66 books match the query 'Journey' and 19 start with t

cover of The Cost of Courage: The Journey of an American Congressman

The Cost of Courage

The Journey of an American Congressman

Carl Elliott

University of Alabama Press, 2001

This deeply moving story chronicles the tenacity and vision that carried Carl Elliott from the hills of northwest Alabama to eight distinguished terms in the United States House of Representatives.

Born in a log cabin on a tenant farm in 1913, Carl Elliott worked his way through The University of Alabama during the Great Depression and was elected to Congress in 1948. With a no-nonsense philosophy of fairness and equal opportunity, he established himself as one of the most effective members of the House of Representatives during the 1950s. He was a progressive Democrat and he fought hard for the dirt farmers and coal miners he grew up with and who sent him to Congress.

In an era when racial segregationists dominated southern politics, Elliott worked with many of the important political leaders of the 20th century, including Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy and powerful House Speaker Sam Rayburn. He was instrumental in passing the National Defense Education Act of 1958, which continues to provide college loans to more than 20 million Americans. But his brave stand against racism and George Wallace in the 1966 Alabama gubernatorial race ruined him professionally (he never returned to elected office) and financially (he cashed in his congressional pension to help fund the campaign). Even as a destitute invalid in his old age, however, Elliott kept his dignity and integrity intact.

The life story of Carl Elliott is full of humor and wry wisdom and explains how he made his way across a stage as big as America, influencing its politics and future, and then emerged, belatedly, as an unsung hero of the fight for civil rights and equality.

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cover of The Creature in the Map: A Journey to El Dorado

The Creature in the Map

A Journey to El Dorado

Charles Nicholl

University of Chicago Press, 1997

"This brilliantly written reconstruction of Sir Walter Raleigh's 1595 South American journey combines painstaking scholarship, vivid travelogue, and an intuitive sensitivity for the many meanings of the El Dorado myth. . . . Nicholl brings this six-week expedition to life. . . . A rare treat for both intellect and imagination."—Kirkus Reviews

"Walter Raleigh . . . was one of those Elizabethan all-rounders who still seem staggeringly larger than life. . . . Mr. Nicholl's cogent reconstruction of the journey uses Raleigh's own account, 'The Discoverie of Guiana'—part truth, part advertising, part rhapsody—and much well-found ancillary material."—Anthony Bailey, New York Times

"Like The Reckoning, his brilliant account of the murder of Christopher Marlowe, Nicholl's new book might be called an exercise in historical conjuring. The Creature in the Map is an effort not only to analyse but also to call into presence the lived experience of the voyage Raleigh undertook in 1595 to the Orinoco Delta in what is now Venezuela."—Stephen Greenblatt, Times Literary Supplement

"Charles Nicholl belongs to an elite company, that of historians who know how to make research into arcane matters and distant times as engrossing as In Cold Blood or All the President's Men."—Michael Dirda, Washington Post
[more]
cover of The Genesis Quest: The Geniuses and Eccentrics on a Journey to Uncover the Origin of Life on Earth

The Genesis Quest

The Geniuses and Eccentrics on a Journey to Uncover the Origin of Life on Earth

Michael Marshall

University of Chicago Press, 2020

From the primordial soup to meteorite impact zones, the Manhattan Project to the latest research, this book is the first full history of the scientists who strive to explain the genesis of life.

How did life begin? Why are we here? These are some of the most profound questions we can ask.
 
For almost a century, a small band of eccentric scientists has struggled to answer these questions and explain one of the greatest mysteries of all: how and why life began on Earth. There are many different proposals, and each idea has attracted passionate believers who promote it with an almost religious fervor, as well as detractors who reject it with equal passion.
 
But the quest to unravel life’s genesis is not just a story of big ideas. It is also a compelling human story, rich in personalities, conflicts, and surprising twists and turns. Along the way, the journey takes in some of the greatest discoveries in modern biology, from evolution and cells to DNA and life’s family tree. It is also a search whose end may finally be in sight.
 
