Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Why Youth Is Not Wasted on the Young: Immaturity in Human Development

Why Youth Is Not Wasted on the Young: Immaturity in Human Development

by David F. Bjorklund

Why Youth is Not Wasted on the Young examines the nature of childhood through an evolutionary lens and argues that childhood is an essential stage of development with its own unique purposes, separate from those of adulthood; a time of growth and discovery that should not be rushed. Written by a renowned developmental psychologist Examines the role that our period of immaturity plays on the social,... (more)

Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes

Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes

by Daniel M. Klein, Thomas Cathcart

Here’s a lively, hilarious, not-so-reverent crash course through the great philosophical traditions, schools, concepts, and thinkers. It’s Philosophy 101 for everyone who knows not to take all this heavy stuff too seriously. Some of the Big Ideas are Existentialism (what do Hegel and Bette Midler have in common?), Philosophy of Language (how to express what it’s like being stranded on a desert island with Halle... (more)

Health Care Reform Now!: A Prescription for Change

Health Care Reform Now!: A Prescription for Change

by George C. Halvorson

The United States spends more money on health care by far than any other country and yet nearly 50,000,000 Americans are uninsured at least part of the time each year. Health Care Reform Now! is written for anyone who cares enough about our health care situation to consider serious alternatives to the current system. In this book George Halvorson—an internationally known health care leader and... (more)

The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square

The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square

by Ned Sublette

Named one of the Top 10 Books of 2008 by The Times-Picayune . Winner of the 2009 Humanities Book of the Year award from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. New Orleans is the most elusive of American cities. The product of the centuries-long struggle among three mighty empires--France, Spain, and England--and among their respective American colonies and enslaved African peoples, it has always... (more)

Pretty Is What Changes: Impossible Choices, The Breast Cancer Gene, and How I Defied My Destiny

Pretty Is What Changes: Impossible Choices, The Breast Cancer Gene, and How I Defied My Destiny

by Jessica Queller

A timely, affecting memoir from the front lines of medical science: When genetics can predict how we may die, how then do we decide how to live? Eleven months after her mother succumbs to cancer, Jessica Queller has herself tested for the BRCA “breast cancer” gene mutation. The results come back positive, putting her at a terrifyingly elevated risk of developing breast cancer before the age of fifty and ovarian... (more)

Copyright's Paradox

by Neil Netanel

The United States Supreme Court famously labeled copyright "the engine of free expression" because it provides a vital economic incentive for much of the literature, commentary, music, art, and film that makes up our public discourse. Yet today's copyright law also does the opposite--it is often used to quash news reporting, political commentary, church dissent, historical scholarship, cultural critique, and... (more)

Perfect hostage : a life of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's prisoner of conscience

Perfect hostage : a life of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's prisoner of conscience

by Justin Wintle

"The trouble is that I know too much."—Aung San Suu Kyi Burma is a country where, as one senior UN official puts it, "just to turn your head can mean imprisonment or death." Aung San Suu Kyi is considered to be Burma's best hope for freedom, and, because of her unwavering commitment to nonviolent resistance to the country's brutal military junta, she has been under house arrest since 1989. Elected Prime... (more)

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