The Buried Soul: How Humans Invented Death

Biographies & Memoirs

Taylor, Timothy

Professionals & Academics

Fourth Estate

A breakthrough theory that tools and technology are the real drivers of human evolution
Although humans are one of the great apes, along with chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans, we are remarkably different from them. Unlike our cousins who subsist on raw food, spend their days and nights outdoors, and wear a thick coat of hair, humans are entirely dependent on artificial things, such as clothing, shelter, and the use of tools, and would die in nature without them. Yet, despite our status as the weakest ape, we are the masters of this planet. Given these inherent deficits, how did humans come out on top?
In this fascinating new account of our origins, leading archaeologist Timothy Taylor proposes a new way of thinking about human evolution through our relationship with objects. Drawing on the latest fossil evidence, Taylor argues that at each step of our species' development, humans made choices that caused us to assume greater control of our evolution. Our appropriation of objects allowed us to walk upright, lose our body hair, and grow significantly larger brains. As we push the frontiers of scientific technology, creating prosthetics, intelligent implants, and artificially modified genes, we continue a process that started in the prehistoric past, when we first began to extend our powers through objects.
Weaving together lively discussions of major discoveries of human skeletons and artifacts with a reexamination of Darwin's theory of evolution, Taylor takes us on an exciting and challenging journey that begins to answer the fundamental question about our existence: what makes humans unique, and what does that mean for our future?

The Artificial Ape: How Technology Changed the Course of Human Evolution (MacSci)

Politics & Social Sciences

Archaeology

St.Martin's Press

From one of Canada’s finest writers comes a masterful novel about the clash of art and advertising, the cultish grip of celebrity and the intense connections that can form in times of crisis. An unidentified man storms a television studio where KiddieFame, a controversial children’s talent show wherein kids who are too talented are “killed off,” is being filmed. He is armed with an explosive device, and issues only a single demand: an interview with journalist Thom Pegg. It’s a strange request, everyone agrees. A disgraced former investigative journalist, caught fabricating sources, Pegg is down on his luck and working for a lowly tabloid. The demand surprises everyone – Pegg most of all, and he is reluctant to play a role. But pressure from federal authorities leaves little choice, and so it is that Thom Pegg finds himself the envy of all the high-level journalists on hand as he makes his way into the darkened studio to uncover the truth. Outside, as the hostage taking heads into its third day, enthralled and horrified onlookers watch the drama unfold through a constant stream of media speculation and rumours that race through the crowd. In the throes of this crisis two characters – one running from former glory and the other from corporate burnout – meet and instinctively connect. Eve is an Olympic gold medalist and much-loved local daughter who jogs the city’s streets at night and searches for her long-lost brother, Ali, in its shadowy corners. Rabbit is a secretive street artist who is just completing a massive project involving strange installations on the rooftops of hundreds of buildings throughout the city. Both carry the scars of their pasts, and seem to be searching for a way to become whole. It’s a fearful time, when people have serious doubts about the future and about each other, yet are compelled to come together to vent their anxiety and make themselves heard. Outside the studio, chaos reigns, and Eve and Rabbit must navigate police checkpoints as they skirt the unruly masses in pursuit of the truth of what happened to Ali. Inside the studio, however, it’s all about control, as Pegg listens to the hostage taker’s story and begins to realize the terrible, violent truth about what he has planned. When the crisis comes to a head, events collide and riots grip the streets. Prospects seem bleak as the tension of the hostage taking is unleashed upon the city. But when Rabbit’s secret installation is finally activated, people are shocked into seeing the power beauty still has in this world, and into recognizing the real possibility of hope. The Blue Light Project is a hard-hitting and emotionally wrought commentary on the forces that attract and repel us, and the faith that enables us to continue, even in our darkest hours.

The Blue Light Project

Literature & Fiction

Knopf Canada

Literary

Vintage Canada

A young chef who revels in local bounty, a long-ago murder that remains unsolved, the homeless of Stanley Park, a smooth-talking businessman named Dante - these are the ingredients of Timothy Taylor's stunning debut novel - Kitchen Confidential meets The Edible Woman. Trained in France, Jeremy Papier, the young Vancouver chef, is becoming known for his unpretentious dishes that highlight fresh, local ingredients. His restaurant, The Monkey's Paw Bistro, while struggling financially, is attracting the attention of local foodies, and is not going unnoticed by Dante Beale, owner of a successful coffeehouse chain, Dante's Inferno. Meanwhile, Jeremy's father, an eccentric anthropologist, has moved into Stanley Park to better acquaint himself with the homeless and their daily struggles for food, shelter and company. Jeremy's father also has a strange fascination for a years-old unsolved murder case, known as "The Babes in the Wood" and asks Jeremy to help him research it.Dante is dying to get his hands on The Monkey's Paw. When Jeremy's elaborate financial kite begins to fall, he is forced to sell to Dante and become his employee. The restaurant is closed for renovations, Inferno style. Jeremy plans a menu for opening night that he intends to be the greatest culinary statement he's ever made, one that unites the homeless with high foody society in a paparazzi-covered celebration of "local splendour." From the Hardcover edition.

