Social Science

Of This Our Country

6,000.00

To define Nigeria is to tell a half-truth. Many have tried, but most have concluded that it is impossible to capture the true scope and significance of Africa’s most populous nation through words or images.

And yet here, through personal essays from 24 of its writers, a more accurate picture comes into view: one that details the realities and contradictions of patriotism, examines the role of class and privilege in Nigerian society, juxtaposes inherited tradition with the diasporic experience and explores the power of storytelling and its intrinsic link to Nigeria’s history.

Within these pages, acclaimed and award-winning writers share memories and experiences of Nigeria that can be found nowhere else, bringing to the fore a country whose influence can be found everywhere.

Powerful, lyrical and entirely unforgettable, OF THIS OUR COUNTRY weaves together a living portrait of Nigeria, one that is as beautiful as it is complex.

With essays from: Nels Abbey, Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀, Yomi Adegoke, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Oyinkan Akande, Ike Anya, Sefi Atta, Bolu Babalola, J K Chukwu, Abi Daré, Inua Ellams
Chịkọdịlị Emelụmadụ, Caleb Femi, Helon Habila, Abubakar Adam Ibrahim, Anietie Isong, Okey Ndibe, Chigozie Obioma, Irenosen Okojie, Cheluchi Onyemelukwe, Lola Shoneyin, Umar Turaki, Chika Unigwe and Hafsa Zayyan.

Gender Mosaic

6,000.00

With profound implications for our most foundational assumptions about gender, Gender Mosaic explains why there is no such thing as a male or female brain.

For generations, we’ve been taught that women and men differ in profound and important ways. Women are more sensitive and emotional, whereas men are more aggressive and sexual, because this or that region in the brains of women is smaller or larger than in men, or because they have more or less of this or that hormone. This story seems to provide us with a neat biological explanation for much of what we encounter in day-to-day life. But is it true?

According to neuroscientist Daphna Joel, it’s not. And in Gender Mosaic, she sets forth a bold and compelling argument that debunks the notion of female and male brains. Drawing on the latest scientific evidence, including the groundbreaking results of her own studies, Dr. Joel explains that every human brain is a unique mixture — or mosaic — of “male” and “female” features, and that these mosaics don’t map neatly into two categories.

With urgent practical implications for the way we understand ourselves and the world around us, Gender Mosaic is a fascinating look at the science of gender, sex and the brain, and at how freeing ourselves from the gender binary can help us all reach our full human potential.

The Power of Reputation

6,000.00

Success is built on a foundation of character, communication, and trust. To accomplish our goals, people must believe in us. The Power of Reputation offers businesspeople an action plan for creating the kind of reputation that generates trust, inspires confidence, and provides a professional advantage. As a professor and public relations professional, author Chris Komisarjevsky shares his acute awareness of the importance of reputation with readers by imparting personal stories from his years of experience as well as sharing interviews with distinguished business leaders. You’ll learn how to identify and reinforce the values behind your reputation, earn respect by respecting others, engage people through constructive and open communication, and build strong connections by personalizing your approach to everything you do.We judge people in business the same way we judge those in our personal lives. We listen to what they say, watch how they behave, and take note of the results of their actions. Using instructive real-world examples, The Power of Reputation reveals how to leverage the remarkable power of a reputation at work that’s rooted in authenticity.

Muslim Women Are Everything

6,000.00

Winner of the 2021 International Book Awards

Winner of American Book Fest’s 2020 Best Book Awards in Women’s Issues

A full-color illustrated collection of riveting, inspiring, and stereotype-shattering stories that reveal the beauty, diversity, and strength of Muslim women both past and present.

Tired of seeing Muslim women portrayed as weak, sheltered, and limited, journalist Seema Yasmin reframes how the world sees them, to reveal everything they CAN do and the incredible, stereotype-shattering ways they are doing it.

Featuring 40 full-color illustrations by illustrator Fahmida Azim throughout, Muslim Women Are Everything is a celebration of the ways in which past and present Muslim women from around the world are singing, dancing, reading, writing, laughing, experimenting, driving, and rocking their way into the history books.

