Chaser

Author: John W. Pilley

Category: Biography & Memoir

Regular price: $12.99

Deal price: $1.99

Deal starts: September 11, 2024

Deal ends: September 11, 2024

Description:

“This marvelous blend of good science and heartwarming dog story will inspire all of us to reexamine our canine friends.” —Booklist, starred reviewThe New York Times–bestselling story of a very smart Border collie who redefined animal intelligence. A joyous explanation of behavior, learning, and perception—any pet owner, parent, teacher, or psychologist will be enriched by this book.When retired psychology professor John Pilley first got his new Border collie puppy, Chaser, he wanted to explore the boundaries of language learning and communication between humans and man’s best friend. Exhibiting intelligence previously thought impossible in dogs, Chaser soon learned the names of more than a thousand toys and sentences with multiple elements of grammar.Chaser’s accomplishments are revolutionizing the way we think about the intelligence of animals. John and Chaser’s inspiring journey demonstrates the power of learning through play and opens our eyes to the boundless potential in the animals we love.“The most scientifically important dog in over a century.” —Brian Hare, founder of the Duke Canine Cognition Center and coauthor of The Genius of Dogs“After you read Chaser, you will realize that you may have underestimated the intelligence of your dog. Marvelous insights into a dog’s mind.” —Temple Grandin, author of Animals in Translation and Animals Make Us Human“Dogs and those of us who love them owe to debt of gratitude to the brilliant, courageous author and his equally heroic subject.” —Jennifer Arnold, author of Through a Dog’s Eyes“An engrossing and remarkable tale.” —The Bark “A delightful memoir that offers a challenge to behavioral psychologists and inspiration for pet lovers.” —Kirkus Reviews

House to House

Author: John R. Bruning

Category: Biography & Memoir

Regular price: $13.99

Deal price: $1.99

Deal starts: September 11, 2024

Deal ends: September 11, 2024

Description:

THE CLASSIC SOLDIER’S MEMOIR FROM MEDAL OF HONOR RECIPIENT STAFF SERGEANT DAVID BELLAVIA “A rare and gripping account of frontline combat.”—LTG (Ret.) H.R. McMaster, author of Dereliction of Duty “They used to say that the real war will never get in the books. Here it does, stunningly.” —Thomas E. Ricks, author of Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq and Making the Corps “To read this book is to know intimately the daily grind and danger of men at war.”—Anthony Swofford, New York Times bestselling author of JarheadOne of the great heroes of the Iraq War, Staff Sergeant David Bellavia captures the brutal action and raw intensity of leading his Third Platoon, Alpha Company, into a lethally choreographed kill zone: the booby-trapped, explosive-laden houses of Fallujah's militant insurgents. Bringing to searing life the terrifying intimacy of hand-to-hand infantry combat, this stunning war memoir features an indelibly drawn cast of characters, not all of whom would make it out alive, as well as the chilling account of the singular courage that earned Bellavia the Medal of Honor: Entering one house alone, he used every weapon at his disposal in the fight of his life against America's most implacable enemy. Bellavia has written an unforgettable story of triumph, tragedy, and the resilience of the human spirit.

Slow Dancing with a Stranger

Author: Meryl Comer

Category: Biography & Memoir

Regular price: $12.99

Deal price: $1.99

Deal starts: September 10, 2024

Deal ends: September 10, 2024

Description:

The Emmy Award–winning broadcaster shares a New York Times–bestselling, unvarnished personal account of her husband’s battle with Alzheimer’s disease.When Meryl Comer’s husband, Dr. Harvey Gralnick, chief of hematology and oncology at the National Institutes of Health, began forgetting routine things and demonstrating abrupt changes in behavior, doctors were confounded ass to what was going wrong. Diagnoses ranged from stress and depression to Lyme disease, from pernicious anemia to mad cow’s disease supposedly acquired from a trip to London. Finally, after years of inconclusive tests, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, a seemingly impossible disease for a man in his prime.Comer gave up her television career and for the next two decades cared for Harvey in their home, tending to his every need while watching him regress into an emotionally distant and sometimes violent stranger. “The man I live with is not the man I fell in love with and married,” she writes. “He has slowly been robbed of what we all take for granted—the ability to navigate the mundane activities of daily living: bathing, shaving, dressing, feeding, and using the bathroom. His inner clock is confused and can’t be reset. His eyes are vacant and unaware.”In Slow Dancing with a Stranger, Comer brings readers face-to-face with Alzheimer’s, detailing the realities, its stressful emotional and financial hardships for families, as well as the limitations of doctors and assisted living and long-term care facilities to manage difficult patient behaviors. With candor and grace, Comer chronicles her personal experiences—her mistakes, her heartbreaks, her minor victories—to paint an intimate and moving portrait of Alzheimer’s and, in the process, she reveals the truth about the disease and everyone it affects.“Riveting and necessary.” —The New York Times“A poignant love story with a powerful message.” —Kirkus Reviews“Read and recommend this book as a call to action as haunting and urgent as Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring.” —Gaily Sheehy, author of Passages in Caregiving and Daring: My Passages

