Year 12-13

audiobooks

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ABOUT THE EPISODE
Thanks for joining us for another SIGGRAPH Spotlight! In this episode, SIGGRAPH 2021 Retrospective Chair Andres Burbano (associate professor, Universidad de los Andes) sits down with computer graphics industry icon Alvy Ray Smith. Here, Alvy discusses his rich history with computer graphics and takes a deep dive into the three parts of his upcoming book, “A Biography of the Pixel.” Finally, Andres and Alvy share hints about the Retrospective program at SIGGRAPH 2021. 

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MUSIC 
Podcast theme, "SIGGRAPH," composed by Julius Dobos. 

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LINKS
*Episode*
http://alvyray.com/ | https://s2021.siggraph.org/ | https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/biography-pixel 

*Social Media*
http://blog.siggraph.org/ | https://www.facebook.com/SIGGRAPHConferences | https://twitter.com/siggraph | https://www.youtube.com/user/ACMSIGGRAPH | https://www.instagram.com/acmsiggraph/ | https://www.linkedin.com/company/acm-siggraph/  

*Conference Website*
https://s2021.siggraph.org/

SIGGRAPH Spotlight

44 – A Conversation With Alvy Ray Smith

Random House presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne, read by Stephen Hogan.

Cyril Avery is not a real Avery or at least that’s what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn’t a real Avery, then who is he?

Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead.

At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself and where he came from – and over his three score years and ten, will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country and much more.

In this, Boyne's most transcendent work to date, we are shown the story of Ireland from the 1940s to today through the eyes of one ordinary man. The Heart's Invisible Furies is a novel to make you laugh and cry while reminding us all of the redemptive power of the human spirit.


Read more at https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/1109577/the-heart-s-invisible-furies/#AQTFYJCxQKL3lclk.99

The Hearts Invisible Furies by John Boyne (audiobook extract) read by Stephen Hogan

Algorithms can compose music, write poetry and generate art. Artificial intelligence wins literature contests and has work exhibited in galleries, but experts contend we’ve only scratched the surface of what is possible. Aleksandra Przegalińska is an academic, working in the field of AI philosophy, affective data and machine learning. She explores the question of how AI can accelerate the human potential for producing art. In conversation with Ewa Drygalska.

Unsound Talk 01: Non-Human Aesthetics - Rethinking Creativity in the Age of AI

'A dazzling, vibrant, vision-changing book. I ended it wonderstruck at the fungal world. A remarkable work by a remarkable writer’ Robert Macfarlane, author of Underland

The more we learn about fungi, the less makes sense without them.

Neither plant nor animal, they are found throughout the earth, the air and our bodies. They can be microscopic, yet also account for the largest organisms ever recorded. They enabled the first life on land, can survive unprotected in space and thrive amidst nuclear radiation. In fact, nearly all life relies in some way on fungi.

These endlessly surprising organisms have no brain but can solve problems and manipulate animal behaviour with devastating precision. In giving us bread, alcohol and life-saving medicines, fungi have shaped human history, and their psychedelic properties have recently been shown to alleviate a number of mental illnesses. Their ability to digest plastic, explosives, pesticides and crude oil is being harnessed in break-through technologies, and the discovery that they connect plants in underground networks, the ‘Wood Wide Web’, is transforming the way we understand ecosystems. Yet over ninety percent of their species remain undocumented.

Entangled Life is a mind-altering journey into a spectacular and neglected world, and shows that fungi provide a key to understanding both the planet on which we live, and life itself.

'One of those rare books that can truly change the way you see the world around you. Astounding' Helen MacDonald, author of H Is for Hawk

Entangled Life - written and read by Merlin Sheldrake

Brought to you by Penguin.

Winner of the Booker Prize 2019.

The British Book Awards Audiobook of the Year 2020

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood is read by Ann Dowd, Bryce Dallas Howard and Mae Whitman with Derek Jacobi, Tantoo Cardinal and Margaret Atwood.

Margaret Atwood's dystopian masterpiece, The Handmaid's Tale, is a modern classic. Now she brings the iconic story to a dramatic conclusion in this riveting sequel. 

More than fifteen years after the events of The Handmaid's Tale, the theocratic regime of the Republic of Gilead maintains its grip on power, but there are signs it is beginning to rot from within. At this crucial moment, the lives of three radically different women converge, with potentially explosive results.

Two have grown up as part of the first generation to come of age in the new order. The testimonies of these two young women are joined by a third voice: a woman who wields power through the ruthless accumulation and deployment of secrets.

As Atwood unfolds The Testaments, she opens up the innermost workings of Gilead as each woman is forced to come to terms with who she is, and how far she will go for what she believes.

'Dear Readers: Everything you've ever asked me about Gilead and its inner workings is the inspiration for this book. Well, almost everything! The other inspiration is the world we've been living in.' Margaret Atwood

'The literary event of the year.' Guardian

'A savage and beautiful novel, and it speaks to us today, all around the world, with particular conviction and power... The bar is set particularly high for Atwood and she soars over it' Peter Florence, Booker Prize Chair of Judges, Guardian

The Testaments - Margaret Atwood, read by Ann Dowd

Listening is about curiosity and patience - about asking the right questions in the right way. Improvisational comedians and con men are much better at it than most of us. And the cleverest people can be the worst at it. Listening has the potential to transform our relationships and our working lives, improve our self-knowledge, and increase our creativity and happiness. While it may take some effort, it's a skill that can be learnt and perfected.

What we crave is to understand and be understood, You're Not Listening shows us how.

Everybody Has Something Going On: What You're Missing and Why It Matters

Siberia’s story is traditionally one of exiles, penal colonies and unmarked graves. Yet there is another tale to tell.

Dotted throughout this remote land are pianos – grand instruments created during the boom years of the nineteenth century, and humble, Soviet-made uprights that found their way into equally modest homes. They tell the story of how, ever since entering Russian culture under the influence of Catherine the Great, piano music has run through the country like blood. 

How these pianos travelled into this snow-bound wilderness in the first place is testament to noble acts of fortitude by governors, adventurers and exiles. That stately instruments might still exist in such a hostile landscape is remarkable. That they are still capable of making music in far-flung villages is nothing less than a miracle.

But this is Siberia, where people can endure the worst of the world — and where music reveals a deep humanity in the last place on earth you would expect to find it.

The Lost Pianos of Siberia by Sophy Roberts read by Catherine Bailey

Brought to you by Penguin.

'Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'

Hidden away in the Record Department of the sprawling Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith skilfully rewrites the past to suit the needs of the Party. Yet he inwardly rebels against the totalitarian world he lives in, which demands absolute obedience and controls him through the all-seeing telescreens and the watchful eye of Big Brother, symbolic head of the Party. In his longing for truth and liberty, Smith begins a secret love affair with a fellow-worker Julia, but soon discovers the true price of freedom is betrayal.

(P) Penguin Audio 2021

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell - Read by Peter Capaldi

ABRIDGED BY ISOBEL CREED AND JILL WATERS | PRODUCED BY LIZZIE DAVIES AND THE WATERS COMPANY FOR BBC RADIO 4, FIRST BROADCAST NOVEMBER 2020 | MUSIC: ISLANDS BY COSMO SHELDRAKE

BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week

Introduction to Entangled Life, as featured on BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week

Penguin Books publishes blockbusting, prize-winning, celebrated, controversial, heart-warming, thought-provoking and inspiring books by a range of authors from Ali Smith to Zadie Smith, Jeremy Clarkson to Jeremy Paxman and Jamie Oliver to Oliver Goldsmith.

Entangled Life - written and read by Merlin Sheldrake

Penguin Books UK