Generosity: An Enhancement
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Powers, Richard, PUBLISHER: Picador USA, A "NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW" NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR The National Book Award-winning author of "The Echo Maker "proves yet again that "no writer of our time dreams on a grander scale or more knowingly captures the zeitgeist." ("The Dallas Morning News"). What will happen to life when science identifies the genetic basis of happiness? Who will own the patent? Do we dare revise our own temperaments? Funny, fast, and magical, Generosity celebrates both science and the freed imagination. In his most exuberant book yet, Richard Powers asks us to consider the big questions facing humankind as we begin to rewrite our own existence. Richard Powers is the author of ten novels, including "Generosity," "Gain," "The Time of Our Singing," "Galatea 2.2," and "Plowing the Dark." "The Echo Maker "won the National Book Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Powers has received a MacArthur Fellowship and a Lannan Literary Award. He lives in Illinois. Winner of the National Book AwardA "New York Times Book Review "Notable Book of the Year in A "Washington Post "Notable Book of the Year in A Society for Midland Authors Fiction Award Finalist What will happen to life when science identifies the genetic basis of happiness? Who will own the patent? Do we dare revise our own temperaments? Funny, fast, and magical, "Generosity "celebrates both science and the freed imagination. In his most exuberant book yet, Richard Powers asks us to consider the big questions facing humankind as we begin to rewrite our own existence. " Powers'] cerebral new novel offers a chilling examination of the life we're reengineering with our chromosomes and brain chemistry... Powers sticks so closely to the state of current medical science and popular culture that this isn't so much a warning as a diagnosis. And as with any frightening diagnosis, you'll be torn between denial and a desperate urge to talk about it... With "Generosity," Powers has performed a dazzling cross-disciplinary feat, linking the slippery nature of 'creative nonfiction' to the moral conundrums of genetic engineering. Although you might expect a novel so weighted with medical and philosophical arguments to flatten its characters into brittle stereotypes, ultimately that's the most impressive aspect of this meditation on happiness and humanness. As "Generosity" drives toward its surprising conclusion, these characters grow more complex and poignant, increasingly baffled by the challenge and the opportunity of remaking ourselves to our heart's content."--Ron Charles, "The Washington Post Book World" "For the past 20 years or so, Richard Powers seems to have been engaged in a prodigious attempt to redress the imbalance of knowledge that was the subject of C. P. Snow's famous 'Two Cultures' lecture. That, y