Archives par étiquette : The Martell Agency

PLAYING PUZZLES WITH DOLPHINS de Kelly Jaakkola

PLAYING PUZZLES WITH DOLPHINS promises to be a wonderfully informative and entertaining book on how dolphins think, revealing the vast cognitive ability of so many of our animal companions. A book for all readers interested in the latest research on animal intelligence.

PLAYING PUZZLES WITH DOLPHINS
by Kelly Jaakkola, Ph.D.
Anchor/Doubleday, 2025
(via The Martell Agency)

Perhaps more than any other wild creature, we have long been dazzled by dolphin intelligence and their affecting level of interaction with humans. But what is the nature and dimension of dolphin intelligence? Do they count? Do they have language or anything like it? Can they imitate behavior (even if blindfolded)? How do they coordinate their communication and cooperation?

Writing with insight and wit, Jaakkola will reveal the crucial role of puzzles and games for both researching and challenging dolphins’ minds and take readers behind the scenes of her own research on dolphin cognition to show the logic of how we know what we know, as well as the complexity, humor, and pure thrill that comes from running creative experiments with animals who don’t know your intended script and very clearly have minds of their own. The new information presented enhances our understanding of the inner life of these special creatures, as they actually exist and can thrive in nature, not just in the popular imagination.

Kelly Jaakkola is a cognitive psychologist, marine mammal scientist, and Director of Research for DRC. She earned her Masters degree in Psychology from Emory University, where she began her career studying cognition in chimpanzees and human children and received her Ph.D. in Cognitive Science from MIT. Her past research includes studies on number concepts, object permanence, imitation, and communication in dolphins, chimpanzees, and human children. Her current work focuses on dolphin cognition, communication, and welfare.

Dr. Jaakkola’s research has been published in numerous international scientific journals and book chapters, and her work on dolphin cognition has received worldwide coverage in newspapers, magazine articles, books, and television. She has taught courses on human and animal cognition at several colleges and chairs the Scientific Advisory Committee for the Alliance of Marine Mammal Parks and Aquariums.

LAST TO EAT, LAST TO LEARN de Pashtana Durrani

From young Afghani activist and Amnesty International Global Youth Ambassador Pashtana Durrani, a deeply inspiring memoir about the power of learning and the value of educators in their many forms – from teachers, mentors, and role models, to fathers, mothers, and any one of us with the drive to stand against ignorance.

LAST TO EAT, LAST TO LEARN
My Life in Afghanistan Fighting to Educate Women
by Pashtana Durrani, with Tamara Bralo
Kensington, March 2024
(via The Martell Agency)

LAST TO EAT, LAST TO LEARN is the remarkable memoir of Pashtana Durrani, a 23-year-old Afghan woman, who has pursued her passion for educating the “disappearing girls” of the remote, contested rural tribal regions, amidst all the turmoil, violence and oppression that has enveloped her country – and her family — over a generation.

Pashtana Durrani was the first recipient of a grant from Malala’s Fund, and the founder of Learn NGO, an organization that was ruthlessly targeted by the Taliban. She conceived and developed a brilliant program for getting educational materials directly into the hands of girls and young women in the form of solar-powered tablets preloaded with lessons for grades K-12.

Pashtana escaped from Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover and will soon be in the U.S., with a two-year residency at Wellesley College to continue her critical work for girls’ education. Malala wrote one of two letters to the U.S. government to petition for Pashatana’s safe evacuation to the U.S. Pashtana is a highly sought-after expert in the on-going international advocacy struggles, a figure of hope and promise for all those determined not to cede ground in the battle for women’s education and autonomy in Afghanistan and beyond.

Tamara Bralo is an award-winning journalist who worked for BBC, CNN, and Al Jazeera English, and spent years covering war zones around the world, including Iraq, Libya, and Syria.

A NEW CAPITALISM de Seth Levine et Elizabeth MacBride

A NEW CAPITALISM by Seth Levine and Elizabeth MacBride is a provocative and optimistic look at the next stage of capitalism.

A NEW CAPITALISM
A Realist’s Guide to the Next Golden Age
by Seth Levine and Elizabeth MacBride
Matt Holt Books, 2025
(via The Martell Agency)

A NEW CAPITALISM will explore what many experts consider to be a “turning point” in capitalism, a profound shift away from neo-liberalism and a profit-above-all mentality in corporate thinking and practice to systems where companies are becoming more responsible to their countries, employees, and communities. This new way of governance is happening right now and is not driven by altruism but is the natural outcome of vast technological innovation, the effects of the climate crisis and changing social norms. It is the authors’ contention that this re-imagining, will unleash a period of wealth generation and shared prosperity and is emblematic of capitalism’s essential dynamism and ability to reconfigure itself.

Because of their standing and thus exceptional connections, the authors have conducted extensive and invaluable interviews with over 50 the global business leaders, including Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan, Larry Fink, co-founder and CEO of BlackRock and Dick Parsons, former chairman and CEO of Time Warner and Citibank, who will provide compelling insights and often visionary thinking, almost no readers otherwise would be privy to. Challenging the perspectives of the right and the left, the book will examine the emerging consensus about the role these large companies should play and the benefits to the long-term health of businesses that are possible. It’s critical that the authors write from the perspective of business owners themselves, bringing pragmatism and level-headedness to a discussion that is often paralyzed with rigid ideological posturing.

