"When a baby is discovered floating in a basket along the canals of 1807 Venice, a guild of artisans takes him in and raises him as a son, skilled in each of their trades. Although the boy, Sebastien Trovato, has wrestled with questions of his origins, it isn't until a woman washes ashore his lagoon island that answers begin to emerge. In hunting down his story, Sebastien must make choices that could alter not just his own future, but that of the...

Twenty-five-year-old Steven faces a bleak life with a sadistic mother and a job at a slaughterhouse where he is confronted with extreme violence and death.

Contains twenty critical essays that explore themes of alienation in various works, such as Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener," Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451," Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway," and others.

"A revolutionary new understanding of identity, showing how our groups have a powerful influence on our feelings, beliefs, and behavior--and how these shared identities can inspire both personal change and social movements"-- Most people believe their identity is stable, but in fact it is constantly changing to reflect the interests of the groups you belong to. Van Bavel and Packer integrate their own cutting-edge research in psychology and neuroscience...

When his Indian immigrant parents give him an odd name, a boy must struggle towards manhood suffering the burdens of this name as well as the conflicting loyalties of his heritage.

We are profoundly social creatures. Here, renowned psychologist Matthew Lieberman explores groundbreaking research in social neuroscience revealing that our need to connect with other people is even more fundamental than our need for food or shelter. Because of this, our brain uses its spare time to learn about the social world--other people and our relation to them. He argues that our need to reach out to and connect with others is a primary driver...