A breathtakingly imaginative futuristic crime thriller.
 
Decades into the future, Indonesia’s crowded capital city is underwater. A mysterious novelist searches what remains of the metropolis for the story of an old, infamous crime. He combs the streets for traces of Gaspar: private-eye-cum-criminal-mastermind who plotted a seemingly simple robbery of a jewelry store. Far from just unlocking riches, however, the heist unearths a series of interlinking conflicts that have haunted Gaspar since childhood.

In this brilliant twist of genres, this book combines noir with a laugh-out-loud detective and touches of surreal science fiction. The book’s eclectic blend of allusions and narrative strategies opens new horizons for literary crime fiction while also painting a fresh, postmodern portrait of Jakarta. In a city webbed by roadways and canals, personal vendettas trace back to political crimes and social ills. First impressions can’t be trusted, meta-literary motorbikes possess free will, and a senile witness might be a police detective’s best bet at finding the true whodunnit—if we are to believe that a single truth exists at all. It is a chess game in which your knight no longer moves in the shape of an L, and Gaspar intends to win.
 

What does it mean to be a hero? The ancient Greeks who gave us Achilles and Odysseus had a very different understanding of the term than we do today. Based on the legendary Harvard course that Gregory Nagy has taught for well over thirty years, The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours explores the roots of Western civilization and offers a masterclass in classical Greek literature. We meet the epic heroes of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, but Nagy also considers the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the songs of Sappho and Pindar, and the dialogues of Plato. Herodotus once said that to read Homer was to be a civilized person. To discover Nagy’s Homer is to be twice civilized.

“Fascinating, often ingenious… A valuable synthesis of research finessed over thirty years.”
—Times Literary Supplement

“Nagy exuberantly reminds his readers that heroes—mortal strivers against fate, against monsters, and…against death itself—form the heart of Greek literature… [He brings] in every variation on the Greek hero, from the wily Theseus to the brawny Hercules to the ‘monolithic’ Achilles to the valiantly conflicted Oedipus.”
—Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Monthly

The ancient Greeks’ concept of “the hero” was very different from what we understand by the term today, Gregory Nagy argues—and it is only through analyzing their historical contexts that we can truly understand Achilles, Odysseus, Oedipus, and Herakles.

In Greek tradition, a hero was a human, male or female, of the remote past, who was endowed with superhuman abilities by virtue of being descended from an immortal god. Despite their mortality, heroes, like the gods, were objects of cult worship. Nagy examines this distinctively religious notion of the hero in its many dimensions, in texts spanning the eighth to fourth centuries bce: the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey; tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides; songs of Sappho and Pindar; and dialogues of Plato. All works are presented in English translation, with attention to the subtleties of the original Greek, and are often further illuminated by illustrations taken from Athenian vase paintings.

The fifth-century bce historian Herodotus said that to read Homer is to be a civilized person. In twenty-four installments, based on the Harvard University course Nagy has taught and refined since the late 1970s, The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours offers an exploration of civilization’s roots in the Homeric epics and other Classical literature, a lineage that continues to challenge and inspire us today.

An hourly guide that follows twenty-four birds as they find food, mates, and safety from predators.
 
From morning to night and from the Antarctic to the equator, birds have busy days. In this short book, ornithologist Mark E. Hauber shows readers exactly how birds spend their time. Each chapter covers a single bird during a single hour, highlighting twenty-four different bird species from around the globe, from the tropics through the temperate zones to the polar regions. We encounter owls and nightjars hunting at night and kiwis and petrels finding their way in the dark. As the sun rises, we witness the beautiful songs of the “dawn chorus.” At eleven o’clock in the morning, we float alongside a common pochard, a duck resting with one eye open to avoid predators. At eight that evening, we spot a hawk swallowing bats whole, gorging on up to fifteen in rapid succession before retreating into the darkness.
 
For each chapter, award-winning artist Tony Angell has depicted these scenes with his signature pen and ink illustrations, which grow increasingly light and then dark as our bird day passes. Working closely together to narrate and illustrate these unique moments in time, Hauber and Angell have created an engaging read that is a perfect way to spend an hour or two—and a true gift for readers, amateur scientists, and birdwatchers.

An illustrated hourly guide that spotlights twenty-four flowers as they attract pollinators, resist predators, and survive on our changing planet.

Is it 4 AM or chicory o’clock? In this short book, botanist and award-winning author Sandra Knapp walks us through a day in a global garden. Each chapter of Flower Day introduces a single flower during a single hour, highlighting twenty-four different species from around the world.