Stanley Park

"The significance of being a survivor, in the case of Air France Flight 801, for a long time lay in the simple fact that there should have been no survivors." Catherine Bach did survive, barely suffering a scratch. She hates the word "miracle," yet it feels that way at first. She returns to life as it was before the plane went down. The biotech startup she'd built from an idea to a multi-million dollar valuation continues its meteoric rise. But then things begin to go very wrong. Glitches in tests that are meant to run smoothly, design delays, security breaches, impatient investors. Catherine has a growing sense that her good fortune is spent, that the universe might be betting against her. And then comes the late-night call, from one of the other survivors. He has a story to tell, a warning he says, about his own troubles, a life in ruins, his luck run out. And all at the hands, he insists, of a mysterious other, resembling him perfectly right down to the features of his face. Madness, Catherine thinks. Or she tries to think as a mystery hedge fund launches a takeover attempt, run by a woman nobody seems to know but who is said to bear an uncanny resemblance . . . to Catherine. Catherine has always believed in an ordered, rational world--more Stephen Hawking than Stephen King. But with her life at the brink, she cannot shake the feeling that her "Rule of Stephens" may no longer hold. Writing with stinging precision about the knife-edge balance between what is known and what is believed, Timothy Taylor bridges the divide between literary fiction and page-turning thriller in this psychological tale of guilt, doubt and doppelgangers.

The Rule of Stephens: a novel

Doubleday, Canada

Commissioned by the American Assembly with the Brookings Institution and the Urban League as a background paper for a meeting at Emory University, Atlanta, GA, June, 1999. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

Undating America's Social Contract: Economic Growth and Opportunity in the New Century (Uniting America)

Business & Money

Sawhill, Isabel

Penner, Rudolph G

Sawhill, Senior Fellow and Co-Director Isabel V

American Assembly

Taylor Ph.D., Timothy

Economics

W.W.Norton&Company

The Only Economics Book You Will Ever Need. Economics isn't just about numbers: it's about politics, psychology, history, and so much more. We are all economists - when we work, save for the future, invest, pay taxes, and buy our groceries. Yet many of us feel lost when the subject arises. Award-winning professor Timothy Taylor tackles all the key questions and hot topics of both microeconomics and macroeconomics, including: * Why do budget deficits matter? * What exactly does the Federal Reserve do? * Does globalization take jobs away from American workers? * Why is health insurance so costly? The perfect read for fans of Freakonomics, The Undercover Economist and Naked Economics, The Instant Economist offers the knowledge and sophistication to understand the issues - so you can understand and discuss economics on a personal, national, and global level.

The Instant Economist: Everything You Need to Know About How the Economy Works

Plume

vii 234p hardback with yellow and green dustjacket, tight binding, clean pages, as new but for name in ink to endpaper, very fresh copy

Structuralist Macroeconomics

Basic Books

In 1820 a notorious Spanish pirate was caught in a fierce battle along the California coastline, narrowly escaping into the foothills with a priceless treasure. Now, almost 200 years later, the legendary pirate’s skeletal remains are discovered in the quiet coastal town of Knightsbridge, California, along with a tantalizing clue to the treasure’s whereabouts. As news of the discovery spreads, the town is swamped with thousands of amateur treasure seekers as well as Treasure Finders Incorporated, a powerful organization with an impressive track record of discoveries.  When classmates Will, Mikey, Susan, and Evelyn learn of the discovery, they are unable to resist the urge to join in the hunt. With Will's knowledge of the outdoors, Mikey's electronics expertise, Susan's computer wizardry, and Evelyn's photography skills, they are certain they can unravel the pirate's secret. Facing long odds, the seventh-graders embark on an adventure of a lifetime, discovering that the mystery deepens as they desperately hunt for clues, decipher historical landmarks, and match wits with their ruthless competitors.

The Hunt for the Well Hidden Treasure (K.I.D.S. Adventure Series)

Children's Books

Sheard, Bob

Action & Adventure

Polar Ink Publishing House

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