Inyo County Free Library - New Acquisitions
January 2015 - February 2015
These are books and media new to the library and cataloged by the Inyo County Free Library.
Additional information about each title can be found in the catalog (click on the title). For older acquisition lists choose from Select another list. To request any of these titles please contact your local library branch.
Non-Fiction | Computer science, information & general worksPhilosophy & psychologyReligionSocial sciencesLanguageScienceTechnologyArts & recreationLiteratureHistory & geography |
The age of radiance: the epic rise and dramatic fall of the atomic era By Nelson, Craig Publishing Date: 2014 Classification: 500 Call Number: 539.75 NEL "A riveting narrative of the Atomic Age--from x-rays and Marie Curie to the Nevada Test Site and the 2011 meltdown in Japan--written by the prizewinning and bestselling author of Rocket Men. Radiation is a complex and paradoxical concept: staggering amounts of energy flow from seemingly inert rock and that energy is both useful and dangerous. While nuclear energy affects our everyday lives--from nuclear medicine and food irradiation to microwave technology--its invisible rays trigger biological damage, birth defects, and cellular mayhem. Written with a biographer's passion, Craig Nelson unlocks one of the great mysteries of the universe in a work that is both tragic and triumphant. From the end of the nineteenth century through the use of the atomic bomb in World War II to the twenty-first century's confrontation with the dangers of nuclear power, Nelson illuminates a pageant of fascinating historical figures: Enrico Fermi, Marie and Pierre Curie, Albert Einstein, FDR, Robert Oppenheimer, and Ronald Reagan, among others. He reveals many little-known details, including how Jewish refugees fleeing Hitler transformed America from a country that created light bulbs and telephones into one that split atoms; how the most grotesque weapon ever invented could realize Alfred Nobel's lifelong dream of global peace; how emergency workers and low-level utility employees fought to contain a run-amok nuclear reactor, while wondering if they would live or die. Brilliantly fascinating and remarkably accessible, The Age of Radiance traces mankind's complicated and difficult relationship with the dangerous power it discovered and made part of civilization"-- |
By Pretor-Pinney, Gavin Publishing Date: 2006 Classification: 500 Call Number: 551.576 PRE Complemented by striking photographs and line drawings, a witty and eclectic study of clouds captures the character of these natural phenomena while discussing the science behind the different types of clouds, what they mean in terms of climate and weather, their history, and artistic and cultural fascination with their ephemeral beauty. 75,000 first printing. - (Baker & Taylor) |
The monkey's voyage: how improbable journeys shaped the history of life By De Queiroz, Alan Publishing Date: c2013 Classification: 500 Call Number: 570 DEQ "Throughout the world, closely related species are found on landmasses separated by wide stretches of ocean. What explains these far-flung distributions? Why are such species found where they are across the Earth? Since the discovery of plate tectonics, scientists have conjectured that plants and animals were scattered over the globe by riding pieces of ancient supercontinents as they broke up. In the past decade, however, that theory has foundered, as the genomic revolution has made reams of new data available. And the data has revealed an extraordinary, stranger-than-fiction story that has sparked a scientific upheaval. In The Monkey's Voyage, biologist Alan de Queiroz describes the radical new view of how fragmented distributions came into being: frogs and mammals rode on rafts and icebergs, tiny spiders drifted on storm winds, and plant seeds were carried in the plumage of sea-going birds to create the map of life we see today. In other words, these organisms were not simply constrained by continental fate; they were the makers of their own geographic destiny. And as de Queiroz shows, the effects of oceanic dispersal have been crucial in generating the diversity of life on Earth, from monkeys and guinea pigs in South America to beech trees and kiwi birds in New Zealand. By toppling the idea that the slow process of continental drift is the main force behind the odd distributions of organisms, this theory highlights the dynamic and unpredictable nature of the history of life."-- |
Dodging extinction: power, food, money and the future of life on Earth By Barnosky, Anthony D. Publishing Date: [2014] Classification: 500 Call Number: 576.84 BAR Paleobiologist Anthony D. Barnosky weaves together evidence from the deep past and the present to alert us to the looming Sixth Mass Extinction and to offer a practical, hopeful plan for avoiding it. Writing from the front lines of extinction research, Barnosky tells the overarching story of geologic and evolutionary history and how it informs the way humans inhabit, exploit, and impact Earth today. He presents compelling evidence that unless we rethink how we generate the power we use to run our global ecosystem, where we get our food, and how we make our money, we will trigger what would be. |
