Development Sociology

Following the death of her father, journalist and hospice volunteer Ann Neumann sets out to examine what it means to die well in the United States. When Ann Neumann's father was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, she left her job and moved back to her hometown of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She became his full-time caregiver - cooking, cleaning, and administering medications. When her father died, she was undone by the experience, by grief and the visceral quality of dying.

The Defining Decade for the #Adulting generation - a book that blends storytelling and data to unpack the choices you make in your 20s, why they matter, and how to turn those critical years into a launchpad for the life you want. We tend to think of our 20s as a playground for life: a time for low-consequence experimentation and delaying big decisions. But the truth is that while you're muddling through those years - exploring new cities, dating the wrong people, hopping between jobs - a small shift in your flight path can mean the difference between landing on Mars or Saturn.

Even the most well-adjusted moms and dads can experience peer pressure and conflicts with other adults that make them act like they're back in seventh grade. In Queen Bee Moms and Kingpin Dads, Rosalind Wiseman gives us the tools to handle difficult situations involving teachers and other parents with grace.

In How Children Succeed, Paul Tough introduced us to research showing that personal qualities like perseverance, self-control, and conscientiousness play a critical role in children's success. Now, in Helping Children Succeed, Tough takes on a new set of pressing questions: What does growing up in poverty do to children's mental and physical development? How does adversity at home affect their success in the classroom, from preschool to high school?

In We Live for the We, first-time mother Dani McClain sets out to understand how to raise her daughter in what she, as a black woman, knows to be an unjust—even hostile—society. Black women are more likely to die during pregnancy or birth than any other race; black mothers must stand before television cameras telling the world that their slain children were human beings. What, then, is the best way to keep fear at bay and raise a child so she lives with dignity and joy?

"Wer sich nicht öffnet, fühlt auch nichts" oder "Die Gesellschaft braucht eine Therapie, nicht wir" – in kurzen Videos teilt Michael Nast seine Überlegungen zum Leben und der Liebe und erreicht damit mehrere hunderttausend Follower:innen. Nun gibt es sie in Buchform, seine klugen und gesellschaftskritischen Denkanstöße, die er für das Hörbuch selbst eingelesen hat. Stets mit persönlichen Erlebnissen verknüpft, sprechen sie die Hörer:innen auf Augenhöhe an, denn Michael Nast ist kein Coach, sondern hadert selbst mit sich und seinen Entscheidungen.

For decades, osteopathic physician Larry Nassar built a sterling reputation as the go-to doctor for America's Olympians while treating countless others at his office on Michigan State University's campus. It was largely within the high-pressure world of competitive gymnastics that Nassar exploited young girls, sexually assaulting hundreds of them under the guise of medical treatment. In Start by Believing, John Barr and Dan Murphy confront Nassar's acts, which represent the largest sex abuse scandal to impact the sporting world.

From an early age, it is drilled into our heads: Restlessness, distraction, and ignorance are the enemies of success. We’re told that learning is all self-discipline, that we must confine ourselves to designated study areas, turn off the music, and maintain a strict ritual if we want to ace that test, memorize that presentation, or nail that piano recital. But what if almost everything we were told about learning is wrong?

In today's complex world, parenting a girl is harder than ever. It takes more than love. It takes insight into the things that make your daughter tick as she grows from childhood to young adulthood. Spiced with stories, humor, and much reassurance, Raising Girls will help you encourage your daughter, challenge her, love her, and help her discover who God is creating her to be.

New York Times best-selling relationship expert Maggie Scarf shares in-depth stories of seven remarried couples - revealing the unique challenges they face as they strive to achieve lasting intimacy and familial harmony. Through cautionary tales and stories of hope, Scarf offers guidance for handling everything from children who reject the new family dynamic to the thorny issue of money. Loaded with practical wisdom and searing accounts, The Remarriage Blueprint is a definitive road map to a happy, thriving, integrated household.

A myriad of studies show that the parents of American youth play the leading role in shaping the character of their religious and spiritual lives, even well after they leave home and often for the rest of their lives. We know a lot about the importance of parents in faith transmission. However we know much less about the actual beliefs, feelings, and activities of the parents themselves. To address that gap, this book reports the findings of a new national study of religious parents in the United States.

At the age of 60, Cory Taylor is dying of melanoma-related brain cancer. Her illness is no longer treatable: She now weighs less than her neighbor's retriever. As her body weakens, she describes the experience - the vulnerability and strength, the courage and humility, the anger and acceptance - of knowing she will soon die. Written in the space of a few weeks, in a tremendous creative surge, this powerful and beautiful memoir is a clear-eyed account of what dying teaches.

Heralded as the most significant technological innovation since the smartphone, virtual reality is poised to transform our very notions of life and humanity. Though this tech is still in its infancy, to those on the inside, it is the future. VR will change how we work, how we experience entertainment, how we feel pleasure and other emotions, how we see ourselves, and most importantly, how we relate to each other in the real world. And we will never be the same. Peter Rubin, senior culture editor for Wired and the industry's go-to authority on the subject, calls it an "intimacy engine".

Effective business communication is a skill that anyone can develop. From interview strategies to high-stakes negotiation tactics, 10 Skills for Effective Business Communication offers practical strategies to improve communication skills and help you succeed in your career. Equal parts research and actionable advice, this book applies effective strategies from the world’s most successful professionals to common workplace scenarios.

In colorful and moving details, this audiobook explores how polyamorous relationships come to be, how they grow and change, how they manage the ins and outs of daily family life, and how they cope with the challenges they face both within their families and from society. Using polyamorists own words, Dr. Elisabeth Sheff examines polyamorous households and reveals their advantages, disadvantages, and the daily lives of those living in them.

In 1999, Texas passed a landmark clean energy law, beginning a groundswell of new policies that promised to make the US a world leader in renewable energy. As Leah Stokes shows in Short Circuiting Policy, however, that policy did not lead to momentum in Texas, which failed to implement its solar laws or clean up its electricity system. Examining clean energy laws in Texas, Kansas, Arizona, and Ohio over 30 years Stokes argues that organized combat between advocate and opponent interest groups is central to explaining why states are not on track to address the climate crisis.

For decades they assumed that people who face adversity - a difficult childhood, career turbulence, sudden bouts of bad luck - will succumb to their circumstances. Yet over and over again they found a significant percentage are able to overcome their life circumstances and achieve spectacular success. How is it that individuals who are not “supposed” to succeed manage to overcome the odds? Are there certain traits that such people have in common?

David Korten argues that global corporate consolidation of power is but one manifestation of what he calls "Empire", the organization of society by hierarchies of dominance that have held sway for the past 5,000 years. Empire has always resulted in misery for the many and fortune for the few. Now it threatens the very future of humanity. The Great Turning traces the ancient roots of Empire and charts its long evolution from monarchies to the transnational institutions of the global economy.

This is an audio summary of Braving the Wilderness, a timely reflection of the social and political realities of the world today, and a deeper look into the deep lonesomeness that is pulling us apart from each other.

Jam-packed with essential information, This Stops with Me offers a no-holds-barred, transformative experience to those who’ve always sensed something amiss in their relationship with a loved one.