James Tobin, award-winning author of "Ernie Pyle's War" and "The Man He Became," has penned the definitive account of the inspiring and impassioned race between the Wright brothers and their primary rival Samuel Langley across ten years and two continents to conquer the air.
For years, Wilbur Wright and his younger brother, Orville, experimented in obscurity, supported only by their exceptional family. Meanwhile, the world watched as Samuel Langley, armed with a contract from the US War Department and all the resources of the Smithsonian Institution, sought to create the first manned flying machine. But while Langley saw flight as a problem of power, the Wrights saw a problem of balance. Thus their machines took two very different paths--Langley's toward oblivion, the Wrights' toward the heavens--though not before facing countless other obstacles. With a historian's accuracy and a novelist's eye, Tobin has captured an extraordinary moment in history. "To Conquer the Air" is itself a heroic achievement.

In response to the stifling socialism of the Canadian health care system and the intolerably long Canadian winters, Dr. Mel Genraich made a life-altering decision: leave Toronto for good, and seek his fortune in Houston, Texas. Little did he know that in the short space of eight years, he would be divorced from his wife and children, remarried to a native Texan (from a staunch Church of Christ family, no less), and would relocate his practice to the Texas Panhandle. "Take Two Aspirins, but Don't Call Me in the Morning" depicts the travels and struggles of a Canadian Jew living in an almost one-hundred percent Christian world. Genraich tells of his incredible swings of fortune and adaptation to events that change the course of his life. He chronicles his travels in America and abroad-in particular, his transformational journey through Europe as a senior medical student. Brutally honest and sprinkled with his personal observations, Genraich shows that he is not afraid to be honest and controversial, traits that most in his profession decry. This is a memoir that is frank and engaging, far removed from the private enclave of the medical world and yet also a story of that world.

Fifty-nine-year-old Robert LaPlante gave up cigarettes in his twenties, was never overweight, practiced good health habits, and had run marathons and many other foot races. He lived his life in a way he believed would ward off terrible things like cancer. But in November 2008, LaPlante received the devastating diagnosis of signet ring cell adenocarcinoma, a rare and aggressive form of cancer that begins in the appendix.

In "Cancer No Chemo," LaPlante documents his three-year battle with cancer-from the initial diagnosis, to surgery to remove ten inches of colon and twenty-two lymph nodes, to winning the fight. Through journal entries, he shares his innermost thoughts during his treatment and recovery, including the fearful decision to forgo chemotherapy in favor of holistic healing methods that are gaining a place in the battle against cancer.

In this memoir, he shares how he believes a positive attitude is the most important tool that inspires positive action. "Cancer No Chemo" provides an inspiring look at how one man battled a foreboding cancer diagnosis and won.

This title reveals a shy yet passionate woman more at home in the natural world than in the literary one that embraced her. Souder also writes sensitively of Carson's romantic friendship with Dorothy Freeman, and of her death from cancer in 1964. This biography captures the essence of one of the great reformers of the 20th century.

Reaching for Heaven chronicles Rebecca Browder's struggle with the Proteus syndrome, a condition that involves atypical growth of the bones, skin, head, and a variety of other symptoms. Rebecca is dedicated to learning as much as she can and to sharing a positive outlook on life through her faith in her Savior, Jesus Christ. She has learned to overcome overwhelming obstacles because of her malformation and medial disabilities manifested by the Proteus syndrome.

Rebecca seeks to reach out to others who may be struggling with a disability or with a challenging life. By letting people know that they are not alone, Rebecca believes she is fulfilling God's purpose for her. She believes that God doesn't take anything away from us to make us sad or hurt us, but rather to make us stronger so that we can reach out to others and treat them with loving kindness.

Rebecca's story is one of strength, challenges, and the understanding that God has something better in store for her. It has been challenging for her to go from being able to walk to being bed bound, but she understands that sometimes we have to accept the hardest things in life in order to receive better things in the future. Our faith and trust in God can carry us through our difficulties.