Forget subservient, oppressed damsels—say hello to women who are breaking down barriers using their art, their voices, and their activism, including:

-Tesnim Sayar from Denmark, a Muslim goth-punk who wears a red tartan mohawk on top of her hijab
-American superstar singer SZA
-Nura Afia, CoverGirl’s first hijabi ambassador
-Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, America’s first Muslim congresswomen
-Ilyana Insyirah, a hijaab-wearing scuba-diving midwife from Australia

Showcasing women who defy categorization, Muslim Women Are Everything proves that to be Muslim and a woman is to be many things: strong, vulnerable, trans, disabled, funny, entrepreneurial, burqa or bikini clad, and so much more.

Kilo

6,000.00

Cocaine is glamour, sex and murder. From the badlands of Colombia, it stretches across the globe, seducing, corrupting and destroying. A product that must be produced, distributed, and protected, it is both a harbinger of violence and a source of immense wealth. Beginning in the jungles and mountains of Colombia, it filters down to countryside villages and the nightclubs of the cities, attracting money, sex, and death. Each step in the life of a kilo reveals a different criminal underworld with its own players, rules, and dangers, ranging from the bizarre to the diabolical. The killers, the drug-lords, all find themselves seduced by cocaine and trapped in her world.

Seasoned war correspondent Toby Muse has witnessed each level of this underworld, fueled by the appetite for cocaine in America and Europe. In this riveting chronicle, he takes the reader inside Colombia’s notorious drug cartels to offer a never before look at the drug trade. Following a kilo of cocaine from its production in a clandestine laboratory to the smugglers who ship it abroad, he reveals the human lives behind the drug’s complicated legacy. Reporting on Colombia for the world’s most prestigious networks and publications, Muse gained unprecedented access to the extraordinary people who survive on the drug trade—farmers, smugglers, assassins—and the drug lords and their lovers controlling these multi-billion dollar enterprises. Uncovering stories of violence, sex, and money, he shows the allure and the madness of cocaine. And how the War on Drugs has been no match for cocaine.

Piercing this veiled world, Kilo is a gripping portrait of a country struggling to end this deadly trade even as the riches flow. A human portrait of criminals and the shocking details of their lives, Kilo is a chilling, unforgettable story that takes you deep into the belly of the beast.

Kilo includes 16 pages of photographs.

Biased

6,000.00

How do we talk about bias? How do we address racial disparities and inequities? What role do our institutions play in creating, maintaining, and magnifying those inequities? What role do we play? With a perspective that is at once scientific, investigative, and informed by personal experience, Dr. Jennifer Eberhardt offers us the language and courage we need to face one of the biggest and most troubling issues of our time. She exposes racial bias at all levels of society—in our neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, and criminal justice system. Yet she also offers us tools to address it. Eberhardt shows us how we can be vulnerable to bias but not doomed to live under its grip. Racial bias is a problem that we all have a role to play in solving.

The Honest Body Project

6,000.00

Only 4 percent of women around the world consider themselves to be beautiful, according to research done by Dove, and twenty million women suffer from significant eating disorders at some point in their life—The Honest Body Project was created to combat this tragic problem of poor body image in our society.

Founded by photographer Natalie McCain, this project is opening the eyes of women around the world and helping them to see the beauty both outside and inside of themselves. It is a collection of black and white portraits and stories, raw and untouched, from hundreds of women who have bared their hearts and souls to be a part of the project. Natalie tastefully photographs the women in their underwear, showing off their natural shapes and “imperfections.” There is no editing done after the fact, and the natural beauty of these women—from all backgrounds and walks of life—shines through the lens. Together, they create a beautiful, honest picture of both motherhood and what it means to be a woman. Topics include body image issues, breast cancer, depression (postpartum and otherwise), anxiety, bottle feeding versus breast feeding, aging, and more.

The Honest Body Project is a breath of fresh air, breaking down walls and helping women learn that they are not alone in their hardships. It wants to help women everywhere contribute to a better world, and to learn to love themselves and appreciate their bodies for what they are: perfectly imperfect. It is time to celebrate the true form of women.

