"Girded with scientific data about the nature of sexual identity . . . a foray into extreme passion, in quest of the human soul." — O, The Oprah MagazineHow do we come to be who we are sexually? How do we cope with the forces of desire? How can we understand the relationship between the transcendent and the physical, between the wish for love and the anarchy of the erotic?Daniel Bergner looks for answers in the stories of four peop...

In What Do Women Want? Adventures in the Science of Female Desire, critically acclaimed journalist Daniel Bergne disseminates the latest scientific research and paints an unprecedented portrait of female lust: the triggers, the fantasies, the mind-body connection (and disconnection), the reasons behind the loss of libido, and, most revelatory, that this loss is not inevitable.Bergner asks: Are women actually the less monogamous gender? Do women really crave intimacy and emo...

**The New York Times bestseller about a young black man's journey from violence and despair to the threshold of stardom: "A beautiful tribute to the power of good teachers" (Terry Gross, Fresh Air)."One of the most inspiring stories I've come across in a long time." —Pamela Paul, New York Times Book Review**Ryan Speedo Green had a tough upbringing in southeastern Virginia: his family lived in a trailer park and later a bullet-riddled house across the stree...

Never before had Daniel Bergner seen a spectacle as bizarre as the one he had come to watch that Sunday in October. Murderers, rapists, and armed robbers were competing in the annual rodeo at Angola, the grim maximum-security penitentiary in Louisiana. The convicts, sentenced to life without parole, were thrown, trampled, and gored by bucking bulls and broncos before thousands of cheering spectators. But amid the brutality of this gladiatorial spectacle Bergner caught surprising glimpses o...

“A profound and powerful work of essential reporting." —The New York Times Book ReviewAn important—and intimate—interrogation of how we treat mental illness and how we understand ourselvesIn the early 1960s, JFK declared that science would take us to the moon. He also declared that science would make the “remote reaches of the mind accessible” and cure psychiatric illness with breakthrough medications. We were walking on the moon w...

An Los Angeles Times Best Book 2003A chilling, beautifully written narrative of African warSierra Leone is the world's most war-ravaged country. There, in a West African landscape of spectacular beauty, rampaging soldiers--many not yet in their teens--have made a custom of hacking off the hands of their victims, then letting them live as the ultimate emblem of terror. The country is so anarchic and so desperate that, forty years after independence, i...

An important—and intimate—interrogation of how we treat mental illness and how we understand ourselvesIn the early 1960s, JFK declared that science would take us to the moon. He also declared that science would make the “remote reaches of the mind accessible” and cure psychiatric illness with breakthrough medications. We were walking on the moon within the decade. But today, psychiatric cures continue to elude us—as does the mind itself. Why is it that we still don...

When it comes to sex, common wisdom holds that men roam while women crave closeness and commitment. But in this provocative, headline-making book, Daniel Bergner turns everything we thought we knew about women's arousal and desire inside out. Drawing on extensive research and interviews with renowned behavioral scientists, sexologists, psychologists, and everyday women, he forces us to reconsider long-held notions about female sexuality.This bold and captivating journey into the wo...

The New York Times bestseller about a young black man's journey from violence and despair to the threshold of stardom: "A beautiful tribute to the power of good teachers" (Terry Gross, Fresh Air)."One of the most inspiring stories I've come across in a long time."-Pamela Paul, New York Times Book ReviewRyan Speedo Green had a tough upbringing in southeastern Virginia: his family lived in a trailer park and later a bullet-riddled house acro...

**The New York Times bestseller about a young black man's journey from violence and despair to the threshold of stardom: "A beautiful tribute to the power of good teachers" (Terry Gross, Fresh Air)."One of the most inspiring stories I've come across in a long time." —Pamela Paul, New York Times Book Review**Ryan Speedo Green had a tough upbringing in southeastern Virginia: his family lived in a trailer park and later a bullet-riddled house across the stree...

Is it really human nature to stab one another in the back in our climb up the corporate ladder? Competitive, selfish behavior is often explained away as instinctive, thanks to evolution and "survival of the fittest," but, in fact, humans are equally hard-wired for empathy.Using research from the fields of anthropology, psychology, animal behavior, and neuroscience, Frans de Waal brilliantly argues that humans are group animals—highly cooperative, sensitive to injustice, and mostly ...

Celebrated sex advice columnist and founder of the Emmy-winning It Gets Better campaign, Dan Savage delivers “powerful messages for both the head and heart” (Entertainment Weekly)From the moment he began writing his syndicated sex-advice column, Savage Love, Dan Savage has never been shy about expressing his opinion on controversial topics—political or otherwise. In the height of his activism, he addresses issues ranging from parenting and the gay agenda t...