Books with category đź“š Non-Fiction
Displaying books 769-816 of 960 in total

The Uses of Haiti

The Uses of Haiti tells the truth about uncomfortable matters—uncomfortable, that is, for the structures of power and the doctrinal framework that protects them from scrutiny. It tells the truth about what has been happening in Haiti, and the US role in its bitter fate.

Noam Chomsky, from the introduction

In this third edition of the classic The Uses of Haiti, Paul Farmer looks at what has happened to the health of the poor in Haiti since the coup. Winner of a McArthur Genius Award, Paul Farmer is a physician and anthropologist who has worked for 25 years in Haiti, where he serves as medical director of a hospital serving the rural poor. He is the subject of the Tracy Kidder biography, Mountains Beyond Mountains.

Seattle's Fremont

2006

by Helen Divjak

Seattle's Fremont is lovingly labeled by locals as the “Center of the Universe”. It is one of Seattle's most eclectic and dynamic neighborhoods. Just over a century ago, it was little more than lush primeval forest, but it has grown into a vibrant community.

The area developed as the home of the city's blue-collar workers and became a bohemian haven for local artists. Today, it's a thriving urban mecca filled with bars, restaurants, hip boutiques, and art studios that cater to the worldly aware.

Most recently, Fremont has become the address of high-tech giants like Adobe. It continues to evolve, reflecting the changes in industry that have contributed to Fremont's reputation as an urban area on the cutting edge.

The Devil's Teeth

2006

by Susan Casey

The Devil's Teeth is a thrilling journey into the world of great white sharks, nestled in the remote Farallon Islands, just twenty-seven miles off the coast of San Francisco. Susan Casey, a journalist, becomes fascinated by these fearsome predators after seeing them in a documentary. Her curiosity transforms into an obsession, leading her to the islands.

Accompanied by biologists Scot Anderson and Peter Pyle, Casey experiences the stark reality of life in this isolated region. Living in a haunted, 135-year-old house, she witnesses the majestic, terrifying sharks up close and personal.

This book is not just a tale of adventure and survival; it explores the boundary between human civilization and the untamed wilderness, where humans are neither wanted nor needed.

Embroideries

2006

by Marjane Satrapi

From the best-selling author of Persepolis comes a gloriously entertaining and enlightening look into the sex lives of Iranian women. Embroideries gathers together Marjane’s tough-talking grandmother, stoic mother, glamorous and eccentric aunt and their friends and neighbors for an afternoon of tea drinking and talking. Naturally, the subject turns to love, sex, and the vagaries of men.


As the afternoon progresses, these vibrant women share their secrets, their regrets, and their often outrageous stories about, among other things, how to fake one’s virginity, how to escape an arranged marriage, how to enjoy the miracles of plastic surgery, and how to delight in being a mistress. By turns revealing and hilarious, these are stories about the lengths to which some women will go to find a man, keep a man, or, most importantly, keep up appearances.


Full of surprises, this introduction to the private lives of some fascinating women, whose life stories and lovers will strike us as at once deeply familiar and profoundly different from our own, is sure to bring smiles of recognition to the faces of women everywhere—and to teach us all a thing or two.

Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster

Voices from Chernobyl is not just a book about the Chernobyl disaster, but about the world it has left us. Svetlana Alexievich, spent three years interviewing dozens of survivors, victims, and witnesses. This book is their testimony, their voices, and they are unforgettable.

The Omnivore's Dilemma

2006

by Michael Pollan

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals is a groundbreaking book by Michael Pollan, one of America's most fascinating, original, and elegant writers. Pollan turns his omnivorous mind to the seemingly straightforward question of what we should have for dinner. This question has confronted humanity since the discovery of fire, but how we answer it today may determine our very survival as a species.

Pollan follows each of the food chains that sustain us—industrial food, organic or alternative food, and food we forage ourselves—from the source to a final meal. He develops a definitive account of the American way of eating, taking readers from Iowa cornfields to food-science laboratories, from feedlots and fast-food restaurants to organic farms and hunting grounds. He emphasizes our dynamic coevolutionary relationship with the plant and animal species we depend on.

Each time Pollan sits down to a meal, he deploys his unique blend of personal and investigative journalism to trace the origins of everything consumed, revealing what we unwittingly ingest. He explains how our taste for particular foods and flavors reflects our evolutionary inheritance. The surprising answers Pollan offers have profound political, economic, psychological, and moral implications for all of us. Ultimately, The Omnivore's Dilemma is a book as much about visionary solutions as it is about problems, contending that, when it comes to food, doing the right thing often turns out to be the tastiest thing an eater can do.

Beautifully written and thrillingly argued, The Omnivore's Dilemma promises to change the way we think about the politics and pleasure of eating. For anyone who reads it, dinner will never again look, or taste, quite the same.

First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers

2006

by Loung Ung

From a childhood survivor of the Cambodian genocide under the regime of Pol Pot, this is a riveting narrative of war crimes and desperate actions, the unnerving strength of a small girl and her family, and their triumph of spirit.

One of seven children of a high-ranking government official, Loung Ung lived a privileged life in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh until the age of five. Then, in April 1975, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge army stormed into the city, forcing Ung's family to flee and, eventually, to disperse. Loung was trained as a child soldier in a work camp for orphans, her siblings were sent to labor camps, and those who survived the horrors would not be reunited until the Khmer Rouge was destroyed.