Beginning at midnight in the Americas, we spot the long tubular flowers of the moonflower, Ipomoea alba; they attract a frenzy of hawk moths before the dawn arrives and the flowers wither and collapse. As day breaks, dandelions and chicory open their heads—actually made up of many individual flowers tightly packed together—and flies and bees visit to get the energy they need to lay eggs and raise their young. Later, at eight o’clock in the morning, the sun rises over the watery Amazon basin, and we meet the giant waterlily, slowly turning from white to pink and purple. Trapped inside are the beetles who feasted on the flowers during the night. That evening, at seven o’clock, we travel to the Caribbean to smell night-blooming jessamine’s powerful—some may say nauseating—sweet scent. But this member of the nightshade family isn’t just a thing of beauty—it has a reputation as both a poison and invasive species, crowding out endangered native trees. 

For each hour in our flower day, celebrated artist Katie Scott has depicted these scenes with gorgeous pen-and-ink illustrations. Working closely together to narrate and illustrate these unique moments in time, Knapp and Scott have created an engaging read that is a perfect way to spend an hour or two—and a true gift for amateur botanists, gardeners, and anyone who wants to stop and appreciate the flowers.

An illustrated hourly guide that follows twenty-four frogs as they eat, find mates, care for their young, and survive our harsh and changing planet.
 
In this short book, celebrated biologist Marty Crump leads readers on a worldwide field trip in search of frogs. Each chapter of Frog Day covers a single frog during a single hour, highlighting how twenty-four different species spend their time. Our day begins at midnight in Indonesia, with the rustle of leaves above. It’s not a bird, but Wallace’s flying frog, using its webbed feet and emerald-green skin flaps to glide through the forest canopy. In the early hours of the morning, we hear a horned marsupial frog “bopping” and a wood frog “quacking” to attract mates. At six o’clock in the morning, beneath a streetlight in Honolulu, we meet a corpulent, invasive cane toad slurping insects—and sometimes snakes, lizards, turtles, birds, and mice. At noon, we watch parenting in action as an African bullfrog bulldozes a path through the mud to free his tadpoles from a drying pond. At dusk, in a Peruvian rain forest, we observe “the ultimate odd couple”—a hairy tarantula and what looks like a tiny amphibian pet taking shelter in the spider’s burrow. Other frogs make a tasty meal for this tarantula, but the dotted humming frog is a friend, eating the ants that might otherwise make a meal of the tarantula’s eggs.
 
For each hour in our Frog Day, award-winning artist Tony Angell has depicted these scenes with his signature pen and ink illustrations. Working closely together to narrate and illustrate these unique moments in time, Crump and Angell have created an engaging read that is a perfect way to spend an hour or two—and a true gift for readers, amateur scientists, and all frog fans.

An hourly guide that spotlights twenty-four fungus species as they spread spores, find food, and adapt to a changing planet.

On this mushroom-filled day, ecologist Alison Pouliot tours the world to introduce readers to a fascinating variety of fungi. Each chapter of Mushroom Day introduces a single fungus during a single hour, highlighting twenty-four different species.

In the dark of the night, the green glow of the ghost fungus guides us into the forest to learn about the mysteries of bioluminescence. At dawn, we awaken to find a fairy ring of mushrooms that has appeared overnight like something out of folklore. But we don’t have much time to linger, as we must reach the Italian forest before other porcino hunters forage the morning’s fattest and finest. In the heat of the afternoon, the ripe stench of the stinkhorn might send us out of the woods, while the enticing aroma of the aniseed funnel lures us back in. Late in the evening we spy a fungus known as the witches cauldron and wonder what it might tell us about the future. By the end of our mushroom day, we’ll have glimpsed the diversity of this unique kingdom, met fungus friends that feed and fascinate, and learned how humans can encourage their flourishing.

For each hour, celebrated artist Stuart Patience has depicted these scenes with evocative pen and ink illustrations. Working together to narrate and illustrate these unique moments in time, Pouliot and Patience have created an engaging read that is a perfect way to spend an hour or two—and a true gift for foragers, mycophiles, and anyone who wants to stop and appreciate fungi.

On Tuesday, October 24, 1944, nearly three years after the United States entered World War II, over 2,600 Americans perished—more than on any other single day of the conflict—yet the day remains overshadowed by more widely remembered dates in WWII history. Drawing from the accounts of men from diverse backgrounds who served in the U.S. Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Corps, Rona Simmons offers a gripping retelling of the fateful day, hour by hour and incident by incident. The book begins with Army Private First Class Paul Miller’s demise in a prisoner of war camp and ends with the death of Navy Seaman Second Class Wanza E. Matthews after the Japanese submarine I-56 attacked his ship off New Guinea. The sinking of the Japanese “hellship” Arisan Maru—a lesser-known tragedy of the war—looms large, deftly interwoven through each part of the narrative.
 
Perhaps the most compelling aspect of No Average Day is its attention to the human side of conflict, telling the stories of ordinary individuals—clerks, radio operators, cooks, sailors, machinist mates, riflemen, and pilots and their air crews—as they grapple with the horrors of the war. Despite its narrow focus, or perhaps because of it, No Average Day reveals the vastness of World War II through a consideration of the largely overlooked events that unfolded on what, for members of the US Armed Forces, was its deadliest day.

