Sociology Memoirs

Ever wonder why giving anesthesia is described as hours of boredom with moments of panic? With gentle precision, anesthesiologist Wolf Pascoe teases apart an overlooked world and unveils the eggshell dance that takes place at the head of an operating table. Intrigued or spooked by what happens in an operating theatre? Breathing for Two is a seat on the stage, a short book that will change the way you think about life and breath.

Paralyzed and unable to speak after a stroke, Cathy Hutchinson was trapped inside her mind, only communicating with the outside world through her eyes. Then she heard about an experiment called BrainGate at Brown University that hoped to allow immobilized patients to control robotic limbs with their thoughts. But can what sounds like science fiction eventually transform the lives of quadriplegics? And could it help Cathy take control of her life? Jessica Benko tells the story of a radical new technology, a pioneering group of researchers, and one woman's effort to transcend her condition and the body itself.

This classic essay from Jon Krakauer is now available as an unabridged audiobook download. This essay is also included in the Classic Krakauer collection. From the best-selling author of Missoula and Into the Wild: a selection of the singular investigative journalism that made Krakauer famous, covering topics from avalanches on Mt. Everest to a volcano in Washington state; from a wilderness therapy program for teens to an extraordinary cave in New Mexico so unearthly that is used by NASA to better understand Mars.

Die Boomer nehmen Abschied. Wer zwischen 1955 und 1970 in der Zeit der geburtenstarken Jahrgänge zur Welt gekommen ist, hat den Ruhestand erreicht oder zählt zu den Älteren, die nach und nach ihre Posten freimachen. Die Boomer verbindet das Gefühl, dass es zu viele von ihnen gibt, das spürten sie schon in überfüllten Klassenzimmern und später auf dem Arbeitsmarkt. Daraus resultierte eine Haltung der Skepsis, und die Erfahrung von AIDS und Tschernobyl hat sie in einer entscheidenden Phase ihrer Biografie gelehrt, dass nichts gesichert und gar nichts garantiert ist.

Ein Notarzt und kein Buch vom "Leben retten". Viele "Retter", Ärzte, Krankenschwestern und –pfleger, kurz Menschen, die regelmäßig mit dem Tod anderer Menschen konfrontiert sind, pflegen einen eigenen Umgang mit dem Thema "Leben und Sterben": Während der Tod gesellschaftlich häufig keinen Platz im Alltag findet (oder finden darf) und daher aus dem täglichen Gespräch lieber ausgespart wird, sind wir es gewohnt, offen darüber zu reden.

Wolfgang Bosbach hat etwas zu sagen - notfalls auch gegen die Linie der eigenen Partei. Seine Geradlinigkeit kommt bei den Bürgern an, die im unübersichtlichen und manchmal auch als unehrlich wahrgenommenen Politikbetrieb nach Orientierung suchen. Ein Interview von Hugo Müller-Vogg mit Wolfgang Bosbach über die Herausforderungen in Zeiten der Anti-Terror-Politik und der großen Flüchtlingsströme, über Werte in der heutigen Gesellschaft und über Deutschlands Rolle in Europa und der Welt.

Henda’s Law changed the standard of care for every woman in the State of Texas on June 17, 2011, with the passing of House Bill 2102. The law requires all mammography providers to specifically notify women about dense breast tissue and the increased risks associated. The battle is not over. Breast cancer is still very real, affecting every woman alive today. This audiobook tells the incredible story of Henda’s surprising diagnosis and how she accidentally became a lobbyist for one of the most important bills in Texas history.

Kara Swanson is the author of I'll Carry the Fork! Recovering a Life After Brain Injury. Her book, her keynote speeches, and her Online blog have helped TBI survivors, their support people, and the medical community all over the globe. Now Kara returns for a 20th-anniversary encore to the original. Incorporating the struggles and the successful strategies of the countless thousands she has met and worked with these last 20 years, Kara has created a unique and extraordinary compliment to the original.

Accomplished poet and writer Jerome Washington offers an unforgettable glimpse of prison life. You'll meet Cleanhead: thief, con artist, and disciple of Dale Carnegie; Shing-a-Ling, a pimp on a mission to become literate; Sugar-Ditch Pearl and his lover Rex, who are spending their honeymoon in the exercise yard lifting weights; and Juanito, caught in a laughing jag while being bludgeoned to death by the guards. Iron House is a portrait of a culture where brutality is the norm and moments of kindness are few and treasured.

This essay deals with the topic of death. It covers a number of famous poisoners and the poisons they dispatched to their victims. In addition to the mechanisms of drug action, the subject of apoptosis (programmed cell death) is also discussed. This essay is therefore a resource which can aid students and the layperson interested in drug/toxin action.

The Black River flows from Missouri into Arkansas, east of Branson and west of the Bootheel. It meanders where the foothills of the Ozarks begin to rise out of the Mississippi plain. The area was sparsely populated when E. R. Coleman was a young man. Like the population they served, businesses were modest, mostly small, and scattered. Arkansas was still the Bear State; slogans boasting that it was - or predicting that it would become - the "Land of Opportunity" were yet to be conceived.

On March 13, 1964, Kitty Genovese was brutally beaten and murdered in the street near her apartment, in full view of more than three dozen friends and neighbors - and no one did a thing to stop it. More than thirty-five years after its first publication, Thirty-Eight Witnesses, the true account of what transpired that night in Queens, New York, continues to disturb us. We would like to think that we would step in and do what we could to stop the carnage.

More than two decades after Darrell Cannon was tortured into a false confession of murder, he was finally released from prison with hardly an apology. He wasn’t the only one with a story to tell. Award-winning author Natalie Y. Moore reveals the fight for justice and reparations engineered by Chicago’s Black People Against Police Torture movement. More than one hundred African Americans were brutalized by Chicago Police Department Commander Jon Burge’s sadistic, state-sanctioned “interrogation” ring that operated within the department for decades.

This is the story of an unforgivable con man. Vulnerable families were his prey. His promise was an impossible dream and a lie. Peter Candlewood understood the system. That’s how he could commute prison sentences and reunite hopeless families with incarcerated loved ones. For a price. Except there was no Candlewood. No hope. Just a lowly Texas con artist who bet on the desperate - and won. And he wasn’t working alone. The multimillion-dollar deception cost the betrayed more than their savings.

The 12th-century Christian mystic Hildegard of Bingen has been described as "...a visionary, scientist, diplomat, and poet." Created by Dr. Nancy Fierro, CSJ, Hildegard of Bingen and Her Vision of the Feminine transports us through space and time to the medieval cloisters where Hildegard struggled to express her spirituality. How she succeeded in a world open only to men holds lessons for every woman in every age.