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The forbidden garden : the botanists of besieged Leningrad and their impossible choice / by Parkin, Simon,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."In the summer of 1941, German troops surrounded the Russian city of Leningrad-now St. Petersburg-and began the longest blockade in recorded history, one that would ultimately claim the lives of nearly three-quarters of a million people. At the center of the besieged city stood a converted palace that housed the world's largest collection of seeds-more than 250,000 samples hand-collected over two decades from all over the globe by world-famous explorer, geneticist, and dissident Nikolai Vavilov, who had recently been disappeared by the Soviet government. After attempts to evacuate the priceless collection failed and supplies dwindled amongst the three million starving citizens, the employes at the Plant Institute were left with a terrible choice. Should they save the collection? Or themselves? These were not just any seeds. The botanists believed they could be bred into heartier, disease-resistant, and more productive varieties suited for harsh climates, therefore changing the future of food production and preventing famines like those that had plagued their countrymen before. But protecting the seeds was no idle business. The scientists rescued potato samples under enemy fire, extinguished bombs landing on the seed bank's roof, and guarded the collection from scavengers, the bitter cold, and their own hunger. Then in the war's eleventh hour, Nazi plunderers presented a new threat to the collection ... Drawing from previously unseen sources, award-winning journalist Simon Parkin-who has "an inimitable capacity to find the human pulse in the underbelly of war" (The Spectator)-tells the incredible true story of the botanists who held their posts at the Plant Institute during the 872-day siege and the remarkable sacrifices they made in the name of science"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Brücher, Heinz, 1915-1991.; Ivanov, N. R. (Nikolaĭ Rodionovich); Vavilov, N. I. (Nikolaĭ Ivanovich), 1887-1943.; Vsesoi͡uznyĭ institut rastenievodstva (Soviet Union); Botanical specimens; Botanists; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Rebel girl : my life as a feminist punk / by Hanna, Kathleen,1968-author.;
"An electric, searing memoir by the original rebel girl and legendary front woman of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre. Hey girlfriend I got a proposition, goes something like this: Dare ya to do what you want. Kathleen Hanna's rallying cry to feminists echoed far and wide through the punk scene of the '90s and beyond. Her band Bikini Kill embodies this iconic time, and today her personal yet feminist lyrics on anthems like "Rebel Girl" and "Double Dare Ya" are more powerful than ever. But where did this transformative voice come from? In Rebel Girl, Hanna's raw and insightful new memoir, she takes us from her tumultuous childhood home to her formative college years in Olympia, Washington, and on to her first years on tour, fighting hard for gigs and for her band. As Hanna makes clear, being in a "girl band," especially a punk girl band, in those years was not a simple or safe prospect. Male violence and antagonism threatened at every turn, and surviving as a singer who was a lightning rod for controversy took limitless amounts of determination. But the relationships she developed during those years buoyed her -- including with her bandmates, Tobi Vail, Kathi Wilcox, and Johanna Fateman; her friendships with Kurt Cobain and Ian MacKaye; and her introduction to Joan Jett -- were all a testament to how the punk world could nurture and care for its own. Hanna opens up about falling in love with Ad-Rock of the Beastie Boys and her debilitating battle with Lyme disease, and she brings us behind the scenes of her musical growth in her bands Le Tigre and The Julie Ruin. She also writes candidly about the Riot Grrrl movement, documenting with love its grassroots origins but critiquing its later exclusivity. In an uncut voice all her own, Hanna reveals the hardest times along with the most joyful-and how it continues to fuel her revolutionary art and music"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Hanna, Kathleen, 1968-; Bikini Kill (Musical group); Tigre (Punk rock group); Punk rock musicians; Riot grrrl movement.; Singers; Women punk rock musicians;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Daughter of Family G : a memoir of cancer genes, love and fate. by McKay, Ami,1968-author.;
Includes bibliographical references."Weaving together family history, genetic discovery, and scenes from her life, Ami McKay tells the compelling, true-science story of her own family's unsettling legacy of hereditary cancer while exploring the challenges that come from carrying the mutation that not only killed many people you loved, but might also kill you. The story of Ami McKay's connection to a genetic disorder called Lynch syndrome begins over seventy years before she was born and long before scientists discovered DNA. In 1895 her great-great aunt, Pauline Gross, a seamstress in Ann Arbor, Michigan, confided to a pathology professor at the local university that she expected to die young, like so many others in her family. Rather than dismiss her fears, the pathologist chose to enlist Pauline in the careful tracking of those in her family tree who had died of cancer. Pauline's premonition proved true-- she died at 46-- but because of her efforts, her family (who the pathologist dubbed 'Family G') would become the longest and most detailed cancer genealogy ever studied in the world. A century after Pauline's confession, researchers would identify the genetic mutation responsible for the family's woes. Now known as Lynch syndrome, the genetic condition predisposes its carriers to several types of cancer, including colorectal, endometrial, ovarian and pancreatic. In 2001, as a young mother with two sons and a keen interest in survival, Ami McKay was among the first to be tested for Lynch syndrome. She had a feeling she'd test positive: her mother's side of the family was riddled with early deaths and her own mother was being treated for the disease. When the test proved her fears true, she began living in "an unsettling state between wellness and cancer," and she's been there ever since. Intimate, candid, and probing, her genetic memoir tells a fascinating story, teasing out the many ways to live with the hand you are dealt."-- Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Autobiographies.; Biographies.; McKay, Ami, 1968-; McKay, Ami, 1968-; McKay, Ami, 1968-; Genetic disorders; Cancer; Authors, Canadian;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Ultra-processed people : why we can't stop eating food that isn't food / by Tulleken, Chris van,1978-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."The Omnivore's Dilemma meets Fast Food Nation from a global perspective in this game-changing look at the science, economics, and history of ultra-processed food and the industry's effect on our health and planet. It's not you, it's the food. How much of our daily caloric intake comes from ingesting substances that, technically speaking, do not meet traditional definitions of "food"? Chances are, if you're eating something that came wrapped in plastic and contains a funky ingredient you don't have in your kitchen, it's most likely--almost definitely--ultra-processed food, or UPF. More than the principal obstacle to "eating right," UPF has been linked to metabolic disease, depression, inflammation, anxiety, and cancer, while the production, distribution, and disposal of UPF and related products globally is known to cause devastating environmental damage. At the same time, UPF represents the dominant, nigh-unavoidable food culture for millions upon millions of eaters. Medical doctor and broadcaster Chris van Tulleken has spent his career trying to reframe the conversation around eating right, balancing the hard (and sometimes shocking) facts about what we're putting into our bodies with empathy for the natural desire to keep eating what we like, have time for, and can afford. As he argues in this book, we are all participants in an experiment we didn't consent to, one to determine how to get us to buy as much ultra-processed food as possible. It's not as simple as stumbling across the right diet trend, finding time to meal plan, or avoiding over-indulging in sugar, fat, or carbs or any other culprit. Nor is it a matter of individual will. It's about learning to live in "the third age of eating"--defined by the overwhelming abundance of ultra-processed eating options--and arming yourself with the simple and not-so-simple facts that will help you make the choices that are right for you."--
Subjects: Diet.; Food additives.; Processed foods.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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A living remedy : a memoir / by Chung, Nicole,author.;
"From the bestselling author of ALL YOU CAN EVER KNOW comes a searing memoir of class, inequality, and grief--a daughter's search to understand the lives her adoptive parents led, the life she forged as an adult, and the lives she's lost. In this country, unless you attain extraordinary wealth, you will likely be unable to help your loved ones in all the ways you'd hoped. You will learn to live with the specific, hollow guilt of those who leave hardship behind, yet are unable to bring anyone else with them. When Nicole Chung graduated from high school, she couldn't hightail it out of her overwhelmingly white Oregon hometown fast enough. As a scholarship student at a private university on the East Coast, no longer the only Korean she knew, she found a sense of community she had always craved as an Asian American adoptee--and a path to the life she'd long wanted. But the middle class world she begins to raise a family in--where there are big homes, college funds, nice vacations--looks very different from the middle class world she thought she grew up in, where paychecks have to stretch to the end of the week, health insurance is often lacking, and there are no safety nets. When her father dies at only sixty-seven, killed by diabetes and kidney disease, Nicole feels deep grief as well as rage, knowing that years of financial instability and lack of access to healthcare contributed to his premature death. And then the unthinkable happens--less than a year later, her beloved mother is diagnosed with cancer, and the physical distance between them becomes insurmountable as COVID descends upon the world. Exploring the enduring strength of family bonds in the face of hardship and tragedy, A Living Remedy examines what it takes to reconcile the distance between one life, one home, and another--and sheds needed light on some of the most persistent and tragic inequalities in American society"--
Subjects: Autobiographies.; Biographies.; Chung, Nicole.; Adoptees; Adoptive parents; Equality; Grief; Income distribution; Interracial adoption;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The mindful body : thinking our way to chronic health / by Langer, Ellen J.,1947-author.;
