Koncocoo

Best Criminology

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption
#1 New York Times Bestseller |. Named one of the Best Books of the Year by The New York Times • The Washington Post • The Boston Globe • The Seattle Times • Esquire • Time Winner of the Carnegie Medal for Nonfiction | Winner of the NAACP Image Award for Nonfiction | Winner of a Books for a Better Life Award | Finalist for the Los Angeles Book Prize | Finalist for the Kirkus Reviews Prize | An American Library Association Notable Book A powerful true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us, and a clarion call to fix our broken system of justice—from one of the most brilliant and influential lawyers of our time. Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. a searing indictment of American criminal justice and a stirring testament to the salvation that fighting for the vulnerable sometimes yields.” —David Cole, The New York Review of Books “Searing, moving . Just Mercy will make you upset and it will make you hopeful.” —Ted Conover, The New York Times Book Review “Inspiring . Stevenson is not only a great lawyer, he’s also a gifted writer and storyteller.” — The Washington Post “As deeply moving, poignant and powerful a book as has been, and maybe ever can be, written about the death penalty.” —The Financial Times “Brilliant.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer “Not since Atticus Finch has a fearless and committed lawyer made such a difference in the American South. Just Mercy is his inspiring and powerful story.” —John Grisham “Bryan Stevenson is one of my personal heroes, perhaps the most inspiring and influential crusader for justice alive today, and Just Mercy is extraordinary. When Stevenson was a 23-year-old Harvard law student, he started an internship in Georgia where his first assignment was to deliver a message to a man living on death row. This is a title for the many young adults who have a parent or loved one in the prison system and the many others who are interested in social justice, the law, and the death penalty. [It] demonstrates, as powerfully as any book on criminal justice that I’ve ever read, the extent to which brutality, unfairness, and racial bias continue to infect criminal law in the United States. But at the same time that [Bryan] Stevenson tells an utterly damning story of deep-seated and widespread injustice, he also recounts instances of human compassion, understanding, mercy, and justice that offer hope. Just Mercy is a remarkable amalgam, at once a searing indictment of American criminal justice and a stirring testament to the salvation that fighting for the vulnerable sometimes yields.” —David Cole, The New York Review of Books “A searing, moving and infuriating memoir . This book brings new life to the story by placing it in two affecting contexts: [Bryan] Stevenson’s life work and the deep strain of racial injustice in American life. Against tremendous odds, Stevenson has worked to free scores of people from wrongful or excessive punishment, arguing five times before the Supreme Court. Stevenson has been angry about [the criminal justice system] for years, and we are all the better for it.” —Ted Conover, The New York Times Book Review “Inspiring . “As deeply moving, poignant and powerful a book as has been, and maybe ever can be, written about the death penalty.” —The Financial Times “Brilliant.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer. Bryan Stevenson, however, is very much alive and doing God’s work fighting for the poor, the oppressed, the voiceless, the vulnerable, the outcast, and those with no hope. Just Mercy is his inspiring and powerful story.” —John Grisham “Bryan Stevenson is one of my personal heroes, perhaps the most inspiring and influential crusader for justice alive today, and Just Mercy is extraordinary. Bryan Stevenson is a real-life, modern-day Atticus Finch who, through his work in redeeming innocent people condemned to death, has sought to redeem the country itself. It is inspiring and suspenseful—a revelation.” —Isabel Wilkerson, author of The Warmth of Other Suns “Words such as important and compelling may have lost their force through overuse, but reading this book will restore their meaning, along with one’s hopes for humanity.” —Tracy Kidder, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Mountains Beyond Mountains “Bryan Stevenson is America’s young Nelson Mandela, a brilliant lawyer fighting with courage and conviction to guarantee justice for all. Just Mercy should be read by people of conscience in every civilized country in the world to discover what happens when revenge and retribution replace justice and mercy.
Reviews
"My tendency is to put things into "liberal" and "conservative" buckets and this one seemingly fit into the liberal bucket and I am a professed conservative."
"I have a new hero . Bryan Stevenson. This is a great book."
