Check out these Books before they hit the Theater

Adapted from the short story in this collection of the same name, The Black Phone is set to be released in June. The story is one of John Finney, who is in trouble. The kidnapper locked him in the basement, a place stained with the blood of half a dozen other children. With him is an antique phone, long since disconnected, which transmits the voices of the previous victims who just might give him the means to escape.

Ben Mears has returned to Jerusalem’s Lot in the hopes that living in an old mansion, long the subject of town lore, will help him cast out his own devils and provide inspiration for his new book. But when two young boys venture into the woods and only one comes out alive, Mears begins to realize that there may be something sinister at work and that his hometown is under siege by forces of darkness far beyond his control.

The story goes on with the soon to be released adaptation of the “The Lord of the Rings” series titled “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.” Beginning in a time of relative peace, the series follows characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared reemergence of evil to Middle-earth. Traveling to the furthest reaches of the map, these characters carve out legacies that live on long after they are gone.ar dapibus leo.

Frances is a coolheaded and darkly observant young woman, vaguely pursuing a career in writing while studying in Dublin. At a local poetry performance one night, she meets a well-known photographer, and Frances is reluctantly impressed by the older women’s sophisticated home and handsome husband, Nick. But however amusing Frances and Nick’s flirtation seems at first, it begins to give way to a strange—and then painful—intimacy.

Belly measures her life in summers. Everything is good, everything magical happens between the months of June and August. Winters are simply a time to count down the weeks until summer, and the weeks spent away from Jeremiah and Conrad. They are the boys that Belly has known since her very first summer. But one summer, one wonderful and terrible summer, everything changes and ends up just the way it should have been all along.

Rotterham Home was a hospice for young people. Every night at twelve, a group of five young kids at the hospice came together. They called themselves the Midnight Club, and they would take turns telling each other stories. But one night, in the middle of a particularly scary story, the five kids make a pact with each other. The first one who dies is to make every effort to contact the others from beyond the grave. Then one of them does die, and the story begins.

 This story is one of two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals, passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path toward survival, love, and freedom in German occupied, war-torn France. This heartbreakingly beautiful novel illuminates the women’s war, a part of history we seldom see, and celebrates the resilience of the human spirt and the durability of women.

Wendy has long heard the family legend—madness strikes the Darling women, traditionally after romance visits in the form of an overgrown boy. The Darling girl will fall in love, the boy will desert, and the girl is left flirting with lunacy’s lure. Wendy wants to be grateful for her childhood adventure, but instead she is lost and consumed by the mystery of her grandmother Jane, whose disappearance following her own romance remains unsolved.

Halloween, 1963. They call him the October Boy, and everybody in this small Midwestern town knows who he is. How he rises from the cornfields every Halloween, a butcher knife in his hand, and makes his way toward town, where gangs of teenage boys eagerly await their chance to confront the legendary nightmare. Both the hunter and the hunted, the October Boy is the prize in an annual rite of life and death.

Check Out These Nonfiction Reads for a Glowing Garden

With a little creativity and effort, you can have a gorgeous garden for next-to-nothing. Included is a substantial plant directory of more than 100 plants that will multiply and make more plants without any help from you at all. Each entry in the plant directory includes a photo of the plant, its optimum soil, shade, its planting requirements and strategies for propagation.

Plans are provided for built-in, portable planters, window and porch boxes, and more, along with tips on how to convert barrels, buckets, and baskets into unique planters. See how to create spectacular hanging, suspended, barrier and seating wall gardens, and how to make raised beds for special application as handicapped and easy-access gardens.

A guide to planning and planting a beautiful, bountiful garden includes all-organic, low-work techniques for building healthy soil and hundreds of ideas for easy-care plants and gardens in a “tips” format that is easy to follow. This is the ideal book for the lazy, overly busy, or physically restricted gardeners.

Smith’s legendary high-yield gardening method emphasizes wide rows, organic methods, raised beds, and deep soil. Try new and unusual varieties, and learn how to innovatively extend your growing season. With thorough profiles of hundreds of popular varieties, this book provides expert information and an inspiring roadmap for gardeners of all skill levels to enjoy abundant homegrown vegetables.