"A groundbreaking account of the power of our thoughts to improve our health--by the "mother of mindfulness" and first female tenured professor of psychology at Harvard. When it comes to our health, too many of us think that a medical diagnosis describes a static or worsening condition. We then live our lives as though our ailments--our stiff knees or frayed nerves or failing eyesight--can only change in one direction: for the worse. Ellen J. Langer's life's work proves the fault in that logic. She has spent more than forty years testing the limiting effects of our negative assumptions as well as the healing power of being mindful--present in the moment and not distracted by memories or projections into the future. In The Mindful Body she unpacks her findings and boldly demonstrates how our thoughts and perspectives have the potential to shape our well-being for the better. Taking us into Langer's trailblazing Harvard lab, The Mindful Body recounts many of her colorful experiments to illustrate the influence of expectation and belief on how our bodies function, how we heal, and even how we age. In one study, Langer rigged eye charts so that participants would get some of the smaller letters correct right away, giving them the expectation that they could improve their overall eye test scores. And they did. In another, she showed that wounds heal faster when subjects are placed in rooms with accelerated clocks; when you think that time is passing faster, your body heals faster! On the other hand, her work reveals that discouraging health news can lead to a worsening physical state: she showed that learning you are pre-diabetic--even when only a fraction separates your blood sugar from a "normal" categorization--may actually play a part in the development of the disease. A paradigm-shifting book by one of the great psychologists of the twenty-first century, The Mindful Body returns the control over our bodies back to us and reveals that a true understanding of health begins with our mindset"--
Subjects: Mind and body.; Mindfulness (Psychology); Thought and thinking.;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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The gospel of wellness : gyms, gurus, goop, and the false promise of self-care / by Raphael, Rina,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."Women are pursuing their health like never before. Whether it's juicing, biohacking, clutching crystals, or sipping collagen, today there is something for everyone, as the wellness industry has grown from modest roots into a $4.4 trillion entity and a full-blown movement promising health and vitality in the most fashionable package. But why suddenly are we all feeling so unwell? The truth is that deep within the underbelly of self-care-hidden beneath layers of clever marketing-wellness beckons with a far stronger, more seductive message than health alone. It promises women the one thing they desperately desire: control. Vividly told and deeply reported, The Gospel of Wellness reveals how this obsession is a direct result of women feeling dismissed, mistreated, and overburdened. Women are told they can manage the chaos ruling their life by following a laid-out plan: eat right, exercise, meditate, then buy or do all this stuff. And while wellness may have sprung from good intentions, we are now relentlessly flooded with exploitative offerings, questionable ideas, and a mounting pressure to stay devoted to the divine doctrine of wellness. What happens when the cure becomes as bad as the disease? With a critical eye, humor, and empathy, wellness industry journalist Rina Raphael examines how women have been led down a kale-covered path promising nothing short of salvation. She knows: Raphael was once a disciple herself-trying everything from "clean eating" to electric shock workouts-until her own awakening to the troubling consequences. Balancing the good with the bad, The Gospel of Wellness is a clear-eyed exploration of what wellness can actually offer us, knocking down the false idols and commandments that have taken hold and ultimately showing how we might shape a better future for the movement-and for our well-being"--
Subjects: Health products; Women; Women;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Second life : having a child in the digital age / by Hess, Amanda(Journalist),author.;
Includes bibliographical references.""Before I was pregnant, I was a person." The long awaited debut memoir about the convergence of parenthood and technology from the beloved New York Times critic. In 2016, when Amanda arrived at the New York Times to become its correspondent for internet culture, a colleague asked her a question that sounded like a riddle: "On the internet, how do you know what's really real?" He had been looking for a literal answer, but Amanda recognized the question as something more profound, an irresolvable provocation that defines the experience of life in the digital age. For more than a decade, Amanda has been on the reality beat, living the contradictions of the internet even as she has tried to make sense of them. But when she discovered she was pregnant with her first child, who later received a prenatal diagnosis of Beckwith-Wiedemann Syndrome -- a genetic disorder -- she was unexpectedly rattled by a digital identity crisis all her own, vulnerable to the world of apps, gadgets, bloggers, online forums, and advertisers, all closing in, telling her what to do and how to feel. They promised that her new life -- and by extension, her child's -- would be so much better if she bought this or that, tried this or that. As the internet sought to remap her body and her mind, Amanda's guiding question became ever more urgent: what is "real life" when creating a life? Second Life is a trenchant look at parenting in early 21st-century America, when humans stopped being raised by villages or even families but rather by a constant onslaught of information. It is a funny, heartbreaking, and surreal examination of fertility apps, the history of ultrasound technologies, prenatal genetic testing, rare disease Facebook groups, baby memes, cultural representations of parenting, gender reveal videos, trendy sleep gurus, "freebirth" influencers, mommy marketers, culminating in a polemic on how to conceive of a real life in the digital age. Page by page, Amanda reveals the unspoken ways that our lives are being fractured and reconstituted by technology, all through the exacting lens of her intensely personal story"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Hess, Amanda (Journalist); Information society.; Motherhood.; Internet; Pregnant women;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Nature and the mind : the science of how nature improves cognitive, physical and social well-being / by Berman, Marc, G.,author.;
