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BooksBiographies + Memoirs
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By Rebecca Skloot
Crown Released: 2010-02-02 Hardcover (384 pages)
 | List Price: $26.00* Lowest New Price: $13.48* Lowest Used Price: $15.52* Usually ships in 24 hours* *(As of 14:17 Pacific 16 Mar 2010 More Info)
Click Here | - ISBN13: 9781400052172
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description: Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they’d weigh more than 50 million metric tons—as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.
Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.
Now Rebecca Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey, from the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers full of HeLa cells; from Henrietta’s small, dying hometown of Clover, Virginia—a land of wooden slave quarters, faith healings, and voodoo—to East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her cells.
Henrietta’s family did not learn of her “immortality” until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family—past and present—is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of.
Over the decade it took to uncover this story, Rebecca became enmeshed in the lives of the Lacks family—especially Henrietta’s daughter Deborah, who was devastated to learn about her mother’s cells. She was consumed with questions: Had scientists cloned her mother? Did it hurt her when researchers infected her cells with viruses and shot them into space? What happened to her sister, Elsie, who died in a mental institution at the age of fifteen? And if her mother was so important to medicine, why couldn’t her children afford health insurance? Intimate in feeling, astonishing in scope, and impossible to put down, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks captures the beauty and drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences. |
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By Tom Reynolds
HarperCollins UK Paperback (352 pages)
 | List Price: $12.95* Lowest New Price: $8.73* Not yet published* *(As of 14:17 Pacific 16 Mar 2010 More Info)
Click Here | Product Description:
Tom Reynolds is an ambulance worker. On any given day he can be attacked by strangers, sworn at by motorists, puked on, covered in blood, and other much more unpleasant substances. He could help to deliver a baby in the morning and witness the last moments of a dying man in the afternoon. He deals with road accidents, knife attacks, domestic violence, drug overdoses, neglect, and suffering. And you think you’re having a bad day at work? Tom blogs about his experiences at the end of each shift. His Random Acts of Reality website has a huge following with more than 30,000 visitors every day. Here, Tom charts the past two years of his life as an ambulance worker. He is tired, he is frustrated, and he is more pissed off than ever but he still manages to capture the more moving, heartwarming, and inspirational moments alongside the chaos. |
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By Greg Mortenson
Penguin Books Paperback (349 pages)
 | List Price: $16.00* Lowest New Price: $6.29* Lowest Used Price: $2.85* Usually ships in 24 hours* *(As of 14:17 Pacific 16 Mar 2010 More Info)
Click Here | - ISBN13: 9780143038252
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description: The astonishing, uplifting story of a real-life Indiana Jones and his humanitarian campaign to use education to combat terrorism in the Taliban’s backyard Anyone who despairs of the individual’s power to change lives has to read the story of Greg Mortenson, a homeless mountaineer who, following a 1993 climb of Pakistan’s treacherous K2, was inspired by a chance encounter with impoverished mountain villagers and promised to build them a school. Over the next decade he built fifty-five schools—especially for girls—that offer a balanced education in one of the most isolated and dangerous regions on earth. As it chronicles Mortenson’s quest, which has brought him into conflict with both enraged Islamists and uncomprehending Americans, Three Cups of Tea combines adventure with a celebration of the humanitarian spirit. |
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By Karl Rove
Threshold Editions Hardcover (608 pages)
 | List Price: $30.00* Lowest New Price: $14.99* Lowest Used Price: $19.52* Usually ships in 24 hours* *(As of 14:17 Pacific 16 Mar 2010 More Info)
Click Here | - ISBN13: 9781439191057
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description:
From the moment he set foot on it, Karl Rove has rocked America's political stage. He ran the national College Republicans at twenty-two, and turned a Texas dominated by Democrats into a bastion for Republicans. He launched George W. Bush to national renown by unseating a popular Democratic governor, and then orchestrated a GOP White House win at a time when voters had little reason to throw out the incumbent party. For engineering victory after unlikely victory, Rove became known as "the Architect." Because of his success, Rove has been attacked his entire career, accused of everything from campaign chicanery to ideological divisiveness. In this frank memoir, Rove responds to critics, passionately articulates his political philosophy, and defends the choices he made on the campaign trail and in the White House. In the course of putting the record straight, Rove takes on Democratic leaders like Harry Reid and Tom Daschle who acted cynically or deviously behind closed doors, and even Republicans who lacked backbone at crucial moments. Among other controversial topics Rove addresses, he sets the record straight on:
- The facts of his mother's suicide and reports of his father's alleged homosexuality
- The accusation that he bugged his own office in Texas
- The real story of how George W. Bush defeated governor Ann Richards
- The details of Bush's stealth campaign to win the White House in 2000
- Why Bush cratered in New Hampshire but prevailed in South Carolina in 2000
- How Bush chose Dick Cheney as his presidential running mate
- How the Bush campaign managed Bush's DUI
- The defection of Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords
- The frustrating challenges of Hurricane Katrina
- The facts behind Rove's painful three years fending off a federal indictment, and
- Why Obama is wrong on healthcare.
