brand penguin press hc the (243 résultats)

Hardcover. Etat : Good. First Edition. Chronicles the fierce determination of individualist Morie Sawataishi to ensure the survival of the Akita species after all but sixteen dogs were slaughtered for the Japanese war effort, an endeavor during which he moved his young family into Japan's remote snow country and embraced a radically unconventional lifestyle. 30,000 first printing.

Hardcover. Etat : Good. First Edition. A revealing, forward-looking examination of the outsize influence Google has had on the changing media Landscape.There are companies that create waves and those that ride or are drowned by them. As only he can, bestselling author Ken Auletta takes readers for a ride on the Google wave, telling the story of how it formed and crashed into traditional media businesses?from newspapers to books, to television, to movies, to telephones, to advertising, to Microsoft. With unprecedented access to Google?s founders and executives, as well as to those in media who are struggling to keep their heads above water, Auletta reveals how the industry is being disrupted and redefined.Using Google as a stand-in for the digital revolution, Auletta takes readers inside Google?s closed-door meetings and paints portraits of Google?s notoriously private founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, as well as those who work with?and against?them. In his narrative, Auletta provides the fullest account ever told of Google?s rise, shares the ?secret sauce? of Google?s success, and shows why the worlds of ?new? and ?old? media often communicate as if residents of different planets.Google engineers start from an assumption that the old ways of doing things can be improved and made more efficient, an approach that has yielded remarkable results? Google will generate about $20 billion in advertising revenues this year, or more than the combined prime-time ad revenues of CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX. And with its ownership of YouTube and its mobile phone and other initiatives, Google CEO Eric Schmidt tells Auletta his company is poised to become the world?s first $100 billion media company. Yet there are many obstacles that threaten Google?s future, and opposition from media companies and government regulators may be the least of these. Google faces internal threats, from its burgeoning size to losing focus to hubris. In coming years, Google?s faith in mathematical formulas and in slide rule logic will be tested, just as it has been on Wall Street.Distilling the knowledge accrued from a career of covering the media, Auletta will offer insights into what we know, and don?t know, about what the future holds for the imperiled industry.

Hardcover. Etat : Good. From the bestselling author of The Age of Turbulence and Capitalism in AmericaLike all of us, though few so visibly, Alan Greenspan was forced by the financial crisis of 2008 to question some fundamental assumptions about risk management and economic forecasting. No one with any meaningful role in economic decision making in the world saw beforehand the storm for what it was. How had our models so utterly failed us?To answer this question, Alan Greenspan embarked on a rigorous and far-reaching multiyear examination of how Homo economicus predicts the economic future, and how it can predict it better. Economic risk is a fact of life in every realm, from home to business to government at all levels. Whether were conscious of it or not, we make wagers on the future virtually every day, one way or another. Very often, however, were steering by out-of-date maps, when were not driven by factors entirely beyond our conscious control.The Map and the Territory is nothing less than an effort to update our forecasting conceptual grid. It integrates the history of economic prediction, the new work of behavioral economists, and the fruits of the authors own remarkable career to offer a thrillingly lucid and empirically based grounding in what we canknow about economic forecasting and what we cant.The book explores how culture is and isn't destiny and probes what we can predict about the world's biggest looming challenges, from debt and the reform of the welfare state to natural disasters in an age of global warming.No map is the territory, but Greenspans approach, grounded in his trademark rigor, wisdom, and unprecedented context, ensures that this particular map will assist in safe journeys down many different roads, traveled by individuals, businesses, and the state. Complete Numbers Starting with 1, 1st Ed.

Hardcover. Etat : Good. Noted science writer Nicholas Wade offers for the first time a convincing case based on a broad range of scientific evidence for the evolutionary basis of religion.

