Books with category 📚 Non-Fiction
Displaying books 1153-1200 of 1628 in total

Scar Tissue

Scar Tissue is a searingly honest memoir by Anthony Kiedis, the lead singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, chronicling a life spent in the fast lane of rock 'n' roll. In 1983, four self-described "knuckleheads" emerged from the neo-punk rock scene in L.A., creating their own unique brand of cosmic hardcore mayhem funk. Over twenty years later, against all odds, the Red Hot Chili Peppers have become one of the most successful bands in the world.

Though the band has gone through many incarnations, Anthony Kiedis, the group's lyricist and dynamic lead singer, has been a constant presence, experiencing the wild roller-coaster ride of success and excess. Whether he's honoring the influence of the beautiful, strong women who have been his muses or recalling performances from the roaring crowds of Woodstock to the humble compound of the exiled Dalai Lama, Kiedis shares a compelling story about the price of stardom.

Scar Tissue is a story of dedication and debauchery, of intrigue and integrity, of recklessness and redemption—a story that could only have emerged from the world of rock.

A Little History of the World

2005

by E.H. Gombrich

In 1935, with a doctorate in art history and no prospect of a job, the 26-year-old Ernst Gombrich was invited by a publishing acquaintance to attempt a history of the world for younger readers. Amazingly, he completed the task in an intense six weeks, and Eine kurze Weltgeschichte fĂĽr junge Leser was published in Vienna to immediate success, and is now available in seventeen languages across the world.

Toward the end of his long life, Gombrich embarked upon a revision and, at last, an English translation. A Little History of the World presents his lively and involving history to English-language readers for the first time. Superbly designed and freshly illustrated, this is a book to be savored and collected.

In forty concise chapters, Gombrich tells the story of man from the stone age to the atomic bomb. In between emerges a colorful picture of wars and conquests, grand works of art, and the spread and limitations of science. This is a text dominated not by dates and facts, but by the sweep of mankind's experience across the centuries, a guide to humanity's achievements and an acute witness to its frailties.

The product of a generous and humane sensibility, this timeless account makes intelligible the full span of human history.

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.

Chronicles: Volume One

2005

by Bob Dylan

"I'd come from a long ways off and had started a long ways down. But now destiny was about to manifest itself. I felt like it was looking right at me and nobody else." So writes Bob Dylan in Chronicles: Volume One, his remarkable book exploring critical junctures in his life and career.

Through Dylan's eyes and open mind, we see Greenwich Village, circa 1961, when he first arrives in Manhattan. Dylan's New York is a magical city of possibilities — smoky, nightlong parties; literary awakenings; transient loves and unbreakable friendships. Elegiac observations are punctuated by jabs of memories, penetrating and tough.

With the book's side trips to New Orleans, Woodstock, Minnesota, and points west, Chronicles: Volume One is an intimate and intensely personal recollection of extraordinary times. By turns revealing, poetical, passionate, and witty, Chronicles: Volume One is a mesmerizing window on Bob Dylan's thoughts and influences.

Dylan's voice is distinctively American: generous of spirit, engaged, fanciful, and rhythmic. Utilizing his unparalleled gifts of storytelling and the exquisite expressiveness that are the hallmarks of his music, Bob Dylan turns Chronicles: Volume One into a poignant reflection on life, and the people and places that helped shape the man and the art.

Ask and It Is Given: Learning to Manifest Your Desires

Ask and It Is Given, by Esther and Jerry Hicks, presents the teachings of the nonphysical entity Abraham. This book will help you learn how to manifest your desires so that you're living the joyous and fulfilling life you deserve.

As you read, you'll come to understand how your relationships, health issues, finances, and career concerns are influenced by the Universal laws that govern your time-space reality. You'll discover powerful processes that will help you go with the positive flow of life.

It's your birthright to live a life filled with everything that is good—and this book will show you how to make it so in every way!

Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen

2005

by Julie Powell

With the humor of Bridget Jones and the vitality of Augusten Burroughs, Julie Powell recounts how she conquered every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and saved her soul!

Julie Powell is 30-years-old, living in a rundown apartment in Queens and working at a soul-sucking secretarial job that’s going nowhere. She needs something to break the monotony of her life, and she invents a deranged assignment. She will take her mother's dog-eared copy of Julia Child's 1961 classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and she will cook all 524 recipes. In the span of one year.

