The New Yorker is, of course, a bastion of superb essays, influential investigative journalism, and insightful arts criticism. But for eighty years it’s also been a hoot. Now an uproarious sampling of its funny writings can be found in this collection, by turns satirical and witty, misanthropic and menacing. From the 1920s onward—but with a special focus on the latest generation—here are the humorists who have set the pace and stirred the pot, pulled the leg and pinched the behind of America. The comic lineup includes Christopher Buckley, Ian Frazier, Veronica Geng, Garrison Keillor, Steve Martin, Susan Orlean, Simon Rich, David Sedaris, Calvin Trillin, and many others. If laughter is the best medicine, Disquiet, Please! is truly a wonder drug.

From the bestselling author of Gratitude and Musicophilia , a collection of essays that displays Oliver Sacks's passionate engagement with the most compelling ideas of human endeavor: evolution, creativity, memory, time, consciousness, and experience. Oliver Sacks, scientist and storyteller, is beloved by readers for the extraordinary neurological case histories ( Awakenings , An Anthropologist on Mars ) in which he explored many now-familiar disorders--autism, Tourette syndrome, face blindness. He was also a memoirist who wrote with honesty and humor about the remarkable experiences that shaped him ( Uncle Tungsten , On the Move , Gratitude ). In the pieces that comprise The River of Consciousness (many first published in The New York Review of Books , among other places), Dr. Sacks takes on evolution, botany, chemistry, medicine, neuroscience, and the arts, and calls upon his great scientific and creative heroes--above all, Darwin, Freud, and William James. For Sacks, these thinkers were constant companions from an early age. The questions they explored--the meaning of evolution, the roots of creativity, and the nature of consciousness--lie at the heart of science and of this book. The River of Consciousness demonstrates Sacks's unparalleled ability to make unexpected connections, his sheer joy in knowledge, and his unceasing, timeless endeavor to understand what makes us human.

"A collection of diverse viewpoints from over 45 thought leaders in the biotechnology industry and their efforts going forward during the COVID-19 pandemic. Biotechnology in the Time of COVID-19 is the opening chapter of a story of how the biotechnology industry rose to battle the COVID-19 virus-told by the leaders of that industry in their own words. The industry has built over more than forty years, an ecosystem of scientists, entrepreneurs, doctors, investors, venture capitalists, analysts, media, and bankers, all committed to advancing global health. In two months, leaders and companies from this ecosystem pivoted from the work they were carrying on pre-COVID-19 to face the virus. Forty-six seven contributors offer historical, personal, and investor perspectives, views from inside the biotech companies, broad lessons, leadership, and a look to the future. COVID-19 was a crisis anticipated by many, but one for which we were inadequately prepared. That has led to an unnecessary catastrophe. Now is the time to shine a light on those who bring hope that we will push back the virus with science and medicine. This book is a collection of the voices from the front of that fight. All share the commitment to fight and the conviction that science and medicine will prevail. The editor royalties and a portion of publisher revenues will be donated to two nonprofits focused on rare disease research: Global Genes (globalgenes.org) and The Institute for Life Changing Medicines (lifechangingmedicines.org)"--

These essays are clearly not about play as unseriousness, not about fun and games, a point that should be abundantly demonstrated by the reference to the death camps of the Holocaust. They are about the space, the Spielraum , necessary for the wheel of life to turn soulfully. Christine Downing's essays may be felt to function as a possible prelude to the play of a truly ludic imagination, which, like Buber's "slow medicine," quietly enters the soul, working into the heart, awakening a secret melody to be noticed only later. Preludes , indeed! David L. Miller Author of Three Faces of God and Hells and Holy Ghosts