Drawing on her experiences gardening in Australia and the U.K., Marylyn Abbott explains how to use light to bring a flower bed or border to life, through simple observation of the light patterns and sky colors on a garden and clever mixing of varieties. Watch as she explores the vastly different quality of the gentle English light and the harsh Australian light.

Not everyone has a garden–but with only a handful of materials and a little bit of time, everyone can bring the beauty of nature into their home. Plant Craft features projects inspired by the natural world and made out of live plants, cut flowers, foraged branches, and more. You’ll learn how to create a colorful floral mural, an elegant table centerpiece, a serene underwater sculpture, a whimsical mobile, and more.

Gardening is a rewarding hobby. And one that can produce you substantially more crop if done correctly. Using innovative gardening methods such as hydroponics or greenhouse gardening can help your plants mature 25% faster while delivering a 30% increase in yield. If you want to taste the pleasure of your homegrown food, this book is for you.

Are you interested in creating a bountiful garden but worried that you don’t have enough space? Raised-Bed Gardening for Beginners shows you how simple it can be to plan, build, and grow your own raised-bed garden in whatever space is available. Learn to build your bed, select the right plants, grow your own vegetables, and much more.

Just as stylish accessories bring a room to life, gorgeous planted containers are the finishing touch for every garden home. With this book, P. Allen Smith, shows how to create a beautiful container garden in a matter of minutes, in an innovative recipe-style format complete with ingredients lists, step-by-step planting instructions, and advice on how to effectively display these colorful accents.

Pack your Suitcase and Grab your Passport: Summer Getaways Lost in the Stacks

Single mom Amy Byler needs a break. So when the guilt-ridden husband who abandoned her shows up and offers to take care of their kids for the summer, she accepts his offer and escapes to New York City. Usually mild mannered, Amy finally lets her hair down in the city that never sleeps. But as the summer draws to an end, Amy realizes too late that she must make an impossible decision: stay in this exciting new chapter of her life, or return to the life she left behind.

Rachel and Jack. Paige and Noah. And Will. Five friends who’ve known each other for years. Then along came Ali, Will’s new fiancée. The three couples travel to Portugal for Ali and Will’s destination wedding. And things seem great until Rachel discovers a shocking secret about Ali that changes everything. As the weekend unfolds, the secrets each of them holds begin to spill, and friendships and marriages threaten to unravel.

Alex and Poppy have nothing in common but somehow, ever since a fateful car share home from college many years ago, they are still best friends. That is until two years ago, when they ruined everything. They haven’t spoken since but Poppy decides to convince Alex to take one more vacation together—to lay everything on the table, and make it all right. Miraculously, he agrees. And now she has one week to fix everything. What could possibly go wrong?

Two parents in Washington State are bound by tragedy when their sons were involved in a murder-suicide. Separated by only a silvery stretch of trees, the two parents are emotionally stranded, and isolated by their great losses. Then a mysterious pregnant girl emerges out of the woods and into the lives of those same boys’ families, bridging the gap and changing everything.

 Erin and Mark couldn’t be happier when they set off to Bora Bora for their honeymoon. Things quickly changed, however, when they spot something suspicious in the water while scuba diving. Could the life of your dreams be the stuff of nightmares? Suddenly the newlyweds must make a dangerous choice to speak out about what they’ve seen or protect their secret. 

Anna is spending the summer in the Hamptons as a nanny, in a community on edge after the disappearance of Zoe Spanos. Anna, who is constantly reminded of her resemblance to Zoe, begins to dig deeper into the unsolved case. Two months later, she finds herself charged with the manslaughter of a girl she’d never met. Did Anna really kill Zoe?

Lina is spending a summer in Tuscany, but she isn’t in the mood for Italy’s famous sunshine and fairy-tale landscape. She’s only there because it was her mother’s dying wish for her to get to know her father. Her focus shifts when she is given her mother’s journal and discovers long hidden secrets with the help of a charming local boy. “People come to Italy for love and gelato,” someone tells her, but sometimes they discover so much more.

Six years after the fight that ended their friendship, Daphne is shocked when Drue walks back into her life with a massive favor to ask. Daphne hasn’t spoken a word to Drue, so she’s rightfully speechless when Drue asks her to be her maid-of-honor at her wedding. Letting glamourous Drue back into her life is risky, but it comes with an invitation to spend a weekend at a waterfront Cape Cod mansion and Daphne finds herself powerless as ever to resist.

Everyone imagines running away from their life at some point. But Birdy has actually done it. And the life she’s run into is her best friend Heather’s. The only problem is, she hasn’t told Heather. The summer job at the highland Scottish hotel that her world class wine-expert friend ditched turns out to be a lot more than Birdy bargained for. Can she survive a summer pretending to be her best friend?

Grab your Sandals and get your Grill Ready with these BBQ Cookbooks

Ed Randolph breaks down cooking on the Traeger for beginners. Pellet grills are renowned for their delicious smoky flavor and now backyard barbecue enthusiasts can get professional-quality grilling and smoking at home. With recipes ranging from appetizers to desserts, this book shows you just how much you can do with a wood pellet smoker.

Grill master Steven Raichlen shares more than 60 foolproof, mouthwatering recipes for preparing the tastiest, most versatile, and most beloved cut of meat in the world–outside on the grill, as well as in the kitchen. In dozens of unbeatable tips, Raichlen shows you just how to handle, prep, and store your meat for maximum tenderness and flavor.

In the words of the Kansas City Barbeque Society, barbeque is not just for breakfast anymore. Featuring more than 200 all-new, mouthwatering recipes (many from award-winning KCBS members and teams), this 25th anniversary edition also includes tips for competitive barbequing, juicy stories that shed light on life inside the barbeque society, and tons of beautiful full-color photographs.

The chefs of The Culinary Institute of America bring their culinary skills outside to the grill taking us around the globe with exciting, flavorful national and international recipes for all to enjoy. With over 175 recipes, and step-by-step instructions, these chefs will help you grill like a pro.

Jautaikis explains everything you need to know about the wood pellet smoker including: picking the right pellet flavors, maximizing the potential of your smoker-grill, and mastering cold-smoke and slow-roast techniques. “The Wood Pellet Smoker and Grill Cookbook” serves up spectacularly delicious dishes.

Who can resist the tantalizing aroma of food sizzling over an open fire? Satisfy your cravings for meals from the grill with over 125 finger-lickin’ recipes in this book. Whether it’s cool barbecues for hot summer evenings or easy grilling for chilly days, you’ll enjoy the carefree pleasures of barbecuing all year long.

Raichlen provides a step-by-step guide to the art and craft of smoking, as well as an in-depth rundown on various smokers; the essential brines, rubs, marinades, and barbecue sauces; and a complete exposition of types of woods to use. He also looks at cold smoking, hot smoking, smoke-roasting and smoke-braising. 

Whether you’re hosting a poolside barbecue, relaxing around the campfire, or tailgating on game day, my favorite outdoor recipes are guaranteed to get your grill going. Deliver a taste of Flavortown in your own backyard with Bacon Wrapped Hot Dogs with Spicy Fruit Relish and more mouth-watering recipes.

For anyone who ever wanted to know the difference between Porterhouse and Chateaubriand, the Lobel family of master butchers has all the answers in the Meat Bible. Covering every imaginable meat: beef, veal, pork, lamb, poultry, rabbit, and more. The Lobels share their extensive knowledge of the differing tastes, textures, flavors, fat contents, and uses for each cut of meat.

Love to Watch Netflix? Try these Books that Inspired your Favorite Netflix Shows and Movies:

Inspiring Netflix’s show Maid, this story begins with Stephanie Land’s plans to chase her dreams of becoming a writer. These plans, however, were cut short when a summer fling turned into an unexpected pregnancy. She turned to housekeeping to make ends meet, and keep a grip on her dream to provide her daughter the very best life possible. Maid explores the underbelly of upper-middle class America and the reality of what it’s like to be in service to them.

In this book, inspiring the Netflix movie, Jessie and Gerald Burlingame play a game in the bedroom, and something goes very wrong. Now Jessie is utterly trapped in an isolated lakeside house that has become her prison–and comes face-to-face with her deepest, darkest fears and memories. Her only company is that of the various voices filling her mind…as well as the shadows of nightfall that may conceal an imagined or very real threat right there with her.

