Health, Medicine and Wellness
 | Mia Birk
Author │Urban Planner │Bicycling and Pedestrian Transportation Advocate
Mia Birk is Chief Executive Officer and Principal at the international firm Alta Planning and Design. She has 20 years experience in sustainable transportation focused on pedestrian, bicycle, trail, and greenway planning, design and implementation. Mia is also an Adjunct Professor at Portland State University, where she co-founded the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation in the College of Urban Studies.
Read More > |
 | Elizabeth Gilbert
Bestselling Author │ Short Story Writer │ Memoirist
Oprah Winfrey calls her a “rock star author.” Annie Proulx calls her “a writer of incandescent talent.” A New York magazine editor calls her the “Queen of Quirk,” and goes on to say, “She has an awful lot of humor and charm, and she’s one of those few writers who writes the way she talks.” And talks the way she writes, we might add—with intelligence, wit and not just a shade of the performer behind her expressive and insightful presentations.
Selected Books: The Last American Man, Eat Pray Love, Committed
Read More > |
 | Tracy Kidder
Bestselling Author │ Journalist │ Essayist
"A lot of the job of a person trying to write stories that are true is to make what’s true believable. It isn’t enough to say, well, it actually happened. You have to make it believable on the page; you have to bring people to life and scenes to life."
—Tracy Kidder
Over his long career, Kidder’s writing has been prolific and outstanding. The Soul of a New Machine—a book celebrated for its insight into the world of high-tech corporate America—earned him a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award in 1982. Other bestselling works include House (1985), Among Schoolchildren (1989), Old Friends (1993) and Home Town (1999).
Selected Books: Mountains Beyond Mountains, The Strength in What Remains, The Soul of a New Machine
Read More > |
 | Dr. Peter Kramer, MD
Bestselling Author │ Psychiatrist │ Novelist
"What if Van Gogh had taken antidepressants? Would we still have Starry Night?"
—Dr. Peter Kramer
More than a decade ago, Dr. Peter Kramer revolutionized the way we think about antidepressants with his enormously popular and influential bestseller Listening to Prozac (Viking, 1993). Thoughtful and provocative, Kramer’s work explored what it means to have medicines that alter the essence of personality and how this impacts our understanding of self.
Read More > |
 | David Oliver Relin
Bestselling Author │ Journalist │ Human Rights Advocate
"We Americans need to learn from our mistakes, from the flailing, ineffective way we, as a nation, conducted the 'war-on-terror' after the attacks of 9/11, and from the way we’ve failed to make our case to the moderate, peace-loving majority of people at the heart of the Muslim World. If we want to heal the wounded relationship between Islam and the West, we have to learn how to wage peace as aggressively as we wage war."
—David Oliver Relin
Selected Books: Three Cups of Tea, See How They Shine (Random House, forthcoming 2011)
Read More > |
 | Rebecca Skloot
Bestselling Author │ Journalist │ Educator
Bestselling author Rebecca Skloot spent over ten years doggedly
uncovering the truth about the life, death and ultimate "immortality" of
a poor black tobacco farmer named Henrietta Lacks. On a tumultuous
educational path until a community college biology instructor utter the
words "Henrietta Lacks," Skloot—with remarkable focus and tenacity—set
off on a trajectory that would shine the national spotlight on both and
become the phenomenal book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
Read More > |
 | Norah Vincent
Bestselling Author │ Cultural Critic │ Journalist
Norah Vincent is a freelance journalist by trade. In 2003, she took a leave from writing her nationally syndicated political opinion columns in order to write her New York Times bestselling book Self-Made Man, the story of a woman living, working, and dating--all while disguised as a man.
Shrewd, sympathetic, and courageous, Self-Made Man is one woman’s take on just how hard it is to be a man, even in a man’s world. With an ever-present five o’clock shadow, a crew cut, wire-rimmed glasses, and her own size 11½ shoes, Norah Vincent spent a year and a half as her male alter ego, Ned, and reported back what she observed incognito. Narrating her journey with exquisite insight, empathy, and humor, Norah ponders the many remarkable mysteries of gender identity as she explores firsthand who men really are when women aren’t around. As Ned, she joins a bowling team, takes a high-octane sales job, goes on dates with women (and men), visits strip clubs, and even manages to infiltrate a monastery and a men’s therapy group. Absolutely engrossing in its reporting and surprising in its analysis, Self-Made Man is a thrilling tour de force of immersion journalism.
Selected Books: Self-Made Man, Voluntary Madness
Read More > |