A witty and engaging history of the first botanists, interwoven with stories of today's extraordinary plants found in the garden and the labIn Paradise Under Glass, Ruth Kassinger recounts with grace and humor her journey from brown thumb to green, sharing the lessons that she learned from building a home conservatory in the wake of a devastating personal crisis. In A Garden of Marvels, she extends the story. "This book was born of a murder, a murder I committed," she begins. The victim was a kumquat tree. Though she diligently did her best watering, fertilizing, repotting, and pruning the plant turned brown and brittle. Why did the kumquat die when other plants in the garden that received the same attention thrivedshe wondered. It was an experience that offered invaluable insight. While she knew the basic rules of caring for indoor plants, Kassinger realized that she understood very little about plant physiology how roots, stems, leaves, and flowers actually function. Determined not to repeat her failure, she set out to learn the fundamentals of botany in order to become a better gardener. A Garden of Marvels is the story of her wise and enchanting odyssey to discover the secret life of plants. Kassinger retraces the progress of the first botanists including a melancholy Italian anatomist, a renegade French surgeon, a stuttering English minister, an obsessive German schoolteacher, and Charles Darwin who banished myths and misunderstandings and discovered that flowers have sex, leaves eat air, roots choose their food, and hormones make morning glories climb fence posts. She goes out into the world as well, visiting modern gardens, farms, and labs to discover the science behind extraordinary plants like one-ton pumpkins, truly black petunias, ferns that eat the arsenic in contaminated soil, biofuel grass that grows twelve feet tall, and the world's only photosynthesizing animal. Kassinger also introduces us to modern scientific research that offers hope for combatting climate change and alleviating world hunger. She then transfers her insights to her own garden, where she nurtures a "cocktail" tree that bears five kinds of fruit, cures an ailing Buddha's Hand plant with beneficial fungi, and gets a tree to text her when it's thirsty. Intertwining personal anecdotes, accessible science, and little-known history, A Garden of Marvels takes us on an eye-opening journey into Kassinger's garden and yours offering us a new appreciation of this exquisite gift of nature: "Our garden is more than a marvel. It's as close to a miracle as there is on Earth."

Close your eyes and picture the Heisman Trophy. The form is easyto conjure, a graceful, fluid posethat is football past and football present in one dignified figure ...The story of the Heisman Trophyis an american epic.-- from the PrefaceNo sport in America can match the pageantry, raw emotion, and thrilling tradition of college football. It is a world in which a twenty-year-old kid can become a national sensation overnight, in which coaches are deified and rivalries burn white-hot.And in this world, there is no individual award so revered as the Heisman Trophy. Every yearsince 1935, one player has run, thrown, or kicked his way into the pantheon of American sport. From Nile "The Cornbelt Comet" Kinnick in the '30s, West Point's legendary backfield of Doc Blanchard and Glenn Davis in the '40s, and Paul Hornung in the '50s to Ernie Davis, the Jackie Robinson of college football, miracle worker Doug Flutie, and modern-day Sunday warrior Eddie George, the history of the Heisman gives us insight into the heart of America through the lives of the heroes that entranced an entire nation for one brilliant season. Extraordinary in ways that transcend athletic ability, Heisman winners have gone on to become war heroes, Fortune 500 CEOs, and high-level politicians.As John Heisman himself once said, the Heisman Trophy "is meant to exemplify the grandeur of a thousand men." Here within these pages are intimate portraits of some of the winners who also exemplify the grit and glory of America's beloved game and of the coaching giants such as Bear Bryant, Woody Hayes, and Red Blaik, who inspired the winners to achieve.Told in the evocative words of Pulitzer Prize nominated journalist Bill Pennington, their heart-stopping experiences on the field and off will have Americans enthralled until the final page is turned.

