"A brilliant and brave investigation by Michael Pollan, author of five New York Times best sellers, into the medical and scientific revolution taking place around psychedelic drugs--and the spellbinding story of his own life-changing psychedelic experiences When Michael Pollan set out to research how LSD and psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) are being used to provide relief to people suffering from difficult-to-treat conditions such as depression, addiction and anxiety, he did not intend to write what is undoubtedly his most personal book. But upon discovering how these remarkable substances are improving the lives not only of the mentally ill but also of healthy people coming to grips with the challenges of everyday life, he decided to explore the landscape of the mind in the first person as well as the third. Thus began a singular adventure into the experience of various altered states of consciousness, along with a dive deep into both the latest brain science and the thriving underground community of psychedelic therapists. Pollan sifts the historical record to separate the truth about these mysterious drugs from the myths that have surrounded them since the 1960s, when a handful of psychedelic evangelists catalyzed a powerful backlash against what was then a promising field of research. A unique and elegant blend of science, memoir, travel writing, history, and medicine, How to Change Your Mind is a triumph of participatory journalism. By turns dazzling and edifying, it is the gripping account of a journey to an exciting and unexpected new frontier in our understanding of the mind, the self, and our place in the world. The true subject of Pollan's "mental travelogue" is not just psychedelic drugs but also the eternal puzzle of human consciousness and how, in a world that offers us both struggle and beauty, we can do our best to be fully present and find meaning in our lives"--

Winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1965, Richard Feynman was one of the world's greatest theoretical physicists, but he was also a man who fell, often jumped, into adventure. An artist, safecracker, practical joker and storyteller, Feynman's life was a series of combustible combinations made possible by his unique mixture of high intelligence, unquenchable curiosity and eternal skepticism. Over a period of years, Feynman's conversations with his friend Ralph Leighton were first taped and then set down as they appear here, little changed from their spoken form, giving a wise, funny, passionate and totally honest self-portrait of one of the greatest men of our age.

"The first book from Ruth Bader Ginsburg since becoming a Supreme Court Justice in 1993--a witty, engaging, serious, and playful collection of writings and speeches from the woman who has had a powerful and enduring influence on law, women's rights, and popular culture. My Own Words is a selection of writings and speeches by Justice Ginsburg on wide-ranging topics, including gender equality, the workways of the Supreme Court, on being Jewish, on law and lawyers in opera, and on the value of looking beyond US shores when interpreting the US Constitution. Throughout her life Justice Ginsburg has been (and continues to be) a prolific writer and public speaker. This book contains a sampling, selected by Justice Ginsburg and her authorized biographers Mary Hartnett and Wendy W. Williams. Justice Ginsburg has written an Introduction to the book, and Hartnett and Williams introduce each chapter, giving biographical context and quotes gleaned from hundreds of interviews they have conducted. This is a fascinating glimpse into the life of one of America's most influential women"--

From the two reporters who have covered him more closely than perhaps anyone else over the past decade comes this definitive portrait of Donald Trump in the White House. Regime Change covers the first year of Trump's second presidency--a term liberated from every constraint that defined his first. The generals who once told him "no" are gone, and the lawyers have learned to pick their battles. His administration has flouted court orders and he has claimed powers that Congress once checked. What remains is a President willing to take enormous risks that have upended global markets and toppled heads of state--an imperial President operating almost entirely on instinct alone. Based on hundreds of interviews and unprecedented reporting from deep within the administration's most closely guarded rooms, Regime Change takes the reader inside the Situation Room and into the secret Oval Office deliberations that have launched a new war in the Middle East and seen Trump seal the border, deploy National Guard troops into cities, and send immigration agents into deadly clashes with protesters. Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan bring us behind the scenes of a presidency that has transformed the culture, the Justice Department into an agent of retribution against the President's enemies, and the office itself into a brazen vehicle for profit. They reveal a second term propelled by a historical irony that Trump himself has come to understand: that the indictments, the convictions, the assassination attempts, and four years of exile made him not weaker but far more powerful, more vengeful, and more willing to gamble than any President in modern history. This is the story of how Trump has used that power, who has tried to stop him, and why nearly all of them have failed. It is also the story of something American journalists are more accustomed to chronicling in distant capitals than in their own: a President who has fundamentally altered the nature of the office he holds--and how the rest of the world understands American power. It is an account of Regime Change right here in America--a landmark real-time history of a modern presidency like no other.

