Annette M Long

Where do we come from? How did our ancestors settle this planet? How did the great historic civilizations of the world develop? How does a past so shadowy that it has to be painstakingly reconstructed from fragmentary, largely unwritten records nonetheless make us who and what we are?

These 36 lectures bring you the answers that the latest scientific and archaeological research and theorizing suggest about human origins, how populations developed, and the ways in which civilizations spread throughout the globe.

Godspeed Cedar Key isn't another end of the world book; it is a despite the end of the world book. Cedar Key is an island dangling off the western coast of Florida in the Gulf of Mexico. On a chilly February morning, the horizon across the bay is enveloped in a microsecond of piercing light, and in an instant the old world is gone forever. Fires burn on horizons around the planet but the heat eventually gives way to the creeping monotone of the skies. The gray sets in overhead and all around, determined to keep the sun away from the land and waters.

In the summer of 2022, Lee Berger lost 50 pounds in order to wriggle though impossibly small openings in the Rising Star cave complex in South Africa—spaces where his team has been unearthing the remains of Homo naledi, a proto-human likely to have coexisted with Homo sapiens some 250,000 years ago. Lead researcher Berger had never made his way into the dark, cramped, dangerous underground spaces where many of the naledi fossils had been found. Now he was ready to do so. Once inside the cave, Berger made shocking new discoveries that expand our understanding of this early hominid.

Miss Mildred Percy has no wish to go to London. Unfortunately, her niece, Belinda, has recently absconded from Nyth y Ddraig with 1) a newly hatched white dragon, 2) over a dozen (unhatched) dragon eggs, and 3) an extraordinary surfeit of hubris. All clues lead to London, and so Mildred and company have no choice but to follow her to town. But retrieving a hoard of dragon eggs in the middle of a vast city is no easy task, especially when confronted with such impediments as journalism, pelicans, and a certain Prince Regent.

Deborah Harkness first introduced the world to Diana Bishop, an Oxford scholar and witch, and vampire geneticist Matthew de Clermont in A Discovery of Witches. Drawn to each other despite long-standing taboos, these two otherworldly beings found themselves at the center of a battle for a lost, enchanted manuscript known as Ashmole 782. Since then, they have fallen in love, traveled to Elizabethan England, dissolved the Covenant between the three species, and awoken the dark powers within Diana’s family line.

The Discworld is in danger, heading towards a seemingly inevitable collision with a malevolent red star, its magic fading. It needs a hero, and fast. What it doesn't need is Rincewind, an inept and cowardly wizard who is still recovering from the trauma of falling off the edge of the world. Or Twoflower, the well-meaning tourist whose luggage has a mind (and legs) of its own.

A thrilling novel leading into the new CBS series, Una McCormack’s The Last Best Hope introduces you to brand-new characters featured in the life of beloved Star Trek captain Jean-Luc Picard—widely considered to be one of the most popular and recognizable characters in all of science fiction.

The second in beloved and bestselling fantasy grandmaster Sir Terry Pratchett's beloved Discworld novels starring the young witch Tiffany Aching. Tiffany Aching is ready to begin her apprenticeship in magic. She expects spells and magic—not chores and ill-tempered nanny goats! Surely there must be more to witchcraft than this. What Tiffany doesn't know is that an insidious, disembodied creature is pursuing her.

Stephen Oakwood is a young man on the edge of this hidden world. He has talent and potential, but turning that potential into magical power takes money, opportunity, and training. All Stephen has is a minimum wage job and a cat. But when a chance encounter with a member of House Ashford gets him noticed by the wrong people, Stephen is thrown in the deep end. For centuries, the vast corporations and aristocratic Houses of the magical world have grown impossibly rich and influential by hoarding their knowledge.

The new Discworld novel, the 40th in the series, sees the Disc's first train come steaming into town. Change is afoot in Ankh-Morpork. Discworld's first steam engine has arrived, and once again Moist von Lipwig finds himself with a new and challenging job.