Little Fires Everywhere

Celeste Ng 
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Named a Best Book of the Year (2017) by: 
People, The Washington Post, Bustle, Esquire, Southern Living, The Daily Beast, GQ, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Audible, Goodreads, Library Reads, Book of the Month, Paste, Kirkus Reviews, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and many more!

“To say I love this book is an understatement. It’s a deep psychological mystery about the power of motherhood, the intensity of teenage love, and the danger of perfection. It moved me to tears.” - Reese Witherspoon

"Spectacular sophomore work...a magnificent, multilayered epic that’s perfect for eager readers and destined for major award lists." -- Library Journal (starred review)

"I read Little Fires Everywhere in a single, breathless sitting. With brilliance and beauty, Celeste Ng dissects a microcosm of American society just when we need to see it beneath the microscope: how do questions of race stack up against the comfort of privilege, and what role does that play in parenting? Is motherhood a bond forged by blood, or by love? And perhaps most importantly: do the faults of our past determine what we deserve in the future? Be ready to be wowed by Ng's writing -- and unsettled by the mirror held up to one's own beliefs." - Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author of Small Great Things and Leaving Time

Little Fires Everywhere explores the weight of secrets, the nature of art and identity, and the ferocious pull of motherhood – and the danger of believing that following the rules can avert disaster.

(Excerpt from amazon.com)

因為有愛，才有這個學系

張文亮
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這是一個高學歷不希奇、文憑一張不夠看的時代，我們選擇科系的方式，逐漸從個人的性向志趣，轉為評估科系未來的發展和前瞻性。

在一窩蜂追求競爭力的氛圍之下，台大教授張文亮卻逆向操作，回頭追溯大學科系的起源。一門門精采的學系，透過一位位敬虔的先鋒而誕生：

醫學系的起源，來自一位無名卻偉大的醫生，對病苦者懷有深深憐憫的愛；
森林系源自一位熱愛山林的愛爾蘭醫生，一生努力的成果；
獸醫系的創始人，一生輾轉曲折、大落大起，卻始終沒忘記對動物的眷顧；
人類學系源自一名特使，在荒遠殺戮的帝國，以和平之心，記錄蒙古人的世界；
農業經濟學系，則是一個走出修道院、走進貧瘠土地、陪伴貧窮農民的遙遠故事。

本書一共述說了十九個曲折動人的故事，不僅幫助我們明白這些學系的由來，藉此激勵大學生對於所學領域更有使命感與意義感，更鼓勵所有在各行各業打滾的社會人，懷抱各科系起初的核心精神，在今日社會崗位上，活出豐盈的意義與價值。

(摘錄自博客來網路書店)

Leonardo da Vinci

Walter Isaacson
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“A powerful story of an exhilarating mind and life...a study in creativity: how to define it, how to achieve it.” —The New Yorker

The author of the acclaimed bestsellers Steve Jobs, Einstein, and Benjamin Franklin brings Leonardo da Vinci to life in this exciting new biography.

Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo’s astonishing notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Walter Isaacson weaves a narrative that connects his art to his science. He shows how Leonardo’s genius was based on skills we can improve in ourselves, such as passionate curiosity, careful observation, and an imagination so playful that it flirted with fantasy.

He produced the two most famous paintings in history, The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. But in his own mind, he was just as much a man of science and technology. With a passion that sometimes became obsessive, he pursued innovative studies of anatomy, fossils, birds, the heart, flying machines, botany, geology, and weaponry. His ability to stand at the crossroads of the humanities and the sciences, made iconic by his drawing of Vitruvian Man, made him history’s most creative genius.

His creativity, like that of other great innovators, came from having wide-ranging passions. He peeled flesh off the faces of cadavers, drew the muscles that move the lips, and then painted history’s most memorable smile. He explored the math of optics, showed how light rays strike the cornea, and produced illusions of changing perspectives in The Last Supper. Isaacson also describes how Leonardo’s lifelong enthusiasm for staging theatrical productions informed his paintings and inventions.

Leonardo’s delight at combining diverse passions remains the ultimate recipe for creativity. So, too, does his ease at being a bit of a misfit: illegitimate, gay, vegetarian, left-handed, easily distracted, and at times heretical. His life should remind us of the importance of instilling, both in ourselves and our children, not just received knowledge but a willingness to question it—to be imaginative and, like talented misfits and rebels in any era, to think different.