Hardcover. Etat : Good. First Edition. GARLIC AND SAPPHIRES is Ruth Reichl's riotous account of the many disguises she employs to dine anonymously. There is her stint as Molly Hollis, a frumpy blond with manicured nails and an off-beige Armani suit that Ruth takes on when reviewing Le Cirque. The result: her famous double review of the restaurant: first she ate there as Molly; and then as she was coddled and pampered on her visit there as Ruth, New York Times food critic.What is even more remarkable about Reichl's spy games is that as she takes on these various disguises, she finds herself changed not just superficially, but in character as well. She gives a remarkable account of how one's outer appearance can very much influence one's inner character, expectations, and appetites.As she writes, "Every restaurant is a theater . . . even the modest restaurants offer the opportunity to become someone else, at least for a little while." GARLIC AND SAPPHIRES is a reflection on personal identity and role playing in the decadent, epicurean theaters of the restaurant world.

Hardcover. Etat : Good. First Edition, First Printing. An assessment of the teaching methods used by Harvard Business School to promote students into the elite ranks of the business world reveals how the university's curriculum focuses on analyses of actual business scenarios that teach sophisticated strategies in such areas as accounting, beta, and leveraging. 50,000 first printing.

Hardcover. Etat : Good. 1. Visionary game designer Jane McGonigal reveals how we can harness the power of games to solve real-world problems and boost global happiness.More than 174 million Americans are gamers, and the average young person in the United States will spend ten thousand hours gaming by the age of twenty-one. According to world-renowned game designer Jane McGonigal, the reason for this mass exodus to virtual worlds is that videogames are increasingly fulfilling genuine human needs. In this groundbreaking exploration of the power and future of gaming, McGonigal reveals how we can use the lessons of game design to fix what is wrong with the real world.Drawing on positive psychology, cognitive science, and sociology, Reality Is Broken uncovers how game designers have hit on core truths about what makes us happy and utilized these discoveriesto astonishing effect in virtual environments. Videogames consistently provide the exhilarating rewards, stimulating challenges, and epic victories that are so often lacking in the real world. But why, McGonigal asks, should we use the power of games for escapist entertainment alone? Her research suggests that gamers are expert problem solvers and collaborators because they regularly cooperate with other players to overcome daunting virtual challenges, and she helped pioneer a fast-growing genre of games that aims to turn gameplay to socially positive ends.In Reality Is Broken, she reveals how these new alternate reality games are already improving the quality of our daily lives, fighting social problems such as depression and obesity, and addressing vital twenty-first-century challenges-and she forecasts the thrilling possibilities that lie ahead. She introduces us to games like World Without Oil, a simulation designed to brainstorm-and therefore avert- the challenges of a worldwide oil shortage, and Evoke, a game commissioned by the World Bank Institute that sends players on missions to address issues from poverty to climate change.McGonigal persuasively argues that those who continue to dismiss games will be at a major disadvantage in the coming years. Gamers, on the other hand, will be able to leverage the collaborative and motivational power of games in their own lives, communities, and businesses. Written for gamers and nongamers alike, Reality Is Broken shows us that the future will belong to those who can understand, design, and play games.