"From the acclaimed founder of environmental neuroscience, Dr. Marc Berman, comes a groundbreaking guide that reveals how interacting with nature can be the secret to improved mental and physical health. Dr. Marc Berman, the pioneering creator of the field of environmental neuroscience, has discovered the surprising connection between mind, body, and environment, with a special emphasis on the natural environment. He has devoted his life to studying it. If you sometimes feel drained, distracted, or depressed, Dr. Berman has identified the elements of a "nature prescription" that can boost your energy, sharpen your focus, change your mood, and improve your mental and physical health. He also reveals how central attention is to all of these functions, and how interactions with nature can restore it. Nature and the Mind is both an introduction to a revolutionary new scientific field and a helpful guide to better living. In these pages, he draws on his original research and research from others and shares life-altering findings such as: just eleven more trees on your street can decrease cardio-metabolic disorders like stroke, diabetes, and heart disease; a short walk in nature can improve attention by almost twenty percent, decrease depression symptoms, and make people feel more spiritual and self-reflective; more greenspace around schools and homes is related to better school performance, reduced crime, and improved working memory; and many of these effects can be achieved even if you don't like nature. With an engaging and approachable style, Dr. Berman offers the nature prescription for physical health, mental health, and social health. Importantly, you don't have to pack up your house and move to the country to participate. The nature prescription includes practical ways to bring the outside indoors and to "naturize" our spaces, no matter where you live. The positive effects of nature don't just end at the individual; contact with nature can make people more caring towards one another, promote economic and racial justice, encourage people to care more for the environment, and more. This groundbreaking guide explains why and how nature is good for our brains and bodies and gives us a window into fundamental aspects of our psychology and physiology that can be improved through interactions with nature"--
Subjects: Environmental psychology.; Human ecology; Mind and body.; Nature; Nature; Nature;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Do you feel like I do? : a memoir / by Frampton, Peter,author.; Light, Alan,author.;
"A revelatory memoir by rock icon and legendary guitarist Peter Frampton"--"Do You Feel Like I Do? is the incredible story of Peter Frampton's positively resilient life and career told in his own words for the first time. His monu-mental album Frampton Comes Alive! spawned three top-twenty singles and sold eight million copies the year it was released (more than seventeen million to date), and it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in January 2020. Frampton was on a path to stardom from an early age, first as the lead singer and guitarist of the Herd and then as cofounder -- along with Steve Marriott -- of one of the first supergroups, Humble Pie. Frampton was part of a tight-knit collective of British '60s musicians with close ties to the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, and the Who. This led to Frampton playing on George Harrison's solo debut, All Things Must Pass, as well as to Ringo Starr and Billy Preston appearing on Frampton's own solo debut. By age twenty-two, Frampton was touring incessantly and finding new sounds with the talk box, which would become his signature guitar effect. Frampton remembers his enduring friendship with David Bowie. Growing up as schoolmates, crossing paths throughout their careers, and playing together on the Glass Spider Tour, the two developed an unshakable bond. Frampton also shares fascinating stories of his collaborative work with Harry Nilsson, Stevie Wonder, B. B. King, and members of Pearl Jam. He reveals both the blessing and curse of Frampton Comes Alive!, opening up about becoming the cover boy he never wanted to be, his overcoming sub-stance abuse, and how he has continued to play and pour his heart into his music despite an inflammatory muscle disease and his retirement from the road. Peppered throughout his narrative is the story of his favorite guitar, the Phenix, which he thought he'd lost in a fiery plane crash in 1980. But in 2011, it mysteriously showed up again -- saved from the wreckage. Frampton tells of that unlikely reunion here in full for the first time, and why the miraculous reappearance is emblematic of his life and career as a quintessential artist"--Jacket flap.
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Frampton, Peter.; Rock musicians; Guitarists;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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