Archives de catégorie : Nonfiction

THE CONVENIENCE TRAP de Robert Carter III & Kirti Salwe Carter

What if the very things designed to make life easier are slowly making us weaker?

THE CONVENIENCE TRAP:
Why a Life of Ease is Costing Us Our Strength—and How to Get It Back
by Robert Carter III, PhD, MPH & Kirti Salwe Carter, MD, MPH
Diversion Books, Fall 2026
(via Kaplan/DeFiore Rights)

In an age where comfort is king and friction is engineered out of daily life, THE CONVENIENCE TRAP exposes the hidden cost of modern ease—and offers a bold roadmap for reclaiming resilience in a culture of soft living.

We can now summon groceries, skip lines, and avoid discomfort with a single tap. But in doing so, we’ve also stopped moving, stopped thinking deeply, and lost the habits that once made us strong. The result? A widespread decline in physical vitality, mental stamina, and social connection.

Drawing on decades of research and clinical experience, Drs. Robert and Kirti Carter explore how a convenience-obsessed world has undermined our health, adaptability, and sense of purpose. From dopamine-driven distraction to fragile supply chains and disintegrating community bonds, THE CONVENIENCE TRAP reveals how comfort has quietly become a design flaw—and why effort is the forgotten key to human flourishing.

At the heart of the book is the A.L.I.V.E. Framework: a five-part transformation model that closes each chapter, guiding readers to move from insight to action with sustainable, empowering steps toward a more vital, engaged life. Provocative and deeply practical, THE CONVENIENCE TRAP is a call to parents, educators, professionals, and future-builders to stop outsourcing effort—and start designing lives, bodies, and systems built to endure, evolve, and thrive.

Dr. Robert Carter III, is a nationally recognized scientist, bestselling author, and U.S. military officer with more than 25 years of experience in human performance and leadership. Dr. Kirti Salwe Carter is an integrative health expert who blends Eastern and Western traditions in her work on holistic wellness and stress resilience. Together, they are the authors of The Morning Mind: Use Your Brain to Master Your Day and Supercharge Your Life.

THE MIDDLE KINGDOM de Lyz Lenz

From the author of the New York Times-bestseller This American Ex-Wife, comes a new book by Lyz Lenz—a fierce, funny, and deeply reported love letter to the Midwest and a cri de coeur for collective care in our crisis-riddled country.

THE MIDDLE KINGDOM
by Lyz Lenz
Dey Street, Spring 2027
(via Neon Literary)

In the decade since Hillbilly Elegy tried to explain America through the lens of white, rural grievance, Lyz Lenz has been living—and writing—a more radical, generous truth from a few hundred miles to the northwest. A proud lowan and nationally recognized journalist, she now blends memoir, political analysis, and biting cultural critique in her signature style: Barbara Ehrenreich by way of Samantha Irby. Through floods, farm bankruptcies, Kum & Go parking lots, hot dish, and butter cows, THE MIDDLE KINGDOM shows how Midwestern communities are improvising survival—even joy— through mutual aid and stubborn care.

THE MIDDLE KINGDOM expands on themes that have made Lenz an essential voice in today’s political discourse: the failures of hyper-individualism, the radical politics of care, and the importance of taking « flyover country » seriously.

Lyz Lenz is a journalist and the author of God Land and Belabored. She has written for Insider, The New York Times, Marie Claire, and The Washington Post. Lenz also writes the newsletter « Men Yell at Me », about the intersection of politics and personhood in red-state America.

SLEEP ACROSS THE ANIMAL KINGDOM de Barrett Klein, Niels Rattenborg, and John Lesku

An incredibly exciting and totally enlightening book about the dazzling range of sleeping habits of animals – mammals, birds, fish and insects – and how this can inform us about the evolution and benefits of human sleep.

SLEEP ACROSS THE ANIMAL KINGDOM
by Barrett Klein, Ph.D., Niels Rattenborg, Ph.D. and John Lesku, Ph.D.
Harvard University Press, 2026
(via The Martell Agency)

Written with wit, clarity, total narrative accessibility, and a keen sense of scientific adventure by three experts in the field, this project represents the best of popular science writing that readers today crave, joining together two subjects that are endlessly fascinating and relevant: the mysteries of sleep and animal behaviors. Perfect for readers of Ed Yong.