Hardcover. Etat : Good. F First Edition Used. From one of the worlds leading data scientists, a landmark tour of the new science of idea flow, offering revolutionary insights into the mysteries of collective intelligence and social influenceIf the Big Data revolution has a presiding genius, it is MITs Alex Sandy Pentland. Over years of groundbreaking experiments, he has distilled remarkable discoveries significant enough to become the bedrock of a whole new scientific field: social physics. Humans have more in common with bees than we like to admit: Were social creatures first and foremost. Our most important habits of action-and most basic notions of common sense-are wired into us through our coordination in social groups. Social physics is about idea flow, the way human social networks spread ideas and transform those ideas into behaviors.Thanks to the millions of digital bread crumbs people leave behind via smartphones, GPS devices, and the Internet, the amount of new information we have about human activity is truly profound. Until now, sociologists have depended on limited data sets and surveys that tell us how people say they think and behave, rather than what they actually do. As a result, weve been stuck with the same stale social structures-classes, markets-and a focus on individual actors, data snapshots, and steady states. Pentland shows that, in fact, humans respond much more powerfully to social incentives that involve rewarding others and strengthening the ties that bind than incentives that involve only their own economic self-interest.Pentland and his teams have found that they can study patterns of information exchange in a social network without any knowledge of the actual content of the information and predict with stunning accuracy how productive and effective that network is, whether its a business or an entire city. We can maximize a groups collective intelligence to improve performance and use social incentives to create new organizations and guide them through disruptive change in a way that maximizes the good. At every level of interaction, from small groups to large cities, social networks can be tuned to increase exploration and engagement, thus vastly improving idea flow.Social Physics will change the way we think about how we learn and how our social groups work-and can be made to work better, at every level of society. Pentland leads readers to the edge of the most important revolution in the study of social behavior in a generation, an entirely new way to look at life itself.

Hardcover. Etat : Good. A revolutionary reexamination of traumas role in the life journey, opening the door to growth and healingTrauma does not just happen to a few unlucky people; it is the bedrock of our psychology. Death and illness touch us all, but even the everyday sufferings of loneliness and fear are traumatic. In The Trauma of Everyday Life renowned psychiatrist and author of Thoughts Without a Thinker Mark Epstein uncovers the transformational potential of trauma, revealing how it can be used for the minds own development.Western psychology teaches that if we understand the cause of trauma, we might move past it while many drawn to Eastern practices see meditation as a means of rising above, or distancing themselves from, their most difficult emotions. Both, Epstein argues, fail to recognize that trauma is an indivisible part of life and can be used as a lever for growth and an ever deeper understanding of change. When we regard trauma with this perspective, understanding that suffering is universal and without logic, our pain connects us to the world on a more fundamental level. The way out of pain is through it.Epsteins discovery begins in his analysis of the life of Buddha, looking to how the death of his mother informed his path and teachings. The Buddhas spiritual journey can be read as an expression of primitive agony grounded in childhood trauma. Yet the Buddhas story is only one of many in The Trauma of Everyday Life. Here, Epstein looks to his own experience, that of his patients, and of the many fellow sojourners and teachers he encounters as a psychiatrist and Buddhist. They are alike only in that they share in trauma, large and small, as all of us do. Epstein finds throughout that trauma, if it doesnt destroy us, wakes us up to both our minds own capacity and to the suffering of others. It makes us more human, caring, and wise. It can be our greatest teacher, our freedom itself, and it is available to all of us.

Hardcover. Etat : Good. A riveting and revealing look at the shows that helped cable television drama emerge as the signature art form of the twenty-first century.In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the landscape of television began an unprecedented transformation. While the networks continued to chase the lowest common denominator, a wave of new shows, first on premium cable channels like HBO and then basic cable networks like FX and AMC, dramatically stretched televisions narrative inventiveness, emotional resonance, and artistic ambition. No longer necessarily concerned with creating always-likable characters, plots that wrapped up neatly every episode, or subjects that were deemed safe and appropriate, shows such as The Wire, The Sopranos, Mad Men, Deadwood, The Shield, and more tackled issues of life and death, love and sexuality, addiction, race, violence, and existential boredom. Just as the Big Novel had in the 1960s and the subversive films of New Hollywood had in 1970s, television shows became the place to go to see stories of the triumph and betrayals of the American Dream at the beginning of the twenty-first century.This revolution happened at the hands of a new breed of auteur: the all-powerful writer-show runner. These were men nearly as complicated, idiosyncratic, and difficult as the conflicted protagonists that defined the genre. Given the chance to make art in a maligned medium, they fell upon the opportunity with unchecked ambition.Combining deep reportage with cultural analysis and historical context, Brett Martin recounts the rise and inner workings of a genre that represents not only a new golden age for TV but also a cultural watershed. Difficult Men features extensive interviews with all the major players, including David Chase (The Sopranos), David Simon and Ed Burns (The Wire), Matthew Weiner and Jon Hamm (Mad Men), David Milch (NYPD Blue, Deadwood), and Alan Ball (Six Feet Under), in addition to dozens of other writers, directors, studio executives, actors, production assistants, makeup artists, script supervisors, and so on. Martin takes us behind the scenes of our favorite shows, delivering never-before-heard story after story and revealing how cable TV has distinguished itself dramatically from the networks, emerging from the shadow of film to become a truly significant and influential part of our culture.