In this comprehensive and accessible guide, long-term care expert Stella Henry helps readers navigate the daunting logistics and powerful emotions of making care decisions for an elderly parent or loved one. Drawing from her 36 years as a registered nurse and a nursing home administrator, as well as her experience caring for both her parents (both of whom suffered the ravages of Alzheimer's disease), Henry tackles all the tough issues: spotting the warning signs of dementia, redefining sibling roles, doing a walk-through at an assisted living facility or nursing home, making the move, and coping with "take me home!" demands.She also explains the medical, legal, and insurance maze. In a time when almost 10 million Americans currently need long-term care, The Eldercare Handbook is an essential read.

In a survival situation, a wrong decision could spell the difference between life and death. No one knows this better than Les Stroud, who has survived everywhere from the sun-scorched sands of the Kalahari to the snake-infested jungles of the Amazon. In Will to Live, Les examines many incredible true life survival stories explaining what happened and why, and offering valuable perspectives on what went right, what went wrong, and what could have been done differently. The tales in Will to Live include: Chris McCandless the subject of the book and movie Into the Wild. Yossi Ghinsberg who survived alone in the Amazon for twenty-one days. Douglas Mawson the Antarctic "superman" who survived three hellish months at the bottom of the planet. Nando Parrado who was trapped for two months high in the Andes after a plane crash killed his friends and family. Plus . . . stories from Les's own experiences, along with practical sidebars with tips on how to escape quicksand, butcher a moose, cross a snow-covered crevasse, and more. Provocative and entertaining, Will to Live is a compilation of history's most intriguing survival stories from one of the world's foremost experts.

In June 1967, Israel achieved the unimaginable a decisive victory against Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in the Six-Day War. The most symbolic triumph for the young nation was the reunification of Israeli West Jerusalem and Jordanian East Jerusalem, achieved at great cost by a group of paratroopers from the 55th Paratroopers Reserve Brigade. In restoring Jewish sovereignty to the Holy City, these men fulfilled the dream of two millennia, changing the history of Israel and of the Middle East. And as veteran journalist Yossi Klein Halevi shows in Like Dreamers, they played pivotal roles in shaping Israel's destiny long after their resounding military success.A masterful storyteller, Halevi tracks down seven members of the 55th Brigade and traces their lives through the decades following the Six-Day War. But as his narrative reveals, despite the intensity of their shared experience protecting Israel, in their postwar paths they nurture drastically divergent visions for the country's future. Yoel Bin-Nun emerges at the forefront of the religious Zionist West Bank settlement movement, but Arik Achmon the chief intelligence officer of the 55th becomes a spiritual father of the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. Achmon becomes a driving force in the growth of Israel's capitalist economy, whereas Avital Geva, in addition to building a reputation as a leading conceptual artist, ardently defends the socialist kibbutzim. And while Geva is among the foremost activists in Peace Now, Udi Adiv helps create an anti-Zionist terror underground in Damascus, eventually serving twelve years in an Israeli prison.Charting the ideological differences among this band of brothers, Halevi weaves a nuanced and insightful chronicle of modern Israel. His fascinating, diligently researched examination of each man's motivations and actions supported by extensive interviews with their friends, family members, and comrades-in-arms humanizes the country 's complex political landscape, facilitating a deeper understanding of the forces that influence its evolution as a state.

The spirited child—often called "difficult" or "strong willed"—possesses traits we value in adults yet find challenging in children. Research shows that spirited children are wired to be "more"; by temperament, they are more intense, sensitive, perceptive, persistent, and more uncomfortable with change than the average child. In this newly revised third edition of the award-winning classic, Dr. Mary Sheedy Kurcinka provides vivid examples of real-life challenges and a refreshingly positive viewpoint. Within these pages you will find: New strategies for managing intensity levels—not just the spirited child's, but yours too A simple, four-step program for peaceful bedtimes, mealtimes, holidays, and many other commonly challenging situations A focus on your child's strengths Steps for teaching your child how to be a problem solver and how to work with others Updated guidance on establishing clear limits And more! Charts and quick tips make this newly updated edition an indispensable guide for fostering a supportive, encouraging, and loving environment for children.