"This is a system that condemns children to life imprisonment without parole, that makes petty theft a crime as serious as murder, and that has declared war on hundreds of thousands of people with substance abuse problems by imprisoning them and denying them help. JUST MERCY explores a number of devastating cases, including children as young as fourteen facing life imprisonment, and scores of people on death row - mostly poor, and mostly black - who have been unfairly convicted. But the central focus is on Walter McMillan, a black man sentenced to death for the murder of a prominent young white woman. Ours is no longer a country that sees compassion as a virtue; instead, we write harsher and harsher laws that demand longer and longer sentences for those we consider undesirables. It's rare these days to meet someone who truly dedicates himself to those least able to help themselves, especially someone who isn't after media attention or self-promotion."
"He is a witness in the stories, a helper, an overwhelmed human who makes sure his clients and the system are the focus of his stories, so we, the readers, can begin to understand what really happens in the legal system, from the behavior of police to the biases of justices with unchecked power, and the witnesses that are the wrong color to be heard."
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The New Jim Crow
Called "stunning" by Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David Levering Lewis, "invaluable" by the Daily Kos , "explosive" by Kirkus , and "profoundly necessary" by the Miami Herald , this updated and revised paperback edition of The New Jim Crow , now with a foreword by Cornel West, is a must-read for all people of conscience. “Explosive debut alarming, provocative and convincing.”. — Kirkus Reviews “Michelle Alexander’s brave and bold new book paints a haunting picture in which dreary felon garb, post-prison joblessness, and loss of voting rights now do the stigmatizing work once done by colored-only water fountains and legally segregated schools. With dazzling candor, Alexander argues that we all pay the cost of the new Jim Crow.“. —Lani Guinier, professor at Harvard Law School and author of Lift Every Voice: Turning a Civil Rights Setback into a New Vision of Social Justice and The Miner's Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy. “With imprisonment now the principal instrument of our social policy directed toward poorly educated black men, Michelle Alexander argues convincingly that the huge racial disparity of punishment in America is not the mere result of neutral state action.
Reviews
"But more than that, a very high percentage of these people are black, and in fact they go to prison at a rate disproportionate to the frequency with which they commit crimes. To be blunt, if you are caught selling illegal drugs in most states, you are likely to go to prison if you are black, but you will more likely get treated more leniently if you are white. It's worse than that, because, unlike most other developed nations, we make certain that once someone is convicted of a felony, he loses the vote, his right to public housing, the ability to get a job, in other words, he can be discriminated against for life. Alexander traces the history of the drug war, and describes how it became a vehicle for mistreating blacks even in the face of prevalent "colorblind" attitudes of most Americans today. Many things have to be undone, such as the entire drug war, disenfranchisement laws, the management of prisons by private corporations to name a few. Especially fascinating was her description of how such concessions, or "racial bribes", as affirmative action serve to justify continuing the system as it is."
"A very readable, very relevant text which explores the history of race relations in the country and the various factors which have led us to our current, untenable state."
"This is a great book, it's an eye opener that makes you think about our society in today's world."
"This book was recommended for me at my church.This book was an eye opener, and explained to me the past that I never knew like the fact that Ronald Reagan started his run for President at the Neshoba County Fair."
"Sad, Sad comment on our country - a betrayal in all we believe."
"Very insightful reading, this book will definitely have you reviewing your own knowledge/history on the world past, present and current history!"
"It is so historical and provides evidence to the claim that mass incarceration is the new jim crow."
"After reading this book you will have clear insight on how America's political system functions to actually create the necessary divisiveness among its people."
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In Cold Blood (Vintage International)
National Bestseller On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. With it, author Truman Capote contributed to a style of writing in which the reporter gets so far inside the subject, becomes so familiar, that he projects events and conversations as if he were really there. Two two-time losers living in a lonely house in western Kansas are out to make the heist of their life, but when things don't go as planned, the robbery turns ugly. He assigns varying degrees of drawl to the citizens of Finney County, Kans., where the crimes take place, and supplements with an arsenal of tension-building cadences, hard and soft tones, regional and foreign accents, and subtle inflections, even embedding a quiver of grief in the voice of one character.
Reviews
"Note: Capote's research assistant out in rural Kansas was none other than (Nelle) Harper Lee, who wrote TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD."
"From the beginning pages, with his haunting description of Holcomb, Kansas, a place so off the grid it was called "out there", to the machinations of the two now infamous losers, Dick and Perry, and the heartbreaking details of the day before the deaths of the Clutters -- described as a solid, superior American family -- one is spellbound."
