Books with category 🤼 Conflict & Peace
Displaying 15 books

A Desolation Called Peace

2021

by Arkady Martine

A Desolation Called Peace is the thrilling sequel to Arkady Martine's genre-reinventing debut, A Memory Called Empire. As an alien armada looms on the edges of Teixcalaanli space, the empire is on the brink of a potential catastrophe. Unable to communicate or destroy the mysterious invaders, Fleet Captain Nine Hibiscus is quickly running out of options.

In an urgent bid for diplomacy, a diplomatic envoy has been dispatched. Now, Mahit Dzmare and Three Seagrass—still recovering from political turmoil within the empire—must embark on a daunting mission to establish communication with the hostile entity. Their efforts could dictate the survival of Teixcalaan, either saving the empire from destruction or paving the way for its relentless expansion. But success may also lead to an outcome far more unexpected.

Humankind

Humankind: A Hopeful History challenges the belief that humans are fundamentally bad—a notion that has been a common thread uniting figures across the ideological spectrum from ancient philosophers to modern thinkers. Rutger Bregman questions this assumption and offers a new perspective on our species, arguing that we are innately kind, cooperative, and trustworthy.

Drawing on insights from evolutionary biology to historical events, such as the real-life story reminiscent of Lord of the Flies and the cooperation seen in the wake of the Blitz, Bregman presents compelling evidence of humanity's capacity for generosity. The book critically examines popular social science experiments, like the Stanford prison experiment, and historical contexts, arguing for a more optimistic view of human nature and its implications for politics and economics.

Using engaging storytelling and an accessible approach, Bregman makes the case that a belief in the better aspects of humanity can create a foundation for societal change. With a balance of wit and frankness, Humankind is not just an analysis of past behavior but a hopeful vision for the future of our species.

All Systems Red

2017

by Martha Wells

"As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure."

In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.

On a distant planet, a team of scientists is conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid—a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is. But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.

All the Light We Cannot See

2014

by Anthony Doerr

From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See is a stunningly ambitious and beautiful novel about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. Marie Laure lives with her father in Paris within walking distance of the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of the locks (there are thousands of locks in the museum). When she is six, she goes blind, and her father builds her a model of their neighborhood, every house, every manhole, so she can memorize it with her fingers and navigate the real streets with her feet and cane.

When the Germans occupy Paris, father and daughter flee to Saint-Malo on the Brittany coast, where Marie-Laure's agoraphobic great uncle lives in a tall, narrow house by the sea wall. In another world in Germany, an orphan boy, Werner, grows up with his younger sister, Jutta, both enchanted by a crude radio Werner finds. He becomes a master at building and fixing radios, a talent that wins him a place at an elite and brutal military academy and, ultimately, makes him a highly specialized tracker of the Resistance. Werner travels through the heart of Hitler Youth to the far-flung outskirts of Russia, and finally into Saint-Malo, where his path converges with Marie-Laure.

Doerr's combination of soaring imagination with observation is electric. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, All the Light We Cannot See is his most ambitious and dazzling work.

Los días del fuego

2004

by Liliana Bodoc

Los días del fuego es el volumen que culmina La saga de los confines, iniciada con Los días del venado y continuada por Los días de la sombra. Esta obra narra la más grande y terrible guerra contra el Odio Eterno que jamás se haya librado. Las Tierras Fértiles preparan a sus mejores hijos para enfrentar esta batalla decisiva. Paralelamente, en las Tierras Antiguas, la resistencia se organiza para evitar los ataques de Misaianes, quien observa todo desde la impiadosa quietud de su monte.

Liliana Bodoc reafirma su destreza narrativa y el alcance de su universo fantástico a través de una novela llena de magia y misterio, que captura la imaginación del lector desde la primera página.

Los días de la sombra

2002

by Liliana Bodoc

El hijo de la muerte fue derrotado. Pero luego de una respiración, que tardó cinco años del sol en entrar y salir del pecho, prepara una nueva invasión, redoblada en fuerza y en crueldad. Para lograr su propósito enviará a su propia madre al frente de las naves y se valdrá de las alianzas que consiguió en las Tierras Fértiles.

Esta vez no bastará con la pelea heroica en el campo de batalla. Será necesario hacerse al mar, será necesario atravesar la puerta que lleva que lleva al Tiempo Mágico. Mientras la resistencia se prepara, la Muerte recorre los caminos del continente. A veces de la mano de una niña.

The Silmarillion

The forerunner to The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion fills in the background which lies behind the more popular work, and gives the earlier history of Middle-earth, introducing some of the key characters.

The Silmarillion is an account of the Elder Days, of the First Age of Tolkien's world. It is the ancient drama to which the characters in The Lord of the Rings look back, and in whose events some of them, such as Elrond and Galadriel, took part. The tales of The Silmarillion are set in an age when Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, dwelt in Middle-Earth, and the High Elves made war upon him for the recovery of the Silmarils, the jewels containing the pure light of Valinor.

The Silmarillion

The forerunner to The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion fills in the background which lies behind the more popular work, and gives the earlier history of Middle-earth, introducing some of the key characters.