In The Genesis Quest, Michael Marshall shows how the quest to understand life’s beginning is also a journey to discover the true nature of life, and by extension our place in the universe.
[more]
cover of The Guardian Poplar: A Memoir of Deep Roots, Journey, and Rediscovery

The Guardian Poplar

A Memoir of Deep Roots, Journey, and Rediscovery

Chase Nebeker Peterson

University of Utah Press, 2012

When Barney Clark received the Jarvik-7 artificial heart in 1983 and Cold Fusion came under fire in 1989, Chase Peterson, as the University of Utah president, was inevitably pulled into these campus events. While these episodes may be the best known in Peterson’s professional history, they are certainly not the only stories that make his autobiography worth reading.

The Guardian Poplar tells of a man who grew up in small-town Utah and carried his pioneer and Mormon heritage to a New England prep school and later to Harvard. He then returned to Utah as a doctor, but unexpectedly found himself back at Harvard as its dean of admissions, handling issues such as the Vietnam War and racial and gender reform. The book explains how Peterson’s home state recruited him back to become an administrator at the University of Utah and how he would eventually become the university president, taking on new issues and challenges. Peterson recounts these years by drawing on anecdotes that recall the people he served and the moments that brought his life meaning.

This autobiography is a compelling account of how Peterson has managed to balance family and career, handle the tensions that have arisen between his faith and his scientific training, and remain solid in the face of his newest challenge—cancer. The book’s engaging prose and honest reflections are sure to intrigue and inspire readers who know the man well, as well as those readers who simply want to know a man who can be described as dedicated, faithful, hardworking, and hopeful about the future.

“When I first met Chase Peterson as a Harvard freshman—along with our joint friend and brother David Evans—something deeply touched me. It was not only his sincere smile and open embrace but also a sense that here was a kind and courageous man comfortable in his own skin, secure in who he was yet eager to encounter new persons, new experiences, and new challenges. . . . He was from Utah but in New England, a Mormon in old Harvard, and a medical doctor in the deanship of admissions. Little did I know that his journey would enhance and enrich my own—owing to his critical allegiance to his family, his faith, his friends, and to his citizenship of country and world. His prophetic witness at Harvard in the turbulent ‘60s and ‘70s, his promotion of black priesthood in the Mormon church, his support of antiapartheid protests in the ‘80s, and his steadfast defense of academic freedom in the Cold Fusion controversy in the early ‘90s all express his quiet and humble effort to be true to himself—a self grounded in, but
not limited by, a rich Mormon tradition.”—from the foreword by Cornel West

[more]
cover of The Journey of a Caribbean Writer

The Journey of a Caribbean Writer

Maryse Condé

Seagull Books, 2014

For nearly four decades, Maryse Condé, best known for her novels Segu and Windward Heights, has been at the forefront of French Caribbean literature. In this collection of essays and lectures, written over many years and in response to the challenges posed by a changing world, she reflects on the ideas and histories that have moved her. From the use of French as her literary language—despite its colonial history—to the agonies of the Middle Passage, at the horrors of African dictatorship, and the politically induced poverty of the Caribbean to migration under globalization, Condé casts her unflinching eye over the world which is her inheritance, her burden, and her future.

Even while paying homage to her intellectual and literary influences—including Frantz Fanon, Leopold Sedar Senghor, and Aimé Césaire—Condé establishes in these pages the singularity of her vision and the reason for the enormous admiration that her writing has garnered from readers and critics alike.


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cover of The Journey of a Tzotzil-Maya Woman of Chiapas, Mexico: Pass Well over the Earth

The Journey of a Tzotzil-Maya Woman of Chiapas, Mexico

Pass Well over the Earth

By Christine Eber and “Antonia”

University of Texas Press, 2011

Most recent books about Chiapas, Mexico, focus on political conflicts and the indigenous movement for human rights at the macro level. None has explored those conflicts and struggles in-depth through an individual woman's life story. The Journey of a Tzotzil-Maya Woman of Chiapas, Mexico now offers that perspective in one woman's own words. Anthropologist Christine Eber met "Antonia" in 1986 and has followed her life's journey ever since. In this book, they recount Antonia's life story and also reflect on challenges and rewards they have experienced in working together, offering insight into the role of friendship in anthropological research, as well as into the transnational movement of solidarity with the indigenous people of Chiapas that began with the Zapatista uprising.

