B.R.A.G. Medallion Honoree and National Indie Excellence Award Winner Naomi sees her first corpse in a Colorado Springs grocery store, but it won’t be her last. With devastating speed, a plague sweeps first the city, then the state, then the world, leaving less than 1% of the population to go on. Naomi, a gentle and sheltered housewife, finds herself fighting for survival in a world populated by desperate people, where might-makes-right, and mercy and compassion are in short supply. Fellow survivors Jack, a youth minister from Woodland Park; Grace, a 17-year-old high school student from Limon; and Naomi’s daughter Piper, a student at the University of Northern Colorado, all find themselves searching for a safe path forward…because it’s not just the world that has changed. The plague that decimates the human race also pushes mankind into evolutionary change. Those who survive are different, profoundly so, in ways they are just beginning to comprehend. As Naomi struggles to protect and reunite what’s left of her family, she must also learn to understand and accept the changes in herself. In this strange new world, her survival, and the survival of those she loves, depends on it.

NEW AGE (FORMERLY OCCULT)

Unlock the secrets of survival with this riveting expedition into the science of disaster—now revised and updated to address the pandemic, the role of social media in disaster response, and more—from the New York Times bestselling author of The Smartest Kids in the World “The thinking person’s manual for getting out alive.”—NPR’s “Book Tour” “A must read . . . We need books like this to help us understand the world in which we live.”—Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan and Fooled by Randomness Disaster can come in many forms, from earthquakes and wildfires to pandemics and acts of terror. Afterward, when the dust settles and the survivors emerge, we can’t help but wonder: Why did they live when so many others perished? In The Unthinkable, prize-winning journalist Amanda Ripley, who has covered some of the most devastating disasters of our age, sets out to find the answers. To understand the human reaction to chaos and imminent danger, she turns to leading brain scientists, trauma psychologists, and other disaster experts—from a Holocaust survivor who studies heroism to a master gunfighter who learned to overcome extreme fear. Along the way, we learn about the perils of crowd psychology, the elegance of the brain’s fear circuits, how leaders can build trust quickly, and other invisible factors that can make the difference between death and survival. A fascinating combination of neuroscience, firsthand accounts, and thrilling investigative journalism, this book is for anyone who has ever wondered how they would respond in a life-and-death situation—or wanted to increase their odds of survival. This new edition updates all the original research and features timely material on enormous, slow-moving disasters such as pandemics and climate catastrophes. Most important, it reveals the brain’s ability to do much better—with a little help.

Adalet Ulusoy is recovering from severe burns to her legs, the death of her parents, and the loss of her unborn child, all resulting from a massive earthquake on the Black Sea Coast of Turkey. When her husband deserts her for another woman, his wealthy family sends her to live in a vacant home they own in the pottery village of Avanos. In Avanos, Adalet meets the formidable blind and elderly Fatma. Fatma is the grandmother of a teenage budding artist, Meryem. Adalet discovers Meryem's talent through Meryem's mischievous behavior. Adalet convinces Fatma that art school will be much better for Meryem than an arranged marriage. With Fatma's help, and against the backdrop of a changing and developing Turkey, Adalet and Meryem move to Istanbul so that Meryem can study art. There they meet an American art professor from New York City. Through love, mentorship and the horrifying events of September 11th, their lives are forever changed.

Howard P. Greenwald takes an incisive look at how class, race, sex, psychological state, type of health care, and available treatments affect one’s chance of surviving cancer. Drawing on a ten-year survival study of cancer patients, he synthesizes medical, epidemiological, and psychosocial research in a uniquely interdisciplinary and eye-opening approach to the question of who survives cancer and why. Scientists, health care professionals, philanthropists, government agencies, and the public all agree that significant resources must be allocated to fight this dreaded disease. But what is the most effective way to do it? Greenwald argues that our priorities have been misplaced and calls for a fundamental rethinking of the way the American medical establishment deals with cancer. He asserts that prevention and experimental therapy have only limited value, whereas the availability of conventional medical care has a greater influence on cancer survival. Class and race become strikingly significant in predicting who has access to health care and thus can obtain medical treatment in a timely, effective manner. Greenwald counters the popular notion that personality and psychological factors strongly affect survival, and he underscores the importance of early detection. His research shows that health maintenance organizations, while sometimes prone to delays, offer low-income patients a better chance of ultimate survival. Greenwald pleads for immediate attention to the inadequacies and inequalities in our health care delivery system that deter patients from seeking early medical care. Instead of focusing on research and the hope for a breakthrough cure, Greenwald urges renewed emphasis on ensuring available health care to all Americans. In its challenge to the thrust of much biomedical research and its critique of contemporary American health care, as well as in its fresh and often counterintuitive look at cancer survival, Who Survives Cancer? is invaluable for policymakers, health care professionals, and anyone who has survived or been touched by cancer. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1992.

The man who accomplished one of the most remarkable feats of survival in history finally tells the story of the event that made worldwide news. This inspiring story shows what sheer determination can achieve against impossible odds. When Peter DeLeo set out one Sunday morning on a sightseeing and photography trip over the central Sierra Nevada mountains in California, he had no idea that he would soon be fighting for his life with the odds stacked very much against him. DeLeo’s single-engine plane encountered turbulence, and he and his two passengers crashed in the mountains. All three survived the accident but sustained multiple injuries. DeLeo had broken ribs, a shattered ankle, and a badly damaged shoulder. After assessing their situation, they decided that the passengers should remain with the plane while DeLeo would hike out to bring back help. It was already winter; he left the limited emergency supplies with the plane’s passengers; and he was hampered by his injuries, but DeLeo was determined to get help. He found or improvised shelter at night, carefully warmed himself during the daytime, drank from small pools of melted snow and ice, and slowly but steadily made his way toward civilization. Suffering from exhaustion and on the verge of collapse, he found a hot spring that provided him with temporary warmth and insects to eat. Injuries, dehydration, malnutrition, and a two-day blizzard slowed him, and a rockslide nearly killed him just as he glimpsed the valley and highway that he so desperately sought, but DeLeo’s courage saw him through. Meanwhile, Civil Air Patrol planes searched fruitlessly for the lost plane and for survivors; twice, DeLeo frantically tried to signal the search planes, but to no avail. When DeLeo finally reached a highway, he found it almost impossible to convince the authorities that he was the lost pilot who had been all but given up for dead. His astonishing survival, one of the most remarkable feats of endurance on record, made national and even international news. Now, for the first time, Peter DeLeo tells his remarkable story in gripping detail. His amazing saga is destined to become a classic.

This volume presents a selection of Hubert Dreyfus's pioneering work in bringing phenomenology and existentialism to bear on the philosophical and scientific study of the mind. Each of the thirteen essays interprets, develops, and extends the insights of his predecessors working in the European philosophical tradition. One of Dreyfus' central contributions to reading the historical canon of philosophy comes from his recognition that great philosophers help us to understand the "background practices" of a culture - the practices that shape and embody our most basic understanding of ourselves and the things and situations we encounter in our world. Background practices are all too often overlooked completely, or else their importance is misunderstood. Each chapter in this volume shows in one way or another how a broad range of philosophical topics can only be properly understood when we recognize how they are grounded in the background practices that shape our lives and give meaning to our activities, our tasks, our normative commitments, our aims and our goals.