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Us and Our World

Discover books that explore global and personal topics. A collection of nonfiction books exploring world events and our place in them.

Confidence Man

- Maggie Haberman

Hardcover $42.00
Reader Reward Price: $37.80

The instant #1 New York Times bestseller.

"This is the book Trump fears most." - Axios

"Will be a primary source about the most vexing president in American history for years to come." - Joe Klein, The New York Times

"A uniquely illuminating portrait." - Sean Wilentz, The Washington Post

"[A] monumental look at Donald Trump and his presidency." -- David Shribman, Los Angeles Times

From the Pulitzer-Prize-winning New York Times reporter who has defined Donald J. Trump's presidency like no other journalist, Confidence Man is a magnificent and disturbing reckoning that chronicles his life and its meaning from his rise in New York City to his tortured post-presidency.

Few journalists working today have covered Donald Trump more extensively than Maggie Haberman. And few understand him and his motivations better. Now, demonstrating her majestic command of this story, Haberman reveals in full the depth of her understanding of the 45th president himself, and of what the Trump phenomenon means.

Interviews with hundreds of sources and numerous interviews over the years with Trump himself portray a complicated and often contradictory historical figure. Capable of kindness but relying on casual cruelty as it suits his purposes.  Pugnacious. Insecure. Lonely. Vindictive. Menacing. Smarter than his critics contend and colder and more calculating than his allies believe. A man who embedded himself in popular culture, galvanizing support for a run for high office that he began preliminary spadework for 30 years ago, to ultimately become a president who pushed American democracy to the brink.

The through-line of Trump's life and his presidency is the enduring question of what is in it for him or what he needs to say to survive short increments of time in the pursuit of his own interests.    

Confidence Man is also, inevitably, about the world that produced such a singular character, giving rise to his career and becoming his first stage. It is also about a series of relentlessly transactional relationships. The ones that shaped him most were with girlfriends and wives, with Roy Cohn, with George Steinbrenner, with Mike Tyson and Don King and Roger Stone, with city and state politicians like Robert Morgenthau and Rudy Giuliani, with business partners, with prosecutors, with the media, and with the employees who toiled inside what they commonly called amongst themselves the "Trump Disorganization."  

That world informed the one that Trump tried to recreate while in the White House. All of Trump's behavior as President had echoes in what came before.  In this revelatory and newsmaking book, Haberman brings together the events of his life into a single mesmerizing work. It is the definitive account of one of the most norms-shattering and consequential eras in American political history.

Breathless

- David Quammen

Hardcover $39.99
Reader Reward Price: $35.99

National Book Award finalist Breathless tells the story of the worldwide scientific race to decipher the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, trace its source, and make possible the vaccines to fight the Covid-19 pandemic--a "luminous, passionate account of the defining crisis of our time." (The New York Times).

Breathless is a "gripping" (The Atlantic) but "clear-eyed analysis" (Time) of SARs-CoV-2 and its fierce journey through the human population, as seen by the scientists who study its origin, its ever-changing nature, and its capacity to kill us. David Quammen expertly shows how strange new viruses emerge from animals into humans as we disrupt wild ecosystems and how those viruses adapt to their human hosts, sometimes causing global catastrophe. He explains why this coronavirus will probably be a "forever virus," destined to circulate among humans and bedevil us endlessly, in one variant form or another. As scientists labor to catch it, comprehend it, and control it, with their high-tech tools and methods, the virus finds ways of escape.

Based on interviews with nearly one hundred scientists, including leading virologists in China and around the world, Quammen explains that:
-Infectious disease experts saw this pandemic coming
-Some scientists, for more than two decades, warned that "the next big one" would be caused by a changeable new virus--very possibly a coronavirus--but such warnings were ignored for political or economic reasons
-The precise origins of this virus may not be known for years, but some clues are compelling, and some suppositions can be dismissed
-And much more

Written by "one of our finest explainers of the natural world for decades" (Chicago Tribune), This "compelling and terrifying" (The New York Times) account is an unparalleled look inside the frantic international race to understand and control SARS-CoV-2--and what it might mean for the next potential global health crisis.

A Life on Our Planet

- Sir David Attenborough, Jonnie Hughes

Trade paperback $22.99
Reader Reward Price: $20.69

In this scientifically informed account of the changes in nature over the last century, award-winning broadcaster and natural historian David Attenborough shares a lifetime of wisdom and a hopeful vision for the future.
*Goodreads Choice Award Winner for Best Science & Technology Book of the Year* 
  See the world. Then make it better.
I am 93. I've had an extraordinary life. It's only now that I appreciate how extraordinary.

