Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States


Samantha Allen - 2019
    Now she's a senior Daily Beast reporter happily married to another woman. A lot in her life has changed, but what hasn't changed is her deep love of Red State America, and of queer people who stay in so-called "flyover country" rather than moving to the liberal coasts. In Real Queer America, Allen takes us on a cross-country road-trip stretching all the way from Provo, Utah to the Rio Grande Valley to the Bible Belt to the Deep South. Her motto for the trip: "Something gay every day." Making pit stops at drag shows, political rallies, and hubs of queer life across the heartland, she introduces us to scores of extraordinary LGBT people working for change, from the first openly transgender mayor in Texas history to the manager of the only queer night club in Bloomington, Indiana, and many more.Capturing profound cultural shifts underway in unexpected places and revealing a national network of chosen family fighting for a better world, Real Queer America is a treasure trove of uplifting stories and a much-needed source of hope and inspiration in these divided times.

Ending Parkinson's Disease: A Prescription for Action


Ray Dorsey - 2020
    The fastest growing of these is Parkinson's: the number of people with Parkinson's doubled to over 6 million over the last 25 years and is projected to double again by 2040. Harmful pesticides known to cause Parkinson's proliferate, many people remain undiagnosed and untreated, research funding stagnates, and the most effective treatment is now a half century old. In Ending Parkinson's Disease, four leading doctors and advocates offer a bold but actionable pact to prevent, advocate for, care for, and treat one of the great health challenges of our time. This is a critical guide for anyone who has or could be touched by this disease.

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness


Susannah Cahalan - 2012
    Days earlier, she had been on the threshold of a new, adult life: at the beginning of her first serious relationship and a promising career at a major New York newspaper. Now she was labeled violent, psychotic, a flight risk. What happened?In a swift and breathtaking narrative, Cahalan tells the astonishing true story of her descent into madness, her family’s inspiring faith in her, and the lifesaving diagnosis that nearly didn’t happen.

Gimson's Presidents: Brief Lives From Washington to Trump


Andrew Gimson - 2020
    Helping to bring these forgotten figures into the light, Andrew Gimson's illuminating accounts are accompanied by sketches from Guardian sartirical cartoonist, Martin Rowson, making this the perfect gift for all lovers of history and politics.

Unthinkable: The True Story about the First Double Amputee to Complete the World-Famous Hawaiian Ironman Triathlon


Scott Rigsby - 2009
    Scott has since become an inspiration to hundreds of thousands of physically challenged and able-bodied athletes the world over. "Unthinkable" documents Scott’s remarkable journey. From the scene of the devastating crash that claimed both of his legs, and his subsequent battle with depression and alcohol addiction, through his dawning realization that God has a greater plan for his life, readers will be inspired. From his decision to participate in the Ironman competition, to the moment he crossed the finish line, readers will engage with Scott’s unthinkable courage, determination and faith. "Unthinkable" releases simultaneously in both hardcover and softcover. A portion of the proceeds will go to the Scott Rigsby Foundation, a Georgia-based non-profit organization dedicated to inspire, inform, and enable physically challenged individuals with loss of limb or mobility to live an active lifestyle.

Spider Woman: A Life


Brenda Hale - 2021
    Yet that dramatic moment was merely the pinnacle of a career throughout which she was hailed as a pioneering reformer.As 'a little girl from a little school in a little village in North Yorkshire', she only went into the law because her headteacher told her she wasn't clever enough to study history. She became the most senior judge in the country.How does a self-professed 'girly swot' get ahead in a profession dominated by men? A lifelong smasher of glass-ceilings, who took as her motto 'women are equal to everything', her landmark rulings in areas including domestic violence, divorce, mental health and equality were her attempt to correct that.

The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World


Steven Johnson - 2006
    John Snow. It's the summer of 1854, and London is just emerging as one of the first modern cities in the world. But lacking the infrastructure—garbage removal, clean water, sewers—necessary to support its rapidly expanding population, the city has become the perfect breeding ground for a terrifying disease no one knows how to cure. As the cholera outbreak takes hold, a physician and a local curate are spurred to action—and ultimately solve the most pressing medical riddle of their time. In a triumph of multidisciplinary thinking, Johnson illuminates the intertwined histories and inter-connectedness of the spread of disease, contagion theory, the rise of cities, and the nature of scientific inquiry, offering both a riveting history and a powerful explanation of how it has shaped the world we live in.

The Journey: My Story, from Backyard Cricket to Australian Captain


Steve Smith - 2017
    From childhood backyard cricket with mates and family, and net sessions with his dad that laid the foundations for his later success, Steve traces the influences and events that started him on his cricket journey.He takes us inside his quest to play cricket at the highest level, from formative club and grade games, to his first overseas experiences, and finally to state cricket and the Australian squad. It's a journey with both ups and downs, where valuable and lasting lessons were learned from the successes and, more importantly, the failures.And Steve compellingly describes the key moments that shaped him into the cricketer and leader he is today, from his definitive hundred at Centurion in South Africa, to the soul-searching and resolve that accompanied the Australian team's lowest point in the 2016 Hobart Test, to the epic 2017 series in India.The Journey is a revealing and fascinating insight into Steve Smith-the cricketer and the man.