Harrowing yet hopeful, Loung's powerful story is an unforgettable account of a family shaken and shattered, yet miraculously sustained by courage and love in the face of unspeakable brutality.

A Whole New Mind

2006

by Daniel H. Pink

The future belongs to a different kind of person with a different kind of mind: artists, inventors, storytellers—creative and holistic "right-brain" thinkers whose abilities mark the fault line between who gets ahead and who doesn't.

Drawing on research from around the world, Pink (author of To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Motivating Others) outlines the six fundamentally human abilities that are absolute essentials for professional success and personal fulfillment—and reveals how to master them. A Whole New Mind takes readers to a daring new place, and a provocative and necessary new way of thinking about a future that's already here.

Holy Bible: The New King James Version

2006

by Anonymous

Enhance your time reading and exploring God's Word. Experience a whole new level of visual comfort and biblical study with Thomas Nelson's NKJV Personal Size Giant Print End-of-Verse Reference Bible. This Bible is filled with references and study aids to strengthen your Bible reading. Plus, it features giant print type, making reading more enjoyable than ever. Ideal for individual study, teaching, and ministry work, this trusted edition of the Holy Bible will enhance your time exploring the beauty and meaning of God's Word.

Features include:

  • End-of-verse references and translation notes
  • Family record section
  • Bible book introductions
  • Stars marking messianic prophecies
  • Words of Jesus in red
  • Concordance
  • Full-color maps
  • 2 ribbon markers
  • Type size: 11

Part of the CLASSIC SERIES line of Thomas Nelson Bibles

Personal Size Giant Print End-of-Verse Reference Bibles sold to date: More than 3.5 million

The New King James Version - More than 60 million copies sold in 30 years

Thomas Nelson Bibles is giving back through the God's Word in Action program. Donating a portion of profits to World Vision, we are helping to eradicate poverty and preventable deaths among children. Learn more and discover what you can do at www.seegodswordinaction.com.

Grieving: A Beginner's Guide

Grieving: A Beginner's Guide provides a compassionate and insightful guide to navigating the complex journey of grief. It details all that comes with bereavement and offers practical advice for those who are accompanying grieving individuals.

Jerusha Hull McCormack emphasizes that there is no sure route through grieving. Instead, she provides a series of signposts to help readers find their own path to a new life. As she writes, "We are all amateurs at grief; it comes to us all; we must all go through it. To treat grief as a problem to be fixed, or (worse still) to medicalize it, is to rob us of the extraordinary privilege of encountering this experience on our terms. Each of us has our own way of grieving, and each of us has something special to learn from the process."

This book is designed to help those in pain—and specifically those who have lost someone through death—to imagine the path before them. It is a path of suffering, but it is also a path that may lead to unexpected discoveries and peace.

Assassination Vacation

2006

by Sarah Vowell

Sarah Vowell embarks on a unique road trip to sites of political violence, from Washington DC to Alaska, to better understand our nation’s ever-evolving political system and history. She exposes the glorious conundrums of American history and culture with wit, probity, and an irreverent sense of humor.

With Assassination Vacation, she takes us on a road trip like no other—a journey to the pit stops of American political murder and through the myriad ways they have been used for fun and profit, for political and cultural advantage.

From Buffalo to Alaska, Washington to the Dry Tortugas, Vowell visits locations immortalized and influenced by the spilling of politically important blood, reporting as she goes with her trademark blend of wisecracking humor, remarkable honesty, and thought-provoking criticism.

We learn about the jinx that was Robert Todd Lincoln (present at the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley) and witness the politicking that went into the making of the Lincoln Memorial. The resulting narrative is much more than an entertaining and informative travelogue—it is the disturbing and fascinating story of how American death has been manipulated by popular culture, including literature, architecture, sculpture, and—the author's favorite—historical tourism.

Though the themes of loss and violence are explored and we make detours to see how the Republican Party became the Republican Party, there are all kinds of lighter diversions along the way into the lives of the three presidents and their assassins, including mummies, show tunes, mean-spirited totem poles, and a nineteenth-century biblical sex cult.

The Glass Castle

2006

by Jeannette Walls

A tender, moving tale of unconditional love in a family that, despite its profound flaws, gave the author the fiery determination to carve out a successful life on her own terms.

Jeannette Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity were both their curse and their salvation. Rex and Rose Mary Walls had four children. In the beginning, they lived like nomads, moving among Southwest desert towns, camping in the mountains. Rex was a charismatic, brilliant man who, when sober, captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and above all, how to embrace life fearlessly. Rose Mary, who painted and wrote and couldn't stand the responsibility of providing for her family, called herself an "excitement addict." Cooking a meal that would be consumed in fifteen minutes had no appeal when she could make a painting that might last forever.

Later, when the money ran out, or the romance of the wandering life faded, the Walls retreated to the dismal West Virginia mining town -- and the family -- Rex Walls had done everything he could to escape. He drank. He stole the grocery money and disappeared for days. As the dysfunction of the family escalated, Jeannette and her brother and sisters had to fend for themselves, supporting one another as they weathered their parents' betrayals and, finally, found the resources and will to leave home.