Inspiring Netflix’s movie of the same name, this story begins with sixteen-year-old Lara Jean Song, who keeps her love letters in a hatbox her mother gave her. These are ones she’s written; One for every boy she’s ever loved–five in all. When she writes, she says all the things she would never say in real life, because her letters are for her eyes only. Until the day her secret letters are mailed, and suddenly, Lara Jean’s love life goes from imaginary to out of control.

Inspiring several game adaptations as well as Netflix’s The Witcher, this second book in Sapkowski’s collection of adventures follows Geralt of Rivia, a Witcher whose magic powers, enhanced by long training and a mysterious elixir, have made him a merciless hunter. Yet he is no ordinary killer: his targets are the multifarious monsters and vile fiends that ravage the land and attack the innocent.

Inspiring the Netflix movie of the same name, this story follows Juliet Ashton, a thirty-year-old author, who writes to her publisher expressing her desire to stop covering the aftermath of WWII, but Guernsey farmer Dawsey Adams invites neighbors to write to Juliet with their stories. This puts her off at first but eventually helps her find inspiration for her next book, and her life.

As seen in the Netflix series Bridgerton, the rakish Duke of Hastings will stop at nothing to hold the marriage-mongers and matchmakers of his town at bay, even if it means pretending to be engaged to the lovely Daphne Bridgerton. The plan works like a charm–at first. But amid the glittering, gossipy, cut-throat world of London’s elite, there is only one certainty: love ignores every rule.

Now a Netflix movie starring Elle Fanning, this story begins with Theodore Finch and Violet Markey. When Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school–six stories above the ground– it’s unclear who saves whom. Soon it’s only with Violet that Finch can be himself. And it’s only with Finch that Violet can forget to count away the days and start living them. But as Violet’s world grows, Finch’s begins to shrink.

In this book adapted into a Netflix movie, William, born in Malawi, read about windmills and dreamed of one day building one that would bring his small village electricity and running water. With a small pile of science textbooks; some scrap metal, tractor parts, and bicycle halves; and an armory of curiosity and determination, he embarked on a daring plan to forge an unlikely contraption and small miracle that would change the lives around him.

Adapted into a Netflix movie starring Chloe Grace Moretz, Susannah, a reporter for a major New York newspaper, relates what she underwent during a month-long hospital stay during which she was diagnosed with encephalitis. She discusses how the autoimmune disease affected her mental stability and her hospitalization influenced her life and family.

Let these Books Take you on a Journey to the “Fifth Dimension” for National Twilight Zone Day

Investigator Oscar Basaran travels to Kidney Island off the coast of Maine to document the negative effects of shadow flicker from wind turbines on residents living near the windmills, but is unprepared for what he encounters from the islanders. As Oscar’s investigation deepens, he discovers the turbines create an unexpected phenomena kept secret by a select group of people on Kidney Island.

When Mira fled her segregated southern hometown more than an decade ago, she left behind her best friend, a plantation rumored to be haunted, and horrible memories from her youth. Returning only for her best friend’s wedding on the eerie plantation, dark elements from the town’s past and Mira’s own history begin to unravel as the weekend begins. She must acknowledge her history to save herself from what is to come.

Gina was completely normal—an average housewife with a husband and two kids. When a car accident revealed her husband’s secret life as a serial killer, she moved her children to a home on a lake, far away from her husband’s secrets. But when a body appears in the lake and threatening letters start to arrive, Gina must protect herself and her kids from a killer who is now tormenting her family.

Victoria, a young girl with a talent for finding things, stumbles upon a bridge that can take her anywhere. She runs into Charlie Manx, who lures kids into a car that transports them to a horrifying playground called Christmasland. Victoria is the only child to ever escape Christmasland. Years later, Charlie hasn’t forgotten about her — and is ready to take his revenge.

As the ash and chaos from Mount Rainier’s eruption swirled and finally settled, the story of the Greenloop massacre has passed unnoticed, unexamined . . . until now. The journals, of resident Kate Holland, capture a tale too harrowing to be forgotten. Because if what Kate Holland saw in those days is real, then we must accept that the creature known as Bigfoot walks among us.