(Excerpt from amazon.com)

香港起飛

鄭楚衡, 達仁, 盧韋斯
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這是一個追逐夢想的故事，一個實踐夢想的記錄。

首架在香港自行組裝、註冊及認證，並於2016年完成環球飛行的小型飛機「香港起飛」B-KOO，從無到有，歷時八載，一切都由鄭楚衡的兒時夢想開始。

本書圍繞「香港起飛」兩位核心人物︰機師鄭楚衡及工程師達仁，由他們親述從夢想萌芽到完成環球之旅的漫長過程，當中經歷不少考驗和障礙，但都一一闖過，成就一段動人的勵志故事。

(摘錄自博客來網路書店)

Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

Steven Pinker
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INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

"My new favorite book of all time." --Bill Gates

If you think the world is coming to an end, think again: people are living longer, healthier, freer, and happier lives, and while our problems are formidable, the solutions lie in the Enlightenment ideal of using reason and science. 

Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: In seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West, but worldwide. This progress is not the result of some cosmic force. It is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason and science can enhance human flourishing.

Far from being a naïve hope, the Enlightenment, we now know, has worked. But more than ever, it needs a vigorous defense. The Enlightenment project swims against currents of human nature--tribalism, authoritarianism, demonization, magical thinking--which demagogues are all too willing to exploit. Many commentators, committed to political, religious, or romantic ideologies, fight a rearguard action against it. The result is a corrosive fatalism and a willingness to wreck the precious institutions of liberal democracy and global cooperation.

With intellectual depth and literary flair, Enlightenment Now makes the case for reason, science, and humanism: the ideals we need to confront our problems and continue our progress.

(Excerpt from amazon.com)

40個教育提案 : 把快樂帶回給香港學生

Agnes Miling Kaneko Chan (陳美齡)
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本書的40個教育提案涵蓋學前教育、幼稚園、小學、中學、大專、老師及其他方面。前言探討思考教育的本質，從香港的教育歷史出發，指出殖民地時期教育理念的缺失，從而提出今天教育的精神，不再是留強汰弱，而是如何適應21世紀對人才的要求，如何提供更多的選擇，以如何發揮每個人的價值。因為有信念，亦有不同教育體系的經驗，因此令作者提出的40個教育改革，顯得一氣呵成，而非支離破碎。

Hong Kong education and its issues have captured significant attention in recent years. Notable examples include the education reform, national education curriculum, liberal studies, STEM, Chinese history and cultures, TSA, and extra HK＄5 billion for education. While we believe that every policy is initiated by a sound vision, the education policies have created immense pressure and discontent on students, teachers, and parents. What are the root causes - problems with execution? Insufficient support? Lack of resources? Something's wrong with our philosophy of education? In this book, Dr. Agnes Chan will give you 40 proposals to bring happiness back to education students.

(摘錄自cp1897.com.hk)

The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World

Andrea Wulf
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The acclaimed author of Founding Gardeners reveals the forgotten life of Alexander von Humboldt, the visionary German naturalist whose ideas changed the way we see the natural world—and in the process created modern environmentalism.

NATIONAL BEST SELLER

One of the New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year

Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, The James Wright Award for Nature Writing, the Costa Biography Award, the Royal Geographic Society's Ness Award, the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award

Finalist for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, the Royal Society Science Book Prize, the Kirkus Prize Prize for Nonfiction, the Independent Bookshop Week Book Award

A Best Book of the Year: The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Economist, Nature, Jezebel, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, New Scientist, The Independent, The Telegraph, The Sunday Times, The Evening Standard, The Spectator

(Excerpt from amazon.com)

“The Cabinets of Curiosities. From the Natural Sciences to the Art of Nature. Collections from France and Hong Kong” exhibition introduces Hong Kong audiences to over 250 natural and artificial artefacts from 10 museums, galleries and private collections. The displays reveal European collectors’ fascination with exotic animals, plants, minerals and art objects unknown in the West until a few hundred years ago. Organised by City University of Hong Kong in collaboration with Le French May Arts Festival, the exhibition is being held from 25 May to 19 August at CityU Exhibition Gallery (Gallery). READ MORE

香港人的政治心態

劉兆佳
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本書分析香港市民對政治領袖的態度，並分析了市民對領袖的低度信任、對政治低度參與的原因。劉兆佳指出，自由放任的資本主義體制導致政府在調節與再分配社會資源方面的低效率，加深了香港市民對政府的不信任，政府權威被削弱。政治犬儒心態和疏離感上升，不止是社會經濟情況惡化的結果，也反映了港人對特區政府的不滿。找出並解決政治不認同的徵結，調節香港社會政治心態，培養以大局為重、具備包容情操、目光遠大且有處理公共事務能力的本地政治領袖，提高市民對政府的信任度及政治參與度，均有利解決香港的管治難題。

(摘錄自cp1897.com.hk)