What is so astonishing about Jeannette Walls is not just that she had the guts and tenacity and intelligence to get out, but that she describes her parents with such deep affection and generosity. Hers is a story of triumph against all odds, but also a tender, moving tale of unconditional love in a family that despite its profound flaws gave her the fiery determination to carve out a successful life on her own terms.

Go Ask Alice

2006

by Beatrice Sparks

Go Ask Alice is a haunting first-person account of a young girl's descent into the nightmarish world of drug addiction. It begins innocently enough when she is unwittingly served a soft drink laced with LSD at a party. Within months, she finds herself trapped in a downward spiral, moving from a comfortable home and loving family to the mean streets of an unforgiving city.

This journey strips her of her innocence, her youth, and ultimately, her life. The reader is invited to read her diary and enter her world—a world that will be impossible to forget.

My life in France

2006

by Julia Child

The bestselling story of Julia's years in France, and the basis for the movie Julie & Julia, in her own words.

Julia Child singlehandedly created a new approach to American cuisine with her cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking and her television show The French Chef, but as she reveals in this bestselling memoir, she was not always a master chef. Indeed, when she first arrived in France in 1948 with her husband, Paul, who was to work for the USIS, she spoke no French and knew nothing about the country itself. But as she dove into French culture, buying food at local markets and taking classes at the Cordon Bleu, her life changed forever with her newfound passion for cooking and teaching. 

Julia's unforgettable story - struggles with the head of the Cordon Bleu, rejections from publishers to whom she sent her now-famous cookbook, a wonderful, nearly fifty-year long marriage that took them across the globe - unfolds with the spirit so key to her success as a chef and a writer, brilliantly capturing one of the most endearing American personalities of the last fifty years.

Child Parent Relationship Therapy

Child Parent Relationship Therapy offers a comprehensive survey of the historical and theoretical development of the filial therapy approach. It presents an overview of filial therapy training and processes, providing valuable insights for therapists and parents alike.

The book includes a transcript of an actual session, addressing common questions raised by parents, children, and therapists. It features additional resources and research summaries essential for understanding the approach.

Additional chapters delve into filial therapy with special populations and settings, offering flexible variations of the 10-session model for individual parents, training via telephone, and adaptable schedules.

Marley and Me: Life and Love With the World's Worst Dog

2005

by John Grogan

John and Jenny were just beginning their life together. They were young and in love, with a perfect little house and not a care in the world. Then they brought home Marley, a wiggly yellow furball of a puppy. Life would never be the same.

Marley quickly grew into a barreling, ninety-seven-pound streamroller of a Labrador retriever, a dog like no other. He crashed through screen doors, gouged through drywall, flung drool on guests, stole women's undergarments, and ate nearly everything he could get his mouth around, including couches and fine jewelry. Obedience school did no good—Marley was expelled. Neither did the tranquilizers the veterinarian prescribed for him with the admonishment, "Don't hesitate to use these."

And yet Marley's heart was pure. Just as he joyfully refused any limits on his behavior, his love and loyalty were boundless, too. Marley shared the couple's joy at their first pregnancy, and their heartbreak over the miscarriage. He was there when babies finally arrived and when the screams of a seventeen-year-old stabbing victim pierced the night. Marley shut down a public beach and managed to land a role in a feature-length movie, always winning hearts as he made a mess of things. Through it all, he remained steadfast, a model of devotion, even when his family was at its wit's end. Unconditional love, they would learn, comes in many forms.

An Alchemy of Mind: The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain

2005

by Diane Ackerman

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Zookeeper's Wife, an ambitious and enlightening work that combines an artist's eye with a scientist's erudition to illuminate, as never before, the magic and mysteries of the human mind.

Long treasured by literary readers for her uncommon ability to bridge the gap between art and science, celebrated scholar-artist Diane Ackerman returns with the book she was born to write. Her dazzling new work, An Alchemy of Mind, offers an unprecedented exploration and celebration of the mental fantasia in which we spend our days—and does for the human mind what the bestselling A Natural History of the Senses did for the physical senses.

Bringing a valuable female perspective to the topic, Diane Ackerman discusses the science of the brain as only she can: with gorgeous, immediate language and imagery that paint an unusually lucid and vibrant picture for the reader. And in addition to explaining memory, thought, emotion, dreams, and language acquisition, she reports on the latest discoveries in neuroscience and addresses controversial subjects like the effects of trauma and male versus female brains.

In prose that is not simply accessible but also beautiful and electric, Ackerman distills the hard, objective truths of science in order to yield vivid, heavily anecdotal explanations about a range of existential questions regarding consciousness, human thought, memory, and the nature of identity.

The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason

2005

by Sam Harris

In The End of Faith, Sam Harris delivers a startling analysis of the clash between reason and religion in the modern world. He offers a vivid, historical tour of our willingness to suspend reason in favor of religious beliefs—even when these beliefs inspire the worst human atrocities.

While warning against the encroachment of organized religion into world politics, Harris draws on insights from neuroscience, philosophy, and Eastern mysticism to deliver a call for a truly modern foundation for ethics and spirituality that is both secular and humanistic.

Female Chauvinist Pigs

2005

by Ariel Levy

Meet the Female Chauvinist Pig – the new brand of "empowered woman" who embraces "raunch culture" wherever she finds it. In her groundbreaking book, New York magazine writer Ariel Levy argues that, if male chauvinist pigs of years past thought of women as pieces of meat, Female Chauvinist Pigs of today are doing them one better, making sex objects of other women – and of themselves.

