After contracting polio as a young girl Martha Mason of tiny Lattimore, North Carolina, lived a record sixty-one of her seventy-one years in an iron lung until her death in 2009, but she never let the 800-pound cylinder define her. The subject of a documentary film, an NPR feature, an ABC News piece, and a widely syndicated New York Times obituary, Martha enjoyed life, and people. From within her iron lung, she graduated first in her class in high school and at Wake Forest University, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She was determined to be a writer and, with her devoted mother taking dictation, she became a journalist-but had to give up her career when her father became ill. Still, Martha created for herself a vast and radiant world-holding dinner parties with the table pushed right up to her iron lung, voraciously reading, running her own household, and caring for her mother when she became ill with Alzheimer's and increasingly abusive to Martha. When voice-activated computers became available, Martha wrote Breath, in part as a tribute to her mother. "This book is her story," writes Anne Rivers Siddons in her preface, "told in the rich words of a born writer. That she told it is a gift to everyone who will read it. That she told it is also as near to a miracle as most are likely to encounter."

Explores the history of breathing and how it has shaped our social history and philosophical beliefs.

Contrary to popular belief Polio is not extinct. This is the true story of an indomitable spirit afflicted with unimaginable physical and psychological challenges. Paul Alexander’s life is a saga that started in 1946 and has been profoundly shaped by the Polio epidemic of the early 1950’s. Survivors of the 1950’s Polio Epidemic in America are rare. Polio victims, like Paul Alexander, who require the assistance of an “Iron Lung” respirator for their life’s breath are even rarer. Paul Alexander has crafted his life against all odds and has a courageous and compelling story to share with us all. Victims of Polio, their families, friends and communities are struggling to cope with this obscure but still dangerous infectious disease. This book is a testimony to the strength of the human spirit and an affirmation of the need to continue efforts to eradicate the pestilence of Polio from the planet.

Enter a fantastical world of dangerous faeries, wicked princes and one half-human girl who discovers her entire life is a lie. This special edition of The Iron Queen includes the bonus novella Summer’s Crossing and an exclusive excerpt from the new Iron Fey book, The Iron Raven. A storm is approaching, an army of Iron fey that will drag me back, kicking and screaming. Drag me away from the banished prince who’s sworn to stand by my side. Drag me into the core of a conflict so powerful I’m not sure anyone can survive it. Meghan Chase thought her time with the fey was over, that the sacrifices she had to make were done. But war is brewing as another Iron King rises to destroy the courts of Faery and corrupt the Nevernever forever. The age-old rivalry of the Summer and Winter courts must be put aside as the rulers prepare to face their mutual enemy…and Meghan must step once more into the fray and finally learn the secret destiny that has been hers to claim all along. But first, she must make one final, heartbreaking sacrifice.

"Combining the winning elements of proven training approaches, motivational stories, and innovative recipes, No Meat Athlete is a unique guidebook, healthy-living cookbook, and nutrition primer for the beginner, every day, and serious athlete who wants to live a meatless lifestyle. Author and popular blogger, Matt Frazier, will show you that there are many benefits to embracing a meat-free athletic lifestyle, including: Weight loss, which often leads to increased speed; Easier digestion and faster recovery after workouts; Improved energy levels to help with not just athletic performance but your day-to-day life; Reduced impact on the planet. Whatever your motivation for choosing a meat-free lifestyle, this book will take you through everything you need to know to apply your lifestyle to your training. Matt Frazier provides practical advice and tips on how to transition to a plant-based diet while getting all the nutrition you need; uses the power of habit to make those changes last; and offers up menu plans for high performance, endurance, and recovery. Once you've mastered the basics, Matt delivers a training manual of his own design for runners of all abilities and ambitions. The manual provides training plans for common race distances and shows runners how to create healthy habits, improve performance, and avoid injuries. No Meat Athlete will take you from the start to finish line, giving you encouraging tips, tricks, and advice along the way"--

Winner of a Christopher Award—now with a discussion guide “Perhaps one lesson to draw from the pandemic, with help from books like this one, is that the ICU experience can be changed for the better” (The Washington Post) for both patients and their families. You will learn how in this timely, urgent, and compassionate work by a world-renowned critical care doctor. In this rich blend of science, medical history, profoundly humane patient stories, and personal reflection, Dr. Wes Ely describes his mission to prevent ICU patients from being harmed by the technology that is keeping them alive. Readers will experience the world of critical care through the eyes of a physician who drastically changed his clinical practice to offer person-centered health care and through cutting-edge research convinced others to do the same. Dr. Ely’s groundbreaking investigations advanced the understanding of post– intensive care struggles and introduced crucial changes that reshaped treatment: minimizing sedation, maximizing mobility, and providing supportive aftercare. Dr. Ely shows that there are ways to bring humanity into the ICU and that “technology plus touch” is a proven path toward returning ICU patients to the lives they had before their hospital stays. An essential resource for anyone who will be affected by illness—which is all of us.

A New York Times Bestseller A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2020 Named a Best Book of 2020 by NPR “A fascinating scientific, cultural, spiritual and evolutionary history of the way humans breathe—and how we’ve all been doing it wrong for a long, long time.” —Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Big Magic and Eat Pray Love No matter what you eat, how much you exercise, how skinny or young or wise you are, none of it matters if you’re not breathing properly. There is nothing more essential to our health and well-being than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat twenty-five thousand times a day. Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences. Journalist James Nestor travels the world to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. The answers aren’t found in pulmonology labs, as we might expect, but in the muddy digs of ancient burial sites, secret Soviet facilities, New Jersey choir schools, and the smoggy streets of São Paulo. Nestor tracks down men and women exploring the hidden science behind ancient breathing practices like Pranayama, Sudarshan Kriya, and Tummo and teams up with pulmonary tinkerers to scientifically test long-held beliefs about how we breathe. Modern research is showing us that making even slight adjustments to the way we inhale and exhale can jump-start athletic performance; rejuvenate internal organs; halt snoring, asthma, and autoimmune disease; and even straighten scoliotic spines. None of this should be possible, and yet it is. Drawing on thousands of years of medical texts and recent cutting-edge studies in pulmonology, psychology, biochemistry, and human physiology, Breath turns the conventional wisdom of what we thought we knew about our most basic biological function on its head. You will never breathe the same again.