The candle burns over the next 24 hours while everyone shares stories about Grandpa, creating new memories as each reminiscence connects to an activity he used to enjoy. As the family members use a telescope to gaze at the night sky, the nameless young protagonist recalls Grandpa explaining how to find the constellation Orion; sitting […]
Stephens always liked to have fun. When the drinks were poured or the shots thrown back, she was always game to go one more round. But at the age of 45, after what should have been a casual afternoon with a friend turned into yet another binge-drinking episode, she finally realized something had to change. […]
At 5 years old, Jane watches her friends run and play while she sits at the window, her spine crooked from tuberculosis. Eventually, she learns that playing outside actually makes her body stronger. The power of play informs much of Jane’s adult life. Spurred by a visit to a settlement hall in London that provides […]
In the Paw & Order offices of private detectives Marlowe and Purrlock, the latter is hungry and the fridge is empty. The cat P.I. insists that he went to the grocery store just the day before, so he’s certain that someone must have stolen all the food. Purrlock is positive it must be the dastardly […]
Simultaneously a record of comics art in Japan and an account of its trailblazing publishing industry, Exner’s book traces the initial spark of Japanese cartooning back to the 1890s, when newspapers began syndicating (and at times outright copying) American-made cartoons. Artists soon began their own homespun stories like Yutaka Aso’s Easygoing Daddy and Suiho Tagawa’s […]
For readers who might be hazy on the general differences between concepts like weak vs. generative AI or what often-heard terms like deepfakes or natural language processing might mean, Mooney lays out the basics in simple, low-tech language. But when it comes to specific examples or details of technology or technique, this work is less […]
The writer presents a bold experiment: a poetic dialogue between himself and an AI tool (ChatGPT), which he calls “Adam” and credits as a co-author. Amid politically and ethically charged debates about the use of AI in writing, Ditson steps into this gray area with curiosity and care. Rather than framing artificial intelligence as a […]
German journalist and author Wittstock tells an irresistible story. He begins in the summer of 1940. Most of his subjects had fled Germany in the 1930s, then fled again, to Vichy France, unoccupied but submissive. Jews and intellectuals knew that their days were numbered. Although shocked by France’s collapse, most Americans opposed helping refugees. Running […]
A group of hunter-gatherers is endangered by murderous timbermen in the Brazilian rainforest. Above the Arctic Circle, an old Inuit woman takes her skeptical, indolent “grandson” to a remote old village (from which oil companies uprooted them) to enact an obscure ritual. Both use ancestral memories to summon help from an advanced extraterrestrial civilization of […]
When it comes to getting involved with men, independent Quinn, a gorgeous, green-eyed, 6-foot-tall redhead, has one unshakeable rule: They have to be unhappily married, with no kids. (After all, she’s no homewrecker.) Having sworn off marriage after two failures, only hot sex and romance with no expectations on either side does it for Quinn. […]