Books with author Brian Christian

What should we do, or leave undone, in a day or a lifetime? How much messiness should we accept? What balance of the new and familiar is the most fulfilling? These may seem like uniquely human quandaries, but they are not. Computers, like us, confront limited space and time, so computer scientists have been grappling with similar problems for decades. And the solutions they’ve found have much to teach us.In a dazzlingly interdisciplinary work, Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths show how algorithms developed for computers also untangle very human questions. They explain how to have better hunches and when to leave things to chance, how to deal with overwhelming choices and how best to connect with others. From finding a spouse to finding a parking spot, from organizing one’s inbox to peering into the future, Algorithms to Live By transforms the wisdom of computer science into strategies for human living.

After 10 years' service as a cryptographer with MI6 during the cold war, the extremely shy and reclusive George Withers becomes editor and compiler of the Sunday Times crossword. 30 years later and now in his 60's, an old MI6 colleague asks him to place a code within the Sunday Times cryptic crossword puzzle. George is totally unaware the code is a catalyst for a number of gruesome deaths around the world.The Serbian father of one of the victims discovers the puzzlemaker had something to do with his son's death, and goes on the hunt. Georges' quiet world of puzzles changes into a nightmare hunt through the streets of London. While on the run he tries to decipher that last fatal cryptic code in the puzzle he got from his friend, who has now disappeared, and hopefully save his own life and others near to him.

"Many artists seek to attain immortality through their art, but few would expect their work to outlast the human race and live on for billions of years. As Canadian poet Christian Bök has realized, it all comes down to the durability of your materials."—The GuardianInternationally best-selling poet Christian Bök has spent more than ten years writing what promises to be the first example of "living poetry." After successfully demonstrating his concept in a colony of E. coli, Bök is on the verge of enciphering a beautiful, anomalous poem into the genome of an unkillable bacterium (Deinococcus radiodurans), which can, in turn, "read" his text, responding to it by manufacturing a viable, benign protein, whose sequence of amino acids enciphers yet another poem. The engineered organism might conceivably serve as a post-apocalyptic archive, capable of outlasting our civilization.Book I of The Xenotext constitutes a kind of "demonic grimoire," providing a scientific framework for the project with a series of poems, texts, and illustrations. A Virgilian welcome to the Inferno, Book I is the "orphic" volume in a diptych, addressing the pastoral heritage of poets, who have sought to supplant nature in both beauty and terror. The book sets the conceptual groundwork for the second volume, which will document the experiment itself. The Xenotext is experimental poetry in the truest sense of the term.Christian Bök is the author of Crystallography (1994) and Eunoia (2001), which won the Griffin Poetry Prize. He teaches at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada.

I Hate GrayMiddle child caught between childhood and growing up with her suburban upbringing, and trying to chase her big city dreams. Her indecisiveness causes her to have anxiety. She doesn't want to be that way, she hates it but it is a big part of who she is. Battling anxiety, starting college, being in love or not for the first time and trying to maintain her relationship with God in a world she doesn't quit understand. Nothing seems black and white but gray. About The Author Christian Sandra-Elise Cook is from the suburbs of Detroit. At age 16, she graduated high school and then attended Columbia College Chicago. Here, she obtained a BA in Public Relations, and discovered her depth as a woman and a writer by taking various creative writing courses and using the city of Chicago as her campus. After being accepted into a writing program in Paris she rediscovered her passion for her first true love, writing. Paris was also Christian’s first time traveling outside of the United States and it opened her eyes to new experiences, a slower pace, and it made her question life as she understood it. Always curious, Christian discusses life, faith, and all the unexpected occurrences in between.

Cue the pretend drum-roll: Keats's parents have a big surprise. No, they're not having a new baby. It's -- wait for it, wait for it -- a family road trip! Okay, so this is not exactly the birthday present Keats had in mind (no iPod?!), but when Dad parks a rented RV in the Dalinger's driveway, Keats piles in with the rest of his family -- and the manny, of course -- bound for the open road. From the big skies of farm country to the bright lights of Las Vegas, this, in typical manny fabulousness, is an all-American adventure filled with more Glamour-dos than Glamour-don'ts. But a stopover at the manny's childhood home is making the manny feel not so fabulous. Why can't his parents ever accept him for who he is? And Keats, at first, sees their point. Why does the manny always have to be so interesting? Hit the road for more manny shenanigans, where it's all about Elton John, Diet Coke, and being brave enough to be yourself.

