Academic Life

Fritjof Capra and the Systems View of Life (Great Minds, Book 3): 2017 Revised, Updated, and Reformatted Edition is a passionate study about the great contemporary physicist and a review of all of his published books, including extensive quotes. The author considers Fritjof Capra as one of the most important authors on new science and systems research and considers as genius Capra's unique gift to formulate and explain complex scientific and philosophical insights and interrelations in a way that the educated listener can understand.

From his unarmed air ambulance, Munk and his team treated patients suffering from severe trauma, possible Ebola hemorrhagic fever, elephantiasis, malaria, and gunshot wounds. In Urgent Calls from Distant Places, the missions described are real and compelling.

Much has been written about Neil Armstrong, America's modern hero and history's most famous space traveler. Yet, shy of fame and never one to steal the spotlight, Armstrong was always reluctant to discuss his personal side of events. Here for the first time is the definitive story of Neil's life of flight he shared for five decades with a trusted friend - Jay Barbree.

Meet Doctor Ben MacFarlane - a very modern flying doctor. His job is get on a plane and bring patients home after holiday disasters, gap year crises, embarrassing incidents on business trips and all the other things that can go wrong when we head overseas. Holiday SOS is his extraordinary story. It’s a unique medical memoir of the people he helps - and a year in the life of one of the world’s most frequent flyers!

Using the most common postmortem process as the backbone of the narrative, The Chick and the Dead takes the listener through the process of an autopsy while also describing the history and changing cultures of our relationship with the dead. The book is full of vivid insight into what happens to our bodies in the end. Each chapter considers an aspect of an autopsy alongside an aspect of Carla's own life and work and touches on some of the more controversial aspects of our feelings toward death.

In his much-anticipated memoir, The Company I Keep: My Life in Beauty, Chairman Emeritus and former CEO of The Estée Lauder Companies Leonard A. Lauder shares the business and life lessons he learned as well as the adventures he had while helping transform the mom-and-pop business his mother founded in 1946 in the family kitchen into the beloved brand and ultimately into the iconic global prestige beauty company it is today.

World-renowned Christian philosopher. Beloved professor. Author of the classic Lament for a Son. Nicholas Wolterstorff is all of these and more. His memoir In This World of Wonders opens a remarkable new window into the life and thoughts of this remarkable man. In This World of Wonders is the story of a thoughtful and grateful Christian whose life has been shaped by many loves - love of philosophy, love of family, love of art and architecture, love of nature and gardening, and more. It’s a lovely, wonderful story.

Perhaps no American president is more associated with nature and wildlife than Theodore Roosevelt, a prodigious hunter and adventurer and an ardent conservationist. We think of Roosevelt as an original, yet in The Naturalist, Darrin Lunde shows how from his earliest days Roosevelt actively modeled himself in the proud tradition of museum naturalists - the men who pioneered a key branch of American biology through their desire to collect animal specimens and develop a taxonomy of the natural world.

As an active surgeon and former department chairman, Dr. Paul A. Ruggieri has seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of his profession. In Confessions of a Surgeon, he pushes open the doors of the OR and reveals the inscrutable place where lives are improved, saved, and sometimes lost. He shares the successes, failures, remarkable advances, and camaraderie that make it exciting.

Victor Emanuel is widely considered one of America's leading birders. In One More Warbler, Emanuel recalls a lifetime of birding adventures - from his childhood sighting of a male Cardinal that ignited his passion for birds to a once-in-a-lifetime journey to Asia to observe all eight species of cranes of that continent. He tells fascinating stories of meeting his mentors who taught him about birds, nature, and conservation, and later, his close circle of friends who he frequently birded and traveled with around the world.

While free markets have brought positive change, traditional capitalism cannot solve problems of inequality and poverty because of its view of people as solely profit-driven. In fact, humans have other drives and passions, including spiritual, social, and altruistic.

Recalling remarkable cases - and people - from a career launched in the first days of Emergency Medicine, Dr. Paul Seward leads us in his memoir through suspenseful diagnoses and explorations of anatomy. Within the conditions of great stress and rapid decision-making that are routine in the ER, Dr. Seward tells us that medical staff must be more than technicians of the body: They must be restorers of the human.

As a graduate student exploring the rain forests of Australia, Meg Lowman realized that she couldn’t monitor her beloved leaves using any of the usual methods. So she put together a climbing kit: she sewed a harness from an old seat belt, gathered hundreds of feet of rope, and found a tool belt for her pencils and rulers. Up she went, into the trees. Forty years later, Lowman remains one of the world’s foremost arbornauts, known as the “real-life Lorax.”

From housewife to billionaire CEO, Martha Stewart is not just the businesswoman with the Midas touch, she is also a lightning rod for many of the most important and controversial social and economic issues of post-WWII American life. In the unauthorized Martha Inc.: The Incredible Story of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, business writer and columnist Christopher Byron traces Martha's journey from the troubled world of a working-class family in New Jersey to the pinnacle of fame and power.

Against the odds, John Urschel found a way to manage his double life as a scholar and an athlete. While he was an offensive lineman for the Baltimore Ravens, he simultaneously pursued his PhD in mathematics at MIT. This is his story.

Late one night, while Rebecca Fogg was alone in her apartment, her hand was partially amputated in an explosion. Quick thinking saved her life, but the journey to recovery would be a slow one. As the doctors rebuilt her hand, Rebecca (who also survived 9/11) began rebuilding her sense of self by studying the physical and psychological process of recovery.

Hannah Selinger chronicles her rise and fall in the restaurant business, beginning with the gritty hometown pub where she fell in love with the industry and ending with her final post serving celebrities at the Hamptons classic Nick & Toni’s. In between, listeners will join Selinger on her emotional journey as she learns the joys of fine fine dining, the allure and danger of power, and what it takes to walk away from a career you love when it no longer serves you.

A work of immersive journalism steeped in a distinctively American social history and sparked by a personal quest, The Unsettlers traces the search for the simple life through the stories of new pioneers and what inspired each of them to look for - or create - a better existence. Captivating and clear-eyed, it dares us to imagine what a sustainable, ethical, authentic future might actually look like.

GARLIC AND SAPPHIRES is Ruth Reichl's riotous account of the many disguises she employs to dine anonymously. There is her stint as Molly Hollis, a frumpy blond with manicured nails and an off-beige Armani suit that Ruth takes on when reviewing Le Cirque. The result: her famous double review of the restaurant: first she ate there as Molly; and then as she was coddled and pampered on her visit there as Ruth, New York Times food critic.

A landmark work from one of the preeminent historians of our time: the first published biography of Andrew W. Mellon, the American colossus who bestrode the worlds of industry, government, and philanthropy, leaving his transformative stamp on each. Following a boyhood in 19th-century Pittsburgh, during which he learned from his Scotch-Irish immigrant father the lessons of self-sufficiency and wealth accumulation, Andrew Mellon overcame painful shyness to become one of America's greatest financiers.