The Overstory: A Novel

Richard Powers
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Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize
New York Times Bestseller
A New York Times Notable Book and a Washington Post, Time, Oprah Magazine, Newsweek, Chicago Tribune, and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2018

"The best novel ever written about trees, and really just one of the best novels, period." ―Ann Patchett

The Overstory, winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, is a sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of―and paean to―the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, Richard Powers’s twelfth novel unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. There is a world alongside ours―vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.

(Excerpt from amazon.com)

我們都是地球人 : 被遺忘的孩子

陳美齡
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榮獲2019年第二屆「香港出版雙年獎」心理勵志類別的「最佳出版獎」

有些地方，小孩子不滿十歲就加入軍隊，被迫殺人。
有些地方，小孩子為了一餐一宿，被迫出賣身體。
有些地方，小孩子沒飯吃，要撿地上的小麥碎屑。

難以相信這是發生在同一個地球上的故事，無論天災還是人禍，首當其衝的永遠是小孩子。

陳美齡一直對兒童問題非常關注，從上世紀八十年代起，曾多次出訪世界各地不同國家，視察當地兒童的生活，包括戰禍、饑荒、童兵、買春、割禮、愛滋病等不忍卒睹的問題，1998年起更出任聯合國兒童基金會大使。

本書是她幾十年來視察各地的經驗總結，記錄了一個個悲慘中透著堅強和人性光輝的孩子們的故事，及這些見聞帶給她的衝擊和感悟。

世界上還有很多孩子需要我們伸出援手，因為我們都是地球人。

(摘錄自cp1897.com.hk)

The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect

Judea Pearl, Dana Mackenzie
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A Turing Award-winning computer scientist and statistician shows how understanding causality has revolutionized science and will revolutionize artificial intelligence "Correlation is not causation."

This mantra, chanted by scientists for more than a century, has led to a virtual prohibition on causal talk. Today, that taboo is dead. The causal revolution, instigated by Judea Pearl and his colleagues, has cut through a century of confusion and established causality--the study of cause and effect--on a firm scientific basis. His work explains how we can know easy things, like whether it was rain or a sprinkler that made a sidewalk wet; and how to answer hard questions, like whether a drug cured an illness. Pearl's work enables us to know not just whether one thing causes another: it lets us explore the world that is and the worlds that could have been. It shows us the essence of human thought and key to artificial intelligence. Anyone who wants to understand either needs The Book of Why.

(Excerpt from amazon.com)

冷思考：社群時代狂潮下，我們如何在衝突中活出自己，與他者共存 (How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds)

亞倫．傑考布斯 (Alan Jacobs)
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只讀標題，順手按讚和分享、轉貼，之後卻被真相打臉？
網路筆戰、瘋狂洗版，事後才後悔自己被人帶風向？
你在網路上的發言，是自己的想法，還是同溫層的共識？
社群／群組是給你歸屬感的夥伴，還是控制你思想的怪物？

講求效率和速度的網路時代，要求你即時回應，讓你來不及思考；
各種洗腦貼文、帶風向的錯誤訊息、來源不明的假新聞，已成為日常，
不只在個人的社交網絡激發迴響，甚至足以左右社會輿論、影響決定國家前途的大選。
我們該如何在聲量的大洪流時代，保有批判性思考的能力，
跳出牽制自己的心理陷阱、被有心人操縱的棋局？

當「後真相」／「另類事實」時代
與個人追求團體／社群認可的需求合而為一頭吞噬我們的巨獸，
個人因此更迷惑不安，社會因此更傾斜、方向更紊亂，
你需要養成一套思考的策略，找回思考的能力，
學會和不同於你的人一起思考……也許最終大家也能學會一起好好生活。

＃不經思考的「討論」算討論嗎？
＃思考太麻煩！

後網路時代，每個人身上都有好幾個社群標籤，每天在網路上對分裂的政治、社會等重大議題發表意見——但那是真正的討論嗎？
知名作家暨人文學院教授亞倫・傑考布斯，也是為《大西洋月刊》與《哈潑雜誌》等全國性刊物執筆的文化評論家，本身在各種社群中遭遇過大小衝突。多年經驗下來，傑考布斯發現：大多數爭辯淪為意氣、情緒的發洩，因為牽涉其中的人就是不思考。
我們不想思考，因為思考太麻煩！
它會逼迫我們脫離熟悉、讓人安心的習慣；它可能讓我們跟知心朋友的關係變得複雜；
而且思考很慢，當我們迷失在社群媒體、黨派爭執與確認偏誤的循環中，思考很慢就成了問題。

＃大師來幫忙診斷「思考病」......

(摘錄自博客來網路書店)

Blockchain : Transforming Your Business and Our World

Mark Van Rijmenam, Philippa Ryan
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The internet was envisaged as a decentralised global network, but in the past 25 years it has come to be controlled by a few, very powerful, centralised companies. Blockchain is a technological paradigm shift that allows secure, reliable, and direct information transfer between individuals, organisations, and things, so that we can manage, verify, and control the use of our own data.

Blockchain also offers a new opportunity for humanity to fix some major problems. It can authenticate data, manage its analysis, and automate its use. With better data comes better decision-making. In this way, Blockchain can contribute to solving climate change, reduce voting fraud, fix our identity systems, improve fair trade, and give the poor an opportunity to improve their lives by monetising their (digital) capital. A world built upon peer-to-peer transactions and smart contracts can empower individuals and communities.

This book offers a fresh perspective with which to consider this transformative technology. It describes how Blockchain can optimise the processes that run our society. It provides practical solutions to global problems and offers a roadmap to incorporate Blockchain in your business. It offers a blueprint for a better world. Filled with easy-to-understand examples, this book shows how Blockchain can take over where the internet has fallen short.

(Excerpt from amazon.com)

做個‧真選民—選舉工程48講 (Behind Your Vote)

周偉航
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經過多年的區議會、立法會選舉洗禮，不少港人愈來愈明白一票在手的價值。然而，選舉期間，各政黨都會出盡渾身解數展開選舉工程：網絡戰、傳媒戰、「蛇齋餅糉」、配票、運用地區椿腳等策略固然人前背後進行得如火如荼；候選人找來專業人士特訓口才、辯才，建立看似能幹、可靠、親切模樣等形象工程，更是層出不窮。誰在耍花招？誰是真材實料？

在台灣，選舉期間候選人同樣出盡花招。台灣熱門博客「人渣文本」版主周偉航，曾當過馬英九和國民黨議員的幕僚，也做過民進黨的競選總幹事和辦公室主任，選戰經驗極之豐富。本書由他以專業角度拆解選舉工程，從理論到實務，深入探討台灣選舉的眾生百態，藉由撥開眾多選戰花招迷霧，引領讀者建立公民意識、強化自身思考能力。

香港與台灣從來都是互相學習，本地政治人物便經常往台灣觀戰。書中拆解台灣選舉工程中的每一環都十分值得香港選民借鑑。作者深信，每次選舉的結束，都是下次選舉的開始；今次誤投錯的人，只要在下一次修正便好。讀完此書，明白選舉工程的箇中玄機後，冀讀者也能了解甚麼是選舉，更能真正運用手中的選票。

(摘錄自博客來網路書店)