Hardcover. Etat : Good. First Edition. The most successful coach in college basketball history shares his complete coaching philosophy and demonstrates how to apply it to the leadership and team-building challenges in one's professional and personal life, emphasizing the three key principles of Play Hard, Play Smart, and Play Together.

Hardcover. Etat : Good. The author of Race Matters explores the threats to democracy that exist both in America and in the violence-torn Middle East, discussing the imperialist corruption that plagues our own democracy, our failure to foster peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, our hypocrisy in the area of foreign relations and policy, the racism that still infects American society, and other crises. 150,000 first printing.

Hardcover. Etat : Good. Seventh Impression. An awe-inspiring, often hilarious, and unerringly honest story of one mother's exercise in extreme parenting, revealing the rewards-and the costs-of raising her children the Chinese way.All decent parents want to do what's best for their children. What Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother reveals is that the Chinese just have a totally different idea of how to do that. Western parents try to respect their children's individuality, encouraging them to pursue their true passions and providing a nurturing environment. The Chinese believe that the best way to protect your children is by preparing them for the future and arming them with skills, strong work habits, and inner confidence. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother chronicles Chua's iron-willed decision to raise her daughters, Sophia and Lulu, her way-the Chinese way-and the remarkable results her choice inspires.Here are some things Amy Chua would never allow her daughters to do: have a playdate be in a school play complain about not being in a school play not be the #1 student in every subject except gym and drama play any instrument other than the piano or violin not play the piano or violinThe truth is Lulu and Sophia would never have had time for a playdate. They were too busy practicing their instruments (two to three hours a day and double sessions on the weekend) and perfecting their Mandarin.Of course no one is perfect, including Chua herself. Witness this scene:"According to Sophia, here are three things I actually said to her at the piano as I supervised her practicing:1. Oh my God, you're just getting worse and worse.2. I'm going to count to three, then I want musicality.3. If the next time's not PERFECT, I'm going to take all your stuffed animals and burn them!"But Chua demands as much of herself as she does of her daughters. And in her sacrifices-the exacting attention spent studying her daughters' performances, the office hours lost shuttling the girls to lessons-the depth of her love for her children becomes clear. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is an eye-opening exploration of the differences in Eastern and Western parenting--and the lessons parents and children everywhere teach one another.

Hardcover. Etat : Good. Presents a provocative argument stating that inappropriate beliefs, rather than organized religion, are responsible for ignorance-based conflicts in today's world, in a report that argues that belief systems that perpetuate discrimination, hostility, and thought restriction are not supported by core religions. 40,000 first printing.

Hardcover. Etat : Good. First Edition. An award-winning senior editor at Fast Company evaluates the ways in which the world's largest retail company and employer affects everyday life on a global level, in an account that reveals the radical ways in which the company impacts American economics, the workforce, and the environment. 50,000 first printing.

Hardcover. Etat : Good. First Edition. An easy-to-follow, life-changing approach designed to increase happiness and fulfillment in everyday life furnishes a comprehensive guide that redefines what happiness and what it is not and introduces activities, including exercises in practicing optimism, tips on how to savor life's pleasures, and an emphasis on staying active to achieve a happier life.

Hardcover. Etat : Good. A military chronicle of the Iraq war is a critical assessment of America's role as viewed from the firsthand perspectives of senior military officers that argues that the guerrilla insurgency that took place in the months after the fall of Saddam Hussein was avoidable and that officers who spoke against the war did so at the cost of their careers. 200,000 first printing.