A masterful history of one of the most important movements of our time, Revolution in Mind is a brilliant, engaging, and radically new work the first ever to fully account for the making of psychoanalysis. In a sweeping narrative, George Makari demonstrates how a new way of thinking about inner life coalesced and won followers who spread this body of thought throughout the West. Along the way he introduces the reader to a fascinating array of characters, many of whom have been long ignored or forgotten.Amid great ferment, Sigmund Freud emerged as a creative, interdisciplinary thinker who devised a riveting new theory of the mind that attracted acolytes from the very fields the Viennese doctor had mined for his synthesis. These allies included Eugen Bleuler, Carl Jung, and Alfred Adler, all of whom eventually broke away and accused the Freudian community of being unscientific. Makari reveals how in the wake of these crises, innovators like Sndor Ferenczi, Wilhelm Reich, Melanie Klein, and others reformed psychoanalysis, which began to gain wide acceptance only to be banished from the continent and sent into exile due to the rise of fascism.Groundbreaking, insightful, and compulsively readable, Revolution in Mind goes beyond myth and polemic to give us the story of one of the most controversial intellectual endeavors of the twentieth century.

An epic joint biography, Masters and Commanders explores the degree to which the course of the Second World War turned on the relationships and temperaments of four of the strongest personalities of the twentieth century: political masters Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt and the commanders of their armed forces, General Sir Alan Brooke and General George C. Marshall. Each was exceptionally tough willed and strong minded, and each was certain that he knew best how to win the war. Yet each knew that he had to win at least two of the others if he was to have his strategy adopted. Andrew Roberts, whom The Economist calls "Britain's finest contemporary military historian," traces the mutual suspicion and admiration, the rebuffs and the charm, the often-explosive disagreements and wary reconciliations, and he helps us to appreciate the motives and imperatives acting upon these key leaders struggling to destroy Nazism. Drawing on newly discovered verbatim accounts of Churchill's war-cabinet meetings and on the private papers of nearly seventy contemporaries, Roberts reconstructs the lively debates of the four principals and other leading figures, and attempts to answer some of the key questions of Allied strategy. Why, when the most direct route from Germany to Britain was through north-western France, did the Western Allies launch attacks via North Africa, Sicily, and RomeWhy, if Operation Overlord in June 1944 was intended to be the start of the Allies' great thrust into Germany, did four hundred thousand men land five hundred miles to the south, in southern France, two months laterWhy did the Allies not take Berlin, Vienna, or Prague and allow the Iron Curtain to descend where it didMasters and Commanders dramatically re-creates the atmosphere, debates, and maneuverings through which Allied grand strategy was forged and reveals the profound impact of personality upon history.

An incredible treasure trove of more than 150 illustrations detailing a small nation of African Americans prepared to make their mark on America

With his career at a standstill and his golf game a shadow of its former mediocrity, TV writer and ESPN.com contributor Bob Smiley decided the time had come to turn to the one person who might be able to help: Tiger Woods. So, in January of 2008, Smiley set out to follow the game's greatest player from the gallery for every hole of an entire season and to absorb all that he could.Smiley traveled from the seaside cliffs of San Diego to the deserts of Dubai, through the hallowed gates of Augusta National, and on to arguably the greatest U.S. Open of all time back at Torrey Pines, where, in a legendary duel with charismatic journeyman Rocco Mediate, Woods won his fourteenth major on one leg.Smiley chronicles every dramatic and often hysterical moment of his journey with Tiger, including his off-course run-ins with Arabian sandstorms, ex-con ticket scalpers, and the motley assortment of strangers who became friends along the way.Told from the perspective of a true golf fan, Follow the Roar is a once-in-a-lifetime adventure through the most spectacular and inspiring season in Tiger Woods's celebrated career. In addition to the thrill of witnessing all 604 holes Woods played in '08, Smiley found in Tiger both inspiration and the gutsy embodiment of what it really means to be an athlete and a man.

