The End Of Absence

Only one generation in history (ours) will experience life both with and without the Internet. For everyone who follows us, online life will simply be the air they breathe. Today, we revel in ubiquitous information and constant connection, rarely stopping to consider the implications for our logged-on lives. Michael Harris chronicles this massive shift, exploring what we’ve gained—and lost—in the bargain. In this eloquent and thought-provoking book, Harris argues that our greatest loss has been that of absence itself—of silence, wonder and solitude. It’s a surprisingly precious commodity, and one we have less of every year. Drawing on a vast trove of research and scores of interviews with global experts, Harris explores this “loss of lack” in chapters devoted to every corner of our lives, from sex and commerce to memory and attention span. The book’s message is urgent: once we’ve lost the gift of absence, we may never remember its value.

Soon enough, nobody will remember life before the Internet. What does this unavoidable fact mean? Those of us who have lived both with and without the crowded connectivity of online life have a rare opportunity. We can still recognize the difference between Before and After. We catch ourselves idly reaching for our phones at the bus stop. Or we notice how, midconversation, a fumbling friend dives into the perfect recall of Google. In this eloquent and thought-provoking book, Michael Harris argues that amid all the changes we're experiencing, the most interesting is the end of absence-the loss of lack. The daydreaming silences in our lives are filled; the burning solitudes are extinguished. There's no true "free time" when you carry a smartphone. Today's rarest commodity is the chance to be alone with your thoughts. Michael Harris is an award-winning journalist and a contributing editor at Western Living and Vancouvermagazines. He lives in Toronto, Canada.

Soon enough, nobody will remember life before the Internet. What does this unavoidable fact mean? Those of us who have lived both with and without the crowded connectivity of online life have a rare opportunity. We can still recognize the difference between Before and After. We catch ourselves idly reaching for our phones at the bus stop. Or we notice how, midconversation, a fumbling friend dives into the perfect recall of Google. In this eloquent and thought-provoking book, Michael Harris argues that amid all the changes we're experiencing, the most interesting is the end of absence-the loss of lack. The daydreaming silences in our lives are filled; the burning solitudes are extinguished. There's no true "free time" when you carry a smartphone. Today's rarest commodity is the chance to be alone with your thoughts. Michael Harris is an award-winning journalist and a contributing editor at Western Living and Vancouvermagazines. He lives in Toronto, Canada.

A missing daughter, her distraught mother. A foreign country. A history of deceit. When Dee's daughter, Corrie, decides to spend her gap year in Argentina, it seems like the perfect solution to their strained relationship. That is, until Corrie goes missing. Facing every mother's worst nightmare, Dee boards a plane from Australia to launch a frantic search. Four years later, Dee returns to Buenos Aires for what she concedes may be the last time. But on this visit, a fresh lead triggers a new search - one where Dee must place her trust in strangers to help her navigate the vibrant but often threatening city. Dee's search for Corrie is overshadowed by the fear that her failings as a mother may have had something to do with Corrie's disappearance. To what extent is Dee to blame? And is this a question that she will ever be able to answer? Traces of Absence is a stirring and thoughtful portrayal of parenthood, guilt, faith and hope. And of the redemptive power of simple human kindness.

Superb gothic storytelling takes readers on a terrifying journey into the mythic past, as a present-day family finds itself the subject of an unrelenting evil going back centuries It was a tragic accident. That's what his family told Joe Nightingale, but the boy is tormented by sinister visions of his mother's death. Seven months after the fatal car crash, the Nightingales learn they have inherited an old house from a distant relative, the reclusive Muriel Sutton. Hoping to escape the shadows of the past, they decide to spend the summer at Daecher's Mill--but darker shadows await them. Who are the guests that have been brought here over the years? Why did the late Muriel Sutton murder her little sister, Alice? Something is moving in the attic. It looks and sounds like a little girl, but its eyes are old and its voice runs like water. It is a weaver of shadows. A creature of Absence.

Strange occurrences, hidden pasts, and deeply-buried truths: The Absence will keep you gripped to the shocking finish! 1946. As a coastal village in southern England struggles to recover from the losses of war, it is rocked by the return of a man long hoped dead: the disfigured Marwood Clay. In a place where everybody hides a guilty past, and unspeakable past crimes lurk just beneath the surfaceÉ what terrible secrets has this exile brought back with him? And what happened during his absence? While Marwood struggles to rebuild his life, newcomer Dr. Robert Temple builds a strange house for himself, on the hill overlooking the town. Clay is consumed by a nightmarish past he cannot remember, Temple by visions of a future he cannot prevent. And then a young boy vanishes on Christmas DayÉ

In this ambitious book, acclaimed writer Marilynne Robinson applies her astute intellect to some of the most vexing topics in the history of human thought—science, religion, and consciousness. Crafted with the same care and insight as her award-winning novels, Absence of Mind challenges postmodern atheists who crusade against religion under the banner of science. In Robinson’s view, scientific reasoning does not denote a sense of logical infallibility, as thinkers like Richard Dawkins might suggest. Instead, in its purest form, science represents a search for answers. It engages the problem of knowledge, an aspect of the mystery of consciousness, rather than providing a simple and final model of reality.By defending the importance of individual reflection, Robinson celebrates the power and variety of human consciousness in the tradition of William James. She explores the nature of subjectivity and considers the culture in which Sigmund Freud was situated and its influence on his model of self and civilization. Through keen interpretations of language, emotion, science, and poetry, Absence of Mind restores human consciousness to its central place in the religion-science debate.

The Absence of Zero is a triumphantly-executed celebration of the Canadian tradition, the long poem. Consisting of 256 16-line quartets, and 34 free-form interruptions, this slow-moving haunting work is a beautiful example of "thinking in language," a meditation that explores time and memory in both content and form. The 20th century is already more than 20 years past: The Absence of Zero is Kolewe's elegy to that era, and the disparate fragments of its ideas that continue to affect and disrupt our present.