Monday, December 4, 2017

Swing Time

Zadie Smith
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A New York Times bestseller * Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction * Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize  

“This is a story at once intimate and global, as much about childhood friendship as international aid, as fascinated by the fate of an unemployed single mother as it is by the omnipotence of a world-class singer…Smith’s attention to the grace notes of friendship is as precise as ever…’Swing Time’ uses its extraordinary breadth and its syncopated structure to turn the issues of race and class in every direction…We finally have a big social novel nimble enough to keep all its diverse parts moving gracefully toward a vision of what really matters in this life when the music stops.”—Ron Charles, Washington Post

“A dance itself, syncopated, unexpected, and vital…Swing Time may not parse easily and fits no mold, but it is uncommonly full of life.” —Claire Messud, The New York Review of Books

(Excerpt from amazon.com)

微權力: 從會議室、軍事衝突、宗教到國家,權力為何衰退與轉移,世界將屬於誰? (The End of Power)

摩伊希斯.奈姆 (Moisés Naím)
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掌權者為什麼失勢?失去的權力到誰手上?
國家未來領導人必讀,關心社會的公民必看

Facebook創辦人祖克柏強力號召粉絲共讀,全美緊急再版!
每周銷售破萬本,強勢擠進亞馬遜暢銷TOP10!

權力的演變正在改變世界
人人都可以更有權力

本書做了幾項大膽預言:
1. 壟斷社會的「大巨頭」與新興的「微權力」之間將出現角力,「微權力」將逐漸取代傳統的社會結構。
2. 權力不單被分散,甚至被蠶食。當權者行使權力要更加克制,否則失勢的機會將會大大提高。
3. 權力不再只掌控在菁英手上;發明家、社運分子甚至恐怖分子的影響力將大大提升。
4. 「微權力」可以推翻政權、打倒壟斷事業、開發新市場。但也可能帶來混亂,令社會癱瘓。

(摘錄自博客來網路書店)

Monday, November 27, 2017

To the Bright Edge of the World: A Novel

Eowyn Ivey
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PNBA 2017 Award Winner
One of the Best Books of 2016--Amazon
A Washington Post Notable Book of 2016
A Goodreads Choice Award Nominee
A Library Journal Top 10 Book of 2016
A BookPage Best Book of 2016

In the winter of 1885, decorated war hero Colonel Allen Forrester leads a small band of men on an expedition that has been deemed impossible: to venture up the Wolverine River and pierce the vast, untamed Alaska Territory. Leaving behind Sophie, his newly pregnant wife, Colonel Forrester records his extraordinary experiences in hopes that his journal will reach her if he doesn't return--once he passes beyond the edge of the known world, there's no telling what awaits him ...

"To the Bright Edge of the World moves seamlessly through different times and different voices to depict an often harrowing journey that leads the central characters to question all that they 'have known as real & true.' Ivey's novel is a dazzling depiction of love, endurance, courage, and wonder, and a worthy successor to The Snow Child." ―Ron Rash, author of Serena

"Beautifully told...a page-turner, a fascinating story that is broad in its scope as it is compassionate in its message...Ivey has created a world that is dangerous and beautiful, worrisome and satisfying, all in a novel that readers will not soon forget." ―Jim Carmin, The Miami Herald

"Powerful...Ivey is a gifted storyteller and a lyrical prose stylist...remarkable." ―Amy Greene, New York Times Book Review

"An epic adventure story that seems heir to the tradition of Melville's own sweeping and ambitious literary approach to the age-old struggle of humans versus nature...an absorbing and high-stakes read." ―Kathleen Rooney, The Chicago Tribune

(Excerpt from amazon.com)

第四次工業革命 (The Fourth Industrial Revolution)

克勞斯.施瓦布 (Klaus Schwab)
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★本書榮獲亞馬遜網路書店2017最佳商管書TOP20!

第四次工業革命正如海嘯般地席捲全球,
在這個新世界裡,不再是大魚吃小魚,
而是快魚吃慢魚!

