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Getting old sucks, says best-selling author Dr. Lillian Rubin. With refreshing candor, she digs down under the statistics about our graying population and offers a provocative and unflinching examination of all the burning issues that mark aging today. Tackling the subject over a broad swath of the population, cutting across race, class, gender, and physical and cognitive ability, Rubin delivers a powerful and long-overdue reminder that everyone will be touched by the problems arising from our new longevity.

Earl Grollman's Living When a Loved One Has Died has brought comfort to more than 250,000 readers. In Living with Loss, Healing with Hope, Grollman speaks directly to mourners of the Jewish faith. By weaving quotations from Jewish writers and philosophers into his comforting and expert prose, Grollman guides readers through the journey of mourning, healing, and hope.A colleague of Grollman's once told him, "e;Earl, I am not a member of your faith, but if I wanted the soundest emotional and spiritual approach to death, I would be a Jew."e; Occasionally quoting from sacred texts as well as Jewish writers and philosophers, Living with Loss, Healing with Hope illuminates Judaism's powerful recognition of the trauma of grief and of the mourner's responsibility eventually to return to the rhythm of life. In a brief final section, the author guides readers through Jewish funeral observances, Shiva, and beyond, and reminds all that these symbolic customs are 'about change-remembrance, letting go, and moving on.'

Near the end of a long season, fourteen-year-old baseball pitcher Ben Hyman approached his father with disappointing, if not surprising, news: his pitching shoulder was tired. With each throw to home plate, he felt a twinge in his still maturing arm. Any doctor would have advised the young boy to take off the rest of the season. Author Mark Hyman sent his son out to pitch the next game. After all, it was play-off time. Stories like these are not uncommon. Over the last seventy-five years, adults have staged a hostile takeover of kids' sports. In 2003 alone, more than 3.5 million children under age fifteen required medical treatment for sports injuries, nearly half of which were the result of simple overuse. The quest to turn children into tomorrow's superstar athletes has often led adults to push them beyond physical and emotional limits.In Until It Hurts, journalist, coach, and sports dad Mark Hyman explores how youth sports reached this problematic state. His investigation takes him from the Little League World Series in Pennsylvania to a prestigious Chicago soccer club, from adolescent golf and tennis superstars in Atlanta to California volleyball players. He interviews dozens of children, parents, coaches, psychologists, surgeons, sports medicine specialists, and former professional athletes. He speaks at length with Whitney Phelps, Michael's older sister; retraces the story of A Very Young Gymnast, and its subject, Torrance York; and tells the saga of the Castle High School girls' basketball team of Evansville, Indiana, which in 2005 lost three-fifths of its lineup to ACL injuries. Along the way, Hyman hears numerous stories: about a mother who left her fifteen-year-old daughter at an interstate exit after a heated exchange over her performance during a soccer game, about a coach who ordered preteens to swim laps in three-hour shifts for twenty-four hours.Hyman's exploration leads him to examine the history of youth sports in our country and how it's evolved, particularly with the increasing involvement of girls and much more proactive participation of parents. With its unique multiple perspective-of history, of reporting, and of personal experience-this book delves deep into the complicated issue of sports for children, and opens up a much-needed discussion about the perils of youth sports culture today. Hyman focuses not only on the unfortunate cases of overzealous parents and overly ambitious kids, but also on how positive change can be made, and concludes by shining a spotlight on some inspirational parents and model sports programs, giving hope that the current destructive cycle can be broken.

Developing a concept briefly introduced in Counterrevolution and Revolt, Marcuse here addresses the shortcomings of Marxist aesthetic theory and explores a dialectical aesthetic in which art functions as the conscience of society. Marcuse argues that art is the only form or expression that can take up where religion and philosophy fail and contends that aesthetics offers the last refuge for two-dimensional criticism in a one-dimensional society.