"Not only does he accomplish this well, he also incorporates stylistic elements to make the murders appear more like a plot rather than an actual event. As the reader, we see the murder occur from both perspectives which almost allows us to be separate from the event since it leads to a weaker emotional connection to the story when reading. Capote’s well researched insight on the story lends the perspectives of both the Clutter family members and the murders, Perry and Richard, to communicate a clear plotline."
"He also develops the good characters along lines we know and understand and accept as people we would like to meet."
"I don't think that would work for most people, but it allowed him to watch the faces of the people he spoke with and really provide a full narrative."
"Capote is a master at his craft."
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Best Law Enforcement

American Radical: Inside the World of an Undercover Muslim FBI Agent
But for the first time in this memoir, an active Muslim American federal agent reveals his experience infiltrating and bringing down a terror cell in North America. Elnoury worked in more than 2,500 narcotics investigations as well as political corruption, gun trafficking, and child abuse cases. In 2008, Elnoury began working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Reviews
"In American Radical, Tamer Elnoury, (not his real name), shows us how he grew from a rank amateur at undercover police work, to highly skilled professional. These few pages are of critical value to understanding him and how his family is so very similar to any other American citizen. With many books, but none more so than American Radical, the greatest importance and value comes through listening to the unabridged version of a great book. Comments regarding your opinion of this book or of my review, whether favorable or unfavorable, are always welcome. If you buy the book based on my review and become disappointed, especially, I do want to know that and I want to understand how I can improve as a book reviewer."
"AMERICAN RADICAL is the story of a patriotic Muslim recruited by the F.B.I to penetrate terrorist groups. Of course, the author did not just pretend to be Muslim--he really is a devout believer, and hates the notion that radicals are bringing disgrace to his religion. Describing the moment the SWAT team stormed the building, the author recalls: "My eyeballs went to Black’s hands and waist."
"I also learned a lot in reading about what it’s like to have to listen to people pervert your religion and just have to let them."
"From the stress and hiding to find these sick individuals can not be easy though tamer makes it like a walk in the park."
"I can't say enough good about this book."
"This is a can't put down, need to read the next chapter book."
"Great non fiction book and the way the future will be which is very very bleak but true and worth very much reading as it makes u understand the reasons, which when reading makes one think and see that it is so true Great writer -. Recommend reading it very much."
"The only criticism I can offer is that I got a little lost in the characters, presumably because the non-western names are hard for me to follow, but this criticism is more about me than him."
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Best Penology

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption
#1 New York Times Bestseller |. Named one of the Best Books of the Year by The New York Times • The Washington Post • The Boston Globe • The Seattle Times • Esquire • Time Winner of the Carnegie Medal for Nonfiction | Winner of the NAACP Image Award for Nonfiction | Winner of a Books for a Better Life Award | Finalist for the Los Angeles Book Prize | Finalist for the Kirkus Reviews Prize | An American Library Association Notable Book A powerful true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us, and a clarion call to fix our broken system of justice—from one of the most brilliant and influential lawyers of our time. Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. a searing indictment of American criminal justice and a stirring testament to the salvation that fighting for the vulnerable sometimes yields.” —David Cole, The New York Review of Books “Searing, moving . Just Mercy will make you upset and it will make you hopeful.” —Ted Conover, The New York Times Book Review “Inspiring . Stevenson is not only a great lawyer, he’s also a gifted writer and storyteller.” — The Washington Post “As deeply moving, poignant and powerful a book as has been, and maybe ever can be, written about the death penalty.” —The Financial Times “Brilliant.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer “Not since Atticus Finch has a fearless and committed lawyer made such a difference in the American South. Just Mercy is his inspiring and powerful story.” —John Grisham “Bryan Stevenson is one of my personal heroes, perhaps the most inspiring and influential crusader for justice alive today, and Just Mercy is extraordinary. When Stevenson was a 23-year-old Harvard law student, he started an internship in Georgia where his first assignment was to deliver a message to a man living on death row. This is a title for the many young adults who have a parent or loved one in the prison system and the many others who are interested in social justice, the law, and the death penalty. [It] demonstrates, as powerfully as any book on criminal justice that I’ve ever read, the extent to which brutality, unfairness, and racial bias continue to infect criminal law in the United States. But at the same time that [Bryan] Stevenson tells an utterly damning story of deep-seated and widespread injustice, he also recounts instances of human compassion, understanding, mercy, and justice that offer hope. Just Mercy is a remarkable amalgam, at once a searing indictment of American criminal justice and a stirring testament to the salvation that fighting for the vulnerable sometimes yields.” —David Cole, The New York Review of Books “A searing, moving and infuriating memoir . This book brings new life to the story by placing it in two affecting contexts: [Bryan] Stevenson’s life work and the deep strain of racial injustice in American life. Against tremendous odds, Stevenson has worked to free scores of people from wrongful or excessive punishment, arguing five times before the Supreme Court. Stevenson has been angry about [the criminal justice system] for years, and we are all the better for it.” —Ted Conover, The New York Times Book Review “Inspiring . “As deeply moving, poignant and powerful a book as has been, and maybe ever can be, written about the death penalty.” —The Financial Times “Brilliant.