The Rules of Contagion: Why Things Spread--And Why They Stop

Adam Kucharski
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From ideas and infections to financial crises and fake news, an "utterly timely" look at why the science of outbreaks is the science of modern life

One of the Best Books of 2020 — Financial Times
One of the "Most 2020 Books of 2020" — Washington Post

These days, whenever anything spreads, whether it's a YouTube fad or a political rumor, we say it went viral. But how does virality actually work? In The Rules of Contagion, epidemiologist Adam Kucharski explores topics including gun violence, online manipulation, and, of course, outbreaks of disease to show how much we get wrong about contagion, and how astonishing the real science is.

Why did the president retweet a Mussolini quote as his own? Why do financial bubbles take off so quickly? Why are disinformation campaigns so effective? And what makes the emergence of new illnesses -- such as MERS, SARS, or the coronavirus disease COVID-19 -- so challenging? By uncovering the crucial factors driving outbreaks, we can see how things really spread -- and what we can do about it.

Whether you are an author seeking an audience, a defender of truth, or simply someone interested in human social behavior, The Rules of Contagion is an essential guide to modern life.

(Excerpt from amazon.com)

香港粵語片藝術論集

盧偉力
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《香港粵語片藝術論集》結集了香港電影研究者盧偉力從九十年代末以來，關於五六十年代香港粵語電影藝術的研究文章，當中包括論文、筆記和影片賞析，亦是作者在電影方面的文字紀錄。本書談到多位粵語片時代的重要影人，如李鐵、盧敦、任劍輝、紅線女、關德興、新馬師曾、曹達華等，亦述說了香港粵語電影與當時的時代變局、社會變遷，甚至國際政治環境、意識型態的關係。

(摘錄自博客來網路書店)

Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family

Robert Kolker
online access from ProQuest Ebook Central Perpetual Titles
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OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES TOP TEN BOOKS OF THE YEAR
Named a BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR by The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME, and Amazon

The heartrending story of a midcentury American family with twelve children, six of them diagnosed with schizophrenia, that became science's great hope in the quest to understand the disease.

Don and Mimi Galvin seemed to be living the American dream. After World War II, Don's work with the Air Force brought them to Colorado, where their twelve children perfectly spanned the baby boom: the oldest born in 1945, the youngest in 1965. In those years, there was an established script for a family like the Galvins--aspiration, hard work, upward mobility, domestic harmony--and they worked hard to play their parts. But behind the scenes was a different story: psychological breakdown, sudden shocking violence, hidden abuse. By the mid-1970s, six of the ten Galvin boys, one after another, were diagnosed as schizophrenic. How could all this happen to one family?

What took place inside the house on Hidden Valley Road was so extraordinary that the Galvins became one of the first families to be studied by the National Institute of Mental Health. Their story offers a shadow history of the science of schizophrenia, from the era of institutionalization, lobotomy, and the schizophrenogenic mother to the search for genetic markers for the disease, always amid profound disagreements about the nature of the illness itself. And unbeknownst to the Galvins, samples of their DNA informed decades of genetic research that continues today, offering paths to treatment, prediction, and even eradication of the disease for future generations.

With clarity and compassion, bestselling and award-winning author Robert Kolker uncovers one family's unforgettable legacy of suffering, love, and hope.

(Excerpt from amazon.com)

貝加爾湖隱居札記 (Dans les forêts de Sibérie)

席爾凡・戴松 (Sylvain Tesson))
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21世紀的《湖濱散記》
恐慌世代讀者最需要的心靈書寫
一段隱居原始森林的人生思考

★榮獲法國梅迪西文學獎
★榮獲英國鐸曼旅行文學獎
★《國家地理》最佳秋季讀物
★《金融時報》年度最佳好書

「『隱居』乍看遠離生活，然而這本『隱居之書』卻站在與社會相依存的觀點，告訴人們生活是一門藝術，而非令人鄙視之事。」────《科克斯書評》（Kirkus Reviews）

「我行前隨身帶了書、雪茄和伏特加酒。
其餘的東西──空間、寧靜和孤獨
──那裡已經有了。」

法國記者席爾凡・戴松曾向自己許諾，要在四十歲前去森林裡過一段隱居生活。於是，他前往西伯利亞自然而孤獨的荒野────貝加爾湖畔的一座小木屋裡住了六個月。離小木屋最近的村莊在一百二十公里外，他沒有鄰居，偶爾會有熊訪客。

▍在這裡，我見識了冬天和春天、幸福、絕望，乃至於平靜。
......「在這片無人之地，我替自己打造了一段清明又美麗的生活，我度過一段深居簡出的儉樸日子。我依山傍水，得以凝視日子一天天流轉。我砍柴、釣了自己的晚餐、讀很多書、到山裡健行，並在窗邊喝伏特加。這座小木屋是個絕佳的觀察站，能一窺大自然的各種動靜。」