The bone gatherers found in the annals and legends of the early Roman Catholic Church were women who collected the bodies of martyred saints to give them a proper burial. They have come down to us as deeply resonant symbols of grief: from the women who anointed Jesus's crucified body in the gospels to the Pietà, we are accustomed to thinking of women as natural mourners, caring for the body in all its fragility and expressing our deepest sorrow. But to think of women bone gatherers merely as mourners of the dead is to limit their capacity to stand for something more significant. In fact, Denzey argues that the bone gatherers are the mythic counterparts of historical women of substance and means-women who, like their pagan sisters, devoted their lives and financial resources to the things that mattered most to them: their families, their marriages, and their religion. We find their sometimes splendid burial chambers in the catacombs of Rome, but until Denzey began her research for The Bone Gatherers, the monuments left to memorialize these women and their contributions to the Church went largely unexamined. The Bone Gatherers introduces us to once-powerful women who had, until recently, been lost to history—from the sorrowing mothers and ghastly brides of pagan Rome to the child martyrs and women sponsors who shaped early Christianity. It was often only in death that ancient women became visible—through the buildings, burial sites, and art constructed in their memory—and Denzey uses this archaeological evidence, along with ancient texts, to resurrect the lives of several fourth-century women. Surprisingly, she finds that representations of aristocratic Roman Christian women show a shift in the value and significance of womanhood over the fourth century: once esteemed as powerful leaders or patrons, women came to be revered (in an increasingly male-dominated church) only as virgins or martyrs—figureheads for sexual purity. These depictions belie a power struggle between the sexes within early Christianity, waged via the Church's creation and manipulation of collective memory and subtly shifting perceptions of women and femaleness in the process of Christianization. The Bone Gatherers is at once a primer on how to "read" ancient art and the story of a struggle that has had long-lasting implications for the role of women in the Church.

Where do our prejudices come from? Why are some people more biased than others? Is it possible for individuals, and society as a whole, to truly defeat prejudice? In these pages, leading scientists, psychologists, educators, activists, and many others offer answers, drawing from new scientific discoveries that shed light on why and how our brains form prejudices, how racism hurts our health, steps we can take to mitigate prejudiced instincts, and what a post-prejudice society might actually look like. Bringing a diverse range of disciplines into conversation for the first time, Are We Born Racist? offers a straightforward overview of the new science of prejudice, and showcases the abundant practical, research-based steps that can be taken in all areas of our lives to overcome prejudice.

Twenty years after the end of apartheid, a new generation is building a multiracial democracy in South Africa but remains mired in economic inequality and political conflict. The death of Nelson Mandela in 2013 arrived just short of the twentieth anniversary of South Africa's first free election, reminding the world of the promise he represented as the nation's first Black president. Despite significant progress since the early days of this new democracy, frustration is growing as inequalities that once divided the races now grow within them as well. InAfter Freedom, award-winning sociologist Katherine S. Newman and South African expert Ariane De Lannoy bring alive the voices of the ';freedom generation,' who came of age after the end of apartheid. Through the stories of seven ordinary individuals who will inherit the richest, and yet most unequal, country in Africa, Newman and De Lannoy explore how young South Africans, whether Black, White, mixed race, or immigrant, confront the lingering consequences of racial oppression. These intimate portraits illuminate the erosion of old loyalties, the eruption of class divides, and the heated debate over policies designed to redress the evils of apartheid. Even so, the freedom generation remains committed to a united South Africa and is struggling to find its way toward that vision.

On September 24, 2009, Forrest Church succumbed to a three-year battle against esophageal cancer. As his final gift, the beloved minister and acclaimed author wrote one last book, leaving behind a clear statement of his universalist theology and liberal faith.The Cathedral of the Worlddraws from the entire span of Church's life's work, recasting public addresses and adapted book chapters, articles, and several previously unpublished pieces into a single argument. Giving new voice to the power of liberal religion, Church invites all seekers to enter the Cathedral of the World, home to many windows but only one Light.