At first she thinks it will be easy. But as she moves from the simple Potage Parmentier (potato soup) into the more complicated realm of aspics and crépes, she realizes there’s more to Mastering the Art of French Cooking than meets the eye. With Julia’s stern warble always in her ear, Julie haunts the local butcher, buying kidneys and sweetbreads. She sends her husband on late-night runs for yet more butter and rarely serves dinner before midnight.

She discovers how to mold the perfect Orange Bavarian, the trick to extracting marrow from bone, and the intense pleasure of eating liver. And somewhere along the line she realizes she has turned her kitchen into a miracle of creation and cuisine. She has eclipsed her life’s ordinariness through spectacular humor, hysteria, and perseverance.

A Briefer History of Time

From one of the most brilliant minds of our time comes a book that clarifies his most important ideas. Stephen Hawking’s worldwide bestseller, A Brief History of Time, remains a landmark volume in scientific writing. But for readers who have asked for a more accessible formulation of its key concepts—the nature of space and time, the role of God in creation, and the history and future of the universe—A Briefer History of Time is Professor Hawking’s response.

Although “briefer,” this book is much more than a mere explanation of Hawking’s earlier work. A Briefer History of Time both clarifies and expands on the great subjects of the original, and records the latest developments in the field—from string theory to the search for a unified theory of all the forces of physics.

Thirty-seven full-color illustrations enhance the text and make A Briefer History of Time an exhilarating and must-have addition in its own right to the great literature of science and ideas.

Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

2005

by Daniel Goleman

Everyone knows that high IQ is no guarantee of success, happiness, or virtue, but until Emotional Intelligence, we could only guess why. Daniel Goleman's brilliant report from the frontiers of psychology and neuroscience offers startling new insight into our "two minds"—the rational and the emotional—and how they together shape our destiny.

Through vivid examples, Goleman delineates the five crucial skills of emotional intelligence, and shows how they determine our success in relationships, work, and even our physical well-being. What emerges is an entirely new way to talk about being smart. The best news is that "emotional literacy" is not fixed early in life. Every parent, every teacher, every business leader, and everyone interested in a more civil society, has a stake in this compelling vision of human possibility.

Teacher Man

2005

by Frank McCourt

Teacher Man is Frank McCourt's long-awaited book about how his thirty-year teaching career shaped his second act as a writer. Nearly a decade ago, Frank McCourt became an unlikely star when, at the age of sixty-six, he burst onto the literary scene with Angela's Ashes, the Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir of his childhood in Limerick, Ireland. Then came 'Tis, his glorious account of his early years in New York.

Now, here at last, is McCourt's long-awaited book about how his thirty-year teaching career shaped his second act as a writer. Teacher Man is also an urgent tribute to teachers everywhere. In bold and spirited prose featuring his irreverent wit and heartbreaking honesty, McCourt records the trials, triumphs, and surprises he faces in public high schools around New York City.

His methods are anything but conventional. McCourt creates a lasting impact on his students through imaginative assignments (he instructs one class to write "An Excuse Note from Adam or Eve to God"), singalongs (featuring recipe ingredients as lyrics), and field trips (imagine taking twenty-nine rowdy girls to a movie in Times Square!).

McCourt struggles to find his way in the classroom and spends his evenings drinking with writers and dreaming of one day putting his own story to paper. Teacher Man shows McCourt developing his unparalleled ability to tell a great story as, five days a week, five periods per day, he works to gain the attention and respect of unruly, hormonally charged or indifferent adolescents.

McCourt's rocky marriage, his failed attempt to get a Ph.D. at Trinity College, Dublin, and his repeated firings due to his propensity to talk back to his superiors ironically lead him to New York's most prestigious school, Stuyvesant High School, where he finally finds a place and a voice. "Doggedness," he says, is "not as glamorous as ambition or talent or intellect or charm, but still the one thing that got me through the days and nights."

For McCourt, storytelling itself is the source of salvation, and in Teacher Man the journey to redemption—and literary fame—is an exhilarating adventure.

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 Course in Astral Travel and Dreams

2005

by Belzebuub

Astral projection can change your life forever. Imagine floating up into the air, flying to distant places, or meeting with spiritual beings. Imagine all this happening while you are out-of-body, knowing that it isn’t a fantasy, but very real.

This book offers the best astral travel techniques put together in a step-by-step guide by Belzebuub who has nearly 20 years of experience and has today reached an advanced level of proficiency in astral projection and explorations out of the body.