"A revealing tale of loneliness and camaraderie, dissonance and intimacy with hospital staff, and pain and triumph as one man struggles to reclaim body and spirit after a devastating accident." -Ed Boyd, Ed.D, psychologist and educator Frank Garfunkel, dynamic teacher, activist, and sports enthusiast, slammed headfirst into the wall of a squash court. Suddenly a quadriplegic in a rehab hospital, he found himself facing the existential absurdity of total helplessness. Unable to write about his experiences, he documented his ordeal in a series of probing conversations with longtime friend, Jay Clark. Ironically, Frank, a professor of special education at Boston University, devoted his career to waging battles for the rights of the disabled. Fate catapulted him into the greatest challenge of his life. In twenty transcribed conversations, Frank spoke with Jay about a neurological system in chaos, "You're operating a puppet, and the puppet is you." Following a three-month hospitalization, Frank returned home, relieved to be in familiar surroundings but facing endless attempts to regain control of his "Everest/Death Valley" life. His conversations with Jay reveal daily encounters with vulnerability, bewilderment, and depression but also with laughter, gratitude, and love. Walk of the Centipede is the story of a fiercely independent man faced with utter dependence.

I, WOZ offers readers a unique glimpse into the offbeat and brilliant but ethical mind that conceived the Macintosh. After 25 years avoiding the public eye, Steve Wozniak reveals the full story of the Apple computer, from its conception to his views on the iconic cult status it has achieved today. In June 1975 Steve's curiosity and determination inspired him to build a computer, the first Apple. Six months later, he sold the machine, and for the self-professed 'engineer's engineer', success was imminent. But this story is full of life lessons, critical decisions, huge triumphs and big mistakes. Steve speaks also of his childhood, phone hacking pranks, working at Hewlett-Packard, the life-changing plane crash and teaching.

Yoshio Nishina not only made a great contribution to the emergence of a research network that produced two Nobel prize winners, but he also raised the overall level of physics in Japan. Focusing on his roles as researcher, teacher, and statesman of science, Yoshio Nishina: Father of Modern Physics in Japan analyzes Nishina's position in and his contributions to the Japanese physics community. After a concise biographical introduction, the book examines Nishina's family, his early studies, the creation of RIKEN, and the greater Japanese physics community in the early twentieth century. It then focuses on Nishina's work at the Cavendish Laboratory and at the University of Gottingen as well as his more fruitful research at Niels Bohr's Institute of Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen. The book also describes the establishment of the Nishina Laboratory at RIKEN, the collaboration between its experimentalists and theoreticians, and the cosmic ray research of its scientists. The last two chapters discuss Nishina's controversial construction and operation of two cyclotrons at RIKEN as well as his presidency at RIKEN after World War II. Navigating Nishina's entire life through various perspectives, this easy-to-read biography will help you become well acquainted with this fascinating physicist.

Essentially, this is a story of hope, faith and love. These pages expose a war with cancer in a humorous, while brutally honest manner. The story is laid out in a sequential format representing the events as they occur. It details the immediate and ongoing trials triggered by the disease as seen through the eyes of a married couple, John and Georgetta Warner.

As treatments fail and different medications are employed in the conflict, John and Georgetta write about how they are changed by the ever shifting face of cancer. They come to appreciate the value of time, friends and family as they continue to maintain control in an uncontrollable situation.

Long before the space race captured the world's attention, K. E. Tsiolkovskii first conceived of multi-stage rockets that would later be adapted as the basis of both the U.S. and Soviet rocket programs.
Often called the grandfather of Russian rocketry, this provincial scientist was even sanctioned by Stalin to give a speech from Red Square on May Day 1935, lauding the Soviet technological future while also dreaming and expounding on his own visions of conquering the cosmos. Later, the Khrushchev regime used him as a "poster boy" for Soviet excellence during its Cold War competition with the United States. Ironically, some revisionists have since pointed to such blatant promotion by the Communist Party in an attempt to downplay Tsiolkovskii's scientific contributions.
James T. Andrews explores the complexities of this man to show that Tsiolkovskii was much more than either a rocket inventor or a propaganda tool. He was a science popularizer, novelist, technical inventor, and visionary, whose science fiction writings included futuristic drawings of space stations long before they appeared on any engineer's drawing board.
Mining a myriad of Russian archives, Andrews produces not only a biographical account but also a study of Soviet technological propaganda, local science education, public culture in the 1920s and 1930s, and the cultural ramifications of space flight.