Jeanine Cornillot was just two years old when her father, a former Cuban revolutionary turned anti-Castro militant, was sentenced to thirty years in a Florida prison for political bombings. His absence left a single mother to raise four children who kept his incarceration a secret and conjured a mythic father-hero out of his occasional letters. Jeanine's Irish American mother struggled to support the family in suburban Philadelphia. Summers, she put Jeanine on a plane to Little Havana, where she lived with her Spanish-speaking grandparents and bilingual cousin-a sometimes unreliable translator. It was there in Florida that she met her father face to face, in the prison yards. As Cornillot travels between these two worlds, a wryly funny and unsentimental narrator emerges. Whether meeting her father for the first time at age six and hoping she looks Cuban enough, imagining herself a girl-revolutionary leading protest marches, dreamily planning her father's homecoming after his prison break, or writing to demand an end to his forty-four-day hunger strike after he's recaptured, young Jeanine maintains a hopeful pragmatism that belies her age. Eventually, a child's mythology is replaced with an adult's reality in a final reckoning with her father, remarkable for the unsparing honesty on both sides.

The Boston Arts Academy comprises an ethnically and socioeconomically diverse student body, yet 94 percent of its graduates are accepted to college. Compare this with the average urban district rate of 50 percent. How do they do it? This remarkable success, writes Principal Linda Nathan, is in large part due to asking the right questions-questions all schools can consider, such as:* How and why does a school develop a shared vision of what it stands for?* What makes a great teacher, and how can a principal help good teachers improve?* Why must schools talk openly about race and achievement, and what happens when they do?With engaging honesty, Nathan gives readers a ring-side seat as faculty, parents, and the students themselves grapple with these questions, attempt to implement solutions, and evaluate the outcomes. Stories that are inspirational as well as heartbreaking reveal the missteps and failures-as well as the successes.Nathan doesn't claim to have all the answers, but seeks to share her insights on schools that matter, teachers who inspire, and students who achieve.

In 2001, with funding from the MacArthur Foundation, sociologists Patrick J. Carr and Maria J. Kefalas moved to Iowa to understand the rural brain drain and the exodus of young people from America's countryside. They met and followed working-class ';stayers'; ambitious and college-bound ';achievers'; ';seekers,' who head off to war to see what the world beyond offers; and ';returners,' who eventually circle back to their hometowns. What surprised them most was that adults in the community were playing a pivotal part in the town's decline by pushing the best and brightest young people to leave.In a timely, new afterword, Carr and Kefalas address the question ';so what can be done to save our communities?' They profile the efforts of dedicated community leaders actively resisting the hollowing out of Middle America. These individuals have creatively engaged small town youthstayers and returners, seekers and achieversand have implemented a variety of programs to combat the rural brain drain. These stories of civic engagement will certainly inspire and encourage readers struggling to defend their communities.

Signed into law in 2002, the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) promised to revolutionize American public education. Originally supported by a bipartisan coalition, it purports to improve public schools by enforcing a system of standards and accountability through high-stakes testing. Many people supported it originally, despite doubts, because of its promise especially to improve the way schools serve poor children. By making federal funding contingent on accepting a system of tests and sanctions, it is radically affecting the life of schools around the country.But, argue the authors of this citizen's guide to the most important political issue in education, far from improving public schools and increasing the ability of the system to serve poor and minority children, the law is doing exactly the opposite. Here some of our most prominent, respected voices in education-including school innovator Deborah Meier, education activist Alfie Kohn, and founder of the Coalition of Essential Schools Theodore R. Sizer-come together to show us how, point by point, NCLB undermines the things it claims to improve:* How NCLB punishes rather than helps poor and minority kids and their schools * How NCLB helps further an agenda of privatization and an attack on public schools * How the focus on testing and test preparation dumbs down classrooms * And they put forward a richly articulated vision of alternatives.Educators and parents around the country are feeling the harshly counterproductive effects of NCLB. This book is an essential guide to understanding what's wrong and where we should go from here.