The Autobiography of a Transgender Scientist

Author: Ben Barres

Category: Biography & Memoir

Regular price: $13.99

Deal price: $1.99

Deal starts: September 09, 2024

Deal ends: September 09, 2024

Description:

A POIGNANT LGBT MEMOIR: A leading trans neuroscientist recounts his gender transition, his groundbreaking scientific work, and his advocacy for gender equality in STEM.   “A portrait of a singular personality that was shaped by his status as an outsider.” —Science   Ben Barres was known for his groundbreaking scientific work and advocacy for gender equality in science. In this autobiography, completed shortly before his death from pancreatic cancer in December 2017, Barres (born in 1954) describes a life full of remarkable accomplishments—from his childhood as a precocious math and science whiz to his experiences as a female student at MIT in the 1970s to his gender confusion and later transition in his 40s, to his scientific work and role as teacher and mentor at Stanford.   As an undergraduate at MIT, Barres experienced discrimination, but it was after transitioning that he realized how differently male and female scientists are treated. He became an advocate for gender equality in science, and later in life responded pointedly to Larry Summers’s speculation that women were innately unsuited to be scientists. At Stanford, Barres made important discoveries about glia, the most numerous cells in the brain, and he describes some of his work. “The most rewarding part of his job,” however, was mentoring young scientists. That, and his advocacy for women and transgender scientists, ensures his legacy.

I’m Just a Person

Author: Tig Notaro

Category: Biography & Memoir

Regular price: $17.99

Deal price: $1.99

Deal starts: September 09, 2024

Deal ends: September 09, 2024

Description:

Star of HBO Max's "Tig Notaro: Drawn," "Army of the Dead," "One Mississippi" and "Instant Family." As well as the host of the podcasts "Don't Ask Tig" and "Tig and Cheryl: True Story" with Cheryl Hines.One of America’s most original comedic voices delivers a darkly funny, wryly observed, and emotionally raw account of her year of death, cancer, and epiphany.In the span of four months in 2012, Tig Notaro was hospitalized for a debilitating intestinal disease called C. diff, her mother unexpectedly died, she went through a breakup, and then she was diagnosed with bilateral breast cancer. Hit with this devastating barrage, Tig took her grief onstage. Days after receiving her cancer diagnosis, she broke new comedic ground, opening an unvarnished set with the words: “Good evening. Hello. I have cancer. How are you? Hi, how are you? Is everybody having a good time? I have cancer.” The set went viral instantly and was ultimately released as Tig’s sophomore album, Live, which sold one hundred thousand units in just six weeks and was later nominated for a Grammy.Now, the wildly popular star takes stock of that no good, very bad year—a difficult yet astonishing period in which tragedy turned into absurdity and despair transformed into joy. An inspired combination of the deadpan silliness of her comedy and the open-hearted vulnerability that has emerged in the wake of that dire time, I’m Just a Person is a moving and often hilarious look at this very brave, very funny woman’s journey into the darkness and her thrilling return from it.

The Dog Who Came to Stay

Author: Hal Borland

Category: Biography & Memoir

Regular price: $12.99

Deal price: $1.99

Deal starts: September 08, 2024

Deal ends: September 08, 2024

Description:

The national bestselling memoir of a friendship between a New England outdoorsman and the scrawny foxhound who came to his door one snowy day. In the midst of a blizzard, late one Christmas night in the 1950s, author Hal Borland heard a howl at the back door of his home on a hundred-acre farm in the Housatonic Valley of northwest Connecticut. Resistant at first, he called around trying to find an owner whose dog had gone missing—with no luck. Finally, with the encouragement of his wife and haunted by memories of his childhood collie, Borland brought some scraps of leftover steak outside. This was his introduction to Pat, a miserable, half-starved, but deeply trusting black-and-white foxhound mutt.   Pat would soon become a member of the family, accompanying Borland on hunts and terrorizing the local woodchuck population—and teaching him that sometimes our most immediate connection to the natural world is through the animals we live with. A longtime journalist and a winner of the John Burroughs Medal for distinguished nature writing, Borland tells the tale of the time he shared with Pat in this touching true story that “will appeal to many sportsmen and to all people who have ever been closely attached to a dog” (The New York Times Book Review).