Cows save the planet and other improbable ways of restoring soil to heal the earth By Schwartz, Judith D. Publishing Date: c2013 Classification: 500 Call Number: 577.57 SCH In Cows Save the Planet, journalist Judith D. Schwartz looks at soil as a crucible for our many overlapping environmental, economic, and social crises. Drawing on the work of thinkers and doers, renegade scientists and institutional whistleblowers, Schwartz challenges much of the conventional thinking about global warming and other problems. For example, land can suffer from undergrazing as well as overgrazing, since certain landscapes, such as grasslands, require the disturbance from livestock to thrive. Regarding climate, when we focus on carbon dioxide, we neglect the central role of water in soil - "green water" - in temperature regulation. And much of the carbon dioxide that burdens the atmosphere is not the result of fuel emissions, but from agriculture; returning carbon to the soil not only reduces carbon dioxide levels but also enhances soil fertility. Cows Save the Planet is at once a primer on soil's pivotal role in our ecology and economy, a call to action, and an antidote to the despair that environmental news so often leaves us with. |
Animal behavior: an evolutionary approach By Alcock, John Publishing Date: c2005 Classification: 500 Call Number: 591.5 ALC Following the theory of natural selection and how scientific logic promotes effective thinking, this textbook examines the evolution of feeding behavior, communication, mating systems, parental care, and social behavior in both invertebrates and vertebrates. The eighth edition combines the two chapters on the genetic and environmental influences on development. Annotation ©2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) - (Book News) |
By Palumbi, Stephen R. Publishing Date: c2014 Classification: 500 Call Number: 591.77 PAL The Extreme Life of the Sea exposes the eternal darkness of the deepest undersea trenches to show how marine life thrives against the odds, describing how flying fish strain to escape their predators, how predatory deep-sea fish use red searchlights only they can see to find and attack food, and how, at the end of her life, a mother octopus dedicates herself to raising her batch of young. This wide-ranging and highly accessible book also shows how ocean adaptations can inspire innovative commercial products--such as fan blades modeled on the flippers of humpback whales--and how future extremes created by human changes to the oceans might push some of these amazing species over the edge. |
Salt, sugar, fat: how the food giants hooked us By Moss, Michael Publishing Date: c2013 Classification: 600 Call Number: 613.2 MOS The author explores his theory that the food industry's used three essential ingredients to control much of the world's diet. |
Wheat belly: lose the wheat, lose the weight, and find your path back to health By Davis, William Publishing Date: c2011 Classification: 600 Call Number: 613.26 DAV A renowned cardiologist explains how eliminating wheat from our diets can prevent fat storage, shrink unsightly bulges, and reverse myriad health problems. |
Working stiff: two years, 262 bodies, and the making of a medical examiner By Melinek, Judy Publishing Date: 2014 Classification: 600 Call Number: 614.1092 MEL "The fearless memoir of a young forensic pathologist's "rookie season" as a NYC medical examiner, and the cases--hair-raising and heartbreaking and impossibly complex--that shaped her as both a physician and a mother. Just two months before the September 11 terrorist attacks, Dr. Judy Melinek began her training as a New York City forensic pathologist. With her husband T.J. and their toddler Daniel holding down the home front, Judy threw herself into the fascinating world of death investigation--performing autopsies, investigating death scenes, counseling grieving relatives. Working Stiff chronicles Judy's two years of training, taking readers behind the police tape of some of the most harrowing deaths in the Big Apple, including a firsthand account of the events of September 11, the subsequent anthrax bio-terrorism attack, and the disastrous crash of American Airlines flight 587. Lively, action-packed, and loaded with mordant wit, Working Stiff offers a firsthand account of daily life in one of America's most arduous professions, and the unexpected challenges of shuttling between the domains of the living and the dead. The body never lies--and through the murders, accidents, and suicides that land on her table, Dr. Melinek lays bare the truth behind the glamorized depictions of autopsy work on shows like CSI and Law & Order to reveal the secret story of the real morgue"-- |