Homo Deus

5,500.00

Yuval Noah Harari, author of the critically-acclaimed New York Times bestseller and international phenomenon Sapiens, returns with an equally original, compelling, and provocative book, turning his focus toward humanity’s future, and our quest to upgrade humans into gods.

Over the past century humankind has managed to do the impossible and rein in famine, plague, and war. This may seem hard to accept, but, as Harari explains in his trademark style—thorough, yet riveting—famine, plague and war have been transformed from incomprehensible and uncontrollable forces of nature into manageable challenges. For the first time ever, more people die from eating too much than from eating too little; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases; and more people commit suicide than are killed by soldiers, terrorists and criminals put together. The average American is a thousand times more likely to die from binging at McDonalds than from being blown up by Al Qaeda.

What then will replace famine, plague, and war at the top of the human agenda? As the self-made gods of planet earth, what destinies will we set ourselves, and which quests will we undertake? Homo Deus explores the projects, dreams and nightmares that will shape the twenty-first century—from overcoming death to creating artificial life. It asks the fundamental questions: Where do we go from here? And how will we protect this fragile world from our own destructive powers? This is the next stage of evolution. This is Homo Deus.

With the same insight and clarity that made Sapiens an international hit and a New York Times bestseller, Harari maps out our future.

The Addiction Spectrum

5,500.00

Drug overdose is now the leading cause of death for Americans under fifty. Even as opiate addiction skyrockets, more people than ever before are hooked on alcohol, sedatives, cigarettes, and even screens. The face and prevalence of addiction has changed and evolved, but our solutions to addiction are stuck in the past.

We’ve been treating addiction as a black or white issue, a disease you either suffer from or will never suffer from. The problem with this model is that it doesn’t account for the incredible forces working against all of us, pushing all of us toward addiction: stress, undernourishment, sleep-deprivation, vitamin D deficiency, and isolation, not to mention a flawed medical system and corrupt pharmaceutical companies doling out prescriptions at every turn.

The truth: Addiction is a disease that, like many others, exists on a spectrum. We are more vulnerable to becoming addicted to substances at certain points in our lives and based on the evidence provided in The Addiction Spectrum, most effective at kicking addiction when we take a holistic approach. With the help of the 13-point plan and individual protocols detailed in this book, you have the power to change your destiny. No one understands this more than Dr. Paul Thomas, who recovered from alcohol addiction early in his career and founded one of the most effective rehabilitation centers for teens and young adults in his hometown of Portland, OR. Named one of the top family doctors and one of the top pediatricians in the country, Dr. Paul is also board-certified in both integrative medicine and addiction medicine. This unique combination of specialties is intentional: Dr. Paul has devoted his entire life and career to saving lives.

Using the best conventional medicine alongside the new science of alternative health, Dr. Paul has treated thousands of patients with the life-saving solutions provided in The Addiction Spectrum. Addiction is a compendium of often devastating circumstances that have gone unchecked by society for far too long. This book is a positive light and guide to overcoming not only addiction but the challenges and obstacles that affect us all.

Off Balance

5,500.00

The research upon which this book is based shows overwhelmingly that people want satisfaction much more than they want balance. And yet, one of the dominant topics in the area of personal and professional development for the past twenty years has been work-life balance.

Off Balance is more than just a book. It presents a system that Matthew Kelly uses with his Fortune 500 clients, his team, and himself to drive increasing levels of satisfaction both personally and professionally. He introduces us to the three philosophies of our age that are dragging us down. He teaches us how to cultivate energy so that we have plenty left for our passions when we are finished fulfilling our responsibilities. And finally, in five clear steps, he shows us how to use his Personal and Professional Satisfaction System to establish our priorities and honor them even when we feel pulled in a hundred different directions.

The beautiful thing about satisfaction is that you know when you have it, and you know when you don’t. Do you have it? Short, insightful, and life-changing, Off Balance gives us all the tools we need to go to sleep every night knowing who we are, what matters most, and that our lives make sense.

My Name is Charles Saatchi and I Am An Artoholic

5,500.00

Q: Do you care what people think?

A: Everyone cares what people think, but luckily I seem to care less than most.