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer. Bryan Stevenson, however, is very much alive and doing God’s work fighting for the poor, the oppressed, the voiceless, the vulnerable, the outcast, and those with no hope. Just Mercy is his inspiring and powerful story.” —John Grisham “Bryan Stevenson is one of my personal heroes, perhaps the most inspiring and influential crusader for justice alive today, and Just Mercy is extraordinary. Bryan Stevenson is a real-life, modern-day Atticus Finch who, through his work in redeeming innocent people condemned to death, has sought to redeem the country itself. It is inspiring and suspenseful—a revelation.” —Isabel Wilkerson, author of The Warmth of Other Suns “Words such as important and compelling may have lost their force through overuse, but reading this book will restore their meaning, along with one’s hopes for humanity.” —Tracy Kidder, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Mountains Beyond Mountains “Bryan Stevenson is America’s young Nelson Mandela, a brilliant lawyer fighting with courage and conviction to guarantee justice for all. Just Mercy should be read by people of conscience in every civilized country in the world to discover what happens when revenge and retribution replace justice and mercy.
Reviews
"My tendency is to put things into "liberal" and "conservative" buckets and this one seemingly fit into the liberal bucket and I am a professed conservative."
"I have a new hero . Bryan Stevenson. This is a great book."
"This is a system that condemns children to life imprisonment without parole, that makes petty theft a crime as serious as murder, and that has declared war on hundreds of thousands of people with substance abuse problems by imprisoning them and denying them help. JUST MERCY explores a number of devastating cases, including children as young as fourteen facing life imprisonment, and scores of people on death row - mostly poor, and mostly black - who have been unfairly convicted. But the central focus is on Walter McMillan, a black man sentenced to death for the murder of a prominent young white woman. Ours is no longer a country that sees compassion as a virtue; instead, we write harsher and harsher laws that demand longer and longer sentences for those we consider undesirables. It's rare these days to meet someone who truly dedicates himself to those least able to help themselves, especially someone who isn't after media attention or self-promotion."
"He is a witness in the stories, a helper, an overwhelmed human who makes sure his clients and the system are the focus of his stories, so we, the readers, can begin to understand what really happens in the legal system, from the behavior of police to the biases of justices with unchecked power, and the witnesses that are the wrong color to be heard."
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Best Biology

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Now an HBO® Film starring Oprah Winfrey and Rose Byrne #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. Amazon Best Books of the Month, February 2010 : From a single, abbreviated life grew a seemingly immortal line of cells that made some of the most crucial innovations in modern science possible. Henrietta Lacks was a mother of five in Baltimore, a poor African American migrant from the tobacco farms of Virginia, who died from a cruelly aggressive cancer at the age of 30 in 1951. A sample of her cancerous tissue, taken without her knowledge or consent, as was the custom then, turned out to provide one of the holy grails of mid-century biology: human cells that could survive--even thrive--in the lab. Meanwhile, Henrietta's family continued to live in poverty and frequently poor health, and their discovery decades later of her unknowing contribution--and her cells' strange survival--left them full of pride, anger, and suspicion. Jad Abumrad is host and creator of the public radio hit Radiolab , now in its seventh season and reaching over a million people monthly. Just the simple facts are hard to believe: that in 1951, a poor black woman named Henrietta Lacks dies of cervical cancer, but pieces of the tumor that killed her--taken without her knowledge or consent--live on, first in one lab, then in hundreds, then thousands, then in giant factories churning out polio vaccines, then aboard rocket ships launched into space. The cells from this one tumor would spawn a multi-billion dollar industry and become a foundation of modern science--leading to breakthroughs in gene mapping, cloning and fertility and helping to discover how viruses work and how cancer develops (among a million other things). But what's truly remarkable about Rebecca Skloot 's book is that we also get the rest of the story, the part that could have easily remained hidden had she not spent ten years unearthing it: Who was Henrietta Lacks? (1999)Main Street in downtown Clover, Virginia, where Henrietta was raised, circa 1930s.Margaret Gey and Minnie, a lab technician, in the Gey lab at Hopkins, circa 1951.Deborah with her children, LaTonya and Alfred, and her second husband, James Pullum, in the mid-1980s.In 2001, Deborah developed a severe case of hives after learning upsetting new information about her mother and sister.Deborah and her cousin Gary Lacks standing in front of drying tobacco, 2001.The Lacks family in 2009.
