W: 7744 books

A pioneering neuroscientist reveals the reasons for loneliness and what to do about it. John T. Cacioppo’s groundbreaking research topples one of the pillars of modern medicine and psychology: the focus on the individual as the unit of inquiry. By employing brain scans, monitoring blood pressure,...

**Winner of the Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize 2019 selection for the One Book One Nebraska and All Iowa state reading programs "Genoways gives the reader a kitchen-table view of the vagaries, complexities, and frustrations of modern farming…Insightful and empathetic."...

"Amazing and eloquent....Nabhan makes us understand how finding and eating local foods connects us deeply and sensually."—Alice Waters, Chez Panisse Issuing a "profound and engaging...passionate call to us to re-think our food industry" (Jim Harrison, author of The Raw...

“In this factual feast, neuroscientist Rachel Herz probes humanity’s fiendishly complex relationship with food.” —Nature How is personality correlated with preference for sweet or bitter foods? What genres of music best enhance the taste of red wine? With clear and compelling explanations...

Harvard psychologist Deirdre Barrett tackles the obesity and fitness crisis from an evolutionary standpoint. In the modern jungle of burgers, couches, and remote controls, obesity is an enormous and growing epidemic. Weight-loss books and diet gurus urge us to "listen to our bodies,"...

How to restore the can-do spirit that made America great, from the author of the best-selling The Death of Common Sense. Americans are losing the freedom to make sense of daily choices—teachers can’t maintain order in the classroom, managers are trained to avoid candor, schools ban tag,...

A riveting history of the Mount St. Helens eruption that will "long stand as a classic of descriptive narrative" (Simon Winchester). For months in early 1980, scientists, journalists, and nearby residents listened anxiously to rumblings from Mount St. Helens in southwestern Washington...

A freewheeling, sharp-shooting indictment of a tech-besotted culture. With razor wit, Nicholas Carr cuts through Silicon Valley’s unsettlingly cheery vision of the technological future to ask a hard question: Have we been seduced by a lie? Gathering a decade’s worth of posts from his blog,...

Winner of 2014 U.S. Gourmand Drinks Award • Taste 5,000 years of brewing history as a time-traveling homebrewer rediscovers and re-creates the great beers of the past. The Brewer’s Tale is a beer-filled journey into the past: the story of brewers gone by and one brave writer’s quest to...

"Limerick is one of the most engaging historians writing today." --Richard White The "settling" of the American West has been perceived throughout the world as a series of quaint, violent, and romantic adventures. But in fact, Patricia Nelson Limerick argues, the West has...

To most Americans, Hawaii means ukuleles and native dancers, Waikiki and Diamond Head. Hawaii is a romantic image learned from travel posters and the movies, and much of it, surprisingly, is true. But Hawaii is more than that. The people who have come here from Polynesia, Asia, Europe, and...

"Charming . . . . [Kurt Timmermeister] narrates his personal journey with an open, straightforward spirit." —Wall Street Journal When he purchased four acres of land on Vashon Island, Kurt Timmermeister was only looking for an affordable home near the restaurants he ran in Seattle....

"A sensitive, sensible, and compelling account of American education at its best."—Philadelphia Inquirer Described as one of the "101 Most Dangerous Academics in America" by right-wing critic David Horowitz, Michael Bérubé has become a leading liberal voice in the ongoing...

PBS wine guru Mark Oldman quenches the universal thirst for the affordable gems coveted by insiders. Weary of buying the same old wines again and again? Wine personality Mark Oldman—known to millions of PBS viewers as a main judge on The Winemakers and winner of the Georges Duboeuf Wine Book...