Irresistibly witty and wickedly intelligent, Female Chauvinist Pigs makes the case that the rise of raunch does not represent how far women have come; it only proves how far they have left to go.

In this passionate report from the front lines, Ariel Levy examines the enormous cultural impact of the newest wave of post-feminism. She interviews college women who flash for the cameras on spring break and teens raised on Paris Hilton and breast implants. Levy examines a culture in which every music video seems to feature a stripper on a pole, the memoirs of porn stars are climbing the bestseller lists, Olympic athletes parade their Brazilian bikini waxes in the pages of Playboy, and thongs are marketed to prepubescent girls.

Levy meets the high-powered women who create raunch culture—the new oinking women warriors of the corporate and entertainment worlds who eagerly defend their efforts to be “one of the guys.” And she traces the history of this trend back to conflicts between the women’s movement and the sexual revolution long left unresolved. Levy pulls apart the myth of the Female Chauvinist Pig and argues that what has come to pass for liberating rebellion is actually a kind of limiting conformity.

The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution

2005

by Richard Dawkins

The renowned biologist and thinker Richard Dawkins presents his most expansive work yet: a comprehensive look at evolution, ranging from the latest developments in the field to his own provocative views. Loosely based on the form of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Dawkins's Tale takes us modern humans back through four billion years of life on our planet. As the pilgrimage progresses, we join with other organisms at the forty "rendezvous points" where we find a common ancestor. The band of pilgrims swells into a vast crowd as we join first with other primates, then with other mammals, and so on back to the first primordial organism.

Dawkins's brilliant, inventive approach allows us to view the connections between ourselves and all other life in a bracingly novel way. It also lets him shed bright new light on the most compelling aspects of evolutionary history and theory: sexual selection, speciation, convergent evolution, extinction, genetics, plate tectonics, geographical dispersal, and more. The Ancestor's Tale is at once a far-reaching survey of the latest, best thinking on biology and a fascinating history of life on Earth. Here Dawkins shows us how remarkable we are, how astonishing our history, and how intimate our relationship with the rest of the living world.

The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio: How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less

2005

by Terry Ryan

Evelyn Ryan was an enterprising woman who kept poverty at bay with wit, poetry, and perfect prose during the "contest era" of the 1950s and 1960s. Stepping back into a time when fledgling advertising agencies were active partners with consumers, and everyday people saw possibility in every coupon, Terry Ryan tells how her mother kept the family afloat by writing jingles and contest entries.

Mom's winning ways defied the Church, her alcoholic husband, and antiquated views of housewives. To her, flouting convention was a small price to pay when it came to securing a happy home for her six sons and four daughters. Evelyn, who would surely be a Madison Avenue executive if she were working today, composed her jingles not in the boardroom, but at the ironing board.

By entering contests wherever she found them -- TV, radio, newspapers, direct-mail ads -- Evelyn Ryan was able to win every appliance her family ever owned, not to mention cars, television sets, bicycles, watches, a jukebox, and even trips to New York, Dallas, and Switzerland. But it wasn't just the winning that was miraculous; it was the timing. If a toaster died, one was sure to arrive in the mail from a forgotten contest. Days after the bank called in the second mortgage on the house, a call came from the Dr Pepper company: Evelyn was the grand-prize winner in its national contest -- and had won enough to pay the bank.

Graced with a rare appreciation for life's inherent hilarity, Evelyn turned every financial challenge into an opportunity for fun and profit. From her frenetic supermarket shopping spree -- worth $3,000 today -- to her clever entries worthy of Erma Bombeck, Dorothy Parker, and Ogden Nash, the story of this irrepressible woman whose talents reached far beyond her formidable verbal skills is told in The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio with an infectious joy that shows how a winning spirit will triumph over the poverty of circumstance.

The Devil's Picnic

2005

by Taras Grescoe

The Devil's Picnic is a captivating journey into illicit pleasures from around the globe. From Norwegian moonshine to the pentobarbital sodium sipped by suicide tourists in Switzerland, and in between, baby eels killed by an infusion of tobacco, a garlicky Spanish stew of bull’s testicles, tea laced with cocaine, and malodorous French cheese, Taras Grescoe crafts a vivid travelogue of forbidden indulgences.

As Grescoe crisscrosses the globe in pursuit of his quarry, he delves into questions of regional culture and repressive legislation—from clandestine absinthe distillation in an obscure Swiss valley to the banning of poppy seed biscuits in Singapore. He launches into a philosophical investigation of what’s truly bizarre: how something as fundamental as the plants and foods we consume could be so vilified and demonized.

This book is an investigation into what thrills us, what terrifies us, and what would make us travel ten thousand miles and evade the local authorities. The Devil’s Picnic is a delicious and compelling expedition into the heart of vice and desire.

The Year of Magical Thinking

2005

by Joan Didion

An autobiographical portrait of marriage and motherhood by the acclaimed author details her struggle to come to terms with life and death, illness, sanity, personal upheaval, and grief.

