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New Book: Edward E. Loewe, PhD & Minds in Distress |
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Friday, 18 August 2006 |
It is our pleasure to be able to offer you an excerpt from the new book, Minds in Distress, by psychologist Edward E. Loewe, PhD.
Minds in Distress is a timely book that suggests the pace of human evolution may be too slow for our rapidly changing culture, and that our brains might be having trouble keeping up. Loewe suggests the epidemic increase in mental/emotional disorders such as anxiety is a natural reaction to an excessively competitive, consumer culture.
The excerpt we are featuring is called "Love in Ruins" and focuses on the effects of cultural evolution specific to romantic relationships. What do you get when you mix Internet pornography with a reduction in impulse control and an increase in narcicism? Read the excerpt and find out.
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New Book: Lawrence Wright and "The Looming Tower" |
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Tuesday, 15 August 2006 |
We originally released this video of New Yorker columnist Lawrence Wright introducing his book, The Looming Tower, in January -- when the book was not available in stores.
The Looming Tower was finally released this month, and what extraordinary timing on the part of publisher Knopf! As British and U.S. forces disrupt a massive terror plot and Israeli and Hezbollah slodiers clash in Lebanon, Wright's book reveals the origins of the Al-Qaeda movement.
This 2-minute clip was recorded in Austin, Texas, in June of last year when Wright was still fact-checking the final manuscript for The Looming Tower. In light of the book's publication and current events, we feel it is approriate to again call your attention to this video.
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New Video: Ken Foster & The Dogs Who Found Me |
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Monday, 14 August 2006 |
Just in case anyone's confused about Ken Foster's canine love, he sports a T-shirt that reads, "I Love My Pit Bull," and shares his camera time with his own pet pit bull, Sula.
Sula's mutual affection for her owner is evident, as she eagerly licks his face. That symbiosis is one of the major tenets of Foster's most recent book, The Dogs Who Found Me. The non-fiction work is about 17 stray dogs that Foster has rescued throughout his life and, as he puts it, "how they helped me."
Foster's dogs comforted him through 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and other traumatic events. In this 2-minute video, he explains how his dogs helped him realize he had a near-fatal heart condition.
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New Video: Patricia Hale Feeney & An Indefinite Period |
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Thursday, 10 August 2006 |
Pat Feeney points out that although the Cuban Missile Crisis has been covered extensively in books, none of those written words have ever really told the tale of the American military wives and children.
Her first book, An Indefinite Period, is a nonfiction account of her experience on the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base as one of those military wives. In this 2-minute video, captured at the 2006 Virginia Festival of the Book, Feeney gives us a glimpse at the evacuation procedure she and her children endured during the Crisis.
Watch the video to see how words from John F. Kennedy during that evacuation still move her, more than 40 years later, and inspired the title of her book.
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New Video: Patricia Heller & If You Hear the Message Three Times, LISTEN |
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Wednesday, 09 August 2006 |
This video of the flamboyant Ms. Heller was filmed over a year ago in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Both Heller and AuthorViews have moved around so much in the interim it was hard to get approval to release the video. Today, we can finally share this 2-minute gem with you.
If You Hear the Message Three Times, LISTEN is a collection of anecdotes from Heller's life. They're "my stories, told with my sense of humor," she says.
In the video, Heller relates the story of a cave dive in Hawaii where she went searching for the meaning of life. All of a sudden, the author -- who is also a singer -- belts out the song that came to her during her dive.
What song did she hear? Watch and find out!
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New Video: Lee Meitzen Grue on the Writing Craft |
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Tuesday, 08 August 2006 |
We resume our video release program today with a wonderful clip of poet and short story writer Lee Meitzen Grue.
We captured Grue in the courtyard of the Bourbon Orleans Hotel in New Orleans where she was attending the 2006 Tennessee Williams Literary Festival.
Edited to a brisk two minutes, this video finds Grue discussing the art of editing and the value of brevity. We hope you'll enjoy it.
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New Book: Sandra Ingerman & Shamanic Journeying |
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Monday, 07 August 2006 |
We are pleased to welcome Sandra Ingerman back to AuthorViews. Ingerman is the author of Medicine for the Earth, for which we shared a video back in January.