The book will cover such topics as:

• What is sleep? (vs. hibernation, or other forms of immobility)

• The diversity of sleep (from birds and mammals to roundworms, jellyfish, and the possibility for sleep in plants or single-celled organisms)

• Sleeping in strange ways and places (the strange locations where animals sleep and the unusual postures they can adopt, including sleep in flight, or while vertically-suspended underwater

• When sacrificing sleep is worth it (new recognition of the remarkable ability of some animals to sleep little, and yet side-step, or possibly endure, the negative consequences commonly observed in sleep-restricted humans)

• The comforts and dangers of sleeping with others (animals that sleep with other animals, such as parasites and social sleeping insects)

• Who else dreams?

• Sleeping in a disturbed world (both for screen-loving humans and urban wildlife living with light pollution).

Barrett Anthony Klein is Professor, Biology Department, University of Wisconsin – La Crosse, conducting research about sleep, learning, and communication, primarily with insects, and teaching courses in Animal Behavior, Entomology, Scientific Visualization, General Biology, and Organismal Biology. He is one of the featured scientists for a documentary about sleep (aired in Germany and on David Suzuki’s Nature of Things in Canada, and soon to come to the USA), and served as consultant for COSMOS: Possible Worlds. He has appeared on Wisconsin Public Radio and Wisconsin Public Television. Starting in 2023, he will lead a year-long series of online workshops through Johns Hopkins University, free and open to the public, on visualizing science and participate in a five-year effort, funded by the National Science Foundation, to help find solutions to the biodiversity crisis.

Dr. Niels Rattenborg, the leading world expert on sleep in birds, heads the Avian Sleep research group at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Germany. Rattenborg mission is to gain insight into the evolution and functions of sleep through studying birds. He is particularly interested in understanding how birds reconcile the inherent need for sleep with ecological demands for wakefulness, such as avoiding predation, competing for mates, and flying non-stop for weeks at a time. Rattenborg’s research has been published in top scientific journals, including Nature and Science, and is regularly featured in the international press (interviews for web, print, radio, and TV), spanning 25 languages (see detailed lists below). This includes, The New York Times, National Geographic, Smithsonian, Scientific American, Discover Magazine, Popular Science, The Wall Street Journal, The Times (London), The Guardian, Audubon, Greenpeace Magazine, Huffington Post, The Atlantic, Time Magazine, and Business Week.

John Andrew Lesku is Associate Professor and Lab Head, Sleep Ecophysiology Group School of Agriculture, Biomedicine and Environment at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. His work has been featured in Science and Current Biology and BBC News, Discover Magazine, LiveScience, NBC News, New Scientist, Science and CBC Radio (interview on As It Happens)

THE RETURN OF THE OYSTERCATCHER de Scott Weidensaul

From the New York Times best-selling author of A World on the Wing, an exploration of the efforts led by scientists, conservationists, and Indigenous peoples to save birds around the world.

THE RETURN OF THE OYSTERCATCHER:
Saving Birds to Save the Planet
by Scott Weidensaul
W. W. Norton, April 2026
(via Sterling Lord Literistic)

As populations fall and once-great migration multitudes wither away, the future of birds may seem grim. But surprisingly, around the world, bird conservation is making things better. From the hyperlocal to the hemispherically immense, The Return of the Oystercatcher explores the recovery efforts that are not only preventing declines in bird populations but are helping them to thrive. Scott Weidensaul compiles amazing stories of hope and progress in some of the most unlikely places—from the resurgence of ducks in North America to the return of ospreys nesting in Southern Britain—to provide a road map of breathtaking environmental resilience. Because birds are so diverse, so ubiquitous, and cover virtually every square mile of the Earth’s surface, Weidensaul argues that by saving the birds we can also save the world. The result is an inspiring story of what’s working in bird conservation, recovery, and reintroduction, and what can work for the rest of the planet.

