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The New York Times bestseller about a young black man's journey from violence and despair to the threshold of stardom: "A beautiful tribute to the power of good teachers" (Terry Gross, Fresh Air). "One of the most inspiring stories I've come across in a long time."-Pamela Paul, New York Times Book Review Ryan Speedo Green had a tough upbringing in southeastern Virginia: his family lived in a trailer park and later a bullet-riddled house across the street from drug dealers. His father was absent; his mother was volatile and abusive. At the age of twelve, Ryan was sent to Virginia's juvenile facility of last resort. He was placed in solitary confinement. He was uncontrollable, uncontainable, with little hope for the future. In 2011, at the age of twenty-four, Ryan won a nationwide competition hosted by New York's Metropolitan Opera, beating out 1,200 other talented singers. Today, he is a rising star performing major roles at the Met and Europe's most prestigious opera houses. Sing for Your Life chronicles Ryan's suspenseful, racially charged and artistically intricate journey from solitary confinement to stardom. Daniel Bergner takes readers on Ryan's path toward redemption, introducing us to a cast of memorable characters -- including the two teachers from his childhood who redirect his rage into music, and his long-lost father who finally reappears to hear Ryan sing. Bergner illuminates all that it takes -- technically, creatively -- to find and foster the beauty of the human voice. And Sing for Your Life sheds unique light on the enduring and complex realities of race in America.

Jacob is a man with an overwhelming attraction to female feet. The Baroness is a clothing designer and evangelical sadist. Roy is a wedding band singer entranced by his step daughter. Ron and Laura are simply in love - only Laura lost both her legs in a car accident, and Ron is beguiled by a beauty many would be blind to. How do we deal with desire? Our own, and the desires of others? How do we comprehend desires that are extreme, or unacceptable? And how do those who have them, live with them? In A Map of Desire Daniel Bergner takes us on a journey into human passion suffered, endured, and celebrated. Desire is a sometimes anarchic, sometimes ecstatic, sometimes destructive, sometimes redeeming, and always powerful force.Immersing himself in it through the people whose lives he follows and the scientists he spends time with who are trying to understand it, slowly he exposes and illuminates layers of our humanity.

“A profound and powerful work of essential reporting." —The New York Times Book Review An important—and intimate—interrogation of how we treat mental illness and how we understand ourselves In the early 1960s, JFK declared that science would take us to the moon. He also declared that science would make the “remote reaches of the mind accessible” and cure psychiatric illness with breakthrough medications. We were walking on the moon within the decade. But today, psychiatric cures continue to elude us—as does the mind itself. Why is it that we still don’t understand how the mind works? What is the difference between the mind and the brain? And given all that we still don’t know, how can we make insightful, transformative choices about our psychiatric conditions? When Daniel Bergner’s younger brother was diagnosed as bipolar and put on a locked ward in the 1980s, psychiatry seemed to have achieved what JFK promised: a revolution of chemical solutions to treat mental illness. Yet as Bergner’s brother was deemed a dire risk for suicide and he and his family were told his disorder would be lifelong, he found himself taking heavy doses of medications with devastating side effects. Now, in recounting his brother’s journey alongside the gripping, illuminating stories of Caroline, who is beset by the hallucinations of psychosis, and David, who is overtaken by depression, Bergner examines the evolution of how we treat our psyches. He reveals how the pharmaceutical industry has perpetuated our biological view of the mind and our drug-based assumptions about treatment—despite the shocking price paid by many patients and the problematic evidence of drug efficacy. And he takes us into the pioneering labs of today’s preeminent neuroscientists, sharing their remarkably candid reflections and fascinating new theories of treatment. The Mind and the Moon raises profound questions about how we understand ourselves and the essential human divide between our brains and our minds. This is a book of thought-provoking reframings, delving into the science—and spirit—of our psyches. It is about vulnerability and personal dignity, the terrifying choices confronted by families and patients, and the prospect of alternatives. In The Mind and the Moon, Bergner beautifully explores how to seek a deeper engagement with ourselves and one another—and how to find a better path toward caring for our minds.

In this headline-making book, Daniel Bergner turns everything we thought we knew about women's desire on its head. Drawing on extensive research and interviews with renowned behavioural scientists, sexologists, psychologists and everyday women, Daniel Bergner asks: - Do women really crave intimacy and emotional connection? - Are women more disposed to sex with strangers or multiple partners than either science or society have ever let on? - And is 'the fairer sex' actually more sexually aggressive and anarchic than men?