Already proven by thousands of people over the last decade, A Course in Astral Travel & Dreams by Belzebuub will prepare and train you to successfully achieve an out-of-body experience. You will receive precise guidance to help you to master the different stages of astral projection so that you can make the best use of your time out-of-body.

In just nine chapters, find out how to astral project when you want to, experience lucid dreaming and dream recall, and receive guidance from the astral plane and dreams. Belzebuub has included a bonus dream symbol guide to interpret your dreams.

Ancient texts from all over the world have referred to out of body experiences, as they are an intrinsic part of human spiritual experience, and have been used by mystics since the beginning of humanity to experience the greater multidimensional reality of life. Now, in A Course in Astral Travel and Dreams by Belzebuub, make them a part of yours.

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.

Ethics

2005

by Baruch Spinoza

Published shortly after his death, the Ethics is undoubtedly Spinoza's greatest work - an elegant, fully cohesive cosmology derived from first principles, providing a coherent picture of reality, and a guide to the meaning of an ethical life.

Following a logical step-by-step format, it defines in turn the nature of God, the mind, the emotions, human bondage to the emotions, and the power of understanding - moving from a consideration of the eternal, to speculate upon humanity's place in the natural order, the nature of freedom and the path to attainable happiness.

A powerful work of elegant simplicity, the Ethics is a brilliantly insightful consideration of the possibility of redemption through intense thought and philosophical reflection.

The Ethics is presented in the standard translation of the work by Edwin Curley. This edition also includes an introduction by Stuart Hampshire, outlining Spinoza's philosophy and placing it in context.

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.

Istanbul: Memories and the City

2005

by Orhan Pamuk

Istanbul: Memories and the City is a shimmering evocation, by turns intimate and panoramic, of one of the world’s great cities, by its foremost writer, Orhan Pamuk. Born in Istanbul, Pamuk still resides in the family apartment building where his mother first held him in her arms.

His portrait of his city is also a self-portrait, refracted by memory and the melancholy—or hüzün—that all Istanbullus share: the sadness that comes from living amid the ruins of a lost empire.

With cinematic fluidity, Pamuk moves from his glamorous, unhappy parents to the gorgeous, decrepit mansions overlooking the Bosphorus; from the dawning of his self-consciousness to the writers and painters—both Turkish and foreign—who would shape his consciousness of his city.

Like Joyce’s Dublin and Borges’ Buenos Aires, Pamuk’s Istanbul is a triumphant encounter of place and sensibility, beautifully written and immensely moving.

My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands

2005

by Chelsea Handler

You've either done it or know someone who has: the one-night stand, the familiar outcome of a night spent at a bar, sometimes the sole payoff for your friend's irritating wedding, or the only relief from a disastrous vacation.

Often embarrassing and uncomfortable, occasionally outlandish, but most times just a necessary and irresistible evil, the one-night stand is a social rite as old as sex itself and as common as a bar stool.

Enter Chelsea Handler. Gorgeous, sharp, and anything but shy, Chelsea loves men and lots of them. My Horizontal Life chronicles her romp through the different bedrooms of a variety of suitors, a no-holds-barred account of what can happen between a man and a sometimes very intoxicated, outgoing woman during one night of passion.

From her short fling with a Vegas stripper to her even shorter dalliance with a well-endowed little person, from her uncomfortable tryst with a cruise ship performer to her misguided rebound with a man who likes to play leather dress-up, Chelsea recalls the highs and lows of her one-night stands with hilarious honesty.

Encouraged by her motley collection of friends (aka: her partners in crime) but challenged by her family members (who at times find themselves a surprise part of the encounter), Chelsea hits bottom and bounces back, unafraid to share the gritty details. My Horizontal Life is one guilty pleasure you won't be ashamed to talk about in the morning.

Testament of Youth

2005

by Vera Brittain

Testament of Youth is a poignant memoir by Vera Brittain that offers an intimate glimpse into the experiences of a young woman during the tumultuous years of World War I. Vera Brittain, abandoning her studies at Oxford in 1915, enlisted as a nurse in the armed services. She served in London, Malta, and on the Western Front.

By the end of the war, she had lost virtually everyone she loved. This book is both a record of what she lived through and an elegy for a vanished generation. Brittain's eloquent prose and candid observations make this memoir a moving exploration of love, loss, and the enduring pursuit of peace.

Testament of Youth stands as a testament to the resilience of the human spirit amidst the horrors of war. It speaks to any generation that has been irrevocably changed by conflict, offering a deeply emotional insight into the personal and societal impacts of war.

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.

Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics By Its Most Brilliant Teacher

Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics Explained by Its Most Brilliant Teacher is a publishing first. This set couples a book containing the six easiest chapters from Richard P. Feynman's landmark work, Lectures on Physics—specifically designed for the general, non-scientist reader—with the actual recordings of the late, great physicist delivering the lectures on which the chapters are based.

Nobel Laureate Feynman gave these lectures just once, to a group of Caltech undergraduates in 1961 and 1962. These newly released recordings allow you to experience one of the Twentieth Century's greatest minds—as if you were right there in the classroom.

The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century

When scholars write the history of the world twenty years from now, and they come to the chapter Y2K to March 2004, what will they say was the most crucial development? The attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11 and the Iraq war? Or the convergence of technology and events that allowed India, China, and so many other countries to become part of the global supply chain for services and manufacturing, creating an explosion of wealth in the middle classes of the world's two biggest nations, giving them a huge new stake in the success of globalisation?

And with this 'flattening' of the globe, which requires us to run faster in order to stay in one place, has the world got too small and too fast for human beings and their political systems to adjust in a stable manner?

In this brilliant new book, the award-winning New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman demystifies the brave new world for readers, allowing them to make sense of the often bewildering global scene unfolding before their eyes. With his inimitable ability to translate complex foreign policy and economic issues, Friedman explains how the flattening of the world happened at the dawn of the 21st century; what it means to countries, companies, communities and individuals; and how governments and societies can, and must, adapt.

The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour

This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can.

With these words, Lieutenant Commander Robert W. Copeland addressed the crew of the destroyer escort USS Samuel B. Roberts on the morning of October 25, 1944, off the Philippine Island of Samar. On the horizon loomed the mightiest ships of the Japanese navy, a massive fleet that represented the last hope of a staggering empire.

All that stood between it and Douglas MacArthur’s vulnerable invasion force were the Roberts and the other small ships of a tiny American flotilla poised to charge into history.

In the tradition of naval epics, James D. Hornfischer paints an unprecedented portrait of the Battle of Samar, a naval engagement unlike any other in U.S. history—and captures with unforgettable intensity the men, the strategies, and the sacrifices that turned certain defeat into a legendary victory.

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.

Green River, Running Red: The Real Story of the Green River Killer - America's Deadliest Serial Murderer

2005

by Ann Rule

In her most personal and provocative book to date, the #1 bestselling master of true crime presents her long-awaited definitive narrative of the brutal and senseless crimes that haunted the Seattle area for decades. This is the extraordinary true story of the most prolific serial killer the nation had ever seen—a case involving more than forty-nine female victims, two decades of intense investigative work...and one unrelenting killer who not only attended Ann Rule's book signings but lived less than a mile away from her home.

In 1982, the body of Wendy Coffield is discovered floating near the sandy shore of Washington’s Green River. Authorities have no idea that this tragic and violent death is only the beginning of a string of murders that will rock and terrify the Seattle area for two decades.

With her signature riveting prose and in-depth research, Ann Rule takes us behind the scenes of the search for the Green River Killer, a terrifying specter who ritualistically killed young women and eluded authorities for years. From seeking the help of incarcerated serial killer Ted Bundy to Ann Rule’s horrifying realization that the killer she was writing about had attended her book signings, Green River, Running Red is the suspenseful and unforgettable definitive narrative of the brutal and senseless crimes that haunted the Seattle area for decades.

Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the New Face of American War

2005

by Evan Wright

Another nameless town, another target for First Recon. It's only five in the afternoon, but a sandstorm has plunged everything into a hellish twilight of murky, red dust. On rooftops, in alleyways lurk militiamen with machine guns, AK rifles, and the odd rocket-propelled grenade. Artillery bombardment has shattered the town's sewers and rubble is piled up in lagoons of human excrement. It stinks. Welcome to Iraq...

Within hours of 9/11, America's war on terrorism fell to those like the 23 Marines of the First Recon Battalion, the first generation dispatched into open-ended combat since Vietnam. They were a new breed of American warrior unrecognizable to their forebears—soldiers raised on hip hop, Internet porn, Marilyn Manson, video games, and The Real World, a band of born-again Christians, dopers, Buddhists, and New Agers who gleaned their precepts from kung fu movies and Oprah Winfrey.

Cocky, brave, headstrong, wary, and mostly unprepared for the physical, emotional, and moral horrors ahead, the "First Suicide Battalion" would spearhead the blitzkrieg on Iraq, and fight against the hardest resistance Saddam had to offer.

