In this bold, fascinating book, Eula Biss addresses our fear of the government, the medical establishment, and what may be in our children’s air, food, mattresses, medicines, and vaccines. Reflecting on her own experience as a new mother, she suggests that we cannot immunize our children, or ourselves, against the world. As she explores the metaphors surrounding immunity, Biss extends her conversations with other mothers to meditations on the myth of Achilles, Voltaire’s Candide, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, Susan Sontag’s AIDS and Its Metaphors,
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Would you cut out your healthy breasts and ovaries if you thought it might save your life? That’s not a theoretical question for journalist Lizzie Stark’s relatives, who grapple with the horrific legacy of cancer built into the family DNA. The BRCA mutation has robbed most of her female relatives of breasts, ovaries, peace of mind, or life itself.
In Pandora’s DNA, Stark uses her family’s experience to frame a larger story about the so-called breast cancer genes, exploring the morass of legal quandaries, scientific developments, medical breakthroughs, and ethical concerns that surround the BRCA mutations.
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An investigative journalist uncovers a hidden custom that will transform your understanding of what it means to grow up as a girl.
In Afghanistan, a culture ruled almost entirely by men, the birth of a son is cause for celebration and the arrival of a daughter is often mourned as misfortune. A bacha posh (literally translated from Dari as “dressed up like a boy”) is a third kind of child – a girl temporarily raised as a boy and presented as such to the outside world. Jenny Nordberg, the reporter who broke the story of this phenomenon for the New York Times,
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Claire Takata has never known much about her
father, who passed away ten years ago. But on the
anniversary of his death, she finds a letter from
her deceased father to her stepfather. Before now,
Claire never had a reason to believe they even
knew each other.
Struggling to understand why her parents kept this
surprising history hidden, Claire combs through
anything that might give her information about her father . . . until she
discovers that he was a member of the yakuza,
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Nine Open Arms, a vivid historical novel, is compellingly mysterious as well as dramatic, humorous, and entertaining. A ghost story, a fantasy, and a family saga all wrapped into one, the novel begins with the Boon family’s move to an isolated, dilapidated house that seems to have turned its back on the world.
It is 1937, and nine people set out for the middle of nowhere: a house at the end of a long, dusty road. Is it the site of a haunting tragedy, as one daughter believes, or an end to all their worries,
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Parker Grant doesn’t need 20/20 vision to see right
through you. That’s why she created the Rules:
Don’t treat her any differently just because she’s
blind, and never take advantage. There will be no
second chances. Just ask Scott Kilpatrick, the boy
who broke her heart.
When Scott suddenly reappears in her life after
being gone for years, Parker knows there’s only
one way to react—shun him so hard it hurts. She has enough on her mind
already, like trying out for the track team (that’s right,
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