Top	*The Naked Sun* by Isaac Asimov. A millennium into the future, two advancements have altered the course of human history: the colonization of the Galaxy and the creation of the positronic brain. On the beautiful Outer World planet of Solaria, a handful of human colonists lead a hermit-like existence, their every need attended to by their faithful robot servants. To this strange and provocative planet comes Detective Elijah Baley, sent from the streets of New York with his positronic partner, the robot R. Daneel Olivaw, to solve an incredible murder that has rocked Solaria to its foundations. The victim had been so reclusive that he appeared to his associates only through holographic projection. Yet someone had gotten close enough to bludgeon him to death while robots looked on. Now Baley and Olivaw are faced with two clear impossibilities: Either the Solarian was killed by one of his robots--unthinkable under the laws of Robotics--or he was killed by the woman who loved him so much that she never came into his presence! Top
Top	Nightfall and Other Stories by Issac Asimov and Robert Silverberg. These two renowned writers have invented a world not unlike our own--a world on the edge of chaos, torn between the madness of religious fanaticism and the stubborn denial of scientists. Only a handful of people on the planet Lagash are prepared to face the truth--that their six suns are setting all at once for the first time in 2,000 years, signaling the end of civilization! Top
Top	*Nest in the Wind* by Martha Coonfield Ward. During her first visit to the beautiful island of Pohnpei in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, anthropologist Martha Ward discovered people who grew quarter-ton yams in secret and ritually shared a powerful drink called kava. She managed a medical research project, ate dog, became pregnant, and responded to spells placed on her. Thirty years later she returned to Pohnpei to learn what had happened there since her first visit. Were islanders still relaxed and casual about sex? Were they still obsessed with titles and social rank? Was the island still lush and beautiful? Had the inhabitants remained healthy? This second edition of Ward’s best-selling account is a rare, longitudinal study that tracks people, processes, and a place through decades of change. It is also an intimate record of doing fieldwork that immerses readers in the sights, smells, tastes, sounds, and the sensory richness of Pohnpei. Ward addresses the ageless ethnographic questions about family life, politics, religion, traditional medicine, magic, and death together with contemporary concerns about postcolonial survival, the discontinuities of culture, and adaptation to the demands of a global age. Her insightful discoveries illuminate the evolution of a culture possibly distant from yet important to people living in other parts of the world. I have been to Pohnpei. It is beautiful and so are the people. Yes, it is a third world country but it is trying to make a go of it on its own. Quite a few Americans and others have retired there. Life is simpiler and less hectic. Top
Top	*Never Trust a Naked Bus Driver* by Jack Douglas. A very funny book from a very funny radio/TV writer. Top
Top	*No Highway* by Nevil Shute. The anti-hero of the story, Theodore Honey, is engaged in research on the fatigue of aluminum airframes. His current project, overseen by Dennis Scott, is to investigate possible failure in the high aspect ratio tail plane of a new airliner, the Rutland Reindeer. Honey, a widower, in addition to his work, must bring up his young daughter, Elspeth. The events are narrated by Scott in the first person. Interesting in that this book written as fiction in 1948 by an aeronautical engineer is that it accurately predicts the failure of the Electra series of airplanes. Made into an okay movie that has little to do with the book. Top
Top	*The Number of the Beast* by Robert A. Heinlein. When two male and two female supremely sensual, unspeakably cerebral humans find themselves under attack from aliens who want their awesome quantum breakthrough, they take to the skies -- and zoom into the cosmos on a rocket roller coaster ride of adventure and danger, ecstasy and peril. Great tale. The subtext deals with the problem of command among intelligent people. Great book for managers who want to become leaders. Top