在這片荒原中，他逐漸馴服了空間、時間，每一天都在發掘忙碌生活與旅行中無法帶來的體驗；最後他以緩慢沉穩的步調，創造出屬於自己的、簡約而美好的生活。

「也許所謂自由即在於擁有時間？也許所謂富有即在於坐擁獨處、空間和安靜──而這些恰恰都是未來世代人們所欠缺的事物。然而只要深山裡仍有小木屋，這世界就不至於全然絕望。」

「內容非凡……作者除了文學體操和怪癖外，寫下了描寫西伯利亞廣闊風光的讚歌，以及在度過逆境的生活方式。這本書讓人一頁頁不忍釋卷，直到我們和戴松一樣結束了這段隱居時光，返回我們的日常。」────《亞洲書評》（Asian Review Books）

「戴松的幽默感一絕，並生動寫下他熱愛的針葉林與俄國人對其近乎神祕的依戀。他在書中展開叔本華式地追索：現代人眼中的渴望與遺憾間的世界。」────《經濟學人》網站（Economist.com）網站

「這部作品非常珍貴，它揭露了流逝的時間那無可估量的價值。作品非常有張力，我們於是發現一個弔詭之處：說起來，在這座小屋中，（幾乎）什麼都沒發生。這部作品由一位穿著風之鞋的男人所撰，是一曲針對靜止、缺乏、靜默的頌歌。……如此對孤獨的追尋──我們尤其不能將之看作限制──促使作者內省靜觀。……他與孤獨的關係是複雜而意義豐富的。……在一個萬事萬物都以提高利潤為目的而遭到安排、組織的時代，戴松透過長時間凝賞貝加爾湖及湖中掩映的天空，重新發掘冥想的益處。」──《世界報》（Le Monde）

(摘錄自博客來網路書店)

Sontag: Her Life and Work

Benjamin Moser
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WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE
Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award
Finalist for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography
Named one of the Best Books of the Year by: O Magazine, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Seattle Times

The definitive portrait of one of the American Century’s most towering intellectuals: her writing and her radical thought, her public activism and her hidden private face

No writer is as emblematic of the American twentieth century as Susan Sontag. Mythologized and misunderstood, lauded and loathed, a girl from the suburbs who became a proud symbol of cosmopolitanism, Sontag left a legacy of writing on art and politics, feminism and homosexuality, celebrity and style, medicine and drugs, radicalism and Fascism and Freudianism and Communism and Americanism, that forms an indispensable key to modern culture. She was there when the Cuban Revolution began, and when the Berlin Wall came down; in Vietnam under American bombardment, in wartime Israel, in besieged Sarajevo. She was in New York when artists tried to resist the tug of money—and when many gave in. No writer negotiated as many worlds; no serious writer had as many glamorous lovers. Sontag tells these stories and examines the work upon which her reputation was based. It explores the agonizing insecurity behind the formidable public face: the broken relationships, the struggles with her sexuality, that animated—and undermined—her writing. And it shows her attempts to respond to the cruelties and absurdities of a country that had lost its way, and her conviction that fidelity to high culture was an activism of its own.

Utilizing hundreds of interviews conducted from Maui to Stockholm and from London to Sarajevo—and featuring nearly one hundred images—Sontag is the first book based on the writer’s restricted archives, and on access to many people who have never before spoken about Sontag, including Annie Leibovitz. It is a definitive portrait—a great American novel in the form of a biography.

(Excerpt from amazon.com)

打造理想人生的習慣大全:65個習慣開關, 讓你輕鬆戒掉壞習慣、無痛養成好習慣

古川武士
online access from HyRead ebook
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許多人「知道」成功取決於90％的好習慣，
只是往往想做卻「做不到」，
事實上，養成好習慣的關鍵不在意志力，
而在某些隱形的開關！

★ 日本唯一「習慣養成」顧問
★ 針對培養好習慣會遇到的問題，一一詳細破解
★ 從行動、思考、感受、環境四大層面，提供65個無痛養成習慣的開關

如果你有以下煩惱，必讀本書：
．好習慣無法持續，壞習慣戒不掉
．容易負面思考
．心煩意亂，沒有充實感
．一年前就開始沒成長

好習慣可以提升效率、改善健康，讓自己過上理想生活，這毋庸置疑，
但培養好習慣會遇到的實際狀況總是三分鐘熱度，
因為多數人培養好習慣的策略是靠意念和毅力，
這樣反而讓培養好習慣變成一件苦差事，更是力不從心。

日本暢銷作家、習慣養成顧問古川武士認為，
「無法持之以恆」是人生最大的課題，
因此從2006年開始，他致力於開發獨創的習慣養成理論和技術。

經過十多年的研究與實驗，
他發現，養成好習慣的成效不彰，通常只把焦點放在表面的行為上，
若想順利養成好習慣，必須利用冰山模型，從不同的層面著手......

(摘錄自博客來網路書店)