- Table View
- List View
A Conversation with Ernest Mandel: Early Life and Late Politics
by Ernest Mandel Ali TariqAn interview with leading Marxist economist and historian Ernest MandelErnest Mandel was one of the leading Marxist intellectuals of the 20th century. His impact on the generation of the Sixties extended way beyond his political affiliation to the Fourth International. The SDS in Germany and its US equivalent read his work avidly. In France, too, all his key writings were published and debated. His pamphlet 'An Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory' sold a quarter of a million copies worldwide and his master-work Late Capitalism (published by Verso) was debated on every continent.This interview with Tariq Ali was conducted in 1987. The plan was to make a 90-minute film on his life and work, but the project faltered and the interview is one of the few remnants. Mandel's rediscovery is overdue.
A Conversation with the Mann
by John RidleyAn evocative novel of an aspiring black comics rise to near-fame and fortune during the Rat Pack era, by the author of Everybody Smokes in Hell and Stray Dogs. What do you want? I want the Ed Sullivan Show. At the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement, like a lot of black Americans, comedian Jackie Mann wanted to be somebody. And for him there was only one way to achieve that: to make it big. Make it, no matter the cost: friends, family, one's own self-esteem and self-respect. This is the story of a young man's journey from Harlem to stardom, a story of Hollywood royalty, New York glitterati, Vegas Mafiosi, Northern bigotry, and Southern racism. This is a story of love, honor, betrayal, and redemption; of fame bought and paid for by any means necessary. It is the story of one man's desire and an entire race's demands, and the incredible moment when the two came together as one. This is the story of Jackie Mann.
A Cook's Book: The Essential Nigel Slater [A Cookbook]
by Nigel SlaterThe beloved author of Eat and Tender presents 150 satisfying and comforting recipes based on his favorite childhood food memories and culinary inspirations, accompanied by reflective personal essays.A collection of more than 150 delicious, easy, and gratifying plant-based and meat recipes, A Cook&’s Book is the story of famed food writer Nigel Slater&’s life in the kitchen. He charms readers with the tales behind the recipes, recalling the first time he ate a sublime baguette in Paris and the joy of his first slice of buttercream-topped chocolate cake.From the first jam tart he made with his mum, standing on a chair trying to reach his family's classic Aga stove, through learning how to cook on his own and developing his most well-known and beloved recipes, readers will be delighted by the origin stories behind Slater's work. Slater writes eloquently about how his cooking has changed, from discovering the trick to the perfect whipped cream to the best way to roast a chicken. These are Nigel Slater's go-to recipes, the heart and soul of his simple and flavorful cooking. Chapters include:A Bowl of Soup: Pumpkin Laksa, Spicy Red Lentil Soup, Pea and Parsley SoupBreaking Bread: Soft Rolls with Feta and Rosemary, Blackcurrant Focaccia, Large Sourdough LoafEveryday Greens: Cheesy Greens and Potatoes, Spiced Zucchini with Spinach, Herb Pancakes with MushroomEveryday Dinners: Beet and Lamb Patties, Pork and Lemon Meatballs, Mussels, Coconut, and NoodlesA Slice of Tart: Mushroom and Dill Tart, A Tart of Leeks and Cheddar, Blackcurrant Macaroon TartThis is by far Slater's most personal book yet, and with gorgeous photography featuring Slater in his London home and garden, readers get a peek at his inspirations, motivations, and thoughts on the food world today.
A Cool and Lonely Courage: The Untold Story of Sister Spies in Occupied France
by Susan OttawayThe incredible true story of British special agents Eileen and Jacqueline Nearne, sisters who risked everything to fight for freedom during the Second World War. When elderly recluse Eileen Nearne died, few suspected that the quiet little old lady was a decorated WWII war hero. Volunteering to serve for British intelligence at age 21, Eileen was posted to Nazi-occupied France to send encoded messages of crucial importance for the Allies, until her capture by the Gestapo.Eileen was not the only agent in her family---her sister Jacqueline was a courier for the French resistance. While Jacqueline narrowly avoided arrest, Eileen was tortured by the Nazis, then sent to the infamous Ravensbrück women's concentration camp. Astonishingly, this resourceful young woman eventually escaped her captors and found her way to the advancing American army.In this amazing true story of triumph and tragedy, Susan Ottaway unveils the secret lives of two sisters who sacrificed themselves to defend their country.**Includes a Reading Group Guide exclusive to this edition.**
A Cop's Life: True Stories from Behind the Badge
by Randy SuttonAfter September 11, 2001 Las Vegas Police Sergeant Randy Sutton began soliciting writing from law enforcement officers-his goal being to bridge the gap between the police and those they serve, with a book that offers a broad and thoughtful look at the many facets of police life. Hundreds of active and former officers responded from all over the United States: men and women from big cities and small towns, some who had written professionally, but most for the first time. Sutton culled the selections into five categories: The Beat, Line of Duty, War Stories, Officer Down, and Ground Zero. The result is True Blue, a collection of funny, charming, exciting, haunting stories about murder investigations, missing children, bungling burglars, car chases, lonely and desperate shut-ins, routine traffic stops, officers killed in the line of duty, and the life-changing events of September 11. Here, officers reveal their emotions-fear and pride, joy and disgust, shame and love-as they recount the defining moments of their careers. In these stories, the heart and soul behind the badge shines through in unexpected ways. True Blue will change the way we think about the deeply human realm of police service.
