Ben Dibbuk has a good job, an accomplished wife, a bright college-age daughter, and a patient young mistress. Even as he goes through the motions of everyday life, however, inside he feels nothing. The explanation for this emotional void lies in the years he spent as a blacked-out drunk before pulling his life together--years in which he knows he committed acts he doesn't remember. Then a woman from his past turns up at a gala for his wife's new gig...

Through the actions of three characters--Agnes, her husband, and her sister--and others in contemporary France and Weimar Germany, the author reflects on the image of the individual, the Western cult of sentiment, and the meaning of love.

From agriculture to factories and hydropower, we put water to work in a million different ways, and yet water acts outside all known physical laws of nature. At a time of global climate change, understanding the mysteries of water is critical.

A young baboon's view of the world changes as his mother shows him various parts of his environment.