Antonia was born in 1962 in San Pedro Chenalhó, a Tzotzil-Maya township in highland Chiapas. Her story begins with memories of childhood and progresses to young adulthood, when Antonia began working with women in her community to form weaving cooperatives while also becoming involved in the Word of God, the progressive Catholic movement known elsewhere as Liberation Theology. In 1994, as a wife and mother of six children, she joined a support base for the Zapatista Army of National Liberation. Recounting her experiences in these three interwoven movements, Antonia offers a vivid and nuanced picture of working for social justice while trying to remain true to her people's traditions.

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cover of The Journey to the West, Revised Edition, Volume 1

The Journey to the West, Revised Edition, Volume 1

Translated and Edited by Anthony C. Yu

University of Chicago Press, 2012

Read the legendary Chinese classic that inspired the hit game Black Myth: Wukong!

Anthony C. Yu’s translation of The Journey to the West,initially published in 1983, introduced English-speaking audiences to the classic Chinese novel in its entirety for the first time. Written in the sixteenth century, The Journey to the West tells the story of the fourteen-year pilgrimage of the monk Xuanzang, one of China’s most famous religious heroes, and his three supernatural disciples, in search of Buddhist scriptures. Throughout his journey, Xuanzang fights demons who wish to eat him, communes with spirits, and traverses a land riddled with a multitude of obstacles, both real and fantastical. An adventure rich with danger and excitement, this seminal work of the Chinese literary canonis by turns allegory, satire, and fantasy.

With over a hundred chapters written in both prose and poetry, The Journey to the West has always been a complicated and difficult text to render in English while preserving the lyricism of its language and the content of its plot. But Yu has successfully taken on the task, and in this new edition he has made his translations even more accurate and accessible. The explanatory notes are updated and augmented, and Yu has added new material to his introduction, based on his original research as well as on the newest literary criticism and scholarship on Chinese religious traditions. He has also modernized the transliterations included in each volume, using the now-standard Hanyu Pinyin romanization system. Perhaps most important, Yu has made changes to the translation itself in order to make it as precise as possible.

One of the great works of Chinese literature, The Journey to the West is not only invaluable to scholars of Eastern religion and literature, but, in Yu’s elegant rendering, also a delight for any reader.

 

[more]
cover of The Journey to the West, Revised Edition, Volume 2

The Journey to the West, Revised Edition, Volume 2

Translated and Edited by Anthony C. Yu

University of Chicago Press, 2012

Read the legendary Chinese classic that inspired the hit game Black Myth: Wukong!

Anthony C. Yu’s translation of The Journey to the West,initially published in 1983, introduced English-speaking audiences to the classic Chinese novel in its entirety for the first time. Written in the sixteenth century, The Journey to the West tells the story of the fourteen-year pilgrimage of the monk Xuanzang, one of China’s most famous religious heroes, and his three supernatural disciples, in search of Buddhist scriptures. Throughout his journey, Xuanzang fights demons who wish to eat him, communes with spirits, and traverses a land riddled with a multitude of obstacles, both real and fantastical. An adventure rich with danger and excitement, this seminal work of the Chinese literary canonis by turns allegory, satire, and fantasy.

With over a hundred chapters written in both prose and poetry, The Journey to the West has always been a complicated and difficult text to render in English while preserving the lyricism of its language and the content of its plot. But Yu has successfully taken on the task, and in this new edition he has made his translations even more accurate and accessible. The explanatory notes are updated and augmented, and Yu has added new material to his introduction, based on his original research as well as on the newest literary criticism and scholarship on Chinese religious traditions. He has also modernized the transliterations included in each volume, using the now-standard Hanyu Pinyin romanization system. Perhaps most important, Yu has made changes to the translation itself in order to make it as precise as possible.

One of the great works of Chinese literature, The Journey to the West is not only invaluable to scholars of Eastern religion and literature, but, in Yu’s elegant rendering, also a delight for any reader.

 

[more]
cover of The Journey to the West, Revised Edition, Volume 3

The Journey to the West, Revised Edition, Volume 3

Translated and Edited by Anthony C. Yu

University of Chicago Press, 2012

Read the legendary Chinese classic that inspired the hit game Black Myth: Wukong!