A Corpse in the well
by Arjun DangleA Corpse in the well is an anthology of Dalit autobiographies by the following: Shankar Rao Kharat, Daya Pawar, Shanta Bai Kamble, Kumud Pawde, Sharan Kumar Limbale, Dadasahed More and P.E Sonkamble.
A Cotswold Family Life: heart-warming stories of the countryside from the bestselling author
by Clare MackintoshDon't miss the powerful and page-turning new novel from Clare Mackintosh - AFTER THE END is out now___________From bestselling author Clare Mackintosh, A Cotswold Family Life is a humorous, warm memoir of family life in the countryside'Insightful, funny, absorbing' Prue Leith'Original yet totally recognisable' Katie Fforde'Sheer bliss!' Jill Mansell'Heartfelt and poignant' Sunday ExpressI have always loved the Cotswolds. I think I loved them even before I found them, in that half-formed ideal one has of where to put down roots. Somewhere peaceful, green, where the road meanders between drystone walls and from town to town, and a strip of blue bursts from brook to river and back again. For 8 years, Clare Mackintosh wrote for Cotswold Life about the ups and downs of life with a young family in the countryside. In this memoir she brings together all of those stories - and more - for the first time. From keeping chickens to getting the WI drunk, longing for an Aga to dealing with nits, Clare opens the door to family life with warmth and humour and heart.
A Cotswold Family Life: heart-warming stories of the countryside from the bestselling author
by Clare MackintoshDon't miss the powerful and page-turning new novel from Clare Mackintosh - AFTER THE END is out now___________From bestselling author Clare Mackintosh, A Cotswold Family Life is a humorous, warm memoir of family life in the countryside'Insightful, funny, absorbing' Prue Leith'Original yet totally recognisable' Katie Fforde'Sheer bliss!' Jill Mansell'Heartfelt and poignant' Sunday ExpressI have always loved the Cotswolds. I think I loved them even before I found them, in that half-formed ideal one has of where to put down roots. Somewhere peaceful, green, where the road meanders between drystone walls and from town to town, and a strip of blue bursts from brook to river and back again. For 8 years, Clare Mackintosh wrote for Cotswold Life about the ups and downs of life with a young family in the countryside. In this memoir she brings together all of those stories - and more - for the first time. From keeping chickens to getting the WI drunk, longing for an Aga to dealing with nits, Clare opens the door to family life with warmth and humour and heart.
A Cottage in Portugal
by Richard HewittHewitt and his wife after a brief vacation in Portugal decided to live there and enjoy the leisurely life and decent people. They did not realize the nature of the people around who were suspicious about newcomers. Now they live in USA and Portugal.
A Cotton Mather Reader
by Cotton MatherAn authoritative selection of the writings of one of the most important early American writers &“A brilliant collection that reveals the extraordinary range of Cotton Mather&’s interests and contributions—by far the best introduction to the mind of the Puritan divine.&”—Francis J. Bremer, author of Lay Empowerment and the Development of Puritanism Cotton Mather (1663–1728) has a wide presence in American culture, and longtime scholarly interest in him is increasing as more of his previously unpublished writings are made available. This reader serves as an introduction to the man and to his huge body of published and unpublished works.
