The twentieth century lies hundreds of years in humanity’s past. But the near-immortal citizens of the future yearn for the good old days—when people’s bodies were susceptible to death through disease and old age. Now, they immerse themselves in virtual reality time machines to explore the life-to-death arc that defined existence so long ago. Jacob Brewer is a virtual reality engineer, overseeing the time machine’s operation aboard the starship Aspera. But on the thousand-year voyage to Beta Hydrii, the eight-hundred member crew gets more reality than they expect when people entering the machine start to die.

A chronological compilation of twentieth-century world events in one volume—from the acclaimed historian and biographer of Winston S. Churchill. The twentieth century has been one of the most unique in human history. It has seen the rise of some of humanity’s most important advances to date, as well as many of its most violent and terrifying wars. This is a condensed version of renowned historian Martin Gilbert’s masterful examination of the century’s history, offering the highlights of a three-volume work that covers more than three thousand pages. From the invention of aviation to the rise of the Internet, and from events and cataclysmic changes in Europe to those in Asia, Africa, and North America, Martin examines art, literature, war, religion, life and death, and celebration and renewal across the globe, and throughout this turbulent and astonishing century.

The author describes the culture of mass death in the 20th century, from the battlefields of both World Wars to local disasters and organized famines, during which some 110 million have died.

Tracing the Great War through the Millennium Bug, 1999 through 1900, Dadaism through Scientology through Sierra Leonean bicycle riding and back, award-winning Czech author Patrik Ourednik explores the horror and absurdity of the twentieth century in an explosive deconstruction of historical memory. Europeana: A Brief History of the Twentieth Century opens on the beaches of Normandy in 1944, comparing the heights of different forces’ soldiers and considering how tall, long, or good at fertilizing fields the men’s bodies will be. Probing the depths of humanity and inhumanity, this is an account of history as it has never been told: “engaging, even frightening.” At once recreating and uncreating the twentieth century, Ourednik explores the connections across the decades between the disparate figures, events, and politics we thought we knew. Patrik Ourednik’s Europeana merits the author’s reputation as a giant of post-1989 Czech literature. Now translated into 33 languages, the book is a masterwork of cubism, a polymorphic monologue of statistics and movements and fine print and discoveries that evokes the deadpan absurdity of Kafka and the gallows humor of Hašek. Ourednik has created a mesmerizing, maddening account of the past, and his interrogation of “truth” and objectivity resonates now more than ever.

Carole Lombard was the very opposite of the typical 1930s starlet. A no-nonsense woman, she worked hard, took no prisoners and had a great passion for life. As a result, she became Hollywood's highest-paid star. From the outside, Carole's life was one of great glamour and fun, yet privately she endured much heartache. As a child, her mother moved Carole and her brothers across the country away from their beloved father. Carole then began a film career, only to have it cut short after a devastating car accident. Picking herself back up, she was rocked by the accidental shooting of her lover; a failed marriage to actor William Powell; and the sorrow of infertility during her marriage to Hollywood's King, Clark Gable. Lombard marched forward, promising to be positive. Sadly her life was cut short in a plane crash so catastrophic that pieces of the aircraft are still buried in the mountain today. In Carole Lombard, bestselling author Michelle Morgan accesses previously unseen documents to tell the story of a woman whose remarkable life and controversial death continues to enthral.

Every year since 1933 many of the world's leading intellectuals have met on Lake Maggiore to discuss the latest developments in philosophy, history, art and science and, in particular, to explore the mystical and symbolic in religion. The Eranos Meetings - named after the Greek word for a banquet where the guests bring the food - constitute one of the most important gatherings of scholars in the twentieth century. The book presents a set of portraits of some of the century's most influential thinkers, all participants at Eranos: Carl Jung, Erich Neumann, Mircea Eliade, Martin Buber, Walter Otto, Paul Tillich, Gershom Scholem, Herbert Read, Joseph Campbell, Erwin Schrodinger, Karl Kereyni, D.T. Suzuki, and Adolph Portmann. The volume presents a critical appraisal of the views of these men, how the exchange of ideas encouraged by Eranos influenced each, and examines the attraction of these esotericists towards authoritarian politics.