Anthony C. Yu’s translation of The Journey to the West,initially published in 1983, introduced English-speaking audiences to the classic Chinese novel in its entirety for the first time. Written in the sixteenth century, The Journey to the West tells the story of the fourteen-year pilgrimage of the monk Xuanzang, one of China’s most famous religious heroes, and his three supernatural disciples, in search of Buddhist scriptures. Throughout his journey, Xuanzang fights demons who wish to eat him, communes with spirits, and traverses a land riddled with a multitude of obstacles, both real and fantastical. An adventure rich with danger and excitement, this seminal work of the Chinese literary canonis by turns allegory, satire, and fantasy.

With over a hundred chapters written in both prose and poetry, The Journey to the West has always been a complicated and difficult text to render in English while preserving the lyricism of its language and the content of its plot. But Yu has successfully taken on the task, and in this new edition he has made his translations even more accurate and accessible. The explanatory notes are updated and augmented, and Yu has added new material to his introduction, based on his original research as well as on the newest literary criticism and scholarship on Chinese religious traditions. He has also modernized the transliterations included in each volume, using the now-standard Hanyu Pinyin romanization system. Perhaps most important, Yu has made changes to the translation itself in order to make it as precise as possible. 

One of the great works of Chinese literature, The Journey to the West is not only invaluable to scholars of Eastern religion and literature, but, in Yu’s elegant rendering, also a delight for any reader.

 

[more]
cover of The Journey to the West, Revised Edition, Volume 4

The Journey to the West, Revised Edition, Volume 4

Translated and Edited by Anthony C. Yu

University of Chicago Press, 2012

Read the legendary Chinese classic that inspired the hit game Black Myth: Wukong!

Anthony C. Yu’s translation of The Journey to the West,initially published in 1983, introduced English-speaking audiences to the classic Chinese novel in its entirety for the first time. Written in the sixteenth century, The Journey to the West tells the story of the fourteen-year pilgrimage of the monk Xuanzang, one of China’s most famous religious heroes, and his three supernatural disciples, in search of Buddhist scriptures. Throughout his journey, Xuanzang fights demons who wish to eat him, communes with spirits, and traverses a land riddled with a multitude of obstacles, both real and fantastical. An adventure rich with danger and excitement, this seminal work of the Chinese literary canonis by turns allegory, satire, and fantasy.

With over a hundred chapters written in both prose and poetry, The Journey to the West has always been a complicated and difficult text to render in English while preserving the lyricism of its language and the content of its plot. But Yu has successfully taken on the task, and in this new edition he has made his translations even more accurate and accessible. The explanatory notes are updated and augmented, and Yu has added new material to his introduction, based on his original research as well as on the newest literary criticism and scholarship on Chinese religious traditions. He has also modernized the transliterations included in each volume, using the now-standard Hanyu Pinyin romanization system. Perhaps most important, Yu has made changes to the translation itself in order to make it as precise as possible.

One of the great works of Chinese literature, The Journey to the West is not only invaluable to scholars of Eastern religion and literature, but, in Yu’s elegant rendering, also a delight for any reader.

 

[more]
cover of The Journey: Stories by K. C. Das

The Journey

Stories by K. C. Das

Phyllis Granoff, Translator

University of Michigan Press, 2000

K. C. Das is deservedly one of the most celebrated writers in India today. He writes primarily in Oriya, the language of his native state of Orissa, where he was born in 1924. A civil servant by profession, Das pursued a second career as a writer of stories, poems, and essays.
The stories in this collection take place in an urban setting. The characters are mainly middle class, making them more accessible to North American readers than other examples of contemporary Indian fiction. These are not simple stories. They are about “divides,” about gaps between realities and imagination. In complex shifts between direct dialogue, interior monologue, and interior or imagined dialogue, Das lovingly but mercilessly exposes his characters' thoughts, self-deceptions, and the games they play with each other. These are stories about human weaknesses, the fallibility of human relationships, and the strategies we adopt to cope with our failures. They are about coming to terms with unpleasant, sometimes shocking truths about ourselves and others.
[more]
cover of The Man Behind the Mask: Journey of an Orthopaedic Surgeon