"What if you woke up one morning and found you'd acquired another self--a double who was almost you and yet not you at all? What if that double shared many of your preoccupations but, in a twisted, upside-down way, furthered the very causes you'd devoted your life to fighting against? Not long ago, the celebrated activist and public intellectual Naomi Klein had just such an experience--she was confronted with a doppelganger whose views she found abhorrent but whose name and public persona were sufficiently similar to her own that many people got confused about who was who. Destabilized, she lost her bearings, until she began to understand the experience as one manifestation of a strangeness many of us have come to know but struggle to define: AI-generated text is blurring the line between genuine and spurious communication; New Age wellness entrepreneurs turned anti-vaxxers are scrambling familiar political allegiances of left and right; and liberal democracies are teetering on the edge of absurdist authoritarianism, even as the oceans rise. Under such conditions, reality itself seems to have become unmoored. Is there a cure for our moment of collective vertigo? Naomi Klein is one of our most trenchant and influential social critics, an essential analyst of what branding, austerity, and climate profiteering have done to our societies and souls. Here she turns her gaze inward to our psychic landscapes, and outward to the possibilities for building hope amid intersecting economic, medical, and political crises. With the assistance of Sigmund Freud, Jordan Peele, Alfred Hitchcock, and bell hooks, among other accomplices, Klein uses wry humor and a keen sense of the ridiculous to face the strange doubles that haunt us--and that have come to feel as intimate and proximate as a warped reflection in the mirror. Combining comic memoir with chilling reportage and cobweb-clearing analysis, Klein seeks to smash that mirror and chart a path beyond despair. Doppelganger asks: What do we neglect as we polish and perfect our digital reflections? Is it possible to dispose of our doubles and overcome the pathologies of a culture of multiplication? Can we create a politics of collective care and undertake a true reckoning with historical crimes? The result is a revelatory treatment of the way many of us think and feel now--and an intellectual adventure story for our times"--

"When Bernie Sanders began his race for the presidency, it was considered by the political establishment and the media to be a "fringe" campaign, something not to be taken seriously. After all, he was just an independent senator from a small state with little name recognition. His campaign had no money, no political organization, and it was taking on the entire Democratic Party establishment. By the time Sanders's campaign came to a close, however, it was clear that the pundits had gotten it wrong. Bernie had run one of the most consequential campaigns in the modern history of the country. He had received more than 13 million votes in primaries and caucuses throughout the country, won twenty-two states, and more than 1.4 million people had attended his public meetings. Most important, he showed that the American people were prepared to take on the greed and irresponsibility of corporate America and the 1 percent. In Our Revolution, Sanders shares his personal experiences from the campaign trail, recounting the details of his historic primary fight and the people who made it possible. And for the millions looking to continue the political revolution, he outlines a progressive economic, environmental, racial, and social justice agenda that will create jobs, raise wages, protect the environment, and provide health care for all--and ultimately transform our country and our world for the better. For him, the political revolution has just started. The campaign may be over, but the struggle goes on"--Provided by publisher.

"He was history's most creative genius. What secrets can he teach us? The author of the acclaimed bestsellers Steve Jobs, Einstein, and Benjamin Franklin brings Leonardo da Vinci to life in this exciting new biography. Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo's astonishing notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Walter Isaacson weaves a narrative that connects his art to his science. He shows how Leonardo's genius was based on skills we can improve in ourselves, such as passionate curiosity, careful observation, and an imagination so playful that it flirted with fantasy. He produced the two most famous paintings in history, The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. But in his own mind, he was just as much a man of science and technology. With a passion that sometimes became obsessive, he pursued innovative studies of anatomy, fossils, birds, the heart, flying machines, botany, geology, and weaponry. His ability to stand at the crossroads of the humanities and the sciences, made iconic by his drawing of Vitruvian Man, made him history's most creative genius"--

This is the story of an ape-descended human called Douglas Adams who, in a field in Innsbruck in 1971, had an idea. This is also the story of what that idea became: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - of the original radio series which started it all and the five book trilogy, the TV series, almost-film, computer game, towel and website that followed. This revised edition comes up to date, covering Adams' recent work, his untimely death in May 2001 and posthumous publications.