As a young man, I felt I was out there in the wild, experiencing the untouched natural world - but it was an illusion. The tragedy of our time has been happening all around us, barely noticeable from day to day -- the loss of our planet's wild places, its biodiversity.

I have been witness to this decline. A Life on Our Planet is my witness statement, and my vision for the future. It is the story of how we came to make this, our greatest mistake -- and how, if we act now, we can yet put it right.

We have one final chance to create the perfect home for ourselves and restore the wonderful world we inherited.

All we need is the will to do so.

The Skeptics' Guide to the Future

- Dr Steven Novella, Bob Novella, Jay Novella

Hardcover $38.00
Reader Reward Price: $34.20

From the bestselling authors and hosts of "The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe," a high-tech roadmap of the future in their beloved voice, cracking open the follies of futurists past and how technology will profoundly change our world, redefining what it means to be human.

Our predictions of the future are a wild fantasy, inextricably linked to our present hopes and fears, biases and ignorance. Whether they be the outlandish leaps predicted in the 1920s, like multi-purpose utility belts with climate control capabilities and planes the size of luxury cruise ships, or the forecasts of the '60s, which didn't anticipate the sexual revolution or women's liberation, the path to the present is littered with failed predictions and incorrect estimations. The best we can do is try to absorb the lessons from futurism's checkered past, perhaps learning to do a little better.

In THE SKEPTICS' GUIDE TO THE FUTURE, Steven Novella and his co-authors build upon the work of futurists of the past by examining what they got right, what they got wrong, and how they came to those conclusions. By exploring the pitfalls of each era, they give their own speculations about the distant future, transformed by unbelievable technology ranging from genetic manipulation to artificial intelligence and quantum computing. Applying their trademark skepticism, they carefully extrapolate upon each scientific development, leaving no stone unturned as they lay out a vision for the future.

 

Discipline Is Destiny

- Ryan Holiday

Hardcover $36.50
Reader Reward Price: $32.85

The instant New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today Bestseller!

In his New York Times bestselling book Courage is Calling, author Ryan Holiday made the Stoic case for a bold and brave life. In this much-anticipated second book of his Stoic Virtue series, Holiday celebrates the awesome power of self-discipline and those who have seized it.


To master anything, one must first master themselves-one's emotions, one's thoughts, one's actions. Eisenhower famously said that freedom is really the opportunity to practice self-discipline. Cicero called the virtue of temperance the polish of life. Without boundaries and restraint, we risk not only failing to meet our full potential and jeopardizing what we have achieved, but we ensure misery and shame. In a world of temptation and excess, this ancient idea is more urgent than ever.

In Discipline is Destiny, Holiday draws on the stories of historical figures we can emulate as pillars of self-discipline, including Lou Gehrig, Queen Elizabeth II, boxer Floyd Patterson, Marcus Aurelius and writer Toni Morrison, as well as the cautionary tales of Napoleon, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Babe Ruth. Through these engaging examples, Holiday teaches readers the power of self-discipline and balance, and cautions against the perils of extravagance and hedonism.

At the heart of Stoicism are four simple virtues: courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom. Everything else, the Stoics believed, flows from them. Discipline is Destiny will guide readers down the path to self-mastery, upon which all the other virtues depend. Discipline is predictive. You cannot succeed without it. And if you lose it, you cannot help but bring yourself failure and unhappiness.

The Last Doctor

- Jean Marmoreo , Johanna Schneller

Hardcover $33.00
Reader Reward Price: $29.70


NATIONAL BESTSELLER
*SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2022 WRITERS' TRUST BALSILLIE PRIZE FOR PUBLIC POLICY*


An urgently important exploration of the human stories behind Canada's evolving acceptance of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), from one of its first and most thoughtful practitioners.



Dr. Jean Marmoreo spent her career keeping people alive. But when the Supreme Court of Canada gave the green light to Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) in 2016, she became one of a small group of doctors who chose to immediately train themselves in this new field. Over the course of a single year, Marmoreo learns about end-of-life practices in bustling Toronto hospitals, in hospices, and in the facilities of smaller communities. She found that the needed services were often minimal--or non-existent.

