Life Is Tremendous

The enigmatic Nikola Tesla—stalked by his ever-present inner demons—invents the modern world. His astonishing story is that of a new-age god, a genius, a Zeus, a wonderful Wizard, yet a deeply troubled one. He tames the mysterious force called “electricity;” he dazzles the world with his endless inventions and discoveries; he blazes new paths in science that profoundly impact our daily lives; he turns fantasies into realities; his thought experiments disrupt scientific norms; he gives us many of the indispensable tools we use today; and famous actresses and chanteuses clamor for his attention as powerful men desire to be his friend . . . all before an astonished world. Yet all the while he keeps his own counsel, as he simultaneously struggles with the challenging consequences of bipolar disorder: flights of manic energy alternating with depressive depths of great despair. He shuns the clichés of a quotidian life, while forever seeking to “lift the burdens from the shoulders of mankind.” It would become his lifelong leitmotif, but at what cost to him? The authors Marko Perko and Stephen M. Stahl, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc., propose a “new- style biography” entitled T E S L A: His Tremendous and Troubled Life. They will examine Nikola Tesla in a manner that has yet to be accomplished in publishing history―asking and answering the seminal question: Who was the real man with an extremely complex psyche/personality, who lived with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and a hyperthymic temperament spilling over at times into high flying bipolar mania and then crashing into devastating depression—and not simply the iconoclastic scientist who invented the modern world?

Once upon a time there was a war . . . and a young American who thought of himself as the Quiet American and the Ugly American, and who wished to be neither, who wanted instead to be the Wise American, or the Good American, but who eventually came to witness himself as the Real American and finally as simply the Fucking American. That's me. This is the story of Skip Sands—spy-in-training, engaged in Psychological Operations against the Vietcong—and the disasters that befall him thanks to his famous uncle, a war hero known in intelligence circles simply as the Colonel. This is also the story of the Houston brothers, Bill and James, young men who drift out of the Arizona desert into a war in which the line between disinformation and delusion has blurred away. In its vision of human folly, and its gritty, sympathetic portraits of men and women desperate for an end to their loneliness, whether in sex or death or by the grace of God, this is a story like nothing in our literature. Tree of Smoke is Denis Johnson's first full-length novel in nine years, and his most gripping, beautiful, and powerful work to date. Tree of Smoke is the 2007 National Book Award Winner for Fiction.

Wilbur is sure he’s a loser: he spends his life being bullied, his best friend is 85 years old, and his only talent is playing the triangle in the school band. But things start to look up when he gets the chance to be part of the French exchange. Wilbur’s billet Charlie arrives to spend the week with him and his two moms . . . and it turns out that Charlie is a girl. An amazing, sophisticated, French girl who Wilbur instantly falls in love with. Keen to win her heart, Wilbur agrees to a total life makeover before he sees Charlie again on the return trip to Paris. But the course of true amour never did run smooth . . .