Academic Life

A collection of hilarious, heartbreaking, and terrifying encounters with wild black bears in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Rangers, scientists, wildlife photographers, wilderness guides, tourists, and others do all the wrong things when meeting one of the world famous icons of the Smokies. Wake up from a nap and discover a bear sleeping next to you, see a bear driving a car through the park, or hear a ranger whisper a warning that there's a bear in the stall next to you in the ladies room. It's all so emBEARrassing.

For more than 30 years, Patience Gray, author of the celebrated cookbook Honey from a Weed, lived in a remote area of Puglia in southernmost Italy. She lived without electricity, modern plumbing, or a telephone, grew much of her own food, and gathered and ate wild plants alongside her neighbors in this economically impoverished region. She was fond of saying that she wrote only for herself and her friends, yet her growing reputation brought a steady stream of international visitors to her door.

To write, to think, to imagine, to agitate, and to love without regard for gender is what might be called a nonbinary way of life. In this genre-defying work of autotheory, Marquis Bey proposes a radical refusal: to relinquish gender as a framework we carry – for ourselves and for others – and to embrace modes of being that exist outside of its grasp. What if we no longer let gender be a way of organizing ourselves?

Barry Avrich - a self-made, Montreal-born film producer-director, flamboyant advertising executive, and legendary biographer and connector of moguls and stars. For over three decades, he has relentlessly produced films on some of the most notorious show-business titans and also found the time to market and promote feature films, concerts, and the biggest shows on Broadway.

Greg Perry considers himself a living miracle. The youngest of six kids, Greg grew up in South-Central, Los Angeles, running the streets and living life in the fast lane. One day, Greg came to a turning point and surrendered his life to God. Greg’s life is a true rags to riches story that has taken him from poverty to a life of spiritual, family, business, and financial wealth. Greg is a successful businessman, entrepreneur, community leader, mentor, family man, and father. He is blessed beyond his wildest imagination.

Recalling her 25 years in Britain's probation service, Elizabeth Baxter offers a fresh perspective on care within the criminal justice system. Warm and humane, A Murderer's Guide to Cleaning pays tribute to the work of probation officers everywhere, who not only protect the public, but often act as the final safety net for society's most vulnerable, from teenage asylum seekers to survivors of domestic abuse. Elizabeth Baxter has heard it all. Thieves, rapists, drug dealers, burglars, murderers, abusers and arsonists – they've all confided in her.

Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler: The Lives of the Early Modern Astronomers Whose Partnership Revolutionized the Field of Astronomy examines the work that made the two of them some of history’s most important scientists. You will learn about Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler like never before.

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.

A rollicking journey through the wild world of real estate, Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived in That House is the story of "a very imperfect life lived among very imperfect houses" and one woman's obsession with the search for four walls (along with, preferably, a roof not in need of replacing) to call home. In the six houses and many states where Meghan Daum spent her suburban childhood, for the Daum family, "if there was anything that came close to a regular weekend activity it was attending open houses."

In Simply Hegel, Robert L. Wicks presents Hegel’s revolutionary philosophy in clear and simple language, illuminating not only his basic ideas, but also the deeper meanings hidden within the book. Wicks’s analysis also contextualizes Hegel’s thought by providing a vivid chronology of his times, which included such earth-shaking events as the French Revolution and Napoleon’s invasion of Prussia.

Considered to be one of the most financially successful people in the world when he was alive, Howard Hughes attracts attention even 40 years after his death. From being a business tycoon to an aerospace engineer and inventor to being a maverick filmmaker, Hughes seemed to have tried it all.

He spent 40 years at the Bank of Montreal, was the CEO and a part of the key group of people that developed the first ATM machine. He always had a willingness to share technology and systems in order to bring about larger change. Full of leadership lessons from the financial world, technology world, and philanthropy world.

Elоn Reeve Musk iѕ аn American entrepreneur, invеntоr, аnd invеѕtоr. He iѕ bеѕt knоwn fоr his rоlе аѕ CEO оf еlесtriс-саr mаnufасturеr Tеѕlа Mоtоrѕ, and as cofounder of online money trаnѕfеr system PауPаl аnd оf соmmеrсiаl ѕрасе program SрасеX. Besides thеѕе, hе hаѕ participated in a numbеr оf оthеr business ventures, inсluding OреnAI, Nеurаlink, SolarCity, and mоrе. Muѕk wаѕ born in Sоuth Africa, whеrе he ѕреnt his childhood аnd аdоlеѕсеnсе.

“Discharged from a hospital just means you’re not dead.” These words of Ralph B. Lilly, M.D., describe his early struggle to recover from a traumatic brain injury. Lilly was a forty-four-year-old practicing neurologist sitting on his motorcycle at a red light when a drunk driver rear-ended him in 1980. In the ICU, after regaining consciousness and being told what happened, he asked, “What’s a hospital? What’s a motorcycle?” This tragic experience transformed his life and his approach to his neurology practice: doctors treat those with brain injury; but loved ones heal them.

Imagine a young doctor, trained in the latest medical knowledge and state-of-the-art equipment, suddenly transported back to one of the world’s most isolated and unforgiving environments - Nome, Alaska. That’s what happen to Dr. Sims. His plans to become a pediatric surgeon were drastically changed when, on the eve of being drafted into the army to serve as a MASH surgeon in Vietnam, he was offered a commission in the US Public Health for assignment in Anchorage, Alaska, where he was scheduled to act as chief of pediatrics at the Alaska Native Medical Center.

In this warm, witty, and inspiring memoir, Dr. Rhona Morrison shares how she navigated the twists and turns of her loss and subsequent reinvention, transforming her grief into opportunity. From launching an art business and writing her first book, I Don’t Talk to Dead Bodies, to becoming a cruise ship lecturer and embarking on global adventures, she tackled each step with an open heart. Along the way, she discovered unexpected joys, new passions, and a renewed sense of purpose.

A 23-year veteran of emergency medical services, paramedic Matthew Sias took a detour in his career to pursue the death-care business and found a complementarity between two seemingly divergent careers. Silent Siren: Memoirs of a Life Saving Mortician is the record of some of the more memorable calls he has responded to through the years.

Ronald Reagan is hailed today for a presidency that restored optimism to America, engendered years of economic prosperity, and helped bring about the fall of the Soviet Union. Yet until now little attention has been paid to the role Reagan's personal spirituality played in his political career, shaping his ideas, bolstering his resolve, and ultimately compelling him to confront the brutal - and, not coincidentally, atheistic - Soviet empire.

In Vera Rubin: A Life, Jacqueline Mitton and Simon Mitton provide a detailed, accessible overview of Rubin's work, showing how she leveraged immense curiosity, profound intelligence, and novel technologies to help transform our understanding of the cosmos. But Rubin's impact was not limited to her contributions to scientific knowledge. She also helped to transform scientific practice by promoting the careers of women researchers. Not content to be an inspiration, Rubin was a mentor and champion for hiring women faculty and honoring them with awards historically exclusive to men.

Many academics attack the very idea of a Western canon as chauvinistic, while the general public increasingly doubts the value of the humanities. In Rescuing Socrates, Dominican-born American academic Roosevelt Montás tells the story of how a liberal education transformed his life, and offers an intimate account of the relevance of the Great Books today, especially to members of historically marginalized communities.