For Ingerman's latest book, Shamanic Journeying: A Beginner's Guide, we don't have a video, but we do have an excerpt for our readers. It's entitled "Am I Making Up My Journeys?" and deals with a common barrier to successful other-world travels: the secret belief that your journey is just a product of your imagination.
Ingerman is an ideal author for this gentle introduction to the world's oldest spiritual practice. As former director of education at the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, she has taught shamanic journeying to thousands of novices.
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New Book: Jackson S. Hunsicker & "Turning Heads" |
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Friday, 28 July 2006 |
We are very pleased to bring you a visual excerpt today from an extraordinary book. Turning Heads: Portraits of Grace, Inspiration, and Possibilities features 144 oversized pages with powerful photos of beautiful bald women.
These women are bald because they have cancer. They are beautiful because they have been buffed by stylists and captured by some of the best photographers in the world. And they are powerful because they no longer hide their cancer -- or hide behind it.
The excerpt features an incredible photograph of cancer survivor Heike Kuenzer taken by film producer and children's book author Patricia Ruben. Also check out the author's photo, taken by Harvey Stein, and the luscious cover photo by Harry Langdon.
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New Book: Archibald Putt & "Putt's Law" |
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Thursday, 27 July 2006 |
Archibald Putt is the pseudonym of a man whose contributions in science, engineering, and R&D management are well known.
His infamous book, Putt's Law and the Successful Technocrat, was first published in 1981 and achieved cult status for its scathing satire about the way technology companies behave. "Every technical hierarchy, in time, develops a competence inversion," says Putt, in his most oft-quoted corollary. Readers of Putt's Law will learn such valuable techno-Machiavellian skills as how to leverage failure and how to beat out colleagues who are always right.
We can't break Putt's anonymity by sharing a video with you, but we can share an excerpt from the 25th anniversary remake of Putt's Law.
In this excerpt, Archibald Putt shows he's learned a lot from bloggers and others on the Internet. Putt's third law of decision making reads, "A decision is judged by the conviction with which it is uttered." Sounds like a page from the bloggers' handbook, doesn't it?
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New Book: William Colby & Unplugged |
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Wednesday, 26 July 2006 |
William Colby was the family attorney in the Nancy Cruzan case, the first right-to-die case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Cruzan case is among three major ones that Colby examines in his book, Unplugged: Reclaiming Our Right to Die in America. He also looks at the case of Karen Ann Quinlan and, of course, Terri Schiavo. The drama surrounding Terri Schiavo was what inspired Colby to write Unplugged.
The excerpt that we share with you today is called "How We Die in America" and illustrates the contrast between how we think we're going to die and how we're actually likely to check out.
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New Book: Frank S. Joseph & To Love Mercy (Part Two) |
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Tuesday, 25 July 2006 |
A couple months ago, we debuted Frank S. Joseph's video wherein he talks about his new historical fiction novel, To Love Mercy.
Set in Chicago in the late 1940s, the book is about two boys -- one Black and the other Jewish -- who search the city together for a missing talisman. The novel explores racial issues in Chicago during that era.
We are very pleased to be able to offer an excerpt from To Love Mercy. Entitled "Bronzeville," it covers the history of this Black Metropolis from the Great Migration to the era of segregation.
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New Video: Reginald Johns & Love is Life's Lesson |
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Wednesday, 28 June 2006 |
It's no surprise that Reginald Johns is a school teacher, with his gentle demeanor, perpetual smile, and message about spreading love throughout the world.
He joins us at the 2006 Virginia Festival of the Book to discuss his gorgeous, illustrated gift book, Love is Life's Lesson.
In this 2-minute video, Johns describes the art contained in the book, created by his friend, Mike Ridgeway. The hardcover book is filled with Ridgeway's colorful illustrations, which are done using calligraphy, collage, and other media.
He also explains the various inspirations for this book, including some words of wisdom from his father.
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New Video: David Koen & Predatory Lending |
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Tuesday, 27 June 2006 |
We continue our "Katrina Tapes" series with this clip of David Koen, an attorney who works for New Orleans Legal Assistance.
Koen works on the Predatory Lending Project, "which helps people get out of the burden of exorbitantly priced loans." He has concerns that his work will increase due to Hurricane Katrina. Many of his clients are from the poorer areas of the city, such as the Lower Ninth Ward.
In this 2-minute video, filmed at the New Orleans Bookfair, Koen explains the ways he thinks predatory lenders will target his clients and others like them.
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