The Man Behind the Mask

Journey of an Orthopaedic Surgeon

Thomas H. Mallory, MD

University of Missouri Press, 2007

  The perils of aging are many, but the debilitating effects of serious illness loom large. In this stirring memoir, readers will discover a man who improved the lives of many arthritis sufferers before himself succumbing to a cruel debilitating disease. The Man behind the Mask tells the story of Thomas Mallory, who was inspired to become a doctor after undergoing surgery for a high school football injury. He went on to become a renowned surgeon and a pioneer in joint replacement. In 2002, his successful career came to an abrupt halt when he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

            Mallory was one of the first surgeons in the United States to see the potential for joint replacement technology, and in this memoir he describes not only the nuances of introducing hip replacement surgery but also the systems that he established to make it a highly successful operation. He tells how he overcame initial resistance to the procedure and became a respected teacher of the technology, training many surgeons who went on to successful careers, lecturing about his procedure around the world, and also seeing VIP patients who journeyed to Ohio just to be operated on by him.

            As a pioneer in this type of operation, Mallory first recognized the value of using prosthetic innovation and development. He became a proponent of modularity in joint replacement surgery, which allowed a surgeon to customize a prosthesis to a patient’s joint in the operating room. His innovations, along with those of Dr. William Head, resulted in the introduction in 1983 of the Mallory-Head Hip System—a technology still in use today and one that has offered relief to thousands of patients.

            Tracing the joys and sorrows of his own career, Mallory dispels the myth that surgeons are emotionally invulnerable and cold. He offers his perspective on the pursuit of medicine as a profession, on the doctor-patient relationship, and on litigious challenges to physicians. He also commends the benefits of family and leisure and the blessing of life in general while offering insight into the management of an incurable disease.

            In our skeptical era, Thomas Mallory is a shining example of a prominent scientist who has maintained his faith in God throughout the highs and lows of life. The Man behind the Mask is an inspiring account for fellow professionals and general readers, as well as for those who have benefited from the procedures he introduced.

[more]
cover of The Monkey and the Monk: An Abridgment of The Journey to the West

The Monkey and the Monk

An Abridgment of The Journey to the West

Translated by Anthony C. Yu

University of Chicago Press, 2006

A compact abridgment of the legendary Chinese classic that inspired the hit game Black Myth: Wukong!

Anthony C. Yu’s celebrated translation of The Journey to the West reinvigorated one of Chinese literature’s most beloved classics for English-speaking audiences when it first appeared thirty years ago. Yu’s abridgment of his four-volume translation, The Monkey and the Monk, finally distills the epic novel’s most exciting and meaningful episodes without taking anything away from their true spirit. 

These fantastic episodes recount the adventures of Xuanzang, a seventh-century monk who became one of China’s most illustrious religious heroes after traveling for sixteen years in search of Buddhist scriptures. Powerfully combining religious allegory with humor, fantasy, and satire, accounts of Xuanzang’s journey were passed down for a millennium before culminating in the sixteenth century with The Journey to the West. Now, readers of The Monkey and the Monk can experience the full force of his lengthy quest as he travels to India with four animal disciples, most significant among them a guardian-monkey known as “the Great Sage, Equal to Heaven.” Moreover, in its newly streamlined form, this acclaimed translation of a seminal work of world literature is sure to attract an entirely new following of students and fans. 

“A new translation of a major literary text which totally supersedes the best existing version. . . . It establishes beyond contention the position of The Journey to the West in world literature, while at the same time throwing open wide the doors to interpretive study on the part of the English audience.”—Modern Language Notes, on the unabridged translation

[more]
cover of The Pecan Orchard: Journey of a Sharecropper's Daughter

The Pecan Orchard

Journey of a Sharecropper's Daughter

Peggy Vonsherie Allen

University of Alabama Press, 2011

The true story of the struggle, survival, and ultimate success of a large black family in south Alabama who, in the middle decades of the 20th century, lifted themselves out of poverty to achieve the American dream of property ownership

This is a true story of the struggle, survival, and ultimate success of a large black family in south Alabama who, in the middle decades of the 20th century, lifted themselves out of poverty to achieve the American dream of property ownership. Descended from slaves and sharecroppers in the Black Belt region, this family of hard-working parents and their thirteen children is mentored by its matriarch, Moa, the author’s beloved great grandmother, who passes on to the family, along with other cultural wealth, her recipe for moonshine.