By Allen, Arthur Publishing Date: c2014 Classification: 600 Call Number: 614.5262 ALL From a laboratory in wartime Poland comes a fascinating story of anti-Nazi resistance and scientific ingenuity. Few diseases are more gruesome than typhus. Transmitted by body lice, it afflicts the dispossessed́refugees, soldiers, and ghettoized peopleścausing hallucinations, terrible headaches, boiling fever, and often death. The disease plagued the German army on the Eastern Front and left the Reich desperate for a vaccine. For this they turned to the brilliant and eccentric Polish zoologist Rudolf Weigl. In the 1920s, Weigl had created the first typhus vaccine using a method as bold as it was dangerous for its use of living human subjects. The astonishing success of Weigĺs techniques attracted the attention and admiration of the world́giving him cover during the Nazís violent occupation of Lviv. His lab soon flourished as a hotbed of resistance. Weigl hired otherwise doomed mathematicians, writers, doctors, and other thinkers, protecting them from atrocity. The team engaged in a sabotage campaign by sending illegal doses of the vaccine into the Polish ghettos while shipping gallons of the weakened serum to the Wehrmacht. Among the scientists saved by Weigl, who was a Christian, was a gifted Jewish immunologist named Ludwik Fleck. Condemned to Buchenwald and pressured to re-create the typhus vaccine under the direction of a sadistic Nazi doctor, Erwin Ding-Schuler, Fleck had to make an awful choice between his scientific ideals or the truth of his conscience. In risking his life to carry out a dramatic subterfuge to vaccinate the camṕs most endangered prisoners, Fleck performed an act of great heroism. Drawing on extensive research and interviews with survivors, Arthur Allen tells the harrowing story of two brave scientistśa Christian and a Jeẃ who put their expertise to the best possible use, at the highest personal danger. |
Emergency care and transportation of the sick and injured Publishing Date: 2011 Classification: 600 Call Number: 616.025 This 10th edition of a text for emergency personnel offers numerous optional web and online student and teacher resources, including a companion web site with video clips and audio readings in mp3 format, plus case studies and critical thinking questions and review material. The text begins with an extensive introductory section on emergency medicine systems, covering workforce safety, medical, legal, and ethical issues, documentation, the human body, and life span development. Later sections cover areas including pharmacology, shock and resuscitation, different types of medical emergencies (including psychiatric emergencies), special populations, and EMS operations. The art program offers a color layout with color anatomical illustrations and photos illustrating step-by-step procedures. Other learning features include review points and multiple-choice quizzes on scenarios. Vocabulary is supported with chapter key terms, an appendix of medical terminology, and a 25-page glossary. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) - (Book News) |
Knocking on heaven's door: the path to a better way of death By Butler, Katy Publishing Date: 2013 Classification: 600 Call Number: 616.029 BUT "An exquisitely written, expertly reported memoir and expose; of modern medicine that leads the way to more humane, less invasive end-of-life care based on the author's acclaimed New York Times Magazine piece. This is the story of one daughter's struggle to allow her parents the peaceful, natural deaths they wanted and to investigate the larger forces in medicine that stood in the way. When doctors refused to disable the pacemaker that caused her eighty-four-year-old father's heart to outlive his brain, Katy Butler, an award-winning science writer, embarked on a quest to understand why modern medicine was depriving him of a humane, timely death. After his lingering death, Katy's mother, nearly broken by years of nonstop caregiving, defied her doctors, refused open-heart surgery, and insisted on facing death the old-fashioned way: bravely, lucidly, and head on. Against this backdrop of familial love, wrenching moral choices, and redemption, Knocking on Heaven's Door celebrates the inventors of the 1950s who cobbled together lifesaving machines like the pacemaker and it exposes the tangled marriage of technology, medicine, and commerce that gave us a modern way of death: more painful, expensive, and prolonged than ever before. Caring for declining parents is a reality facing millions who may someday tell a doctor: "Let my parent go." A riveting exploration of the forgotten art of dying, Knocking on Heaven's Door empowers readers to create new rites of passage to the "Good Deaths" our ancestors so prized. Like Jessica Mitford's The American Way of Death and How We Die by Sherwin Nuland, it is sure to cause controversy and open minds"-- |
By Smith, Pamela Wartian Publishing Date: 2014 Classification: 600 Call Number: 616.83 SMI Explains what causes memory loss and how readers can reverse the problem and enhance their ability to focus, concentrate, and comprehend. |
