Opium

From the Stone Age onward, Papaver somniferum has been the source of medicinal and recreational drugs alike, and its trade powered the British empire's worldwide expansion. Clinical pathologist Dr. Thomas Dormandy traces its influence on inspired artists, desperate addicts, criminal gangs, and dedicated healers in this potent work of narrative history.

May 25: On this day in 1938 Raymond Carver was born. Carver's poem "Luck," about a nine-year-old who wakes to an empty house and the leftovers of his parents' party, is all too autobiographical: "What luck, I thought. / Years later,…

Angry robots! Aren't they all? Well, not the line of fine science fiction and fantasy books that comes to readers under the rubric Angry Robot. In fact, their offerings…

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