Seth Levine, a partner and co-founder at Boulder, CO-based Foundry Venture Capital, is one of the world’s leading venture capitalists. In addition to his work at Foundry, Seth actively supports entrepreneurs around the country and across the world, serving as an advisor to funds and companies throughout the United States, Africa, and the Middle East. In 2016 Seth co-founded Pledge 1% – an international organization that encourages startups to give back to their local communities through gifts of equity, profit, product, and time.

Elizabeth MacBride is an award-winning business writer, speaker, and expert in the intersection of technology, finance, and economics. A former managing editor of Crain’s New York Business, her work has been featured in MIT Tech Review, Forbes, Newsweek, The Washington Post, Quartz, HBR.com, and many others. She was one of the first 12 employees of Wealthfront, the first online financial advisor. A regular contributor to CNBC and Forbes, she is the founder of New Builders Dispatch, which focuses on leveraging finance to create a fairer world. Elizabeth has reported on business, economics, and entrepreneurship around the world, from New York City to Gaza, to Northern Idaho, to Cambodia.

THE BOUNDARIES WE CROSS de Brad Parks

THE BOUNDARIES WE CROSS is a twist-filled did-he-or-didn’t-he thriller about a teacher accused of having a sexual relationship with a student, a young woman who then disappears under suspicious circumstances.

THE BOUNDARIES WE CROSS
by Brad Parks
Oceanview Press, 2024
(via The Martell Agency)

Charles Bliss, raised by a single mother in a hardscrabble Maine fishing town, is a highly respected and much appreciated English teacher at Carrington Academy, an elite Connecticut prep school, from which he graduated some years ago as a scholarship student. Recently, Charles’s highly touted debut novel debut unexpectedly bombed, so he is grateful for his job at Carrington, while working feverishly on a new manuscript by night to capture the literary glory that was almost his.

Among his children-of-the-extremely-rich students is Hayley Goodloe, heiress to a massive fortune, who clearly is developing a crush on him. Happily married Charles is careful to maintain proper boundaries with Hayley, leaving no room for suspicion. So he is shocked to his core when the principal confronts him with an accusation of an affair with Hayley and demands his resignation. And when Hayley soon turns up missing, Charles’s world is turned upside down, with the police and DA targeting him as the likely kidnapper. Who can he trust? His loyal wife Emily, his best friend Leo, his new fast-talking criminal defense attorney Jerry and the reliability of his own memory are all in the mix as Charles desperately tries to prove his innocence amidst damaging evidence that somehow keeps piling up against him.

Filled with memorable characters, this is a wonderfully clever, involving thriller that expertly deploys the Hitchcockian pivot of the “innocent man” in fresh, surprising ways.

International bestselling author Brad Parks is the only writer to have won the Shamus, Nero, and Lefty Awards, three of American crime fiction’s most prestigious prizes. His novels, including Unthinkable, Interference, Say Nothing, Closer Than You Know and The Last Act have been published in fifteen languages and have won critical acclaim across the globe, including stars from every major prepublication review outlet.

STRENGTH & POWER de Starre Vartan

STRENGTH & POWER will explore the groundbreaking current research that examines the myths and shatters our misconceptions relating to the ingrained belief that still very much holds sway today: men are physically stronger than women.

STRENGTH & POWER:
The Untold, Ignored, and Belittled Science of Women’s Bodies
by Starre Vartan
Seal Press/Hachette US, 2025
(via The Martell Agency)

Vartan undertook the project of looking for the scientific evidence to back this proposition up and…couldn’t find it. The book will examine the actual data, the history of “male only” baselines in past studies, and the extensive body of current research that proves that women aren’t “weaker,” in fascinating, eye-opening counterintuitive detail, such as:

• women’s muscles retain strength over time better than men’s;
• women’s fat and metabolism are huge advantages for any pursuit that requires endurance;
• the biology of women’s brains makes women far more resilient in the face of stress.

The bottom line is that men’s bodies are generally good at certain physical pursuits—while women’s are generally better at others. But how you get from there to the idea that men are overall stronger? That is the crux of this challenging and provocative book that will draw on cutting edge studies and touch on a wide range of topics: women’s athletic training, women’s performance in long-distance events across multiple sporting disciplines, women’s longevity, the role that menstruation, hormones and distribution of body fat play in women’s physical power and, of course, the profound cultural influences that have long governed society’s view of women’s physical capabilities.

Starre Vartan is the ideal person to write this book. Her science background and proven effective interaction with researchers with two decades of writing, a decade of founding and running a popular women’s health and lifestyle website and social media platforms, and recent work in investigative journalism, all point to her expertise as an independent science journalist with deep media experience, with a range of contacts both in the science publishing space, and in the women’s health and lifestyle area. On the science side, she has written on health for CNN and biotechnology and health for Scientific American, is a contributor to such publications as Nat Geo, Treehugger, Slate, Gizmodo, The Daily Beast and New York magazine. Her long-form investigative piece on the scientists exiting the Trump administration was published at the end of 2020 in Undark and a piece of investigative journalism for NatGeo in early 2022 on how the DNA technique used to catch the Golden State Killer is being used to track elephant ivory smugglers and convict wildlife criminals.