NCW Libraries

"Before the trials, WICKED found Thomas, the perfect boy, to help them build the Maze and find the cure for the Flare, a disease that plagues the world. But the truth of what is really going on is a secret and Thomas must uncover it before time runs out"--

"During the long centuries of Iberian and British imperial rule, the quest for new forms of energy led to the development of the colonial sugar plantation as a uniquely profitable kind of commerce. In a time when issues of race and social justice have arisen with pressing urgency, the book explains how the plantation's extraordinary profitability relied on a production system that literally worked the slaves to death, creating an insatiable appetite...

"When the sky breaks apart and an earthquake shatters the seaside city of Sharis, cartographer Rukha Masreen is far from home. Caught in the city's ruins with only her tools and her wits, she meets a traveling companion who will change her course forever: the wizard Eshu, who stumbles out of a mirror with hungry ghosts on his heels. He's everything that raises her hackles: high-strung, grandiloquent, stubborn as iron. But he needs to get home, too,...

"A powerful rumination on how we can draw on historical examples of "survivor power" to understand the upheaval and death caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and collectively heal"--

"Global warming, loss of biodiversity, and toxic chemicals are undermining the ability of the planet to support complex life. Routinely overlooked in causing our current predicament is that several million years of evolution has predisposed Homo sapiens, both anatomically and behaviorally, to vanishing.A former endangered species biologist looks at the ongoing sixth extinction through the prism of human behavior, personal experience, ecology, evolutionary...

The destruction was unimaginable. Workers in nearby factories watched with horror as the Pemberton Mill buckled and then collapsed, trapping more than six hundred workers, many of them women and children. Word of the disaster spread quickly and volunteers rushed to the scene. As survivors called out for help, a lantern fell, and within minutes fire engulfed the building, burning those trapped inside. It took days for rescuers to complete the grim...

The story and personal accounts of 1992's Hurricane Andrew provide a backdrop for learning about hurricanes in general and the devastation they can cause. This book also examines the dynamics of hurricanes, the role of meteorologists, and the importance of timely, efficient relief operations in a hurricane aftermath. Includes a chronology that tracks Andrew's path, and a timeline of other major U.S. hurricanes.

Get the Summary of Manjula Martin's The Last Fire Season in 20 minutes. Please note: This is a summary & not the original book. "The Last Fire Season" by Manjula Martin is a deeply personal and reflective account of living amidst the threat of wildfires in Northern California. Martin, awakened by a dry lightning storm, prepares to evacuate her forested hillside home, packing essentials and relying on a local volunteer fire department for protection....

In late September 1989, South Carolina was rocked by the colossal force of Hurricane Hugo. A category four hurricane, Hugo devastated the coast and other regions of the state, claiming dozens of lives and causing billions of dollars in damage. Hugo was the Palmetto State's most destructive natural disaster in recent memory, but the story of that storm is only part of the larger history of hurricanes in South Carolina. Hurricane Destruction in South...

More than two thousand ships have been lost along California's 840 miles of coastline--Spanish galleons, passenger liners, freighters, schooners. Some tragedies are marking points in U.S. maritime history. The "City of Rio de Janeiro," bound from Hong Kong to San Francisco in 1901, sliced the fog only to strike a rock and sink in twenty minutes, sending 128 passengers to watery graves. Seven U.S. Navy destroyers, bound on a fateful 1923 night from...