Building on the eye-opening investigation into the damaging effects of the ultra-competitive culture of youth sports in his previous book, Until It Hurts, Mark Hyman's new book looks at the business of youth sports, how it has changed, and how it is affecting young Americans. Examining the youth sports economy from many sides--the major corporations, small entrepreneurs, coaches, parents, and, of course, kids--Hyman probes the reasons for rapid changes in what gets bought and sold in this lucrative marketplace. Just participating in youth sports can be expensive. Among the costs are league fees, equipment, and perhaps private lessons with a professional coach. With nearly 50 million kids playing organized sports each year, it is easy to see how profitable this market can be. Hyman takes us to tournaments sponsored by Nike, Gatorade, and other big businesses, and he talks to parents who sacrifice their vacations and savings to get their (sometimes reluctant) junior stars to these far-off, expensive venues for a chance to shine. He introduces us to videos purporting to teach six-month-old babies to kick a ball, to professional athletes who will "e;coach"e; an eight-year-old for a hefty fee, to a town that has literally staked its future on preteen sports. With its extensive interviews and original reporting, The Most Expensive Game in Town explains the causes and effects of the commercialization of youth sports, changes that the author argues are distorting and diminishing family life. He closes with strong examples of individuals and communities bucking this destructive trend.

Dr. King’s best-selling account of the civil rights movement in Birmingham during the spring and summer of 1963  On April 16, 1963, as the violent events of the Birmingham campaign unfolded in the city’s streets, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., composed a letter from his prison cell in response to local religious leaders’ criticism of the campaign. The resulting piece of extraordinary protest writing, “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” was widely circulated and published in numerous periodicals. After the conclusion of the campaign and the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, King further developed the ideas introduced in the letter in Why We Can’t Wait, which tells the story of African American activism in the spring and summer of 1963. During this time, Birmingham, Alabama, was perhaps the most racially segregated city in the United States, but the campaign launched by King, Fred Shuttlesworth, and others demonstrated to the world the power of nonviolent direct action.   Often applauded as King’s most incisive and eloquent book, Why We Can’t Wait recounts the Birmingham campaign in vivid detail, while underscoring why 1963 was such a crucial year for the civil rights movement. Disappointed by the slow pace of school desegregation and civil rights legislation, King observed that by 1963—during which the country celebrated the one-hundredth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation—Asia and Africa were “moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence but we still creep at a horse-and-buggy pace.”   King examines the history of the civil rights struggle, noting tasks that future generations must accomplish to bring about full equality, and asserts that African Americans have already waited over three centuries for civil rights and that it is time to be proactive: “For years now, I have heard the word ‘Wait!’ It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’ We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that ‘justice too long delayed is justice denied.’”

Cabin Fevermight be described as a modernWalden, if you can imagine Thoreau married, with a job, three kids, and a minivan. A seasonal memoir written alternately from a little cabin in the Michigan woods and a house in suburban Chicago, the book engages readers in a serious yet irreverent conversation about Thoreau's relevance in the modern age.The author turns Thoreau's immortal statement "e;I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately"e; on its head with the phrase "e;I got married and had children because I wished to live deliberately."e; Though Fate spends half his time at the cabin, this is no world-renouncing, back-to-nature paean. Unlike Thoreau during his Walden years, he balances his solitude with full engagement in family and civic life.Fate's writing reflects this balancing of nature and family in stories such as "e;The Confused Cardinal,"e; in which a male cardinal feeds chicks of another species and leads to a reflection on parenting; "e;In the Time of Cicadas,"e; which juxtaposes his wife's hysterectomy with the burgeoning fecundity of the seventeen-year cicadas coming out to mate; and in a beautiful essay reminiscent of E. B. White's "e;Once More to the Lake,"e; in which Fate takes his son to the same cabin his father took him as a child.In his exploration of how we are to live "e;a more deliberate life"e; amid a high-tech, materialist culture, Fate invites readers into an interrogation of their own lives, and into a new kind of vision: the possibility of enough in a culture of more.