An hourly guide that follows twenty-four mollusks to reveal the fascinating lives behind their shells.

From morning to night and from the Arctic to the equator, snails, clams, and other shell-making mollusks have busy days. In this short book, acclaimed author and marine biologist Helen Scales shows readers exactly how these animals spend their time. Each chapter of Shell Day features a single mollusk during a single hour, highlighting twenty-four different species.

Far in the north, the Svalbard archipelago lies deep in the darkness of the polar night. And yet, in what remains a scientific mystery, Iceland scallops continue their daily rhythms, closing and opening their fan-shaped shells using an internal clock. At noon, we observe a clam shell sitting still on the seabed of a sandy tropical lagoon. The two shells open slightly, and a pair of rounded eyes peep out. A small, rust-colored coconut octopus hiding inside lets the clam shells fall apart and gathers them up in her arms. This mollusk’s ancestors long ago lost the ability to produce their own shells, but the cephalopod is happy to use another animal’s castoff as a temporary home. At ten that night, we find ourselves in Southern France. A male moon snail uses his huge, fleshy foot like a plow as he digs down into the seabed in search of food. When the moon snail finds a cockle, he swiftly smothers it, then sets about drilling, aided by a daub of acidic slime. Cockles are tasty, but so are other moon snails, and his snacking has a cannibalistic flavor.

For each chapter, illustrator and cartoonist Aaron John Gregory has depicted molluscan scenes with entrancing pen-and-ink drawings. Working together to narrate and illustrate these unique moments in time, Scales and Gregory have created an engaging read that is a perfect way to spend an hour or two—and a true gift for beachcombers, naturalists, or anyone eager to learn about the mollusks that make their favorite shells.

An hourly guide that follows twenty-four snakes as they find mates, hunt, and survive a changing world.

Does a snake crossing your path trigger delight or dread? The answer is clear for celebrated biologist Marty Crump, who shows us that snakes deserve our respect, admiration, and protection. In her short book Snake Day, each chapter introduces a single snake during a single hour, highlighting twenty-four different species from around the globe. 

In the dark morning of a Brazilian forest, we avoid stepping on a jararaca, a nocturnal viper. If she bites, her venom will make our blood pressure—and us—drop. A synthetic version of this venom is now a lifesaving drug, used to treat hypertension and heart failure. Later in the morning, in the Zagros Mountains that trace Iran’s northwest border, what appears to be a tiny arachnid wiggles on the ground. When a hungry warbler approaches for a meal, realizes too late that the spider is actually a snake’s tail, and an Iranian spider-tailed viper makes a meal of the bird. In the early afternoon, in a pine forest outside Atlanta, Georgia, an eastern hognose snake strikes at us—a bluff—and then rolls over and plays dead. By the end of our snake day, we’ll have glimpsed the diversity of this unique group of reptiles, met serpentine friends who frighten and fascinate, and learned how humans can protect these amazing species.

For each hour, celebrated artist Stuart Patience has depicted serpentine scenes in stunning pen-and-ink drawings. Working together to narrate and illustrate these unique moments in time, Crump and Patience have created an engaging read that is a perfect way to spend an hour or two—and a true gift for amateur scientists or anyone who recoils at or relishes the sight of a snake.

An hourly guide that spotlights twenty-four trees as they root, flower, and host diverse forest life.

In this short book, treetop explorer Meg Lowman guides us through a global forest. Each chapter of Tree Day introduces a single tree during a single hour, highlighting twenty-four species from around the world.

In the dark of Yemen’s night, it is too early to see the red sap from which the dragon’s blood tree gets its name. But if we watch closely, we will see nocturnal geckos carry the trees’ pollen in their snouts. Later, in the Pacific Northwest, we climb the world’s tallest species, the coastal redwood. The morning fog is a reminder that redwoods absorb water through their roots and canopies, helping them survive such heights. The sun is already low in the sky on an autumn afternoon. Given the darkness of this New England forest, the sugar maple’s leaves have stopped producing chlorophyll that converts light into energy—and green gives way to vivid crimson foliage. After many hours of boiling, the maple sap makes delicious maple syrup. As the sun sets in Mexico, we observe the origin of another treat, chocolate. The cocoa tree’s flowers sprout along its trunk and branches, allowing easy access for tiny insects like midges that pollinate the tree and start the process of making delicious food for humans, monkeys, bats, and squirrels. By the end of our tree day, we will understand that trees are the silent caretakers of our planet, providing us with medicines, foods, machinery for making fresh water and oxygen, and more.

For each hour, celebrated artist Thibaud Hérem has depicted these trees with gorgeous pen and ink illustrations. Working together to narrate and illustrate these unique moments in time, Lowman and Hérem have created an engaging read that is a perfect way to spend an hour or two—and a true gift for anyone who has ever looked up at a tree in wonder.