The Last Doctor recounts Marmoreo's crash course in MAiD and introduces a range of very different and memorable patients, some aged, some suffering from degenerative conditions or with a terminal disease, some surrounded by supportive love, some quite alone, who ask her help to end their suffering with dignity and on their own terms.

Dr. Marmoreo also shares her own emotional transformation as she climbs a steep learning curve and learns the intimate truths of the vast range of end-of-life situations. What she experiences with MAiD shakes her to her core, makes her think deeply about pain, loneliness, and joy, and brings her closer to life's most profound questions.

At a time when end-of-life care and its quality are more in the public eye than ever before, The Last Doctor provides an accessibly personal, deeply humane, and authoritative guide through this difficult subject.

The Future Is Now

- Bob McDonald

Hardcover $32.95
Reader Reward Price: $29.66

*NATIONAL BESTSELLER*

Is a global pandemic what it took to show us that saving our planet is possible?


In the absence of motorized boats and gondolas, Venice's waters have returned to a sparkling blue color. Deer have been spotted roaming cities in Italy, and mountain goats recently took over a small seaside town in Wales. Taking advantage of the decreased boat traffic, whales have returned to roaming Vancouver's harbours. The absence of "regular" human activities has dramatically affected our environment. In this book, Bob McDonald turns his focus to global energy sources, and shows how the global shutdowns may have been exactly what we needed to show us that a greener future is achievable.

This is not another "wake-up call," and not another plea to heed the climate science. This is an exploration of the incredible technologies that our species can use to get out of the mess we've made for ourselves. It is a work of immense optimism, to counteract the sense of doom that hangs over most discussions of the environment.

Many alternative energy sources such as wind, solar, and geothermal have been available for decades--but they alone will not be enough. Additional power will come from small nuclear reactors the size of an office desk, and space-based solar power satellites with enormous mirrors that can capture sunlight, convert it to microwaves, and beam it to the ground to light up entire cities. Energy will be captured from waves, tides, and hydrogen. Vehicles will no longer have tailpipes that emit smog particles. Food will be sourced locally.

Green technology is one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy, and will only continue to skyrocket as current products improve their performance and new products emerge. A new green age is upon us--let this book be your guide to the future.

Business the NHL Way

- Norm O'Reilly , Rick Burton, Gary Bettman

Hardcover $32.95
Reader Reward Price: $29.66



Business the NHL Way draws on hockey-inspired stories to show how brands, institutions, and individuals associated with the NHL have consistently survived a variety of challenges and thrived as a result of its decisions. This revised and expanded edition explores business-related scenarios from the sport of hockey and links each lesson back to business, leadership, diversity, management, and sport outcomes.

Using ice hockey as an analogy for life, Norm O'Reilly and Rick Burton - leaders in the business of sports and former amateur hockey players - inform business and industry professionals on best practices to achieve strategic outcomes and career advancement. The book aims to help businesses emerge from the financial and health disruptions of the global COVID-19 pandemic that not only altered the future of hockey but threatened business sustainability in every sector. Business the NHL Way will appeal to both casual and passionate hockey fans, as well as anyone eager to follow in the footsteps of a successful professional sports organization.

Hysterical

- Elissa Bassist

Hardcover $37.00
Reader Reward Price: $33.30



SEMI-FINALIST FOR THE 2023 THURBER PRIZE FOR AMERICAN HUMOR o  "A fiery cultural critique." --Kirkus Reviews  o  "...a powerful, beautifully written, and utterly important book."--New York Journal of Books  

"Hysterical is staggeringly good. ... This is one of the most intelligent, painful, ridiculous, awesome, relevant things I've ever read." -Roxane Gay

"...an impressive debut. Elissa Bassist wrote it like a motherfucker."-Cheryl Strayed

Acclaimed humor writer Elissa Bassist shares her journey to reclaim her authentic voice in a culture that doesn't listen to women in this medical mystery, cultural criticism, and rallying cry.

Between 2016 and 2018, Elissa Bassist saw over twenty medical professionals for a variety of mysterious ailments. She had what millions of American women had: pain that didn't make sense to doctors, a body that didn't make sense to science, and a psyche that didn't make sense to mankind. Then an acupuncturist suggested that some of her physical pain could be caged fury finding expression, and that treating her voice would treat the problem.

It did.