"In this dramatic adaptation of her award-winning, bestselling memoir (which Michiko Kakutani in The New York Times called "an indelible portrait of loss and grief . . . a haunting portrait of a four-decade-long marriage), Joan Didion transforms the story of the sudden and unexpected loss of her husband and their only daughter into a stunning and powerful one-woman play. The first theatrical production of The Year of Magical Thinking opened at the Booth Theatre on March 29, 2007, starring Vanessa Redgrave and directed by David Hare.

A People's History of the United States

2005

by Howard Zinn

Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, A People's History of the United States is the only volume to tell America's story from the point of view of -- and in the words of -- America's women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, working poor, and immigrant laborers.

This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

Ant Egg Soup

Natacha Du Pont de Bie is no ordinary tourist. She'll trek for hours or even days in search of a good lunch. Ant Egg Soup is the result of her adventures in Laos, the stories of the people she met, the places she visited and, of course, the amazing food she tasted.

Drinking raw turkey blood with herbs in a tribal village, cooking Paradise chicken in a little guest house by the Kung Si waterfalls, and sampling fried cricket during the Festival of the Golden Stupa are just a few examples.

Funny and refreshing, with recipes and line drawings, Ant Egg Soup will awaken the senses while redefining the art of travelling and eating abroad.

The Professor and the Madman

The Professor and the Madman, masterfully researched and eloquently written, is an extraordinary tale of madness, genius, and the incredible obsessions of two remarkable men that led to the making of the Oxford English Dictionary -- and literary history.

The compilation of the OED began in 1857, and it was one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken. As definitions were collected, the overseeing committee, led by Professor James Murray, discovered that one man, Dr. W. C. Minor, had submitted more than ten thousand.

When the committee insisted on honoring him, a shocking truth came to light: Dr. Minor, an American Civil War veteran, was also an inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane.

The Way Things Never Were: The Truth About the "Good Old Days"

It seems like kids are always hearing stories about America in the "good old days." But, in fact, the 1950s and 1960s were not as carefree as they sometimes seem. Through fascinating stories, advertisements, facts, and photographs, Norman H. Finkelstein invites people of all generations to decide for themselves.

Explore the real history behind the myths and discover surprising truths about a pivotal era in American history.

A Handbook of Play Therapy with Aggressive Children

A Handbook of Play Therapy with Aggressive Children is an invaluable resource for both new and seasoned child practitioners. This comprehensive compilation of specific and practical techniques provides child and play therapists with the tools they need to address the challenges of treating aggressive children.

Authored by David A. Crenshaw and John B. Mordock, who together bring over fifty years of experience in the residential treatment of severely aggressive and often traumatized children, this book covers the essential elements of play therapy. Key topics include:

  • The therapeutic alliance and aims of play therapy with aggressive children.
  • Setting limits on destructive and obtrusive behaviors.
  • Typical play themes of aggressive children and developing distancing and displacement through playful action.
  • Teaching, modeling, and structuring action play.
  • Creating more mature defenses and calming strategies.
  • The role of interpretation and the use of spontaneous drawings as a bridge to fantasy play.
  • Specific drawing techniques to access the inner world of children.
  • Teaching and modeling pro-social skills and the language of feeling.
  • Facilitating affect expression and modulation, contained reenactment of trauma, and children's ability to mourn tangible as well as intangible losses.

The authors also introduce the Play Therapy Decision Grid, a tool designed to guide therapists in selecting the most appropriate level of therapy for a child based on their resources and the anxiety provoked by the therapy process.

Unveiled: The Hidden Lives of Nuns

2005

by Cheryl L. Reed

Unveiled: The Hidden Lives of Nuns offers a candid and fascinating exploration into the lives of nuns, drawing on interviews with more than three hundred nuns from a variety of orders. This book reflects a diversity of beliefs and provides a revealing look at life behind the convent walls.

Cheryl L. Reed, an award-winning investigative journalist, lived and prayed with these nuns, witnessing their vows and ceremonies. She delves into their daily lives, worship services, friendships, and their attitudes toward the modern world and its consumerism.

Through this journey, readers will gain insight into love, sex, faith, joy, loss, and regret, as well as the nuns' views on motherhood, relationships, and feminism. This book is an eye-opening exploration of the interior lives of women dedicated to their spiritual paths.

Inteligencia intuitiva

En este libro, el periodista estadounidense Malcolm Gladwell nos explica cómo pensamos sin pensar, de dónde proceden las decisiones que parece que tomamos en dos segundos, pero que no son tan simples como aparentan. ¿Por qué algunas personas son brillantes tomando decisiones y otras son torpes una y otra vez? ¿Por qué algunos siguen su instinto y triunfan, mientras que otros acaban siempre dando un paso en falso? ¿Cuál es el funcionamiento real del cerebro en el trabajo, en clase, en la cocina o en la cama? ¿Y por qué las mejores decisiones suelen ser las más difíciles de explicar?

Este libro revela que quienes son buenos tomando decisiones no son aquellos que procesan más información o que dedican más tiempo a deliberar, sino aquellos que han perfeccionado el arte de hilar fino, de extraer los pocos factores que realmente importan a partir de una cantidad desmesurada de variables.

In the Company of Crows and Ravens

In the Company of Crows and Ravens explores the fascinating interactions between humans and these intelligent birds. From the cave walls at Lascaux to the last painting by Van Gogh, and from the works of Shakespeare to Mark Twain, there is clear evidence that crows and ravens have influenced human culture throughout history.