Generation Kill is the funny, frightening, and profane firsthand account of these remarkable men, of the personal toll of victory, and of the randomness, brutality, and camaraderie of a new American war.

Broken Music

2005

by Sting

Having been a songwriter most of my life, condensing my ideas and emotions into short rhyming couplets and setting them to music, I had never really considered writing a book. But upon arriving at the reflective age of fifty, I found myself drawn, for the first time, to write long passages that were as stimulating and intriguing to me as any songwriting I had ever done.

And so Broken Music began to take shape. It is a book about the early part of my life, from childhood through adolescence, right up to the eve of my success with the Police. It is a story very few people know.

I had no interest in writing a traditional autobiographical recitation of everything that’s ever happened to me. Instead, I found myself drawn to exploring specific moments, certain people and relationships, and particular events which still resonate powerfully for me as I try to understand the child I was, and the man I became.

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 Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter and Miracles

2005

by Bruce H. Lipton

The Biology of Belief is a groundbreaking work in the field of New Biology. Author Dr. Bruce Lipton, a former medical school professor and research scientist, presents a profound synthesis of the latest research in cell biology and quantum physics.

Dr. Lipton's experiments, along with those of other leading-edge scientists, have examined in great detail the processes by which cells receive information.
The implications of this research radically change our understanding of life, demonstrating that genes and DNA do not control our biology. Instead, DNA is influenced by signals from outside the cell, including the energetic messages emanating from our positive and negative thoughts.

This book is hailed as a major breakthrough, showing that our bodies can be changed as we retrain our thinking. It illustrates how the new science of Epigenetics is revolutionizing our understanding of the link between mind and matter and the profound effects it has on our personal lives and the collective life of our species.

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

2004

by Jared Diamond

Collapse is a brilliant, illuminating, and immensely absorbing book by Jared Diamond, destined to take its place as one of the essential books of our time. It raises the urgent question: How can our world best avoid committing ecological suicide?

In his million-copy bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond examined how and why Western civilizations developed the technologies and immunities that allowed them to dominate much of the world. Now in this brilliant companion volume, Diamond probes the other side of the equation: What caused some of the great civilizations of the past to collapse into ruin, and what can we learn from their fates?

Diamond weaves an all-encompassing global thesis through a series of fascinating historical-cultural narratives. Moving from the Polynesian cultures on Easter Island to the flourishing American civilizations of the Anasazi and the Maya, and finally to the doomed Viking colony on Greenland, Diamond traces the fundamental pattern of catastrophe. Environmental damage, climate change, rapid population growth, and unwise political choices were all factors in the demise of these societies, but other societies found solutions and persisted.

Similar problems face us today and have already brought disaster to Rwanda and Haiti, even as China and Australia are trying to cope in innovative ways. Despite our own society's apparently inexhaustible wealth and unrivaled political power, ominous warning signs have begun to emerge even in ecologically robust areas like Montana.

Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda

Shake Hands with the Devil is a profound and harrowing account by Lt-Gen. Roméo Dallaire, who served as the force commander of the UN intervention in Rwanda in 1993. This book takes readers on a vivid journey into the heart of the Rwandan genocide, an event that saw the slaughter of 800,000 Rwandans in just 100 days.

Dallaire's mission, intended as a straightforward peacekeeping endeavor, quickly turned into a nightmare of betrayal, naiveté, and international political failure. Despite timely warnings, the international community failed to stop the genocide, leaving Dallaire and his men to witness unimaginable horrors.

Through his unsparing eyewitness account, Dallaire shares his personal journey from a confident Cold Warrior to a devastated UN commander, struggling to reconcile his experiences and find peace. His narrative challenges conventional ideas of military leadership and underscores the moral complexities faced by peacekeepers in conflict zones.

This book is not just a military account but a cri de coeur for the thousands slaughtered and a tribute to the souls lost to the violence. It highlights the critical importance of understanding the moral minefields peacekeepers must navigate when intervening in "dirty wars."

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.

Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation

2004

by Joseph Campbell

Joseph Campbell famously defined myth as other people's religion. But he also said that one of the basic functions of myth is to help each individual through the journey of life, providing a sort of travel guide or map to reach fulfillment—or, as he called it, bliss. For Campbell, many of the world's most powerful myths support the individual's heroic path toward bliss.