Courage and Consequence is also the first intimate account from the highest level at the White House of one of the most headline-making presidencies of the modern age. Rove takes readers behind the scenes of
- The bitterly contested 2000 presidential contest
- Every tense minute aboard Air Force One on 9/11
- The decision to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and
- The hard-won 2004 reelection fight.
Rove is candid about his mistakes in the West Wing and in his campaigns, and talks frankly about the heartbreak of his early family years. He spells out what it takes to win elections and how to govern successfully once a candidate has won. But Courage and Consequence is ultimately about the joy of a life committed to the conservative cause, a life spent in political combat and service to country, no matter the costs. |
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By Michael Pollan
Large Print Distribution Paperback (329 pages)
 | List Price: $16.95* Lowest New Price: $9.96* Lowest Used Price: $8.00* Usually ships in 24 hours* *(As of 14:17 Pacific 16 Mar 2010 More Info)
Click Here | - ISBN13: 9781594133329
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description: The companion volume to The New York Times bestseller The Omnivore's Dilemma
Michael Pollan's lastbook , The Omnivore's Dilemma, launched a national conversation about the American way of eating; now In Defense of Food shows us how to change it, one meal at a time. Pollan proposes a new answer to the question of what we should eat that comes down to seven simple but liberating words: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Pollan's bracing and eloquent manifesto shows us how we can start making thoughtful food choices that will enrich our lives, enlarge our sense of what it means to be healthy, and bring pleasure back to eating. |
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By Mosab Hassan Yousef
SaltRiver Released: 2010-03-02 Hardcover (288 pages)
 | List Price: $26.99* Lowest New Price: $15.78* Lowest Used Price: $17.33* Usually ships in 24 hours* *(As of 14:17 Pacific 16 Mar 2010 More Info)
Click Here | Product Description: Since he was a small boy, Mosab Hassan Yousef has had an inside view of the deadly terrorist group Hamas. The oldest son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a founding member of Hamas and its most popular leader, young Mosab assisted his father for years in his political activities while being groomed to assume his legacy, politics, status . . . and power. But everything changed when Mosab turned away from terror and violence, and embraced instead the teachings of another famous Middle East leader. In Son of Hamas, Mosab Yousef--now called "Joseph"--reveals new information about the world's most dangerous terrorist organization and unveils the truth about his own role, his agonizing separation from family and homeland, the dangerous decision to make his newfound faith public, and his belief that the Christian mandate to "love your enemies" is the only way to peace in the Middle East. |
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By Andrew Young
Thomas Dunne Books Released: 2010-01-30 Hardcover (320 pages)
 | List Price: $24.99* Lowest New Price: $13.00* Lowest Used Price: $10.99* Usually ships in 24 hours* *(As of 14:17 Pacific 16 Mar 2010 More Info)
Click Here | - ISBN13: 9780312640651
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description:
“The greatest political saga, the one that has it all, that gets to the real heart of American politics, is the John Edwards story... This isn’t just politics, it’s literature. It’s the great American novel, the kind that isn’t written anymore.” --Michael Wolff on John Edwards's trajectory, on VanityFair.com The underside of modern American politics -- raw ambition, manipulation, and deception -- are revealed in detail by Andrew Young’s riveting account of a presidential hopeful’s meteoric rise and scandalous fall. Like a non-fiction version of All the King’s Men, The Politician offers a truly disturbing, even shocking perspective on the risks taken and tactics employed by a man determined to rule the most powerful nation on earth. Idealistic and ambitious, Andrew Young volunteered for the John Edwards campaign for Senate in 1998 and quickly became the candidate’s right hand man. As the senator became a national star, Young’s