The authors, John Marzluff and Tony Angell, alongside Paul Ehrlich, delve into the remarkable ways that crows and humans interact, reflecting a process they describe as “cultural coevolution.” This book offers a challenging new perspective on the human-crow dynamic—a view that may change our thinking not only about crows but also about ourselves.

Featuring more than 100 original drawings, the book examines the significant ways in which crows have influenced human lives and vice versa. In the Company of Crows and Ravens illuminates the entwined histories of crows and people and concludes with an intriguing discussion on how our attitudes toward crows may affect our cultural trajectory.

Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing

Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing explores the enduring legacy of slavery and its impact on African Americans. While African Americans managed to emerge from chattel slavery and the oppressive decades that followed with great strength and resiliency, they did not emerge unscathed.

Slavery produced centuries of physical, psychological, and spiritual injury. This book lays the groundwork for understanding how the past has influenced the present and opens up the discussion of how we can use the strengths we have gained to heal.

Join the conversation on how to address historical trauma and foster healing in communities affected by this legacy.

The Secrets of Facilitation

The Secrets of Facilitation delivers a clear vision of facilitation excellence and reveals the specific techniques effective facilitators use to produce consistent, repeatable results with groups. Author Michael Wilkinson has trained thousands of managers, mediators, analysts, and consultants around the world to apply the power of SMART (Structured Meeting And Relating Techniques) facilitation to achieve amazing results with teams and task forces.

He shows how anyone can use these proven group techniques in various professional and personal situations such as conflict resolution, consulting, managing, presenting, teaching, planning, and selling.

The Rarest of the Rare: Stories Behind the Treasures at the Harvard Museum of Natural History

Where do you find Nabokov's butterflies, George Washington's pheasants, and the only stuffed bird remaining from the Lewis and Clark expedition? The vast collections of animals, minerals, and plants at the Harvard Museum of Natural History are among the oldest in the country, dating back to the 1700s.

In the words of Edward O. Wilson, the museum stands as both a "cabinet of wonder and temple of science." Its rich and unlikely history involves literary figures, creationists, millionaires, and visionary scientists from Asa Gray to Stephen Jay Gould. Its mastodon skeleton — still on display — is even linked to one of the nineteenth century's most bizarre and notorious murders.

"The Rarest of the Rare" tells the fascinating stories behind the extinct butterflies, rare birds, lost plants, dazzling meteorites, and other scientific and historic specimens that fill the museum's halls. You'll learn about the painting that catches Audubon in a shameful lie, the sand dollar collected by Darwin during the voyage of the Beagle, and dozens of other treasures in this surprising, informative, and often amusing tour of the natural world.

Mountains Beyond Mountains

2004

by Tracy Kidder

At the center of Mountains Beyond Mountains stands Paul Farmer. Doctor, Harvard professor, renowned infectious-disease specialist, anthropologist, the recipient of a MacArthur "genius" grant, world-class Robin Hood, Farmer was brought up in a bus and on a boat, and in medical school found his life’s calling: to diagnose and cure infectious diseases and to bring the lifesaving tools of modern medicine to those who need them most.

Mountains Beyond Mountains takes us from Harvard to Haiti, Peru, Cuba, and Russia as Farmer changes minds and practices through his dedication to the philosophy that "the only real nation is humanity"—a philosophy that is embodied in the small public charity he founded, Partners in Health. He enlists the help of the Gates Foundation, George Soros, the U.N.’s World Health Organization, and others in his quest to cure the world.

At the heart of this book is the example of a life based on hope, and on an understanding of the truth of the Haitian proverb "Beyond mountains there are mountains": as you solve one problem, another problem presents itself, and so you go on and try to solve that one too.

The Guns of August

Historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Barbara Tuchman has brought to life again the people and events that led up to World War I. With attention to fascinating detail, and an intense knowledge of her subject and its characters, Ms. Tuchman reveals, for the first time, just how the war started, why, and how it could have been stopped but wasn't. A classic historical survey of a time and a people we all need to know more about, THE GUNS OF AUGUST will not be forgotten.

Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds

Naturalist Lyanda Lynn Haupt, an ornithology teacher and researcher, examines the amazing talents and personalities of the most common of birds. Some birdwatchers will hop the red-eye to Costa Rica if a rare species is reported to be in residence, but she makes the argument for sticking close to home.

She muses on the tarnished reputation of the starling, the sexed-up antics of male woodpeckers, and the mysterious behavior and startling population explosion of crows in her hometown. Through the eye and voice of this talented writer, birds provide a fascinating point of contact with the natural world at large.

Three Weeks With My Brother

In this New York Times bestseller, follow the author of The Notebook as he travels the world with his brother learning about faith, loss, connection, and hope. As moving as his bestselling works of fiction, Nicholas Sparks's unique memoir, written with his brother, chronicles the life-affirming journey of two brothers bound by memories, both humorous and tragic.

In January 2003, Nicholas Sparks and his brother, Micah, set off on a three-week trip around the globe. It was to mark a milestone in their lives, for at thirty-seven and thirty-eight respectively, they were now the only surviving members of their family. Against the backdrop of the wonders of the world and often overtaken by their feelings, daredevil Micah and the more serious, introspective Nicholas recalled their rambunctious childhood adventures and the tragedies that tested their faith. And in the process, they discovered startling truths about loss, love, and hope.

