Health Fitness Diet

New York Times bestseller

One of the top ten books of the year at The New York Times Book Review, The Wall Street Journal, Vulture/New York magazine
A best book of the year at Los Angeles Times, Time, NPR, The Washington Post, Bookforum, The New Yorker, Vogue, Kirkus

The acclaimed, award-winning New Yorker writer Rachel Aviv offers a groundbreaking exploration of mental illness and the mind, and illuminates the startling connections between diagnosis and identity.

Strangers to Ourselves poses fundamental questions about how we understand ourselves in periods of crisis and distress. Drawing on deep, original reporting as well as unpublished journals and memoirs, Rachel Aviv writes about people who have come up against the limits of psychiatric explanations for who they are. She follows an Indian woman celebrated as a saint who lives in healing temples in Kerala; an incarcerated mother vying for her children's forgiveness after recovering from psychosis; a man who devotes his life to seeking revenge upon his psychoanalysts; and an affluent young woman who, after a decade of defining herself through her diagnosis, decides to go off her meds because she doesn't know who she is without them. Animated by a profound sense of empathy, Aviv's gripping exploration is refracted through her own account of living in a hospital ward at the age of six and meeting a fellow patient with whom her life runs parallel--until it no longer does.

Aviv asks how the stories we tell about mental disorders shape their course in our lives--and our identities, too. Challenging the way we understand and talk about illness, her account is a testament to the porousness and resilience of the mind.

'A powerful book from one of my favorite writers on something we all need more of...and could give more of.' -- Ryan Holiday, bestselling author of The Obstacle is the Way and Ego Is the Enemy

"Luminous. . . . A work to both devour and savour, Baird has, once again, written a book the world needs now.'"--Guardian

From the bestselling author of Phosphorescence comes a beautiful and timely exploration of that most mysterious but necessary of human qualities: grace.

Grace is hard to define. It can be found when we create ways to find meaning and dignity in connection with each other, building on our shared humanity, being kinder, bigger, better with each other. If, in its crudest interpretation, karma is getting what you deserve, then grace is the opposite: forgiving the unforgivable, favoring the undeserving, loving the unlovable.

Sadly, we live in an era when grace is increasingly rare. Our growing distrust of the media, politicians, and each other has choked our ability to trust, to accept, to allow for mistakes, to forgive.

What does grace look like in today's world, and how do we recognize it, nurture it in ourselves and express it, even in the darkest of times? In this luminously beautiful, deeply insightful, and timely book, Baird explores the meaning of grace and how we can cut through negativity to find it today.

Is there nothing we can do? This is the question that inspired award-winning journalist Bastian Berbner to embark on this book as he surveyed the political arenas in the United States, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere across Europe, compelled by what he describes as "something akin to political fear." What he found in the course of his reporting are people who, despite significant differences in their worldviews and ideas, were able to trust, listen to, and be open with one another.

In Search of Common Ground takes us around the world: to Arizona, where a former neo-Nazi befriends his Black parole officer; to Germany, where an older couple dread the arrival of their new Roma neighbors--but are moved upon meeting them to offer help, becoming their friends and champions; to Ireland, where we see one friendship change the world when a gay-rights activist overturns a conservative mailman's homophobia--and together, they help sway public opinion to legalize gay marriage.

Berbner's intensively reported and compelling accounts are interwoven with expert insight from Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman, psychologist Peter Coleman of Columbia University, and others. This uplifting book vividly shows that we can overcome prejudice and find common ground.

This eye-opening book offers a "clear and captivating" (Dr. Kris Verburgh​)scientific deep dive into how plants and animals have already unlocked the secrets to immortality-and the lessons they hold for us all.

Recent advances in medicine and technology have expanded our understanding of aging across the animal kingdom, and our own timeless quest for the fountain of youth. Yet, despite modern humans living longer today than ever before, the public's understanding of what is possible is limited to our species--until now. In this spunky, effervescent debut, the key to immortality is revealed to be a superpower within reach. With mind-bending stories from the natural world and our own, Jellyfish Age Backwards reveals lifespans we cannot imagine and physiological gifts that feel closer to magic than reality:

Mixing cutting-edge research and stories from habitats all around the world, molecular biologist Nicklas Brendborg explores extended life cycles in all its varieties. Along the way, we meet a man who fasted for over a year; a woman who edited her own DNA; redwoods that survive thousands of years; and in the soil of Easter Island, the key to eternal youth. Jellyfish Age Backwards is a love letter to the immense power of nature, and what the immortal lives of many of earth's animals and plants can teach us about the secrets to longevity.

Shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize

A New York Times Editor's Choice Pick

A Sunday Times (UK) Best Book of the Year