Every general manager today all the way up to the CEO is expected by his or her stakeholders to achieve new breakthroughs in performance and fast. Those who don't make visible progress toward that goal within the first year or two will likely find themselves looking for another job. It is precisely because of this growing breakthrough imperative that managers today, whether in corporations or nonprofits, need to get off to a fast start. They don't have time for mistakes or for going back and redoing what they should have done right in the first place. But, despite the intensity of these pressures, despite the high expectations and short time frames, a number of CEOs and general managers turn in truly exceptional results. How do they meet and exceed the breakthrough imperativeTo answer this question, consultants and former managers Mark Gottfredson and Steve Schaubert interviewed more than forty CEOs from both industry and the nonprofit sector, conducted an intensive study of what successful managers do right and what some do wrong and drew on their own combined fifty-plus years of experience at Bain & Company, where their insights have consistently been found in the pages of the Harvard Business Review. Together they came up with the four straightforward principles deceptively simple yet remarkably powerful that everyone must follow to succeed at achieving breakthrough results: 1. Costs and prices always decline2. Competitive position determines options3. Customers and profit pools don't stand still4. Simplicity gets results Although seemingly simplistic, mastering these four laws means mastering the basics of great management a foundation on which to build the rest of one's management strategy. Whether you're managing a small work group or a multinational corporation, a single division or an entire nonprofit, The Breakthrough Imperative presents these core laws of business to help you determine where you are, just how far you can go, and how to get there with stellar results.

Through 150 striking color photographs, Obama: The Historic Campaign in Photographs charts the road to Barack Obama's nomination as the first African American to lead the presidential ticket of a major party. Announcing his campaign in Springfield, Illinois, on February 10, 2007, Obama stood on the grounds of the Old State Capitol, where Abraham Lincoln delivered his famous "House Divided" speech against slavery in 1858. During an eighteen-month campaign, from the snows of Iowa to the hunt for Democratic "superdelegates," this junior senator from Chicago confounded the party establishment and rewrote the playbook on modern presidential campaigning. This amazing collection of photographs captures the public and private moments of his journey, and offers a unique window into one of the great triumphs in American politics.

In 1692 Puritan Samuel Sewall sent twenty people to their deaths on trumped-up witchcraft charges. The nefarious witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts represent a low point of American history, made famous in works by Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne (himself a descendant of one of the judges), and Arthur Miller. The trials might have doomed Sewall to infamy except for a courageous act of contrition now commemorated in a mural that hangs beneath the golden dome of the Massachusetts State House picturing Sewall's public repentance. He was the only Salem witch judge to make amends.But, remarkably, the judge's story didn't end there. Once he realized his error, Sewall turned his attention to other pressing social issues. Struck by the injustice of the New England slave trade, a commerce in which his own relatives and neighbors were engaged, he authored "The Selling of Joseph," America's first antislavery tract. While his peers viewed Native Americans as savages, Sewall advocated for their essential rights and encouraged their education, even paying for several Indian youths to attend Harvard College. Finally, at a time when women were universally considered inferior to men, Sewall published an essay affirming the fundamental equality of the sexes. The text of that essay, composed at the deathbed of his daughter Hannah, is republished here for the first time.In Salem Witch Judge, acclaimed biographer Eve LaPlante, Sewall's great-great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter, draws on family lore, her ancestor's personal diaries, and archival documents to open a window onto life in colonial America, painting a portrait of a man traditionally vilified, but who was in fact an innovator and forefather who came to represent the best of the American spirit.