The Silmarillion is an account of the Elder Days, of the First Age of Tolkien's world. It is the ancient drama to which the characters in The Lord of the Rings look back, and in whose events some of them, such as Elrond and Galadriel, took part. The tales of The Silmarillion are set in an age when Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, dwelt in Middle-Earth, and the High Elves made war upon him for the recovery of the Silmarils, the jewels containing the pure light of Valinor.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

1997

by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter has never even heard of Hogwarts when the letters start dropping on the doormat at number four, Privet Drive. Addressed in green ink on yellowish parchment with a purple seal, they are swiftly confiscated by his grisly aunt and uncle. Then, on Harry's eleventh birthday, a great beetle-eyed giant of a man called Rubeus Hagrid bursts in with some astonishing news: Harry Potter is a wizard, and he has a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. An incredible adventure is about to begin!

With their message of hope, belonging and the enduring power of truth and love, the story of the Boy Who Lived continues to delight generations of new readers.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

1997

by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter has never even heard of Hogwarts when the letters start dropping on the doormat at number four, Privet Drive. Addressed in green ink on yellowish parchment with a purple seal, they are swiftly confiscated by his grisly aunt and uncle. Then, on Harry's eleventh birthday, a great beetle-eyed giant of a man called Rubeus Hagrid bursts in with some astonishing news: Harry Potter is a wizard, and he has a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. An incredible adventure is about to begin!

With their message of hope, belonging and the enduring power of truth and love, the story of the Boy Who Lived continues to delight generations of new readers.

Death Without Weeping

When lives are dominated by hunger, what becomes of love? When assaulted by daily acts of violence and untimely death, what happens to trust? Set in the lands of Northeast Brazil, this is an account of the everyday experience of scarcity, sickness, and death that centres on the lives of the women and children of a hillside favela. Bringing her readers to the impoverished slopes above the modern plantation town of Bom Jesus de Mata, where she has worked on and off for 25 years, Nancy Scheper-Hughes follows three generations of shantytown women as they struggle to survive through hard work, cunning and triage.

It is a story of class relations told at the most basic level of bodies, emotions, desires and needs. Most disturbing – and controversial – is her finding that mother love, as conventionally understood, is something of a bourgeois myth, a luxury for those who can reasonably expect, as these women cannot, that their infants will live.

The Great Hunt

1990

by Robert Jordan

The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and pass. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow.

The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and go, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth returns again. In the Third Age, an Age of Prophecy, the World and Time themselves hang in the balance. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow.

For centuries, gleemen have told the tales of The Great Hunt of the Horn. Now the Horn itself is found: the Horn of Valere long thought only legend, the Horn which will raise the dead heroes of the ages. And it is stolen.

In pursuit of the thieves, Rand al'Thor is determined to keep the Horn out of the grasp of The Dark One. But he has also learned that he is The Dragon Reborn—the Champion of Light destined to stand against the Shadow time and again. It is a duty and a destiny that requires Rand to uncover and master extraordinary capabilities he never imagined he possessed.

The Eye of the World

1990

by Robert Jordan

The Eye of the World is the first novel in Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series, which has captivated millions of readers around the globe with its scope, originality, and compelling characters. The tale begins in the Third Age, an Age of Prophecy, where the World and Time themselves hang in the balance.

As the Wheel of Time turns, Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth returns again. But one truth yet remains, and what mortal men forget, the Aes Sedai do not...

Moiraine Damodred arrives in Emond's Field on a quest to find the one prophesized to stand against The Dark One, a malicious entity sowing the seeds of chaos and destruction. When a vicious band of half-men, half beasts invade the village seeking their master's enemy, Moiraine persuades Rand al'Thor and his friends to leave their home and enter a larger world filled with dangers waiting in the shadows and in the light.

What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow, setting the stage for an epic battle between good and evil.

Wild Seed

When two immortals meet in the long-ago past, the destiny of mankind is changed forever.

For a thousand years, Doro has cultivated a small African village, carefully breeding its people in search of seemingly unattainable perfection. He survives through the centuries by stealing the bodies of others, a technique he has so thoroughly mastered that nothing on Earth can kill him. But when a gang of New World slavers destroys his village, ruining his grand experiment, Doro is forced to go west and begin anew.

He meets Anyanwu, a centuries-old woman whose means of immortality are as kind as his are cruel. She is a shapeshifter, capable of healing with a kiss, and she recognizes Doro as a tyrant. Though many humans have tried to kill them, these two demi-gods have never before met a rival. Now they begin a struggle that will last centuries and permanently alter the nature of humanity.

Fahrenheit 451

1953

by Ray Bradbury

Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to burn books, which are forbidden, being the source of all discord and unhappiness. Even so, Montag is unhappy; there is discord in his marriage. Are books hidden in his house? The Mechanical Hound of the Fire Department, armed with a lethal hypodermic, escorted by helicopters, is ready to track down those dissidents who defy society to preserve and read books.

The classic dystopian novel of a post-literate future, Fahrenheit 451 stands alongside Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World as a prophetic account of Western civilization’s enslavement by the media, drugs and conformity.

Bradbury’s powerful and poetic prose combines with uncanny insight into the potential of technology to create a novel which, decades on from first publication, still has the power to dazzle and shock.

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