responsibilities grew. For a decade he was this politician’s confidant and he was assured he was ‘like family.” In time, however, Young was drawn into a series of questionable assignments that culminated with Edwards asking him to help conceal the Senator’s ongoing adultery. Days before the 2008 presidential primaries began, Young gained international notoriety when he told the world that he was the father of a child being carried by a woman named Rielle Hunter, who was actually the senator’s mistress. While Young began a life on the run, hiding from the press with his family and alleged mistress, John Edwards continued to pursue the presidency and then the Vice Presidency in the future Obama administration. Young had been the senator’s closest aide and most trusted friend. He believed that John Edwards could be a great president, and was assured throughout the cover-up that his boss and friend would ultimately step forward to both tell the truth and protect his aide’s career. Neither promise was kept. Not only a moving personal account of Andrew Young’s political education, THE POLITICIAN offers a look at the trajectory which made John Edwards the ideal Democratic candidate for president, and the hubris which brought him down, leaving his career, his marriage and his dreams in ashes. |
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By Chelsea Handler
Bloomsbury USA Released: 2005-05-12 Paperback (213 pages)
 | List Price: $14.95* Lowest New Price: $7.97* Lowest Used Price: $7.18* Usually ships in 24 hours* *(As of 14:17 Pacific 16 Mar 2010 More Info)
Click Here | - ISBN13: 9781582346182
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description:
In this raucous collection of true-life stories, actress and comedian Chelsea Handler recounts her time spent in the social trenches with that wild, strange, irresistible, and often gratifying beast: the one-night stand.
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.
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By Gretchen Rubin
Harpercollins Hardcover (320 pages)
 | Lowest Used Price: $29.63* *(As of 14:17 Pacific 16 Mar 2010 More Info)
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By Gretchen Rubin
Harper Released: 2009-12-29 Hardcover (320 pages)
 | List Price: $25.99* Lowest New Price: $14.09* Lowest Used Price: $14.09* Usually ships in 24 hours* *(As of 14:17 Pacific 16 Mar 2010 More Info)
Click Here | - ISBN13: 9780061583254
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description:
Gretchen Rubin had an epiphany one rainy afternoon in the unlikeliest of places: a city bus. "The days are long, but the years are short," she realized. "Time is passing, and I'm not focusing enough on the things that really matter." In that moment, she decided to dedicate a year to her happiness project. In this lively and compelling account of that year, Rubin carves out her place alongside the authors of bestselling memoirs such as Julie and Julia, The Year of Living Biblically, and Eat, Pray, Love. With humor and insight, she chronicles her adventures during the twelve months she spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific research, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier. Rubin didn't have the option to uproot herself, nor did she really want to; instead she focused on improving her life as it was. Each month she tackled a new set of resolutions: give proofs of love, ask for help, find more fun, keep a gratitude notebook, forget about results. She immersed herself in principles set forth by all manner of experts, from Epicurus to Thoreau to Oprah to Martin Seligman to the Dalai Lama to see what worked for her—and what didn't. Her conclusions are sometimes surprising—she finds that money can buy happiness, when spent wisely; that novelty and challenge are powerful sources of happiness; that "treating" yourself can make you feel worse; that venting bad feelings doesn't relieve them; that the very smallest of changes can make the biggest difference—and they range from the practical to the profound. Written with charm and wit, The Happiness Project is illuminating yet entertaining, thought-provoking yet compulsively readable. Gretchen Rubin's passion for her subject jumps off the page, and reading just a few chapters of this book will inspire you to start your own happiness project. |
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