"In our always-on, productivity-addicted lifestyles, we tend to think of the pursuit of fun as being indulgent, even immature and childish. When we do find the time to relax or care for ourselves, we tend to turn to activities that are not actually restorative: binging Netflix, scrolling through Twitter, or indulging our FOMO on Instagram. Through years of research, journalist Catherine Price has learned the truth: far from being frivolous or a distraction,...

"A surgeon flees a scandal in the city and accepts a job at a village clinic. He buys antibiotics out of pocket, squashes roaches, and chafes at the interventions of the corrupt officer who oversees his work. But his outlook on life changes one night when a teacher, his pregnant wife, and their young son appear. Killed in a violent robbery, they tell the surgeon that they have been offered a second chance at living if the surgeon can mend their wounds...

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....

"In an era of cell phone addiction and ever-expanding cities, many of us fear we've lost our connection to nature--but Peter Wohlleben is convinced that age-old ties linking humans to the forest remain alive and intact. Whether we observe it or not, our blood pressure stabilizes near trees, the color green calms us, and the forest sharpens our senses. Drawing on new scientific discoveries, The Heartbeat of Trees reveals the profound interactions humans...

"Every day we make choices--about food and other purchases, financial investments, our children's health and education, even the causes we champion or the planet itself. Unfortunately, we often choose poorly. Using dozens of eye-opening examples and drawing on decades of behavioral science research, Nudge shows how sensible "choice architecture" can help us to overcome the biases that lead to bad decisions and nudge us toward the best decisions for...