A Country Between: Making a Home Where Both Sides of Jerusalem Collide
by Stephanie Saldaña"Behind every dark moment, there is another hidden world. The trick is to hold out long enough to make it there."When American writer Stephanie Saldaña finds herself in an empty house at the beginning of Nablus Road, the dividing line between East and West Jerusalem, she is a new wife trying to navigate a fragile terrain, both within her marriage and throughout the country in which she has chosen to live.Pregnant with her first child, Stephanie struggles to protect her family, their faith, and herself from the cracks of Middle Eastern conflict that threaten to shatter the world around her. But as her due date approaches, she must reconcile herself with her choice to bring a child into a dangerous world. Determined to piece together life from the brokenness, she sets out to uncover small instances of beauty to balance the delicate coexistence between love, motherhood, and a country so often at war.In an urban valley in Jerusalem, A Country Between captures the fragile ecosystem of the Middle East and the difficult first years of motherhood in the midst of a conflict-torn city. What unfolds is a celebration of faith, language, family, and love that fills the space between what was shattered, leaving us whole once more.
A Country Doctor's Notebook
by Mikhail Bulgakov Michael GlennyPart autobiography, part fiction, this early work by the author of The Master and Margarita shows a master at the dawn of his craft, and a nation divided by centuries of unequal progress.In 1916 a 25-year-old, newly qualified doctor named Mikhail Bulgakov was posted to the remote Russian countryside. He brought to his position a diploma and a complete lack of field experience. And the challenges he faced didn't end there: he was assigned to cover a vast and sprawling territory that was as yet unvisited by modern conveniences such as the motor car, the telephone, and electric lights.The stories in A Country Doctor's Notebook are based on this two-year window in the life of the great modernist. Bulgakov candidly speaks of his own feelings of inadequacy, and warmly and wittily conjures episodes such as peasants applying medicine to their outer clothing rather than their skin, and finding himself charged with delivering a baby--having only read about the procedure in text books.Not yet marked by the dark fantasy of his later writing, this early work features a realistic and wonderfully engaging narrative voice--the voice, indeed, of twentieth century Russia's greatest writer. From the Trade Paperback edition.
A Country Road, A Tree
by Jo BakerSamuel Beckett is a young writer living in Paris--intoxicated by new friendships with James Joyce and the other writers and artists making the vibrant city their creative home--when war breaks out in 1939. He determines to stay and is swiftly drawn into the maelstrom, joining the Resistance. With him we experience the terrifying excitement yet stubborn vibrancy and camaraderie as the Parisians flee the Nazis and the Resistance goes underground; his friendships with the astonishing group of men and women who find themselves caught up in the Occupation; his quiet, committed love for Suzanne, the Frenchwoman who will become his lifelong companion; and his dangerous work encoding critical messages in translations and narrow escapes from the Gestapo. Here is a remarkable story of survival and determination, and a portrait of a uniquely brilliant mind.
A Country Road, A Tree: A novel
by Jo BakerFrom the best-selling author of Longbourn, a haunting new novel of spies and artists, passion and danger, hope in the face of despair Paris, 1939. The pavement rumbles with the footfall of Nazi soldiers marching along the Champs-Élysées. A young, unknown writer--Samuel Beckett--recently arrived from Ireland to make his mark, smokes one last cigarette with his lover before the city they know is torn apart. Soon he will put them both in mortal danger by joining the Resistance . . .Through it all we are witness to the workings of a uniquely brilliant mind struggling to create a language that will express this shattered world. Here is a remarkable story of survival and determination, and a portrait of the extremes of human experience alchemized into one man's timeless art.From the Hardcover edition.
A Country Year: Living the Questions
by Sue HubbellA &“delightful, witty&” memoir about starting over as a beekeeper in the Ozarks (Library Journal). Alone on a small Missouri farm after a thirty-year marriage, Sue Hubbell found a new love—of the winged, buzzing variety. Left with little but the commercial beekeeping and honey-producing business she started with her husband, Hubbell found solace in the natural world. Then she began to write, challenging herself to tell the absolute truth about her life and the things she cared about. Describing the ups and downs of beekeeping from one springtime to the next, A Country Year transports readers to a different, simpler place. In a series of exquisite vignettes, Hubbell reveals the joys of a life attuned to nature in this heartfelt memoir about life on the land, and of a woman finding her way in middle age. &“Once in a while there comes along a book so calm, so honest, so beautiful that even the most jaded or cynical readers have to say thank you. . . . This is such a book&” (The San Diego Union-Tribune).
A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War and the Conquest of the American Continent
by Robert W. MerryA highly acclaimed biography of a much neglected president, a gripping narrative that illuminates a crucial epoch in U. S. history.
A Countryman's Lot: Tales From The Dales
by Max HardcastleMax and Vicky Hardcastle have a daydream . . .One day, they'll sell their cramped city-centre antiques shop and the overflowing upstairs flat and relocate to the beautiful Yorkshire Dales. If they could only find the perfect place to house both family and business, then that fantasy might become a reality. . . When a smallholding in a remote Dales village comes on the market, it seems like the answer to their prayers. Bullpen Farm might need 'some renovation', but it has an orchard, outbuildings and all the charm they've dreamt of. Before long, the Hardcastles find themselves the proud owners of a collection of ramshackle buildings and the newest members of a close-knit community which seems to have more than its fair share of eccentrics.From the antics of the antiques trade to the uproarious incidents of village life, it turns out that rural living isn't quite as tranquil as they'd imagined!'A happy, satisfying and very funny book' James Herriot
A Countryman's Lot: Tales From The Dales
by Max HardcastleMax and Vicky Hardcastle have a daydream . . .One day, they'll sell their cramped city-centre antiques shop and the overflowing upstairs flat and relocate to the beautiful Yorkshire Dales. If they could only find the perfect place to house both family and business, then that fantasy might become a reality. . . When a smallholding in a remote Dales village comes on the market, it seems like the answer to their prayers. Bullpen Farm might need 'some renovation', but it has an orchard, outbuildings and all the charm they've dreamt of. Before long, the Hardcastles find themselves the proud owners of a collection of ramshackle buildings and the newest members of a close-knit community which seems to have more than its fair share of eccentrics.From the antics of the antiques trade to the uproarious incidents of village life, it turns out that rural living isn't quite as tranquil as they'd imagined!'A happy, satisfying and very funny book' James Herriot
A Coup in Turkey: A Tale of Democracy, Despotism and Vengeance in a Divided Land
by Jeremy SealThe most dramatic, revealing and little-known story in Turkey's history - which illuminates the nation'Through the spellbinding career of a single, ill-fated leader, Jeremy Seal illuminates a bitterly divided country' Colin Thubron'Read this book if you're interested in Turkey. Read it if you're interested in power, hubris and redemption. Read it' Christopher de Bellaigue, author of The Islamic EnlightenmentIn the spring of 2016 travel writer Jeremy Seal went to Turkey to investigate perhaps the most dramatic, revealing and little-known episode in the country's history - the 'original' coup of 1960, which deposed the traditionalist Prime Minister Adnan Menderes. The story of Menderes - to his adoring supporters the country's founding democrat; to his sworn enemies its most infamous traitor - goes to the heart of the feud that continues to rage between the Western and secular ambitions of a minority elite and the religious and conservative instincts of the small-town majority. A Coup in Turkey is a thrilling account of the events leading up to the coup and the trials and executions that followed, a story of political subterfuge and score-settling, courtroom drama, state execution, authoritarian intolerance and ideological division. Seal travels through President Erdogan's Turkey, tracking down eye-witness accounts from survivors of the Menderes era in Istanbul, the historic metropolis, and the new capital at Ankara. As he expertly guides us through this extraordinary story, so the compelling parallels between past and present become strikingly clear, and he illuminates this troubled nation with a deep sympathy and love for the people and places he writes about. By focussing on one key event - one which many Turks regard with shame - this evocative, gripping portrait of Turkey recentres our understanding of the past and makes sense of one of Europe's most bewildering yet intriguing neighbours.'A wonderful writer' Robert Macfarlane
A Course Called America: Fifty States, Five Thousand Fairways, and the Search for the Great American Golf Course
by Tom CoyneGlobe-trotting golfer Tom Coyne has finally come home. And he’s ready to play all of it. After playing hundreds of courses overseas in the birthplace of golf, Coyne, the New York Times bestselling author of A Course Called Ireland and A Course Called Scotland, returns to his own birthplace and delivers a rollicking love letter to golf in the United States. <P><P>In the span of one unforgettable year, Coyne crisscrosses the country in search of its greatest golf experience, playing every course to ever host a US Open, along with more than two hundred hidden gems and heavyweights, visiting all fifty states to find a better understanding of his home country and countrymen. Coyne’s journey begins where the US Open and US Amateur got their start, historic Newport Country Club in Rhode Island. As he travels from the oldest and most elite of links to the newest and most democratic, Coyne finagles his way onto coveted first tees (Shinnecock, Oakmont, Chicago GC) between rounds at off-the-map revelations, like ranch golf in Eastern Oregon and homemade golf in the Navajo Nation. He marvels at the golf miracle hidden in the sand hills of Nebraska, and plays an unforgettable midnight game under bright sunshine on the summer solstice in Fairbanks, Alaska. <P><P>More than just a tour of the best golf the United States has to offer, Coyne’s quest connects him with hundreds of American golfers, each from a different background but all with one thing in common: pride in welcoming Coyne to their course. Trading stories and swing tips with caddies, pros, and golf buddies for the day, Coyne adopts the wisdom of one of his hosts in Minnesota: the best courses are the ones you play with the best people. But, in the end, only