Narrated with irrepressible humor and rare candor, and including personal photos, Three Weeks with My Brother reminds us to embrace life with all its uncertainties... and most of all, to cherish the joyful times, both small and momentous, and the wonderful people who make them possible.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Personal Workbook

Internationally renowned leadership authority and bestselling author Stephen R. Covey presents a personal hands-on companion to the landmark The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which has become a touchstone for individuals, families, and businesses around the world. The overwhelming success of Stephen R. Covey's principle-centered philosophy is a testament to the millions who have benefited from his lessons, and now, with The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Personal Workbook, they can further explore and understand this tried-and-true approach.

With the same clarity and assurance Covey's fans have come to appreciate, this individualized workbook teaches readers to fully internalize the 7 Habits through private and thought-provoking exercises, whether they are already familiar with the principles or not.

The Will to Change

2004

by bell hooks

From the New York Times bestselling author of All About Love, a brave and astonishing work that challenges patriarchal culture and encourages men to reclaim the best part of themselves.

Everyone needs to love and be loved—even men. But to know love, men must be able to look at the ways that patriarchal culture keeps them from knowing themselves, from being in touch with their feelings, from loving. In The Will to Change, bell hooks gets to the heart of the matter and shows men how to express the emotions that are a fundamental part of who they are—whatever their age, marital status, ethnicity, or sexual orientation.

But toxic masculinity punishes those fundamental emotions, and it's so deeply ingrained in our society that it's hard for men to not comply—but hooks wants to help change that. With trademark candor and fierce intelligence, hooks addresses the most common concerns of men, such as fear of intimacy and loss of their patriarchal place in society, in new and challenging ways. She believes men can find the way to spiritual unity by getting back in touch with the emotionally open part of themselves—and lay claim to the rich and rewarding inner lives that have historically been the exclusive province of women.

Too Loud, Too Bright, Too Fast, Too Tight

2003

by Sharon Heller

With empathy, compassion, and practical tools, developmental psychologist and sufferer of Sensory Defensive Disorder (SD), Sharon Heller, Ph.D., sheds light on a little-known but common affliction. Sufferers react to harmless stimuli as irritating, distracting, or dangerous.

We all know what it feels like to be irritated by loud music, accosted by lights that are too bright, or overwhelmed by a world that moves too quickly. But millions of people suffer from Sensory Defensive Disorder (SD), a common affliction where people react to harmless stimuli not just as a distracting hindrance, but a potentially dangerous threat.

Dr. Heller, being sensory defensive herself, brings both personal and professional perspectives. She is the ideal person to educate the world about this problem, which will only increase as technology and processed environments take over our lives.

In addition to heightening public awareness of this prevalent issue, Dr. Heller provides tools and therapies for alleviating and, in some cases, even eliminating defensiveness altogether.

Until now, treatment for sensory defensiveness has been successfully implemented in Learning Disabled children, where defensiveness tends to be extreme. However, the disorder has generally gone unidentified in adults who think they are either overstimulated, stressed, weird, or crazy. These sensory defensive sufferers live out their lives stressed and unhappy, never knowing why or what they can do about it.

Now, with Too Loud, Too Bright, Too Fast, Too Tight, they have a compassionate spokesperson and a solution-oriented book of advice.

Change Management

Change Management: The People Side of Change is an introduction to change management for managers and executives. Project leaders and consultants can use this book with their organizations and clients to introduce change management to front-line managers and top-level executives involved in change. Specifically, managers and executives will understand the broader perspective around change management and understand their role in the process.

Written by Jeff Hiatt and Tim Creasey, the editors of the Change Management Learning Center, this book takes 7 years of research with more than 1000 companies, white papers, and change management models, and combines this knowledge into an easy-to-read guide for managing change. Multiple case studies and examples make this book a quick-read for managers and executives that need a basic understanding of change management.

The Intelligent Investor

2003

by Benjamin Graham

More than one million hardcovers sold Now available for the first time in paperback! The Classic Text Annotated to Update Graham's Timeless Wisdom for Today's Market Conditions

The greatest investment advisor of the twentieth century, Benjamin Graham taught and inspired people worldwide. Graham's philosophy of "value investing" -- which shields investors from substantial error and teaches them to develop long-term strategies -- has made The Intelligent Investor the stock market bible ever since its original publication in 1949.

Over the years, market developments have proven the wisdom of Graham's strategies. While preserving the integrity of Graham's original text, this revised edition includes updated commentary by noted financial journalist Jason Zweig, whose perspective incorporates the realities of today's market, draws parallels between Graham's examples and today's financial headlines, and gives readers a more thorough understanding of how to apply Graham's principles.

Vital and indispensable, this HarperBusiness Essentials edition of The Intelligent Investor is the most important book you will ever read on how to reach your financial goals.

Democracy in America

A contemporary study of the early American nation and its evolving democracy, from a French aristocrat and sociologist In 1831 Alexis de Tocqueville, a young French aristocrat and ambitious civil servant, set out from post-revolutionary France on a journey across America that would take him 9 months and cover 7,000 miles. The result was Democracy in America, a subtle and prescient analysis of the life and institutions of 19th-century America. Tocqueville looked to the flourishing democratic system in America as a possible model for post-revolutionary France, believing that the egalitarian ideals it enshrined reflected the spirit of the age and even divine will.