Reviews
"This was a great book that I'm so glad I read."
"In “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” Rebecca Skloot introduces us to the “real live woman,” the children who survived her, and the interplay of race, poverty, science and one of the most important medical discoveries of the last 100 years. Skloot narrates the science lucidly, tracks the racial politics of medicine thoughtfully and tells the Lacks family’s often painful history with grace. When science appears, it does so effortlessly, with explanations of cell anatomy or techniques like “fluorescence in situ hybridization” seamlessly worked into descriptions of the coloured wards of Johns Hopkins hospital to Lacks’s hometown of Clover, Virginia. And yet for all its grand scope, skilful writing and touching compassion, there is one simple element that makes As a final thought, I was struck by the parallels between Henrietta’s cells and her story."
"Before reading this book I knew nothing about Henrietta Lacks nor the immortal cells."
"The author did a great job of allowing the reader to decide if Henrietta's family should have profited from her cells."
"After reading about Henrietta Lacks, I began thinking about all the blood tests I've had done, and some minor surgeries I've had and I constantly wondered, what did those doctors and/or hospitals do with my tissues and/or blood? I realize there are laws in place now that weren't there when Henrietta lived, but to read how Dr. Gey took samples of Henrietta's cancerous tumor and used it to advance science and medicine as we know of it today, is mind-boggling. All of us living today should be thankful for Henrietta because she has done something that no one else seems to ever have been able to do, which is live immortally. Lacks' cells, while her family continues to live in poverty. I learned so much about cells and DNA, not to mention that just about every pill I've ever taken, most likely was the result of Henrietta's cells, which still grow today."
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Best Neurology

The End of Alzheimer's: The First Program to Prevent and Reverse Cognitive Decline
Now, The End of Alzheimer’s brings new hope to a broad audience of patients, caregivers, physicians, and treatment centers with a fascinating look inside the science and a complete step-by-step plan that fundamentally changes how we treat and even think about AD. — David Perlmutter, MD, Board-certified neurologist and author, #1 New York Times bestseller, Grain Brain, and Brain Maker " The End of Alzheimer's , for the first time, synthesizes the latest science into a practical plan that can reverse Alzheimer's and dramatically improve brain health and function. —Chris Kresser, M.S., L.Ac Founder, Kresser Institute for Functional & Evolutionary Medicine, Author of the New York Times best seller The Paleo Cure " The End of Alzheimer’s is a masterful, authoritative, and ultimately hopeful patient guide to functional medicine for your brain. "Dr. Dale Bredesen is a world class neuroscientist/neurologist who through his innovative and exacting research has discovered a safe and effective approach to the prevention and treatment of Alzheimer's disease that will revolutionize the way we think about the disease." —Jeffrey Bland, PhD, FACN, FACB; President, Personalized Lifestyle Medicine Institute " The End of Alzheimer's offers a new beginning in Medicine — changing the focus from a singular disease to recognizing the systems-based approach required to care for the whole person. —Patrick Hanaway, MD, Founding Medical Director, Director of Research, Center for Functional Medicine, Cleveland Clinic "In this engaging, heartfelt, and insightful book, Dr. Bredesen elucidates a bold new approach to Alzheimer's, rooted in decades of his own pioneering research. Dale Bredesen, M.D., is internationally recognized as an expert in the mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease.