Reverend Jack Brooks arrives at Chapel Croft looking for a fresh start, yet is welcomed with an exorcism kit and a warning. Horrible things have happened at the church — protestant martyrs were burned centuries back, two teenage girls disappeared 30 years ago, and just a week prior, the vicar hung himself. And uncovering the truth can be deadly in a village where no one trusts an outsider.

A pandemic has devastated the planet, sorting humanity into two types: the living and the living dead. After the worst of the plague is over, armed forces stationed in Chinatown’s Fort Wonton have successfully reclaimed the island south of Canal Street—aka Zone One. Mark Spitz is a member of one of the three-person civilian sweeper units tasked with clearing lower Manhattan of the remaining feral zombies. And then things start to go terribly wrong…

Detective Gabriella Versado has seen a lot of bodies, but this one is unique even by Detroit’s standards: half boy, half deer, somehow fused together. As stranger and more disturbing bodies are discovered, how can the city hold on to a reality that is already tearing at its seams? If you’re Thomas Keen, known on the street as TK, you’ll do what you can to keep your homeless family safe–and find the monster who is possessed by the dream of violently remaking the world.

A boy named Seth drowns, desperate and alone in his final moments, losing his life as the pounding sea claims him. But then he wakes. He is naked, thirsty, starving. But alive. How is that possible? He remembers dying, his bones breaking, his skull dashed upon the rocks. So how is he here? And where is this place? Seth begins a search for answers, hoping that he might not be alone, that this might not be the hell he fears it to be, that there might be more than just this.

“May the Fourth” be with you: Sci-Fi Novels that will Transport you to a Galaxy Far, Far Away

Since his wife, Michelle, left seven years ago, Jeffy Coltrane has worked to maintain a normal life for himself and his daughter, Amity. It’s a quiet life, until a local eccentric known as Spooky Ed entrusts Jeffy with hiding a strange and dangerous object and tells Jeffy that he must never use the device. But after a visit from a group of ominous men, Jeffy and Amity find themselves accidentally activating the device and discovering an extraordinary truth.

When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the black-skied Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe.

Laurence is an engineering genius who’s working with a group that aims to avert catastrophic breakdown through technological intervention. Patricia is a graduate of a hidden academy for the world’s magically gifted, and works to secretly repair the world’s every-growing ailments. Neither Laurence nor Patricia can keep pace with the speed at which things fall apart. But something bigger than either of them is determined to bring them together. And will.

During a routine survey mission on an uncolonized planet, Kira finds an alien relic. At first she’s delighted, but elation turns to terror when the ancient dust around her begins to move. While Kira faces her own horrors, Earth and its colonies stand upon the brink of annihilation. Now, Kira might be humanity’s greatest and final hope. 

In The Power, the world is a recognizable place but then a vital new force takes root and flourishes, causing their lives to converge with devastating effect. Teenage girls now have immense physical power: they can cause agonizing pain and even death. And, with this small twist of nature, the world drastically resets.

Octavia Zarola would do anything to keep her tiny, close-knit bounty hunting crew together—even if it means accepting a job from Torran Fletcher, her sworn enemy. But when they uncover a deeper plot that threatens the delicate peace between humans and Valoffs, Octavia suspects that Torran has been using her as the impetus for a new war. With the fate of her crew balanced on a knife’s edge, Tavi must decide where her loyalties lie.

Misanthropic psychologist Dr. Grace Park is placed on the Deucalion, a survey ship headed to an icy planet in an unexplored galaxy. Her purpose is to observe the thirteen human crew members aboard the ship. Shortly after landing, the crew finds themselves trapped on the ship by a radiation storm, with no means of communication or escape until it passes–and that’s when things begin to fall apart.

Val and Julie just want what’s best for their kids, David and Sophie. So when teenage son David comes home one day asking for a Pilot, a new brain implant to help with school, they reluctantly agree. This is the future, after all. Before long, the implications are clear, for the family and society: get a Pilot or get left behind. With government subsidies and no downside, why would anyone refuse? And how do you stop a technology once it’s everywhere?

