A number of our clients are having great success with their recently released books.

Ramez Naam's groundbreaking More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement (Broadway Books/Random House), acquired and edited by Becky Cole, offers a comprehensive tour of emerging biotechnologies, taking readers inside the labs to meet the researchers and understand the science behind these advances. It also makes a careful yet provocative case for embracing human enhancement, showing readers that these technologies are powerful new tools in humanity's age-long quest to improve ourselves, our offspring, and our world. 

More Than Human has already received widespread acclaim, including advance praise from Bill McKibben (author of Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age) and Steven Johnson (author of Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life), who called it "one of those rare books that is both a delightful read and an important statement."  Publishers Weekly calls More Than Human "an excellent and comprehensive survey" and the Los Angeles Times says it offers "a terrific survey of current work and future possibilities in gene therapy, neurotechnology and other fields. Naam doesn't shy away from technical detail, but his enthusiasm keeps the science from becoming intimidating."

"I was 28 years old when I voted for the first time. I dropped the ball and now it's come to this," begins Stephen Elliott in Looking Forward to It: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the American Electoral Process (Picador USA). Steve's first nonfiction book, acquired and edited by Josh Kendall, chronicles his skeptical and hilarious journey through the 2004 presidential election process. On the campaign trail he met washed-out campaign managers, idealistic publicists, corrupt journalists, world-weary auditorium janitors, recovering drug addicts, and, of course, politicians. His report documents a journey into the center of "the thing," our country, where Americans high and low come together to participate in the most profound gesture of democracy: the election.

Dave Eggers said Looking Forward to It is "savvy, loose, very funny and -- truly -- full of rare insights." The New York Times Book Review called Elliott "a terrific and very funny writer, a keen observer with a gift for epigrams... and a knack for blindsiding you with his sharpest insights." Steve also received media coverage from the daily New York Times, Columbia Journalism Review, Newsweek, Cleveland Plain Dealer, San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Phoenix, NPR's Tavis Smiley Show, New York Magazine, BookTV, and many other outlets. Looking Forward to It was picked as one of the Best Books of 2004 by both the Village Voice and Salon.com.

Amanda Welsh, Ph.D., celebrated the publication of her timely Identity Theft Protection Guide (St. Martin's Press), acquired and edited by Ethan Friedman. Welsh is a privacy expert and the author of four patents for information-gathering technology. Her book offers comprehensive, down-to-earth advice for families that want to protect themselves from the dangers created by the growing use of computers to collect our personal information. Amanda has appeared on public radio's Marketplace, MSNBC, CNNfn, the San Francisco Chronicle and other media outlets discussing personal privacy and identity theft issues, and she was the featured independent expert on a 25-city satellite media tour discussing these topics, sponsored by MasterCard International.

James Hughes, Ph.D., courts controversy with his new book, Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future (Westview/Perseus). An optimist about the coming transformations in human life wrought by artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and genetic engineering, Hughes advocates what he calls "democratic transhumanism" to ensure that technologies are safe and available to everyone, and that individuals retain control over their own bodies. A professor of health policy at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, his book offers fresh insights on the full range of pressing bio-political issues, including cloning, genetic patents, human genetic engineering, sex selection and assisted suicide, and concludes with a concrete political agenda for pro-technology progressives. He has received broad media attention for Citizen Cyborg and his work as Executive Director of the World Transhumanist Association.

Co-authors Adnan Nasir, M.D., Ph.D., and Priscilla Burgess published Eczema-Free for Life (HarperCollins), which was acquired by Megan Newman and edited by Nick Darrell. With nearly 30 million people afflicted with eczema in the United States alone, it is the number one reason people visit the dermatologist. Eczema-Free for Life is the most comprehensive and up-to-date resource available for eczema sufferers. 

In December Bill Martin, the widely known Taoist author, Zen teacher and director of The Still Point, a center for contemplative practice in California, released his latest book, A Path and a Practice: Using Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching as a Guide to an Awakened Spiritual Life (Marlowe & Co./Avalon Publishing), acquired and edited by his long-time publisher Matthew Lore. This new translation of the Tao for the first time reveals it as not just a collection of wise insights but also as a cohesive guide to our spiritual path. Martin is the author of the acclaimed trilogy The Sage's Tao Te Ching, The Couple's Tao Te Ching, and The Parent's Tao Te Ching, which Oprah Winfrey says she gives "...to all my friends with children as a reminder of what matters when raising little ones."  His new work translates the Tao for our times and frames it with "A Path," which introduces the Tao's nonlinear construction and explains how it works its themes, and "A Practice," which provides practical guidance for readers exploring each of the Tao's themes in depth.