Growing up, Bassist's family, boyfriends, school, work, and television shows had the same expectation for a woman's voice: less is more. She was called dramatic and insane for speaking her mind. She was accused of overreacting and playing victim for having unexplained physical pain. She was ignored or rebuked (like so many women throughout history) for using her voice "inappropriately" by expressing sadness or suffering or anger or joy. Because of this, she said "yes" when she meant "no"; she didn't tweet #MeToo; and she never spoke without fear of being "too emotional." She felt rage, but like a good woman, she repressed it.

In her witty and incisive debut, Bassist explains how girls and women internalize and perpetuate directives about their voices, making it hard to "just speak up" and "burn down the patriarchy." But then their silence hurts them more than anything they could ever say. Hysterical is a memoir of a voice lost and found, a primer on new ways to think about a woman's voice--about where it's being squashed and where it needs amplification--and a clarion call for readers to unmute their voice, listen to it above all others, and use it again without regret.
 

Ripley's Believe It Or Not! Escape the Ordinary

- Ripley's Believe It Or Not!

Hardcover $36.95
Reader Reward Price: $33.26

Ripley's Believe It or Not! Escape the Ordinary transports readers to a world beyond imagination--where truth is stranger than fiction! Every page reveals all-new and all-true stories from around the globe--an artist who paints with cow poop, a disappearing waterfall, whales that hunt with bubbles, and more! This book is every curious reader's ticket to Escape the Ordinary.

Ripley's Believe It or Not! Escape the Ordinary transports readers of all ages to a world beyond imagination--where truth is stranger than fiction! Every turn of the page reveals all-new and all-true stories from around the globe--an artist who paints with cow poop, a disappearing waterfall, whales that hunt with bubbles, and hundreds more! Filled with stunning photography and engaging content, including interviews and reader submissions, this book is every curious reader's ticket to Escape the Ordinary.

Saving Us

- Katharine Hayhoe

Trade paperback $25.99
Reader Reward Price: $23.39

United Nations Champion of the Earth, climate scientist, and evangelical Christian Katharine Hayhoe changes the debate on how we can save our future in this nationally bestselling "optimistic view on why collective action is still possible--and how it can be realized" (The New York Times).

Called "one of the nation's most effective communicators on climate change" by The New York Times, Katharine Hayhoe knows how to navigate all sides of the conversation on our changing planet. A Canadian climate scientist living in Texas, she negotiates distrust of data, indifference to imminent threats, and resistance to proposed solutions with ease. Over the past fifteen years Hayhoe has found that the most important thing we can do to address climate change is talk about it--and she wants to teach you how.

In Saving Us, Hayhoe argues that when it comes to changing hearts and minds, facts are only one part of the equation. We need to find shared values in order to connect our unique identities to collective action. This is not another doomsday narrative about a planet on fire. It is a multilayered look at science, faith, and human psychology, from an icon in her field--recently named chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy.

Drawing on interdisciplinary research and personal stories, Hayhoe shows that small conversations can have astonishing results. Saving Us leaves us with the tools to open a dialogue with your loved ones about how we all can play a role in pushing forward for change.

The Biggest Ideas in the Universe

- Sean Carroll

Hardcover $32.00
Reader Reward Price: $28.80

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
"Most appealing... technical accuracy and lightness of tone... Impeccable."--Wall Street Journal
"A porthole into another world."--Scientific American
"Brings science dissemination to a new level."--Science

The most trusted explainer of the most mind-boggling concepts pulls back the veil of mystery that has too long cloaked the most valuable building blocks of modern science. Sean Carroll, with his genius for making complex notions entertaining, presents in his uniquely lucid voice the fundamental ideas informing the modern physics of reality.
 
Physics offers deep insights into the workings of the universe but those insights come in the form of equations that often look like gobbledygook. Sean Carroll shows that they are really like meaningful poems that can help us fly over sierras to discover a miraculous multidimensional landscape alive with radiant giants, warped space-time, and bewilderingly powerful forces. High school calculus is itself a centuries-old marvel as worthy of our gaze as the Mona Lisa. And it may come as a surprise the extent to which all our most cutting-edge ideas about black holes are built on the math calculus enables. 
 
No one else could so smoothly guide readers toward grasping the very equation Einstein used to describe his theory of general relativity. In the tradition of the legendary Richard Feynman lectures presented sixty years ago, this book is an inspiring, dazzling introduction to a way of seeing that will resonate across cultural and generational boundaries for many years to come.