Reviews
"Dr. Bredeson is a rare physician that has escaped the confines of conventional medicine and explored strategies that really do radically reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s and improve those that already have the condition. Because we have a tsunami of Alzheimer’s disease approaching on and it is on track to take the lives of 45 million of the 325 million Americans alive today. He is the director of Neurodegenerative Disease Research at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Medicine, He has identified a number of molecular mechanisms at work in this disease, and has created a novel program to treat and reverse it that he calls ReCODE (Reversal of Cognitive Decline). Many are concerned about this disease and have had themselves tested for the genetic risk factor Apolipoprotein E epsilon 4 (ApoE4). His ReCode program discussed three dozen different tests that one can screen for and if they are abnormal they can be addressed to improve the synaptic balance to a more healthy level and reverse or radically reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s."
"None of the Bredesen Protocol is part of the Kaiser program, and the physicians we spoke with did not even know what a functional medicine physician is, but did not think that Kaiser had one. Fortunately, we were able to qualify for a Bredesen Immersion program with Dr. Bredesen and a team he assembled of trained functional medicine physicians in March 2017."
"Watching her decline has been heart wrenching, and I'm constantly trying to find ways to make her life better. I first heard of the Bredesen Protocal last winter, when Maria Shriver discussed it on the Today Show. Live your life in a way that keeps your brain supplied with as many as possible of the 36 factors that influence whether APP gets cut into the destructive quartet or the beneficial duo. Several years ago, I struggled with brain fog and often had difficulty remembering numbers for even a couple of minutes. I reached a point where I thought I would die, so I wrote my will and made plans for my dogs after I was gone. I used the USDA Super Tracker to make sure that my diet exceeded the RDA for every nutrient they tracked. Long story short, I fell back into old habits, abandoned my perfect diet and exercise program, and gradually regained weight. Dr. Bredesen states in the book that his protocol may not work for frontal lobe and other types of dementias. I feel that it's still very important to heed his advice, as Alzheimers often doesn't get a definite diagnosis until after death."
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Best Violence in Society

Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging
Decades before the American Revolution, Benjamin Franklin lamented that English settlers were constantly fleeing over to the Indians-but Indians almost never did the same. Tribal society has been exerting an almost gravitational pull on Westerners for hundreds of years, and the reason lies deep in our evolutionary past as a communal species. "Junger has raised one of the most provocative ideas of this campaign season--and accidentally written one of its most intriguing political books. "― The New York Times "There are three excellent reasons to read Sebastian Junger's new book: the clarity of his thought, the elegance of his prose, and the provocativeness of his chosen subject. "Compelling...Junger...offers a starting point for mending some of the toxic divisiveness rampant in our current political and cultural climate. "TRIBE is a fascinating, eloquent and thought-provoking book..packed with ideas...It could help us to think more deeply about how to help men and women battered by war to find a new purpose in peace. Sebastian Junger is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Tribe , War , The Perfect Storm , Fire, and A Death in Belmont .
Reviews
"Upon reading Junger’s article in a recent Vanity Fair article on the affects of PTSD (it’s not exclusive to just war veterans, by the way), I was under the assumption that a large portion of this book would be dedicated to that. It’s an eye-opening letter to the American public that politely reminds us that we’ve lost our way when it comes to being a closer knit community as a whole. The young Junger, afraid of being mugged for his supplies, lies and tells the man that he has just a little food to last him."
"One of his central themes is the idea that soldiers in combat situations have such an intense experience of interdependency, solidarity and community that they often struggle upon returning to civilian life in the US, in which there rarely is any similar sort of community to which they can belong."
"From the devastating news of schools shootings, wars that appear on the surface to have little relevance 'back home', and financial injustices that literally rob society; these are at once at the top of our news streams, and almost as quickly dismissed as aberrations. He addresses everything from how we inappropriately treat our soldiers, the unbalanced attention to criminal acts within our society, and the fundamental social needs that are shown to be more powerful than war and catastrophe."
"Junger takes us on a journey of human community, using the stories of cultures and soldiers throughout history to provide guidance on how we can live better together in the future."