未來5年全球15大經濟體,
將因機器人和人工智慧的興起,
導致510萬個工作消失 !
和前三次工業革命全然不同,
第四次工業革命不僅改變我們的世界,
也改變了我們是誰!

蒸汽機的發明驅動了人類史上第一次工業革命;電力的使用帶來了第二次工業革命,半導體、電腦、網路的問世再度催生了第三次工業革命;隨著科技快速的進程,第四次工業革命也已經悄然開始,並且正以前所未見的速度席捲全球,徹底顛覆我們的生活、工作和互相關聯的方式,無論是規模、廣度,還是複雜程度,第四次工業革命都與人類過去經歷的變革截然不同。其中可植入技術、數位化身分、物聯網、3D列印、無人駕駛、人工智慧、機器人、區塊鏈、大數據、智慧城市等技術變革都將對全人類帶來顛覆性的影響。

本書作者為被視為全球經濟風向球的「世界經濟論壇」創辦人與執行主席克勞斯.施瓦布,他在本書中提醒,人類若無法做好因應這波科技海嘯的準備,機器人等技術創新,將導致大量工作消失,而最直接受衝擊的,就是中產階級。更重要的是,各種科技的匯流改變的不僅是我們的工作和生活,而是我們是誰!

(摘錄自博客來網路書店)


Monday, November 20, 2017

The Gene: An Intimate History

Siddhartha Mukherjee
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THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A Wellcome Book Prize Finalist
A New York Times Notable Book
A Washington Post and Seattle Times Best Book of the Year

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning, bestselling author of The Emperor of All Maladies—a magnificent history of the gene and a response to the defining question of the future: What becomes of being human when we learn to “read” and “write” our own genetic information?

Siddhartha Mukherjee has a written a biography of the gene as deft, brilliant, and illuminating as his extraordinarily successful biography of cancer. Weaving science, social history, and personal narrative to tell us the story of one of the most important conceptual breakthroughs of modern times, Mukherjee animates the quest to understand human heredity and its surprising influence on our lives, personalities, identities, fates, and choices.

Throughout the narrative, the story of Mukherjee’s own family—with its tragic and bewildering history of mental illness—cuts like a bright, red line, reminding us of the many questions that hang over our ability to translate the science of genetics from the laboratory to the real world. In superb prose and with an instinct for the dramatic scene, he describes the centuries of research and experimentation—from Aristotle and Pythagoras to Mendel and Darwin, from Boveri and Morgan to Crick, Watson and Franklin, all the way through the revolutionary twenty-first century innovators who mapped the human genome.

As The New Yorker said of The Emperor of All Maladies, “It’s hard to think of many books for a general audience that have rendered any area of modern science and technology with such intelligence, accessibility, and compassion…An extraordinary achievement.” Riveting, revelatory, and magisterial history of a scientific idea coming to life, and an essential preparation for the moral complexity introduced by our ability to create or “write” the human genome, The Gene is a must-read for everyone concerned about the definition and future of humanity. This is the most crucial science of our time, intimately explained by a master.

(Excerpt from amazon.com)

觸景生情──幾代香港人的生活記憶

鄭寶鴻
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全書收錄約二百幅精選舊照片,生動展現鄭寶鴻所收藏的香港,為讀者重構祖父輩們的奮鬥故事,過得雖苦,當中卻有活力無限、希望在前的一點甜。

循著香港人走過的足跡,反覆嚴謹考證圖像與文獻,本書作者鄭寶鴻以個人經歷作引子,帶領讀者從民生居住、攤販商貿、「紅白」儀式與玩樂消遣、交通等方面細味舊日人情。大牌檔、大馬路走地雞、僱警迎親送殯、代客寫信神槍手、OL午餐專人送到、單車電車拍拖駛過……一幕幕已然消失的老香港風景在書中重現,並輔以詳盡解說,圖文並茂地述說人間百態,既側寫歷史,更貼地活潑地反映了幾代香港人的生活記憶。

(摘錄自cp1897.com.hk)