“Scott Weidensaul ranks among an elite group of writer-naturalists—Bruce Chatwin, John McPhee and David Quammen come to mind—whose straightforward eloquence elevates ecology to the level of philosophy.” —The Los Angeles Times Book Review

Scott Weidensaul is a Pennsylvania-based naturalist, most recently the New York Times bestseller A World on The Wing: The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds, and one of the most respected natural history writers in the country. He was a finalist for the 2000 Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction for his book Living on the Wind: Across the Hemisphere With Migratory Birds, and has written more than 30 other books on birds. He is a contributing editor to Audubon magazine and a columnist for Bird Watcher’s Digest. For the past 20 years Weidensaul has overseen one of the largest owl-migration research projects in the country, and he is one of fewer than 200 licensed hummingbird banders in the world.

SPIT de Staci Whitman

« Dr. Staci uncovers a game-changing truth: the mouth is not just the mirror of health, it’s the command center. This book will transform the way you think about disease prevention and longevity. » –James Nestor, bestselling author of Breath

SPIT:
How the Secrets of the Oral Microbiome Could Save Your Life
by Staci Whitman
Crown Trade, spring 2027

Dr. Staci Whitman’s SPIT explores the oral microbiome as a critical, yet often ignored, driver of whole-body health. Bringing her pioneering work in functional dentistry to the forefront, she connects oral health to major systems in the body, from the heart and hormones to digestion and immunity. With a dynamic blend of science, storytelling, and cultural insight, the book reframes the mouth as a powerful ecosystem that can influence everything from chronic disease to overall vitality.

If GUT opened the door and BREATH ushered readers into an entirely new understanding of the body, then SPIT delivers the next big idea in wellness. This is a surprising and essential book about one of the most overlooked yet powerful ecosystems in the human body.

Dr. Staci Whitman is a powerhouse. A trailblazer in functional dentistry, a board-certified pediatric dentist, and one of only a handful of IFM-certified practitioners in her field, she is an entrepreneur, innovator, and educator with a vision to make the world cavity-free. She has founded the first pediatric functional dental practice in the United States, launched two health-focused product lines, and is leading the development of the first certification program that trains dentists to treat oral health through a systemic lens. She is also earning a master’s degree in functional medicine and nutrition while treating patients and building a national education platform. Her energy is remarkable. Her clarity and purpose are inspiring.

Dr. Staci is also a savvy, strategic, and ambitious partner. With over 200K followers across platforms and a robust email list, she’s intentionally investing in growing her audience further and is hiring a dedicated social growth strategist in advance of publication. She’s already appeared on Andrew Huberman’s podcast and is receiving interest from the biggest names in the podcasting world—from the Joe Rogan Experience to Mel Robbins, Dr. Mark Hyman, Liz Moody, and Max Lugavere.

What is most exciting, though, is the quality and originality of the work. SPIT is a beautifully written, deeply researched, and wildly entertaining journey into a realm of science most people have never considered. This is not just a book about brushing your teeth better. It is about how the oral microbiome connects to inflammation, heart disease, hormonal balance, the brain, digestion, sleep, immunity, and even fertility. With a warm, witty, and thoroughly accessible voice, Dr. Staci blends cutting-edge science, patient stories, and cultural history to show readers how their mouths can be the key to their health and vitality. It is timely, important, and full of potential.

Dr. Staci Whitman is the co-founder of The Institute for Functional Dentistry, an allied partner of The Institute for Functional Medicine. She’s pioneering the first certification program that trains dentists in the oral-systemic connection. She founded Bloom Kids Dentistry in Portland, Oregon, the first functional pediatric dental practice in the U.S., with national expansion underway. This practice takes a whole-body, holistic approach to dentistry, grounded in science and driven by compassion. Dr. Staci is also an entrepreneur, creating Happi Floss (the world’s first truly sustainable floss pick) and co-creating Fygg (Feed You Good Guys), an oral healthcare line dedicated to protecting and supporting the oral microbiome. She earned her DMD from Tufts University School of Dental Medicine and later completed a pediatric dentistry certification at Oregon Health and Science University, where her research focused on improving airway assessments in children. A Diplomate of the American Board of Pediatric Dentistry since 2012, she’s a Board-Certified Pediatric Dentist and a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry.