Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein (Get this book)
Plato returns to 21st-century America in this witty, inventive, genre-bending work by MacArthur Fellow Goldstein. As the author imagines him, Plato is an intense, curious visitor from ancient Greece who is touring the country to promote his famous tract, The Republic. He lands first in Mountain View, Calif., where he is scheduled to speak to the staff of Google but gets waylaid by an employee who engages him in a conversation about truth, beauty, goodness and justice. Goldstein's philosophical background serves her impressively in this reconsideration of Plato's work, and her talent as a fiction writer animates her lively cast of characters: the arrogant, leering scientist in charge of a neurological research lab; the psycho-babbling advice columnist; the egotistical cable news interviewer. Goldstein's bright, ingenious philosophical romp makes Plato not only relevant to our times, but palpably alive.--Kirkus

The Weight of Blood

Laura McHugh (Get this book)
In this clever, multilayered debut, McHugh deftly explores the past of an Ozark Mountain family with plenty to hide and the ruthlessness to keep their secrets hidden. Seventeen-year-old Lucy Dane, from Henbane, Mo., is grieving for her murdered friend, Cheri, and her mother, Lila, who vanished soon after Lucy was born. Determined to solve both mysteries, Lucy never realizes just how close the answers might lie. This is an outstanding first novel, replete with suspense, crisp dialogue, and vivid Ozarks color and atmosphere.--Publisher's Weekly

The Antidote: Inside the World of New Pharma

Barry Werth (Get this book)
This follow-up to the author's book about upstart Vertex Pharmaceuticals details the firm's transition from boutique creative group to profitable prescription drug maker. Business and science writer Werth offers a blow-by-blow account of visionary Harvard chemist Joshua Boger's struggle to create a pace-setting drug company to develop breakthrough drugs for serious diseases. Attracted by Vertex's seemingly quixotic quest to put patients first in an industry dominated by profits and Wall Street, the author once again obtained unusual access to company scientists and officers and followed their passion and work as they shepherded their first drugs through discovery, development and introduction to the marketplace. A revealing, readable book about "some of competitive capitalism's most complicated science and most cutthroat marketing maneuvers.--Kirkus

The Leading Indicators: A Short History of the Numbers That Rule Our World

Zachary Karabell (Get this book)
Our leaders regularly agonize over unemployment figures, the consumer price index, gross national product and the balance of trade. These and other leading indicators are important but also overrated, writes journalist and Reuters "Edgy Optimist" columnist Karabell in this lucid measurement of how the United States is faring. Readers of this intelligent introduction to iconic economic indices will agree that Karabell makes an excellent case.--Kirkus

The Physics of War: From Arrows to Atoms

Barry Parker (Get this book)
This breezy but intelligent introduction to the physics of war covers weapons from ancient times to today's missiles and H-bombs. Besides weapons, Parker describes devices helpful to making war, from clocks to the telegraph, radio, radar, lasers, and computers. The accompanying military history seems to come from the History Channel but Parker takes his physics seriously. Readers who pay attention, study the diagrams, and do not ignore the simple equations will learn a great deal of the science of war.--Publisher's Weekly

Like a Mighty Army

David Weber (Get this book)
Weber's seventh far-future Safehold novel is a complex and fascinating epic about change, identity, and the nature of faith. The empire of Charis and its allies are valiantly attempting to end the corrupt Church of God Awaiting's centuries-long planetary stranglehold on all innovation. Unfortunately, even Merlin Athrawes, their swashbuckling robot ally from a more scientifically advanced past, hasn't been able to save the Charisian side from heavy losses over a brutal winter campaign. Weber is refreshingly interested in the civilian and social consequences of revolution. Weber's sensitive portrayal of his transgender robot hero's identity issues takes new and fascinating turns, and a colorful assortment of saints and schemers fill out the cast.--Publisher's Weekly

Eat Move Sleep: How Small Choices Lead to Big Changes

Tom Rath (Get this book)
Since best-selling motivational author Rath was diagnosed at 16 with a rare disease, he has lived with the threat of tumors. He learned how everyday decisions affected the length and quality of his life and shares the results of his voracious reading and research. His essential prescription for a longer and healthier life is, eat right, move more, sleep better. Each chapter focuses on three findings and ideas concerning those three basic ingredients of a good day. Known for his work on enhancing potential in organizations, Rath has turned his talent to how the little decisions about mundane things, from what you eat to how you sleep, can have a significant impact on your life.--Booklist

The Free

Willy Vlautin (Get this book)
Vlautin's fourth novel is about damaged people caring for each other across a spectrum of society. Vlautin creates a community of survivors through a handful of well-wrought characters, each linked to the others through the attempted suicide by Leroy Kervin, a disabled Iraq war veteran who seizes a moment of clarity to escape his irreparable life. "The Free" of the novel's title appear in a Cormac McCarthy-like vision of a demonic wasteland. Vlautin writes cleanly, beautifully about the people who hang on despite odds. This is a fine novel, grim but bounded by courage and kindliness.--Kirkus

The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World's Most Wanted Man

Luke Harding (Get this book)
A newsworthy, must-read book about what prompted Edward Snowden to blow the whistle on his former employer, the National Security Agency, and what likely awaits him for having done so. In June 2013, the Guardian published the first of the revelations of the "Snowden file"--a huge trove of data, "thousands of documents and millions of words"--put in its lap by way of columnist Glenn Greenwald. Guardian foreign correspondent Harding (co-author: WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy, 2011, etc.) re-creates the curious trail that led Snowden to Greenwald and that led him to leak those documents in the first place. Whether you view Snowden's act as patriotic or treasonous, this fast-paced, densely detailed book is the narrative of first resort.--Kirkus