"The strength and prestige of the American presidency has waxed and waned since George Washington. Accidental Presidents looks at eight men who came to the office without being elected to it. It demonstrates how the character of the man in that powerful seat affects the nation and world. Eight men have succeeded to the presidency when the incumbent died in office. In one way or another they vastly changed our history. Only Theodore Roosevelt would have been elected in his own right. Only TR, Truman, and LBJ were re-elected. John Tyler succeeded William Henry Harrison who died 30 days into his term. He was kicked out of his party and became the first president threatened with impeachment. Millard Fillmore succeeded esteemed General Zachary Taylor. He immediately sacked the entire cabinet and delayed an inevitable Civil War by standing with Henry Clay's compromise of 1850. Chester Arthur, the embodiment of the spoils system, was so reviled as James Garfield's successor that he had to defend himself against plotting Garfield's assassination; but he reformed the civil service. Andrew Johnson, who succeeded our greatest president, sided with remnants of the Confederacy in Reconstruction. Theodore Roosevelt broke up the trusts. Calvin Coolidge silently cooled down the Harding scandals and preserved the White House for the Republican Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression. Truman surprised everybody when he succeeded the great FDR and proved an able and accomplished president. Lyndon B. Johnson was named to deliver Texas electorally. He led the nation forward on Civil Rights but failed on Vietnam. Accidental Presidents adds immeasurably to our understanding of the power and limits of the American presidency in critical times"--

"Following his blockbuster biography of Steve Jobs, The Innovators is Walter Isaacson's revealing story of the people who created the computer and the Internet. It is destined to be the standard history of the digital revolution and an indispensable guide to how innovation really happens. What were the talents that allowed certain inventors and entrepreneurs to turn their visionary ideas into disruptive realities? What led to their creative leaps? Why did some succeed and others fail? In his masterly saga, Isaacson begins with Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron's daughter, who pioneered computer programming in the 1840s. He explores the fascinating personalities that cr eated our current digital revolution, such as Vannevar Bush, Alan Turing, John von Neumann, J.C.R. Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Robert Noyce, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, Tim Berners-Lee, and Larry Page. This is the story of how their minds worked and what made them so inventive. It's also a narrative of how their ability to collaborate and master the art of teamwork made them even more creative. For an era that seeks to foster innovation, creativity, and teamwork, The Innovators shows how they happen"--

In 2010, the U.S. Army Special Operations Command created Cultural Support Teams, a pilot program to put women on the battlefield alongside Green Berets, Army Rangers, Navy SEALs and other special operations teams on sensitive missions in Afghanistan. The idea was that women could access places and people that had remained out of reach, and could build relationships -- woman to woman -- in ways that male soldiers in a conservative, traditional country could not. Though officially banned from combat, female soldiers could be "attached" to different teams, and for the first time women throughout the Army, the National Guard, and the Reserves heard the call to join male soldiers on special ops missions. Gayle Tzemach Lemmon uses exhaustive firsthand reporting and experience with the complexities of war to tell the story of CST-2, a unit of women hand-picked from across the Army, and the remarkable hero at its heart: 1st Lt. Ashley White, who would become the first Cultural Support Team member killed in action and the first CST remembered on the Army Special Operations Memorial Wall of Honor alongside the Army Rangers with whom she served.

"For nearly ten years, Ben Rhodes saw almost everything that happened at the center of the Obama administration, first as a speechwriter, then as deputy national security advisor, and finally as a multipurpose aide and close collaborator. He started every morning in the Oval Office with the President's Daily Briefing, traveled the world with Obama, and was at the center of some of the most consequential and controversial moments of the presidency. Now he tells the full story of his partnership--and, ultimately, friendship--with a man who also happened to be a historic president of the United States....Rhodes shows what it was like to be there from the early days of the Obama campaign to the final hours of the presidency. It is a story populated by such characters as Susan Rice, Samantha Power, Hillary Clinton, Bob Gates, and--above all--Barack Obama, who comes to life on the page in moments of great urgency and disarming intimacy. This is the most vivid portrayal yet of Obama's worldview and presidency, a chronicle of a political education and an essential record of the forces that shaped the last decade."--

The Harvard-educated comedian, talk-show host, and U.S. Senator chronicles the story of his unlikely senatorial campaign, detailing the ensuing months-long recount and what his service has taught him about America's deeply polarized political culture.

