![]() ![]() We’re limited by the information at hand, our previous behaviors and results, and the illusion of understanding what’s around us. Our sense of cause-and-effect is rudimentary at best. Simplicity is persuasive, after all.Īs humans, Avatar tells us, we have extremely limited understanding of our environments. Adam’s describes the technique as the skeptics creed: the most simple explanation is the correct one.Īdams’ uses this to whittle complex subjects into simple explanations. ![]() Occam’s Razor suggests that the simplest explanation of an event is likely the correct cause. More on this later, but we have to build up to it. The book’s title comes from the idea that an all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful, omnipotent God has no challenges in its life. You (the narrator) and Avatar hold a wide-ranging conversation about God, religion, science, and probability.Īlert! God’s Debris is a work of fiction. ![]() Scott Adams’ book God’s Debris introduces us, the reader and first-person narrator, to the world’s smartest person sitting in a rocking chair, Avatar. Same facts, it is more rational to use the simpler one. Never understand true reality, if two models both explain the ![]()
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![]() Their divorce, when it came, was a relief. He tried in vain to control Maud’s mother, a whirlwind of charisma and passion given to feverish projects: thirty rescue cats, and a church in the family’s living room where she performed exorcisms. Maud’s father, an aerospace engineer turned lawyer, was a book-smart man who extolled the virtues of slavery and obsessed over the “purity” of his family bloodline, which he traced back to the Revolutionary War. Mental illness and religious fanaticism percolated through Maud’s maternal lines, to an ancestor accused of being a witch in Puritan-era Massachusetts. Her mother’s grandfather killed a man with a hay hook and died in a mental institution. Her mother’s father, who came of age in Texas during the Great Depression, was said to have married thirteen times and been shot by one of his wives. Maud Newton’s ancestors have vexed and fascinated her since she was a girl. An acclaimed writer goes searching for the truth about her wildly unconventional Southern family–and finds that our obsession with ancestors opens up new ways of seeing ourselves. ![]() ![]() ![]() When Franny's dark secrets catch up with her, how much is she willing to risk for one more chance at redemption? Epic and intimate, heartbreaking and galvanizing, Charlotte McConaghy's Migrations is an ode to a disappearing world and a breathtaking page-turner about the possibility of hope against all odds.Ī Best Book of the Year ( TIME, Los Angeles Times, Library Journal, Goodreads, and more) But as Franny's history begins to unspool-a passionate love affair, an absent family, a devastating crime-it becomes clear that she is chasing more than just the birds. ![]() ![]() ![]() Franny talks her way onto a fishing boat, and she and the crew set sail, traveling ever further from shore and safety. Leaving behind everything but her research gear, she arrives in Greenland with a singular purpose: to follow the last Arctic terns in the world on what might be their final migration to Antarctica. "Visceral and haunting" ( New York Times Book Review) - "Hopeful" ( Washington Post) - "Powerful" ( Los Angeles Times) - "Thrilling" ( TIME) - "Tantalizingly beautiful" ( Elle) - "Suspenseful, atmospheric" ( Vogue) - "Aching and poignant" ( Guardian) - "Gripping" ( The Economist) Franny Stone has always been the kind of woman who is able to love but unable to stay. ![]() ![]() ![]() * The two unlikely lovers are thrown together in a cold Scottish castle by the reading of a last will and testament. Although Catriona fights the command of the Lady, all she gets for her efforts is a headache. Richard is definitely not the mild-mannered man Catriona had in mind, and even worse, he's English. The Lady firmly tells Catriona that the man who shall father her children is none other than Richard Cynster, better known throughout the land as "Scandal". Unfortunately, the spirit of the earth that protects the manor and its valley, the Lady of the Vale, has other plans. Beautiful Scotswoman Catriona Hennessy knows that she must eventually marry and so decides that she requires a mild-mannered, biddable husband, a man who will agree to father a daughter to inherit Casphairn Manor and who will leave her free to manage her holdings without interference. ![]() |