ALOUD @ Los Angeles Public Library

A Pulitzer Prize-winning author reveals the inspiring and largely untold stories of the country's foremost environmental conservationists, activists, and visionaries.

Deftly weaving memoir and wide-ranging scientific investigation, a life-long insomniac guides us through the hidden terrain of a devastating and little understood condition.

Resnick, who is one of Working Woman's Top 50 U.S. Women Business Owners began her career at the age of 19, when she founded a full-service advertising agency. She is behind the marketing success of brands such as POM Wonderful, Fiji Water and Teleflora. She and her husband Stewart also own Paramount Farms and Paramount Citrus Companies, making them the largest farmers of tree crops in the U.S.

American novelists are preoccupied with the tale of our (mostly dysfunctional) families. Unfortunately, contrary to Tolstoy's famous assertion, a lot of these unhappy families are starting to seem exactly alike. Two acclaimed novelists discuss ways to tell a true, new, enduring story of our most prized institution.

New Yorker veteran Weschler discusses what it has been like, the past several decades, to be serving as Boswell simultaneously to two seemingly diametrically opposite giants of the contemporary art scene, Robert Irwin and David Hockney.

Global investment guru El-Erian is published widely on international economics and financial topics, has served as Managing Director of Salomon Smith Barney/Citigroup in London and has enjoyed a 15-year career at the International Monetary Fund. He previously served as President and CEO of Harvard Management Company and as a member of the faculty of Harvard Business School.

A longtime Middle East correspondent for Time Magazine-now living in Tehran-- offers a stunning and unforgettable window into the maelstrom of Iranian life and gives voice to the Iranian psyche.

Fischer, a poet and well-known Zen teacher, deftly incorporates Buddhist, Judaic, and Christian thought-as well as his own unique understanding of life-into this reinterpretation of Homer's ancient story.

The author of Proust Was a Neuroscientist and creator of the Frontal Cortex blog draws on cutting-edge research and the real-world experience of a wide range of \"deciders\" to arm us with the tools we need to think harder (and smarter) about how we think.

Why have we evolved positive emotions like gratitude, amusement, awe and compassion? Keltner, professor of psychology at UC Berkeley, offers a profound study of how emotion is the key to living the good life.