[New Arrivals] Being Mortal

Dreamers and Deceivers:

True Stories of the Heroes and Villains Who Made America

AUTHOR: Glenn Beck

PUBLISHER: Threshold Editions

PRICE: $27

GENRE: Politics & Social Sciences

Everyone has heard of a “Ponzi scheme,” but do you know what Charles Ponzi actually did to make his name synonymous with fraud? Credit for inventing radio usually goes to Marconi or David Sarnoff and RCA - but if you’ve never heard of Edwin Armstrong or Lee de Forest, you know only half the story.

You’ve probably been to a Disney theme park, but did you know that the park Walt believed would change the world was actually EPCOT? He died before his vision for it could ever be realized. History is about so much more than dates and dead guys; it’s the greatest story ever told. Now, in this powerful follow-up to his national bestseller “Miracles and Massacres,” Glenn Beck brings ten more true and untold stories to life.

From the spy Alger Hiss, to the visionary Steve Jobs, to the code-breaker Alan Turing - once you know the full stories behind the half-truths you’ve been force fed your perspective on today’s important issues may forever change.

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Medicine and What Matters in the End

AUTHOR : Atul Gawande

PUBLISHER: Metropolitan Books

PRICE: $16

GENRE: Sociology

In “Being Mortal,” best-selling author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending

Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming birth, injury and infectious disease from harrowing to manageable. But in the inevitable condition of aging and death, the goals of medicine seem too frequently to run counter to the interest of the human spirit. Nursing homes, preoccupied with safety, pin patients into railed beds and wheelchairs. Hospitals isolate the dying, checking for vital signs long after the goals of cure have become moot. Doctors, committed to extending life, continue to carry out devastating procedures that in the end extend suffering.

Gawande, a practicing surgeon, addresses his profession’s ultimate limitation, arguing that quality of life is the desired goal for patients and families.