one stop on Coyne’s journey can be ranked the Great American Golf Course. <P><P>Throughout his travels, he invites golfers to debate and help shape his criteria for judging the quintessential American course. Should it be charmingly traditional or daringly experimental? An architectural showpiece or a natural wonder? Countless conversations and gut instinct lead him to seek out a course that feels bold and idealistic, welcoming yet imperfect, with a little revolutionary spirit and a damn good hot dog at the turn. He discovers his long-awaited answer in the most unlikely of places. Packed with fascinating tales from American golf history, comic road misadventures, illuminating insights into course design, and many a memorable round with local golfers and celebrity guests alike, A Course Called America is an epic narrative travelogue brimming with heart and soul. <P><P><b>A New York Times Bestseller</b>
A Court of Refuge: Stories from the Bench of America's First Mental Health Court
by Ginger Lerner-Wren Rebecca A. EcklandThe story of America's first Mental Health Court as told by its presiding judge, Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren--from its inception in 1997 to its implementation in over 400 courts across the nationAs a young legal advocate, Ginger Lerner-Wren bore witness to the consequences of an underdeveloped mental health care infrastructure. Unable to do more than offer guidance, she watched families being torn apart as client after client was ensnared in the criminal system for crimes committed as a result of addiction, homelessness, and mental illness. She soon learned this was a far-reaching crisis--estimates show that in forty-four states, jails and prisons house ten times more people with serious mental illnesses than state psychiatric hospitals. In A Court of Refuge, Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren tells the story of how the first dedicated mental health court in the United States grew from an offshoot of her criminal division, held during lunch hour without the aid of any federal funding, to a revolutionary institution. Of the two hundred thousand people behind bars at the court's inception in 1997, more than one in ten were known to have schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or major depression. To date, the court has successfully diverted more than twenty thousand people suffering from various psychiatric conditions from jail and into treatment facilities and other community resources. Working under the theoretical framework of therapeutic jurisprudence, Judge Lerner-Wren and her growing network of fierce, determined advocates, families, and supporters sparked a national movement to conceptualize courts as a place of healing. Today, there are hundreds of such courts in the US.Poignant and compassionately written, A Court of Refuge demonstrates both the potential relief mental health courts can provide to underserved communities and their limitations in a system in dire need of vast overhauls of the policies that got us here. Lerner-Wren presents a refreshing possibility for a future in which criminal justice and mental health care can work in tandem to address this vexing human rights issue--and to change our attitudes about mental illness as a whole.
A Covert Affair: Julia Child and Paul Child in the OSS
by Jennet ConantBestselling author Jennet Conant brings us a stunning account of Julia and Paul Child’s experiences as members of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in the Far East during World War II and the tumultuous years when they were caught up in the McCarthy Red spy hunt in the 1950s and behaved with bravery and honor. It is the fascinating portrait of a group of idealistic men and women who were recruited by the citizen spy service, slapped into uniform, and dispatched to wage political warfare in remote outposts in Ceylon, India, and China. The eager, inexperienced 6 foot 2 inch Julia springs to life in these pages, a gangly golf-playing California girl who had never been farther abroad than Tijuana. Single and thirty years old when she joined the staff of Colonel William Donovan, Julia volunteered to be part of the OSS’s ambitious mission to develop a secret intelligence network across Southeast Asia. Her first post took her to the mountaintop idyll of Kandy, the headquarters of Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, the supreme commander of combined operations. Julia reveled in the glamour and intrigue of her overseas assignment and lifealtering romance with the much older and more sophisticated Paul Child, who took her on trips into the jungle, introduced her to the joys of curry, and insisted on educating both her mind and palate. A painter drafted to build war rooms, Paul was a colorful, complex personality. Conant uses extracts from his letters in which his sharp eye and droll wit capture the day-to-day confusion, excitement, and improbability of being part of a cloak- and-dagger operation. When Julia and Paul were transferred to Kunming, a rugged outpost at the foot of the Burma Road, they witnessed the chaotic end of the war in China and the beginnings of the Communist revolution that would shake the world. A Covert Affair chronicles their friendship with a brilliant and eccentric array of OSS agents, including Jane Foster, a wealthy, free-spirited artist, and Elizabeth MacDonald, an adventurous young reporter. In Paris after the war, Julia and Paul remained close to their intelligence colleagues as they struggled to start new lives, only to find themselves drawn into a far more terrifying spy drama. Relying on recently unclassified OSS and FBI documents, as well as previously unpublished letters and diaries, Conant vividly depicts a dangerous time in American history, when those who served their country suddenly found themselves called to account for their unpopular opinions and personal relationships.
