I’ve always craved outdoor adventure. My earliest preschool memories include frog hunting in the fields behind my house, and careening down hills around the neighborhood on my metal-wheeled skateboard. In middle school, I progressed to BMX, spearfishing and surfing. After college, I added snow and water skiing, windsurfing, and eventually mountain biking to the mix, and was fortunate to have a career that allowed time and resources to travel the world extensively seeking adventure. Now well into my sixties, I research and write about science, extreme sports, nature and philosophy in between daily hikes and mountain bike rides around the homebase and monthly journeys to destinations unknown.
I wrote...
NeuroAdventures: The Art and Science of Hunting and Gathering Happiness
A universal truth is that we would all like to be happier, yet when we chase this elusive concept, we often end up right back where we started—or worse. But what if we could find activities that trigger neurological pathways for positive emotions, and happiness just comes along for the ride? This book explores this objectively from neuroscience and evolutionary biology perspectives, then illustrates these findings subjectively by taking the reader on a year of NeuroAdventures—outdoor adventures mindfully executed to stimulate neurotransmitter chemical pathways of happiness in our brains.
Will participation in NeuroAdventures improve our baseline levels of happiness? The simple answer: “Yes.” But… How? This book illuminates the details and inspires us to pursue our own NeuroAdventures, making our time on this planet a journey to remember.
To understand our motivations, I believe we first need to understand our minds. For decades, I have studied books from authors like Richard Dawkins, E.O. Wilson, Steven Pinker, and other science writers to help me better understand our evolutionary past. From there, I expanded into books about cutting-edge neuroscience that are accessible to laymen (such as myself).
Finally, I discovered this book, written by one of the best immersive investigative journalists alive today. It delves into our species’ long history of ingesting psychedelic drugs to engender transformative experiences and how today, using tools of neuroscience and medicine, these substances (administered in the proper set and setting) can help us better understand ourselves and our place in the world.
"Pollan keeps you turning the pages . . . cleareyed and assured." -New York Times
A #1 New York Times Bestseller, New York Times Book Review 10 Best Books of 2018, and New York Times Notable Book
A brilliant and brave investigation into the medical and scientific revolution taking place around psychedelic drugs--and the spellbinding story of his own life-changing psychedelic experiences
When Michael Pollan set out to research how LSD and psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) are being used to provide relief to people suffering from difficult-to-treat conditions such…
I’ve always wanted to understand our shared humanity through the lens of our hunter-gatherer past. We spent 1,990,000 of our last 2 million years on the planet in this capacity, after all!
Fortunately, I came across anthropologist James Suzman’s book about his two decades living amongst the San tribe of the Kalahari, one of the few remaining hunter-gatherer peoples on earth (at the time). Unfortunately, 21st-century political and cultural realities have all but eliminated this traditional way of life, as remaining members of this group now live in government-supported resettlement camps after losing their ancestral lands to agricultural and industrial interests.
Nonetheless, this poignant book provided me with new insights about what it means to be human living in a world we were neither designed nor prepared for.
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'Insightful ... Avoiding both modern conceits and romantic fantasies, Suzman chronicles how economics and politics have finally conquered some of the last outposts of hunter-gatherers, and how much humankind can still learn from the disappearing way of life of the most marginalized communities on earth.' - Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens and Homo Deus
'Fascinating' - Sunday Times
'Elegant and absorbing' - Financial Times
'Profoundly moving' - Irish Times
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From acclaimed anthropologist James Suzman, a portrait of the 'original affluent society' - the Bushmen of southern Africa - and what their way of life can teach us…
As a lifelong surfer myself, I couldn’t wait to read William Finnegan’s Pulitzer-prize-winning memoir of his multi-decade pursuit of this lifestyle.
His successful career as an investigative journalist for the New Yorker and other publications further piqued my interest. Maybe he could help me explain to others my similar obsession, having spent over a year abroad during my younger days with a backpack and two surfboards in tow while hunting for perfect surf around the globe.
Well, he certainly delivered the goods. He shatters the “surfer dude” stereotype with this nuanced portrayal of his time studying meteorological and geographic possibilities to immerse himself in the timeless beauty of forces infinitely more powerful than oneself, just for that rare chance to feel truly alive.
**Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Autobiography**
Included in President Obama's 2016 Summer Reading List
"Without a doubt, the finest surf book I've ever read . . . " -The New York Times Magazine
Barbarian Days is William Finnegan's memoir of an obsession, a complex enchantment. Surfing only looks like a sport. To initiates, it is something else: a beautiful addiction, a demanding course of study, a morally dangerous pastime, a way of life.
Raised in California and Hawaii, Finnegan started surfing as a child. He has chased waves all over the world, wandering for years through the South…
I have always enjoyed reading a well-written subjective account of my fellow outdoor enthusiasts’ experiences during their chosen adventures. This book took it to another level.
While we all accept that the substantial rewards from our activities can carry substantial risks, we attempt to mitigate these risks whenever possible through experience and sound judgment. But sometimes Nature has her own agenda.
This heart-wrenching saga of a failed Everest expedition reinforced my motivation to prepare for the unexpected and served as a stark reminder that we have to be willing to pay the ultimate price for our rewards. But it also illustrated the fierce determination and selfless heroism that can be found in the human spirit.
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The epic account of the storm on the summit of Mt. Everest that claimed five lives and left countless more—including Krakauer's—in guilt-ridden disarray.
"A harrowing tale of the perils of high-altitude climbing, a story of bad luck and worse judgment and of heartbreaking heroism." —PEOPLE
A bank of clouds was assembling on the not-so-distant horizon, but journalist-mountaineer Jon Krakauer, standing on the summit of Mt. Everest, saw nothing that "suggested that a murderous storm was bearing down." He was wrong.
By writing Into Thin Air, Krakauer may have hoped to exorcise some of his own demons…
I wanted to understand why individuals in our society would volunteer to put themselves in harm’s way by joining—and sometimes reenlisting—to serve on the front lines in a far-flung region of little strategic value to our country (Afghanistan).
In this book, a couple of common themes popped up: camaraderie and heightened states of awareness. The bonds these young men cement when depending upon each other for life and limb take on meaning greater than life itself.
And the strange sense of control—and lack of fear—that can occur on the battlefield when adrenaline kicks in and everything slows down in the mind’s eye has parallels to situations that us outdoor adventure enthusiasts also crave—the “flow experience”—but at a level of intensity I can only imagine.
From the author of The Perfect Storm, a gripping book about Sebastian Junger's almost fatal year with the 2nd battalion of the American Army.
For 15 months, Sebastian Junger accompanied a single platoon of thirty men from the celebrated 2nd battalion of the U.S. Army, as they fought their way through a remote valley in Eastern Afghanistan. Over the course of five trips, Junger was in more firefights than he could count, men he knew were killed or wounded, and he himself was almost killed. His relationship with these soldiers grew so close that they considered him part of the…
I am adopted. For most of my life, I didn’t identify as adopted. I shoved that away because of the shame I felt about being adopted and not truly fitting into my family. But then two things happened: I had my own biological children, the only two people I know to date to whom I am biologically related, and then shortly after my second daughter was born, my older sister, also an adoptee, died of a drug overdose. These sequential births and death put my life on a new trajectory, and I started writing, out of grief, the history of adoption and motherhood in America.
I grew up thinking that being adopted didn’t matter. I was wrong. This book is my journey uncovering the significance and true history of adoption practices in America. Now, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over women’s reproductive rights places an even greater emphasis on adoption. As a mother, historian, and adoptee, I am uniquely qualified to uncover the policies and practices of adoption.
The history of adoption, reframed through the voices of adoptees like me, and mothers who have been forced to relinquish their babies, blows apart old narratives…
Who Is a Worthy Mother?: An Intimate History of Adoption
Nearly every person in the United States is affected by adoption. Adoption practices are woven into the fabric of American society and reflect how our nation values human beings, particularly mothers. In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over women's reproductive rights places an even greater emphasis on adoption. As a mother, historian, and adoptee, Rebecca C. Wellington is uniquely qualified to uncover the policies and practices of adoption. Wellington's timely-and deeply researched-account amplifies previously marginalized voices and exposes the social and racial biases embedded in the United States' adoption industry.…
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