Confident people react positively and successfully to life's problems and challenges. Those who lack confidence often view themselves as victims blaming others or bingeing on drugs, sex, food, or alcohol to mask their feelings of shame or worthlessness.In Complete Confidence, renowned psychotherapist Dr. Sheenah Hankin points the way to a confident life free of self-criticism, anxiety, and immature anger. Her Winning Hand of Comfort technique is a clear, concise, and powerful pre*ion for dealing with everyday situations from resolving conflicts to ending unhealthy habits like overeating, complaining, and procrastinating. This essential handbook will teach you how to retrain your brain to manage your emotions and put your problems into perspective. You will learn how to calm down, clarify your thinking, challenge your blame habit, comfort your negative feelings, and achieve confidence. That is Dr. Hankin's promise.

When Hope Edelman, author of the New York Times bestseller Motherless Daughters, became a parent, she found herself revisiting the loss of her mother in ways she had never anticipated. Now the mother of two young girls, Edelman set out to learn how the loss of a mother to death or abandonment can affect the ways women raise their own children. In Motherless Mothers, Edelman uses her own story as a prism to reveal the unique anxieties and desires that these women experience as they raise their children without the help of a living maternal guide. In an impeccably researched, luminously written book enriched by the voices of the mothers themselves and filled with practical insight and advice from experienced professionals she examines their parenting choices, their triumphs, and their fears, and offers motherless mothers the guidance and support they want and need.

Who's really driving oil and gas pricesHow much oil is leftHow far will Big Oil go to get it, and at what cost to the environment, human rights, the economy, worker safety, public health, and democracy?Here, at last, are the answers we've been looking for and the inside story on Big Oil.In The Tyranny of Oil, Antonia Juhasz investigates the true state of the companies collectively known as "Big Oil," uncovering their unparalleled global financial power, their political dominance, and their increasingly destructive plans for the future. And she tells us what we can do about it.A tool for meaningful change that blends history, original investigative research and reporting, candid interviews with key insiders, and a unique focus on activism, The Tyranny of Oil is required reading for every concerned global citizen.

In this moving memoir, Robert J. Wagner opens his heart to share the romances, the drama, and the humor of an incredible life He grew up in Bel Air next door to a golf course that changed his life. As a young boy, he saw a foursome playing one morning featuring none other than Fred Astaire, Clark Gable, Randolph Scott, and Cary Grant. Seeing these giants of the silver screen awed him and fueled his dreams of becoming a movie star. Battling a revolving door of boarding schools and a father who wanted him to forget Hollywood and join the family business, sixteen-year-old Wagner started like any nave kid would walking along Sunset Boulevard, hoping that a producer or director would notice him.Under the mentorship of stars like Spencer Tracy, he would become a salaried actor in Hollywood's studio system among other hot actors of the moment such as his friends Rock Hudson and Tony Curtis. Working with studio mogul Darryl Zanuck, Wagner began to appear in a number of films alongside the most beautiful starlets but his first love was Barbara Stanwyck, an actress twice his age. As his career blossomed, and after he separated from Stanwyck, he met the woman who would change his life forever, Natalie Wood. They fell instantly and deeply in love and stayed together until the stress of their careers hers marching upward, his inexplicably deflating drove them to divorce.Trying to forget the pain, he made more movies and spent his time in Europe with the likes of Steve McQueen, Sophia Loren, Peter Sellers, Laurence Olivier, David Niven, Liz Taylor, and Joan Collins. He would meet and marry the beautiful former model and actress Marion Marshall. Together they had a daughter and made their way back to America, where he found himself at the beginning of a new era in Hollywood the blossoming of television. Lew Wasserman and later Aaron Spelling would work with Wagner as he produced and starred in some of the most successful programs in history. Despite his newfound success, his marriage to Marion fell apart. He looked no further than Natalie Wood, for whom he still pined. To the world's surprise, they fell in love all over again, this time more deeply and with maturity. As she settled into a domestic life, raising their own daughter, Courtney, as well as their children from previous marriages, Wagner became the sole provider, reaping the riches of television success. Their life together was cut tragically short, though, when Wood died after falling from their yacht.For the first time, Wagner writes about that tremendously painful time. After a serious bout with depression, he finally resurfaced and eventually married Jill St. John, who helped keep his family and his fractured heart together. With color photographs and never-before-told stories, this is a quintessentially American story of one of the great sons of Hollywood.