By Westheimer, Ruth K. Publishing Date: c2012 Classification: 600 Call Number: 616.831 WES A guide for Alzheimer's caregivers offers advice on caring for spouses, parents, and other relatives; dealing with professional caregivers; and learning about Alzheimer's treatments and facilities. |
I'm still here: a new philosophy of Alzheimer's care By Zeisel, John Publishing Date: c2009 Classification: 600 Call Number: 616.831 ZEI There currently is no cure for Alzheimer's disease— though it can be treated. For the last fifteen years, John Zeisel, Ph.D. has spearheaded a movement to treat Alzheimer's non-pharmacologically by focusing on the mind's strengths. I'm Still Here is a guidebook to Dr. Zeisel's treatment ideas, showing the possibility and benefits of connecting with an Alzheimer's patient through their abilities that don't diminish with time, such as understanding music, art, facial expressions, and touch. By harnessing these capacities, and by using other strategies, it's possible to offer the person a quality life with connection to others and to the world. In March 2013, Dr. Zeisel and his work will be the focus of the program airing on public television stations entitled "Hopeful Aging," bringing his life-changing ideas to a national audience. - (Random House, Inc.) |
My age of anxiety: fear, hope, dread, and the search for peace of mind By Stossel, Scott Publishing Date: c2013 Classification: 600 Call Number: 616.8522 STO The author recounts his lifelong battle with anxiety, showing the many manifestations of the disorder as well as the countless treatments that have been developed to counteract it, and provides a history of the efforts to understand this common form of mental illness. |
The cancer chronicles: unlocking medicine's deepest mystery By Johnson, George Publishing Date: c2013 Classification: 600 Call Number: 616.994 JOH New theories question cancer as we know it in this exploration of the latest theories that could help us better understand and treat cancer in the years to come. Learn what diet and dinosaurs' skeletons can tell us about the nature of cancer, where cancer comes from, how tumors grow, and more. |
Dr. Mütter's marvels: a true tale of intrigue and innovation at the dawn of modern medicine By Aptowicz, Cristin O'Keefe Publishing Date: [2014] Classification: 600 Call Number: 617.092 APT A mesmerizing biography of the brilliant and eccentric medical innovator who revolutionized American surgery and founded the country's most famous museum of medical oddities. Imagine undergoing an operation without anesthesia performed by a surgeon who refuses to sterilize his tools-or even wash his hands. This was the world of medicine when Thomas Dent Mütter began his trailblazing career as a plastic surgeon in Philadelphia during the middle of the nineteenth century. Although he died at just forty-eight, Mütter was an audacious medical innovator who pioneered the use of ether as anesthesia, the sterilization of surgical tools, and a compassion-based vision for helping the severely deformed, which clashed spectacularly with the sentiments of his time. Brilliant, outspoken, and brazenly handsome, Mütter was flamboyant in every aspect of his life. He wore pink silk suits to perform surgery, added an umlaut to his last name just because he could, and amassed an immense collection of medical oddities that would later form the basis of Philadelphia's Mütter Museum. Award-winning writer Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz vividly chronicles how Mütter's efforts helped establish Philadelphia as a global mecca for medical innovation-despite intense resistance from his numerous rivals. (Foremost among them : Charles D. Meigs, an influential obstetrician who loathed Mütter's "overly" modern medical opinions.) In the narrative spirit of The Devil in the White City, Dr. Mütter's Marvels interweaves an eye-opening portrait of nineteenth-century medicine with the riveting biography of a man once described as the "P.T. Barnum of the surgery room."--Provided by publisher. |
Birth matters: a midwife's manifesta By Gaskin, Ina May Publishing Date: c2011 Classification: 600 Call Number: 618.45 GAS Renowned for her practice's exemplary results and low intervention rates, Ina May Gaskin has gained international notoriety for promoting natural birth. She is a much-beloved leader of a movement that seeks to stop the hyper-medicalization of birth?which has lead to nearly a third of hospital births in America to be cesarean sections?and renew confidence in a woman's natural ability to birth. Upbeat and informative, Gaskin asserts that the way in which women become mothers is a women's rights issue, and it is perhaps the act that most powerfully exhibits what it is to be instinctually human. Birth Matters is a spirited manifesta showing us how to trust women, value birth, and reconcile modern life with a process as old as our species. |