In Pathways to Bliss, Campbell examines this personal, psychological side of myth. Like his classic best-selling books Myths to Live By and The Power of Myth, Pathways to Bliss draws from Campbell's popular lectures and dialogues, which highlight his remarkable storytelling and ability to apply the larger themes of world mythology to personal growth and the quest for transformation. Here he anchors mythology's symbolic wisdom to the individual, applying the most poetic mythical metaphors to the challenges of our daily lives.

Campbell dwells on life's important questions. Combining cross-cultural stories with the teachings of modern psychology, he examines the ways in which our myths shape and enrich our lives and shows how myth can help each of us truly identify and follow our bliss.

Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream

2004

by H.G. Bissinger

Return once again to the enduring account of life in the Mojo lane, to the Permian Panthers of Odessa — the winningest high school football team in Texas history. Odessa is not known to be a town big on dreams, but the Panthers help keep the hopes and dreams of this small, dusty town going.

Socially and racially divided, its fragile economy follows the treacherous boom-bust path of the oil business. In bad times, the unemployment rate barrels out of control; in good times, its murder rate skyrockets. But every Friday night from September to December, when the Permian High School Panthers play football, this West Texas town becomes a place where dreams can come true.

With frankness and compassion, Bissinger chronicles one of the Panthers' dramatic seasons and shows how single-minded devotion to the team shapes the community and inspires—and sometimes shatters—the teenagers who wear the Panthers' uniforms.

America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction

Jon Stewart, host of the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning The Daily Show, and his coterie of patriots, deliver a hilarious look at American government.

American-style democracy is the world's most beloved form of government, which explains why so many other nations are eager for us to impose it on them. But what is American democracy? In America (The Book), Jon Stewart and The Daily Show writing staff offer their insights into our unique system of government, dissecting its institutions, explaining its history and processes, and exploring the reasons why concepts like one man, one vote, government by the people, and every vote counts have become such popular urban myths.

Topics include: Ancient Rome: The First Republicans; The Founding Fathers: Young, Gifted, and White; The Media: Can it Be Stopped?; and more!

Flyboys: A True Story of Courage

Flyboys is a gripping narrative of war, friendship, and honor set against the backdrop of the remote Pacific island of Chichi Jima. Nine American flyers, Navy and Marine pilots tasked with bombing Japanese communications towers, were shot down. This is their story.

One of these men was miraculously rescued by a U.S. Navy submarine, while the others faced capture by Japanese soldiers. The fate of these eight captured men was shrouded in secrecy, buried by both American and Japanese governments.

James D. Bradley takes readers on a journey to uncover the truth, navigating through dusty attics in American towns, classified government archives, and the heart of Japan, ultimately reaching Chichi Jima itself. His findings reveal a mystery stretching back 150 years, to America's westward expansion and Japan's initial encounters with the Western world.

With vivid descriptions, Bradley brings to life the courage and sacrifice of these young men, while also exploring the complex history of two nations at war. He delves into the Japanese warrior mentality and the U.S. military strategies that justified devastating attacks on civilians.

Ultimately, Flyboys is about how we live and die, epitomized by the tale of the one Flyboy who escaped capture—a young Navy pilot named George H. W. Bush, who would later become President of the United States.

This masterpiece of historical narrative will forever change our understanding of the Pacific war and the very principles we fight for.

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 Great Escape

2004

by Paul Brickhill

The Great Escape is one of the most famous true stories from the last war. It narrates the extraordinary tale of how more than six hundred men in a German prisoner-of-war camp worked together to orchestrate a remarkable breakout.

Every night for a year, they dug tunnels beneath the camp. Those who weren't digging were busy forging passports, drawing maps, faking weapons, and tailoring German uniforms and civilian clothes to wear once they had escaped. All of this was done under the very noses of their prison guards.

When the right night came, the actual escape was timed to the split second. But, of course, not everything went according to plan...

Storm of Steel

2004

by Ernst JĂĽnger

Storm of Steel is a memoir of astonishing power, savagery, and ashen lyricism. It illuminates not only the horrors but also the fascination of total war, seen through the eyes of an ordinary German soldier.

Young, tough, patriotic, but also disturbingly self-aware, JĂĽnger exulted in the Great War, which he saw not just as a great national conflict, but more importantly as a unique personal struggle. Leading raiding parties, defending trenches against murderous British incursions, simply enduring as shells tore his comrades apart, JĂĽnger kept testing himself, braced for the death that would mark his failure.

Published shortly after the war's end, Storm of Steel was a worldwide bestseller and can now be rediscovered through Michael Hofmann's brilliant new translation.

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.

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