"For as long as he has served at the highest levels of business and government, Vice President Dick Cheney has also been one of the world's most prominent heart patients. Now, for the first time ever, Cheney, together with his longtime cardiologist Jonathan Reiner, MD, shares the very personal story of his courageous thirty-five-year battle with heart disease, from his first heart attack in 1978 to the heart transplant he received in 2012. In 1978, when Cheney suffered his first heart attack, he received essentially the same treatment as President Eisenhower had in 1955. Since then, cardiac medicine has evolved in extraordinary ways, and Cheney has benefited from nearly every medical and technological breakthrough along the way. At each juncture, when Cheney faced a new health challenge, the technology was one step ahead of his disease. In many ways, Cheney's story is the story of the evolution of modern cardiac care. Heart is the riveting, singular memoir of both doctor and patient, tracking their relationship as it unfolds over many years and crises. Like no US politician has before him, Cheney opens up about his health struggles, sharing harrowing, never-before-told stories about the challenges he faced during a perilous time in our nation's history. Dr. Reiner provides his perspective on Cheney's case and also gives readers a fascinating glimpse into his own education as a doctor. He masterfully chronicles the important discoveries, radical innovations, and cutting-edge science that have changed the face of medicine and saved countless lives. Powerfully braiding science with story and the personal with the political, Heart is a sweeping, inspiring, and ultimately optimistic book that will give hope to the millions of Americans affected by heart disease"--

A journey into the glittering, surreal heart of 21st century Russia: into the lives of Hells Angels convinced they are messiahs, professional killers with the souls of artists, bohemian theatre directors turned Kremlin puppet-masters, supermodel sects, post-modern dictators and oligarch revolutionaries. This is a world erupting with new money and new power, changing so fast it breaks all sense of reality, where life is seen as a whirling, glamorous masquerade where identities can be switched and all values are changeable. It is home to a new form of authoritarianism, far subtler than 20th century strains, and which is rapidly expanding to challenge the global order. An extraordinary book - one which is as powerful and entertaining as it is troubling - Nothing is True and Everything is Possible offers a wild ride into this political and ethical vacuum

"Defensive lineman Michael Bennett adds his voice to discussions of racism and police violence, Black athletes and their relationship to powerful institutions like the NCAA and the NFL, the role of protest in history, and the responsibilities of athletes as role models to speak out against injustice. Following in the footsteps of activist-athletes from Muhammad Ali to Colin Kaepernick, Bennett demonstrates his outspoken leadership both on and off the field."--Provided by publisher.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Alan Dershowitz recounts his extraordinary coming of age in this legal autobiography, as well as the cases that have changed American jurisprudence over the past fifty years, most of which he has personally been involved in. “Overflowing with fascinating and funny vignettes involving his cases and clients, and probing and provocative insights into contemporary legal controversies.”— The Boston Globe Alan Dershowitz, the preeminent defense lawyer in America today, has been called the “winningest appellate criminal defense lawyer in history.” A professor at Harvard Law School since the age of twenty-five, he has led or been part of the defense team for such storied clients as Bill Clinton, Julian Assange, O. J. Simpson, Claus von Bülow, Mia Farrow, Jeffrey MacDonald, Patty Hearst, Mike Tyson, and countless others. In Taking the Stand, Dershowitz describes his evolution as a lawyer—from a C-minus student in Yeshiva High School to the youngest full professor in the history of Harvard Law School. In his #1 New York Times bestselling book Chutzpah, Alan described his Jewish life. In Taking the Stand, he looks at the people and events that have helped to shape his ideas about the law. He describes his formative years as a clerk for the United States Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court. In the course of his career, he confronts the challenges of First Amendment law, the ongoing tension between individual freedom and national security, the questionable science often employed to prosecute accused murderers, the evolution of civil rights—and why the abortion rights debate in society hasn’t moved forward since Roe v. Wade . Filled with unforgettable cases and inside legal “baseball,” Taking the Stand is a deeply personal account of one of the legendary legal minds of our time.

