If you were a fish would you know you lived in water? When it comes to cognitive science the average person shrugs and rolls their eyeballs. It’s hard to care about something that seems so esoteric, but what if I told you your mind was shaped by something so sublime that you’d be hard pressed to grasp the full implications. WARNING, the medium your thoughts swim through IS NOT your own!Thanks to scientists like Dr. John Searle, Mills Professor of the Philosophy of Mind and Language at University of California- Berkeley, some key points about us Homo sapiens have been established. These points are rather remarkable. It turns out that the big step between civilization and more primitive forms of human society is written language. He says writing constitutes civilization. It is the infrastructure of civilization itself. Writing is a virtual reality environment for the human mind. The key word is virtual. It has affected who we are, how we think, how we remember, how we organize. We aren’t born with it. Homo sapiens must learn how to live as civilized human beings. Advanced forms of civilization, such as killing others because we disagree with them, marriage, or becoming a newspaper editor, are only possible because of written language. Written language shapes our cognition. What does this mean?

Sutherland Saga Part 2. When Lady Margaret Sutherland holds a farewell party on the eve of the Battle of Britain, deceitful events of that night will echo throughout World War II, thereby leading to heinous crimes that will change the lives of those present forever. In the end, not only will the Earldom of Winston be affected, but the course of the entire war will be irrevocably altered.Set against the backdrop of world-changing events of the twentieth century, the Sutherland Saga consists of a sequence of four novels, each of which chronicles one generation of the Earldom of Winston. In Of War and Women, Part 2 of the series, twenty-three year old Trant Sutherland, heir to the Earldom of Winston, is cajoled by his mother, Lady Margaret Sutherland, into hosting a farewell party for the airmen of his flying squadron shortly before the Battle of Britain. During the party Trant is introduced to several intriguing young ladies, including Annabeth Fletcher, herself a member of the peerage. But on that night a deception will occur that will profoundly alter the lives of those present. Later serving with distinction in North Africa, Trant will cross paths with the French ingénue Felicité Delacroix and her fellow Oxford student Maryann, both of whom had been present at the farewell party. And as the war progresses, events of that night will have mounting repercussions, inevitably leading to espionage, incarceration, mayhem, and finally - murder. In the end, not only the Earldom of Winston, but the outcome of the war itself will hinge on the events of that night. But will it be for better or worse, and what of the lives of those women who fought so valiantly for us?

High upon the peak of Crater Mountain lives a Legend. Something lurks in the wild. It's large and hairy, walking on two legs like a man, but definitely not a man. It's a savage creature… A Sasquatch!Re-trace the steps of one of history’s mightiest legends, the Sasquatch. Standing a monstrous, fourteen feet tall and weighing nine hundred pounds, Gurchukk is looking for you.High upon the peak of Crater Mountain lives a Legend. Something lurks in the wild. It's large and hairy, walking on two legs like a man, but definitely not a man. It's a savage creature… A Sasquatch!Re-trace the steps of one of history’s mightiest legends, the Sasquatch. Standing a monstrous, fourteen feet tall and weighing nine hundred pounds, Gurchukk finds himself with the responsibility of raising a four year old girl.At the foot of Crater Mountain, in the little town of Seaton Portage, a new comer, Trevor, with his heart full of hopes and dreams for a new and prosperous life, soon finds himself ensnared in a world of terror and discovery as he fights to survive the mysterious creature of Crater Mountain.Share the lives and perspectives of some very earthly characters, along with some not so earthly. Immerse yourself in the Sasquatch mythology with the first installment of this incredible tale.

Part seven of the 'Light & Darkness' series, with songs from end of summer and fall of 2012.ChiarOscuro Episode Two The Winds (Words 5,734)The City of Lemekia, right on the Eastern border of Aludin, faces the tides of war of an old enemy. The city is evacuating with only a few citizens left as tensions rise and soldiers start to strengthen the city. Meanwhile a small group embark on a small mission...SERIESChiarOscuro is an ongoing online fantasy series being published at https://chiaroscuroseries.wordpress.com/. Taking place in an alternate world where humanity is just discovering it's full potential after nearly being brought to extinction five millenia ago, the darkness that once threatened humanity has returned, seemingly with the intention to finish what they failed to do 5,000 years ago.ChiarOscuro is made up of 'Books' each one containing an Episode (these normally span a week or two) and a chapter is released throughout the duration of an episode. The official site will be the first place to find the newly released chapters at first, as well as extra pieces that delve deeper into the lore, world and characters of ChiarOscuro and once the Episode has concluded, it will be shortly be available as a single 'Book' to read in full.So follow a small select few in this time where the world's and humanity's certain is uncertain and travel with them to meet many different cultures, people, beliefs, customs through deserts, mountains, the city of nine walls and even the parts of the world the human eye cannot see...SERIES SUMMARYTaking place in a world where at the dawn of human civilisation, a catastrophe struck nearly bringing humanity to extinction and close to forever changing the world as we know it.They called them Demons, twisted, ruthless creatures with no seemingly other drive than to conquer all those weaker than them as they were the strongest and fittest and Earth seemed close to falling into the hands of these strange beings, who came to our world with no warning and legends speak of skies literally tearing open as Demons invaded our world.However, humanity as it always seems to do, fought back and though most of the people living at that time were forever lost, the Demons were defeated, the remaining leaving this world or scattered as they fled the humans only hours before they had been slaughtering mercilessly.It’s been 5,000 years since those events, though many dismiss the tale as legend and humanity has only recently started picking up again, there have been some strange reports recently across Aludin and with the mysterious Decabia to the east, the era of peace may soon be coming to the end and new heroes will have to answer the call to defend humanity’s flame once again, as they did so 5,000 years ago.