Without rancor or blame, and even with occasional humor, The Pecan Orchard offers a window into the inequities between blacks and whites in a small southern town still emerging from Jim Crow attitudes.

Told in clean, straightforward prose, the story radiates the suffocating midday heat of summertime cotton fields and the biting winter wind sifting through porous shanty walls. It conveys the implicit shame in “Colored Only” restrooms, drinking fountains, and eating areas; the beaming satisfaction of a job well done recognized by others; the “yessum” manners required of southern society; and the joyful moments, shared memories, and loving bonds that sustain—and even raise—a proud family.
[more]
cover of The Ruins of Ani: A Journey to Armenia's Medieval Capital and its Legacy

The Ruins of Ani

A Journey to Armenia's Medieval Capital and its Legacy

Krikor Balakian

Rutgers University Press, 2019

Winner of the 2019 Dr. Sona Aronian Book Prize for Excellence in Armenian Studies (NAASR)

From the tenth to the thirteenth centuries, the city of Ani was the jewel of the Armenian kingdom, renowned far and wide for its magnificent buildings. Known as the city of 1001 churches, Ani was a center for artistic innovation, and its architecture is a potential missing link between Byzantine and Gothic styles. By the fifteenth century, Ani was virtually abandoned, its stunning buildings left to crumble. Yet its ruins have remained a symbol of cultural accomplishment that looms large in the Armenian imagination.
 
The Ruins of Ani is a unique combination of history, art criticism, and travel memoir that takes readers on a thousand-year journey in search of past splendors. Today, Ani is a popular tourist site in Turkey, but the city has been falsified in its presentation by the Turkish government in order to erase Armenian history in the wake of the Armenian Genocide. This timely publication also raises questions about the preservation of major historic monuments in the face of post atrocity campaigns of cultural erasure.
 
Originally written by young priest Krikor Balakian in 1910, just a few years before the Armenian genocide, this book offers a powerful and poignant counterpart to Balakian’s acclaimed genocide memoir Armenian Golgotha. This new translation by the author’s great-nephew, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Peter Balakian, eloquently renders the book’s vivid descriptions and lyrical prose into English. Including a new introduction that explores Ani’s continued relevance in the twenty-first century, The Ruins of Ani will give readers a new appreciation for this lost city’s status as a pinnacle of both Armenian civilization and human achievement.  
[more]
cover of The Torah/Law Is a Journey: Using Cognitive and Culturally Oriented Linguistics to Interpret and Translate Metaphors in the Hebrew Bible

The Torah/Law Is a Journey

Using Cognitive and Culturally Oriented Linguistics to Interpret and Translate Metaphors in the Hebrew Bible

Ivana Procházková

Karolinum Press, 2022

An analysis of metaphor in the legal texts of the Old Testament using the tools of cognitive and cultural linguistics.
 
The Old Testament is rich in metaphor. Metaphorical expressions appear not only in places where you might expect them, like the poetic verses, but also in the legal texts. They appear in the preambles to collections of laws, in their final summaries, in general considerations on compliance with and violation of the law, in texts concerning the meaning of the law, and those dealing with topics now reserved for legal theory and legal philosophy. These metaphorical expressions reveal how the authors of the relevant Torah/Law texts understood their function in society and what the society of the time preferred in the law.
​
Anchored in cognitive and cultural linguistics, The Torah/Law Is a Journey investigates Hebrew metaphorical expressions concerning the key Old Testament concept of Torah/Law. Ivana Procházková identifies Hebrew conceptual metaphors and explicates the metaphorical expressions. She also uses cognitive linguistic analysis to look at modern translations of selected metaphorical expressions into Czech and English. Procházková closes with an analysis of the metaphors used in the Council of Europe publication Compass: Manual for Human Rights Education with Young People to conceptualize human rights.
[more]
cover of This Is Life: A Journey from Inside Your Body to Beyond Earth

This Is Life

A Journey from Inside Your Body to Beyond Earth

Christophe Galfard

University of Chicago Press, 2026

Christophe Galfard, acclaimed author of the international bestseller The Universe in Your Hand, takes readers on an extraordinary journey across time and space—from the origins of Earth’s life to the search for extraterrestrials.