The Good Death: An Exploration of Dying in America


Ann Neumann - 2016
    From church basements to hospital wards to prison cells, Neumann charts the social, political, religious, and medical landscape to explore how we die today. The Good Death weaves personal accounts with a historical exploration of the movements and developments that have changed the ways we experience death. With the diligence of a journalist and the compassion of a caregiver, Neumann provides a portrait of death in the United States that is humane, beautifully written, and essential to our greater understanding of the future of end-of-life care.

Sandra Day O'Connor: How the First Woman on the Supreme Court Became Its Most Influential Justice


Joan Biskupic - 2005
    She became the axis on which the Supreme Court turned, and it was often said that to gauge the direction of American law, one need look only to O'Connor's vote. Drawing on information gleaned from once-private papers, hundreds of interviews, and the insight gained from nearly two decades of covering the Supreme Court, author Joan Biskupic offers readers a fascinating portrait of a complex and multifaceted woman—lawyer, politician, legislator, and justice, as well as wife, mother, A-list society hostess, and competitive athlete. Biskupic provides an in-depth account of her transformation from tentative jurist to confident architect of American law.

Fauci


Michael Specter - 2020
    Journalist Michael Specter examines Fauci’s career and the challenges of facing COVID-19 with Trump’s White House in his new audiobook “Fauci,” the first biography to be published on the doctor.

The Excellent Doctor Blackwell: The life of the first woman physician


Julia Boyd - 2005
    Few at the time would have disagreed with the actress Fanny Kemble's remark - "What, trust a woman doctor - never!"Yet by the time Dr Blackwell died in 1910 there were hundreds of women practising medicine on both sides of the Atlantic, thanks in no small part to her courage and determination.This is a remarkable story, and one by no means confined to medicine. It embraces slavery, the women's rights movement, the American Civil War and Elizabeth's personal tragedy (she lost an eye in Paris) - as well as a fascinating cast of characters from Abraham Lincoln to Florence Nightingale.Using a treasure trove of primary sources, the book reveals how Elizabeth Blackwell's pioneering efforts helped to fundamentally change the status of women in the West.'Julia Boyd resists the temptation to turn Blackwell into one of those old-fashioned feminist icons of the 1970s... the result is thorough and, above all, thoughtful.' - The Guardian'One can only hope that this excellent biography of an excellent doctor will help garner Blackwell the renown she has always deserved.' - New England Journal of Medicine'Julia Boyd's superb biography reveals B as a complex, tenacious and often frustrating character whose extraordinary single-mindedness changed our world.' - Victorian Geek

My Boy: The Philip Lynott Story


Philomena Lynott - 1995
    

Between Two Worlds: Escape from Tyranny: Growing Up in the Shadow of Saddam


Zainab Salbi - 2005
    Her mother, the beautiful Alia, taught her daughter the skills she needed to survive. A plastic smile. Saying yes. Burying in boxes in her mind the horrors she glimpsed around her. Learn to erase your memories, she instructed. He can read eyes.In this richly visual memoir, Salbi describes tyranny as she saw it--through the eyes of a privileged child, a rebellious teenager, a violated wife, and ultimately a public figure fighting to overcome the skill that once kept her alive: silence.Between Two Worlds is a riveting quest for truth that deepens our understanding of the universal themes of power, fear, sexual subjugation, and the question one generation asks the one before it: How could you have let this happen to us?

Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free


Linda Kay Klein - 2018
    Purity rings, purity pledges, and purity balls came with a dangerous message: girls are potential sexual “stumbling blocks” for boys and men, and any expression of a girl’s sexuality could reflect the corruption of her character. This message traumatized many girls—resulting in anxiety, fear, and experiences that mimicked the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder—and trapped them in a cycle of shame. This is the sex education Linda Kay Klein grew up with. Fearing being marked a Jezebel, Klein broke up with her high school boyfriend because she thought God told her to, and took pregnancy tests though she was a virgin, terrified that any sexual activity would be punished with an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. When the youth pastor of her church was convicted of sexual enticement of a twelve-year-old girl, Klein began to question the purity-based sexual ethic. She contacted young women she knew, asking if they were coping with the same shame-induced issues she was. These intimate conversations developed into a twelve-year quest that took her across the country and into the lives of women raised in similar religious communities—a journey that facilitated her own healing and led her to churches that are seeking a new way to reconcile sexuality and spirituality. Sexual shame is by no means confined to evangelical culture; Pure is a powerful wake-up call about our society’s subjugation of women.