A collection of poems about love, faith, strength, and life that everyone can relate to.Caelfel Gyssedlues is a young she-elf at seventy-six years old, the youngest known elf in her woodland city. A highly skilled archer, she was picked to join a certain hunting party to defend their forest from goblins. All is well until she chances upon Feraan, the most hated elf of the Honey Water Empire. She breaks royal decree by saving his life and finds herself constantly at odds with her people and a dangerous tracker. She is often forced to defend herself and her family simply because of her decision. Meanwhile, she finds herself becoming closer to Feraan, perhaps even falling in love, but the longer she knows him, the more apparent it becomes that Feraan's enemies reach beyond their elvenkind. Soon those enemies come searching for him too, putting Caelfel's life in even more danger.

Originally published in 1986 in the Vintage Contemporaries paperback series—and reissued now in hardcover alongside his masterful new novel, Empire Falls—Richard Russo’s Mohawk remains today as it was described then: A first novel with all the assurance of a mature writer at the peak of form and ambition, Mohawk is set in upstate New York and chronicles over a dozen lives in a leather town, long after the tanneries have started closing down. Ranging over three generations—and clustered mainly in two clans, the Grouses and the Gaffneys—these remarkably various lives share only the common human dilemmas and the awesome physical and emotional presence of Mohawk itself. For this is a town like Winesburg, Ohio or Our Town, in our time, that encompasses a plethora of characters, events and mysteries. At once honestly tragic and sharply, genuinely funny, Mohawk captures life, then affirms it. From the Hardcover edition.

First found contentedly chatting in their London clubs and shopping at Fortnum's, the cozy bachelors (as any Spark reader might guess) are not set to stay cozy for long. Soon enough, the men are variously tormented — defrauded or stolen from; blackmailed or pressed to attend horrid séances — and then plunged, all together, into the nastiest of lawsuits. At the center of that suit hovers pale, blank Patrick Seton, the medium. Meanwhile, horrors of every size plague the poor bachelors — from the rising price of frozen peas ("Your hand's never out of your pocket") to epileptic fits, forgeries, spiritualists foaming with protoplasm, and murder. And every horror delights: each is lit up by Spark's uncanny wit — at once malicious, funny, and deadly serious.

A literary sensation and bestseller both in England and America, The Swimming-Pool Library is an enthralling, darkly erotic novel of homosexuality before the scourge of AIDS; an elegy, possessed of chilling clarity, for ways of life that can no longer be lived with impunity. "Impeccably composed and meticulously particular in its observation of everything" (Harpers & Queen), it focuses on the friendship of two men: William Beckwith, a young gay aristocrat who leads a life of privilege and promiscuity, and the elderly Lord Nantwich, an old Africa hand, searching for someone to write his biography and inherit his traditions. From the Trade Paperback edition.

In 1886, the Ihalmiut people of northern Canada numbered seven thousand; by 1946, when Farley Mowat began his two-year stay in the Arctic, the population had fallen to just forty. With them, he observed for the first time the phenomenon that would inspire him for the rest of his life: the millennia-old migration of the Arctic's caribou herds. He also endured bleak, interminable winters, suffered agonizing shortages of food, and witnessed the continual, devastating intrusions of outsiders bent on exploitation. Here, in this classic and first book to demonstrate the mammoth literary talent that would produce some of the most memorable books of the next half-century, best-selling author Farley Mowat chronicles his harrowing experiences. People of the Deer is the lyrical ethnography of a beautiful and endangered society. It is a mournful reproach to those who would manipulate and destroy indigenous cultures throughout the world. Most of all, it is a tribute to the last People of the Deer, the diminished Ihalmiuts, whose calamitous encounter with our civilization resulted in their unnecessary demise.

Donald McCaig’s heartwarming and suspenseful novel about a sheepdog’s devotion to his master and his job is a modern classic that James Herriot hailed as “poignant, authentic, and beautiful” On Christmas Day, Virginia livestock farmer Lewis Burkholder and Nop, his black-and-white border collie, go out to feed the sheep. But the holiday is shattered when Nop fails to return home. Stolen by two hardened criminals who see in the young stock dog a $300 payday, Nop suffers abuse and brutality as he courageously adapts to his new life, which holds no shortage of surprises. At the same time, Lewis refuses to believe that his beloved dog is gone for good. His determination to be reunited with Nop—and Nop’s own unswerving loyalty—reveals the depth and strength of the bond that can exist between humans and dogs.