Russia

- Antony Beevor

Hardcover $51.00
Reader Reward Price: $45.90

"Riveting . . . There is a wealth of new information here that adds considerable texture and nuance to his story and helps to set Russia apart from previous works."--The Wall Street Journal

An epic new account of the conflict that reshaped Eastern Europe and set the stage for the rest of the twentieth century.


Between 1917 and 1921 a devastating struggle took place in Russia following the collapse of the Tsarist empire. The doomed White alliance of moderate socialists and reactionary monarchists stood little chance against Trotsky's Red Army and the single-minded Communist dictatorship under Lenin. In the savage civil war that followed, terror begat terror, which in turn led to ever greater cruelty with man's inhumanity to man, woman and child. The struggle became a world war by proxy as Churchill deployed weaponry and troops from the British empire, while contingents from the United States, France, Italy, Japan, Poland, and Czechoslovakia played rival parts.
 
Using the most up to date scholarship and archival research, Antony Beevor assembles the complete picture in a gripping narrative that conveys the conflict through the eyes of everyone from the worker on the streets of Petrograd to the cavalry officer on the battlefield and the doctor in an improvised hospital.

The Myth of Normal

- Gabor Mat , Daniel Mat

Hardcover $39.95
Reader Reward Price: $35.96

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

"This riveting and beautifully written tale has profound implications for all of our lives, including the practice of medicine and mental health." --Bessel van der Kolk, MD, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Body Keeps the Score

"Wise, sophisticated, rigorous and creative: an intellectual and compassionate investigation of who we are and who we may become. Essential reading for anyone with a past and a future." --Tara Westover, New York Times bestselling author of Educated

"The Myth of Normal is a book literally everyone will be enriched by--a wise, profound and healing work that is the culmination of Dr. Maté's many years of deep and painfully accumulated wisdom." --Johann Hari, New York Times bestselling author of Stolen Focus

"Gabor and Daniel Maté have delivered a book in which readers can seek refuge and solace during moments of profound personal and social crisis. The Myth of Normal is an essential compass during disorienting times." --Esther Perel, psychotherapist, author, and host of Where Should We Begin

From our most trusted and compassionate authority on stress, trauma, and mental well-being--a groundbreaking investigation into the causes of illness, a bracing critique of how our society breeds disease, and a pathway to health and healing.


Gabor Maté's internationally bestselling books have changed the way we look at addiction and have been integral in shifting the conversations around ADHD, stress, disease, embodied trauma, and parenting. Now, in this revolutionary book, he eloquently dissects how in Western countries that pride themselves on their health care systems, chronic illness and general ill health are on the rise. So what is really "normal" when it comes to health?
    For all our expertise and technological sophistication, Western medicine often fails to treat the whole person, ignoring how today's culture stresses the body, burdens the immune system, and undermines emotional balance. In The Myth of Normal, co-written with his son Daniel, Maté brings his perspective to the great untangling of common myths about what makes us sick, connects the dots between the maladies of individuals and the declining soundness of society, and offers a compassionate guide for health and healing. The result is Maté's most ambitious and urgent book yet.

The Fight of Our Lives

- Iuliia Mendel

Hardcover $36.99
Reader Reward Price: $33.29

"Moving." --The Washington Post

When Ukrainian journalist Iuliia Mendel got the call she had been hired to work for President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, she had no idea what was to come.


In this frank and moving inside account, Zelenskyy's former press secretary tells the story of his improbable rise from popular comedian to the president of Ukraine. Mendel had a front row seat to many of the key events preceding the 2022 Russian invasion. From attending meetings between Zelenskyy and Putin and other European leaders, visiting the front lines in Donbas, to fielding press inquiries after the infamous phone calls between Donald Trump and Zelenskyy that led to Trump's first impeachment.

Mendel saw firsthand Zelenskyy's efforts to transform his country from a poor, backward Soviet state into a vibrant, prosperous European democracy. Mendel sheds light on the massive economic problems facing Ukraine and the entrenched corrupt oligarchs in league with Russia. She witnessed the Kremlin's repeated attacks to discredit Zelenskyy through disinformation and an army of bots and trolls.

Woven into her account are details about her own life as a member of Zelenskyy's new Ukraine. Written with the sound of Russian bombs and exploding shells in the background, Mendel details life lived under Russian siege in 2022. She says goodbye to her fiancé who joins the front lines, like so many other Ukrainian men. Throughout this story of Zelenskyy, Ukraine, and its extraordinary people, Iuliia Mendel reminds us of the paramount importance of truth and human values, especially in these darkest of times.

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