How to afford kids and teach them about moneyWe all want to raise smart children. But somewhere between the reading, writing, and arithmetic, one of life's most important lessons is too often overlooked: personal finances. As adults, we interact with money every day, whether by saving, investing, spending, or giving it, but we often forget that kids also face these same decisions from their own unique perspective as they mature. How do we teach today what kids really need to know tomorrow to thrive as financially savvy adultsIn Piggybanking, veteran Wall Street Journal personal-finance writer Jeff D. Opdyke provides a clear and effective plan to help parents raise children to be comfortable and confident managing the daily finances of life.But even before kids arrive, parents face a rash of financial decisions. Accordingly, Piggybanking also deals with the essential problems every struggling young family must face, including how to prepare your budget for a child's arrival, how to choose between single- and dual-income lifestyles, and how to plan for funding a college education.With Opdyke's valuable advice, and with his 15 Rules of Kids Money in hand, parents will be well equipped to create a sound financial foundation for their family and a successful financial life for their kids.

For most people, the Great Crash of 2008 has meant troubling times. Not so for those in the flourishing poverty industry, for whom the economic woes spell an opportunity to expand and grow. These mercenary entrepreneurs have taken advantage of an era of deregulation to devise high-priced products to sell to the credit-hungry working poor, including the instant tax refund and the payday loan. In the process they've created an industry larger than the casino business and have proved that pawnbrokers and check cashers, if they dream big enough, can grow very rich off those with thin wallets.Broke, USA is Gary Rivlin's riveting report from the economic fringes. From the annual meeting of the national check cashers association in Las Vegas to a tour of the foreclosure-riddled neighborhoods of Dayton, Ohio, here is a subprime Fast Food Nation featuring an unforgettable cast of characters and memorable scenes. Rivlin profiles players like a former small-town Tennessee debt collector whose business offering cash advances to the working poor has earned him a net worth in the hundreds of millions, and legendary Wall Street dealmaker Sandy Weill, who rode a subprime loan business into control of the nation's largest bank. Rivlin parallels their stories with the tale of those committed souls fighting back against the major corporations, chain franchises, and newly hatched enterprises that fleece the country's hardworking waitresses, warehouse workers, and mall clerks.Timely, shocking, and powerful, Broke, USA offers a much-needed look at why our country is in a financial mess and gives a voice to the millions of ordinary Americans left devastated in the wake of the economic collapse.

Dr. William Glasser offers a new psychology that, if practiced, could reverse our widespread inability to get along with one another, an inability that is the source of almost all unhappiness. For progress in human relationships, he explains that we must give up the punishing, relationship destroying external control psychology. For example, if you are in an unhappy relationship right now, he proposes that one or both of you could be using external control psychology on the other. He goes further. And suggests that misery is always related to a current unsatisfying relationship. Contrary to what you may believe, your troubles are always now, never in the past. No one can change what happened yesterday.

When Pete Jordan arrives in Amsterdam to study how to make America's cities more bicycle-friendly, he immediately falls in love with the city that already lives life on two wheels. His new bride, Amy Joy, joins Pete, and despite their financial hardships and instability, she eventually finds her own new calling as a bicycle mechanic as Pete discovers the untold history of cycling in Amsterdam.From its beginnings as an elitis t pastime in the 1890s to the street-consuming craze of the 1920s, from the bicycle's role in a citywide resistance to the Nazi occupation to the White Bikes of the 1960s and the bike fishermen of today, Jordan chronicles the evolution of Amsterdam's cycling.Part personal memoir, part history of cycling, part fascinating street-level tour of Amsterdam, In the City of Bikes is the story of a man who loves bikes in a city that loves bikes.