I Hate GrayMiddle child caught between childhood and growing up with her suburban upbringing, and trying to chase her big city dreams. Her indecisiveness causes her to have anxiety. She doesn't want to be that way, she hates it but it is a big part of who she is. Battling anxiety, starting college, being in love or not for the first time and trying to maintain her relationship with God in a world she doesn't quit understand. Nothing seems black and white but gray. About The Author Christian Sandra-Elise Cook is from the suburbs of Detroit. At age 16, she graduated high school and then attended Columbia College Chicago. Here, she obtained a BA in Public Relations, and discovered her depth as a woman and a writer by taking various creative writing courses and using the city of Chicago as her campus. After being accepted into a writing program in Paris she rediscovered her passion for her first true love, writing. Paris was also Christian’s first time traveling outside of the United States and it opened her eyes to new experiences, a slower pace, and it made her question life as she understood it. Always curious, Christian discusses life, faith, and all the unexpected occurrences in between.

"Many artists seek to attain immortality through their art, but few would expect their work to outlast the human race and live on for billions of years. As Canadian poet Christian Bök has realized, it all comes down to the durability of your materials."—The GuardianInternationally best-selling poet Christian Bök has spent more than ten years writing what promises to be the first example of "living poetry." After successfully demonstrating his concept in a colony of E. coli, Bök is on the verge of enciphering a beautiful, anomalous poem into the genome of an unkillable bacterium (Deinococcus radiodurans), which can, in turn, "read" his text, responding to it by manufacturing a viable, benign protein, whose sequence of amino acids enciphers yet another poem. The engineered organism might conceivably serve as a post-apocalyptic archive, capable of outlasting our civilization.Book I of The Xenotext constitutes a kind of "demonic grimoire," providing a scientific framework for the project with a series of poems, texts, and illustrations. A Virgilian welcome to the Inferno, Book I is the "orphic" volume in a diptych, addressing the pastoral heritage of poets, who have sought to supplant nature in both beauty and terror. The book sets the conceptual groundwork for the second volume, which will document the experiment itself. The Xenotext is experimental poetry in the truest sense of the term. Christian Bök is the author of Crystallography (1994) and Eunoia (2001), which won the Griffin Poetry Prize. He teaches at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada.

Cue the pretend drum-roll: Keats's parents have a big surprise. No, they're not having a new baby. It's -- wait for it, wait for it -- a family road trip! Okay, so this is not exactly the birthday present Keats had in mind (no iPod?!), but when Dad parks a rented RV in the Dalinger's driveway, Keats piles in with the rest of his family -- and the manny, of course -- bound for the open road. From the big skies of farm country to the bright lights of Las Vegas, this, in typical manny fabulousness, is an all-American adventure filled with more Glamour-dos than Glamour-don'ts. But a stopover at the manny's childhood home is making the manny feel not so fabulous. Why can't his parents ever accept him for who he is? And Keats, at first, sees their point. Why does the manny always have to be so interesting? Hit the road for more manny shenanigans, where it's all about Elton John, Diet Coke, and being brave enough to be yourself.

A brief guide to Christianity based on the teachings of the new testament.Some excerpts:"However believing in God today is more relevant than ever. Christianity and the message of Jesus Christ is all about our relationship with the people around us.""Those who believe and imitate Jesus Christ in the showing of love to others essentially are guaranteed their own resurrection and spiritual continuity after death. There is life after death (salvation) for all who follow Jesus Christ in their behavior and treatment of others.""Of course certain things have changed in the last 2000 years. When the new testament was written women 's rights were different to what they are now. Also beliefs in premarital sex and gay rights have changed. So some of the material in the new testament is old fashioned. However this is no reason to dismiss the whole text."