Author:John Green
A deeply moving and mind-expanding collection of personal essays in the first ever work of non-fiction from #1 internationally bestselling author John Green
The Anthropocene is the current geological age, in which human activity has profoundly shaped the planet and its biodiversity. In this remarkable symphony of essays adapted and expanded from his ground-breaking, critically acclaimed podcast, John Green reviews different facets of the human-centered planet - from the QWERTY keyboard and Halley's Comet to Penguins of Madagascar - on a five-star scale.
Complex and rich with detail, the Anthropocene's reviews have been praised as 'observations that double as exercises in memoiristic empathy', with over 10 million lifetime downloads. John Green's gift for storytelling shines throughout this artfully curated collection about the shared human experience; it includes beloved essays along with six all-new pieces exclusive to the book.
A new breed of shepherdess blazing a trail across social media.
—— Daily MailHumorous, gritty and enlightening
—— Martin Chilton , The IndependentOne of the industry's most well-known shepherdesses.
—— Emily Ashworth , Farmers GuardianLife Without Children...displays Doyle's remarkable talent for conveying the strongest of emotions in the simplest of words and the shortest of sentences... It bristles with quietly sharp insights into the shape of a human life.
—— Reader's DigestThere is an immediacy to the stories in Life Without Children, an emotional charge that comes with writing in real time, and an optimism too. In the stripping away of everyday anxieties, the virus reveals what matters most, those qualities that are always at the heart of Doyle's fiction: love and connection.
—— ObserverMoving...[and] beautiful in its brevity.
—— Daily MailA treat for fans of the Booker Prize-winning Irish author... the darkness of the stories, Doyle's lyrical style of wit, passion, and occasional obscene outbursts, shine through... wonderfully uplifting.
—— UK Press SyndicationAs always, Doyle has a great ear for the cadences of Dublin speech, finding humour in even the bleakest situations.
—— TabletWriting with uncanny empathy and integrity ... Strangers to Ourselves is a work of landmark reporting that is truly heartbreaking and astonishing.
—— Cathy Park Hong, author of MINOR FEELINGS: An Asian American ReckoningA groundbreaking, paradigm-shifting exploration of the relationship between diagnosis and identity. This is the kind of book that can make your life flash before your eyes, glittering with new insights and a sense of unguessed possibilities.
—— Elif Batuman, author of EITHER/OR and THE IDIOTRelentlessly faithful to complexity, absolutely unsettling in all the best and most important ways ... Aviv explores her subjects not as diagnoses but as fully dimensional characters.
—— Leslie Jamison, author of MAKE IT SCREAM, MAKE IT BURNIn this penetrating, landmark book, Rachel Aviv investigates what she calls the 'psychic hinterlands,' drawing on her customary vivid reporting and her own extraordinary personal story to pose unsettling questions about the ways in which we reckon with mental illness ... Aviv has created an arresting work of profound empathy and insight.
—— Patrick Radden Keefe, author of SAY NOTHING and EMPIRE OF PAINAviv writes with an unpredictable mixture of intimacy and distance, exploring how psychiatric language often alters what it names ... I admire her rigor and eloquence but also her restraint - she makes vivid experiences we can't explain.
—— Ben Lerner, author of THE TOPEKA SCHOOLMaster prose stylist Rachel Aviv quietly explodes our neat narratives as she rescues the meanings of lives formed in extremity, including her own. Breaking away from labels that have the power to create the futures they foretell, her case histories are kaleidoscopic, filled with sudden radiance and uncomfortable discontinuities ... Brilliant.
—— George Makari, MD, author of OF FEAR AND STRANGERS: A History of Xenophobia, director of the DeWitt Wallace Institute of Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medical CollegeI was blown away...a radically human book that lead me not to answers, but to better questions, about the infinite contingencies of mental "health"
—— Observer, *Christmas Gift Guide 2022*Strangers to Ourselves was revelatory to me in its empathetic, sprawling unraveling of how mental illness forms our identities... It's the best kind of reported nonfiction, an entire book that feels like the best New Yorker piece you've ever read
—— White Review, *Books of the Year*Aviv is a skilled writer... The people at the centre of the book come alive through her prose
—— Times Literary SupplementThis is a really affecting book, and one that anyone with even the faintest interest in mental health should read... meticulous, moving portraits of people, from all walks of life
—— Dazed DigitalOne of the most admired doctors in the world
—— The TimesA tour d'horizon of cell theory... part history lesson, part biology lesson and part reminder of how science itself actually proceeds
—— Economist, *Books of the Year*Brilliant
—— The TimesThis complex portrait illuminates cells' roles in immunity, reproduction, sentience, cognition, repair and rejuvination, malfunctions such as cancer, and treatments such as blood transfusions, drawing on author Siddhartha Mukherjee's varied experience as an immunologist, stem-cell scientist, cancer biologist and medical oncologist
—— NatureThe book is, at root, a call for a more integrated biology ... What gives The Song of the Cell its persuasiveness in calling for that new vision is precisely that it comes from a clinician steeped in the traditions of genomic and cell biology, and who has seen both the power and limitations of those approaches to produce actual cures
—— LancetWhat truly elevates the book are Mukherjee's accounts of his experiences as a clinician and the stories of the patients he has encountered. Some are moving, and all are reflective and insightful
—— Philip Ball, LancetHooked me so hard I read the entire book in one sitting. And then twice more
—— Lisa Feldman Barrett , Chronicle of Higher EducationThe old, solid world, if you believed in it at all, breaks into a glorious shimmer of limitless potential
—— Brian Morton , TabletRovelli has an uncanny knack for instilling wonder and explaining complex theories in plain, entertaining ways
—— Irish TimesI'm keen for everyone to read Helgoland: a wonderfully lucid and poetic account of the foundations of quantum physics. It combines a compelling history with Rovelli's own intriguing - and for me very appealing - views about the basis of all things
—— Anil Seth, author of Being You