In We Are the Weather, Jonathan Safran Foer explores the central global dilemma of our time in a surprising, deeply personal, and urgent new way. Some people reject the fact, overwhelmingly supported by scientists, that our planet is warming because of human activity. But do those of us who accept the reality of human-caused climate change truly believe …
The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine
“Warning: She spares no detail!” ―Erik Larson, bestselling author of Dead Wake A Top 10 Science Book of Fall 2017, Publishers Weekly”Fascinating and shocking.” ―Kirkus Reviews (starred review)The gripping story of how Joseph Lister’s antiseptic method changed medicine foreverIn The Butchering Art, the historian Lindsey Fitzharris reveals the shocking world of nineteenth-century surgery on the eve of profound …
The long-awaited guide to writing long-form nonfiction by the legendary author and teacherDraft No. 4 is a master class on the writer’s craft. In a series of playful, expertly wrought essays, John McPhee shares insights he has gathered over his career and has refined while teaching at Princeton University, where he has nurtured some of the most esteemed …
Instant New York Times Bestseller“Dazzling . . . A profound novel about the claims of identity, history, family, and the burdens of a broken world.” ―Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s “Fresh Air” In the book of Genesis, when God calls out, “Abraham!” before ordering him to sacrifice his son, Isaac, Abraham responds, “Here I am.” Later, when Isaac calls out, …
A spirited and revealing memoir by the most celebrated editor of his timeAfter editing The Columbia Review, staging plays at Cambridge, and a stint in the greeting-card department of Macy’s, Robert Gottlieb stumbled into a job at Simon and Schuster. By the time he left to run Alfred A. Knopf a dozen years later, he was the editor …
“The most influential thinker, in my life, has been the psychologist Richard Nisbett. He basically gave me my view of the world.” -Malcolm Gladwell, New York Times Book ReviewScientific and philosophical concepts can change the way we solve problems by helping us to think more effectively about our behavior and our world. Surprisingly, despite their utility, many of …
The Weather Experiment: The Pioneers Who Sought to See the Future
In 1865 Admiral Robert FitzRoy locked himself in his dressing room and cut his throat. His grand meteorological project had failed. Yet only a decade later, FitzRoy’s storm warning system and “forecasts” would return, the model for what we use today.In an age when a storm at sea was evidence of God’s wrath, nineteenth-century meteorologists had to fight …
The Brain Electric: The Dramatic High-Tech Race to Merge Minds and Machines
Leading neuroscience researchers are racing to unlock the secrets of the mind. On the cusp of decoding brain signals that govern motor skills, they are developing miraculous technologies that will enable paraplegics and wounded soldiers to move prosthetic limbs and will give all of us the power to manipulate computers and other objects through thought alone. These fiercely …
A cross-country hitchhiking journey with America’s most beloved weirdoJohn Waters is putting his life on the line. Armed with wit, a pencil-thin mustache, and a cardboard sign that reads “I’m Not Psycho,” he hitchhikes across America from Baltimore to San Francisco, braving lonely roads and treacherous drivers. But who should we be more worried about, the delicate film …
A literary apprenticeship in eleven letters, by the internationally acclaimed master of the novel In the tradition of Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, Mario Vargas Llosa condenses a lifetime of writing, reading, and thought into an essential manual for aspiring writers, revealing in the process his deepest beliefs about our common literary endeavor. A writer, in his …