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission–and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

Nine Must-Read Poetry Books for National Poetry Month

Gwendolyn Brooks was the first black author to win the Pulitzer Prize and the first black woman to serve as poetry consultant to the Library of Congress–the forerunner of the U.S. Poet Laureate. Here, in an exclusive Library of America E-Book Classic edition, is her groundbreaking first book of poems, a searing portrait of Chicago’s South Side. “I wrote about what I saw and heard in the street,” she later said. “There was my material.”

This second volume of the Library of America anthology of twentieth-century poetry, takes the reader from E.E. Cummings to May Swenson. In the wake of the modernist renaissance, American poets continued to experiment with new techniques and themes, while the impact of the Depression and World War II and the continuing political struggle of African Americans became part of the fabric of a literature in transition.

Don’t Call Us Dead opens with a heartrending sequence that imagines an afterlife for black men shot by police, a place where suspicion, violence, and grief are forgotten and replaced with the safety, love, and longevity they deserved here on earth. Smith turns then to desire, mortality—the dangers experienced in skin and body and blood.

This highly-anticipated debut boldly confronts addiction and courses the strenuous path of recovery, beginning in the wilds of the mind. Poems confront craving, control, the constant battle of alcoholism and sobriety, and the questioning of the self and its instincts within the context of this never-ending fight.

Author and presidential inaugural poet Amanda Gorman captures a shipwreck moment in time and transforms it into a lyric of hope and healing. Harnessing the collective grief of a global pandemic, this beautifully designed volume features poems in many inventive styles and structures and shines a light on a moment of reckoning.

This is a collection of poems and prose generated by author Gary Leever after working the Nebraska prairies and farmland for over fifty years. Leever creates heartfelt reflections of the land, the harvests, and the people near his home in Western Nebraska.

Dedicated to the daughter she never had but sees all around her, Letter to My Daughter transcends genres and categories: guidebook, memoir, poetry, and pure delight. Here in short spellbinding essays are glimpses of the tumultuous life that led Angelou to an exalted place in American letters and taught her lessons in compassion and fortitude.

Ted Kooser, who served as United States Poet Laureate (2004–2006), is a poet who works toward clarity and accessibility, so that each distinctive poem appears to be as fresh and bright and spontaneous as a good watercolor painting. He is a haiku-like imagist who imbues his poems with “tender wisdom,” and draws inspiration from the overlooked details of daily life.

In this deeply intimate second poetry collection, Ocean Vuong searches for life among the aftershocks of his mother’s death, embodying the paradox of sitting within grief while being determined to survive beyond it. Shifting through memory, Vuong contends with personal loss, the meaning of family, and the cost of being the product of an American war in America.

Celebrate Our Beautiful Planet with these Fiction Reads

When Monkey proclaims that it is his birthday, all the other jungle animals protest, claiming instead that it is Earth Day and telling Monkey what he should do to honor this special day.

P.K. Hallinan shows children cooperating to help rescue Earth from mankind’s mistakes of the past so that youngsters can see that their own efforts can make a difference in the world.

Outer space, a moon base, and . . . bananas? A spaceman, a robot, and a cheeky monkey use a most unusual method to protect Earth from hungry, googly-eyed moon aliens. 

Twelve-year-old Nova is eagerly awaiting the launch of the space shuttle Challenger. Nova and her big sister, Bridget, share a love of astronomy and the space program. They planned to watch the launch together. But Bridget has disappeared, and Nova is in a new foster home. But every day, she’s counting down to the launch, and to the moment when she’ll see Bridget again. Because Bridget said, “No matter what, I’ll be there. I promise.”

The Blythes are a warm, rambunctious family who live on a farm and foster children. Prez has come to live with them. But one day Prez answers the door to someone claiming to be his relative. This small, loud stranger carries a backpack, and goes by the name of Sputnik. It seems his family all think Sputnik is a dog. It’s only Prez who thinks otherwise. But Prez soon finds himself defending the family from the chaos unleashed by Sputnik.

Alex Petroski loves space and rockets, his mom, his brother, and his dog Carl Sagan–named for his hero, the real-life astronomer. All he wants is to launch his golden iPod into space the way Carl Sagan (the man, not the dog) launched his Golden Record on the Voyager spacecraft in 1977. From Colorado to New Mexico, Las Vegas to L.A., Alex records a journey on his iPod to show other lifeforms what life on earth, his earth, is like.