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Best African-American Studies

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Now an HBO® Film starring Oprah Winfrey and Rose Byrne #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. Amazon Best Books of the Month, February 2010 : From a single, abbreviated life grew a seemingly immortal line of cells that made some of the most crucial innovations in modern science possible. Henrietta Lacks was a mother of five in Baltimore, a poor African American migrant from the tobacco farms of Virginia, who died from a cruelly aggressive cancer at the age of 30 in 1951. A sample of her cancerous tissue, taken without her knowledge or consent, as was the custom then, turned out to provide one of the holy grails of mid-century biology: human cells that could survive--even thrive--in the lab. Meanwhile, Henrietta's family continued to live in poverty and frequently poor health, and their discovery decades later of her unknowing contribution--and her cells' strange survival--left them full of pride, anger, and suspicion. Jad Abumrad is host and creator of the public radio hit Radiolab , now in its seventh season and reaching over a million people monthly. Just the simple facts are hard to believe: that in 1951, a poor black woman named Henrietta Lacks dies of cervical cancer, but pieces of the tumor that killed her--taken without her knowledge or consent--live on, first in one lab, then in hundreds, then thousands, then in giant factories churning out polio vaccines, then aboard rocket ships launched into space. The cells from this one tumor would spawn a multi-billion dollar industry and become a foundation of modern science--leading to breakthroughs in gene mapping, cloning and fertility and helping to discover how viruses work and how cancer develops (among a million other things). But what's truly remarkable about Rebecca Skloot 's book is that we also get the rest of the story, the part that could have easily remained hidden had she not spent ten years unearthing it: Who was Henrietta Lacks? (1999)Main Street in downtown Clover, Virginia, where Henrietta was raised, circa 1930s.Margaret Gey and Minnie, a lab technician, in the Gey lab at Hopkins, circa 1951.Deborah with her children, LaTonya and Alfred, and her second husband, James Pullum, in the mid-1980s.In 2001, Deborah developed a severe case of hives after learning upsetting new information about her mother and sister.Deborah and her cousin Gary Lacks standing in front of drying tobacco, 2001.The Lacks family in 2009.
Reviews
"This was a great book that I'm so glad I read."
"In “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” Rebecca Skloot introduces us to the “real live woman,” the children who survived her, and the interplay of race, poverty, science and one of the most important medical discoveries of the last 100 years. Skloot narrates the science lucidly, tracks the racial politics of medicine thoughtfully and tells the Lacks family’s often painful history with grace. When science appears, it does so effortlessly, with explanations of cell anatomy or techniques like “fluorescence in situ hybridization” seamlessly worked into descriptions of the coloured wards of Johns Hopkins hospital to Lacks’s hometown of Clover, Virginia. And yet for all its grand scope, skilful writing and touching compassion, there is one simple element that makes As a final thought, I was struck by the parallels between Henrietta’s cells and her story."
"Before reading this book I knew nothing about Henrietta Lacks nor the immortal cells."
"The author did a great job of allowing the reader to decide if Henrietta's family should have profited from her cells."
"After reading about Henrietta Lacks, I began thinking about all the blood tests I've had done, and some minor surgeries I've had and I constantly wondered, what did those doctors and/or hospitals do with my tissues and/or blood? I realize there are laws in place now that weren't there when Henrietta lived, but to read how Dr. Gey took samples of Henrietta's cancerous tumor and used it to advance science and medicine as we know of it today, is mind-boggling. All of us living today should be thankful for Henrietta because she has done something that no one else seems to ever have been able to do, which is live immortally. Lacks' cells, while her family continues to live in poverty. I learned so much about cells and DNA, not to mention that just about every pill I've ever taken, most likely was the result of Henrietta's cells, which still grow today."
Find Best Price at Amazon

Best Forensic Science

Whoever Fights Monsters: My Twenty Years Tracking Serial Killers for the FBI
And with his discovery that serial killers share certain violent behaviors, Ressler goes behind prison walls to hear bizarre first-hand stories from countless convicted murderers, including Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy; Edmund Kemper; and Son of Sam. Indispensable reading for serial killer mavens, and better written than John Douglas and Mark Olshaker's Mindhunter , this book is packed with fascinating details from dozens of cases: The killer John Joubert, for example, started his life of cruelty as a kid one day when he was riding his bike with a sharpened pencil in his hand. Writing with Schachtman ( Skyscraper Dreams ), he recounts in straightforward, fact-filled style his interviews with such infamous murderers as Edmund Kemper, Charles Manson, John Wayne Gacy, William Heirens and Ted Bundy.
Reviews
"Simultaneously horrifying and fascinating...we owe a debt of gratitude to the Ressler, and the men and women who spent their careers studying these monsters, hoping to prevent or minimize future atrocities."
"As expected, interesting read."
"Great book for the true crime junkie!"
"Really enjoyed overall, especially the parts about interviewing the serial killers and how BHU was founded."
"Excellent book."
"If you want to gain an understanding of serial killers, this is the book to read."
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