What is life? In this majestic book, Christophe Galfard, celebrated author and former graduate student of Stephen Hawking, takes us on a wonder-filled voyage to answer this question. He guides us from our planet’s birth and the mysterious bacteria that lived billions of years ago, through the extreme evolutionary turns that saw dog-sized sea scorpions and trees covered in scales, to the visionary discoveries of the past two centuries that have allowed us to understand human bodies and imagine alien ones.

With Galfard as our guide, readers go back in time to Earth’s origins, swim inside our bloodstream, and sail in space beyond the safety of our terrestrial haven. We experience the birth of Earth, the demise of the dinosaurs, and the possible creation of life in outer space. This Is Life offers a glimpse of other worlds detected only in recent years, beyond the Solar System, where life could be thriving. The end of the book’s journey signals new beginnings, and we are left with the overwhelming sense that, as members of a long line of living creatures, we belong to a reality far greater and more complex than we ever imagined.

Through brilliant storytelling and delightful humor, Galfard connects the latest scientific discoveries and makes the secrets of the living world accessible to all. This Is Life will transform the way you see the world and your place in it.

[more]
cover of This Is Life: A Journey from Inside Your Body to Beyond Earth

This Is Life

A Journey from Inside Your Body to Beyond Earth

Christophe Galfard

University of Chicago Press, 2026

Christophe Galfard, acclaimed author of the international bestseller The Universe in Your Hand, takes readers on an extraordinary journey across time and space—from the origins of Earth’s life to the search for extraterrestrials.

What is life? In this majestic book, Christophe Galfard, celebrated author and former graduate student of Stephen Hawking, takes us on a wonder-filled voyage to answer this question. He guides us from our planet’s birth and the mysterious bacteria that lived billions of years ago, through the extreme evolutionary turns that saw dog-sized sea scorpions and trees covered in scales, to the visionary discoveries of the past two centuries that have allowed us to understand human bodies and imagine alien ones.

With Galfard as our guide, readers go back in time to Earth’s origins, swim inside our bloodstream, and sail in space beyond the safety of our terrestrial haven. We experience the birth of Earth, the demise of the dinosaurs, and the possible creation of life in outer space. This Is Life offers a glimpse of other worlds detected only in recent years, beyond the Solar System, where life could be thriving. The end of the book’s journey signals new beginnings, and we are left with the overwhelming sense that, as members of a long line of living creatures, we belong to a reality far greater and more complex than we ever imagined.

Through brilliant storytelling and delightful humor, Galfard connects the latest scientific discoveries and makes the secrets of the living world accessible to all. This Is Life will transform the way you see the world and your place in it.

[more]
cover of Thomas Hauser on Sports: Remembering the Journey

Thomas Hauser on Sports

Remembering the Journey

Thomas Hauser

University of Arkansas Press, 2013

Thomas Hauser is best known as Muhammad Ali's biographer and for his recording of the contemporary boxing scene. Booklist called Hauser "the most respected boxing journalist working today and perhaps the best ever." Robert Lipsyte said Hauser is "the best boxing writer of our time." Still, Hauser's love of sports began not with boxing but with baseball. Long before he turned to the sweet science, America's national pastime had captured his heart. His childhood allegiance was to the New York Yankees. Growing up in the suburbs of New York, he cheered for the Giants in football and Knicks in basketball. In college, the often-hapless Columbia Lions became his cause. Thomas Hauser on Sports brings together Hauser's articles on sports other than boxing. It combines personal memories with issue-oriented commentary and an intimate look at some of the most remarkable athletes of modern times. Hauser has dealt one-on-one with Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, Arnold Palmer, Pete Rose, Arthur Ashe, Wilt Chamberlain, and other giants of sports. He has crossed swords with the likes of Marvin Miller and Howard Cosell. Thomas Hauser on Sports is a remarkable journey that begins in the days of Hauser's youth and follows the games we play into the era of steroids and multi-billion-dollar television contracts.
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