His study of the strengths and weaknesses of an evolving democratic society has been quoted by every American president since Eisenhower, and remains a key point of reference for any discussion of the American nation or the democratic system. This new edition is the only one that contains all Tocqueville's writings on America, including the rarely-translated Two Weeks in the Wilderness, an account of Tocqueville's travels in Michigan among the Iroquois, and Excursion to Lake Oneida.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Dry

You may not know it, but you've met Augusten Burroughs. You've seen him on the street, in bars, on the subway, at restaurants: a twentysomething guy, nice suit, works in advertising. Regular. Ordinary. But when the ordinary person had two drinks, Augusten was circling the drain by having twelve; when the ordinary person went home at midnight, Augusten never went home at all. Loud, distracting ties, automated wake-up calls, and cologne on the tongue could only hide so much for so long. At the request (well, it wasn't really a request) of his employers, Augusten lands in rehab, where his dreams of group therapy with Robert Downey Jr. are immediately dashed by the grim reality of fluorescent lighting and paper hospital slippers. But when Augusten is forced to examine himself, something actually starts to click, and that's when he finds himself in the worst trouble of all. Because when his thirty days are up, he has to return to his same drunken Manhattan life--and live it sober. What follows is a memoir that's as moving as it is funny, as heartbreaking as it is true. Dry is the story of love, loss, and Starbucks as a Higher Power.

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game

2003

by Michael Lewis

Billy Beane, general manager of MLB's Oakland A's and protagonist of Michael Lewis's Moneyball, had a problem: how to win in the Major Leagues with a budget that's smaller than that of nearly every other team.


Conventional wisdom long held that big name, highly athletic hitters and young pitchers with rocket arms were the ticket to success. But Beane and his staff, buoyed by massive amounts of carefully interpreted statistical data, believed that wins could be had by more affordable methods such as hitters with high on-base percentage and pitchers who get lots of ground outs.


Given this information and a tight budget, Beane defied tradition and his own scouting department to build winning teams of young affordable players and inexpensive castoff veterans.


Lewis was in the room with the A's top management as they spent the summer of 2002 adding and subtracting players and he provides outstanding play-by-play. In the June player draft, Beane acquired nearly every prospect he coveted (few of whom were coveted by other teams) and at the July trading deadline he engaged in a tense battle of nerves to acquire a lefty reliever.


Besides being one of the most insider accounts ever written about baseball, Moneyball is populated with fascinating characters. We meet Jeremy Brown, an overweight college catcher who most teams project to be a 15th round draft pick (Beane takes him in the first). Sidearm pitcher Chad Bradford is plucked from the White Sox triple-A club to be a key set-up man and catcher Scott Hatteberg is rebuilt as a first baseman.


But the most interesting character is Beane himself. A speedy athletic can't-miss prospect who somehow missed, Beane reinvents himself as a front-office guru, relying on players completely unlike, say, Billy Beane.


Lewis, one of the top nonfiction writers of his era (Liar's Poker, The New New Thing), offers highly accessible explanations of baseball stats and his roadmap of Beane's economic approach makes Moneyball an appealing reading experience for business people and sports fans alike.

Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation

2003

by Olivia Judson

A sex guide for all living things and a hilarious natural history in the form of letters to and answers from the preeminent sexpert in all creation. Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation is a unique guidebook to sex. It reveals, for example, when necrophilia is acceptable and who should commit bestiality with whom.

It discloses the best time to have a sex change, how to have a virgin birth, and when to eat your lover. It also advises on more mundane matters — such as male pregnancy and the joys of a detachable penis.

Entertaining, funny, and marvelously illuminating, the book comprises letters from all creatures worried about their bizarre sex lives to the wise Dr. Tatiana (a.k.a. Olivia Judson), the only sex columnist in creation with a prodigious knowledge of evolutionary biology.

Fusing natural history with advice to the lovelorn, blending wit and rigor, she is able to reassure her anxious correspondents that although the acts they describe might sound appalling and unnatural, they are all perfectly normal — so long as you are not a human. In the process, she explains the science behind it all, from Darwin's theory of sexual selection to why sexual reproduction exists at all.

Applying human standards to the natural world, in the end she reveals the wonders of both. Delightful . . . Easy to understand and hard to resist, it's sex education at its prime — accurate, comprehensive, and hilarious.

The Other End of the Leash: Why We Do What We Do Around Dogs

The Other End of the Leash offers a revolutionary perspective on our relationship with dogs, focusing on our behavior compared to that of our canine companions. With over twenty years of experience, Applied Animal Behaviorist and dog trainer, Dr. Patricia McConnell, shares her insights.

Humans and dogs are two entirely different species, each shaped by its unique evolutionary heritage. Humans are primates, while dogs are canids, like wolves, coyotes, and foxes. This difference in "language" means that much can be lost in translation.

Key Insights:

  • Learn how subtle changes in your voice and body language can help your dog understand your intentions.
  • Understand why striving for "dominance" over your dog can lead to problems.
  • Discover how to play with your dog in ways that are fun and prevent mischief.
  • Explore how dogs and humans share personality types and why dogs prefer benevolent leaders over "alpha" figures.

Fascinating and insightful, this guide aims to enrich the rewarding relationship between you and your dog.

Are you sure you want to delete this?