An Los Angeles Times Best Book 2003 A chilling, beautifully written narrative of African war Sierra Leone is the world's most war-ravaged country. There, in a West African landscape of spectacular beauty, rampaging soldiers--many not yet in their teens--have made a custom of hacking off the hands of their victims, then letting them live as the ultimate emblem of terror. The country is so anarchic and so desperate that, forty years after independence, its people long to be recolonized. And the West wants to save it. Daniel Bergner's In the Land of Magic Soldiers follows both a set of white would-be saviors--a family of American missionaries, a mercenary helicopter gunship pilot, and the army of Great Britain--and also a set of Sierra Leoneans, among them a father who rescues his daughter from rape, loses his hands as punishment, then begins to rebuild his life; a child soldier and sometime cannibal; and a highly Westernized medical student who claims immunity to bullets and a cure for H.I.V. A story of black and white, of the First World and the world left infinitely behind, of those who would nation-build and those who live in a land of fire and jungle, In the Land of Magic Soldiers is an unforgettable work of literary reportage by "a terrific reporter with a novelist's eye" (Peter Applebome, The New York Times Book Review).

„Diese verstörenden Geschichten hallen lange nach.“ Lori Gottlieb, New York Times Book Review Wenn Lust Grenzen überschreitet - Daniel Bergner stellt in vier Fallgeschichten Menschen vor, die mit extremen Begierden leben und lieben. Erzählerisch packend, zwischen Oliver Sacks und Ferdinand von Schirach, leuchtet „Die dunkle Seite der Lust“ Abgründe aus, die sich in jedem von uns auftun könnten.

Peter Bram finds himself subtly drawn into the charmed circle and reflected glory of Michael Marr, adored son of an assassinated President, ignoring his own artistic and personal problems

Hat der Thomaskantor Johann Sebastian Bach seine "Kaffeekantate" komponiert, um seine Töchter vor allzu viel Kaffeegenuss zu warnen? Welche kulinarischen Vorlieben mögen Bachs Musikerkollegen Richard Wagner zum Lohengrin inspiriert haben? Welches Gericht liebte die Schriftstellerin Lene Voigt über alles? Mit dem Titel Mit dem Kochlöffel durch die sächsische Geschichte möchten wir Sie anhand von 25 berühmten sächsischen Persönlichkeiten aus Vergangenheit und Gegenwart zu einem anregenden Bummel durch die Vielfalt der sächsischen Küche und zu einer einmaligen Reise durch die sächsische Geschichte einladen. Zahlreiche Anekdoten zeigen, dass alles ohne eine gehörige Portion Humor nicht denkbar ist, und verleihen dem Ganzen das "gewisse Etwas". Unsere kulinarische Zeitreise regt zum Lesen, Schauen und (Nach-) Kochen an!

Sigmund Freud admettait s'être souvent heurté, en matière de sexualité, à un grand mystère : "Que veulent les femmes ?". Daniel Bergner a enquêté auprès de nombreux chercheurs qui travaillent à la compréhension de cette énigme, et le résultat de son enquête est révolutionnaire et balaie toutes nos certitudes en matière de sexualité féminine. Le désir est chez la femme un moteur puissant, polymorphe, sous-évalué et refoulé dans de nombreuses sociétés aujourd'hui. Ce désir ne peut se satisfaire de l'intimité du couple. Il a la brutalité d'un torrent qui, si l'on tente de le dompter, risque de tout submerger autour de lui. Il est plus fort que le fameux "instinct de procréation" qui cantonne les femmes dans le rôle que les hommes leur ont assigné... L'homme est animal, sa libido le pousse instinctivement vers la quête sexuelle en vue de disséminer ses gènes le plus largement possible. Mais l'idée que la libido féminine est tout aussi avide de jouissance, de sensations et de partenaires, bouleverse la conscience masculine. La femme aussi est animale, et la recherche scientifique dégage quelques vérités sur la réalité de son désir. La femme serait-elle vraiment programmée pour la monogamie, la soumission au mâle, la fidélité, comme semble le souhaiter la société ? Le livre a reçu un accueil dithyrambique lors de sa sortie, provoquant même un éditorial alarmiste du Washington Post : "La libido des femme une menace pour la société".