Charles Saatchi is one of the moving forces of the modern age. Founder of the global advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, and the most influential art collector of our time, he has vigorously shaped the contemporary art scene. His exhibitions, notably 1997’s Sensation exhibition of the so-called Young British Artists—Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, and Chris Ofili, among others—at the Royal Academy of Art, London, and at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, sparked an explosion of controversy. Though he famously refuses to be interviewed, in this book he provides frank, genuine responses to questions from journalists and critics as well as members of the public.

A Guide To Solo Travel

5,000.00

A Guide to Solo Travel is a book that provides tips for navigating the hassles of first-time international travel. It covers making a checklist, getting visas, booking flights, and planning departures. It also covers entry requirements and arriving in your destination country.

Each chapter in this book is divided into two parts. The first part discusses the chapter’s topic and offers valuable suggestions. The second part, separated by asterisks, shares my personal experiences abroad. These experiences align with the chapter’s central theme.

David & Goliath

5,000.00

Three thousand years ago on a battlefield in ancient Palestine, a shepherd boy felled a mighty warrior with nothing more than a stone and a sling, and ever since then the names of David and Goliath have stood for battles between underdogs and giants. David’s victory was improbable and miraculous. He shouldn’t have won.

Or should he have?

In David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwellchallenges how we think about obstacles and disadvantages, offering a new interpretation of what it means to be discriminated against, or cope with a disability, or lose a parent, or attend a mediocre school, or suffer from any number of other apparent setbacks.

Gladwell begins with the real story of what happened between the giant and the shepherd boy those many years ago. From there, David and Goliath examines Northern Ireland’s Troubles, the minds of cancer researchers and civil rights leaders, murder and the high costs of revenge, and the dynamics of successful and unsuccessful classrooms—all to demonstrate how much of what is beautiful and important in the world arises from what looks like suffering and adversity.

In the tradition of Gladwell’s previous bestsellers—The Tipping PointBlinkOutliers and What the Dog SawDavid and Goliath draws upon history, psychology, and powerful storytelling to reshape the way we think of the world around us.

Writing Character

5,000.00

Focus on a single aspect of the craft of writing with help from the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto. Writing Character begins with an essay by author and educator Constance Hale, who offer pointers for observing and capturing human complexity. The rest of the book consists of prompts and space to think, providing opportunities for you to develop your own characters. Among other ideas, you’ll be asked to create:

-a sketch of a famous person you admire
-a portrait of someone based on the items on his desk
-a positive take on someone you loathe
-a description of your mother’s emotions as they are expressed by her eyes
-a scene involving a group of people, focusing exclusively on how they use their hands

Take to a café, on vacation, or on your morning commute and practice your creative writing a little bit at a time.

Writing Dialogue

5,000.00

Focus on a single aspect of the craft of writing with help from the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto. Writing Dialogue begins a foreword by author and educator Shanthi Sekaran, who offers pointers for creating believable speech in your fiction. The rest of the book consists of prompts and space to think, providing opportunities to explore how dialogue can bring your characters and plotlines to life.

Among other ideas, you’ll be asked to write speech for:
a pent-up confession of love
a family’s reaction when dinner is ruined
a job interview in which the interviewee has all the power
a first date that is going well (and then not so well)
a toast at dinner party, honoring someone who has wronged you

Take to a café, on vacation, or on your morning commute and practice your creative writing a little bit at a time.

Maybe One

5,000.00

The earth is becoming dangerously overcrowded, and if more families chose to have only one child, it would make a crucial difference toward ensuring a healthy future for ourselves and our planet for generations to come.

But the environment alone may not persuade most people to consider having just one child, as 80% of Americans have siblings. Powerful stereotypes about only children—that they’re spoiled, selfish, or maladjusted in some way—still persist. McKibben, the proud father of an only child himself, debunks these myths, citing research about the many emotional and intellectual strengths only children possess, including higher test scores, higher levels of achievement in school, and greater development of positive personality traits like maturity and self-control.

At once a powerful personal argument and an accessible exploration of what overpopulation could mean to human life and environmental sustainability, Maybe One is a provocative yet well-reasoned opening to what has become important and lasting debate.

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