A Covert Life: Jay Lovestone: Communist, Anti-Communist, and Spymaster
by Ted MorganThe extraordinary life of Jay Lovestone is one of the great untold stories of the twentieth century. A Lithuanian immigrant who came to the United States in 1897, Lovestone rose to leadership in the Communist Party of America, only to fall out with Moscow and join the anti-Communist establishment after the Second World War. He became one of the leading strategists of the Cold War, and was once described as "one of the five most important men in the hidden power structure of America." Lovestone was obsessively secretive, and it is only with the opening of his papers at the Hoover Institution, the freeing of access to Comintern files in Moscow, and the release of his 5,700-page FBI file that biographer and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ted Morgan has been able to construct a full account of the remarkable events of Jay Lovestone's life. The life Morgan describes is full of drama and intrigue. He recounts Lovestone's career in the faction-riven world of American Communism until he was spirited out of Moscow in 1929 after Stalin publicly attacked him for doctrinal unorthodoxy. As Lovestone veered away from Moscow, he came to work for the American Federation of Labor, managing a separate union foreign policy as well as maintaining his own intelligence operations for the CIA, many under the command of the legendary counterintelligence chief James Angleton. Lovestone also associated with Louise Page Morris, a spy known as "the American Mata Hari," who helped him undermine Communist advances in the developing world and whose own significant espionage career is detailed here. Lovestone's influence, always exercised from behind the scenes, survived to the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union. A Covert Life has all the elements of a classic spy thriller: surveillance operations and stings, love affairs and bungled acts of sabotage, many thoroughly illegal. It is written with the easy hand of a fine biographer (The Washington Post Book World called Ted Morgan "a master storyteller") and provides a history of the Cold War and a glimpse into the machinery of the CIA while also revealing many hitherto hidden details of the superpower confrontation that dominated postwar global politics.From the Hardcover edition.
A Cowman’s Wife
by Mary Kidder RakA Cowman’s Wife is the true account of the author’s experience as co-owner of Old Camp Rucker Ranch, a 22,000 acre spread north of Douglas, Arizona that she purchased with her husband in 1919. It chronicles a woman’s view of cattle ranching in Northern Arizona, with all the hardships of the 1920’s and 1930’s, Native Americans, Mexicans, wolves, and horse thieves. She also tells of the pleasures of ranch life: spectacular sunsets, mountain scenery, camaraderie of ranch people, and all-night dances at neighborhood school house.A wonderful escapist read!
A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution
by Jennifer A. Doudna Samuel H. SternbergA trailblazing biologist grapples with her role in the biggest scientific discovery of our era: a cheap, easy way of rewriting genetic code, with nearly limitless promise and peril. Not since the atomic bomb has a technology so alarmed its inventors that they warned the world about its use. Not, that is, until the spring of 2015, when biologist Jennifer Doudna called for a worldwide moratorium on the use of the new gene-editing tool CRISPR—a revolutionary new technology that she helped create—to make heritable changes in human embryos. The cheapest, simplest, most effective way of manipulating DNA ever known, CRISPR may well give us the cure to HIV, genetic diseases, and some cancers, and will help address the world’s hunger crisis. Yet even the tiniest changes to DNA could have myriad, unforeseeable consequences—to say nothing of the ethical and societal repercussions of intentionally mutating embryos to create “better” humans. Writing with fellow researcher Samuel Sternberg, Doudna shares the thrilling story of her discovery, and passionately argues that enormous responsibility comes with the ability to rewrite the code of life. With CRISPR, she shows, we have effectively taken control of evolution. What will we do with this unfathomable power?