Hardcover. Etat : Good. First Edition. An NPR correspondent presents an account of the return to the violence and corruption of warlord activity in Afghanistan after the displacement of the Taliban, revealing how the U.S. government assisted the return of corrupt militia commanders to the country. 100,000 first printing.

Hardcover. Etat : Good. First Edition. A critique of the consequences of policies enforced after World War II prior to Roe v. Wade, written by an adoptee, describes how countless single women were compelled to give up their children and how their situations were devastatingly compromised by the growing sexual revolution, limited birth control options, unrealistic social standards, and the unavailability of safe abortions. 60,000 first printing.

Hardcover. Etat : Good. First Edition. An epic account of how Texas oil transformed wealth and power in America is presented through the stories of the state's four most influential oil families, tracing how they rose from modest backgrounds, shaped the government, and bankrolled the nation's largest rise of modern conservatism. 125,000 first printing.

Hardcover. Etat : Good. Reprint. A distinguished historian and political intellectual shares a cautionary evaluation of profound differences between twentieth- and twenty-first-century culture as a result of globalization, citing sobering compromises to intellectual thought and social activism that the author believes have rendered the modern world more vulnerable to recurrences of past tragedies. 35,000 first printing.

Hardcover. Etat : Good. First Edition. A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year"It might be thought the height of poor taste to ascribe good fortune to a healthy man with a young family struck down at the age of sixty by an incurable degenerative disorder from which he must shortly die. But there is more than one sort of luck. To fall prey to a motor neuron disease is surely to have offended the Gods at some point, and there is nothing more to be said. But if you must suffer thus, better to have a well-stocked head." -Tony JudtThe Memory Chalet is a memoir unlike any you have ever read before. Each essay charts some experience or remembrance of the past through the sieve of Tony Judt's prodigious mind. His youthful love of a particular London bus route evolves into a reflection on public civility and interwar urban planning. Memories of the 1968 student riots of Paris meander through the divergent sex politics of Europe, before concluding that his generation "was a revolutionary generation, but missed the revolution." A series of road trips across America lead not just to an appreciation of American history, but to an eventual acquisition of citizenship. Foods and trains and long-lost smells all compete for Judt's attention; but for us, he has forged his reflections into an elegant arc of analysis. All as simply and beautifully arranged as a Swiss chalet-a reassuring refuge deep in the mountains of memory.

Hardcover. Etat : Good. First Edition. From renowned historian Niall Ferguson, a searching and provocative examination of the widespread institutional rot that threatens our collective futureWhat causes rich countries to lose their way? Symptoms of decline are all around us today: slowing growth, crushing debts, increasing inequality, aging populations, antisocial behavior. But what exactly has gone wrong? The answer, Niall Ferguson argues in The Great Degeneration, is that our institutions-the intricate frameworks within which a society can flourish or fail-are degenerating.Representative government, the free market, the rule of law, and civil society-these are the four pillars of West European and North American societies. It was these institutions, rather than any geographical or climatic advantages, that set the West on the path to global dominance beginning around 1500. In our time, however, these institutions have deteriorated in disturbing ways. Our democracies have broken the contract between the generations by heaping IOUs on our children and grandchildren. Our markets are hindered by overcomplex regulations that debilitate the political and economic processes they were created to support; the rule of law has become the rule of lawyers. And civil society has degenerated into uncivil society, where we lazily expect all of our problems to be solved by the state.It is institutional degeneration, in other words, that lies behind economic stagnation and the geopolitical decline that comes with it. With characteristic verve and historical insight, Ferguson analyzes not only the causes of this stagnation but also its profound consequences.The Great Degeneration is an incisive indictment of an era of negligence and complacency. While the Arab world struggles to adopt democracy and China struggles to move from economic liberalization to the rule of law, our society is squandering the institutional inheritance of centuries. To arrest the breakdown of our civilization, Ferguson warns, will take heroic leadership and radical reform.