Lee Westfall has a secret. She can sense the presence of gold in the world around her. Veins deep beneath the earth, pebbles in the river, nuggets dug up from the forest floor. The buzz of gold means warmth and life and home–until everything is ripped away by a man who wants to control her. Left with nothing, Lee disguises herself as a boy and takes to the trail across the country. Gold was discovered in California, and where else could such a magical girl find herself, find safety?

When the members of the elite Baltimore Gun Club find themselves lacking any urgent assignments at the close of the Civil War, their president, Impey Barbicane, proposes that they build a gun big enough to launch a rocket to the moon. But when Barbicane’s adversary places a huge wager that the project will fail and a daring volunteer elevates the mission to a “manned” flight, one man’s dream turns into an international space race.

It’s an ordinary Thursday morning for Arthur Dent . . . until his house gets demolished. The Earth follows shortly after to make way for a new hyperspace express route, and Arthur’s best friend has just announced that he’s an alien. After that, things get much, much worse. With just a towel, a small yellow fish, and a book, Arthur has to navigate through a very hostile universe in the company of a gang of unreliable aliens. Luckily, he’s got The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Celebrate Our “Pale Blue Dot” with these Captivating Books and Movies

From the frozen tundra in the north to the dry forests of the equator, Sir David Attenborough narrates a compelling view of the planet. In addition to exploring the wilderness with improved technology that has made it possible to capture further details, the series examines urban dwellings, focusing on animals that have adapted to city life.

A global study of Earth’s imperiled environment explores a wide range of ecological disasters and examines the role of scientists and the public in reversing environmental degradation, restoring despoiled areas, and protecting endangered species, habitats, and biodiversity.

Ben Rawlence’s The Treeline takes us along this critical frontier of our warming planet from Canada to Sweden to meet the scientists confronting huge geological changes. It is a journey of wonder at the mysterious workings of the forest upon which we rely for the air we breathe. The Treeline is a story of what might soon be the last forest left on earth.

Natterson-Horowitz employs fascinating case studies to present a revelatory understanding of what animals can teach us about the human body and mind. “Zoobiquity” is the term the authors have coined to refer to a new, species-spanning approach to health. Delving into evolution, anthropology, sociology, biology, veterinary science, and zoology, they break down the walls between disciplines, redefining the boundaries of medicine.

Thalassa was a paradise, home to one of the small colonies founded centuries before by robot Mother Ships when the Sun had gone nova and mankind had fled Earth. Its beauty and vast resources seduce its inhabitants into a feeling of perfection. But then the Magellan arrives, carrying with it one million refugees from the last mad days of earth. Paradise looks indeed lost. 

Where are we? Who are we? Are our emotions, our beliefs, and our hopes and dreams ultimately meaningless out there in the void? Does human purpose and meaning fit into a scientific worldview? In short chapters filled with intriguing historical anecdotes, personal asides, and rigorous exposition, readers learn the difference between how the world works at the quantum level, the cosmic level, and the human level–and then how each connects to the other.

Presently in Yellowstone there are almost 200 active research permits involving over 500 investigators, but only a small fraction of this scientific work is reported in the popular press. Knowing Yellowstone explains the general issues associated with the region and how science is done to understand those issues, and how the nature of the scientist’s work enables or limits future plans for managing the park.

Wilczek’s groundbreaking work in quantum physics was inspired by his intuition to look for a deeper order of beauty in nature. In fact, every major advance in his career came from this intuition: to assume that the universe embodies beautiful forms, forms whose hallmarks are symmetry–harmony, balance, proportion–and economy. There are other meanings of “beauty,” but this is the deep logic of the universe–and it is no accident that it is also at the heart of what we find aesthetically pleasing and inspiring.

In Underland, Macfarland takes us on an extraordinary journey into our relationship with darkness, burial, and what lies beneath the surface of both place and mind. Traveling through “deep time,” he moves from the birth of the universe to a post-human future, and from the underground fungal networks through which trees communicate to a deep-sunk “hiding place” where nuclear waste will be stored for 100,000 years to come.