Why is our language evolving? Because Internet.

Also this week: Laura Lippman's Baltimore, archaeology from space, and cli-fi classics [Because Internet, by Gretchen McCulloch]( The Internet has become a place where we cultivate relationships. Through quick messages that we type with our thumbs on our phones, we keep in touch with friends and family; we flirt and fall in love. And the potential for miscommunication abounds. Who among us hasn't wondered whether a message in ALL CAPS meant it was especially urgent? Furious? Or just enthusiastic? The linguist Gretchen McCulloch aims to clear some things up with her new book, Because Internet. [Check out her conversation with NPR's Audie Cornish here](. (Why? Because reasons!) [Lady in the Lake, by Laura Lippman]( Novelist Laura Lippman says her stories are "inspired by crimes," rather than "ripped from the headlines" -- and the inspiration for her new book Lady in the Lake came from two real disappearances -- one a white woman, one a black woman -- that rocked her home town of Baltimore in the 1960s. "When I decided to write a novel set in the '60s, I very much wanted to look at these two different deaths, and how differently they had been portrayed in media," [she tells NPR's Mary Louise Kelly](. [Archaeology From Space, by Sarah Parcak]( Archaeologist Sarah Parcak uses satellite technology to spot ancient settlements, tombs and temples -- or as she puts it, "my entire life is in ruins." She's found more than a dozen potential pyramids, and thousands of ancient tombs in Egypt. "I think I have the same perspective of Earth that astronauts have," [Parcak tells NPR's Ari Shapiro](. "I don't see borders. I see how connected we are." "We're not actually digging for things, we're actually digging for people — the people who made these things," she says. "That's what I try to remember no matter what I take out of the ground. I try to imagine the humans that made it that were so much like us, in spite of being separated by thousands of years." [Hothouse, by Brian Aldiss]( It's another record-breaking summer -- multiple heat waves have rolled across Europe, storms are getting stormier and fires more frequent. Authors have been considering climate change for decades -- the genre called "cli-fi" is nothing new. So we've got a [selection of some of the best early cli-fi]( from a vision of a nightmarish crystal forest, to a fungal jungle to worlds slowly dying under a thick layer of ice. Finally this week, critic Ilana Masad says The Churchgoer seems like a simple noirish whodunit, but unfolds into [a tale of obsession](. Dale Beran's It Came from Something Awful [traces the connections between the dark corners of the internet and our current political discourse](. And Jason Sheehan says Fonda Lee's Jade War saga [is how we'd think of family crime dramas if The Godfather hadn't gotten there first](. [The Churchgoer, by Patrick Coleman]( [It Came from Something Awful, by Dale Beran]( [Jade War, by Fonda Lee]( -- Happy reading! --------------------------------------------------------------- What do you think of today's email? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: [books@npr.org](mailto:books@npr.org?subject=Newsletter%20Feedback) Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can [sign up here](. Looking for more great content? [Check out all of our newsletter offerings]( — including Music, Pop Culture, Code Switch and more! [Facebook]( [Twitter]( You received this message because you're subscribed to our Books emails. | [Unsubscribe]( | [Privacy Policy]( | NPR 1111 N. CAPITOL ST. NE WASHINGTON DC 20002 [NPR]