Hardcover. Etat : Good. First Edition. At an exclusive school somewhere outside of Arlington, Virginia, students arent taught history, geography, or mathematics-they are taught to persuade. Students learn to use language to manipulate minds, wielding words as weapons. The very best graduate as poets, and enter a nameless organization of unknown purpose.Whip-smart runaway Emily Ruff is making a living from three-card Monte on the streets of San Francisco when she attracts the attention of the organizations recruiters. Drawn in to their strage world, which is populated by people named Bront and Eliot, she learns their key rule: That every person can be classified by personality type, his mind segmented and ultimately unlocked by the skilful application of words. For this reason, she must never allow another person to truly know her, lest she herself be coerced. Adapting quickly, Emily becomes the schools most talented prodigy, until she makes a catastrophic mistake: She falls in love.Meanwhile, a seemingly innocent man named Wil Parke is brutally ambushed by two men in an airport bathroom. They claim he is the key to a secret war he knows nothing about, that he is an outlier, immune to segmentation. Attempting to stay one step ahead of the organization and its mind-bending poets, Wil and his captors seek salvation in the toxically decimated town of Broken Hill, Australia, which, if ancient stories are true, sits above an ancient glyph of frightening power.A brilliant thriller that traverses very modern questions of privacy, identity, and the rising obsession of data-collection, connecting them to centuries-old ideas about the power of language and coercion, Lexicon is Max Barrys most ambitious and spellbinding novel yet.

Hardcover. Etat : Good. A revolutionary look at how what we pay attention to determines how we experience lifeAcclaimed behavioral science writer Winifred Gallagher's Rapt makes the radical argument that much of the quality of your life depends not on fame or fortune, beauty or brains, fate or coincidence, but on what you choose to pay attention to. Rapt introduces a diverse cast of characters, from researchers to artists to ranchers, to illustrate the art of living the interested life. As their stories show, by focusing on the most positive and productive elements of any situation, you can shape your inner experience and expand your world. By learning to focus, you can improve your concentration, broaden your inner horizons, and most important, feel what it means to be fully alive.

Hardcover. Etat : Good. A best-selling work in China is set in the 1960s on the eve of the Cultural Revolution and follows the spiritual journey of Beijing intellectual Chen Zhen into the world of the nomadic Mongols, a dying culture that honors the endangered Mongolian wolf and follows a philosophy about maintaining a balance with nature. 25,000 first printing.

Hardcover. Etat : Good. First Edition. Argues that western foreign aid efforts have done little to stem global poverty, citing how such organizations as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are not held accountable for ineffective practices that the author believes intrude into the inner workings of other countries. By the author of The Elusive Quest for Growth. 60,000 first printing.

Hardcover. Etat : Good. First Edition. A psychologist and author of The Force of Character examines the origin, needs, and rewards of war, filling the void of why no one understands why war is constant in history by asking such questions as why humans need enemies. 75,000 first printing.

Hardcover. Etat : Good. First Edition. A sparkling collection of Zadie Smith?s nonfiction over the past decade.Zadie Smith brings to her essays all of the curiosity, intellectual rigor, and sharp humor that have attracted so many readers to her fiction, and the result is a collection that is nothing short of extraordinary.Split into four sections??Reading,? ?Being,? ?Seeing,? and ?Feeling??Changing My Mind invites readers to witness the world from Zadie Smith?s unique vantage. Smith casts her acute eye over material both personal and cultural, with wonderfully engaging essays?some published here for the first time?on diverse topics including literature, movies, going to the Oscars, British comedy, family, feminism, Obama, Katharine Hepburn, and Anna Magnani.In her investigations Smith also reveals much of herself. Her literary criticism shares the wealth of her experiences as a reader and exposes the tremendous influence diverse writers?E. M. Forster, Zora Neale Hurston, George Eliot, and others?have had on her writing life and her self-understanding. Smith also speaks directly to writers as a craftsman, offering precious practical lessons on process. Here and throughout, readers will learn of the wide-ranging experiences?in novels, travel, philosophy, politics, and beyond?that have nourished Smith?s rich life of the mind. Her probing analysis offers tremendous food for thought, encouraging readers to attend to the slippery questions of identity, art, love, and vocation that so often go neglected.Changing My Mind announces Zadie Smith as one of our most important contemporary essayists, a writer with the rare ability to turn the world on its side with both fact and fiction. Changing My Mind is a gift to readers, writers, and all who want to look at life more expansively.

