The final novel in the acclaimed Elemental Logic series finds Karis G’deon and her sprawling family once more imperiled, this time by the legacy of violence that threatens to unravel the fragile peace they have woven across their land. Laurie Marks’ Elemental Logic series introduced readers in Fire Logic to the realm of Shaftal, an intricately imagined land whose people operate within the boundaries of their basic natures—here defined as logics—which sometimes bequeath them with access to magical, elemental powers and sometimes embroil them in unsolvable internal conflicts. In Air Logic, Karis and those who love her must figure out, in the aftermath of war and an assassination attempt, how to bring together Sainnites and Shaftali in a country where old wounds and enmities fester and Air magic conceals the treason hidden in the heart of the G’deon’s household. When Medric is taken hostage to force Karis’s hand, a strange boy will guide Zanja to the place where she may yet save him. A mother must remember the son she has been made to forget, and Air children will find what their place in the world may yet be.

As industrial processes become more and more automated, Air Logic Control (ALC) becomes increasingly important. As the use of ALC becomes more widespread, the need for designers, engineers, and technicians with a working knowledge of ALC technology grows significantly. Air Logic Control for Automated Systems provides the means for anyone involved with control systems to acquire the knowledge and skills they need to implement and maintain ALC for automated manufacturing. The author focuses on the two types of ALC most often encountered: fluidics and Moving Parts Logic (MPL). He provides a thorough background on the subject, including the properties of compressible fluids, the fundamentals of pneumatics, and the fundamentals of logic systems, then delves into both moving parts and non-moving parts concepts and components. He discusses signal transmission, communications, electrical and electronic devices, plus the symbology, schematics, and flow diagrams related to ALC, and offers a complete overview of ALC system design. With this background established, the author presents three case studies of increasing complexity: a press control system, a parts sorting system, and a bottle filling system. These studies each offer a different approach to problem-solving and together they illustrate the alternative methods available in practice. Air Logic Control for Automated Systems thus offers technicians, engineers, and designers the foundation for understanding ALC. Armed with this knowledge, they are equipped to handle any number of implementation, programming, maintenance, and troubleshooting tasks with confidence.

"Beautifully written."—Publishers Weekly, starred review The martial Sainnites have occupied Shaftal for fifteen years. Every year the cost of resistance rises. Emil, an officer and scholar; Zanja, a diplomat and last survivor of her people; and Karis, a metalsmith, half-blood giant, and an addict, can only watch as their country falls into lawlessness and famine. Together, perhaps they can change the course of history. Laurie J. Marks' first two Elemental Logic novels (Fire Logic and Earth Logic) both won the Gaylactic Spectrum Award and received multiple starred reviews. She lives in Boston, Massachusetts, and teaches at the University of Massachusetts.

The second book in the Elemental Logic series, Earth Logic continues the story from the perspective of Karis, a complex character born of magic and now ruler for the country of Shaftal. Karis is a woman who can heal the war-torn land and expel the invaders, but she lives in obscurity with her fractious found family. With war and disease spreading, Karis must act quickly. And when Karis acts, the very stones of the earth sit up and take notice. “Another stunner of a book. The powerful but subtle writing glows with intelligence.” —Booklist

By water logic, a cow doctor becomes a politician. A soldier becomes a flower farmer. A lost book contains a lost future. The patterns of history are made and unmade. Amid assassinations, rebellions, and the pyres of too many dead, a new government forms in the land of Shaftal—a government of soldiers and farmers, scholars and elemental talents, all weary of war and longing for peace. But some cannot forget their losses, and some cannot imagine a place for themselves in an enemy land. Before memory, before recorded history, something happened that now must be remembered. Zanja na’Tarwein, the crosser of boundaries, born in fire and wedded to earth, has fallen under the ice. Now, by water logic, the logic of patterns repeated, of laughter and music, the lost must be found—or the found may forever be lost. Laurie J. Marks teaches at the University of Massachusetts Boston. She is the author of five previous novels, and her first two Elemental Logic novels (Fire Logic and Earth Logic) won the Gaylactic Spectrum Award and received multiple starred reviews. She is a recipient of the Fairy Godmother Award (James D. Tiptree, Jr. Award) and a founding member of Broad Universe.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • This inspiring, exquisitely observed memoir finds hope and beauty in the face of insurmountable odds as an idealistic young neurosurgeon attempts to answer the question What makes a life worth living? NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • People • NPR • The Washington Post • Slate • Harper’s Bazaar • Time Out New York • Publishers Weekly • BookPage Finalist for the PEN Center USA Literary Award in Creative Nonfiction and the Books for a Better Life Award in Inspirational Memoir At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naïve medical student “possessed,” as he wrote, “by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life” into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality. What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir. Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015, while working on this book, yet his words live on as a guide and a gift to us all. “I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything,” he wrote. “Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: ‘I can’t go on. I’ll go on.’” When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable, life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing death and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a brilliant writer who became both.