Stone, Plaster, and Stars offers the insightful memoir of author and dentist Dr. Suja Ravilla Ramana. Charmingly blending dental practice with the world and the universe outside of dentistry, it uses anecdotal humor to transform dentistry into an entertaining enterprise. Ramana traces her own journey, from her time as a rebellious teenager who turns up her nose at the profession only to find that it might be the way out of an identity crisis. She provides a glimpse into indigenous connotations, aiming to tickle the curiosity and imagination of others. It offers an inspired cosmic perspective that has been woven into real-life events through years in college, marriage to a neurosurgeon, and establishment of her practice. The narrative captures images of the conflicting challenges of youth and conformity, of growing up and independent thinking, and of professional choices and finding a niche in the cosmic universe. Many of the events described here are real, and some of the people were inspired from the world of dentistry. Stone, Plaster, and Stars offers a ringside view of the world from her corner of it.

The book about John Michell (1724-93) has two parts. The first and longest part is biographical, an account of Michell's home setting (Nottinghamshire in England), the clerical world in which he grew up (Church of England), the university (Cambridge) where he studied and taught, and the scientific activities he made the center of his life. The second part is a complete edition of his known letters. Half of his letters have not been previously published; the other half are brought together in one place for the first time. The letters touch on all aspects of his career, and because they are in his words, they help bring the subject to life. His publications were not many, a slim book on magnets and magnetism, one paper on geology, two papers on astronomy, and a few brief papers on other topics, but they were enough to leave a mark on several sciences. He has been called a geologist, an astronomer, and a physicist, which he was, though we best remember him as a natural philosopher, as one who investigated physical nature broadly. His scientific contribution is not easy to summarize. Arguably he had the broadest competence of any British natural philosopher of the eighteenth century: equally skilled in experiment and observation, mathematical theory, and instruments, his field of inquiry was the universe. From the structure of the heavens through the structure of the Earth to the forces of the elementary particles of matter, he carried out original and far-reaching researches on the workings of nature.

This autobiography by Doctor Lloyd Duncan, a semi-retired surgeon in Tennessee, covers the period of time from his birth in 1931 to the present. The book is replete with accounts of the depression era, the pre WW ll and WW ll years, and high school triumphs and disappointments. Immature, broke, emaciated and homesick at Yale University, he nevertheless earned his letters swimming on some of the school's greatest teams. He graduated from Yale in 1953 and from medical school in 1956. He vividly describes many humorous, dramatic or tragic events that he subsequently witnessed or experienced as a physician, Naval Flight Surgeon, practicing surgeon, husband, father and grandfather.

My father's autobiographical recollections, given in the present chapter, were written for his children, - and written without any thought that they would ever be published. To many this may seem an impossibility; but those who knew my father will understand how it was not only possible, but natural. The autobiography bears the heading, 'Recollections of the Development of my Mind and Character, ' and end with the following note: - "Aug. 3, 1876. This sketch of my life was begun about May 28th at Hopedene (Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood's house in Surrey.), and since then I have written for nearly an hour on most afternoons." It will easily be understood that, in a narrative of a personal and intimate kind written for his wife and children, passages should occur which must here be omitted; and I have not thought it necessary to indicate where such omissions are made. It has been found necessary to make a few corrections of obvious verbal slips, but the number of such alterations has been kept down to the minimum. - F.D.]

A biographical history of Francis E. Stanley and Freelan O. Stanley, identical twins from Kingfield, Maine, and inventors and manufacturers of the Stanley Steamer, the Stanley Dry Plate, and numerous other inventions and works of fine craftsmanship, including violins. This book focuses on the lives of the brothers and their families in Newton, Massachusetts, while it explores the social and manufacturing history of one of Boston's most notable suburbs in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

With a foreword by Bill Bryson 'Compelling . . . moving and often startlingly visceral' Times Literary Supplement 'Horrifying. But, in the end, inspiring.' William Leith, London Evening Standard 'A wonderful meditation on the human condition and a testament to the power of love' Max Pemberton, columnist and author of Trust Me, I'm a (Junior) Doctor 'As gripping as a thriller' Daily Express * * * At the age of 38, Rikke Schmidt Kjaergaard, a Danish scientist, wife and mother of three, is struck down by an acute bout of bacterial meningitis. She awakes from a coma in intensive care to find herself completely paralysed, unable to show she is conscious except by blinking her eye. It becomes her only form of communication as in the months that follow, Kjaergaard's husband Peter sits beside her helping to interpret every eye movement. She struggles with every basic of life - painfully learning how to breathe, move, eat and speak again. Despite being given a five per cent chance of survival, she works intensively to recover and achieve every small breakthrough. The Blink of an Eye is a celebration of love and family and every little thing that matters when life is in the balance - written by a scientist uniquely able to describe her physical and mental journey to recovery.