Celebrate World Book Day with Five Duke Best Sellers
In honor of World Book Day, here is a sampling of five New York Times best sellers authored by Duke faculty. These books along with many others are available at the Duke University Libraries, the Gothic Bookshop or the Regulator Bookshop.
Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely
HarperCollins
What It's About: In the first of his six books, Dan Ariely refutes the common assumption that we behave in fundamentally rational ways. From drinking coffee to losing weight, from buying a car to choosing a romantic partner, we consistently overpay, underestimate and procrastinate. Yet these misguided behaviors are neither random nor senseless. They're systematic and predictable — making us predictably irrational.
Everything Happens for a Reason by Kate Bowler
Penguin Random House
What It's About: A divinity professor and young mother with a Stage IV cancer diagnosis explores the pain and joy of living without certainty. Kate Bowler pulls the reader deeply into her life in an account she populates affectionately with a colorful, often hilarious retinue of friends, mega-church preachers, relatives and doctors.
The Genius of Dogs by Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods
Penguin Random House
What It's About: Husband and wife team Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods lay out landmark discoveries from the Duke Canine Cognition Center and other research facilities around the world to reveal how your dog thinks and how we humans can have even deeper relationships with our best four-legged friends.
Black Man in a White Coat by Damon Tweedy
Macmillan Publishers
What It's About: Black Man in a White Coat examines the complex ways in which both black doctors and patients must navigate the difficult and often contradictory terrain of race and medicine. As author Damon Tweedy transforms from student to practicing physician, he discovers how often race influences his encounters with patients. Through their stories, he illustrates the complex social, cultural, and economic factors at the root of many health problems in the black community.
The Blood of Emmett Till by Timothy B. Tyson
Simon & Schuster
What It's About: In this New York Times bestseller, Timothy Tyson reexamines a pivotal event of the civil rights movement—the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till — “and demands that we do the one vital thing we aren’t often enough asked to do with history: learn from it” (The Atlantic).