Water Politics

A classic since its first publication in 1863, The Water-Babies is the story of a little chimney sweep named Tom and his magical adventures beneath the waves. The ill-treated Tom flees his dangerous toil and his cruel master, Grimes. When he jumps into a cool stream to clean the soot off himself, he becomes a water-baby, cleaner and happier than he has ever been, in a hidden fairy world. There, Tom meets haughty dragonflies, makes friends with a slow-witted lobster, and dodges hungry otters.

In this extraordinary book, an acclaimed young war reporter chronicles a dangerous journey on the smuggler’s road to Europe, accompanying his friend, an Afghan refugee, in search of a better future.

Humans, unlike other animals that are drawn to water, are not natural-born swimmers. We must be taught. Our evolutionary ancestors learned for survival; now in the 21st century, we swim in freezing Arctic waters and piranha-infested rivers to test our limits. Swimming is an introspective and silent sport in a chaotic and noisy age; it’s therapeutic for both the mind and body; and it's an adventurous way to get from point A to point B. It's also one route to that elusive, ecstatic state of flow.

In this strange and wonderful book, thirty elders of the ancient Hopi tribe of Northern Arizona—a people who regard themselves as the first inhabitants of America—freely reveal the Hopi worldview for the first time in written form. The Hopi kept this view a secret for countless centuries, and anthropologists have long struggled to understand it. Now they record their myths and legends, and the meaning of their religious rituals and ceremonies as a gift to future generations.

Only once did David Foster Wallace give a public talk on his views on life, during a commencement address given in 2005 at Kenyon College. The speech is presented for the first time in audiobook form in This Is Water. How does one keep from going through their comfortable, prosperous adult life unconsciously? How do we get ourselves out of the foreground of our thoughts and achieve compassion? The speech captures Wallace's electric intellect as well as his grace in attention to others.

"Leave now, or die!" From the heart of the Midwest to the Deep South, from the mountains of North Carolina to the Texas frontier, words like these have echoed through more than a century of American history. The call heralded not a tornado or a hurricane, but a very unnatural disaster: a manmade wave of racial cleansing that purged black populations from counties across the nation.

Written by one of its own graduates, Class 11: Inside the CIA's First Post-9/11 Spy Class is an insider's view of the first CIA training class after September 11, 2001 - a look at the most elite and secretive espionage training program in the country.

David L. Robbins, author of the war classic War of the Rats, delivers another heart-stopping, deeply researched military adventure, this time right off today’s front pages. The US military’s most highly trained and elite unit is the US Air Force pararescuers, known as PJs. All battle-hardened vets, their motto is "That Others May Live". Their singular mission is CSAR: Combat Search and Rescue. But, off the Horn of Africa, one PJ unit is tasked with a desperate assignment that goes against its oath: Take down a cargo ship full of secrets that’s been captured by Somali pirates.

Let There Be Water illustrates how Israel can serve as a model for the United States and countries everywhere by showing how to blunt the worst of the coming water calamities. Even with 60 percent of its country made of desert, Israel has not only solved its water problem; it also has an abundance of water. Israel even supplies water to its neighbors - the Palestinians and the Kingdom of Jordan - every day.

The work of archaeology uncovers fascinating vestiges of humanity’s past, greatly enriching our knowledge of our ancestors and ourselves. Over the last century, archaeologists have increasingly ventured underwater, making spellbinding finds and opening an incredible new frontier for archaeological discovery. In the 12 delightful and eye-opening lectures of Underwater Archaeology: Mysteries of the Deep, Professor Lemke, an expert underwater archaeologist working in the field, invites you to discover astonishing treasures of history that lie beneath the waves.

In 1937, a schoolteacher on the island of Maui challenged a group of poverty-stricken sugar plantation kids to swim upstream against the current of their circumstance. The goal? To become Olympians. They faced seemingly insurmountable obstacles. The children were Japanese-American, were malnourished and barefoot, and had no pool; they trained in the filthy irrigation ditches that snaked down from the mountains into the sugarcane fields.

What happens when a man of today's overconnected world sets off alone across the Pacific at the age of 71? Christian Williams, a veteran sailor and writer, planned a 6,000-mile voyage as a test of his own seamanship and endurance, and to fulfill a lifelong goal. But he found his focus quickly turning from the surrounding sea to all of us. Is anyone the same person when no one else is there? Do we dare to find out?

As the ongoing Flint water crisis marks its tenth anniversary, Chariton reveals shocking new evidence of the major government cover-up that resulted in the poisoning of Flint—and shatters what you think you know about what caused the water crisis.

Black ops specialist Aubrey Sentro may be one concussion away from death. But when pirates seize the cargo ship she’s on, she must decide whether to risk her life to save her fellow passengers. Sentro’s training takes over, and she’s able to elude her captors, leaving bodies in her wake. But her problems are just getting started. Her memory lapses are getting more frequent, symptoms of serial-concussion syndrome. As she plays a deadly game of cat and mouse with the pirates, she pushes herself to survive by focusing on thoughts of her children.

New York Times best-selling author Seth Siegel tells how contaminants got in our drinking water, what they’re doing to us, and what we must do to make our water safe.

Science Be Dammed is an alarming reminder of the high stakes in the management - and perils in the mismanagement - of water in the Western United States. It seems deceptively simple: Even when clear evidence was available that the Colorado River could not sustain ambitious dreaming and planning by decision-makers throughout the 20th century, river planners and political operatives irresponsibly made the least sustainable and most dangerous long-term decisions.

This audio adaptation focuses primarily on Martin Luther King, Jr. and the key moments that defined his rise to the forefront of the civil rights movement. From Rosa Parks' monumental arrest in Montgomery to King's imprisonment in Birmingham and his triumphant march on Washington, Taylor Branch provides an unsurpassed portrait of King's rise to greatness.

A violent enemy has America in its grasp. An illegitimate government demands control. Even a revolution might not be enough to avoid doomsday. ICA terrorists appear to be in charge of America’s destiny. Though a far more alarming adversary is vying for absolute power. As American freedoms are being stolen daily, a revolution is in the works. But will it be in time? One last battle will decide who controls what's left of America. Yet if the survivors win, they could still lose everything. Zero hour is here.

This Stoicism audiobook collection contains three of the most influential Stoic pieces. Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus helped to shape Stoicism with their writings of "Meditations", "On the Shortness of Life", and "Enchiridion".

At least thirteen million Americans will have to move away from American coasts in the coming decades, as rising sea levels and increasingly severe storms put lives at risk and cause billions of dollars in damages. In Charleston, South Carolina, denial, boosterism, widespread development, and public complacency about racial issues compound; the city, like our country, has no plan to protect its most vulnerable. Susan Crawford tells the story of a city that has played a central role in America's painful racial history for centuries and now stands at the intersection of climate and race.