Hardcover. Etat : Good. American First. What to Expect When You're Expecting meets Freakonomics: an award-winning economist disproves standard recommendations about pregnancy to empower women while they're expectingPregnancy-unquestionably one of the most profound, meaningful experiences of adulthood-can reduce otherwise intelligent women to, well, babies. Were told to avoid cold cuts, sushi, alcohol, and coffee, but arent told why these are forbidden. Rules for prenatal testing are hard and fast-and unexplained. Are these recommendations even correct? Are all of them right for every mom-to-be? In Expecting Better, award-winning economist Emily Oster proves that pregnancy rules are often misguided and sometimes flat-out wrong.A mom-to-be herself, Oster debunks the myths of pregnancy using her particular mode of critical thinking: economics, the study of how we get what we want. Oster knows that the value of anything-a home, an amniocentesis-is in the eyes of the informed beholder, and like any complicated endeavor, pregnancy is not a one-size-fits-all affair. And yet medicine often treats it as such. Are doctors working from bad data? Are well-meaning friends and family perpetuating false myths and raising unfounded concerns? Osters answer is yes, and often.Pregnant women face an endless stream of decisions, from the casual (Can I eat this?) to the frightening (Is it worth risking a miscarriage to test for genetic defects?). Expecting Better presents the hard facts and real-world advice youll never get at the doctors office or in the existing literature. Osters revelatory work identifies everything from the real effects of caffeine and tobacco to the surprising dangers of gardening.Any expectant mother knows that the health of her baby is paramount, but she will be less anxious and better able to enjoy a healthy pregnancy if she is informed . . . and can have the occasional glass of wine.* * *Numbers are not subject to someone elses interpretation-math doesnt lie. Expectant economist Emily Oster set out to inform parents-to-be about the truth of pregnancy using the most up-to-date data so that they can make the best decisions for their pregnancies. The results she found were often very surprising Its fine to have the occasional glass of wine - even one every day - in the second and third trimesters. There is nothing to fear from sushi, but do stay away from raw milk cheese. Sardines and herring are the fish of choice to give your child those few extra IQ points. There is no evidence that bed rest is helpful in preventing or treating any complications of pregnancy. Many unnecessary labor inductions could be avoided by simply staying hydrated. Epidurals are great for pain relief and fine for your baby, but they do carry some risks for mom. Limiting women to ice chips during labor is an antiquated practice; you should at least be able to sneak in some Gatorade. You shouldnt worry about dyeing your hair or cleaning the cats litter box, but gardening while pregnant can actually be risky. Hot tubs, hot baths, hot yoga: avoid (at least during the first trimester). You should be more worried about gaining too little weight during pregnancy than gaining too much. Most exercise during pregnancy is fine (no rock climbing!), but there isnt much evidence that it has benefits. Except for exercising your pelvic floor with Kegels: that you should be doing. Your eggs do not have a 35-year-old sell-by date: plenty of women get pregnant after 35 and there is no sudden drop in fertility on your birthday. Miscarriage risks from tests like the CVS and Amniocentesis are far lower than cited by most doctors. Pregnancy nausea may be unpleasant, but its a good sign: women who are sick are less likely to miscarry.