Abraham Pais's 'Subtle is the Lord...' is the definitive biography of Albert Einstein. Timothy Ferris, in The New York Times Book Review, called it "the biography of Einstein he himself would have liked best," adding that "it is a work against which future scientific biographies will be measured." As a respected physicist himself, Pais was the first biographer to give Einstein's thinking its full due, and as a close friend and associate of Einstein, he could provide an intimate, first-hand account of the life of this great scientist. The result was a national bestseller. Indeed, it was one of The New York Times's Best Books of the Year, and the winner of the 1983 American Book Award for Science. Now, Pais turns his attention to the great physicist's life outside of science, with an informal, almost kalaidoscopic portrait of Einstein--his personal life and his public persona ("my mythical namesake who has made my life so burdensome"), his scientific contributions, and his thoughts on religion, philosophy, and politics, on Israel and Zionism, on the rise of Nazism and McCarthyism, and on much more. Pais offers a candid look at Einstein's troubled personal life--his two failed marriages, his first child Lieserl, who was born out of wedlock (and of whom all trace has vanished), his estranged son Hans Albert, also a scientist, who felt his father had abandoned the family, and his son Eduard, who gradually descended into madness. Of course, any book on Einstein must touch upon science, and Pais includes several illuminating chapters, one of which offers general readers an accessible explanation of relativity, and another traces the long road to Einstein's Nobel Prize (after being nominated almost every year from 1909 to 1920, he finally won in 1921--not for relativity, but for his work on the photoelectric effect). On the lighter side, Pais includes samples from Einstein's "curiosity file," in which he kept crank letters, marriage proposals, hate mail (one began "You are the prince of idiocy, the count of imbecility, the duke of cretinism, the baron of morons"), and the like. But the heart of the book is the final section, where Pais traces Einstein's life as seen through the media. Here we not only meet Einstein the living legend--receiving the keys to New York City from flamboyant Mayor Jimmy Walker, attending the Hollywood premier of City Lights with Charlie Chaplin--but also witness his extensive involvement in the issues of his day. Much of his commentary is amazingly prescient. In 1933, he said of Nazism: "I cannot understand the passive response of the whole civilized world to this modern barbarism. Does the world not see that Hitler is aiming for war?"

New one-volume autobiography spans Asimov's life for the first time!As one of the most gifted and prolific writers of the twentieth century, Isaac Asimov became legendary for his inexhaustible creativity, wide-ranging intellectual curiosity, and talent for explaining complex subjects in clear, concise prose. While regaling his readers with an incredible opus of almost five hundred entertaining and illuminating science fiction and nonfiction books, he also found time to write a three-volume autobiography. Now these volumes have been condensed into one by Asimov's wife, Janet, who also shares excerpts from letters he wrote to her. Together these writings provide an intimate portrait of a creative genius whose love of learning and playing with ideas is evident on every page. Reading this autobiography is like sitting down with Isaac Asimov and experiencing his witty, engaging, and brilliant personality firsthand. We are treated to many marvelous stories about his upbringing in Depression-era Brooklyn, his early fascination with the new science fiction pulp magazines, the thrill of his first published story, the creation of his well-known story "Nightfall," the genesis of the Foundation series, and the evolution of his creative life as a writer. He also reveals his inner thoughts about and experiences with various luminaries in science and science fiction. Above all, Asimov's autobiography conveys unbounded enthusiasm for his craft, the infectious joy of learning and creating, complete intellectual honesty, his strong humanist convictions, and his infinite fund of good humor and optimism even at the end of his life - all told in the lively clear writing style that was his trademark. Although Janet Jeppson Asimov concludes this work with a shocking revelation about her husband's death, the volume is clearly intended as a celebration - as the title suggests - of a wonderful, creative life. As a poignant coda to this work, Janet has appended one short story that was Isaac's favorite, and his 400th essay on this thoughts about science.

"William Barr's first tenure as attorney general under President George H.W. Bush was largely the result of chance, while his second tenure under President Donald Trump a deliberate and difficult choice. In this candid memoir, Barr takes readers behind the scenes during seminal moments of the 1990s, from the LA riots to Pan Am 103 and Iran Contra. Thirty years later, Barr faced an unrelenting barrage of issues, such as Russiagate, the COVID outbreak, civil unrest, the impeachments, and the 2020 election fallout"--